Road Trip 2016 - part 4 Hells Canyon

Leaving Missoula, we headed down Lolo Pass and cruised into Clarkston, Washington. A few years ago my dad was on a guided fishing trip in Hells Canyon, so we wanted to take a jet boat ride. We booked a half day trip with Snake River Adventures and had an awesome day.

We left the dock about 10 am. Our group had about 25 people in it. It was a beautiful day on the river. The boxed lunches were generous, we learned a lot about the history of the canyon and saw some wildife. It was just a great way to spend the day.

Snake River

Rafters

Mirror Image

Mama Bighorn with babies

Chillin in the shade

Gobbler

Petroglyphs

Leaving Clarkston, we headed home. 

Road Trip 2016 - Part 3 Montana

We only spent three days in Montana. It's where I went to college, so it was just a quick trip back. Our first night was spent in Hamilton. We stayed at the Black Rabbit RV Park.

A couple decades ago I visited the Daly Mansion with a college friend, so we went back to see what had changed. The answer is a lot. Back then many of the rooms had minimal furninishings and the third floor was closed to visitors. Now it's a beautiful house museum.

Daly Mansion

Mrs. Daly's room

Mosaic of Marcus Daly's favorite racehorse

It was good to see it again. I'll have to dig our my old (pre digital) photos and do some comparisons.

As we were leaving the Mansion to return to camp, we noticed  a great deal of smoke. Turns our a forest fire had started - the Roaring Lion Fire- and the highway had actually been closed. Initially, 500 houses were evacuated. When I checked the update a couple days ago, the fire was as 8700 acres and only 65% contained...two weeks after it started.

Roaring Lion Fire from the Highway

We headed into Missoula the next day. Wow! That town has grown! We made a trip to the University Bookstore, had lunch at the Staggering Ox, spent some time wandering downtown and visited the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. It was nice to relax for a couple days.

Elk on display at RMEF

Road Trip 2016 - Part 2 Idaho

From Oregon we headed into Idaho and spent about a week wandering through the state. We spent one night in Hagerman at the Hagerman RV Village. We also checked in at the Hagerman Fossil Beds Visitors Center, but didn't make it to the overlooks. It was incredibly hot that day, so we opted to lay low.

Another NPS site I wanted to visit was Craters of the Moon National Monument. It was really interesting. NASA actually trained astronauts here before the moon landing in 1969.  And Arco, Idaho was the first community in the world to be lit with electricity generated by a nuclear power.

Inferno Cone

Lava field

Vegetation in the lava field

Art installation - Lava Tube

After a couple days in Arco we headed north to Challis and camped along the Salmon River. We also enjoyed the pools at Challis Hot Springs. The hot springs were amazing. It was so nice to just float in the 99 degree water. The springs fill the pools through the ground and then needs to be cooled. 

Salmon River near Challis, ID

From Challis, we wandered just a bit further north to North Fork, Idaho and camped another night along the Salmon River. We stayed at the Wagonhammer RV Park, which was celebrating it's Lavender Festival. We took a little drive to do some wildlife viewing.

Salmon River near North Fork, ID

Elk grazing

Pronghorn

Leaving Idaho, we headed across the border into Montana.

Road Trip 2016 - Part 1 Oregon

This summer we had a conflict which prevented us from making a trip to North Carolina for our family reunion. But we couldn't just stay home, so we headed off on a two week road trip in the motorhome to see some new sights and some old favorites.

We wandered east on a Sunday and spent a couple days in Dayville, Oregon at the Fish House Inn and RV Park. We've stayed here before, and it's a good spot from which to see the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument and to visit Kam Wah Chung State Heritage Site in John Day.

I'm a big fan of the National Park System, and with this being the NPS Centennial, I wanted to visit a few.  We've been to the fossil beds before, but the improvements to the visitors center exhibits were worth the trip again. I do find it interesting that the man, John Day, was never within 100 miles of the site or the town of John Day, but since it's on the banks of the John Day River, which he named, the name transferred and stuck.

Sheep Rock at John Day Fossil Beds

Fossils in the Visitors Center

We drove into John Day to specifically visit Kam Wah Chung. Ten years ago, the museum wasn't open when were in town, and I'm really glad we stopped this time. During the 1870's, when gold was discovered in Oregon, thousands of Chinese miners poured into the John Day area. Kam Wah Chung served as a store, lodgings and medical office for the Chinese community. When "Doc" Hay  died in 1952, the building was boarded up and left virtually intact. It's a great museum.

Kam Wah Chung exterior

Kam Wah Chung interior

As we continued east we stopped at Unity Lake State Park for our lunch break. It's interesting how you can go for miles amid the dry grasslands and then pull up over a rise to see a lake.

Unity Lake

May....

...came and went really, really quickly this year. Every weekend was packed and most of us were running in different directions.

• We celebrated birthdays...Nephew got a bounce house and water balloon fight with dinosaur themed cupcakes. Sister's birthday was pretty low-key.
• DAR State Conference....for doing alot of sitting during business sessions and other meetings, I still managed to hit my goals on my vivofit. Protocol committee rules...and runs.
• Last big push...for the end of the school year. Motivating 8th graders is challenging!
• A good friend announced a move. Their house sold in three days and they were gone! I'll miss them being close and will have to travel to Washington to visit them now.
• Memorial Day Weekend...at the beach. Excellent weather. Good friends. Family phtoos. 

