Garrison, MT to Hardin, MT 3 June 2013

  It takes us about an hour from the time we get up until we pull out of the parks.  According to MapQuest our drive would take us about 4 1/2 hours and that was right.

The rain made a beautiful curtain across the scenery on I-90.

Butte, MT can be seen in its entirety from I-90.  The main street is very wide and runs from I-90 straight north.  It reminds us of Cheyenne, Wyoming.

It is June 3, yet we saw fresh snow in parts of the mountains.  

This photo and the next two really illustrate that this is big sky country.

This was taken at Belgrade, MT, one of the gates to Yellowstone to the south.

Here we are filling up.  Yes, the bill is not for the faint-hearted, but we only have been paying about $35/night to stay anywhere and we eat in far more than out, so our estimated cost per day on this trip is a little over a $100/day, including fuel.  The cost of the coach isn't included.  

This one of many homes along I-90.  There are many log homes, all with fabulous views.

More snow in the mountains further east.

There are three refineries on I-90 at Billings.  We paid $3.88/gal in MT versus $4.15 in Portland.  These refineries and far lower taxes help Montana have cheaper fuel.

We are getting close to Hardin, MT, our stop for the night.  We are very close to Little Big Horn National Park and had planned to visit, but by the time we parked, the wind and rain were fierce.  We decided we didn't want to unhook the Jeep in that weather.  Instead, we enjoyed a nice dinner, "First Ladies" on C-SPAN, and worked on this blog.  

Coeur d'Alene, ID to Garrison, MT 2 June 2013

 These homes were above our park and had a view of Lake Coeur d'Alene.  Nice!

 We are ready to leave.  I like to include photos of our sites for our RV friends, who might consider staying in the places we have been.

 Umm.  How much did it cost to get this paint job?  Do I like it?  I can see mountains and desert.  Are the red blobs birds?  Well, I thank the people for adding interest to our day.

 This is the club house in the park.  The park rents boats and pontoons that can take you to seven different boat accessible restaurants on Lake Coeur d'Alene.

 The road out of Coeur d'Alene is very different from the one coming into it.  There are many beautiful homes on the lake and tourist dollars help the economy.  

 We stopped at this rest stop in Montana for lunch.  A guy in a U-haul and a companion in an SUV with three large dogs entertained us.

 We caught up with the rain that we had in Portland.  

 More rain ahead and we came to miles and miles of graveled, one-lane interstate where the speed limit was 35 mph.  A short day, just got long.

Riverfront RV Park, east of Garrison, MT on the banks of the Little Blackfoot River.  As we drove in, a guy in a golf-cart greeted us.  He said a few words and drove us to this site.  Then he wrote down our information in a notebook and said that he would send Joe to take our credit card.  Joe came about a half-hour later and processed our credit card on a phone app.  Usually, parks have offices and brochures with rules and map.  It was clean, quiet, and we got level.  What more could we want?

Richland, WA to Coeur d'Alene, ID 1 June 2013

 TV dish and jacks down, slides in, ready to unplug and head to Coeur d'Alene. This park had a lot of permanent people, but was clean and neat.

 These are apples being grown on trellises!  They are easier to tend and pick.  Ted knows a lot about this part of the state because he drove here once or twice a week doing agricultural research.  

Water from the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Reservoir behind the Grand Coolee Dam.  Note the irrigation drops.  These rigs lose a lot less water to evaporation than the older impulse sprinklers that were mounted on top.

Note the bare ground behind the wheat field.  In this part of the country rainfall is insufficient to grow a crop of wheat every year, so the only way to grow wheat is in a wheat-fallow rotation.  The fallow fields are kept weed-free, allowing an extra year of moisture to accumulate before planting.

 The road to Spokane stretches on.  

 There used to be a sign here that said, "Welcome to Lind, please drop in, Mt. St. Helen's did."

We took this lunch to the picnic table at the rest stop below.  A popchip blew off Ted's plate and a seagull grabbed it as soon as it hit the ground.

This is Sprague Lake.  The small town of Sprague is at the southeast tip of the lake.  The town was originally named Hoodooville after a local character William "Hoodoo Billy" Burrows.  It was later renamed for a Union Pacific executive.  How boring.  The lake is noted for large raibow trout and also has good bass fishing.

 For those who are new to our blog, this is what we look like on the road.  Ted's motorcycle is on a lift at the back of the coach.  Two bikes are on the back of the Jeep behind the coach.   

 As we got closer to Spokane, WA, the vegetation changed.  Lodgepole pines appeared eventually giving way to Ponderosa pines.  Different tree species, but it reminds us of Maine.

 Spokane, Washington coming up.

 

 We arrived at our resort at 2:30 pm.  Within 15 min. we were set up, including our dish, which automatically finds DirectTVs three satellites.  Gives us lots of time to play.

