Half Way Point

We have now reached our half-way point. We travelled a total of 2292 miles (3687 km) this month. So far we have managed to escape the worst of the US weather aberrations, although the cooler conditions on the West Coast pushed us inland earlier than we planned. As it turned out, that allowed us to detour via Yellowstone NP which has been fantastic. Everyone should visit Yellowstone at least once in their lifetime. Seeing the wild animals roaming freely in nature's wonderland is such a privilege. Keep tuned as we move East towards the Dakotas, then over to Minnesota, down to Arkansas, across to Tennessee and Illinois before finally reaching Missouri and flying out of Kansas City to Los Angeles and home in September.

Cody, Wyoming

It may only be 52 miles (85 km) from Yellowstone to Cody but we agree with President Theodore Roosevelt who said it was one of the most beautiful 50 miles in the United States. He must have seen it in spring-like conditions as we did (late snowfalls has deferred summer) with lush, bright green fields, the Shoshone River swollen by snow melts and the Buffalo Bill Reservoir nestled in the Rattlesnake & Cedar Mountains.

The township of Cody was named for ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody who established it back in the good old wild west days (1895). It is a nice, clean town, with the main business today being tourism! It is also calls itself the Rodeo capital of the world, so we made sure we attended last night’s rodeo. We rated it better than another one we attended last trip in Montana. Today we hopped on our pushbikes and rode uptown where we spent several enthralled hours going through the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. It houses the Buffalo Bill Museum and other museums including Firearms, Plains Indians, Natural History, Wild West Art Gallery and a Research facility. You could easily spend two days there and not be bored. We then explored the main town area, including the original hotel built for Buffalo Bill and named after one of his daughters’, Irma. Calamity Jane and Annie Oakley stayed there in their time. Between yesterday and today we must have ridden 10 miles on our bikes and kept pinching ourselves –hard to believe that we were riding our bikes around this town that was an integral part of the old west. We even found an early model RV...

Yellowstone: Last 2 Days

Apart from Moose which proved elusive, we were treated to an amazing display of animals on our third day in the park. As we were traveling north to Mammoth Hot Springs on the west side, we saw cars stopped ahead and thought bison were around, but to our great surprise, we saw a very healthy grizzly bear walking in the trees parallel to the road. From our vantage point high in the RV, we got a great view. Later after we had a lunch break we continued east and saw two black bear cubs, although only one came out of the shadows so we could get a good look. Our next treat for the day was a one hour horse trail ride. Our trail took us along a canyon, past a herd of elk and through the remnants of the huge 1988 fire that burnt one-third of the 2.2 million acres of the park. Just as we left the corral, we came across an elk that had 6 points on each side of his antlers. Massive creature.

As we were packing up to leave Yellowstone this morning, we looked out the front window and saw this family of deer. They had obviously come to say farewell! Our drive out towards the East gate of the park was very pretty, lots of snow and gushing waterfalls all alongside the road – thank goodness for the wonderful drains that take the water under the road and down to the Shoshone River below. Our last wildlife sighting was a brown bear who was hunting in the grass and logs for his favourite leaves and roots. Yellowstone is America’s oldest National Park, and out of the others we have visited including Glacier, Bryce, Arches, Grand Canyon and Zion, this is our favourite.

Yellowstone National Park, Days 1 & 2

We couldn’t resist one last drive amongst the Grand Tetons, so before we headed north to Yellowstone, we back tracked towards Jackson to see the beautiful Jenny Lake, then Jackson Lake. What pristine places. The spring flowers are so pretty. We entered Yellowstone by the south entrance and enjoyed seeing so much snow still on the roadside.

As we entered further into the park, we drove past elk, deer and bison. It was such a thrill to see them wandering in this stunning environment, and bought back fond memories of seeing them previously with Benn. We had lunch at the Old Faithful Lodge, and timed it perfectly to see the geyser erupt. It only blows once every 92 minutes and we had a great view from our lunch table! We continued our drive past thermal springs and eventually made it to our campground at Fishing Bridge. Fortunately we had booked ahead, as all 350 sites were full and are booked out for the next two months. You can only park here if you have a solid wall RV, as grizzlies are common in this area. Tents and pop-up campers have to find other parks to minimize unwelcome bear encounters. A grizzly and two cubs are currently in this area.

