We Have a Travel Plan!

Why do Americans choose from just two people to run for president and 50 for Miss America?

Is this route going to stick?  I certainly hope it does.  I’ve been known to change my mind a time or two as you well know.  If it doesn’t stick, I’m back to research and you all know how much I like research and especially when it’s about travel or genealogy or just about anything else.  It would make your head spin if I told you about all the trips I had planned in my life.  At least right now this is what we’re thinking and I’m certainly hoping this is what we’ll do.

 

< ---- Carmel

If you’ll remember, our first thought was that we would head to Florida this year.  Well, we’re not doing that.  Actually the decision to end up in Texas instead came along when Terry’s father took a turn for the worse.  He thought being closer would be better.  After all Florida is a mighty long ways from Arizona.  Now Texas isn’t close either but it’s certainly much closer than the Keys!!

As you know then Texas became Arizona …. again.  I didn’t want to go there this winter.  I really didn’t but Terry’s father got even worse so we decided that was  better than Texas.  Now with his father gone, Terry wants to hang around even closer so that’s what we’ll do.  We may certainly take our own sweet time getting there but eventually our motorhome will skid to a stop at some place close.  That part we’re still not sure of yet.  Well, we know what we’re thinking but we’re not sure that part is even close to sticking yet.

Hearst Castle

Getting excited about traveling through California is something I don’t normally do.  I’ve been to that state so many times that I’ve already run out of fingers and toes counting the times.  First of all, we traveled numerous times as a kid going back and forth to Kerrville, Texas for a family vacation.  Then, my college roommate lived in California so there were more trips and then we made the trips often to and from Arizona when the kids were little.  After that, of course, we moved to Texas so our routing was a little backwards but we’ve made up for it since we retired.  In other words, we’ve been through there a lot but what we haven’t done in an awful long time, we decided to do again.

Danish town of Solvang

We haven’t been to Santa Cruz in years and years.  We haven’t been to Monterrey or Carmel in the same length of time.  I’ve never been to the Hearst Castle.  Terry has but I haven’t.  I’ve never been to Pismo Beach.  Guess what’s at Pismo Beach??   Dunes for off road vehicles and you know what we think about that.  Well, that’s what we’re going to do (we think)  and I’m excited about it. 

Oceano Elks – short walk to the beach.

Nothing has been worked out much beyond Pismo Beach.  We may go on to Santa Barbara and   even the little Danish town of Solvang or San Diego and then again, we may not.  I did make reservations in Palm Springs and Apache Junction but those, of course, are subject to change.  They could be changed or moved.

We belong to several different clubs and memberships groups with RV parks.  Becoming a member of the Elks was one of the best clubs we’ve ever joined.  Not only do they do a lot for the community, many of them have RV parks for traveling members at very good prices.  Planning a visit in southern California and especially right on the coast usually means big bucks.  Not so if you’re a member though.  

San Luis Obispo Elks with swimming pool and too close to a Best Buy for my own good.

I wanted to visit the Pismo Dunes in the spring but Utah won out. So, we’re going to try it again and we’ll be putting our time in at several Elk Lodges.  Within a short distance there are 4 different lodges with RV parks.  First of all there is one at Atascadero then 22 miles south is another at San Luis Obispo.  Fifteen miles farther south is another one at Oceano.  On an additional 19 miles is another one and on and on and on.  The rates range from about $15 to $25 a night.  Try to beat that one if you can right on the California coast.

 

     Pismo Dunes

That’s what I know for now and the plans as we think they might unfold .... maybe.

'Tis life on the road.

Just Killing Time

Smile at him today as tomorrow he may not be there.

We have had some absolutely gorgeous weather.  We love gorgeous weather.  The freshness of spring has been in the air and we love, love, love the greenery in this area especially when the sun is shining.  In other words it’s been really nice. 

Vancouver Elks -  With more than half the sites empty we came back to the park to find we had a neighbor that we were window to window with.   Why do RV'ers do that?  We were certainly relieved to have him leave the next morning.  It was him or us.

Sometimes when we hit this area we run out of active things to do.  If we didn’t have so many family things going on in the next few weeks, we would probably have been sitting on a beach someplace or taking pictures of animals or doing something other than just trying to come up with places to go.  Instead of that the hitch itch has been handled by just moving a few miles south, a few miles north and then all over again.  Mother’s Day is this weekend, Justin will be home and then Michael graduates.  After that …. well, we’re going to get on the road to someplace.  If we don’t, we’ll be climbing walls and you know that we just don’t have many walls to climb.

Baby, baby ribs

One thing we do like to do is eat.  That seems to be the highlight of moving into any area.  My very favorite rib place is Rib City in Vancouver.  It is the absolute best.  We met Tammi and her family there and this was my plate.  I couldn’t eat it all.  It was scrumptious!

A great place for breakfast and lunch.

Another place we discovered was Breakfast at Valerie’s.  Sometimes the best places to go are the local places and not the chain food restaurants.  This was certainly the case here.   Once in a while when Terry has been really good and his blood sugar is low, he gets to splurge with an order of pancakes.  However, he was certainly shocked when these giant pancakes were served to him.  He could only eat one.

Food, food, food …. that certainly keeps us going.

‘Tis life on the road.

Winter Storm Warning

I had to stop driving for a while - the tires were getting dizzy.

