August 24 – 27, 2020

After our great day in Zion National Park, it was off to see Bryce Canyon National Park. This was a bit of a drive as it was over 2 hours away from our base in Hurricane, UT. However, Tin Tin (our RV) was up to the challenge and got us there in good shape.

Bryce Canyon is another rather small national park. It features numerous canyons that contain Hoodoos. What the heck is a Hoodoo, you might ask? It is a name given to a column of rock that was formed by the erosion of the material of the mountain around it. They are kind of eerie looking, but quite fascinating. They were formed about 63 million years ago as erosion from water, wind, and water just kept eating away at the rock structures and substance. You will see quite a few of them in a bit.

Bryce Canyon is another park that uses a shuttle system. Although normal cars can travel in the park if they want, over sized vehicles such as Tin Tin are not allowed. We parked outside the park and took the free national park shuttle system from the RV parking lot in Bryce Canyon City into Bruce Canyon. They made a few stops at the local hotels, etc, before getting into the park, but it was not long at all. We have a lifetime Senior Pass for all US National Parks (one of the advantages of being an old fart). This got us free use of the shuttle and entry into the park.

Just driving to the park from Hurricane was kind of interesting. The road winds through the Escalante Mountains and is quite beautiful. We also drove through a couple of arches they blasted out of the mountain to make way for the road.

Aboard the park shuttle we enter the park on the way to our first stop.

The nice ranger lady at the shuttle station suggested that we go to the last shuttle stop first and work our way back out of the park. She thought it would help with the crowds and cut down on our wait times for the shuttles. She was right. We were able to get on and off the shuttles with out much hassle or wait time at all.

We went to Bryce Point first which is a very dramatic overlook on top of one of the canyons. We got a first hand look at many, many, Hoodoos.

Oh, by the way, dedicated readers of our blog will know that Andrea and I have a fascination for finding the biggest, or most, or only, item in the world. Examples are the world’s largest bison, the world’s largest popcorn ball, etc. Well, Bryce Canyon helped us get another one. Bryce Canyon contains the most Hoodoos in one spot on the entire planet. Yay us!

Next stop was Inspiration Point where we did a bit of hiking.

We got finished out our Rim Hike and started down to find the shuttle stop. Along the way we heard this very strange noise, then saw the culprit.

The chirping and wagging its tail are signs that he does not like us in his territory. No problem, we just kept on walking.

Next up on the wildlife scene was a really cool woodpecker. Andrea managed to get a pretty good shot of him before he disappeared into the tree brances.

After sighting Woody’s cousin, we got back on the shuttle to return to Bryce Canyon City and Tin Tin. After the return trip to Hurricane, we had a little bit of time, and not a whole lot of steps, so we looked for a few geocaches. We found 3 and called it a day.

Map progress – still in Hurricane, UT. Maps shown below to highlight progress so far.

August 24 – 27,2020

After leaving Moab with Arches and Canyonland National Parks; we head south west to Hurricane, UT to visit Zion National Park. We stayed at the Willow Wind RV park in Hurricane, UT. This was a pretty nice place, but still kind of close together and packed in.

By the way, notice the Good Sam emblem on the sign. This is a free membership program for the RV-camping community. It gives you discounts in hundreds of parks and RV service centers, gas stations, etc. We have saved hundreds of dollars with this program. I highly recommend it to any one doing extensive RV-camping traveling, or even traveling by car.

Zion National Park is different from the other parks we have seen so far. The park is situated in Zion Canyon. This canyon has been formed over the years by the Virgin River that flows through the Canyon between the Pine Valley Mountains to the west and the Kolob Terrace to the east. The aspect that is so different is that you are at ground level for most of the scenic drives and hiking trails. The other parks feature towering vistas overlooking the vast forests, or canyons, or rivers and lakes. Zion keeps you down low unless you really want to exert yourself and hike up some serious hills and mountains.

Zion is also very small, at least the drivable section. The scenic drive and most of the trail heads are along an 8 mile stretch of road. During the busy summer season they don’t even allow tourist traffic on the roads. They make everyone use their shuttle system. Also, there is very limited parking, again because the park is so small. If you want to hike 10 – 12 miles you can see further points in the park, but you have to be a pretty serious, and in good shape, hiker to be able to do this.

