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

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.

Alabama - Day 6 / Tennessee & Georgia - Day 1

One final meal with the cousins and we said our farewells with everyone scattering back to the winds. We headed north and made our first stop of the day at Russell Cave National Monument. This location has been used by humans for 10,000 years. The actual cave is off limits, but the boardwalk from the visitors center does enter the cave overhang and has dioramas of prehistoric peoples.

It was an interesting contrast to Cathedral Caverns. Russell Cave has a large bat colony, while Cathedral Caverns doesn not. Both caves are huge, and have water running through them. 

Our next stop was Chattanooga, but to get there we had to enter Tennessee, enter Georgia, and then reenter Tennessee. Oh, and we changed time zones. We deviated from our normal chain hotel routine and checked into The Chattanoogan. It is very nice. 

None of us were very hungry, so we headed out to Point Park. It's part of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. Point Park is located overlooking the Lookout Mountain Battlefield. The park was nice and cool in the evening. 

The view from Point Park

On our way down the mountain, we stopped and rode the Incline Railway. At the bottom we had some ice cream at Clumpies and then rode back up the mountain. The Incline Railway has a grade maximum of 72 degrees at one point. It was cool.

Alabama - Day 2

We spent most of the day ath te US Rocket and Space Center in Huntsville. It was the big thing we wanted to do during our short time and it was worth it.

There is so much more to the US Space Program history than I knew. And I think it's true of many people. In the 1950's and 1960's, the interest from the general public was so much greater than it is now. 

The center runs Space Camp, so there were tons of kids running around. They have a really cool hand on robotics exhibit. I loved the robots. They were very cool. 

The Saturn V Rocket Hall was amazing. According to one of the volunteers, there were 15 Saturn V rockets built. Thirteen were launched, and the one in the hall would have been if the program had not run out of money. 

We also saw an Apollo 12 moon rock and lots of other cool stuff. 

After leaving the Rocket Center, we headed into downtown Huntsville. We checked out the Harrison Brothers Hardware Store. It's been in business since 1897, and is now run by the Huntsville Historical Association. It's a cool old building, and they still use the 108 year old cash register.

For dinner we found a local pub, Below the Radar. The Cobb salad was really good. And the Back Forty Beer Company in Gadsden makes and awesome Truck Stop Honey Brown Ale.

4th of July

We spent a very quiet holiday at Blue River. No fireworks, no commotion. A little fishing, some boating, and a who lot of doing nothing. It was nice.

Road Trip - North Cascades

We woke up to a few sprinkles, packed up camp and hit the road. Our destination was the little town of Winthrop via North Cascades National Park. I’ve spent lots of time in the Oregon Cascades, so there were times when I felt a little déjà vu.

The weather wasn’t great today. There was some rain and clouds, so the views were a bit obscured. Plus, it’s a long trip in the motorhome, which made for a very long day. We limited our stops in the park to a few scenic outlooks and the visitor’s center.

Road Trip - Mt. Rainier

So, the parents and I took off from home yesterday for a little road trip into Washington. The first jaunt was to the Seattle area, where we spent the night. Today we got up and spent the day exploring Mt. Rainier National Park and the surrounding area.

I love the national park system. I’ve said that before, but I really mean it. Every site has something special about it. Mt. Rainier is big. Really big. And the surrounding landscape is pretty awesome. There are waterfalls, glacier paths and alpine meadows. The weather was perfect. It was the kind of day that photographers love. After a few hours in the park we headed back out the way we came. We had passed a couple interesting looking spots on the way in, and decided to visit. We had to check out the Ashford General Store. It’s got a little bit of everything. I love exploring places like that. Then we stopped at the Ex-Nihilo sculpture park just outside of Elbe, Washington. The artist, Daniel Klennert, asks that you use photos for personal use only. Check out his website. He’s got some really cool stuff and it’s all made from recycled materials.

Another interesting spot we saw was the Hobo Inn and Historic Mt. Rainier Railroad Dining Company. The entire complex is train cars. We chose to try the restaurant for dinner, eating burgers and fresh cut French fries. For dessert we had blackberry cobbler ala mode. It was yummy.

4th of July Vacation

Just got back from 10 days at the lake. It was a family and practically family vacation. We did a little of a lot of things: lounged around in the sun like lizards, swam like fish, rode the tubes (acquiring the usual bruises in the process) while Dad drove the boat and did some fishing.

I took no photos this trip. I have many of previous trips, and I caught no fish to brag about. The only two I managed to hook, unhooked themselves and swam away before we could get them in the boat. Regardless of the lack of photo evidence, it was a good trip. And it's good to be back.

Travel Day: MD to NC

We left Baltimore at 6:00 this morning and flew to Greenville-Spartanburg airport in South Carolina. Before today we'd never been to South Carolina, so we took some time to check out Spartanburg before heading north to our family reunion. I love the fact that my parents are so easygoing. They didn't even blink when I pointed to a sign that said 'Cowpens National Battlefield'. We just took a side trip of thirty-eight miles.

The battle at Cowpens was fought in 1781 with the American continentals and militia defeating the British. I admit I'm not a military historian. I have trouble visualizing battle formations and strategy, but I enjoy the stories. And the park ranger at Cowpens could tell a good story.

As we left the battlefield the sky opened up to a thunderstorm. We pulled off in Chesnee, SC and had ice cream at Strawberry Hill, USA on Route 11. Once the storm passed, we continued on to Asheville, North Carolina.

Washington DC: Day 3

Today was a short day in DC. The last ting we really needed to do before moving on was visit Arlington National Cemetery. Again, we took the metro. And then we opted for the NPS tour-mobile. The cemetery is so huge and it encompasses the entire history of our country.

Our first stop was at the Kennedy grave site. It's been built up some since my last visit, and I admit that it's a compelling place. But I don't think that my generation really feels toward it the way the previous generation does. People of my parents' generation know exactly what they were doing when they heard about JFK's assassination. For me, the monument to the Challenger crew, who died in 1986 has more meaning because that is one of the moments I remember. In fact, while standing before it I mentioned to this little boy that our entire school watched the shuttle launch, then explode on TV that day. His grandmother then told me that her students where at recess and didn't have to see that.

Of course when you're at Arlington you must see the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers. It's precise and very honor-bound. You can feel it emanating from those soldiers who take their duty so seriously. I can't imagine what a weight that must be, especially during a time like now when there are multiple burials every day. We didn't see a funeral in progress, but we did see two fully hitched caissons.