Cruising from Seattle to Juenau

We got on the ship before noon on Sunday without any trouble... In fact we were at the front of the lines most of the time and got to our room and lunch without any trouble.. :)  Here we are getting ready to board the ship!.

 

This is the view from our stateroom in Seattle!  Pretty nice!

 

 

Sunset from our stateroom the first night of sailing... Beautiful!!!

 

 

Ocean Views!

 

 

 



Catching up 3

Another lazy morning.  On the early part of the trip, we were having longer travel days.   Now they are a bit shorter.  Today we are driving through the North Cascades National park and will camp at another state park on the other side.  We found out that the nights in the park are very cold and they do not have power hook ups for our heater. 

This a very beautiful drive with awsome views!

This next group of pictures are from an overlook just after topping a pass.  We are in the Cascades Mountains, but not in the National park yet.

 

 

The interesting thing about this overlook is that it was build right out on the rocks.  You can look right down on the highway.  You feel like you are almost flying!

 

 

That is the highway we drove up down below.  I am standing behind a very strong and sturdy rail or I would not be doing this.

 

 

Don just had to take my picture!!

 

After we went up the two passes, we started going down!  We went down for a long way.  In fact, we were just about out of the park we were finally down at the bottom.

 

There are two Dams and two lakes in the park.  Ross Lake is down below in the valley and the only way down there is to walk.

 

 

 

 

 Next stop was at a water fall area.  Both were very pretty.

 

 

 

We finally made it to the visitor's center where we took a 2 mile hike down by the river.

These are pictures of that trail.



That is about it for now.  We are in the Seattle area for a layover day and rest.  I also had to do laundry after camping for a week.  The little pop up camper has done great and we have gotten pretty good at setting up and breaking camp.

 



Catching up 2

We took our time getting up this morning (September 12, 2012)  We have been through many different types of landscape.  Today, we went through areas of huge wheat fields with some rolling hills.  We had left the interstate behind us heading towards North Cascades National Park.

We come to an area with large gorges and two dams.  One was the Grand Coulee Dam and the other was Chief Joseph Dam both on the Columbia river.

We also saw miles of Apple orchards which were part of the Gerber Apple Farms.  The apples were ripe and they were just beginning to pick.

We start following the Methow River towards Wintrop, Washington.  This river is very clear.

Between Pateros and Twisp, we saw a fairly large forest fire (smoke bellowing above the mountains)

This is the first glimpse of the smokey fire.

 

We pull over when we got even with it and took some pictures.

 

 

This is our view from the highway.

 

 

This is a picture of the helicoper  that was dipping water from the river just in front of us.  He would then go to the fire and dump the water and come back for more.

We were told there were a few more fires around the area.  This made the sky really hazy.

 

We stay the night at Pearrygin State Park just outside of Wintrop, WA. 

Another surprise we found at Washington State Parks, is that we had to pay extra for showers.

 

Another view of the lake.

 

Catching up--

Most places we have stopped have not had internet, even if we did have some phone service.
So now that we are in Seattle, WA at the Hampton Inn for tonight and tomorrow night, I will try to catch up on the blog before boarding the ship.

After we left Bozeman, we continued up the interstate through Montana.  This is a very pretty part of Montana with mountians all around.  We went up a pretty pass just before Butte. 

We saw just a few pronghorn on this drive. 

 

Our camp this night was at Riverside State Park in Spokane, WA. This is the Spokane river.

It was a pretty nice campground. The thing that has surprised Don and I is that the state parks have been pretty full. There are a lot of us "seniors" traveling around.

We enjoyed our stay here... and even though the state parks are nice, they are not as nice, so far, as Arkansas State Parks.

 

 

 

Day 4, Sunday

September 9, 2012

We decided to stay two nights at TRNP so we could see more of the park. 

Interesting fact of the campground.... we are over 5 miles from the interstate, but we could hear insterstate traffic from our camp!

We did hear coyotes in the early morning! 

It really warmed up today after such a cold night. 

After breakfast, we finished exploring the loop that goes around the park.  The views are beautiful of the North Dakota Badlands.    We saw the wild horses, more bison and a lone pronghorn along the way

 

These animals are massive!!

 

 

The lone prong horn we saw this day..

 

Some of the wild horses we saw in the park.

 

 

Just one of the beautiful views we saw in the park!

 

 

 

This is a park of the Painted Canyon.  We hiked a one mile loop of the painted canyon.  I can tell you, this was one of the hardest 1 mile hikes I have ever taken.  You go down 1/2 mile and back up 1/2 mile! 

 

 



Day 3 continued

September 8, 2012

 

 

A picture of one of the block houses.

After looking around a bit, we left to go to Theordore Roosevelt National Park.  As we were driving toward the interstate, a large 8 point ran right in front of us.  We were lucky that we did not hit him.

 

We got to TRNP and found our camp site.  There are no hookups here.. however there are flush toilets!

 

We set up camp then went exploring, first to the visitors center then on a couple of short hikes.

Views are beautiful of the badlands and the vistas are pretty.

 

On our drive we saw bison, 1 mule deer and some wild turkeys.

 

 

Views of Bison by the Little Missouri river that runs through the national park. 

 

 

A picture of the wild turkeys we saw.

 

It is fall here!  The leaves are beginning to show their colors.

 

Since we were out in the middle of no where, the stars were out!!

