Home Again

The trip is over. Back to the domecile. So much space!!! And this morning, I woke up to turkeys.

Will any of my clocks show the same time?

I arrived in Elkhart, Indiana in the dark, and 10 minutes before the sky opened to rain, rain, rain. I donned my raincoat to turn the tow car off, and plug in the electric. I figured I'd do the rest in the morning. The next day, I finished the set-up and left to take a tour of the Monaco RV plant. I had to kill time before the tour, so I toured the town, including a garden quilt, which they have all over the area, and are pretty attractive. I then got to the tour about 20 minutes early, and found it had started 40 minutes ago. Who knew Indiana was on Eastern time?

 I don't know if this is true for you, but I find when I first start a trip, I take picture after picture. Usually I go through them, and eliminate 4 of the 5 I take of one thing. But, at the end of the trip, I forget to bring my camera, or forget to take it out of my pocket. That's what happened in Indiana.  The next day, I went to a couple auctions. The first one was everything you thought you might find in a barn - cartons of stuff - rakes, harnesses, rope, blankets, etc. A lot of last minute bartering - "I'll pay half that price for one of them."


The second auction was a horse auction. It took a long time to get all the horses in the different pens. I was on a catwalk above. There was one horse biting and kicking all the others with her in the pen. I felt like whacking her. And there was this little pinto, which was cowed by the other horses, and emaciated. She looked like she needed a lot of TLC. I'm allergic to horses, and after a time, I started sneezing, and everything - eyes, throat, etc. - started itching. I was just about ready to give it up when the auction started. And quick!!! They auctioned them off as quickly as they got them into the open space. And my little pinto - one guy finally said he'd take her for $5, so I didn't have to raise my hand.

Then I finally went on an RV plant tour - Jayco. I got to see the holding tanks up close and personal - before they were installed. It was pretty good.

This area is known as the RV center of the country, as well as an area with many Amish and Mennonite. So, the next day I visited the RV Museum and Hall of Fame. I loved that. Seeing all the old RVs, many hand-built  by the owners, was fun. I saw a Scotty, my folks' first, and an Airstream, just like my grandparents' first and only.

It's time to get home. I'll wait until after Irene, and may get my RV's oil changed again. A wash for both vehicles would be good too. Tonight I'm in PA, and will see if I can get any of those chores done tomorrow or the next day.

I also have to make a decision about RVing through Australia and New Zealand. It's awfully expensive, and I can't decide whether to do that or a cheaper, shorter trip to those countries. I always hoped I'd be making decisions like this!!!!

Nothing Stays the Same

I hadn't expected Wall, South Dakota to be the same as when Penelope and I worked there - I mean it was in 1970. But, boy, what a difference! They put a little barrier in the middle of Main Street, and parked cars on both sides of it. And there are a lot more stores. I realized after I left the town, I hadn't even looked to see what they were. The Cactus restaurant (where we worked) was bigger upstairs, and had a lounge upstairs. The lounge downstairs was no longer used. The bartender said it was used on the weekends for local teenagers, but not operated as a lounge. I didn't ask her why - tried to remember if there was an egress from downstairs. Could that be why? If so, I guess teenagers don't need, or won't use a second egress. It was a big place - big bar, stage for a band, dance floor, and tables for food. 

When I worked there, many customers said the place had the best steak, and every year on their route they would stop for dinner. It seemed to be true, and I was waiting for a good steak. But, not this time! It was half meat and half fat!


Wall Drug Store, which became known for its free ice water and 5c coffee, changed dramatically. It's maybe 8 times as big, and added more and more tourist trap stuff. It also added 3 places to eat. You can grab something, order and take it to a table, or sit down with waiter/waitress service. And, it discovered jackalopes in SD. I thought they were only in Jackson Hole, WY. There were lots of people walking around, but the cashiers, attendants were not busy at all. The billboards must pull people in to look and look only. The billboard said the coffee was still 5c. I was going to comment on that, but I couldn't find it - or the free ice water.

The Badlands were even different, but for good reasons. Since 1970, it became a national park, with a loop road, visitor centers and lots of places for pictures. I forgot how majestic they are. I can remember seeing them in different light, at different times of the day. I drove the loop, went oooh and aahhh, took pics and thoroughly enjoyed the park.

