World Wide Wanderment

I picked up all the dogs from boarding and Tucker seemed to survive his first ever boarding experince just fine. He was certainly happy to see me, but it sounds like he had a good time playing with all the other dogs. In the large play area there are a pair of kids play houses, by kids play houses I mean a six foot by six foot by six foot multi colored plastic house. According to the owner of the kennel Tucker took a liking to one of them and when not playing with the other dogs, which he did plenty of, he would lay on the upper level with his head sticking out one of the windows just watching the action. I’d really love a photo of that, maybe next time.

On Monday I finally had a day all to myself and the dogs. Which meant I could finally catch up on blogs, flickr, photos, laundry, etc… whoo hoo! One might think that I have lots of free time, not really so… I’m almost always doing something with someone, which I love. I think some people misunderstand when I say “I’m traveling alone”. There is very little alone about it. The exception to that would be the actual driving during the cross country part, but even then I’d occasionally meet up with some random stranger here or there for a chat.

On Tuesday I started the day by helping Em re-landscape thier front yard. We headed down to the nursery togeter to get some large plants and then spent the rest of the morning planting bushes and trees in front of thier new porch. We planted a half dozen new bushes and trees as well as some small grasses. It all came out very nice and it was really quite fun to be digging in the dirt again. Here’s the before and after shot of the front yard, also note the beautiful new porch. (after shot is coming I seem to have forgotten to take it).

On Thursday morning I got all my escrow paperwork done fairly quickly. It wasn’t as bad as I expected, it all seemed much more over whelming when I bought the house five years ago, but maybe that was because I was signing a new mortgage as well. With all pages signed and/or initialed, last minute lease documents received by fax, all that I needed to do was run by AAA to get the final signature notarized before dropping it all in a DHL pickup box. It all went smoothly and I picked up maps for the entire northeast while at AAA. I’d taken Tucker with me and took the opportunity to stop by the kennel he’ll be staying at when necessary. Tucker has never been kenneled, I’ve always been able to get a friend to watch him. I’m happy to say the boarding facility is really nice. It’s small, which is good, and they do both day and night care. The have several large indoor rooms, a couple small outdoor areas and one large outdoor area. At first I was a little bothered the outdoor area didn’t have much grass, in fact virtually none. However, he’s never had a yard before, so frankly a big asphalt play yard is a step up, and I suspect if the boarding facility had a grass yard it would soon be dirt and then mud anyway. Tucker does have a big yard now at Matt & Em’s, so that’s an improvement too. The daycare dogs are kept downstairs and inside or outside during the day, then there are rooms upstairs for the over night dogs. The rooms really resemble office cubicles with white picket fence doors on them. I think he’ll be happy there, especially since he’ll only be there with his two new buddies. With all that taken care of I grabbed a late lunch and headed back to the house to relax a little.

Matt and Em were planning on spending the weekend down at their boat, in fact Em was already down there when I arrived in. Lucky woman actually works from the boat at the marina a day or two a week. Gotta love wireless internet, and I’ve got to figure out how to do that some day myself. I was a bit worried about sending the dogs all off to the kennel so soon, but also liked the idea of Tucker spending two nights at the kennel, before spending six nights at the kennel as he would next week when we all head up to the Adirondacks.

Friday morning I dropped all three dogs off at the kennel and then took the opportunity to run a few errands. The first errand was to wash and vacuum the van. I expected the dog hair build up to be bad. I’ve long become accustomed to living with lots of dog hair in my car, on my clothes, on my bed, everywhere… I frequently find dog hair places the dog has never been, because it sticks to me and my stuff and the sheds from there. The hair build up in the van wasn’t as bad as I expected though. I am glad I’d put blankets over the bed and passenger seat, that helps a lot. I’d done it mostly to fend off dirty paws, but the fleece acts like Velcro to the hair and probably helped keep it from flying around the van. Exceeding expectations however was the incredible build up of dead bugs all over the front of the van. Bikes…. I could barely see the paint under or even between all the bug guts. I’d been squeegeeing the windshield at every gas stop, and once had to stop just to squeege bug guts off the windshield because I could barely see out the window one evening. Lots of scrubbing and pressure washing got most of the bug gut plaster off, but not quite all. I’m hoping in the next few weeks of driving in the rain the rest will finally slough off. With the van clean and empty for the first time in weeks I picked up a few things from the house and headed down to see Em at the boat. The boat by the way is in Elkton, MD. Technically it is on the Elk River, but it is basically an arm reaching off the northern tip of the Chesapeake Bay.