The next morning we rode our bikes to Yellowstone Lake. A glorious day, around 23C (78F). Later we took the RV for a drive and made the most of being up high and had a birdseye view of the wildlife as you can see from the bison photo - he was almost in our RV. En route we saw a coyote waiting for a ground squirrel to appear from his ground lair, and he ate it then and there! A coyote was seen strolling through our campground last night, so it may have been the same one??

Bison Traffic Jam

When you see a traffic jam ahead of you in Yellowstone, it is usually because bison have decided to cross the road. If they see a break in between two cars, or between two horses in the case of trail riders, they will simply walk between them to get to the other side. Little calves soon learn to just follow their mother. Look at the macho male obstinately blocking the road – see his eyelashes Tony? Huge beast!

Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Jackson Hole is the name given to the valley cocooned by surrounding mountain ranges including the Grand Tetons. So beautiful and majestic. We were thrilled that the last snowfalls occurred late this year, and most of the mountains still had snow on them.

Our first visit to Jackson Hole was in late 2003 when we drove past with Benn en route to Cheyenne and didn’t have time to park and look around. I knew it was one place I wanted to revisit.

We found a large free public parking area a block north of the main part of town where we parked and then explored the area on foot. The main town area is only small, a few blocks in either direction, and I think I walked most of it. I found a unique Christmas Shop and bought a few gifts, before moving on and purchasing a few items in a bead shop. Fun! I left Murray in the Million Dollar Cowboy Saloon to watch the semi-finals of the Euro 2008 (World Soccer). When I came back to meet up with him we had our photo take on the saddles (bar stools) and then under the Elk Antler Arch in the town square just across the road. Would you guess that just under 2000 antlers were used in the arch? The elk drop their antlers each year, and have new ones by the next spring, complete with one extra point for each new year of plentiful feeding and good health. There is a market held each year in the square, and collected antlers are auctioned to the highest bidder. The antlers are used to create unique furniture ie coffee tables, chandeliers, lamps, and also used for belt buckles. Asians grind them up for special potions!
There was a rodeo on at 8pm, so we drove in to the parking area thinking we would just stay the night, but noted the signs saying no overnight parking and offenders would be towed away. We knew if we attended the rodeo, it would be dark when we got out, and we would have still had about another 30 miles to travel to the nearest National Park campground, and as it turned out, it was full as were all the hotels in town. No fun trying to find a campsite in the dark, so we had no choice but to keep driving. As it was, a few drops of rain were falling, so we took that as an omen. The last rodeo we attended in Belt, Montana had us with umbrellas up and down the whole time. As the first campground we came to was full, we drove on another 20 miles and at 9.30pm we reached a vacant campsite in Grand Teton National Park. The last rays of the sun blinked out as we parked. Don’t you love the late sunsets of summer??

Farewell Idaho...next stop Wyoming

How can you visit Idaho without calling in on the Idaho Potato Museum? It would be like going to the mountain and not seeing Mahomet! Even in Australia the name Idaho is synonomous with potato. One third of all US grown potatoes come from Idaho. Potatoes aren't so attractive, so Idaho invited Marilyn Monroe to stand in a potato field for a promotional poster. This copy of the poster is in the museum.

We had a lovely drive east heading towards the Tetons yesterday, and several peaks still had snow on them. The Idaho potato and grain crops were nice and green and formed a scenic landscape.

We are spending two nights in the very small, but quaint town of Victor, just this side of the Tetons from Jackson. The weather is beautiful. It is 6.10pm and 25C (77F), fine and sunny. Murray is at the site next door where they are sitting outside having a beer, so I had better go and join them before it is dinner time.

Spokane, Washington to Boise, Idaho

Two days ago we drove into Spokane (pronounced Spo-Can, not Spo-Cain) and we thought it was a lovely city right on the Spokane river. It was much bigger than we thought and has a population of around 203,000. We drove the 20 miles (32k) west to the Washington-Idaho border and drove through the pretty city of Coeur D'Alene on the Idaho side, which is located on a 30 mile long lake.