In Wisconsin, I went to the House on the Rock. I had heard about this, and saw all the amazing features. This house was the Builder's passion. His story is interesting. When a child, his family picnicked on the rock. At one point, he paid the farmer $20 rental fee to picnic there. Then, when the place was available, he bought it. He built a "studio" where he could relax. Then he started charging all the people who wanted to see his studio 50c, and it grew and grew from there. It was a bit much for me, but I loved the huge inside carousel, and the numerous mechanical instruments/orchestras/??? You put a token in a slot and the band, the calliope, the ???? starts playing. The calliope was great. Then there is a room as big as a 5 floor residence, which houses a sea display, with a whale, waves?, octopus, etc. made from what looked like papier-mache. Collection after collection of things - dollhouses, miniature circus pieces, guns, etc, etc, etc. He actually lived here too. How many sitting rooms did I walk through? I saw one kitchen(???) with some burners, a sink and refrigerator, on the back side of another sitting room. I don't remember a bedroom, but, of course, some of the house may have been blocked off, or redone, to accommodate the thousands of people walking through at $26-28, who needed pizza, water, beer, etc. Two things kept coming to mind: The builder had quite an imagination; and the maintenance must cost a fortune.





The next day I headed to Elkhart, IN. A few hours down the road, someone was trying to get my attention. I needed gas, so I thought I'd pull off, do that, and check the rig. As soon as I emerged from my RV, a young man (my savior) asked me if I knew I had a problem with my tire. He brought me around to the back left tire of my towed car, and all I saw was the rim with a rubber fringe around it. Bless him for changing it. I then spent 1/10th of a tank of gas trying to find a tire store. Directed to one, I found it out of business, directed to another, it had changed. Gypsy brought me to another, where the doors were locked and no one was around. Then I decided to go to a Walmart, and on the way, came to a Goodyear store. The people were great, starting to work on it right away, even though most of the people went to lunch between 12 and 1. This confused me since my watch said 11:15. That pesky little problem of time zones reared its ugly head again.

On My Own Again (sung to Willie Nelson's 'On the Road...')

The last few days of the Alaskan Caravan were as great as usual. In fact our last driving day to Smithers we saw 5 bears - 4 different sightings. It was very exciting. There were 2 tiny little cubs - so cute!!! We also stopped to see some pretty ancient totem poles.

It was hard to leave the group. We had so many great times together. But, everything must come to an end. We had a farewell dinner, and then a farewell breakfast.

I went through the Canadian Rockies again, and then took Rte 2 across Montana. Of course, a lot of the scenery was just as beautiful as in Alaska and the Yukon. A lot of Montana was field after field after field with bale after bale after bale of ???? hay, wheat, oats ? It was harvesting time. I stayed in Shelby one night, and, as I was coming into town the radio said there was going to be a speaker on Seminole quilting. I decided to go. She spoke about a number of things, and many techniques. It was very interesting, and I saw a number of beautiful quilts.

I had planned to take Rte 2 for quite a way, but at some point I decided to visit some old haunts, and headed for South Dakota. In 1970, Penelope and I worked at the Cactus Restaurant, and in the mornings at a motel in Wall, SD. Today I visited the Crazy Horse Monument. In 1970 the sculptor said now that they have a road up to the monument, and can bring in heavy equipment, it would go much faster. In 1998 they displayed the finished head. I looked up at the mountain, and it looked like nothing was being done. But with binoculars I could see the puffs of dirt and dust rising from what I expect was drilling. What a huge endeavor!!!!

Tomorrow I go to Wall, and the Badlands.

Houdini foiled

As I mentioned before, Skittles has become an expert at escaping. Tonight, when I was registering for a site, Skittles was plotting. When I opened the truck door, she was on the floor and ran, trying to get through my legs. I got hold of her cat hindquarters - no, I didn't grab her by the tail - and told her in no uncertain words what I thought about her trying to escape. I mean, heavens, as soon as we got to our site, I was going to let her out. Unsatisfied with that answer, she proceeded to bite me on my arms. BUT.... I was able to put/shove her into her new, hard plastic carrier. I just bought it yesterday, and also used it successfully last night. She can't get out of it  --  at least not yet!!!

I had a soft carrier for her that lasted a while. But then, she learned how to unzip it, and tore apart the insides, so into the trash it went. I bought a different soft case - why, I don't know. She immediately was able to unzip it, and then the second day, it was taking her too long to unzip it, so she just tore through the nylon.

Yesterday, I really wanted to buy another sturdy nylon one. It's lighter and doesn't hurt if you stub your toe on it. It doesn't own the space it takes, but shares it. But, it zipped, and had 2 nylon mesh pieces I was sure she'd get through in less than a minute.

So, the hard plastic case. Ha! Ha! Ha! This means an end to the nightly terrors, and a way to ensure she stays in the rig when I need her to do so. Do you think cats can learn how to use both paws at the same time to spring the door?