Friday afternoon was nice and relaxing with plenty of time to catch up with Em. That evening Matt got me an invitation to an after hours work event he and Em had been planning on attending. Which while I was looking forward to spending some time alone to write blog entries and get photos up to date sounded like more fun. The company he is currently working for has been making wine at a local winery for the last year. The group gets together every 3 months at the winery to drink a little wine and to do some of labor in the wine making. The first event was crushing grapes, the second event was just moving the wine into tanks and the third I think didn’t actually require any work, it was really just an opportunity to get together. During the first three events they get to drink leftovers from other groups that have made wine at the winery in the recent past. At his final event, bottling, they got to drink there own wine of which there were a couple verities. It was fun to see how the bottles get filled, corked and labeled. I was enlisted to help out and did a lot of corking and a little bottle filling. Once all the wine had been bottled and labeled, we all sat down for a bite to eat, some more wine drinking and socializing. All together a very fun company event. After the event we all headed back to the boat for a good sleep.

Saturday we took the boat south and across to the Bohemia river were we hung out, swimming, eating, drinking and catching a few crabs. I could really get into this lifestyle. I’ve never caught crabs before (haha I’m sure someone will comment on this), however it’s an interestingly simple task. One takes a crab trap (a metal cage) places some bait in it (a chicken neck) drops it to the bottom of the bay and then periodically hauls it back up, hopefully with a crab inside. FWIW, the commercial style traps (called pots) are different in that the crabs actually get “trapped” inside the pot. In these crab traps the crabs can easily walk in and out of the trap, you’re just hoping you pull the trap up while the crab is in there picking at the bait. You also need to pull up quickly, as pulling up closes the trap, and if you hesitate the trap will open and the crabs scurry out. There is a lot of life on the bay, including these gorgeous Osprey that were nesting on this channel marker (click on the picture and you’ll see there lunch hanging off the side of their nest).

Saturday evening we took the boat back up the bay to met up with some of Matt and Em’s boat neighbors at for drinks and dinner. We all met at the Chesapeake Inn which also happens to be where Matt and Em keep their boat last year, so I’d been there before. It’s a fun place, but frankly I’m happy they don’t kept their boat there any more. It is a big inn and restaurant right on the water in Chesapeake City, with small marina. It attracts a big crowd, with live music and has lots going on all the time. It was a lot of fun getting to know their new boat neighbors, all of whom seemed really nice. Between the great neighbors and the much quieter, but still enjoyable, atmosphere of their new marina in Elkton I see why they’d rather stay in Elkton and visit the Chesapeake Inn. We headed back to their marina after dinner with bad weather treating to move in to continue the drinks, snacking and socializing.

I don’t think the rain actually hit until we were all asleep, but I woke well before sunrise to the sound of thunder. I got up and went above deck to watch lighting. I really love thunder and lighting, while I was treated to quite a bit while living in Idyllwild but it really is somewhat rare in most of Southern California. I am looking forward to lighting and thunder while I’m on the east coast, hurricane season is just starting after all. With the rain however we decided to head back home earlier rather than later on Sunday. Which was fine with me since I was already looking forward to picking the dogs up. There were lots of dogs on the docks, but managing all three of ours on the boat would have been nightmarish. Here are a couple of the dogs. Onyx, Tucker (another Tucker, not mine) , and Winnie.

On Tuesday I drove more than 12 hours from the black hills of South Dakota to Rockford, Illinois where I once again slept in wal-mart parking lot for the night before rising early the next morning to continue onward toward Pennsylvania.

