Behind the Redwood Curtain

After leaving  Crater Lake we had no reservations and had no luck finding a campground on our route with an opening. Our backup plan was to stop at the rest area on I5 at Valley of the Rogue State park, but it was just plain Closed. I assume it was for lack of funding – what a shame, looked like a great place as we drove by.  So, back to our plan C – Walmart. We did need to do some shopping anyway, so Grants Pass Walmart it was.

Then we had a full day for our next drive. Even though it was well under 200 miles, it was a very scenic route and included yet another National Park, right on the way. Redwoods National Park.

The last time we were here, we didn’t have the National Park Passport. Now, whenever we’re near a national park, we have to stop at least to get our passport stamped … so we can prove we’ve been there? Aren’t the pictures, and the blog, and Facebook, and Google+ … enough? I guess I just have a love of stamped passports! So, we stopped at the Visitor Center which isn’t in the Redwoods at all! It’s right on the beach.

Then we drove thru some Redwoods. It’s not just one park, they even call it Redwoods National and State Parks – there’s a whole series of them as you drive thru this area. And then there are the private attractions as well.

Our purpose in coming this route was to see our old Datastorm User Group friends Don and Joy. They let us park in their driveway and we stayed a couple nights. The first day we went geocaching in the local city park. It’s called Sequoia for good reason!

Joy and Chris admiring a tree

Don and Joy take us Geocaching in their local, city park!

When telling us a bit about their history here in Eureka, Don mentioned that they liked being “Behind the Redwood Curtain!” The weather is always cool with fog from the Pacific. It’s a bit isolated, so they have their own culture, and not a lot of outside interference. It also means they can be a bit lacking in services – all the gas stations seem to have an agreement on the prices, and Internet connections are not the greatest. Don told us that there is only one Internet trunk line in and out of the area and it’s owned by AT&T. Verizon has to lease from them. And, yes, our Verizon connection was nowhere near as good as it has been in most cities we’ve visited. But it was better than on the road here! I don’t think we’ve driven anywhere in this country where we’ve been out of cell service for as long as we were on the drive here. Not even in the Rocky Mountains.

We also went to lunch with Don and Joy at a restaurant with a great view down by the Marina. We watched boats come and go and noticed several signs for fresh tuna for sale. Let’s check it out! We expected to be able to buy a couple of tuna steaks, but no, they were selling the whole fish. They asked if we wanted them to clean and filet it .. uh … yes please. We ate some that night and froze the rest. I had no idea tuna could taste SOO good.

After leaving Don and Joy’s, we drove thru Avenue of the Giants … I think this is what I remember as THE Redwood Forest.

Pack up, Take a Drive, See a Lake

The rally's over, where'd everybody go? We're never in a hurry to leave - we're tired and enjoy a day of rest after rallies like this. Besides, we had our weekly "What Does This Button Do? Internet show to do on Sunday. When we got back from breakfast, we found that the electricity had been turned off. Oh well, this wasn't the first time we had to do our show on generator power.

Here's my desk after the show is over. We use, and demonstrate, lots of different computers, smartphones, and tablets!

After the show we just took a leisurely walk around the fairgrounds. We always marvel at how these mini-cities can get all set up, be active, then disappear within 5 day's time.

Where'd everybody go?

 On Monday we also took it easy. We had to take Ally to the airport, then we planned to hit the road and head south. Our next destination was to visit friends in Eureka, CA. We didn't really expect to do anything in between. I was actually looking forward to some boring drive time to relax, but it wasn't to be! I looked at the map and noticed how close Crater Lake was. And, there appeared to be a route that would take us right by the lake and continue on towards Grant's Pass. So long to boring!

I'm sure glad Jim was driving! It was a narrow, curvy road with some steep dropoffs on the outside edge.

We stopped at a couple of places in order to walk around and enjoy Crater Lake.

Crater Lake is a stunning sight

I like this photo that Jim took with the Fisheye setting on his phone.

Just another drive? NOT!

A great viewpoint at the southern end of Crater Lake

Wizard Island and Crater Lake

Gotta have a selfie at Crater Lake!

Another angle on Wizard island and Crater Lake

And what a gorgeous day we had for Crater Lake

I liked this tree stump in the foreground of Crater Lake

The HDR photos above
You might notice that a few of the pictures above look almost like paintings rather than photographs - the colors are too vivid and the lines are too etched. That's because they are actually 3 pictures put together as one in what is called HDR, standing for High Dynamic Range. This is more than the HDR setting on your smartphone or tablet. I took the 3 originals with my Canon T3i digital SLR camera and then uploaded them to Google+. The auto-awesome feature puts the 3 originals together into a 4th HDR picture. Then I decide which ones I like and include them with my photo library. I know that some of them are a bit too much, but once you start getting used to them, the real photos look so plain.  If you want to know more about how Auto-Awesome works, here's an article I wrote about a different type of Auto-Awesome: http://picasageeks.com/2014/05/picasa-tip-smile-its-auto-awesome/
If you have a Verizon Unlimited Data plan:
And, on another techie note: we've just heard a notice from RVMobileInternet.com (a service by Technomadia) that the loophole that has allowed many of us to upgrade our smartphone while still keeping our Unlimited Data Plan - is going away soon. You cannot upgrade your phone at the subsidized price and keep your Unlimited data plan, but some Verizon reps have been willing to use a technique of swapping plans with another line. The Verizon representative who performed the upgrade for me is Ryan and his number is (740) 403-8414. If you have a smartphone with a Verizon Unlimited Data plan and you want to keep it while upgrading to a new phone - call him, or someone willing to do this Verizon contract swap before the 'swapping plans' loophole is closed on August 24.