From there we headed south on Hwy 95 and called in on a chap baling alfalfa - he said the bales sell for $2500 for 3 bales. The alfalfa was cut 2 days earlier, and they wrap it in the plastic quickly to retain the moisture - it smelt so rich and earthy. Our route took us above the lookout down to the twin cities of Lewiston (Idaho side) and Clarkston (Washington side of the Snake river) - an impressive view.

It was a warm day so it was nice to pull up in our site on the edge of the Clearwater River in Orofina, ID. Murray felt he deserved his chilled beer!

Yesterday we had a really pretty drive south along Hwy 95 and kept the Clearwater then the Salmon River alongside us all the way. It was so beautiful with the rolling green fields, the water cascading over rocks and the tall pine trees as a back drop. As we were heading to an RV stop a few miles on, we passed the Riverside RV park overlooking the Salmon River and pulled in there for the night instead. There were only 18 sites, and as luck would have it, we got the last site and it was right on the water. It was pleasant sitting outside watching the chap fishing on the other side of the river.


Today we travelled on the 95 South to Boise (pronounced Boy-See), capital of Idaho. We drove through the city, and there seemed to be building renovations and road work going on in most streets including major work on the Capitol building. One thing we noticed about 60 miles north of Boise was the drier countryside compared to the lush, green of Washington (also known as the Evergreen State) and the NW parts of Idaho that we saw. The cultivated fields were green, but the rest looked quite brown and arid. Water must be plentiful though, as sprinklers were a constant feature in all the towns we passed through and at any time of day - even in the hot midday sun. We saw our first potato fields to the east of Boise. Time to go and do some research on Yellowstone NP.

South of Spokane

Thanks to a tip from friends, we checked into a delightful RV park on Williams Lake, 30 miles south of Spokane, Washington. Our RV looks right over one of the several jetties here, and as I sit here typing I can see Murray fishing in front of me. He has just walked over with a pan sized trout for me to put in the fridge, and he has returned to catch another to make up a nice pair for our dinner tonight. Good man! I took this photo from the jetty yesterday - you can see the front of our RV peeking out. You know if you want to see the photo better, just click on it to enlarge to full size.

Neighbours with a trailer have just moved in on one side of us. In all honesty, it has taken them a full hour to back the trailer in, put up the jacks, set it level and connect to power & water. It takes us less than 10 minutes to do the same thing with our RV. Why? For starters we don't have to unhook a trailer, we are 'all in one', plus our rig has an automated levelling and jack system which we control from the front seat. However, our neighbours now have the advantage of using their vehicle that they have unhooked from the trailer to get around with. We would need to tow a car to have that option, then we would take a bit longer to unhook the car before we backed into a site. Depends on what your lifestyle is like. Certainly, if we stayed a couple of weeks at most locations, we would definitely want a tow car. Because we move on every couple of days, we make do with just the motorhome. With the rise in fuel costs, we have talked of buying a tow car, and staying in one place longer. Who knows, perhaps our next trip...

Final Days in Oregon

How often have you heard the saying ‘Be careful what you wish for’? For the last three weeks we had max temperatures averaging around the 58 F (15C) mark and you may recall I was thrilled to get a day where I could wear shorts at last. Well, yesterday at noon we checked into a park at Irrigon, a little town near the border of Oregon and Washington and it was 97F (36C). We got on our bikes and rode to the marina where Murray fished for a few hours, and we wondered why we were a bit listless that evening! Dehydrated more likely! But I did get to wear my shorts, which is what I asked for…so no complaints.

