RV resorts – Page 4 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

Day 19 July 24 Rainy Day in Talkeetna

We are getting close to our half way point of the trip, and this is the first morning that looks like what I had prepared myself to see in Alaska. It rained all night and there was only one train roaring by at 5 this morning and I slept well, and actually didn’t wake up until five. Guess it is getting a bit darker as the days begin to get shorter, as we get farther south, and just maybe I am getting used to it.

When we left our camp yesterday, it was cloudy but not raining. The road south toward the Talkeetna turnoff has two formal viewing sites for Denali that are part of the Denali State Park, and many other places where the mountain is visible on clear days. With the next few days of predicted heavy rain, I am more and more grateful for that brilliant morning leaving Fairbanks with Denali in full view.

Talkeetna is a popular place it seems. There are lots of cute little rustic Alaska style shops, two visitor centers, with one geared to folks planning to climb Denali. After my four hours doing laundry with one dryer, we drove the short distance to town to check it out. It was raining fairly hard by then, but folks were still walking around the little town, doing the shops and eating in the several restaurants. I didn’t take photos, but if you want to see the town, Dennis and Carol did a great job on their blog when they were in Talkeetna a couple of weeks ago.

The Princess and Holland America buses are here, right behind the RV Camper Park. When the train whizzes by in that same vicinity, you see railroad cars labeled Princess and Holland America since this is a stop off/pick up point for transfers from the train to the buses. If you have a ticket for this 115 mile stretch for the train, you can get on and off at will and the train will stop for you. There are lots of trees and thick vegetation, which seems even thicker in the drippy, dense rain. Last night I was feeling a bit claustrophobic, but if you look at the header photo and then today’s photos, it might be understandable.

This photo is NOT what we saw in Talkeetna, but is a view from the Parks Highway some distance north

We walked to the park on the edge of the Talkeetna River and laughed at all the tents and campfires in an area heavily posted with “No Camping” signs. We caught the aroma of people smoking pot, and saw a lot of youthful activity around, and garbage. Wet sleeping bags draped across tents, boots sitting outside in the rain, that sort of thing.

The river itself looks scary. The current is fast and the water is milky from glacier melt and filled with debris. Not a place I would want to launch my boat, that is for sure! We heard a loud noise going upstream and it wasn’t until I re-read Dennis’s posts about Talkeetna that I realized that it was a jet boat tour, one of the many local tourist activities available. I hear there are some good restaurants with good food and service, but we are saving our eating out bucks for salmon and halibut on the peninsula, so we will skip the local spots in spite of the good reviews.

Today we plan another fairly short drive of less than 100 miles to Anchorage and the Elmendorf AFB Family Camp. Since Mo is retired military, there are no reservations, so we are hoping for a site since the camp is so accessible to Anchorage and it’s time for a MoHo oil change and some city stuff. I won’t have internet at the campground, but if so inclined I am sure I could find many places in town. There is much to do in Anchorage as well, but I’m not really interested in city sight seeing for some reason. Yes, I know, I will probably never drive here again, but this is our big road trip, and the city stuff, even the town stuff just doesn’t trigger my excitement button. I do really want to see the Earthquake Park. I had an old friend that lived through it, and her stories were terrifying.

The rest of the photos from yesterday and this morning are linked here

Day 18 July 23 Catching Up in Talkeetna, Alaska

After a short hundred mile drive south on the Parks Highway from Cantwell 8 miles from our boondock site, we are tucked into the only RV park in Talkeetna this afternoon, after four nights without hookups. Time to catch up on laundry, to upload photos if possible, and catch up on the blog. Who knows when I’ll ever get the chance to check in on the rest of the world, but it may not be right away.

I have been posting blog entries by actual date traveled in addition to the day of our trip (see above title). Since we have been away from the internet, you may have missed a few posts, so you are interested in knowing where we have been, check the archives to the left.

The new header photo is from last night’s beautiful boondock site along Joe Lake on the Denali Highway, just a short eight miles from the main Parks Highway and up 5 miles of gravel. Instead of the beautiful isolation and quiet we enjoyed last night, we are now in Talkeetna Camper Park with electricity and water, lots of neighbors tight around us, 2 washing machines and one working dryer, and intermittent internet. I’m heading for the laundry room right now, hoping I can get enough of a connection to post the last few blogs from my LiveWriter.