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Rocky Mountain National Park

Some of the most spectacular sights in the world are at Rocky Mountain National Park.  We had to visit, even though we just had a couple of days.  Being a Floridian, we thought that May 30 would be a fine time to visit mountains.  Welllll … many roads are still closed due to snow, it’s COLD and WINDY, and we even had to walk in the snow.  But, we did see some awesome sights:

Here’s the view right from our campsite:

 

 

We drove as far as we could up the Trail Ridge road.  Right before the road closure in an overlook.  W O W

Make sure to click on this picture to see it bigger (then, to come back click the x in the upper right of the picture).  It’s actually 6 pictures stitched together using Windows Photo Gallery.  I wrote an article about how to do this, if you want to know more click here.

The next day, we took the park shuttle up to Bear Lake.  We felt like quite the adventurers there!  It may have been only a half mile walk, but in the cold and snow we felt like we had a wilderness experience!

 

 

I think this little guy was laughing at us!  Saying, “You folks are from Florida … I can tell!”

 

I mean, “really?!”

 

After the shuttle took us back down the mountain, we drove to another part of the park where there was a short easy trail by the name of Copeland Falls Trail – sounds good.

Lots of Aspen at these lower elevations, just sprouting their new, spring attire.

No snow, still cold:

 

 

 

After that delightful hike, we found a scenic route back to the RV.  We drove thru a canyon on St. Vrain Drive east to the town of Lyons.

 

That was it for our visit to Rocky Mountain National Park.  Our friends Howard and Linda, of RV-Dreams.com did a much better job just the week before us.  The Trail Ridge Road was open when they were there, and they saw lots more wildlife than our little chipmunk!  Check out their blog for some real hiking pictures!  Gem Lake Hike  and The Loch Hike.  Hey!  With friends that take pictures like that we can feel like we’ve already been there done that!  Thanks Howard and Linda!

On our way out the next day, we ended up on another canyon road (hwy 34 to Loveland) and I made Jim pull over so I could get a picture of ‘Big-Boy’ our RV, on the road.

Capulin Volcano National Monument, New Mexico

This was pure serendipity.  We're on our way to Colorado Springs, Colorado.  On our route thru northeast New Mexico, we used our Passport America app on our smartphone to find a place to park the RV for the night. We found Capulin RV Park, and it was delightful.  We got hooked up to their 50 amp electric service, put our slides out, and settled in. We had seen a sign for Capulin Volcano National Monument and had no idea what it was, but the owners at the park said it was very worthwhile, so we determined to make the short, 3 mile trip to the park in the morning.

We stopped at the visitor's center and watched the short video - we love to get the overview that way.  We also bought a new annual National Parks pass for $80. We plan to see a lot of National Parks this summer, and wanted to be ready!  We also splurged and bought the $8 passport, a little book that lists all the national park properties and gives you a place to stamp a page for every property you visit.

Then we drove up to the top of the Volcano and took the mile loop walk around the rim.  At over 6,000 feet and uphill, we were really huffing and puffing, but OH THE VIEWS!

 

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North Dakota on the Map – Bully!

We were actually in North Dakota in 2005, but we flew here – so that doesn’t count!  This state has been the one gaping hole in our map for a couple years now, so we made a point to route our travels this way so we could finish the map.

 

Whenever we spoke to fellow RVers about the missing N Dakota, we normally got sympathy and the acknowledgement that ‘there’s nothing there!.’  We were beginning to wonder if N Dakota actually existed, there were so many fellow RVers who had been everywhere BUT here.  Then we started to hear, “Oh – except for Roosevelt Nat’l Park, that’s awesome.”  So, we planned a stay at Roosevelt Nat’l Park and made reservations (got the last spot!) at Medora Campground. 

We pulled in about 3 pm and took a look at the posters on the wall of the office and noticed ‘Bully!’ a one-man play about Theodore Roosevelt.  It only plays on Friday and Monday at 4 pm.  This was Friday – let’s go!  We parked, plugged in and took off, and we’re so glad we did.  It was a wonderful performance that really brought the man to life with all his energy, intelligence, and caring.  Jim has often been mistaken for TR – so I couldn’t resist taking his picture with the man himself – actually the actor

How full-of-life that man was.  Makes me want to read a book about Teddy Roosevelt.  I’ll have to search on the Kindle and see what I can find. 

Next we took the drive thru the park … a 36 mile scenic drive with several opportunities for walks and overlooks.

 

 

We also saw some wildlife.  Both small …

and LARGE …

So, this morning, we could put North Dakota on the map.  You must sleep in a state before it can legally be claimed on your travel map!  I figure that Jim did all the driving so I let him have the honors.

Now what?  Are we done?  Or do we just start all over again?  Oh yes, I know Alaska still needs to be done.  We don’t have any plans for RVing there any time soon.  We are going to take the Alaska cruise this Fall.  That will probably be enough for us.  I lived in Alaska as a kid.  My family drove the Alcan highway 5 times.  It is extraordinarily wild and beautiful … but I don’t have a burning desire to RV there.  I *would* like to recreate my family’s RV trip thru Mexico and Guatemala.

There is NO WAY we’re done.  I feel like we’re just getting started.  I see so many places on the map that we are going by and I’d like to stay a while.  I have a count somewhere – but I think we’re only about halfway thru the National Parks.  And, then there are the rails to trails bike rides, and the kayaking places, and the observatories, and the wineries, and the fish hatcheries, and the …