The Journey

Can you believe it? I have finally got my blog set up.  It turned out to be quite problematic but thanks to  my travelling companion Anna, who came to my rescue, I am finally up and running.

This trip was a long time in planning. Getting rid of 95% of my earthly belongings was no easy task. It required weeks of sorting, shredding, packing, taking loads of stuff to the thrift store, storing my basic survival items at my wonderful  friend Janette's  place, cleaning and moving out of my apartment and then crashing at my friend Gordi's who was kind enough to offer me his spare bedroom until my final departure date. A huge thank you to both of you.
 
A huge  thank you to Michael for the wonderful send off party and thanks to all the great friends and family who came.  We even had live entertainment. Thanks Haike for the wonderful accordion music. It was truly enjoyed and appreciated. Thank you  Drew for all the hours spent cooking up a storm in the kitchen. What a wonderful night! I will never forget it!

Thanks to Bill for helping me with all the trips to the thrift store and for  moving my travelling supplies to  Karla's place. And lastly a big thanks to my  wonderful daughter Karla for all the help with all the last minute details. What does one do without a daughter. Karla you are such a gift!

And so begins my adventure.

My journey started October 23rd with a flight to Kelowna and a drive to Armstrong where Anna had her motorhome parked in the yard of some very good friends Bob and Dorothy.  The view from their place is spectacular but the real bonus was having the opportunity to  meet and visit with  them.  The pictures below are the view we had from outside the MH. The lower one Anna took. If you click on any  of the following pictures you can make them bigger.

 After a few days there, we headed for Osoyoos where we spent a week in mostly pouring rain waiting for Nov. 1 to cross the border. In spite of the rain we had a great time there and met lots of fun and interesting people. We stayed at the NK'MIP campground beside  Osoyoos Lake which is the warmest lake in Canada. It is a beautiful lake and from our campground you could look across at Osoyoos.

  This is me with the big smile on my face!

The surrounding area is all orchards and vineyards and we paid a visit to one of the wineries where I got my first look at grapes growing on the vine.

One of the highlights of our stay  was a Halloween party where a great time was had by all. Anna and I dressed up of course. Did we have fun! Here we are with our fabulous costumes!

November 1

 We woke up to heavy rain. Thank goodness we hooked the car up yesterday. We crossed the border without a problem and drove out of the rain an hour later. It was so good to see and feel the sun again. The countryside was  beautiful and we drove in and out of little valleys where small towns were   nestled.  

The largest valley was exceptionally pretty with huge rock walls on one side and lakes on the other. Anna and I managed to capture some beautiful reflections in Lenore Lake with the town of Lenore in the background.

 

 

We drove past Soap Lake which had a ring around it on the canyon walls that looked like soap rings.  From the highway we could see caves high up on the canyon walls that looked really interesting.

 

  The highlight of the day was arriving at Dry Falls. It is a said to be one of the most spectacular geologic wonders of the Ice Age.  It truly took my breath away.  This enormous coulee was once the site of  one of the world’s  largest waterfalls. It was 3 1/2 miles wide and 100 feet tall. The coulee was created when the Columbia River became blocked with ice and broke through into a new channel . Then a river in Idaho became blocked by ice ½ mile high and formed a lake that flooded into Montana.  When this ice dam broke, the water raced through Idaho and into Washington travelling at speeds of up to 60 mph  with the  flow of  10 times the flow of all the rivers of the world. Some of this flood of water, ice, mud and rock  was diverted into  the channel created earlier  by the Columbia River and the force of it widened the channel and created huge waterfalls. This area suffered numerous floods and eventually the falls eroded approximate 20 miles backward. When the floods ended the water receded, leaving many dry coulees behind.  It is a spectacular sight to see. The cliffs are  just enormous and full of color.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Our day ended at Moses Lake. Unfortunately it ended with a scary mishap. We pulled into Wallmart and discovered the drivers side front wheel had gone over the front of the dolly. We called AAA. Two young lads came and hoisted the car up to get the dolly out from underneath. They told us we should be putting on the wheel straps  with the hooks coming through the opposite way as there was less danger of them coming off the wheel.  

 

 The two of them put everything right again and Anna and I headed for Wallmart to pick up some spirits to ease the stress. We were very grateful that all turned out well, the car was intact and most importantly no one was hurt.

All in all a very adventuresome day!