Wish me Luck!

It is interesting that I have to take my computer up to the office to get a decent connection while Mo happily surfs away with the Netbook using our WiFi booster purchased last December in Desert Hot Springs. I still haven’t found Windows 7 driver for the gadget, so I guess I am out of luck for the time being.

Miles driven today: 126

Road condition: excellent highway except for the repetitive joints to protect from frost heave. Better than frost heave, though!

Day 4 July 9 Into the British Columbia desert!

Somehow I never knew that there was a huge part of south central British Columbia that is arid sage country. The southern part of the Okanogan Valley only receives about 12 inches of rain a year, and the shrub/grassland community is referred to as Canada’s “pocket desert”. It is a beautiful region, filled with wildlife, wine, rivers, and wildflowers, and I would love to come back and spend some extended time exploring. Today, however, we have other goals. We are saving most of the exploring for the northern parts of the province, for the Yukon, and for Alaska.

We were up early with the light, and were on the road by 8:30 or so after a lovely walk with Abby along the beautiful Lake Osoyoos. We didn’t bother hooking up right away, since the gas station was right at the entrance of the park. We filled the MoHo again, at 3.79 per gallon and 123 bucks, but it was only half full, not empty. Sure am glad we aren’t filling an empty tank! I guess it all works out in the end anyway. A quick hook up right there in the gas station was easy since no one was coming in behind us, and we were off for our entry into Canada.

The border is barely five miles north of Oroville, and we were ready for our crossing, with passports, registrations, animal health certificates, and rehearsed answers. Where are we going? “Fort Richardson, near Anchorage, Alaska”. The customs officer was a tiny woman with a serious face. No silly comments, Sue, just keep your mouth shut and don’t offer anything. Let Mo do the talking. Fine. Of course, it was as simple for us as most folks, with a few questions, and not a single comment about the country of origin of our animal food, no questions about wasp spray (yes we carry it instead of pepper spray), and no questions about food except what produce we had. At that point I piped up with “Five pounds of potatoes, some onions, a bag of carrots, and 2 bags of packaged coleslaw”. Somehow that answer seemed to satisfy all her other questions and she said, “OK, go on”.

Osoyoos is right at the border and has an excellent information center. We pulled in immediately, and the guides there were really helpful, insisting that we should drive all the way north on 97. I looked again at our map, and thought, “no, that isn’t the plan” and we turned west on Highway 3 toward Princeton. It was a great drive, leading us through the beautiful, fertile valley of the Similkameen River, lush and filled with orchards and organic farms, wineries and fruit stands. We stopped so I could add some good produce to my limited supply for crossing the border and I got some ripe, soft, very red tomatoes, and fresh crisp pickle cukes that were perfect for our supper salad.

We stopped to take photos of the wildflowers, and the roads were in excellent condition for most of the day. We circumvented Kamloops and the major part of the Okanogan Valley with this route, but also skipped a lot of traffic and congestion that we got a little taste of as we passed through Merritt. I turned off my phone since I don’t want to pay the huge fees for a data plan, so couldn’t use the gas buddy app to figure out where we would get the cheapest gas. We filled up again in Merritt, and figuring in the exchange of 1.04, and 3.75 liters per US gallon, it cost a whopping $5.34 per gallon and $156.52 to fill the half full tank one more time. We laughed and said that maybe we need to sit a day or two so our daily cost can drop a bit! I am using a Capital One credit card while in Canada since, as advertised on TV, they really don’t charge that exchange fee that some other cards do. I also called them before traveling so hopefully I won’t get denied at the pumps. So far so good.

Emerging from Highway 8, which was perfectly fine to travel, to TransCanada 1, we followed along the huge and very full Thompson River. The mountains seemed so much like the dry parts of Montana that I was really surprised, and then we would round a curve and there were deeply eroded badlands that looked ever so much like landscapes I have seen in Wyoming or Utah. Once we were on Highway 97 however, the landscape started to change, with pines showing up, and then suddenly we were back in lush green fir country, and we arrived at the small town of Clinton, BC.