We parked outside the park in Springdale. Springdale offers a free shuttle from the various parking areas, hotels, and restaurants to get people into Zion. Now, here is the hard part. Once you get into Zion you have to use the Zion National Park shuttle system. You have to get a shuttle ticket for this system online at recreation.gov in order to ride the shuttle. They simply will not take walk ins and they don’t care if you whine about it. We got our tickets online the night before and printed them out. The tickets are only good for a 1 hour slot on the day you pick. You miss your slot, you are out of luck. Also, you have to show these tickets every time you want to get back on the shuttle after a stop. They are pretty serious about this and checked everyone.

The day we went, it was not terribly busy. We saw a couple of people that did not know the system, go online on their phones and get tickets that would get them on the shuttle in a hour or so. I am sure when it is busy, this would not be possible. Due to all the Covid – 19 restrictions, buses that could normally pack 50 people on a bus could only take 22 due to the social distancing requirements.

We got to the park a little early and waited around for our shuttle slot, 2PM – 3PM. I went to a little lecture on the Hanging Gardens in the park, presented by a Park Ranger. Andrea basically played on her phone.

We finally got loaded on the shuttle and started up the canyon to our first hike. This was the Lower Emerald Pool. This trail is located across from the Zion National Park Lodge. It is about a mile out (and a mile back) to the lower pool. The middle and upper pools trails are quite a bit longer. We did not do them.

Along the way we saw some very cute and interesting critters.

The canyon features some great walls and rock formations.

We got off at a couple of more stops and did some shorts hikes around the river. Then we got to the Temple of Sinawava stop. We took the Riverside Walk, heading towards the Narrows section of the park. The Riverside Walk is about 2 miles out, then 2 miles back. It is paved, most of the way. They were fixing some areas that had been damaged by rock falls. We had to detour around those sections.

The River Walk also had some great wildlife along the way.

We got to the end of the paved River Walk trail and had to make a decision. The Narrows area is supposed to be really cool. It is a section of the canyon that literally narrows above you instead of opening up like what we have seen so far.

There are two issues about getting to the Narrows. One is you now have to get your feet wet and cross the river as the River Walk trail is now ended, then continue walking down the river to get there (not to mention walking back). Getting our feet wet isn’t so bad. What is very bad though is the footing in the river. All of the stones are rounded and slippery. The possibility of falling or twisting an ankle or knee is very real (in fact we did see one lady take a pretty good fall).

Decision number one; we decide to cross this section of the river. What the heck? We are here. Andrea has her walking sticks. It is very shallow, let’s give it a try.

We get across and walk down a quarter mile or so. At this point we start talking to the people coming back from up river. They say the Narrows are really cool. Great. “How far is it?” we ask. “Oh about 2 hours walking”, they say. We ask, “Walking in the river the whole time?”. “Yep.” they say. “It was really cool.” (Very important note – these people were in their late twenties, not old farts like we are)

OK, decision number two is to turn around, cross the river again, and walk back to the shuttle stop at the Temple of Sinawava. No sense getting hurt or exhausted trying to do something that is beyond our capabilities. Back we go.

We made it back to the Temple of Sinawava shuttle stop, then to the Springdale shuttle, and back to Tin Tin (our RV). Overall we hiked about 5 miles and had a really good time.

While the still pictures of the various critters we saw are great, take a look a this video showing them live and in action.

Map progress – Moab, UT to Hurricane, UT via Tin Tin.

August 21 – 24, 2020

Our second day in Moab we decided to explore Canyonlands National Park and then nearby Dead Horse Point State Park. Both parks feature very deep and complex canyon systems that were formed by water and erosion millions of years ago. The entire area was once desert and sand dunes with dirt and rocks deposited over 100’s of millions of years. About 20 million years ago, the earth’s crust shifted up about 10,000 feet and erosion from water and winds started to cut the various canyons and channels we see today. We’ll check back in 20 million years and see what it looks like then.

Canyonlands is divided into 4 basic parts with viewpoints and trailheads developed from these areas. Each area has a different specific feature, but everything revolves around the spectacular canyon system.

We started off with the most popular area, Island in the Sky Visitor Center and viewpoint.

There are many fascinating rock formations within the park. Some are named, some are just really cool to look at.

One really interesting feature of Canyonlands is the Upheaval Dome. This area takes a bit of a hike to get to; about 300 feet elevation over a 1.5 mile round trip journey. This area is a 2 mile wide crater of mysterious origins. They think it is either a meteor crater (the prevailing opinion right now) or a collapsed salt dome that grew out of the earth’s strata.