Nov. 2, Friday

Left Moses Lake around 8:00 am. This is mostly cattle country although we did see the odd field of grapes and a few orchards. It seems odd to see miles of pasture with lots of short brush vaguely resembling the sage brush in Alberta, and then coming upon an orchard. The orchards and grape fields are irrigated of course. Lots of apples on the apple trees.

As we  started our climb up towards a Pass we had beautiful views of the valley below.  We stopped at a pullout and took some pictures and just spent awhile soaking in the sheer beauty of it all.  We could see for at least 30 miles. 

 

 As we climbed higher, the  golden hills were covered with all colors of dark  bush. 

 At the top of the pass we  had  gorgeous views of  the tops of  numerous mountains, as far as the eye could see. As Anna had to watch the road and there was no place to stop, I started taking  loads of pictures for the both of us.

Returning again to the wide open spaces we drove through a lot of countryside that looked a lot like places in Alberta.  We noticed today that there were lots of snow warning  and chain up signs. Good that we are getting through this area now. 

We arrived in La Grande around 2 pm and decided to call it a day. Parked at the Wallmart to get free parking, picked up a few supplies and spent the rest of the day just hanging out, relaxing and working on our computers.

A good day. The car is still intact on the dolly so all is well in our world.

Nov. 3, Saturday,

Pulled out at 7:30am and hit the road in light rain which disappeared within an hour.We drove in  open country for a bit and then  started over the foothills. We came down the other side into a large valley with mountains on both sides of us, the larger ones on the right had snow on top.

This is mostly cattle country, and nearly all the cattle are black angus

We passed a sign saying “ 49th parallel- Half-way point between the Equator and the North Pole”.

We spent the day going up and down over foothills from one beautiful valley to another. We Stopped at Baker City which lies at the bottom of a beautiful valley with the Snake River winding along its side. I saw a sign advertising a studio apartment for $85.00 a week.

We passed into Idaho at 11:40am. We are seeing more farmland now and all of it is irrigated. As we passed Meridian, we drove back into ranch country with  lots of large rolling hills and the mountains in the distance. Stopped at Glenns Ferry which looks like an old frontier town-lots of character.

 

 

Since the State Park there had no wi-fi we decided to journey on to a rest stop for the night. Found one just west of Bliss around 4:30pm and decided to call it a day.

 

November 4

 

 

 

 

We drove through the Thousand Springs Scenic Byway this morning. It is a  beautiful canyon with lots of waterfalls which you could both see and hear from across the other side of the Snake River. 

 

 

Arrived in Jackpot Nevada mid-morning and as it was a beautiful day we decided to take a down day to just hang out and catch up on things.  We took ourselves out to the Casino for a buffet dinner which was delicious and then splurged and spent $5.00 each in the casino. How much did we win? Guess!

 

 

Nov.  5

Since the forecast did not sound good last night we decided to head south as fast as possible to avoid the oncoming storm.

 

  

 

 

We pulled out of Cactus Pete’s before 7am and started our journey down the long lonely ribbon of highway 93. We drove through miles and miles of nothing but sagebrush on grey soil. The land was fenced, so they must raise livestock but there was very little if any grass so they must eat the brush. ?? We stopped at Wells for gas and  ended up buying 3 new tires and even got the oil change we were planning on doing today anyway.

We had a brief change of scenery when we turned off unto higway 6.

We drove back into sage brush country again so to keep ourselves entertained we sang every song we could think of. As we watched our gas go down we kept on the lookout for gas stations. There were none to be found.  Finally found one at Ash Springs that came complete with a RV campground and as it was 4:30 we decided to end today’s journey. It was a very long day on the road.  Anna hit the pillow at 6:30 and by 7:30, unable to keep my eyes open, I crashed also.  Does this mean we are getting old? Nah!

Nov 6,

We were on the road before 7 this morning and eager to get out of sagebrush land. Not far down the road we started seeing trees again that were full of color. Color being something we hadn’t seen for a while, they looked especially beautiful to us.

 

We went by Paranagat Lake which was the first water we had seen for a couple days or so.  We saw lots of cactus this morning from 1 to 6 or more feet high.  Some of them look like giant pineapples.

 

There are signs along the highway in various places that say Warning -Water on Highway. This sign comes with a chart and if there is a flood then it will be marked as to how deep the water is.  Apparently, they have flash floods which can bury the highway under up to 6 feet of water.  I can stand to miss that.