Wildlife Putting on Shows for Us

We went to Skagway, and took a boat to Juneau for the day. We saw 8-9 humpback whales together bubble-net feeding. I'd never seen this, and the Captain said it wasn't that common. The whales swim around blowing, and go down low. Then they all come up at the same time with their mouths open catching the small fish in the bubble they developed. It looks like they are jumping up and bumping their chests to each other, like some men do when their team scores a point. It was fascinating. Going to Juneau we saw this twice, and, coming back, once more. You would think with all these opportunities, I would have gotten a good picture, BUT NO.... I'm going to have to get a picture from someone else in the group.

In Juneau, we went to the Mendenhall Glacier. Here a number of our group saw a couple bears catching salmon. But, I missed that. How many times has someone said, "Did you see...."  Aaarghhh!!
The truth is we have seen many animals, and have been excited about all these opportunities. Also, the countries, states, provinces have instituted regulations not to feed or disturb the wildlife. I don't know if there are any existing dumps where you can go to look at the bears. In the areas where we have been traveling, again and again we are told that we need to keep the habitats of the wildlife wild. So we wondered what kind of deal the Captain had made with those whales to bubble-net feed.

Skagway was a town that grew at the base of a trail to the Klondike during the gold rush. Dyea was another which grew at the beginning of the Chilkoot trail. Dyea is now gone, but there are some remembrances of the times. One is a cemetery for about 70 people who were caught in an avalanch. It was rather sobering.

We are now in Stewart-Hyder. Stewart is in British Columbia, and Hyder in Alaska. Last night we went to Hyder to see the bears. The stream was crowded with salmon. What a constant battle to get to their spawning area. I can see why a large percentage don't make it. And, on top of the uphill battle, they have these bears fishing for them. First we saw a mother and her "yearling" come to fish. The young one was a riot running through the water, and caught 2 fish. Then we saw a big grizzly come into the stream from the other direction. The mother and child caught a whiff of him, stood on their hind legs to check him out, and left in a hurry. Then the grizzly left. Then the mother and child came back (same ones?). They were doing fine, and another grizzly (much smaller than the first) came into the stream. He tore at a couple salmon, and starting walking up the stream on the bank. We all thought he was sneaking up on the mother and child. Then he went back into the water and the other two took off in a hurry. And then we left, once again wondering what kind of deal the bear union made with management to conduct the show for us.

We understand that the males chase the females and cubs out of the stream frequently. The first grizzly looked like he didn't care what anyone was doing, because he knew he was the biggest, baddest bear in town. The second grizzly looked like he was strutting his stuff to scare off the female and child, particularly the way he was sneaking toward them. Once they started running he put up a short chase but fizzled out very quickly. We're going back tonight for a second showing.

Waterfall #104

Have I mentioned how beautiful the scenery is? Everywhere you turn you see another exquisite (I need to remember this word for Bananagrams) view. Yesterday we toured Prince William Sound in Valdez. Everywhere you looked the view was spectacular, absolutely fantastic! Passing by one more beautiful waterfall, someone mentioned the count was up to 104. And glaciers - so many. Yesterday we saw 2 more. The captain had to steer the boat gently through a number of icebergs of different sizes - mostly small. Some had sea otters on them; some had harbor seals. I think the sea otters are the cutest ever, but mean, if cornered. So far we passed a number of rafts of otters which are curious and check us out just as we check them out. We took the boat close to one of the glaciers, and saw it calving 3 times. Early that morning, there was a tremor of 5.3 on the richter scale. We think a fairly large iceberg floating in the water, broke off earlier in the day. On that boat trip we saw a humpback whale, 3 Orcas, lots of bald eagles, a mass of sea lions, harbor seals, sea otters, and many, many birds.

We've been seeing informative displays of the 1964 earthquake and the Exxon Valdez oil spill. One display of the oil spill "hurt my heart" and I couldn't tell any others what it was about. Why should I ruin their day too? The wildlife are still in different stages of recovery. It looks like the herring have been badly affected. There are studies to try to find what, if anything, humans can do to bring back the herring to levels before the oil spill. The earthquake and tsunami of 1964 caused a great deal of destruction and loss of life. Valdez built a whole new town after that, because they decided the existing one was unstable.

A lot of people have been fishing, and bringing back their limit of 6 every day. The salmon are running. They are so thick that they are being foul-hooked. The regulations say you have to hook them near the mouth to keep them. The technique to catch them is to snag them. Doesn't sound like much of a sport, does it? One fellow was saying that some of the salmon they catch have other lures in them - on the side, or... He had one break his line easily, and he thinks that has happened to many others. Some of these salmon get pretty big. The bears come down to feed off the salmon, and there are spots where people wait for the bears to come. Last night there was one just before we got there, and another about 15 minutes after we left. The night before we missed the bear by about 20 minutes. I guess there are no set times when they are ready to eat. Or, maybe they heard we were coming. We should be seeing more bears fishing in a couple stops.