Personally, to me it looks like a meteor impact crater. Or, an alien spaceship crash site.

While Arches National Park gets all the glory for it’s arches; Canyonland has a couple of it’s own. The most famous is the Mesa Arch. It is about a mile hike into the arch area, but well worth it.

After a fun few hours, we head out of Canyonlands and head to Dead Horse Point State Park. How did this very strange name come to be, you may ask. The legend is, back in the late 1800’s the cowboys would drive the wild horses into the canyons of this area to corral them. Unfortunately, once they had them, they would take the best ones and just leave the ones they did not want stuck in the canyon. As a result, many of these died. Thus the name Dead Horse Point.

The primary feature of this park is the convergence of the Green River and the Colorado River. They meet in this canyon, below Dead Horse Point, where the Colorado River continues through Utah and then Arizona, finally into Nevada, where it is dammed by the Hoover Dam near the Grand Canyon to form Lake Mead.

This area used to be mined for uranium and is still currently mined for potash. The Uranium ran out, but the potash is a valuable resource for the area. As part of the mining process, water is pumped 3,000 feet into the ground to dissolve the potash. This solution is then pumped to pools on the surface for it to evaporate and allow the potash to be harvested as the liquid evaporates. The results are several pretty blue ponds that are completely man made.

The park has some fun views and vistas, though nowhere near as extensive as the nearby national parks.

While in Dead Horse Point, Andrea noticed there were a few geocaches hidden about. Of course we had to go looking a found a few.

Finally, at the end of the day, we got to see a very nice sunset, helped by that pesky smoke from those wild fires.

Map progress – no change from yesterday; we are still in Moab. But here they are as a reference.

August 21 – 24, 2020

We left Salt Lake City and headed south east for Moab, UT. Moab is home to the Arches National Park, the lesser known Canyonlands National Park, and still lesser known Dead Horse Point State Park. Arches National Park gets all the attention and glory, and rightly so to some degree. But the other two are fascinating also.

We stayed in the Canyonland RV park in Moab. It was another once of those supposedly upscale Sun RV Resort parks. It was less than overwhelming and all of the units were right on top of each other. It did have a lot of trees that helped make it feel more of a RV park rather than some corporate entity like the last Sun RV Resort we were in, in Salt Lake City.

The day after we got into Moab we explored Arches National Park. We tried to get to this great park back in February of 2020 when we were traveling in the Colorado/Utah area, but it was just too cold for Tin Tin (our RV) to handle. It was high on our list to visit on this trip.

We got into the park and immediately started to see some of the highlights of Arches National Park.

We spent the entire day driving the main roads through the park, then hiking some of the trails. These roads took us to many of the primary arches and formations that make Arches National Park so famous.

We spent a very fun day driving and hiking through the park. Actually, the hiking wasn’t too bad as the areas we went to were fairly level, unlike most of the other parks we have been to so far.

Map progress – Salt Lake City, UT to Moab, UT via Tin Tin.

August 18 – 21, 2020

After leaving Carson City, we head pretty much straight east, heading for Salt Lake City, UT. As this is a pretty long drive, we broke it up by staying in Battle Mountain, NV for a night along the way. We stayed in the Clark Park RV park. This is the first self service park we have stayed in. We put our money in the little envelope at the office, found a site, hooked up, and spent a comfortable night. It was actually a nice little park.

The name Battle Mountain stems from a series of conflicts between the town residents and local Indians during the 1850’s and 1860’s. Copper and silver had been discovered and town started to really boom from the mining it brought in. The Indians didn’t like it. They lost the battles, of course.

The copper and silver ran out years ago and Battle Mountain is a sleepy little interstate town now of about 3,600 people. It’s quaint and has a bit of history.

We found a few geocaches, had dinner, and hit the road in the morning. It was a nice stop over on our way.

We got back on the road in the morning and eventually make it to I-80 straight east into Utah. As we crossed the state line into Utah, we saw a sight that I have heard about since I was a kid; the Bonneville Salt Flats.

We made it past the salt flats and into N. Salt Lake City, UT to our RV Park, the Pony Express RV Park. This is supposed to be an upscale RV park that we learned about when we went to a travel show last February in Denver, CO. It is a Sun RV Resort. We have been curious to try one to see if they are as good as they claimed.

It is not!!

