A very late entry....

If you have been following our blog and wondered what happened to it, never fear, it’s not your computer. I just haven’t finished one in time to post it before we move on. We have been dry camping ever other night, so no WiFi. Internet withdrawal has definitely set in.

Our adventures yesterday (Monday, May 16) took us to Salt Lake City where, as I said, we hoped to see the Mormon Temple and the Great Salt Lake. I speak for myself when I say that I would have liked to park and walk around some of the numerous Mormon buildings (Cliff offered to drop me off and then he’d circle) and get some remarkable pictures of the Temple, but there were NO parking spaces to be found. After circling the block several times, I gave up and admitted that I really didn’t care all that much. It would have been nice to have a couple of weeks to spend in the genealogy building – but some other time maybe. The state capitol building looks a lot like the Notre Dame Cathedral but I couldn’t get a picture of it because of the trees surrounding it. The interstate skirts the GSLake but we were not able to see it. When I go back to visit the genealogy library, I’ll also visit the lake.  Right!  Upon seeing all of the buildings in downtown Salt Lake City owned and dedicated to the Latter Day Saints, I was reminded of the Scientologists and how they bought and took over downtown Clearwater. There were well dressed young men standing on the street corner near the temple who looked much like the Scientologists in downtown Clearwater.

Monday night (the 16th) we dry camped in the Wal-Mart RV campground, otherwise known as their parking lot, with several other RVers and truckers in the small, attractive town of Twin Falls, Idaho, population 35,000. The store was the fanciest Wal-Mart we have ever seen (and newest). However, the only thing important to us was a flat spot to park so the fridge would not crap out. The Snake River has made a dramatic impact on Twin Falls just as the Colorado made an impact on the Grand Canyon. We walked out onto the bridge crossing the gorge and I took LOTS of pictures. After seeing a golf course overlooking the river gorge, we both came to the same conclusion: What a water hazard! 

We had a day of surprises today (Tuesday, May 17) – we got misplaced twice (not lost, because I’m here on the Internet posting to our blog) and also took a side trip that netted us almost 100 miles that were outside our travel budget. But all was not lost since we managed to recover our route nicely.

Today’s mileage was 547 miles, for a grand total of 2,156. My butt hurts. Today we had some sunshine (not much), rain, sleet and snow. Oh, and some strong winds – again.

Tonight (Tuesday, the 17th) we are camped in the nicest campground that we have experienced. It is Crown Villa in Bend, OR, and I will be putting my comment on their website tomorrow. We washed and dried clothes, Cliff had Beanie Weenies for supper, and it rained. That sums it up. Since we entered Oregon, we have seen a lot of flooding. The guy who pumped our gas (no self-serve in Oregon) said they have had some of all forms of precipitation in the last few weeks. As he was telling us this, we could see his breath vapors.

We headed to Crater Lake Wednesday and after that we will seek excitement in and around Oregon and Washington. My shoes were inappropriate for the climb up the snow hill to see Crater Lake in person. As a matter of fact, because my shoes were terribly wrong for the job, I fell upon my butt-a-cuss and wet my pants. No, not that kind of wet. Cliff however got to the top of the snow hill and took some really nice photos. See insert and see more on Facebook. We had lunch (hot dogs) in a parking lot near the scene of the “accident” (my fall). No, I was not hurt – bruised but not hurt – unless you count my dignity. However, now my butt really hurts. I was not happy to get that close to Crater Lake and not be able to ford the snow to see it in person. Grrrrrr.

We did some backtracking around the park (it’s huge) and we are now in yet another Wal-Mart RV lot. It’s easy to find the flat spots in the parking lot. Look for other RVs. We think that Wal-Mart must be aware of this phenomenon and have planned their parking lots accordingly. After all, if you can afford a motor home like the one parked in front of us right now (towing a Honda Pilot) you are going to need supplies. It has worked out well for us for our stocking up and dry camping. Tomorrow night we will look for a place that charges and has WiFi.

We’re on our second audio book, both by the same author. It’s a great distracter, unless I get so distracted that I forget to pay attention to the GPS/map and we go astray. Well, it happens. Grrrrr, again. Maybe DUH.

The many miles that we traveled to get to Crater Lake proved to be filled with scenes of snow the likes of which I have never seen. The annual snow fall in this national park is over 40 feet. As we went toward the park, I took numerous pictures of snow drifts that were MUCH higher than the motor home. When we left the rim it had begun to snow. That’s two days in a row that we have been snowed on. Two Floridians – what’s wrong with this picture?

We have calculated that we have approximately five to six days to spend in Oregon and Washington. We want to go along the Pacific coast to see if we can get some Dungeness crabs, and then Mt. Hood and the “Fruit Loop”, and Mt. St. Helen. There is a big issue with road closures this time of the year. Once we enter Canada, it will take us most of six days to get to Anchorage. We don’t want to cut it too close on the Anchorage end of the trip. Well, mostly because we found a couple of very good restaurants on our trip last year and by that time we will be looking forward to a meal cooked by someone else. However, the fresh salmon last year was the very BEST food ever.