Rattlesnake Pass -- Utah

One thing about living on the road is you don’t live out of a suitcase but you do live glued to weather reports during certain times of the year in certain places.  You’ve got to be flexible enough to change plans when the weather threatens to cause havoc. 

Minimum speed -- 45 mph

We had planned on leaving Salt Lake City on Tuesday.  My cousins, Wally and Susie, were leaving the area on Monday.  After getting ready to head back over to the Genealogy Library on Monday morning I decided to check the weather forecast for the strip through the mountains.  It seems the weather forecast is rarely right-on.  However, who am I to question the forecast especially when we’re all familiar with Murphy’s Laws.  The prediction --- strong winds through southern Idaho on Tuesday and a winter storm in the Blue Mountains of Eastern Oregon.   In other words, if we didn’t make a run for it on Monday, we would probably be waiting for the winds to pass in Idaho and stuck waiting for the snowstorm to move out of the Oregon mountains.  Instead of heading out for the library we decided if we wanted to spend Easter with the kids, we’d better get out of there.  We left.

Traveling north on I-84 from Salt Lake there are more mountains and there were even more strong winds.  I got a little tired of seeing all the signs warning of frequent high winds in the area.  There weren’t supposed to be any on this day.  I can just imagine how bad they get if they are predicted.  We had seen more wind this winter than any other time.  It was windy just about every place we were and we were real, real, real tired of it.

We were happy when we finally started going down in elevation.  We knew we’d be going up again  but felt all this climbing would soon be behind us.  Soon just couldn’t come soon enough.

Sometimes my little GoPro Hero camera gets reflections if the sun is just right  ... oh well.

Our intent was to get through the Boise area Monday night to miss the strong winds heading that way Tuesday afternoon.  The winter storm was to blast the mountains late Tuesday night.  So, it seemed we would run from the wind on Monday and the snow on Tuesday.  According to the current forecast there was the perfect little window for us by leaving Monday morning.  We could actually avoid both.  NOT!

We were both beat when we stopped.  I think it was the strong winds and all the mountains that finally got us.  My cousin stopped about 100 miles before we did.  The winds got to him too.  He had some mighty rough side winds coming through some of the passes and enough was enough for one day.

There were a few places in Idaho I had intended to stop but we felt like we needed to keep moving.  The storms were setting the pace for us.  I had wanted to visit Shoshone Falls.  I love waterfalls and this one wasn’t far off the road.  However, it was not to be and figured that it might be best just to enjoy someone else’s picture of it.  So, here you go too.

Shoshone Falls

It’s not that we were really missing a lot in my mind by “flying” through this part of Idaho.  I actually knew it pretty well but that was many, many years ago.  As I matter of fact, I went to school in Idaho.  I also rolled a car down a hill along this route.  The roads were packed with snow and obviously I was going a little too fast.  I tried to pick out the area but everything has changed so much.  All I could remember is that it was just before a bridge but bridges change and even terrain gets filled in.  Oh well … it wasn’t snowing and the road was dry this time (thank goodness!) .  This part of the drive was real nice.  We had left most of the wind behind at least for this day.

Monday was miles and miles of climbing. We were happy when it finally flattened out for a while.   Our stop for the night was the Caldwell Elks.  Even though the sign said not to parallel park next to the electrical hookups, we were told we could.  The last thing we wanted to do was unhook the trailer!  We got chastised when trying to check in about having an expired Elks card.  Oops … it expired the day before.  We were allowed to slide by but now that puts us to Plan B. 

Plug-ins out back at the Caldwell Elks.

Plan B was to go to our own Elks lodge to get a new card since we may not get to slide by again at another lodge.  We definitely need a current card.  We love staying at the Elks …. especially for the price and the locations.  Some of the sites are just hookups in a parking lot and others are full-fledged parks.  However, the convenience, location and price really make a difference when you’re on the road.  The Caldwell Elks was $10 for the night.  That price is hard to beat and it was just off the freeway in another great location!

At this point we figured the worst day was over and we’d sail through the next … NOT!  The next day was the worst yet.  It’s easy to look back and see what really did happen but then the forecast is no longer available to see what was predicted prior to that.  This is part of the warning that was posted on Weather.com  ….

"A VIGEROUS LATE SEASON WINTER STORM WILL BRING MODERATE TO HEAVY SNOW TO THE MOUNTAINS OF EASTERN OREGON AND SOUTHEAST WASHINGTON ON TUESDAY NIGHT AND WEDNESDAY. ….. MOUNTAIN SNOW SHOWERS THROUGHOUT THE DAY WEDNESDAY.”

Remember ---- there were strong winds forecast to hit eastern Oregon before the snow.  The winds were due to start blowing in the afternoon.  At least that was the prediction when we went to bed.  However, the following morning we discovered those winds were already pretty strong and already  hitting our path ahead of the predicted snow.  Gusts had been clocked around 47 mph with straight winds around 38 mph.  I just love the forecast when it changes just as the weather changes and not before.  We don’t like to travel in strong winds.  We had to choose.  It was either the wind or the snow … or maybe both.  That put us in the middle of a dilemma.  What to do?  Should we sit and wait or should we move down the road a bit to get a little closer and then make a decision?  In the meantime, Cousin Wally was already on the move.  We decided to move too.

This is getting longer than I like so I best say  ……..  to be continued ~~~ 

‘Tis life on the road.