However, it did get very cold this night!  We had to really hunker down in our beds to keep warm!

 

Day Three---Saturday...

September 8, 2012--

We got up and took much needed showers... After breaking camp, we stopped at the Visitors Center and took a look at the Mandan Indian Villiage there.. (a reproduction based on the actual village.)

 

 

 

 

A look at the outside of the village.

 

 

Inside a meeting room of the village..

 

We then drove up to the block houses high on a hill that overlooks the Missouri river and the city of Bismarck.  Very impressive views. Oh yes, Custer was here just before he went to the battle of Little Big Horn.

 

 

 

 

 

 



Day Two----

September 7, 2012---

This is pretty much just a travel day.... It was a long drive from Owana to Fort Lincoln State Park in Bismarck, North Dakota. 

We did see a lot of sunflowers ready to harvest.  Not really pretty, but the flowers looked like they are bowing in prayer.

Fort Lincoln state is pretty nice.. It was also pretty crowded.. We were glad we got a good spot to camp.  It is located on the Missouri River.  Event hough the campground was crowded, it was quiet and we rested pretty well here.

First day of vacation

September 6, 2012---

We are on our way!! We drive north through Kansas City, Missouri with good weather all day.  We stopped just north of KC for lunch at a rest stop we have used several times before.

Got to Owana, Iowa where we spent the night at the Lewis and Clark State Park.  Pretty nice park.  They had a mock up of the keel boat that Lewis and Clark used on their journey.
This is a picture of the keel boat with Don in the forground.

 

 

 

And here I am....

 

 

This is the view from our camp site... pretty nice park in the middle of nowhere!

 

This is a view of our camp site! We enjoyed this little park.

An interesting thing did happen across the lake from our camp at the KOA campgroud.  There was a pretty big fire there that had fire trucks coming from Owana to put our the fire.  Not sure exactly what was on fire, but it looked pretty big from where we were.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One Day to Go...

Today is final packing and loading day.  We started the morning off by finishing packing our suitcases and doing a final check to see if we have all the cloths we wanted and needed.

I like to see everything that needs to go into car and camper, so I move everything to the garage so I can have everything together.

All of this must fit in the camper and the car.  The big suitcases on the left are mainly cruise wear and cold weather gear.  We are packing for all kinds of weather.  As of now, I know it is cold and rainy in the Alaska area so we have to prepare for that!

 

All this gear must it into the camper... Small camper means not much storage... so I had to put things in boxes and label them, then put them into the camper.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a look at what we will be eating while traveling.  Those nights when we are just spending the night while traveling we will probably be too tired to "really cook."  These seemed like the way to go.

 

 

 

Well, all that did go into the camper.... every space has something in it...

Now for the car....

 

 

Where am I going to find the room for all of this?!!!

 

Well somehow it all fit into the 4-runner!  I hope we don't need something from the bottom of the pile!  We are now pretty much done packing and loading.  There are a few things to do around the house, but I think we are ready to leave bright and early in the morning. ;)

 

 

Prep for cross country tour and cruise

It is September 2nd, 2012, and most of the preparations are done. 

The plan is to leave from Bentonville on Thursday, September 6th as early as we can get away, driving to Seattle, stopping along the way at state and national parks.  We also have the option to spend the night in motel as the need arises.  I will not make reservations ahead of time because I don't know exactly which route we will take and where we will be when we are ready to stop.

We will arrive in Seattle on September 14th for a two day layover stay in the Hampton Inn in Lynnwood, WA.  (just north of Seattle)  Have reservations here, one night being a rewards stay (free).

On September 16th, we board a Holland American Cruise ship called the Oosterdam for an inside passage cruise to Alaska.  We enjoyed our trip last year to the interior of Alaska and wanted to see the inside passage this time.  The easy way to do this is to take a cruise ship. 

We will be on the ship from September 16-23. We will have to park the 4-runner and Jayco in Seattle while on the cruise.  I have made parking reservations with Seattle Cruise Park...  It is a little ways away the pier but they will shuttle us to and from the ship.  I printed the cruise park pass for the windshield of the 4-runner.

The cruise is paid for and on line check in is done.  I printed our boarding passes and luggage tags with our names and cabin number on it.   Now I just have to figure what cloths to take on the cruise and how many suitcases to take.

This is a pretty big undertaking since we will be camping 4 of the 5 weeks of the trip.  Then one week will be on the ship where dress is not as casual as the camping will be. Also, two nights on the ship are "formal" nights so we have to take "dress up" cloths as well.

At this point, we have all our cloths laid out on the dining room table so it looks like our closet exploded in there.  We have to pack for camping, cruising, cold weather, warm weather, and everything in between.

After the cruise, we will start what I am calling our "National Parks" tour.  So far, we plan on visiting the following parks: Olympic NP, Mt. Rainier NP, Redwoods NP, Yosemite NP and Sequoia/Kings Canyon NP.  A big undertaking to be sure.  We will find out if we really like being gone that long and if we like camping in the Jayco!

The plan is to return to Bentonville around October 10th, being gone about 5 weeks!  WOW

So, as we travel through The USA, I will be writing and sharing thoughts and pictures about our journey as our internet service allows. 

 

 

 

 

These are a couple of pictures of our little pop up camper which will be hour home for several weeks!

This is mostly a tent on wheels with an air conditioner!