The Gold Trail RV Park here seems to be a popular stop, and it was our choice because we wanted full hookups before we continue north to the Provincial Parks. It also has our CampClub USA discount, and even on a Saturday night, there was an opening for us. As I mentioned earlier, we decided to travel as much as possible without reservations, and so far it is working. Gold Trail Park has an interesting vibe, maybe you could call it “down home”? The owner in “interesting”, and very friendly, and he joked with us a lot while showing us to our site. Full hookups, and surprisingly level, for $17. Canadian. (I did use the ATM and my no fee debit card to get some Canadian cash back at the visitor center). For another 3 bucks in Canadian change I have darn fast WiFi to actually upload photos and catch up on blog posting!

There is a big bbq buffet here every night, fairly cheap at 9.95, but Mo and I didn’t really want an all you can eat thing, and decided instead to grill some Alaska cod from the freezer accompanied by the yummy salad from the Similkameen Valley. (Now I have to go to the internet to look up how to pronounce that name, since who has a clue which syllable get’s the emphasis!) OK, I can’t believe I never knew this, but if you type in “pronounce Similkameen” into the google search bar you will get this. Love it!

After supper we walked the extent of the town down one side and up the other in the evening light. Right on the Cariboo Highway, the town actually has an interesting history. Even though it was Saturday night and the museum was closed, the village has great signs throughout with historic photographs of the enterprises that once occupied the empty blocks taken from the same vantage point. The villagers have pride in their little community as well, with a town notice for clean up day to get ready for the town flower judges who will pass through later this month. Summer flowers or not, I can’t quite imagine living here through a long, dreary, icy winter.

The skies have been brilliantly blue so far throughout our trip, but this evening there are some clouds hovering to the north and the forecast may include rain as we continue. This evening has been quiet and gorgeous, the vistas are all brand new, the faces and people are all different, even the cars don’t look the same. I’m definitely on a long-distance road trip at last.

Distance driven today: about 255 miles

The rest of the photos for this day are linked here.

Family and Friends in the Desert

Our first preference for a destination wouldn’t necessarily be the big cities of Tucson and Phoenix. We both love the wide open vistas of the desert, preferably without telephone poles and skyscrapers, and miles and miles of traffic. However, another advantage of traveling in an RV is the opportunity to spend time with friends and family that we might not manage otherwise. Hence our decision to spend quite a bit of time both in Tucson and in Phoenix.

In addition to our friends in Sahuarita, we spent another day with a long time friend of Mo’s in Green Valley. Joan lives in another large gated retirement community with winding streets, a dog park, a community center, swimming pool, and lots of amenities nearby in Green Valley. Joan’s home is big and cool and with her recently glassed in patio, was a great place to leave Abby and her dog Rusty while we spent the day visiting the historic town of Tubac, just a few miles south.

Tubac was at one time a Presidio, and there is a nice state park in addition to several charming guest houses and a ton of interesting shopping choices. It was a bit like going to Mexico without having to go to Mexico, and some great art thrown in. We looked around town, enjoying the colorful pots and garden art, and exploring the Art Museum. Lunch was relaxed until Joan checked her messages and found out that Abby had been barking incessantly since we left and the neighbors were in a bit of a snit. Bummer. Abby is so good in so many ways, but the separation anxiety makes it hard to leave her anywhere except with a dog sitter who is paid to sit with her. We skipped the rest of our shopping excursion and rushed back home.

Once there, Abby was a perfect lady, lying quietly at Mo’s feet as if nothing was wrong at all. She is a perfect house guest, even if Mo isn’t there, she will be quiet and calm with whomever is caring for her. Only the slobbered up windows gave any indication that anything was ever wrong at all. We took the dogs to the dog park for some fun and then came back to Joan’s house for another lovely supper and more conversation around the dinner table. Once again, it was a long dark ride back to Tucson and home and the patiently waiting cat.

Early Wednesday morning we were back on the road heading for Phoenix. We did look into the Luke AFB Military Family Camp, but it certainly didn’t have the reputation of our previous digs at Davis-Monthan. The instructions said “choose a site and be sure the electricity is operating before you check in”. Another review referred to the constant barrage of fighter jet aircraft noise day and night. With temperatures in the 90’s this week, we definitely couldn’t boondock, so dipped into our Streets and Trips program to see what might be available north in Phoenix.