The park was like a concrete jungle. All the sites had all of the “amenities”, like power, water, sewer, cable TV, and free Wifi. But, they were so close together it was like moving into an apartment complex. It was very uncomfortable and quite expensive for a RV park. Oh well, we tried.

We got in late in the afternoon and had time to go find a few geocaches before dinner.

The next day it is off to explore the Great Salt Lake. There are several ways to do this. There are a state park, a marina, and just finding a beachy spot to dip your toes in the lake.

We opted for Antelope Island State Park. This park is located on an island 7 miles from shore, inside the Great Salt Lake. It was used by the Mormons and cattle ranchers back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. The state of Utah purchased the island from the cattle rancher that had owned the island for 100 years in 1981 and turned it into a state park. Then they built a causeway connecting the island to the mainland over a 7 mile stretch of water.

Today the island is home to bisons, pronghorn antelopes, big horn sheep, mule deer, and countless species of birds. It is 42 square miles and a fascinating place to visit. Antelope Island is the biggest of the 10 islands that exist in the Great Salt Lake.

We headed north and find the causeway that takes us over to Antelope Island from the mainland. Here is the view of the causeway from the island side.

We arrive on the island and are greeted by a nice buffalo and signage.

After driving by the entrance, we immediately see the real bison herd, down on the beach area.

The island has a great road system to take you to the historical parts and overlook areas. Surprisingly, it also has a lot of geocaches on it. We found a few. One of them was a particular hard one to find.

The hard cache was supposed to be in a tree on a trail. The problem was, the trail was not very clearly marked. Also, the tree wound up being in the middle of nowhere.

We got to the tree and just can not find the cache. The GPS says we are in the right spot, the cache clue says it is in the tree. Just can’t find it.

We are about to give up when suddenly I spot this on the ground beneath the tree.

It is the paper log from the cache with a couple of pieces of plastic from the cache container. It looks like it has disintegrated from the sun, or some animal has stepped on it and destroyed the container. This is the first time we have found one outside the cache container. We signed the log, stuck it in a pen, and hid it under a rock by the tree. Andrea emailed the cache owner and told him what happened. It’s up to him to fix it now.

We continue the drive and see some great scenery.

We then made it to the Fielding Garr historic ranch. Fielding was the last ranch manager for the corporation that owned the island and raised cattle on the island until they sold the island to the State of Utah. The ranch is a nice time capsule of the 100 years it was in use on the island.

Remember that phony horse in the video? Well, I had to try it out, of course!

The Fielding Garr ranch is at the end of the island, so we started to head back. When we were reading about the island, the material said there were bison, mule deer, pronghorn antelopes, big horn sheep, and many varieties of birds.

Well, we saw the bison. But, quite frankly, we have seen a lot of bison in the last month or so. So, nice but not awe inspiring. We saw lots of birds, mainly ducks and geese. Nice but not awe inspiring.

I start whining to Andrea, “Where are my pronghorn antelopes and big horn sheep? I was promised pronghorn antelope and big horn sheep!”

Well, son of a gun, just then she says “look to your left up the hill” (you whiny son of a gun was implied in her tone of voice, of course).

Hey, there’s some pronghorn antelopes. Really cool!

We got some nice shots of a small herd eating dinner on the hill by us. FYI, both Andrea and I enjoy taking pictures. I have the video camera and she had nice, but basic Nikon Cool Pix. This Nikon is nice, but limited as it has a fixed lens and pictures can only be shot in automatic mode. This means, the photographer can not manually focus, or set exposures manually.

So, about a month ago, we invested in a very good Cannon digital SLR (single lens reflex) camera system. We have been learning how to use it and having fun experimenting with it. This trip on Antelope Island really brought out the advantages of this great Cannon system. These antelope pictures were taken from the road with a 500 mm lens. These antelope are not stupid. They were way up the hill; nowhere close to where we were. Several of the bison shots shown previously were taken with the same lens. Same situation; they were really far away.

We also have a 18 – 55 zoom and a 75 – 300 zoom lens. Plus, we can manually focus and adjust shots. The result is our pictures are more dramatic and we are getting shots that we never could have gotten before with our nice little Nikon. Just thought you might be interested in knowing.

OK, we have bison and pronghorn antelope. What about mule deer and bighorn sheep? Well, we have seen mule deer in other areas, and sheep also. So, we didn’t see them here, but the pronghorn antelope make up for it. I stopped whining.