From where I left off in the last blog entry, we drove to lovely Lincoln City which was our last port of call on the Oregon coast before heading east and inland. We drove through Oregon’s capital city of Salem, which was looking glorious with hanging baskets of flowers in the main streets. Almost everywhere we have been driving for the last 3 weeks has been blooming with roses, azaleas and rhododendrons – so pretty. From there it was an hour north to Portland, Oregon’s largest city, also known as the City of Roses. This photo gives you a view from the bridge over the Columbia River. The Columbia River borders Oregon and Washington, and as Portland is right on the river, we simply drove over the bridge and entered the state of Washington. Once over the bridge we turned East and saw a huge snow capped mountain that we thought at first was Mount St Helen, but now realise it was Mt Rainier. We then look back and also saw Mt St Helen, not so high and without a point. We crossed back into Oregon and continued east on Hwy 84. This is a very scenic drive along the edge of the Columbia River, but there is also beautiful scenery and an amazing waterfall on the other side of the road. It was hard to know where to look – I had to keep reminding Murray to watch the road! There were numerous State Parks dotted along this route, and I daresay each one of them would have been beautiful to explore. It was Father’s Day here in the US and the parks were filled with families making the most of the day. We settled for a county park campsite that was in a line from snowcapped Mt Hood behind us and snowcapped Mt Rainier in front. The Hood River rushed along the edge of the campground – the melting snow adding to its fury. After a bike ride to explore the park, it was very tranquil just sitting in the afternoon sun with a chilled beer watching the blue Jays darting around. Their blue is so pretty when the sun is shining on their feathers.

Our present location of Irrigon on the Columbia River is surrounded by Alfalfa fields. Our campground backs onto a field with a few cattle grazing. Murray called me over to see the lovely black and white cows, and as we ambled to the fence, one of the ‘cows’ charged at us. We then noticed the two small horns and realized our cow was a bull. Murray took great comfort in the fence, but I didn’t like the way the young bull was looking at me in particular, so I retreated back to the safety of our RV and got my binoculars out instead! These young bulls seem scarier than the longhorn we had our photo taken with on a ranch in Texas!

Driving the Oregon Coast

Well folks, this is what it is all about... Driving along, enjoying the view and finding another lovely place to spend a day or two. About 11am yesterday morning we reluctantly said goodbye to our new friends and left the little village of Lakeside, Oregon and drove north along the coast road. Stunning views of the ocean were interspersed with pretty groves of fir trees and idyllic seaside townships and marinas. Can you see the light blinking on the Heceta Head lighthouse? Double click on the photo and when enlarged you will see the light! When the wind came up, it got quite chilly and misty, and reminded us of photos we had seen of Scotland. This area of the Oregon coast is famous for its 40 miles (65 km) of sand dunes, but as it was so windy we weren’t tempted to take up one of the numerous dune buggy ride offers. Instead we stopped in at Old Town in Florence, right on the mouth of the Siuslaw River (just before it enters the sea), and ordered their ‘world famous’ clam chowder. As we were sitting there we watched a seal cavorting in the water just a few feet away from us.

We only travelled 100 miles (160 km) and ended up checking into an RV park right on the Siletz River only 1.5 miles off the main Hwy 101: Coyote Rock RV Resort & Marina, Lincoln City. Who can complain with a riverfront site, mountain views, Cable TV (& WiFi for those who don’t have their own which I do), jetty for fisherman Murray, a quiet park with no traffic to break the tranquility and for $17 all up? Courtesy of Passport America. The park owner says that otters & seals play in the water in front of us, so I am keeping my eyes peeled. He says the otters come up and loll on the jetty, and they tend to stay local, whereas the seals travel in and out to the sea which is less than 2 miles from here. We initially only checked in for one night, but when we woke up this morning to see the sun shining on the river a few feet from our front window, we decided to stay another day and soak up the ‘aura’. Although it is sunny, it is chilly out there! It is 11am and only 12C (53.6F) going for a high of 16C (61F). Brrrr

Thanks to those of you who have emailed in saying you are enjoying the blog. The feedback is great. It’s a shame that those with a military email address are unable to open the photos. If you have a home email, you could forward the blog link there and access the photos that way.

RV Technicals

Several of our family & friends back in Aus have asked us a few questions about day to day issues regarding the RV. For instance, they are interested in how much fresh water does it hold, how do you know when the waste tank is full, how do you empty the waste water etc. These are the same questions we asked before we learnt the ropes on this motorhome. So…just for something different, I thought I would answer some of those questions in the blog. If you have any more questions, just select the word ‘comments’ at the bottom of this entry and fire away. If that doesn’t work for you, an email is fine too.