On Wednesday I again drove more more than 12 hours this time reaching my temporary home in New Britain, Pennsylvania. My sudden dash through the mid-west wasn’t that there was nothing to see in the mid-west, I’m sure there are lots of things to see between South Dakota and Pennsylvania. Nothing however was particularly calling to me right now nor was anything I somewhat wanted to see particularly convenient for a guy traveling and living in a camper with a dog. I had thought about going north and then crossing one of the great lakes by ferry, but that seemed a big detour and something I’d likely do in a few months when it comes time to cross from Maine into Canada. More than anything though it was that the escrow for the sale of my house was, as hoped, moving along very quickly. I was anxious to get to Pennsylvania where I would be receiving paperwork that needed to be signed, notarized and returned as soon as possible. Ideally before the coming weekend. The people buying my house would actually be moving in that weekend and renting the property for a week prior to close of escrow. Therefore in addition to all the usual sale documents I had to also sign and return lease documents. All of this paper work would be dramatically easier once I’d reached my friend’s home in Pennsylvania, hence the hurry.

There is not much to say about spending two days driving the interstates across the mid-west as quickly as my 20 year old Vanagon could go. I think the biggest highlight for me was crossing the Mississippi River. That was pretty cool. It is such a historically symbolic line dividing this country. I am officially in the east now. I crossed the Mississippi just long enough after sunset that it was the darker side of dusk, but I still got a reasonably good view of it. Sorry no picture though.

I arrived at Matt & Em’s home in New Britain, PA around 9:30pm on Wednesday. The first major leg of my journey is complete. Whooo hooo! This will be home base for the coming month. In October I’ll again hit the road to tour the north east all the way into Canada before returning here for a few weeks before leaving the dog with them and flying to Asia.

Everything is finally coming together. The house is selling, the travel is underway, plans are falling in place. I’m feeling great and Tucker is making friends with his two new brothers, Blue and Kona. That’s Blue pawing at Kona under Em’s Desk while Kona snuggles in his little spot between the cabinets and hearth.

This morning I woke up in Montana, drove through Wyoming and ended in South Dakota. It wasn’t just a driving day though I squeezed in seeing Devil’s Tower, Mt. Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial. All told I drove over 527 miles.

Waking up in Soda Butte campground just outside Yellow stone I survivived another very cold night. This time though I was better prepared with a double sleeping bag and a blanket to cover Tucker. I even took out my catalytic propane heater just in case. The night before in Yellow Stone it got into the 30’s and I wasn’t at all ready for it. Unfortunately I was also lazy that night and after waking up shirving refused to get out of my cold sleeping bag and do anything about it. I just suffered through the cold night. I also got a runny nose out of it. Tucker too suffered a bit, he curled into a tight little ball with his nose buried under his tail and shifted around a lot during the night trying to find a warmer spot. I tried to cuddle with him a little and cover him with my single bag but I don’t think it helped much that night. Anyway, last night it got into the 30’s again but thanks to the extra bag draped over my sleeping bag and Tucker like a comforter, we both were much more comfortable. I also made use of the propane catalytic heater I have to warm up the inside of the van in the morning before getting out of my warm and comfy sleeping bag into the cold interior of the van. I skipped breakfast in favor of getting on the road early, we left camp at 7am. About an hour and a half into the drive I stopped in Cody, WY for coffee and a muffin. Not much, but at least it was food. I can’t belevie I saying this but I was craving Starbucks and another of the Spinch Floretine english muffin sandwichs like I had in Bend, OR last week. It was as I walked into the little cafe I found in Cody that I realized I hadn’t showered in five days and made a note that tonight I needed to find a campground with showers.

My first sightseeing stop today was Devil’s Tower, which was really amazing. I’m so glad that I went. Thank you Michael for the encouragement. Upon standing at it’s base it took quite a bit of self control not to go running up to it and start climbing. Wow, what a beautiful piece of rock and how it begs to be climbed. T Native Americans in the area prefer that it not be climbed and that I’m a bit conflicted about it. However I view climbing as a spiritual pursuit and a way of being one with nature so to me at least it is in harmony with it’s spiritual significance. Someday, Jon, John and Mike we need to come here and climb this magnificent tower. Wow… did I say that already?