By now it is getting late and we are heading out of the park. We have one more mission to accomplish. We have to go swimming in the Great Salt Lake. Hey, we’re here. Let’s do it. Or should I say? We are here. Randy is going to do it.

FYI, we went to Jordan last year and went swimming in the Dead Sea (both of us this time.) The Dead Sea is truly amazing. It is 900 feet below sea level and is so salty and acidic nothing can live in it. We went swimming and found that what they say about floating in the Dead Sea is true. It is so salty, you couldn’t drown if you tried. However, it is also so acidic that every body orifice you have (and I mean EVERY one) gets totally stung by the acid. Luckily our guide at the time warned us not to duck our heads or get water in our eyes. The few folks we saw that didn’t get the warning or didn’t believe the warning really paid the price with acid water in their eyes. They were hurting big time when they got out of the water. Basically you get in, splash around, and run to the fresh water hoses to rise off your delicate body parts.

So, the question in our (my) mind; was how does the Great Salt Lake compare to the Dead Sea? Well, the answer is; kind of the same but not as severe or acidic. The salinity of the Great Salt Lake ranges from 5% to 27%, versus the salinity of the world’s oceans which is 3.5%, versus the Dead Sea which is 33%. So, when I went swimming, I floated much better than in the ocean, but not nearly as well as in the Dead Sea. However, my body parts did not suffer the abuse that the Dead Sea gave them. Good show in my opinion.

So, lets talk about the Great Salt Lake as a swimming spot. It is really bad!!! You have to walk a good 1/2 mile from the access point at the parking lot across sandy, rocky, uneven terrain, just to get to the beach.

The beach consists of hard sand and sharp rocks. Then you have to factor in the smell of the sulphur in the lake and the millions, I mean millions, of flies that are living right at the water’s edge that you have to walk through to get to the water. On top of that, the lake is really shallow. I had to walk out a good 200 yards just to get close to waist deep to be able to back float. Overall, not a good swimming experience. Antelope Island was very nice. Swimming from Antelope Island into the Great Salt Lake sucked. However, it was a once in a lifetime experience I will never forget. Plus, it was at sunset with some really pretty views.

After a fun day on Antelope Island, it is back to the cement jungle of the Pony Express RV park for one final night.

The next day as we are heading out of town, we went downtown to see the Mormon Tabernacle. We can’t get into the tabernacle as it is undergoing a massive renovation right now, but we got to see the outside and get right with God.

Map progress – Carson City, NV to Battle Mountain, NV to Salt Lake City, UT via Tin Tin.

August 15 – 18, 2020

After seeing the splendor of Crater Lake we are off to see another fantastic lake; Lake Tahoe in Nevada. This lake is famous not only for its beauty, but also the access to gambling and a bit of partying in the surrounding area in the great state of Nevada. Hey, we also get to pick up another state on Tin Tin’s (our RV) map on his backside.

We have booked several nights in the RV park at the Gold Dust West Casino in Carson City, NV. We punch in the destination into our RV GPS program and happily head south east to go from Crater Lake to Lake Tahoe.

Our first surprise in this seemingly easy trip is the fact that we cross from Oregon into California a couple of hours into the trip.

We thought we would be routed directly from Orgon into Nevada. But, no the almighty GPS takes us more south than we anticipated and straight down into California. At first this seems pretty cool. We hadn’t planned to get to California for another couple of weeks. Also, even though we are now driving in California, it doesn’t qualify for Tin Tin’s map as we will not spend the night here, yet. Oh well, we will get this state soon enough.

The next surprise is much more dramatic and seriously affects the rest of our supposedly easy 5 hour drive into Carson City.

We see this sign as we turn east on State Highway 395 out of Susanville, CA.

The sign goes on to say that Hwy. 395 is closed 45 miles east of us due to an out of control wild fire that has been burning near Loyalton, CA for several days now. That is not good as we need to go 84 miles further east on Hwy. 395 to get to Carson City, NV.

The fire is so bad they have evacuated Loyalton and the surrounding towns all around Hwy. 395. Several people in this area have already died from this 20,000 acre fire. This is not a good situation. It is bad enough for us, just trying to drive through, but absolutely terrible for the poor people losing their homes, businesses, and even their lives.

Now dear reader, you may say “Well just take another road around the fire, dummy”. Well, this is not as easy as it may appear to people that live in pretty populated areas. In your more populated areas there is always a detour, or by pass road, to get you around the road construction, or flooded out road, or what ever. However, in the desert country of eastern California and western Nevada, your choice of roads is severely limited. There just is not another easy way around this situation.