This model RV holds 65 gallons (245 litres) of fresh water and has two waste water tanks. The gray water tank includes all the water from the shower, and kitchen & bathroom sinks, and it has a capacity of 45 gallons (170 litres). The black water tank is for waste from the toilet only, and it also holds 45 gallons. How long does it take before you need to fill up with fresh water and empty the holding tanks? It depends on how sparingly you use the water. Personally we have gone for 5 days when we were at a campground with no water, but we could last a few days longer if we didn’t choose to have a shower each day, and settled for a sink wash instead. If we weren’t moving on the road frequently and needing to keep our load light to conserve fuel, we would only need to empty the black water once a week, but it would probably last us longer.

Most RV’s have an indicator panel like ours that lights up to show the various systems operating levels. We press the ‘test’ switch on the bottom left, and the lights indicate the status. As you can see from the picture above, ours shows the LPG (32 gallon gas cylinder runs the fridge and heating when we are not connected to power), fresh, holding (black) and gray water tank levels. The far right side indicates the house battery levels – Low, Fair, Good & Charging. The batteries run the interior lights and exhaust fans even when not connected to power. When we are connected to power, they are in charge mode.

The middle ‘pump’ switch you can see is used to engage the water pump. You only need this if you are not connected to a water tap at a campground, and obviously while you are on the road. When we stop for lunch somewhere en route, we are not connected to power or water, so the pump allows us to have running water, even a shower. The last switch on the right is what we use if we are not connected to power, and need our LPG to heat up our water. It only takes about 5 - 10 mins to heat up enough water for a shower.

Besides electric or gas, we have a third alternative to power our devices, an Onan 5000 Generator. When we stop to have lunch on the road, there is a Generator switch on the dash, and that allows us to operate anything electrical such as the microwave, TV, kettle, toaster, airconditioning etc. It runs on fuel from the petrol tank, so if you plan on using the generator, you need to make sure you aren’t running on empty!

Oregon: Cruisin' on the Lake

It’s almost scary watching the USA weather channel over here. California has fires out of control, Iowa is having 100 year-record floods and there were a reported 52 tornadoes yesterday in the Midwest, mainly Kansas and Iowa. Finally here in Lakeside, Oregon, we are having a delightful sunny, mild day. After a brisk walk around the marina and the RV resort ideally positioned between the marina, river and the ocean, we returned to Osprey Point RV Resort located on Tenmile Lake. Murray was fishing in the canal when Charles called out and suggested they take the boat out on the lake. I’m glad they did, as we had fresh rainbow trout for dinner. Delicious! Check out the catch…

Charles & Tawana took us for a spin on the lake in their 21’ boat and we had a bird’s eye view of the lovely homes sequestered in amongst the pine trees. This is one of the lovely homes we boated past.

Now what do you do when nature calls and you are out on the lake? Call into this public restroom of course! Don’t get me wrong, you don’t see this everywhere in America!

Tsunami Readiness

This is the pretty little seaside village of Winchester Bay about a quarter of the way up the Oregon coast. We are spending two nights here. The area is very vibrant with a marina, oyster market, floating fish & chip eatery, and several other quaint eating places and gift shops within easy walking distance or our RV.

At 7am this morning 3 chaps picked Murray up and they went fishing in a boat on a nearby river. One of them caught this huge flounder. No other fish caught...

While Murray was out I did some beading, chatted to my daughter in Canada, and caught up on my sister & nieces blogs. Needing some fresh air, I had a wander around the RV park and chatted to a guy who filled me in on the reason behind all the Tsunami evacuation signs dotted along the coast road since we hit Crescent City on the north California coast.

