Author: harrylange

Cathedral Gorge State Park, NV – Monday September 8, 2014

We are still at Cathedral Gorge setting out the weather.  This seemed like to be a good place to be with all the potential flooding the weather channel was talking about over the last several days.  I talked to one of the park people and he said he hoped we’d get some rain but we would not have any  flooding here in the park.
This place does have a of interesting formations.
It has been a little hot for Hank, he really wanted to play with one of these bones but it was just to warm to move.

This was the clouds a hour before it started to rain.  Started at 12:30 and lasted 15 minutes, nothing like they got in Phoenix this morning.  The ground got wet and cooled things off a bit and that’s about all the rain for now.  Still a nice day in my book.  We got some wind Sunday at dinner time with a little rain.  The wind did help to coat the inside of the motorhome with a nice layer of dust.  Still have some thunder so we may get more rain, we’ll see.

We may leave here Tuesday if the weather clears up and definitely on Wednesday.

 

 

Cathedral Gorge State Park, NV – Saturday September 6, 2014

We are still at Cathedral Gorge and the weather has been great, normal for the Southwest.  Hank and I have run the A/C a couple of times and that has been nice.
Tomorrow we are leaving to move a little further south.  Going to either Virgin River Canyon Campground a BLM area 20 miles south of St. George, Utah (into Arizona) or Sand Hollow State Park outside Hurricane, Utah.
Hank and I have been up and out each morning for a nice walk before the sun gets to high in the sky and hot.

If we end up at the Virgin River Canyon Campground I’m pretty sure we will not have cellphone coverage for a couple of days.  We will be at Zion National Park on Wednesday 9/10/2014 and we should have good coverage there.

Be well, Harry

 

 11:00 a.m. update.

Just looked at the weather maps for the hurricane which is moving north from Baja.  We’ll look at the maps again tomorrow and decide where we are going or if we’ll stay here.  South of here may get 1 to 3 inches of rain.

 

 

Rest Stop East of Austin, NV – Monday September 1, 2014

Left Vicki and Richard’s at 9:45 for parts east and south. 

I pulled into a Pony Express historical site for lunch, great place for lunch, not big enough for me to turn around in with the car in tow.  After lunch I got to unhook the car so I could backup to get back on the road.  Oh well, I hope I don’t do this to often.

This is where we spent the night.
I am here: 39 29.877 N 116 30.31 W http://maps.google.com/maps?q=39.49796,-116.50517

Spark’s, NV – Sunday August 31, 2014

We all went to the Reno City Park which has a lake to Paddle Board.  Vicki took up paddle boarding a couple of months ago and she let me use her board while two of her friends came with their boards. It was great fun and I didn’t fall in the water.  That is really quite good for me because I don’t have the greatest sense of balance. I got up and down maybe 10 times and managed to keep myself dry. 

While Vicki and I were paddle boarding Jean and Richard looked at RV’s.  Jean didn’t find anything she liked better than our current motorhome. 

Spark’s, NV – Saturday August 30, 2014

We went to the Reno BBQ Ribs Cook Off in downtown Reno in the area around the Nugget Casino.  Looked around at a lot of the craft vendors there must have been well over 100.  It was hot and all ribs venders wanted between $7.00 to $11.00 to try a sampler of four ribs so we went inside the casino and had a nice lunch with air conditioning.

Orovada, NV – Thursday August 28, 2014

Had a nice drive to this highway rest stop one mile south of Orovada. Traveled 450 miles all on two lane roads with speed limit of 55 mph. Left at 10:00 am and got here at 8:30 pm with only one truck and one trailer. I’ll have to take campsite pictures in the morning because it was already dark when we arrived.

We did see a lot of smoke from Oregon’s four large fires :-(.
The trip:

Maryhill State Park – Wednesday August 27, 2014

Left home at noon got here a 6:10, site 24.  Nice sunny drive with limited wind coming up the Columbia.

(I have campsite pictures, however this WordPress program will not insert them. I will add them later. )

( now I can add only one picture, another later.)

This was our first long day towing the Saturn and every thing worked fine.  Even stopped once for gas.  We do need to get better at picking a site and then finding a place to unhook the car.  Anyway over time we’ll figure it out.

I talked about getting gas because this can be a challenge. The issue is you can not backup a tow car which is being towed with all four wheels on the ground.  The motorhome and car are 54 feet long so the gas pumps need a pretty good size area around them.  Pulling into a gas station you have never seen before and deciding if you will have enough room to get in and out can be a challenge. Having to unhook the car in the middle of a busy gas station will piss a lot people off.  Hope I go a while before this happens to me.

 

Lodgepole FS CG, HWY 410 – Friday August 15, 2014

On Tuesday we headed back to Eastern Washington, going over Chinook Pass looking to stay at Lodgepole, Pleasant Valley or Kaner Flats all forest service campgrounds.
We ended up at Lodgepole in site 12.

In this picture you can see the traveling Flamingos.  The weather changed with one afternoon of lightening, thunder and heavy rain I was glad I was not on a long hiking trip.

Tuesday there were 5 occupied sites in the campground, Wednesday and Thursday 2 site were occupied, us and some people in a tent at the far opposite end of the campground.  Nice campground but no place to do any hiking.  Hank and I walked around looking for places to go, did find some cabins on the other side of Hwy 410 but that was about it.

Jean has volunteered to go through brochures to cut the travel pile down a little.

This week will be getting things ready for our trip south.  Brian is coming up tomorrow (Monday 8/18/2014) to help me redo some of the dual pane motorhome windows.  All the window have some moisture in them and need to be taken apart and resealed.

Last thing to comment on is the road repairs on Hwy 410.  So far we have had 3 rock chips fixed in the front windows.  Yesterday I washed the motorhome because it had a thin coat of road oil all over the lower panels and across the back.  I will need wash the back fiberglass back again and wax it before we leave. This morning I could still see some brown color from the oil.

Still have some Mt. Rainier pictures:  22. 23, 24
Deer tracks in the early morning snow.
New ice from the over night freeze.