So, what do you do? First thing is fill up with diesel in good ol’ Tin Tin. You don’t know where or when you are going to find a gas station again. This highway warning sign showed up in Susanville, CA, which is the most populated town in this area for about 100 miles. Their population is 15,000, which makes them a major city in these parts. Hey, they even had a Ford dealership here.

We fill Tin Tin up with diesel and start checking out Google maps. We then talk to the local old guy at the gas station. He and Google maps agree; there is only one way around this fire. We have to go back north a bit and take Wallace Road east, through the farmlands, desert, and the Washoe Indian Reservation, to get around the fire. Fine we say, sounds like a plan. “Oh yeah” he says. ” You might want to know that this road is unpaved once you hit Nevada”. “How bad is it?” I ask. “Can our RV make it?”. “Oh yeah”, he says. “I drove it a few months back, you should be OK”.

We have no alternative anyway, so off we go. To say the road is unpaved is an understatement.

We were on the unpaved section for 29 miles. At first it was gravel, which wasn’t too bad. But, when we hit the Washoe Indian Reservation it turned to just dirt and really slowed us down. It took us 2.5 hours to drive it. Very, very, bumpy and uneven. However, we did get some great sunset pictures over the desert.

Our 5 hour trip turned into an 11 hour trip. Between the detour back north, the 2.5 hours on the dirt road, and the extra distance to get into Carson City; it was a long day.

Once we arrived at the Gold Dust West Casino, we immediately went to their restaurant (24 hour of course), had some dinner. Then Andrea proceeded to lose $.83 at the slot machines. Overall, a very long, but interesting, day.

The next day we sleep in (hey, we deserved it) and then book a dinner cruise for that night on Lake Tahoe. Since we have a little time to kill, we decide to go geocaching for a bit. We did pretty good, too. We found 5 of 5 caches. We are getting much better at this!

Later that afternoon, we drove around Lake Tahoe to get there from Carson City. We actually wound up on the California side to meet up with our boat, the Tahoe Gal. Lake Tahoe really is a spectacular place to boat and enjoy the water.

The Tahoe Gal is a small riverboat replica that regularly cruises the Lake. We got lucky and were assigned the bow seats which were extremely private as there was only one table for the two of us. The rest of the folks were upstairs on the second deck in more traditional restaurant seating. We thoroughly enjoyed our private dining spot.

We left the dock about 6:30, cruised a bit, had a pretty good dinner and then some spectacular sunset views of the mountains over Lake Tahoe.

The next day is kind of open as there is not really a whole lot to do in Carson City. The city was named for Kit Carson, the frontiersman, but all of the museums, etc. are closed due to the Covid – 19 protocols.

So, we run some errands and go searching for some geocaches. I was a bit reluctant to go running around outside as the weather looked a bit dicey. Boy, was I proved correct!

Nothing like running up and down hills and through the grass and scrubs in a thunderstorm. However, it did finally clear up and we found a few geocaches.

While driving around the outskirts of Carson City we came across a very interesting statue on the side of the road. Pretty impressive!

We had a fun few days in Carson City. We went back gambling one night and Andrea managed to turn her $.83 loss into a $15.00 gain. I lost $5.00 playing penny video poker (we are obviously not big gamblers). The casino was primarily slot machines and a few black jack tables, but it was a nice place with plenty of activity.

Map progress – Crater Lake, OR to Carson City, NV via Tin Tin, with the detour around the fires.

August 13 – 14, 2020

We reached Crater Lake from Florence, OR by driving pretty much straight west from the Pacific Coast into the mountains of Crater Lake National Park. We planned to spend 2 nights in this gorgeous park. One night in the campground and one night in Crater Lake Lodge. We are meeting some friends, Rich and Krissy, Friday night where we will all hang out in the Crater Lake Lodge on the upper rim of Crater Lake.

Crater Lake was formed by a volcanic eruption 7,700 years ago. This explosion made the Mt. St. Helens eruption look like a firecracker compared to a stick of dynamite. The eruption blew out 12 cubic miles of magma from beneath the surface of the 12,000 foot high Mount Mazama. The top then collapsed upon itself to form the crater, known as a caldera, that we see today. It then filled up with rain and snow run off over hundreds of years to create the beautiful lake we now enjoy. The lake now enjoys a balance of evaporation, and then replenishment, from rain and snow run off to maintain its current water levels.