Here's the summer, and hopefully a few more blog posts.

Tulips

Spring means flowers. On Sunday we visited the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm for the Tulip Festival. Acres and acres of beautiful flowers, food, music, and tons of people. It was a beautiful day to do something fun.

A New Year

I say it every year, but I'm not sure where 2015 disappered to. I know it happened. I know I was busy and occupied, enteretained and opinioned. I also know there were great highs and great lows.

We ended the year with family night at the movies. Three generations lined up in a row to watch Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I have to say, I was a bit nervous about how Disney would handle the film, but I really enjoyed it.

So, now 2016 has begun. Today dawned bright and cold. A visit with family friends and a snuggle with their dogs and kittens. Followed by lunch with my parents.

Happy New Year. May 2016 be awesome.

Football Saturdays

Look who's playing football!

So stinkin' cute!

Southern Oregon Weekend

Labor Day weekend in Southern Oregon. We spent the weekend at Valley of the Rogue State Park so we could just relax. Of course, we found ways to entertain ourselves as well.

On Saturday, we spent the day in Jacksonville. It's such a great little town. The weather was beautiful, so we spent a few hours wandering through the shops. We even ran into some friends. And we had a wonderful lunch on the patio of the Jacksonville Inn.

Sunday, we headed into Grants Pass. We had a specific goal. Once upon a time, I lived in Brookings, Oregon and frequently enjoyed eating at Wild River Pizza. There are actually four locations, so we opted for lunch at the Grants Pass location. The pizza was excellent. And so was the beer. They were out of my usual favorite, the Kolsch, so I went with the Honey Wheat Ale. It was a good choice.

Music Festival

We made our 5th trip to the Bimart Willamette County Music Festival this year. As always we had a great time. The music was good, the weather cooled of and we got to take some much needed down time with friends and family.

Th music was pretty good too.

Jackson Mickelson

Scotty McCreery

Rascal Flatts

Dustin Lynch

Luke Bryan

Tracy Lawrence

Chris Young

The Band Perry

Heading Home

Flying east we always leave early. Flying west is another story. Our flight was schedued to leave at 3:00 pm, so we had some time to fill before leaving Birmingham. We decided to check out the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. Wow. It was an excellent museum with so much history and emotion. It's located right across the street from the 16th Street Baptist Church, which was bombed in 1963, killing four young girls. We didn't go into the church, or fullly explore the park across the street, but it was definitely worth the visit.

Exclusion Diorama

Separate was not equal

Rosa Parks Diorama

16th Street Baptist Church

The flight home was uneventful. It's good to be home.

Back to Alabama

We left Chattanooga after breakfast and headed south into Georgia. We drove back through the Chickamauga battlefied and then drifted southwest toward Alabama. We stopped for gas at Mentone, Alabama. It's a small town that is reputed to have some great little artisan shops. Unfortunately, they open at 11:00 am, and we were there at 10:00 am. With nothing to do, we kept driving and made a brief stop at DeSoto State Park where we got some information about Little River Canyon.

Our next stop was the Little River Canyon Center where we picked up a park map and had a nice visit with the park ranger on duty.  She said Little River Falls overlook was a good place for a picnic, so that's where we went. The falls are pretty, and accessible for swiming. However, I wouldn't want to be there when the water was running fast.

One of the sign board at the overlook shows a photo of the falls in December and the water covers the entire rock face. 

We drove through part of the Canyon. We had to stop for a photo at Mushroom Rock. When the road was built, they left this really cool rock formation and built the road around it. 

We left the canyon and drove into Fort Payne. It's the hometown of one of my favorite bands - Alabama. We stopped at the city park so I could take a photo.

And we visited the Alabama Fan Club and Museum. They have a new album coming out next month and I am really excited.

From Fort Payne, we drove to Birmingham, had dinner at O'Charley's and it was time to crash. We go home tomorrow.

Tennessee & Georgia - Day 2

We spent most of today in Georgia. The morning was spent at the Chicamauga Battlefield, another part of the Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park. We started at the Visitors Center where we watched a short video and went through the museum. Then we drove the seven mile loop and stopped several times to get out and walk around the monuments.

Wilder Monument

View from the top of the Wilder Monument

I climbed the 136 steps to the top of the Wilder  Brigade Monumment. And we found a picnic table and ate the lunch we had packed. 

We left the battlefield and heade into Rossville, Georgia. We had seen a sign for the home of Chief John Ross of the Cherokees. I make the kids read his letter of protest written in 1836, so I was curious. Unfortunately the house is not open on Mondays. 

Our next stop was Rock City Gardens. Some of the cousins had recommended it, but I wasn't sure if we should do it. We finally decided to bite the bullet and I am so glad we did. It was awesome. The Gardens started as a private estate in the 1920's and winds though these massive rock formations.There is an awesome waterfall, and the view from the top is impressive. You can see seven states on a clear day. 

Walking into "Fatman's Squeeze"

Lover's Leap

We spent about 3 1/2 hours walking through Rock City. By the end of the day we were tired. We wanted a meal and decided on Italien. A quick internet search and we found Provino's in Chattanooga. Good choice. The place was packed and the food was excellent. 

After dinner we headed toward the river and ended up driving out to Lake Chickamauga before heading back to the hotel.