Just a few miles from one set of relatives, we found the Royal Palm Mobile Home and RV Resort. When it says “mobile home’ and ‘”resort” in the same line we usually figure we are in for one of those places that wants to sell a lot. Since it was a CampClub listed park, however, we called anyway. Sure enough, they had a spot with full hookups, 16 bucks a day. Electricity! Of course, the WiFi was extra, and I never did get it to work, and the owner gave me some sort of complex story about why they didn’t have cable tv, but it didn’t matter much because we were there to visit relatives, not relax in a city center kind of RV park. When we finally checked out the pool on our morning walk this morning before leaving, we decided it was pretty small for a park as big as this. It was also pretty darn warm!

We landed in early afternoon, immediately turned on the air conditioning and called the relatives to schedule a convenient time to visit. Once arrangements were made for the following day, we used the iPhone to check out what to do in Phoenix. Found another website, “The Fifteen Things to do While In Phoenix” and when we got to number 7, drive the Apache Highway, both of us said, “Yup, that’s it”. We could take the dog, be in the cool car, and still get out to see something interesting. I’ll write about that part of the day in a separate blog, because it was an incredible treat, and I took lots of photos. We didn’t get back to the park until late, and with a sandwich for supper we fell asleep with the windows open and the Fantastic Fan on full blast.

The next morning we first visited Mo’s cousin Jim, who with his wife Linda has lived in the Phoenix area since 1994. They love living here and love the convenience of their location in the city. Their home was at the base of a mountainous park nearby, and within a lovely resort now owned by the Hilton. Linda served us a great breakfast, and then Jim treated us (mostly me) to his technical savvy about all things computer related. He also showed many of his great photos taken with a Nikon D-60 on his huge flat screen very high def TV. Nice morning. Jim is very much into the family genealogy and we got a great tour through some family history and stories.

Mid-day, we had just enough time to get across Phoenix to Sun City Grand near Surprise to visit Mo’s Uncle Albert and his wife Caroline. They live in a sprawling, very elegant, Del Webb community with 4 18 hole golf courses, a huge recreation center, and a club for just about anything in the world you could want to do. Their home was all soft white and pristine, with wide open views of the golf course. Caroline served us lunch while Uncle Al continued the stories of the Ross family history. Mo’s mother was from a family of ten kids, and Uncle Al was one of the younger uncles. Mo has lots of great memories of the many uncles teaching her to play basketball, taking her fishing, and doing all sorts of fun things along the mighty Columbia River where she grew up.

We looked at many more historic family photos from the homestead in North Dakota, the cemeteries we visited last summer, and the family homes in St Helens, Oregon. What a family, and what a history! Of course, the wild ones, the skeletons in the closet were the most fun, with Billy Bob, hanged for horse stealing, being a star. Many of the uncles and cousins have history as military airmen and some have been commercial pilots. Mechanical skill seems to run in the family, so Mo comes by it naturally. Gee, with all those uncles and brothers, it’s no wonder.

Uncle Al kept us entertained until late in the afternoon, when Cousin Jim called and wanted to confirm an early evening date for drinks and supper at Aunt Chilada’s, near their home. We didn’t even have time to stop in to the MoHo to say hi to Jeremy, and just drove through the crazy traffic back across the city once more. Supper was also great, with lots more stories and laughs.

It was long after dark when we finally returned to our park and the patient cat sitting in the window wondering when we might settle down again. The last of the “visiting” is over now, and we are traveling north toward Laughlin before once again winding our way into some wild open desert landscape. Visiting is nice, it’s great to get to see relatives and friends, but it’s time for some companionable silence and wide open vistas, for sure!

Travel decisions and Grizzly Creek State Park

As we were driving over the winding mountain roads on Saturday, there was plenty of time to talk about all sorts of things. Among the conversations was the one often repeated, “So, we have at least ten good years of travel, right? When are we going to do the AlCan?”. When Mo bought the first MoHo back in 2005 she was already urging me to think about retiring so that we could take that famous road. Mo has some great photos of her first trip north in 1974 in a little Scout with some built in boxes on top to carry supplies. She scanned all the faded, slightly scratchy slides a few years ago, and we look at them and laugh at the stories about mosquitoes while thinking about that future trip someday in the MoHo.

