Memphis , Tennessee

  We haven’t made it very far! There aren’t a lot of cities with good shopping areas in the rural south so we had to stop for awhile in Memphis to buy Christmas presents. Hope they make it to y’all in time! We also visited a few of the many museums.

More pictures here:  http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Memphis%20,%20Tenneesee

On Our Way West

  Thank you to everyone in Pittsburgh , Ohio and D.C. for all of the invitations , good food and company! We had such a good time that we forgot to take any pictures. We’re going to miss all of you over the Christmas holidays but I think that we have a solution!

   We’ll just take everyone with us! 

New Motorhome – We’re doing it!

    This isn’t the way that it’s normally done but we’re getting the truck that we want and also a much better constructed motorhome. It’s a little complicated though because we have to make decisions  on everything. Some of it’s simple – not much choice because there are only so many kinds of some of the specialized motorhome fixtures. Other things are wide opened. All ideas and suggestions are very welcome!

More pictures herehttp://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/New%20Motorhome%20-%20We|4re%20doing%20it!: 



  Vote for  your  favorite or  send us your own  design!

US 20 Through Nebraska

  There isn’t much to see or do in northern Nebraska. It was settled late in our history and never supported a large population. Originally the land was part of the buffalo hunting area of the Lakota Indians-the tribe that Kevin Costner befriended in the movie "Dances With Wolves" Homesteaders tried farming ,only to fail when the rain didn’t come. People moved away,towns shrunk and now cattle have taken the place of the buffalo.

More pictures here:  http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.res/4CE32117B0082FB8!623

Yellowstone National Park , Wyoming

  
 We decided to visit the southern part of Yellowstone on our way east. The park is beautiful any time of the year but we didn’t realize that most of the tourist facilities were already closed. The park was almost empty and we really enjoyed the wide opened views. But then we heard a weather forecast – 6 to 12 inches of snow! Time to go!

More pictures here:http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.res/4CE32117B0082FB8!602

John Day Fossil Beds National Monument

  This is one of the newest national monuments,established in 1975. It’s contains one of the richest fossil beds in the world with a continuous record of fossils spanning 40 million years from 54 million to 6 million years ago.

More pictures here: http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.res/4CE32117B0082FB8!

Olympic National Park

  For thousands of years the Olympic peninsula was cut off from other land  by glaciers and the ocean so the plants and animals developed in isolation. In 1909 the area that makes up the park was protected as a national monument. Most of the other land on the peninsula was eventually logged. Because this is one of the largest old growth temperate rain forests it’s a Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage Site.


 
This river becomes a torrent in the spring from melting snow and rain. If you look closely you can see some of the full size trees that get washed down to the ocean beaches.

More pictures here:  http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Olympic%20National%20Park

All Around the Puget Sound

  We’ve just been hanging around in Washington State. Ever since our motorhome hit 300,000 miles we’ve been thinking that we really should start looking around for a replacement. We found a guy who does custom builds so now we just have to decide whether we want him to do it!  While we’ve been debating we took in all of the local museums.

More pictures here:  http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.res/4CE32117B0082FB8!526

Visiting Eden and Burt

  We’ve been having a good time visiting , eating Eden’s creations and getting slaughtered  at  Boggle!  Eden and Burt are camera shy so no slide show.

Camping on their street                                        Eden and Burt’s house        

           The cats didn’t mind posing for pictures!    

Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument , Washington State

 
 I remember being surprised when Mount St. Helens erupted because I didn’t realize that there were active volcanoes on the US mainland. Many of the people living in the area never considered it either. Even the scientists weren’t sure when or what was going to happen. The volcano had been rumbling for a couple of months and access was restricted but  57 people were still killed in the eruption.

More pictures here:http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.res/4CE32117B0082FB8!477
 
It’s a blooming artichoke!

A Week In Portland, Oregon

Sorry , no spectacular scenery this week! We’ve been using our museum passes to see everything. Most of the museums don’t allow photography.     The history museum had a lot of the costumes from the Broadway production of The Lion King which were amazing.
This is a great city to visit because almost everything is within walking distance of the down town area.

More pictures here http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.res/4CE32117B0082FB8!454

12 Years and 300,000 Miles !

 Our little camper just keeps going ! From Alaska to Key West and from Newfoundland to San Diego. Every so often we think about getting a new one but we can’t seem to find one that can take us all of the places that this one has so we’ll keep the duct tape and caulking handy for the next 100,000. We’ve been meandering up through central Oregon. This is where we camped Friday night – beautiful and free on national forest land.
  Click here for more pictures -  http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.res/4CE32117B0082FB8!405

Crater Lake National Park , Oregon

    Mount Manzana erupted 7,700 years ago ,then the volcano collapsed forming the depression which filled with water. It’s 1,943′ deep. All the water comes from snow melt and there’s no outlet except for percolation. And it really does look this blue!


 
Strange snow and dirt formation.          
Click here for more pictures    http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.res/4CE32117B0082FB8!368-                     

Lassen Volcano National Park

  The firefighters are getting the California fires under control – only 367 compared to almost 1500 a few days ago. We drove through some heavy  smoke on the way to Lassen but we haven’t seen any of the fires.
The scenery  in Lassen Volcano park varies greatly. We started in the south where there are some hot areas but little sign off the volcanic activity. The northern end has many more signs of the eruptions which lasted for three years from 1914 to 1917 and also a very rocky area from a huge landside which happened in the 1640s.
This photograph was taken on May 22,1915 during the largest eruption. It could be seen fifty miles away.

  Click here for more pictures – http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.res/4CE32117B0082FB8!329

Stuck In Nevada and Utah Parks

We had been planning to go north through California but the forest fires are burning all along our route. There are only a few roads so we have to hang around a few more days to see what happens. We're about 30 miles north of Lake Tahoe and the smoke is blowing in through the pass.
Here are some satellite photos of California.
                 
Smokey In Nevada

Since we're not going anywhere , I made a slide show of where we were in May. Southern Utah is almost all national land and is one of the most scenic areas in the country.

 Click here for Windows slide show.  http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.res/4CE32117B0082FB8!271 
   

The Loneliest Road US 50 , Nevada

Welcome to our newest time waster! I’m going to try to post
every week or two or whenever we see something interesting.
Click here for more pictures - http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Loneliest%20Road