From Devil’s Tower I headed to Mt. Rushmore, which I literally just drove past. They charge $8 to get in and park in the parking structure. A Golden Eagle National Park pass doesn’t get you past the parking fee. BTW, I should say I’m certinaly getting the value out of my park pass this year. Regardless since with the Tucker there isn’t much accessible to us and I really just came by for the photo, I did what half the vistors do… I drove around in circles outside the parking structure with the camera out the window snapping away. You are not allowed to stopping on the road anywhere that you actually could view Mt. Rushmore. Kind of forcing you into paying the $8 to get a good photo. That is kind of the way the entire Black Hills area of SD seems to be. It’s like a giant family vacation wonderland, but where everything has a price. For a few dollars you can see the stalactites and stalagmites inside a cave, or for a few more dollars you can go on a go cart track, or into a indian gaming casino, or see a western cowbody shootout drama, or a dozen other little touristy things. I could see families driving to this area and spending a week exploring all the things there are for families to do here, and I could also see it costing a fortune by the time you’re done. Anyway, I was more excited about the Crazy Horse Memorial than Mt. Rushmore anyway so I headed there next. Once again though I turned away at the gate due to the $10 entrance fee which really reflected the entrance fee into the museum and buildings, something I might have enjoyed checking out, but all of which were dog un-friendly. So once again I snapped a picture out the car window and turned around. The truth is that in both places, I could have just left Tucker in the car, I sure did that often enough in Yellow Stone; however, I really wanted somewhere I could walk him around today so absent that at either location I just moved on. Crazy Horse looks like it’ll be amazing some day… some day when they get more of it completed that is. That could be decades from now. It is massive, and promises to be beautiful. The face of crazy horse is larger then the entire Tm. Rushmore Memorial. Huge! Note to self, come back in a decade or two.

After all that, I found a campground just outside Custer, SD, which used to be a KOA which means they have all the facilities imaginable… not just showers, but pools and laundry, a bollard table, and even WiFi. Once again, NOT camping, but I did get a shower and feel WAY better.

I think I’m going to high tale it to Pennsylvania over the next couple days. I’ll probably just drive as far as a I can than find a Wal-mart to sleep in then drive on-stop again. It’s really the one and only thing Wal-Mart is good for. Free, safe, sleeping in their parking lots that is.

When you first drive into Yellowstone you’ll probably see a giant buffalo by the side of the road. You’ll think this some amazingly unusal thing and you must stop to take a picture of it now because no one would believe the buffalo was just standing there in the road. Then you’ll drive a couple more miles and again there will be another buffallo standing in the middle of the road. Then a few miles futher they’ll be a hold heard blocking the road and causing a traffic jam, once again you’ll whip out you’re camera and take few more pictures, this time because there are baby buffalo with them and they’re even cuter than the big guys. However, much like with the gysers by the time you leave Yellow Stone you’ll be another one of those drivers that screams at the idiots stopping there cars in the middle of the road take a picture of a buffalo. You’ll curse at the buffalo themselves for deciding to stand in the middle of the road for ten minutes blocking traffic in both directions. You’ll lament that there are so few bears and moose and wolves in Yellowstone, if only you could have seen one of them instead of all these freaking buffalo all over the place. Why are people stopping like this is some rare event. Well I tried really hard not to lose my patience with the buffalo or my fellow sightseers today. I think I actually did a pretty good job of it. On the final leg out of the park I even pulled over took a few more photos of the buffalos once agian blocking the road, but realizing just how beaitful they are and how long it’d be before I saw another one.

I started the day in Madison campground in Yellowstone. It was a slow start to the day after a cold night. I took my time with breakfast, and then reviewed my maps for an hour or so to think about where I wanted to go and when I might get there. Then I also made a quick trip by one of the visitor centers to ask for some advice from a ranger as to what I should not to miss on my way out of Yellow Stone. I got a pleasant surprise when they told me that the Great Fountian gyser was predicticed to erupt at 11am plus/minus 15 minutes. It was 10:15 which left just enough time to get there. Great Fountian erupts much taller than Old Faithful, but without Old Faithful’s frequency. So I took the oppurtunity and am glad I did. Much more exciting than Old Faithful, a great start to the day.