They had a tsunami in Crescent City in March 1964. An earthquake in Japan set it off and it levelled the business district and killed 11 people. The chap said there is a major fault line just off the California/Oregon coastline, and with all the other seismic events around the world, it is likely to impact this one. Tremors occur regularly miles off the coast on the seafloor, and it is only a matter of time before there is one large enough to set off another tsunami, so this whole coastline is prepared for such an emergency. Sensitive buoys way out in the ocean record wave height and seismic events which are set to trigger off alarms when they reach a certain level. The alarms sound in the seaside villages and that is the time to get in your car and head for the hills, literally! Each town you pass through has big ‘Tsunami Evacuation’ signs along the roads, and I have checked out our exodus route just in case…

Before & After Photos

Here are some before and after photos. The first is us in uniform during our last week before retirement, having a cuppa with the Chief of the Air Force in Canberra. The next two are photos of us doing things we had never done before retirement. Yep, I guess you could say we led a sheltered life until now!

Many of my family and friends are babyboomers. Some have already made the transition to retirement in some form or other – others are still contemplating what their version of retirement might look like. Those who already work for themselves can dictate their own hours and working conditions, so ‘retirement’ for them may simply be cutting back on days or hours worked, and taking more time for leisure. The military made it easy for Murray & I by setting the retirement age at 55 years. We both elected to transfer to the Air Force Reserve and we can take on short-term projects that may look interesting.

For the majority of my friends though, retirement means saying goodbye to full time work and having the time to do all those things they always wanted to do whether that includes travel, voluntary work in the community, more time for hobbies, or being able to spend valuable time with the grandchildren. If you are newly retired like us, or planning for it in the coming years, an insightful quick-read book titled 'So What Do We Do Now?', written by Australian Eva Bennett, offers some very sound advice. In her book Eva discusses how people often prepare for retirement based on finances alone, ignoring other important issues such as physical and psychological needs. She teases the issues out under topics of Home, Health, Relationships, Purpose and Leisure. Click on the title in blue above. The book is well worth a read.

Bring on Summer

Hmm, can anyone tell me why our location in Oregon is the coldest temperature showing up on the USA weather map today?? Makes me want to scurry back to Florida where the days were warm and sunny and we had a great visit to Disney’s Animal Kingdom with Rainie & Tom. I want to be able to live in shorts again!

NEWS FLASH: CNN has just reported that some farmers in rural USA are now offering to contribute money to pay for petrol/diesel for their workers. While petrol has hit $4 per gallon in USA, bear in mind it is averaging $8 a gallon in Europe and $6 in Australia. For you aussies out there, it means it is still cheaper for us buying unleaded petrol over here at about $AUD1.11 per litre compared to $1.65 at home.

Our Route So Far...9250 km later

I'm still in catch up mode here. This map will give you a rough idea of the route we have taken to get to where we currently are in Oregon. Since we left Tampa on 13 April 2008, which is approximately 7 weeks ago, we have travelled 9250 km (7748 miles) and avoided 250 tornadoes, 47 earthquakes, 8 floods and 5 bushfires I reckon! Just joking of course...hang on, perhaps those figures are pretty close to the truth.

Oregon Osprey Point

Courtesy of Passport America, we discovered this hidden gem of an RV Resort right on Tenmile Lake just off the lower Oregon coast. All of the waterfront sites were taken, but the one in front of us was booked and no one moved in until a day later - fortunately it hasn't removed our waterfront view. The resort has a comprehensive store (also sells bait and fishing licenses), laundromat, Pizza-N-Pub, Rec Hall and separate Games Room with pool table and pinball machines. They hold a lot of social activities here for the town. As part of this complex, they have a "village" area down the back where you can purchase deeded lots that have all the utilities. For $105 per month, you have access to the utilities plus 3 months ground maintenance for those who go away in their RV for that period each year. The lots have space for you to build a small cabin, cover for the largest RV and room for a boat and car. Members here, Tawana & Charles took us to their church today and the community was the friendliest we have encountered so far. After church they drove us to the nearby town of Winchester Bay where we had lunch in Kitty's Kitchen (really a fantastic Christmas Shop that also serves home cooked meals & dessert pies) where we met Kitty and her daughter Rebecca played Waltzing Matilda for us. There is an oyster farm at this bay, and I couldn't resist buying a pint container of shucked oysters lifted out of the sea this morning. We have not found a restaurant here in the US that serves fresh oysters, only fried, so I am looking forward to trying the oysters with some fresh lemon juice tonight (if I can wait that long!).

