Sunday, November 12, 2017

A photo journey form Idaho to Moissoui



      After crossing into Idaho we stopped at the visitors welcome center.. The lady at the booth tells us of a great state park just off the interstate. So we set our sites on the town of  Glenn's Falls ID. . Another neat small town with  a western feel. Would have like to spend some time there, but. There were also two little museums we wanted to see, especially the potato museum. But..........       We stop  at Three Rivers State Park, but only  for the night. These are a couple of be back areas to revisit. Oh no! what is that in the air? Haze, mist, no it's smoke. I thought we left that behind. Yes here in Idaho there are also some forest fires, at least none to close.


Acres and acres of solar panels


Take your pick





Oh no another mural



The Snake River



A neat old town with a western feel


















Our site

Very nice well kept park





Is that smoke? Yes it is, but far away.




Back on the highway, many many covered up bales of hay






After leaving Idaho we cross into the state of Utah before connecting with I 80 going into the state of Wyoming to Nebraska.   






We go through Rattlesnake Pass.






Once we cross into Wyoming It is almost 400 miles before we get into Nebraska. We encountered many long hills. Some seem never ending. There is much dry patched looking landscape with little or no green along this stretch of highway.


We stop just over the hill in Philips RV Park in Everton WY, sorry no photo's.






Miles of snow fence


A very long train, all the way out of the photo

Going in both directions.

We cross the Continental Divide

Must be a good buffet

Along I 80,the highest point of the road. This is just off the old road of  route 30, The Lincoln Highway. This statue sits at the rest stop at mile marker 328. This is were we spend the night. Not a lot of RV Parks along this stretch of I 80.




We are joined by a few others.


Into Nebraska

One of many onion trucks that passed us. I feel I am being stalked (read the previous blog post).
.

Sunflowers

Sidney NB the world headquarters. The store is not as big as some of the other Cabela's we visited.

O NO

I'M NOT HAPPY

When is the meter going to run out, or I hope you run out of quarters










A Chevy to the rescue


A really neat stop, to much road memorability to photo





Route 6

Never saw one of these. Home made ?

Old Gas pump tops





Still going, like that bunny

At the Sac-Fox casino. 20 back in sites with electric, $10.  night. We each received $40. in free slot play. Super Philly steak sandwich for $5. plus free drinks. What a great stop. We pulled in across sites so we didn't have to unhook. Not busy, only 4 other sites were being used.



Another small town USA main street, great getting off the interstate









Another main street

The story these old houses and barns could tell. Linda has so many pictures of old barns we could start a file







Yet another main street



Looks like a tropical mural, in Kanas?







This store caught our curiosity so we found a parking space. This town was on a detour. A very narrow secondary route, but look what we found.








Dose this count as a mural?



We arrive in Branson.

One more leg to Florida, with several stops



















Saturday, November 4, 2017

Road trip to Vale Oregon Sept 2017

     
      After leaving Burns we encounter a few passes with unusual names like Stinkingwater and Drinkingwater. There are a few long steep downgrades.


     On our way to Idaho we go through the town of Vale. We had read about the murals in town. Linda being a mural buff was excited. Well the excitement changes to outright joy as we enter the town. Pull over, pull over is all I hear in a excited loud voice. Even Hannah gets startled and starts looking around. Well no place right here, so we start circling the small town. Not once but three times. We did pull over for gas, and Linda jump's out. And off she goes on her quest. I park at the end of the gas station, and walk Hannah. Linda returns all smiles. She commands, that we have to go up a few streets and go down another. So we all get in the RV and follow her instructions. Seems she talked to someone who told her about a few others we missed. I spot a Less Schub tire store and check if they can check our tires. Yes, give then a few minutes. I guess I'm paranoid since the blow out. We will be getting on I 84, them I 80 for several hundred miles, so best to be safe. I do check them before we leave in the morning and with my heat gun whenever we stop especially along the interstate. In all there about 30 murals in this very small town. Many depicting The Oregon Trail. Very  neat, but some were beginning to show wearthering. We did miss about 12 pictures of murals. Not sure if we can come across them in the future.



















 
 
 
 
 







 
 










      BUT wait there is more. As we start out of town we both smell onions. And since I am not a fan of onions I pick up the smell instantly. The smell is getting stronger. Hannah starts smelling the vents, she even noticed the smell.