Crater Lake is incredibly blue. This is due to the depth and clarity of the water. It can be as deep as 1,900 feet deep in some parts with some of the clearest water on the planet. The sunlight that penetrates the lake has most of the light spectrum absorbed by the water, except for blue. It really is a remarkable sight.

We got some great pictures of Crater Lake and the surrounding areas and then spent the night in the Crater Lake campground.

We met up with Rich and Krissy the next day and had dinner in the Crater Lake restaurant. After a few drinks, it was off to Tin Tin (our RV), to set up base camp for some night time photography. We got some very interesting shots.

We also broke out the telescope and had a great time looking at the planets and other fun stuff. We broke the equipment down, pretty late that night, and headed back to the Lodge to back it in. Then we noticed Mars in the eastern horizon. Sadly, we wimped out and did not get the telescope to add it to our list tonight. Oh well, it will be there another day.

The next day, we are all leaving, but Krissy gets motivated and gets her and Rich up at sunset (cudos to them because Andrea and I were not even near awake) and got this great sunrise picture over Crater Lake.

To be truthful, they did go back to bed, and we all missed the 9:30 deadline for the free breakfast (Hey, stargazing is late night work). No problem, we just had bagels and tea in Tin Tin in the parking lot. I think Krissy is now trying to figure out how to buy an RV and just keep traveling around the northern hemisphere before her boss figures out she is not telecommuting from home.

We had a great time meeting our friends in Crater Lake, sharing travel stories (they are taking advantage of the “No Office” situation of the Covid – 19 protocols and traveling around the country as we are), and seeing the amazing Crater Lake National Park.

Map progress – Florence, OR to Crater Lake, OR via Tin Tin.

August 12, 2020

After leaving the great little town of Astoria, OR we wanted to visit Crater Lake, OR. As it is a bit of a drive from Astoria to Crater Lake, we broke up the trip and spent the night in Florence, OR. As we headed south towards Florence, we took Highway 101, or the Pacific Coast Scenic Byway as it is known in Oregon. This is an absolutely beautiful drive up in the hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

There are numerous scenic overlooks and places to pull over to take in the views. We got to see a few of the many spots along the way.

As we got close to Florence, we crossed over the Suislaw River Bridge.

We stayed on Hwy. 101 and made it to Woahink Lake RV Resort, which, as the name suggests, sits on the bank of the Woahink Lake. This is a very pretty, small, lake situated a few miles inland from the ocean. However, the RV park also sits adjacent to the Jessie M. Honeymoon Memorial State Park. This park features some amazing sand dunes that go all the way to the ocean. The big attraction here is for people to take their ATVs out on the dunes and just go roaring over them. So, the RV park was very busy.

As these dunes are just sand, and constantly shifting anyway, there is no damage done to them. At least not to the sand dunes. As for the ATVs and the crazies that drive them; I can not say.

These sand dunes are really impressive. They stretch for miles along the coast line. When I walked out on them, the wind was so strong the sand just got into my eyes, clothes, and equipment. No wonder they are constantly changing.

Overall, a nice day driving the coast and seeing some more scenic parts of Oregon. On to Crater Lake tomorrow.

Map progress – Astoria, OR to Florence, OR via Tin Tin.

August 9 – 11,2020

After visiting Mt. St. Helens, it is time to travel south a bit more and enter Oregon. Yeah! We pick up another state for Tin Tin’s (our RV) map on his backside.

We originally planned to visit this quaint little town because a friend of Andrea’s has lived here for many years. Unfortunately, she was sick so we were not able to visit her. But we had a great time in her town.

As the title to this post mentions, Astoria is the home of “The Goonies”. For those of you that have been off planet for the last 35 years; “The Goonies” is a great Stephen Spielberg movie about a bunch of kids that find a pirates treasure. The town of Astoria is their home. Most of the movie was filmed in town. We were able to see many sites, including the house the kids lived in, the jail from the opening sequence, the big rocks on the beach that led the kids to the treasure, and other sights. Also, Astoria is a very nice, quaint seaside town situated on the Columbia River, just inland from the Pacific Ocean.

First things first. We enter Oregon by crossing the Columbia River. Neither Andrea or I have ever been to this state before, so this is really cool.

As soon as we get into Oregon, across the river, we are in Astoria. Right on the banks of the Columbia River.

