Today we awoke early as we were heading around Puget Sound to our last overnight stop in the USA, Lynden, WA which is just South of Abbotsford, BC our destination for the next day.
These is a way from Port Angeles to Bellingham using ferries; however, we found that these were already fully booked and so we would have to drive to Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle and then onto Bellingham before turning toward Lynden. This would take about 2 hours longer but as we had the time we enjoyed the scenery and didn’t dwell on it as an inconvenience.
Approaching Olympia we’re down at sea levelHowever, our borrowed GPS thinks we’re a little lower than that! (BTW, notice the name of the road we’re approaching) 😜Arriving in Seattle. The Space Needle can be seen near the left side of the skylineThe I-5 takes you right under the downtown core of the city
Arriving at the KOA in Lynden, we quickly setup camp and set about relaxing after a day of traffic jams and busy roads. Tomorrow we go home to Canada!
Today we packed up our campsite and headed toward the Northern shore of the state of Washington. We would drive around Olympic National forest in which is Mount Olympia; however, the weather would not give us a chance to see the mountain as it started raining shortly after we left the campground and rained all day.
Leaving Warrenton and heading towards Astoria, ORColorful Astoria, OR
About an hour North of Astoria, Barb finds that South Bend, WA has a statue of the worlds largest oyster. We stopped and in the rain located the statue. Voila!
South Bend, WAOlympic National Park / Forest
We stopped in Forks, WA at the Timber Museum and ate lunch in the van before touring the museum. Although small they had some fascinating relics from the BIG timber days of 100 years or so ago.
Forks, WATreehouse
At the other end of the town of Forks, another museum displayed thousands of items that the owner, John, had collected over the past 47 years from the beaches in the area along the Washington coast. Although a high percentage of his collection is fishing floats, he also has a large collection of items from the 2011 Japanese tsunami that washes across the Pacific.
I managed to get up early this morning and go for an hour long walk. The first of the trip ☹️
The walk took me along the shore of a small lake near our campsite and then I headed toward the beach. It’s early so there was almost nobody about.
Coffenbury lake
I managed to get these two pictures of what remains of the wreck of the Peter Iredale. This was a 3-masted steel hulled barque that ran aground in 1906 during bad weather when trying to navigate into the Columbia River just a half mile North.
Peter Iredale – bowPeter Iredale -masts
After returning to the campsite, we spent a relaxing morning enjoying the sunshine albeit somewhat cool at just 14 degrees C.
After lunch we decided to take our bikes down onto the beach to ride them along the hard packed sand.
Riding South along the beachOur Rad Power Bikes RadMini’sTony found a much better cell signal and did some writing.Barb enjoying the experience of riding on the sand
For dinner we enjoyed steak, potatoes and grilled vegetables with some wine we picked up at Arcadian Moon Winery in Higginsville, Missouri. For the record, the mosquitoes were really bad and the citronella candle was required to have them leave us alone.
Today was the first of two full days we are spending at Fort Stevens State Park, a little downtime from traveling and time to enjoy the West coast a little.
View South along the beachWreck of the Peter Iredale (1906)We rode our bikes on trails to the Northern end of the beachWild Rhododendron View Eastward from the tops of the dunes and across the Columbia River toward the state of Washington
Last evening a small thunderstorm rolled through shortly after we had setup at the campground. This morning it is dry and we awoke early to use the showers, they were clean and the hot water was plentiful. Ahhh.
We ‘treated’ ourselves to a McDonald’s breakfast (our first fast food on the trip) and then we topped off on provisions at the Walmart before getting back onto the I-84 towards Portland,OR.
Leaving Pendleton the highway takes one last drop down into the Columbia river valley. For the next few hours we drive alongside this majestic river passing several large hydro-electric dams. Our route is shared with the railroads that also recognized this as a good route up from the ocean and into the heartland of the continent.
Columbia River
As we get closer to Portland we notice that the grasslands of the higher elevations have given way to more arable lands and then forests of tall cedars and firs. A clear indication that we are now on the West cost of the continent.
Mt. Hood Historic railwayHood River, OR
Along with these forests we witnessed a significant increase in the number of logging trucks on the road.
At Portland, we turn North and join I-5 into the state of Washington for a short drive to Longview, WA where we once again turn west and back into Oregon towards the coast. Longview is clearly a lumber town as we saw huge yards of logs being stored and awaiting shipping overseas where they will be turned into finished goods for shipping back to North America.
As we head towards Astoria, OR we realize that for the past two weeks we had been watching our elevation on the GPS rise from a few hundred meters to several thousand and now that we are near the coast, it is reading less than 50 meters. Before long this should be close to 0 meters as our target for the day is Fort Stevens State Park, OR.