Then we begin  to see fields with what looks like onions all layed over like it is time to harvest.  Then we see the sign,


      Little did we  know that they grow 25% or over a Billion pounds of onions in the area consumed in the U.S.  You  know me know I am not looking for a roadside stand selling fresh onions.  A little research tells that here on the Oregon Idaho border is a very large onion producing area. Even though I don't like onions I would have liked to spend a day in this area. It is so much fum to find things like this on the back roads of America. Unfortunally we will be traveling 100's of miles along an interstate to get home to Florida and see what  damage we received from hurricane Irma .




Sunday, October 29, 2017

Burns RV park, Burnes Oregon 2017


Name; Burns RV Park 1273 Seneca Drive Burns OR

Date; Sept 5 2017

Staff; Very friendly

Price; $37.00 -3.70 Good Sam, +3.60 tax==$36.90

Site; Pull thru, gravel, picnic table, shade  trees

Big rig friendly; Yes, many pull thrus, beware a few small.

Amenities; didn't check anything out 

Laundry; yes, no details

Phone/TV/Wi-Fi; 25 channel cable TV

Night; Not much lighting at night

Security; other then check in none noted

Opinion; We would give this park another try

Dog Friendly; Yes a fair amount of space to walk a dog.  $50. fine for not picking up after you dog.

Phone/TV/Wi-Fi; 25 channel cable Comments; We really didn't check this park out, and it is unfair for us to judge the park. Although our site was not to derisible. There were many nice sites. We did get the last pull thru, so we didn't have to unhook our car. We had to wait till the RV in front of us pulled out so we could pull out.  The park took a few extra RV's and park them along the roads to accommodate people traveling who were avoiding road closures because of the fires. Nice of them to do so, even if it delayed us getting an early start.   



 
Our site squeezed in between a shed and a pole. Many other better sites in the park

On the road to Burns, they had what looked like a 10-12 Rv park in the back

We passed about 10 similar old cars along the road

Not much between the cities of Sisters and Burns after leaving the Cascades and also between the cities of Burns and Vale OR


 

Saturday, October 28, 2017

Florance OR to Burns OR 2017


                            September 5th 2015
      Hi everyone, we have been home for about six weeks now and finally trying to get in the mood to start blogging again. We suffered very little hurricane damage to our home, but we lost our dock and our seawall suffered major damaged, and will have to be replaced. A costly expense the insurance doesn’t cover. I want to try and continue blogging about our trip out west as a diary for us and for future reference. I hope what I write will also help some of you with your travels. Linda did keep a journal which is a tremendous help. Now all I have to do is put it to type. There are a lot of details we are both trying to remember. We will start by telling of our 3,000 mile trip back to Florida. This is my second attempted to start blogging again. I feel it is something I must do to keep my mind active and to help remember the great trip we had even with some of the problems we encountered.

    Here we go. We were on the coast of Oregon in the city of Florence,  at a Thousand Trails RV Park when hurricane Irma hit the coast of Florida and passed through our home town of Cocoa leaving a path of devastation. After several phone calls to friends in our development we decided we better head home. Life is so different now that we are home owners then when we traveled full time for almost ten years.  At any rate we made the decision to head home to our adopted state of Florida.

     Many forest fires delayed our start back east. We didn’t want to make many detours with a lot of added mileage, so we just waited till we could go in the direction we planned. We did travel through some heavy smoke in Eugene and Sisters Oregon area. We passed some beautiful country we wanted to visit. Hopefully some day we may get back. There were many “fire camps” along the way up McKenzie Pass at 5325 feet high through the Cascades, which is open only in the summer. There were many lava flows in the area. There is world class fly fishing in several rivers   Smoke is heavy at times. We pass signs along the way telling the folks level one evacuation is in place, get ready to go. As we pass through the city of Sisters there is what looks of an old western town. Wish we could stop and visit. There is a RV park right in town. Then we pass through some more heavy smoke. We drive through the Oregon Badlands Wilderness.  We then continue along route 20 with not much but wilderness and few towns. A good two lane road. Our destination is Burns RV Park in Burns OR. Trip of 329 miles, much further then we like to travel in a day. Good thing we called we procured one of the last spaces where we could pull through and didn’t have to unhook. The park did fill up that night. We will do a review of this park in another post. Gas in the area was $3.09 a gallon.
 
In the city of Eugene


Through the McKenzie Pass and over the Cascades



Lava Flows

A huge load to bring over the Pass

More smoke approaching the city of Sisters

The cute city of Sisters, deserves a revisit

Top photo on right is an RV park in the town of Sisters, next a working ranch and finally a "full" service gas station. Remember them. Most attends in uniform.