Skittles was in a pet parade tonight. Her first of course, and probably her last. Since she was the only one in the cat category, she won a little bag of cat toys. It was fun, and a few laughs.

Mountains, glaciers, sea water, sea otters and puffins

Our last 2 campgrounds have been on the sea. I've included a couple pictures from my campsites. In Seward we were parked on Resurrection Bay. In Homer we camped on the Spit. The views are beautiful. In fact every time you turn around the view is beautiful, whether you're on the water, driving the road, or just staring at the sky.

We've been looking at glaciers everywhere. One we approached in a boat, one we approached by foot, and one we approached by helicopter. And a number of other ones we viewed. When boating, we were told the lake we were boating through had been covered with the glacier, and was made from the glacial runoff. When we were walking toward the Exit Glacier, there were posts all along the way showing where the glacier began in what year. Of course, it has receded miles since they began recording. I think the first year of recording was 1889.

I just saw a bald eagle flying over the sea in front of my rig. I wish I had had my camera ready.

Today we took a boat over to Seldovia, a cute little seacoast town, reached only by air or boat. It was affected by the 1964 earthquake, when the land sunk about 6 feet. It also has been influenced by the Russian culture through traders of many years ago. There is a Russian Orthodox Church, started in 1820, with the current structure built in 1891. On the way, we saw puffins and sea otters. The boat received a "Mayday" alarm from a boat taking in water, and started to turn. However, another boat was much closer, so we continued on our way.

Today, a number of our caravan went halibut fishing.They all caught their limit, so tomorrow, we have fish for dinner. What a life!!!! I am so fortunate!!!

Rafting and Driving the Dogs

We've been having so much fun. The group is great. The scenery is FANTASTIC. And, we're doing a lot.

I sometimes wonder how I make it. Yesterday we stopped for a boat trip to a glacier. I locked my tow car, and forgot to unlock it and turn it on. Thus, the steering wheel locked. An hour later, as we reached our destination, I heard my tires squealing, when I went around the corner, and wondered why. The other day I was following another rig, and the driver asked how I was doing on gas. I hadn't looked at the indicator, so I told her "It's on empty, and blinking." We thought we were 30-40 miles from the next gas station, so I said a little prayer. I have a 20 gallon tank, and filled it with more than 20 gallons.

One of my pet peeves is that you can't see what you're taking with your camera, in bright sun - in my case, with neither my Kodak camera, nor my iPhone camera. The Kindle corrected the problem, so you can read your book in the sunlight; why can't the cameras? I hadn't planned on getting another camera or phone for a while, but I may if I can correct this problem. On this trip I keep taking pictures, hoping some will be good. Well, today, at the glacier where we were "mushing," somehow I reversed the camera, and, not knowing it, took 127 pictures of my face. You can imagine how pleased I was with that.

We had the best time the other day, rafting down a river. The river went by our campground. It was so nice to look out on the river, the mountains, and a train across the river. We had been waving to the rafters we saw go by, and today we waved to the campers. The rafting was so much fun. We were supposed to have a raft where we all paddle, but the order got messed up somehow, so we had a person who did all the rowing and steering, and all we had to do was hold on.They asked us to stay together with the people we planned to raft with. Just like that we all grabbed each other, and dared them to pull us apart. Of course, they gave us the normal instruction and safety points. As soon as we pushed off, he had us practice the positions, and leaning forward. Then we hit some rapids. I've included a couple pictures of our rafting. In the first picture you really can't see those of us who were in the front. But in the second picture you can. Two of those legs you see in the second one are mine. Then we came to the second big rapids, and Bob and I went back again, with our legs up in the air. With help from my neighbor in the raft, I got up, and another wave took me back again. At that point the "Rower" said to both of us, "Stay down, but get ready." Okay, then we hit the third rough section, and Bob and I were determined we weren't going over a third time. I took the wave straight in my face, and, without raising my head, turned toward Bob to see if he stayed up too. Success!!! We then told the "Rower" he should take us back to the first one and let us prove we could do it. No go! ....... But the best part of the rafting trip, was to see a moose and her calf about 150 feet up the river from where we launched. That was special, and she didn't run away - just kept watching us, while we watched the two of them.

At the campsite today, we're looking out over a bay, and mountains, and glaciers. It is absolutely beautiful!! We took a helicopter up to a glacier, and then rode on a dogsled. Mush! Guiee! etc. Forgetting about the reflection on the ice and snow, a number of us got sunburns. I found out they have to protect a number of the dogs from sunburn too. I never thought about that. They had a large number of dogs, and 6 brand new little puppies. On the dogsled, we stood just in back of the musher, or trailing further back on the back of a sled. Standing on the trailing sled was more fun. You had more control, and felt like you were actually a musher. It was like water-skiing. I used muscles I haven't used for a long time.