The result of these conversations was a decision. We are embarking north around June 15th. One of the quandaries of this time of year for traveling is how much we love where we live in the summer. Not many places in the world prettier than Crater Lake and Recreation Creek in July, but Alaska is waiting and we aren’t getting any younger. I certainly don’t want to go there in the spring or fall, although I have heard some folks say that the road is actually better when it is frozen. Nah, I’ll take the mosquitoes and the cloudy skies over dealing with serious cold weather in the MoHo. I have read enough horror stories over the last few weeks of folks dealing with all the cold in the southern part of this country this year to know better. I am excited, to say the least. It is an epic trip, one for the bucket list, and I don’t want to miss it.

In the mean time, we will enjoy this week in what turned out to be foggy California and prepare for a hopefully warmer foray down to sunny Arizona in March for three weeks of desert time.

On our way here, we stopped overnight at a sweet little state park along Highway 36. In the gloomy evening, with fog dripping from the redwoods and no one around, it didn’t seem like much. With morning, however, in spite of the gloomy skies, the park revealed some of it’s delights.

Grizzly Creek State Park is located along the Van Duzen River on a place that has been used for rest for more than 150 years. Before that it was a lodging spot for the local tribes, rich with salmon, berries, and shelter. And yes, lots of poison oak, my particular bane of traveling in California. In 1946 it was established as a state park, and the amenities reflect this heritage. I didn’t see evidence of the CCC, but the visitor center is an old shingle building with a lot of character and the fire pits are old stone structures that speak of a long history of happy families and the days of car camping.

We had the entire park to ourselves on this Sunday morning, except for one lone fisherman who walked in from the highway to catch some of the salmon that still run on this river. Encouraging. There was one lone employee in the park office, and he said this park isn’t likely on the list of California park closures because it stands alone in the area. We discussed the ridiculously high California State Park camping rates and laughed about how silly it was. They keep trying to increase revenue and instead, most RV’rs avoid them like the plague because of the high cost. He then told us about the Van Duzen County Park just 4 miles down the road that looked very much the same, with river frontage and nice sites for $25.00 a night. No wonder the state park was empty. When we left, we passed the park, but missed the turn, so didn’t try to turn around on the narrow winding road to check it out. I guess that is why we have internet. I’ll go research it for the next time we come this way.

I was still glad we stayed there, just to contribute our fair share to the economy of California and the state park system. I wish California would recognize that these state parks are the true legacy of the state and assign lottery funds to support them the way Oregon has done. I don’t know of any state that has better state parks than Oregon.

The hushed forest was lovely, and I even found a vanilla leaf in bloom at the base of a huge redwood.

…

This morning we are in the Humboldt County Fairgrounds, at Fernwood. As Laurie said, it’s flat, especially where we are parked on the pavement at the edge of the park, just outside the fence, with our water and electric pedestal in easy reach. The camp host suggested this spot and it is perfect. There is a dump on the fair property and we are getting a few more channels on the TV this morning. Fox comes in the best, so we watched the game yesterday and enjoyed a quiet day in the MoHo since the fog never lifted the entire day.

Another amazing little perk is free, fast WiFi. I’m not sure how it happened, but I plugged in my booster that I bought in Desert Hot Springs, and up came a connection to Frontier with no password requirement. The guy who sold me this little gadget told me that I could pick up connections up to two miles away in some areas. I know its unsecured, so am careful, but it’s great to be connected. I am trying to complete my stories of my cruise and get them posted, ( by the actual date so they only show up in the January archives), uploading photos, and cruising the internet with abandon. Gotta love it.

Today we planned to kayak the Eel River Estuary, but looking out at the drippy, cold fog, we have decided to go exploring instead. The Co-Op in Eureka has some great goodies, and we haven’t yet seen Fortuna. Of course, the organic white cheddar cheese and home made roasted pineapple salsa awaits at the Loleta Cheese Factory. I guess sometimes it’s a good thing to return to places we have enjoyed previously.

The rest of the photos of the park are here.