After the gyser show I made my was around to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Which is home to a pair of spectacular waterfalls. Then made my way down to to Yellowstone Lake and up to a look out over the lake for a very nice view. From there I backtracked a ways and went searching for an ellusive bear, moose or wolf… I’m sorry to say I had no luck finding any of the ellusive three.

I left the park to the north east through the Bear Tooth and into Montana where I’m camping for the night in the nicest campground I’ve been to so far, called Soda Butte. It’s the kind of campground I love, spaced out sites, trees everywhere, not to many people, in fact it’s half empty. Most significantly it’s the kind of campground it’d be impossible to drive an RV into.

Today I lesuirely made my way from the RV Parking lot in Grand Teton to another monsterous, but slightly nicer campground in Yellowstone. At least this one feels like a campground, but it’s still too crammed in. Too many sites all to close together… to many huge motorhomes everywhere. No wildlife about. There is a seperate tent camping area here, but it was full, although walking through it it doesn’t really look any better than where I’m at. On a postivie note at least there are available campsites here for those that drive in without reservations, which often is not the case in Yosemite.

The day started in Grand Teton National Park with a drive past Jenny Lake which was quite beauitful. Some day I’d like to come back and hike the canyons behind it. There is actually a ferry service across the lake for hikers that want to skip the hike around the lake. After the lake, I drove up “Signal Mountain” which promised a great view of the whole valley, but from the lookout you could really only see eastward, which is away from the Teton’s themselves, and not as dramatic a view as you’d expect. The view was also obsucred by smoke in the sky from wild fires buring to the east. In fact those same fires were obscruing the view of the Tetons as well. From just below the look out there is a little trail which I couldn’t take because of the dog. I think from that trail you could see westward toward the Tetons, but there wasn’t much point in it due ot the smoke. Since with the expection of a short walk around the parking lot at Crater Lake Tucker spent all day yesterday in the car I thought he’d like a little play time. So we drove up 3 miles up a rough dirt road to the edge of the National Park which is where the National Forest beings. For those that don’t know pretty much everwhere that isn’t paved in a National Park is off-limits to dogs. National Forests on the other hand are the complete opposite, with most allowing dogs off-leash so long as they are under voice control. Yeah! We just took a short hike up a small river, but Tucker was so excited running back and forth he at least quaderupled my distance. He loves running and playing in the water, and it was good for him to get a natural bath too. Doggie play time mission accomplished it was finally time to head to Yellowstone

We made it into Yellowstone around 3pm. On the drive in from the south enterance I took in a couple beauitful waterfalls in Lewis Canyon and then made my way to Old Faithful. Wow! Old Faithful is lame, but everything else around it is amazingly super duper cool. Really, Old Faithful isn’t that lame, I mean it is a gyser that shoots water up in the air with amazing predictablity and regularity, but the other thermal features really are way cooler, or hotter if you prefer. There are beautifully colored pools tand constantly bubbling gysers that are just facisnating and breathtaking. IMHO, they are way more interesting and worth while. Tucker got to come see Old Faithful erupt, although he was even less impressed than I was. Unfortutantly he couldn’t walk on the rest of the boardwalk that meandered through the rest of the gysers and pools so he was bansihed back to the van while I explored. After a couple hours in the Old Faithful area I thought it’d be nice to find a campsite before sunset for a change and headed to Madison (the campground). Although I almost didn’t make it before sunset due to an Elk that was posing for photograhpers just accross a creek.

Today I woke up in in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Boise, Idaho with plans on making a quick (7 hour) drive to Yellowstone… but then I noticed something on the map called the Craters of the Moon National Monument. It didn’t look too out of the way so I figured what the heck sieze the day. Then it occurred to me that the route I was planning on taking was also skipping Grand Teton National Park, which I could go through on the way to Yellowstone without going to far out of the way as well. So tonight, I’m sleeping in the Gros Venture campground in Grand Teton NP. Roughly 375mi covered today.