One of the sights I had always wanted to see(another thing on my bucket list) was Valley of Fire. Anna, being the great friend she is, decided to humor me and take me there.  

The drive into the Valley of Fire was spectacular as you can see from the pictures.

 

The rock is actually much redder than it looks in the picture. Perhaps it is  because the sun was directly overhead.

We found a nice campground tucked in amongst the rock formations.

 

We grabbed our cameras and started walking. We climbed the stairs up Atlatl Rock.

 

 

 

 

 The landing at the top of the stairs has a platform from which you can view petroglyphs.

 

 

While I was up there I caught what I thought was a perfect shot. This shot is taken from the platform on Atlatl Rock looking between that rock and the ones behind it. High up on the rock behind was  a small tree growing out of the rock with the sun was streaming down on it.

 

It was a wonderful day. The temperature was about 85 F so I was finally warm!

 

 

November 7

We pulled out of our campsite just as daylight was breaking. I found myself wishing I could get the camera out and start taking pictures all over again as the shadows on the rocks were creating some amazing effects. There were likely enough things left to see to spend at least several more days there but we decided that we had seen a lot and we had a lot of miles yet to cover between us and Texas and many more fabulous things to see and do so we headed down the road.

  

 

 



 

 

We backtracked a bit so we could catch the 167 over to Henderson with the intention of taking the 95 down to Parker. That was the plan. But at Henderson we found out that they were doing construction work on the 95 so as is so often the case in life, we had to come up with a plan B.

Plan B turned out to be a beautiful drive through mountainous country.

 



 

 

 

 

 

We did the sagebrush thing for awhile again and came across the Grasshopper Junction which was just way to interesting to pass up so we had to stop in and check it out.

 

 

 

 

Below is a picture  of Lake Mead that I managed to take  through the front window of the MH.

 

 



 



 

 

We took Highway 93 that now passes over Hoover Dam and headed towards Kingman.

 

 



Along the way we met a nice couple at a rest stop who volunteered to take a picture of us.

 

 

 



 

I got a shot of Lake Havasu. Across the lake you can see all the RV’s parked there so obviously it is a big tourist spot.

 

 

 



We followed the highway down along the Colorado River to Parker. It was a beautiful drive.

 

 

 

 



 

 

While searching for the La Paz campground near Parker, I took the shot below.

 

 

 

 

We picked up some groceries and headed back in time to catch some live music at the pavilion at our campground and catch up on our emails there as wi-fi was only available at the pavilion.

 

It was a long but productive day.

 

Nov.8

Today I finally bought a bike!  And because I needed some protection from the heat I bought a cowboy hat. Yes, a cowboy hat. I will post a picture of this at some point in the future. I figured that if I was going to be spending a few months in Texas then I better have a cowboy hat. 

Although we were  late leaving  this morning but managed to make it to Gilla Bend and were lucky enough to  get permission to park in a service station lot.   We took a bike ride into town and found a visitors centre/tourist shop where the guy there was kind enough to let us access wi-fi from the back of his shop.  I tried making some calls from my skype but no one was home. So I had to content myself with sending a couple emails.

Nov. 9

We spent the day looking at sagebrush and cactus.

 

 



 

I took the picture below because there have been so many towns that did not have any signs that said the name of the town. I thought this  was a beautiful sign and it was nice to know where in this desert of cactus and sagebrush we really were. Many of the towns have the first letter of the name of the town  written in white stone high up on the mountain.  

 

 

 

 

Here are some of the different kinds of cacti we saw today. You will have to click on the picture to make it larger in order to get a better look.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After checking out some overprice campgrounds in Wilcox we ended up finding a gem of a place in the middle of nowhere near the town of Bowie. For $14.00 and night we have a place to park with the owner described to us as "full hook-ups, including water, sewer, power and a broom and rake." He had a wonderful sense of humor and his C.E.O was a beautiful big cat who laid on the counter in his fully glory while we paid up our camping fees.

 

As you can see it is a very interesting spot. This is his office.

And this is the campgrounds.

 

 

We have a fabulous view of the desert, complete with a cactus right outside out door.



Beside the hook ups listed above it also comes complete with a laundromat, showers etc. And most amazing of all is that the place complete with an aeroplane. Here is a picture of it with a small portion of our motorhome in the background.

 

 

 

 Yes, this place definitely has character.

 

I have many more stories to tell about this area but as we have decided to spend a couple of days here to rest I will continue this saga tomorrow.