Seattle

We stayed outside of Seattle for almost a week at Tall Chief Resort in Fall City. Mostly just hanging out & getting small repairs done & last minute prep for the trip into Canada. We did take a couple of days to do some sightseeing. Sat the Space Needle and "Pike Place Market" in Seattle. Nice fiews from the space needle, but it would have been better without the overcast and fog.

Pike Place Market is very interesting. Lots of shops to spend your money. Several Fish vendors selling fresh seafood. At this one place, the fish is displayed out front and when you buy one, an employee tosses it to another guy back behind the counter & he wraps it. It is quite a sight and there are always a lot of people standing around to watch the show.

We drove about 120 miles north today & are just south of Blaine, WA, which is on the US/Canadian border. Nell & Dave & us are planning to maybe do a little sightseeing. Again some last minute stuff like oil change & getting the dog groomed, then across the border on June 1.

Mt. Rainier

We met up with Nell & Dave today at an ROD park in Randle, WA. It was raining off & on all day, but we decided to take a drive to visit Mt. Rainier just in case we were able to see it.
Nell & Dave had visited Mt Rainier a couple of days earlier and had some great views of the Mountain and we were hoping the weather would clear enough for us to see it too.

We saw some beautiful scenery on the way through the park.
As we drove further into the park, we gained altitude and the temp started to drop.
The rain ended......Well it turned more solid anyway.


We went as far as "Paradise" which is a visitor's center at about 5000 ft. The rest of the roads in the park were closed due to snow at higher elevations and flooded roads at lower elevations.


We never were able to see Mt. Rainier because when we would have been able to see it, it was snowing too hard to see any more than about 100 yards.



Yes, that last pic is a snow drift which goes onto the roof of the visitors center at "Paradise."
Now I remember why we left WI.

Columbia River Gorge

We spent this afternoon touring the Columbia River Gorge, just east of Portland. There are a number of beautiful waterfalls and awsome vistas. It rained off & on all afternoon, but we need to practice sightseeing in the rain, so it will be old hat when we get to Alaska.

It's been a few days since my last update. We've been without wi-fi for the past week, but we have been quite busy. First, Nell & Dave & us visited Craig & Barb Roberts in Florence, OR. We went for several drives along the coast and also went out on the dunes for a tour on a "dune-bus"

Jan & I then went 40 miles up the coast to Newport, OR. The first thing that we did was head to the "Bay Front" to meet the official Newport welcoming committee. We visited with Ron & Sandy Hunter. We met them in Kino Bay this past winter. Their friends, Tom & Kay were also there & we had met them in Kino also. They took us around for more sightseeing. Lighthouses and some interesting tidal pools.

Yaquina Head Light

We spent 2 days visiting with Dave & Deanna Dahlberg, friends from St. Lucas back in Milwaukee. Dave was a teacher at St. Lucas and moved to the west coast 6 years ago. We haven't seen them since then, so it was great to spend some time with them. They took us out exploring the coast again, this time north or Lincoln City. We had some wonderful expeiences. We saw our first whale and saw a family of periguine falcons nesting on a cliff. We also had a young eagle soar about 30 feet over our heads. Unfortunately, we did not get pictures of any of them. The whale was quite far out & we needed binoculars to see it. The falcons were also too far away. We couldn't even see them with the binoculars, but there was a guy from Oregon DNR monitoring them & he had a powerful spotting scope that enabled us to see them. There were 3 babies in the nest & the male was feeding them. The female had been in the nest, but flew off when the male returned with the meal for the young-uns. Jan had the camera when the eagle flew over, but was too busy looking at it & forgot to get a picture. We also went to the "world famous" Tillamook Cheese Factory (in Tillamook) and bought some cheese (very good, even though it's not made in WI.) We took a hike to a waterfall with them also.

Munson Falls

Mears Point Light

Oregon Part 2

Yesterday, we had a little "adventure." We decided to take a drive to see a couple of waterfalls that Jan read about in a travel brochure she picked up at the RV park. The only problem is that there were no directions on how to get there. It only said, "Northeast of Coos Bay." No problem, right? Just punch it in on my trusty DeLorme GPS mapping program and follow the map with the GPS. Well it seems that "Myrtle" (our pet name for the GPS) does not know the difference between a real road and a logging road. So we set off for the 1/2 hr drive to the waterfalls. Well, after about 45 minutes, we realized that we were deep in the mountains and the roads were getting narrower by the minute. And on top of that, the roads that Myrtle had us following didn't all exist. After 2 hours, we were all more than a little concerned. But thank God for the Coast Guard. Well not really the Coast Guard, but for one off duty Coastguardsman, who happened to be out in the mountains scouting for hunting sites. Just as we came to a "T" in one of the logging roads, he drove past. He stopped when I began frantically blowing the horn and flashing the lights. He gave us his Forest Service map, showed us where we were and told us how to get out and how to get to the falls. Never did get his name. We finally did get to the "Golden and Silver Falls." They were very pretty.

Today, we drove 37 miles up the coast to visit our friends, Craig & Barb Roberts, another couple we met in Kino Bay. They took us to see Heceta Head Lighthouse and some awsome coastline.

There are about a hundred Sea Lions lying on the furthest point, but we don't have a lens capable of zooming in enough to make them any more visible.

Tomorrow we are going for a ride on the dunes.

N to Alaska - Oregon

We crossed into Oregon yesterday. had some great views along the coast. Like Arch Rock.

Today, we visited the Umpqua River Lighthouse in Winchester Bay. We intended to take in some more sights, like the sand dunes, but it started raining and we went out for lunch and called it a day.

This lighthouse is a little different than the others we have toured.
We actually could go inside the lens.

N to Alaska - Redwoods

We spent a full day exploring Redwoods State Park and the "Avenue of the Giants." We stayed in Garberville, CA at a quaint little RV park May 5th & 6th. We took a drive thru some backroads to the coast in the morning. The first 1/2 hour of the drive was very beautiful. Actually the entire drive was very beautiful, but driving on the narrow winding road with 15% grades got a little tiring after a while. The coast was almost worth the drive though.

We stopped for a picnic lunch in a little town named Ferndale. Almowt all of the buildings in town are Victorian architecture. Even most of the older homes are Victorian. We were hoping to have a nice leisurely lunch, but it was cold and very windy, so we ate quickly.

From there, we went to the Avenue of the Giants, which is a 30 mile section of road that used to be US Hwy 101. What a beautiful place.

Pictures can not capture the beauty and size of these trees. They are every bit as awe inspiring as the Giant Sequoias we saw last year.

We spent the entire afternoon driving and walking around amongst these giants.

Someday, it would be great if we could just spend a week here and just soak in the beauty.