Before getting started this morning in Boise I also wasted a couple hours running around trying to find adjuster screws for my headlights, which can’t be found anywhere in Idaho. I’ll have to wait until PA when I can order them from a Vanagon place. I also ran another errand which was to stop by a AAA office and pick up a proper map for Yellowstone, which the Walnut Creek office in California office didn’t really have. I must say again how cool it is to be able to find free WiFi location. I found one and used it to find everywhere else I needed to go in Boise. Interestingly I was going to drive across town to a coffee shop with free WiFi when I noticed a business name I’d seen on the WiFi list, so I took a chance and drove by it. The WiFi at the place I noticed wasn’t public/free and the bussiness wasn’t open yet, but pizza/sports bar a couple doors further down the strip mall did have an open WiFi connection so I hopped on it to look for eveything I needed. Unfortunatly nobody had what I was looking for so I’ll keep driving with slightly cross-eyed headlights. I’m not really driving much at night anyway and really it’s more of an anoyance then a problem at the momment.

So as I was saying I was driving along and glancing at the map when I noticed this place called “Craters of the Moon National Monument”. I noticed it because the the map showed an area of lava fields which just seemed strange. Typing it into the GPS said that driving by would not really add any time to the drive, in fact I think it was a little shorter but put me on smaller roads. The road also happened to be under heavy construction so several miles are just dirt and gravel with construction detours going on. I’ve see a LOT of construction detours on this trip, especially along highway 1. I digress, this was actually a pretty nice dirt and gravel road as such roads go, which is to say it was smooth. When I finally arrived I was really impressed by this little national monument, defintely worth the slight detour. The lava is cool (get the pun). I’ve seen lots of lava in Hawaii, so it’s not new to me, but it’s still amazing to look at all the shapes that gets into. The highlight of the short loop road however were the lava caves. There are three lava tubes/caves of differing sizes that you can hike into. One has a huge high ceiling but the roof is frequently collapsed so you navigate it without a flashlight or headlamp, but the other two get utterly totally pitch black as you go deeper into them. It was a bit freaky at first going into the total darkness alone with just my weak Petezl Tikka Headlamp. After a few minutes though my eyes started to adjust and it wasn’t as hard to see. The freakyness went away, a little, but never entirely. I can understand the rush cavers get exploring these things. Of the two dark caves, one has a ceiling over 10 feet high, but the other one was such that you frequently needed to watch your head and there are places you needed to crawl to get through. Really a fun a worthwhile detour.

It was just after leaving the Crater of the Moon National Monument that it occurred to me I could/should drive into Yellowstone by driving through Grand Teton National Park. This realy only occurred to me since the Yellowstone map I picked up that moring in Boise, included the map for Grand Teton, otherwise I probably would have skipped it. Many days ago when planning ahead I’d made the decsion to skip Grand Teton. I’d seen the Tetons many years ago on a ski trip to Jackson Hole Wyoming with Jeff and his college ski club, it seemed reasonable to skip them in the interest of expediance. But really, it just doesn’t make sense to get this close and not take the chance to see it all again, and besides all we did was see the Tetons from a distance we never drove through the park and saw the rest of it. So toward the Tetons I went.

I’ve been seeing these great old old barns and buildings in fields all over the place, from Oregon all the way though to Wyomoing. Occasionally I’ll stop and take a picture, but all to often I don’t because there isn’t somewhere to stop or I’m just feelings like I want to keep moving. Just past Swan Valley and before Victor however I saw several barns and building and stopped at two locations for a couple really beautiful shoots. They are amazingly typical, which isn’t to say they are quite “eveywhere”, but they are not as rare as one might think. I could spend weeks just driving around photographing these old barns.

The other thing I saw today was all these farm storage buildings with earthen roofs. The first one I saw looked novel, but then I saw dozens more. The have earth berms built up on both sides of the building and then the roof is covered with several feet of dirt as well. Most of the barns look pretty old as well, but this is a great insulation technic that is making it’s way back into energy efficent building today.

The other thing one can’t help but wonder seeing all the old buildings and wide open spaces is what it must have been like to see this area hundreds of years ago. The native americans and the settlers must have seen this as boundless and limitless space.

Tonight I ended up in Gross Ventre campground in Grand Teton National Park. I got in late and the “good” campgrounds in the park are all full, it is Friday night and fishing season aparently. This is campground is inside the park, but on the outskirts. It is huge and feels more like a RV park than a campground. Gross Adventure would by an apt name for it as well. No matter I parked at 9pm, I’ll be out early to try to find some hiking and see the sights and then make my way into Yellowstone.