Arriving in Astoria, we notice on Google maps that the primary bridge to the park is closed for maintenance and so Barb re-routes us across the town toward and alternate bridge. This new route through town turns out to be a 40% road upwards over the ridge and down the other side. I want you to think about San Francisco but in an RV. I head toward the hill now staring me in face and ask Barb, “are you sure?” To which the answer is “Yes” and so upwards we go, past the sign for ‘No trucks allowed’, up, up, up and over the top. Of course, the van made it and we were reminded of not blindly trusting what a map might suggest. We laughed at what the folks living on the street might have been thinking.
Arriving at Fort Stevens State Park we get ourselves settled as we are staying here for 3 nights to wind down and enjoy some time off-grid. Internet is not very reliable here and so a few days might go by before further posts are made. Back soon!
A dry morning awaited us as we looked out across the vineyard, today we are driving into Oregon.
We’ve learned that the Oregon trail passed through Glenn’s Ferry, so named because of the ferry service that once existed here. The Snake river at his point is fairly fast flowing and wide, and during the 1800’s many wagons and animals were lost attempting to cross the river at a point where three islands exist. This prompted the creation of a ferry service which existed for many years assisting those wagon trains heading westward to the coast. Although the ferry service no longer exists, it is remembered in the town name as does the 3 Islands crossing as many businesses use this name.
Our first stop of the day is in Boise, ID at an Oregon trail historical site. The area is now a park where many walk their dogs; but back in the 1800’s it was a crossing point of several trails and a location from which settlers would have had their first glimpses of the fertile Boise river plain. Many would call this far enough and today Boise is a prosperous city surrounded by lush farmland. Yes, they grow a lot of potatoes in this valley.
Oregon trail historical site
Leaving the Boise river valley, we climbed again into the hills and the land became more grassland and rolling. Stopping at a rest stop in one of these valleys, we enjoyed lunch in the van as we watched a variety of travelers exercise their dogs.
After lunch, we continued westward and the fauna changed again to coniferous forests. By mid-afternoon we were back at about 1500m and approaching Deadman Pass, a 6 mile 6% downhill grade that twists and turns it’s way out of the Oregon hills. We stopped at a viewing sight at the top where we could see the vehicles descend and appear to shrink into Tonka toys as they drove down the hill.
Deadman pass
Once at the bottom of the pass, we only had a few miles to drive before we arrived at Pendleton, OR. Tonight we are staying at the KOA in town and it is full, I think we got one of the last sites, but the full hookups and hot showers will be welcomed. Tomorrow we head to the coast.
Turns out that the I-15 was a little too close for Barb to get a good nights sleep. Tony, heard nothing…. Typical.
A fairly early start to today as we’re off to Idaho (5 1/2 hours). A quick top off on fuel and then to Walmart for a few provisions before jumping back onto the freeway.
The Salt Lake City area is a lot like Toronto in that all the nearby communities have now just blurred into one enormous metroplex. From Santaquin the 75km North to where we turned West on I-80 was all built-up urban landscape.
Turning West onto I-80 took us out across the Salt Lake valley at the Southern edge of Salt Lake, here there is nothing, and I mean nothing but the road and a railway track. Eventually we came to the Western edge of the Salt flats and one of the most famous places in the world for those trying to set land speed records, the Bonneville Speedway.
Of course there’s also nothing there, but the salt. Each year USAC marks out a new 10mile long “track” along which the speed demons will run their cars, motorcycles and other equipment. The picture below shows the area in which this happens, the mountains in the photo are evidently more than 10miles away. The vastness of this space is overwhelming as there are no reference points against which to measure distances.
Above you can see a few hardy brave souls who have taken their vehicles out onto the salt flats. We hope that they all immediately go to a car wash after leaving as the cars are covered with salt ‘dust’ after simply driving about.
Returning to the I-80 we quickly cross the state line into Nevada where we continued westward for about 45min before turning North towards Twin Falls, ID.
Rolling grasslands reminded me a little of the Scottish highlands at times with some epic vistas. The picture below shows an area where it appears all of the smaller boulders that were in a glacier were just dropped leaving this hillside strewn with them.
Arriving in Twin Falls we cross the Snake River canyon just West of the site where in 1974, Evel Knievel attempted to jump a steam powered rocket bike across the canyon. Evidently the ramp on which he built the launch structure still survives.
Turning again toward the West we drive to Glenn’s Ferry, ID where we would be staying at the Y Knot Winery. We enjoyed a prime rib dinner and sampled some of their wines before retiring to the van where we watched a movie before settling down for the night.
A warm and sunny morning awaited us in Moab. This was the view from our campsite looking West as the sun lit up the rocks.