We made our way to the Hammond Seaside KOA only to find that we are too early to check in. This park has more rules than the US army. So, we go off to explore for a bit before we can come back to get our RV site.

After the excitement of Andrea’s seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time, it is off to see some local culture. We made our way to the Astoria Column, built in 1926, with financing by the Great Northern Railway and Vincent Astor. Vincent was the great grandson of John Jacob Astor. John Jacob Astor founded Astoria in 1876 to provide a base for his American Fur Company. He made quite a bit of money in the fur trade during his career.

The Astoria Column in situated on a hill overlooking the Columbia River. It really is a great overlook site for Astoria, the port, and that portion of the Columbia River.

At the Astoria Column, we saw there were a few geocache sites in the area so went looking for them.

We did pretty good and found 4 of 5.

The next geocache was located in the outside dining area of a local restaurant, the Astoria Brewing Company. So we had to support the place with a couple of drinks, of course.

Another very cool sight from this restaurant was a sea lion swimming along, looking for dinner.

The next day was kind of a Goonies Movie search day. We started off by going to the Oregon Film Museum, which is located in the actual jail that the opening scene from the Goonies move was filmed in. We had fun with a few of the props, and some screen tests.

As part of the film museum, they had several live movie sets. You can do up to five screen tests for free and check out your acting chops. Let’s just say the Randy (complete with required face mask) is now looking for a future in Hollywood!

We went searching for a few more geocaches and suddenly found a colony of sea lions hanging out on a dock in the port.

We found a few more geocaches, noticed the very cool trash cans they have in the shape of Astoria Canned Salmon, and interrupted some sea gulls as they wandered about.

We found Astoria to be a very quaint and fun little town. We thoroughly enjoyed our time here and have even discussed coming back here on a future trip.

Map progress – Kelso, WA to Astoria, OR via Tin Tin.

August 9 – 10,2020

After Mt. Ranier, it was off to see another mountain. Or, at least part of a mountain. We headed south on I-5 to Kelso, WA, just outside of Mt. St. Helens. If you recall, back in 1980 this mountain blew up. It blew off 1,300 feet of mountain peak and 3.4 billion cubic yards of it’s cone. It caused one billion dollars worth of damage and killed more than 50 people, including Harry R. Truman (not the US president), the owner of the Mt. St. Helens Lodge at Spirit Lake. He basically was at the base of the explosion and was incinerated, then buried under 150 feet of rock and debris. He had refused to leave despite the numerous warnings from officials and police. He said the mountain would always be there. Ooops, he was wrong.

Mt. St. Helens is considered one of the most active volcanoes in the US. In fact, it erupted as recently as July, 2008. Nothing like cheating death on our US road trip!

We made the short drive from Kent down to Kelso and checked into the Brookhollow RV Park. This is a fairly nice RV park with good spacing between the units. Still no fire pits though.

We started the days trip at the Mt. St. Helens Visitor Center, about 15 miles from Kelso. As usual today, the center was closed, but it had some nice Park Rangers manning booths to answer questions and head out maps etc.

We got our first glimpse of the mountain from the visitor center. We saw the western side of the mountain. The northern side blew off, so everything on the western side was undamaged. However, it is a lot shorter than it used to be. Notice how the top is kind of flat now. It used to be peaked.

We leave the visitor center for the 47 mile drive to Johnston Ridge Observatory. There is one road in and out. So, we were pretty confident we would not get lost on this leg of our journey.

The road starts off just going through some nice forests and gaining altitude. The first interesting point is Elk Rock Lookout site. You still see the western side of the mountain, but can start to make out the huge crater on the northern face.

After a short time at Elk Rock Lookout, we make it up to Johnston Ridge. The view from the ridge is directly in front of the crater, about 5.5 miles, and in the direct blast zone of the eruption. Dead trees still occupy the hillsides.

It is awe inspiring to consider how much force it took to blast off the top of this huge mountain. After the 1980 eruption, there have been several more. The molten lava way down deep keeps forming domes inside the crater, that eventually erupt and change the landscape of the crater. The active steam coming out of the western side lets you know another big one is coming some time.

Here is what Mt. St. Helens looked like the day before the eruption on May 18, 1980.

Here is the way it looked today when we were there, 40 years after the eruption.

After seeing Mt. St. Helens volcano, we decide to get out while the getting is good. We made it back to Brookhollow RV park and got ready to move on down the road tomorrow to Oregon.

Map progress – Kent, WA to Kelso, WA via Tin Tin.