 One time saver is velcro.  These items ride like this all the time and don't fall, even during tight turns.  The red light on the wall indicates that our the water pump is on.  It provides us with water when we are riding down the road or choose not to hook up for the night.

These containers in the bathroom are velcroed.  Canisters, container of kitchen tools, toaster, lamps, printer, etc. ride in place, thanks again to the miracle strips.

Ted drives most of the time.  Penny puts the step-cover up, attaches a bungee to legs of TV tray and works on her computer doing email, journal, genealogy; knit; crochets; reads; navigates; looks up info for Ted about places we pass; and generally has a great time.  When tired of this set-up, the TV tray can be stowed behind couch and the footrest on the passenger chair raised.  We like to listen to books on CDs, thanks to a generous loan from Becky Cheek.

 When staying only one night, we try not to unhook the Jeep.  We usually eat in the coach.  Tonight, we walked to this wonderful restaurant. Ted had been here before, so he knew it was good.  At the end of this ramp is a floating restaurant, with a log cabin interior and windows all the way around looking at Lake Coeur d'Alene.

One of the views is the famous Coeur d'Alene Resort Hotel with it's floating golf hole.  The one time that we stayed there, Reba McEntire had just left the penthouse.  

Portland, OR to Richland, WA 5-31-2013

 After days and days of rain, the sun came out and blessed another new beginning or re-beginning for us.  As we exited I-205 in Portland, OR onto I-84 toward The Dalles (rhymes with owls), we finally felt we were really full-timing again.  The Dalles is a cute town in The Columbia River Gorge that may was named for the French word meaning sluice, a reference to the narrow passage between the large basalt columns in the river.  This is now covered by the lake behind the Dalles Dam.

For those of you who don't know, we sold our scenic house on Wednesday.  We did it for a number of reasons, but the exciting part for us was that we could return to full-time living in our RV while we still are healthy and see many of the places that we missed the last time.  

 I am sure that I have published a photo similar to this one before, but it is an iconic view as we drive into The Gorge.  Note the lush trees everywhere on this western side of The Cascades.

 We passed the Sandy River.  One of  the views from our former house is the mouth of this river, a favorite of fishermen. 

 The Dalles Dam is one of fourteen dams on the Columbia River.  They have a beauty of their own, but are very controversial among Native Americans and environmentalists.  They provide our region and even California with clean electricity, provide irrigation water, and control flooding from snowmelt in The Cascades, so their destruction would devastate the economy, no matter how much we might desire to return to the way the river was. 

 This is the back of The Dalles Dam. We are on the east side of The Cascades.  There are no more forests because we are in the rain shadow of the mountains.

 This grain elevator services the wheat farmers, whose farms are in the high desert behind these hills.  The majority of wheat grown in Washington is exported to Asia.  Barges carry the wheat to the ports further down river greatly reducing transportation costs.  

 We are driving on the Oregon side of The Columbia River, looking across at the Washington side.  This photo shows a rare town with a wind farm above.

 This photo shows the brush of the this part of The Gorge.  It looks like nothing could thrive here except cattle, but wildlife is more diverse here than might be imagined.  The greatest environmental threat here is non-native noxious weeds.  

But, this is becoming wine country.  For wine aficionados, this is on the edge of the Canoe Ridge District. 

 The McNary Dam is close to Tri-Cities (Richland, Kennewick, and Pasco), WA on I-82.  

 Just north of McNary are these crops that are irrigated in circles. Major crops in this area are potatoes, onions, wheat, sweet and field corn, and, of course, wine grapes.  Just outside our park was a field of concord grapes and several apple orchards. 

 A mine in the side of a hill shows that hearty pioneers were determined to find a way to make a living in the high desert of Washington

 Here is a field of terraced alfalfa.  Much of this will also be exported.

Irrigation from the waters of The Columbia make fruit trees a viable crop in this desolate place.  Above is the Horse Heaven Hills.  A few miles from here, we stopped for the night at 2:30 pm in a park just a few miles southwest of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation where the fissionable material for "Fat Man", the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, was made.  Ted did a lot of noxious weed work there.  Neither Ted nor the reservation glow in the dark.  It got so hot here that our TV turned itself off.  What a change from the rain and chilly weather of Portland/Vancouver.

We are headed for Rapid City, SD to establish residence.  As many of you know, the state of Washington considers anyone not living in a "bricks and sticks" place, homeless, and ineligible to vote (It's a long story).  South Dakota, like Washington, has no income tax.  South Dakota welcomes RVers to become residents because of their sparse population.  They even have businesses that help RVers do this in a day.  We will get our driver's licenses, license plates, and voter registration.  We will have a South Dakota address and postal box.  However, we have reinstated our Vancouver personal mailbox service for the majority of our snail mail because we will be in the Portland/Vancouver area many holidays.  We pay bills electronically, so snail mail is mainly for welcomed greetings from friends and family.  Junk mail is discarded by the service.  Both services will send our first class mail to us when we email them where.