After enjoying a breakfast outside at the campsite we packed up and headed out to Ken’s Lake Campground (BLM) just South of town where we hopped on our bikes and rode to a scenic waterfall.
Off-road cycling in Moab, UT
We also saw lots of these cacti in bloom. something that neither of us had ever seen before.
Having enjoyed a small amount of outdoors time we reloaded the bikes onto the rack and resumed our travels. This time towards Salt Lake City. Our journey today saw us say ‘so long’ to I-70 for after several days of it carrying us Westward, we would now turn Northerly and take US 191 through the mountains. The drive was spectacular as was the scenery. Even the sky offered up its beauty as can be seen in the following picture.
We stopped in Green River, UT for gas and Barb had to take a picture of the Sinclair company mascot. They at least understand the source of the petroleum we consume.
Woody, Buzz, isn’t that a great looking van?
A few hours after setting out we came down out of the mountains and into the Salt Lake valley. We stayed at the South end of the valley in Santaquin. Rowley’s Red Barn were our hosts. This is a ‘farm shoppe’ that sells homemade fruit pies made from the fruit grown on the farm; however, they also sell other items such as ice cream, preserves, cheese, fresh produce and as shown in the picture below, a large variety of classic soda pop. I enjoyed an old style lemonade and Barb had Butter Beer.
Nope, none of these are sugar-free.
Unfortunately the camping location is adjacent to I-15 and we’re both hoping the traffic noise does not make for a restless night.
We awake with the temperature having dropped to zero Celsius early this morning. We ran the electric cube heater all night and it appears to have warded off any freezing issues with our water lines. Phew! I did however have a restless night thinking about what might have happened. Hopefully I shall sleep better tonight in Moab, UT.
Yes, that’s snow in June.
Today I ran out of superlatives for the views and scenery through which we drove in Colorado. Stunning, Incredible, Amazing, Wow. We’ve already decided to come back and spend far more time exploring this amazing state.
Eisenhower tunnel, elevation 3,401m (11,158ft) and 2.72km long under continental divide
We climbed upwards for the first part of the morning until we reached the Eisenhower tunnel (above). It took under the continental divide, meaning that after we exit all rivers will lead to the Pacific Ocean.
Exiting the tunnel we descended down a 7% grade for 13km (8miles). A good test of nerves and equipment and then onto Vail, CO and the driving was easier (not so quick Tony).
Another long uphill and then a tunnel led to another (albeit shorter) 8km (5miles) 6% downhill section. This would be the last of the big downhills, but there was still many more smaller sections to negotiate.
Eventually the scenery changed and the mountains became shorter and more grass and scrub covered instead of tree covered as they were earlier in the day. We approached Grand Junction and yet again the scenery had changed to be much more desert-like. All around us now we’re flat topped Mesa’s.
Soon we had crossed into Utah and the temperature was 32 degrees C. Not much grows here. Turning down Hwy 191 into Moab, the rocks turned red and the number of campers increased significantly. Moab as a town was not really to our liking, overly commercial and too busy. We passed through on our way to the KOA that would once again be our home for the night. A nice site in a well kept campground. We’d recommend both this and the previous nights stay.
A gorgeous sky awaited us this morning, the light was painting in various blues and greys and as the sun rose it changed almost by the second.
The morning routine is becoming more natural for us now as we each ‘dance’ around each other in the van doing the things we do to prepare for the day. Pulling out of the Winery we both were still in awe of this beautiful place set unassumingly in the prairie grasslands. As we drove away, we captured this picture in an effort to show the isolation.
Today we are driving towards Denver and the Rocky Mountains; however, we took a quick detour into Oakley, KS to see the monument to Buffalo Bill. A huge bronze statue of the rifleman chasing and shooting at a buffalo during one of the ‘hunts’ held in the 1800’s paints a stark reminder of life in the Wild West.
Light showers accompanied us for most of the morning as the elevation slowly climbed first above 1000m and then 1500m. We arrived in Denver and rains had subsided allowing us to see how the mountains spring from the plains with the city right at the base acting as a gateway into the Rocky Mountains.
We took a detour to Red Rocks Ampitheatre and park. This incredible live performance venue has been built into a natural sandstone ampitheatre that is nestled within the foothills just outside of Denver. It is open to the public for exploring between events, and so we took a chance and luckily we’re able to go in and explore.
In the panoramic shot above you can see how the seating and stage have been built into these incredible red rocks (thus the name). You can also in the distance see the city of Denver.
Tonight we are camping at a KOA in Central City, CO just West of Denver at an elevation of 2594m (8510ft). There are still some piles of snow around and the overnight temperature will get perilously close to 0 degrees.