I made it to Boise today. It was a very productive day of driving (625 mi) and I hope it’ll give me plenty of time in Yellowstone over the next couple days. Tomorrow I continue on to Yellowstone , it’s 420 miles to Old Faithful. I’ll spend tomorrow night in Yellowstone and then all day the following day, and maybe another night… at least that’s the plan. Then I’ll head east quickly. I now trying to get to PA by Friday in hopes I can sign escrow papers there and get them back in the mail on Friday as well. Not critical, but it’d be nice to make sure nothing delays escrow.

So this morning I woke up in a beautiful campground near the lighthouse at Cape Blanco, Oregon. After a simple oatmeal breakfast I set out north and then east to Crater Lake National Park. It wasn’t something I desperately wanted to see, but I was close so I “made” it on my way. It was impressive, but not the kind of park I’d spend long in. There just doesn’t seem to be much to do there. Anyway, after a strech of the legs and lots of panoramic picture taking I headed north out of the park and then toward Bend, Oregon. Bend has a reputation as an otudoorsy town and judging just by the number of SUV’s and Subaru’s with car racks for bikes and kayaks, I’d believe it. However I get the impression it’s a bit like Orange County in that the town isn’t anything special. In fact it’s kind of dull, at least the part I saw. It looks to be surrounded by cool stuff though. Maybe I just didn’t see the “good” parts, it wasn’t somehwere I planned on going so I didn’t know where to look. Anyway, feeling good to keep driving I figured I’d make it at least ot Burns, Oregon and sleep there for the night. Then it occured to me that I could sleep at Wal-Mart for free and it’d be just as good as the crumy campgrounds I’d find in the middle of the high plains around Burns. The nearest Wal-Mart however (in the direction I was going anyway) was just inside Idaho in Nampa or a few miles further in Boise. I drove by the Nampa Wal-mart and was a bit intimidated by the fact I didn’t see any RV’s parked there. Anyway, here I am in the parking lot of Wal-Mart in Boise, at 12:30am local time parked amoung a dozen RV’s and about to catch a few hours sleep before heading for Yellowstone NP at sunrise… Goodnight.

It’s a strange world where one can sit next to a campfire on a remote piece of the Oregon coast with their laptop. It begs the question, why would someone bring a laptop to a campsite and use it at 9pm next to the campfire. To which I personally would reply, why would you use a laptop anywhere else? LOL

Today was a productive day. I woke early from my free little campsite on a dirt road north of Fort Bragg (really just north of a tiny town called Rockport) and continued north to arrive in Cape Blanco, Oregon. I covered 281 miles today. It was a BIG day for lots of reasons, but the biggest it that I left California. Whoo hoo! I did take the obligatory picture of the “Welcome to Oregon” sign. I was hoping there would be a “Now leaving California” sign, but no luck. FWIW, on the back of the “Welcome to Oregon” sign was a “Now leaving Oregon” sign. California much to my dismay didn’t do the same with there sign.

I had a couple of revelations about California’s northern coast. First, I’ll never think of SF as part of Northern California again. There is a little debate among Californians as to whether SF is really part of NorCal or not. Well, I love SF, but NorCal is something different than SF. SF is much more in tune with Central California, which is a wonderful place in it’s own right. Frankly NorCal coast has more in common with Alaska than it does Central California. It’s all about logging and fishing and small little towns filled with people full of life and vigor that thrive in a beautiful but climatically hostile environment. Second, NorCal is freaking HUGE. Having lived in SoCal the vast majority of my life and visited central California many times, I like many people had the mistaken impression that NorCal is somehow just a little fairly insignificant part of California north of SF. It’s huge…. did I say that already? It may be small by population count but by land mass, natural resources and beauty it’s HUGE. In truth one can’t simply divide California into North/Central/South, as many do. It’s way more diverse than that. Grouping Arcata with Garberville and Rio Dell or with Redding and Sacramento is too broad a brush. California really is at least six regions of unique character.