First Two Months in a Nutshell...

This is just to briefly catch you up on our first two months here so that I can continue with regular entries. After our arrival in Tampa, we enjoyed a pleasant two week sojourn with friends Rainie & Tom. It gave us time to celebrate our official retirement, call in on childhood mate Disney (world) and attend to servicing the RV prior to hitting the roads again.

Our route took us along the Gulf coastal strip still showing evidence of the devastation caused in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. Despite some gusty winds, we drove our RV onto a ferry and crossed the bay over to Galveston, Texas and continued north to visit friends on their ranch in Texas hill country to the East of Austin. We then made our way south of Albuquerque where we had a much appreciated visit from my daughter Kim who is working in Nova Scotia, and meet her beau who she was visiting in Albuquerque. Our location was 1300 metres above sea level; the weather was hot, and the air was very dry with humidity only 4% at one stage– skin, nasal mucosa and eyes needed constant lubrication!

Continuing westwards, we entered Arizona. Driving through the Wild West wouldn't be complete without a visit to the town of Tombstone. My admiration for what those cowboys endured in the dust and heat went up several notches! Our visit gave us a glimpse of life in the town back in 1881 when silver mines were springing up everywhere and Tombstone was the largest city between San Francisco and St Louis. Memorabilia from that era are housed in the original 1882 courthouse which is now the museum. Before leaving Arizona we visited the red, picturesque city of Sedona, and one of the seven natural wonders of the world, the Grand Canyon. Awesome scenery.

Our memories of USA will never be complete without recalling our 2 weeks drive through Utah. The unusual rock formations that we first encountered in Monument Valley were simply spectacular. We visited Canyonlands and Arches NP as well as Bryce and Zion NPs. While each National Park was amazing, our favourite was Bryce - those Hoodoos...fantastic. The history of Mormon settlement in Salt Lake City depicts the intestinal fortitude and commitment used to convert the barren valley they decided was 'the place' into the irrigated, productive and economically viable region it is today.

Further West we found ourselves in Reno, Carson City, then Lake Tahoe and Sacramento. In Sacramento, we spent a night with a couple we had met previously at Lake Powell, AZ. We caught up with them again in Utah and spent a fun day hooning around the bush in their 4 WD and seeing Monument Valley from a different view point. We stayed with them and met more of their family at their family cottage in Utah where they took us riding all terrain vehicles (ATV's) on a peak behind the town. Our last visit with them was at their own home where they introduced us to tandem bike riding. They added some very enjoyable 'firsts' to our RV adventures.

We finally hit the coast in San Francisco where we enjoyed the culinary delight of crab chowder in a sourdough bowl followed by a sweet treat of Ghiardelli chocolate! Next stop the Sonoma & Napa Valleys - we stopped in and had a picnic lunch at a local winery before continuing north and eventually winding our way back to the coastal Hwy 101. We thought Mendocino was very quaint and would have loved to linger longer, but the frenzy of weekend tourists convinced us to move on up the coast and brought us closer to the amazing Redwoods. Our drives through the various Redwood Groves imparted a sense of peace and tranquility that is hard to find in today's hectic world. Encounters with Roosevelt Elk while admiring the surrounding Redwoods reminded us how far away we were from our Australian fauna and flora, namely kangaroos and eucalypts.

Starting Out

My story is a bit late getting started. We are already 2 months into our second, yes second 6 month RV travel around the USA. We did things a bit backwards...my husband retired in Mar 2007 and I took leave. We flew to Florida, bought a motorhome and traveled for 6 months. We enjoyed it so much we returned to Aus and I officially retired from the Royal Australian Air Force after 20 years service. We then flew back to the USA at the end of March 2008 to start our retirement in earnest.

Here is a photo taken of us back in April 2007 with our 2001 Holiday Rambler Vacationer, 32' Class A motorhome. We were pretty excited and looked forward to tanning up those white legs of mine! We have since called our RV Priscilla, or 'Prissy' for short after the Aussie movie 'Priscilla Queen of the Desert. So please keep checking in and share the remaining 4 months of our USA RV travels...