I started out driving slow this morning. Feeling slow. Savoring the lack of other cars on the road and stopping in lots of touristy stops and overlooks that were deserted. Early in the morning I came across one of the bigger little towns in the area, Garberville and saw a bus parked on the overpass, painted by the local veterans for peace chapter. I wanted a photo so I got off and also took the opportunity to find a bagel egg sandwich. Of note, next to the Bagel place (which BTW was all organic) was a hemp store. Cool town. Sadly the hemp store wasn’t open yet as I could use some hemp clothing…

Contineing my slow drive north I took the Avenue of the Giants through Humboldt Redwoods state park. The orad is a scenic bypass that parallels highway 101. I stopped at the first tourist marker along the road and again found it deserted. I took the opportunity to sneek Tucker in for a short hike among the redwoods while I took pictures.

Further on, while crossing the bridge into Rio Dell I noticed a couple trucks parked on the bank of the river below the bridge. The opportunity to drive on the shore of the river below was just too tempting so I hopped off the highway, and after some hunting found the right road down onto the river bank. I let Tucker out to run in the water while I took a few pictures of the van on the rocky shore and of one of the two bridges crossing overhead. Back up in town I took another couple pictures of the same bridge from a different view. I love bridges, it part of why I became a civil engineer, well until I learned the truth about designing bridges, which is that engineers don’t really design bridges, they design parts of bridges. At least thats what they do until they have lots and lots of experience and their own huge company. That fact coupled with the fact that bridge engineers rarely get to design cool bridges anyway, they design those boring concrete over passes all day… Anyway, on to the next town where I spotted another beautiful old bridge, this on built in 1911. Again some hunting and I found I could drive down under the bridge and onto the shore. Wow do I love have a 4×4 I would have never been able to take these pictures without it. BTW, this is in Rio Dell.

I drove through old town Eureka and stopped overlooking the harbor for a few minutes to re-evaluate the days plans. I’d been thinking about skipping the Somoan Sand Dune recreation area I’d read about in on of my “Dog” books about California,The California Canine Companion, but decided to try anyway. I didn’t want ot short change Tucker on fun on this trip. I’m so glad I did. It took some hunting and almost getting stuck in some soft sand (in spite of 4×4) but I found a beautiful beach that we had all to ourselves. We played for nearly an hour. With the tail wind and the Chuck-it ball thrower I was tossing the tennis ball at least 100 meters and Tucker was having a blast chasing. Lots of photos today.

After the Dunes it was time again to re-evaluate again and get some lunch. I also had a nearly full memory card in my camera and needed to download photos to the laptop. I found a cafe with free WiFi, Mosogo’s, in Arcata. I ended up spending about 2.5 hours there in order to update the blog posts and also to upload some photos to Flickr. Time well spent… but really I’m still way behind, especially in the photo department.

I was determined to make it out of California I pushed onward, stopping only occasionally for a few prime photo opportunities and then I finally saw it… the “Welcome to Oregon” sign… really that was an awesome feeling I’m still high from it.

In Oregon I pulled off a particularly beautiful beach on a whim and bumped into a fellow Synco Vanagon driver. Bjorn, a German-Canadian on the return leg of a road trip down through Utah/Arizona and back up the coast toward home in British Columbia. There are lots of vanagons in the area, lots of waving going on, lots of happy people.

I thought I’d make it ot Coos Bay, but saw a turn off for camping and a lighthouse and took it. It put me into Cape Blanco which has a really cool lighthouse.

It’s beautiful here, so much so I might even stay all day tomorrow and the next night… maybe maybe not… Next stop is Crater Lake. It’s about 5 hours from here to Crater Lake. From there the next goal is Yellowstone at 15 hours beyond Crater Lake. If I get far enough past Crater Lake tomorrow, which depends on how long I spend AT Crater Lake, I might be able to make it to Yellowstone in one day, if not I’m not sure where I’ll stop in between. Time will tell

Just a quick update. I am at a cafe in Arcata (Humboldt) and want to get back on the road, so I’ve forgone proper proof reading of my blog entries and just went ahead and uploaded them. Please excuse the spelling/grammer, I WILL go back and edit them in the coming week. I’ve also forgone put pictures into the blog, but uploaded a few to Flickr from SF.