It’s Been A Long Time

I can’t believe it has been almost three months since I last posted.  Time is just flying by.  And yes, I have heard from you folks that have wondered if we have fallen off the face of the earth.  It’s a combination of being busy and being lazy.  Can’t post when we are out having fun and on the off days it is either domestic chores or not wanting to do anything at all that requires brain power.  So today is laundry day but I am going to get you caught up.

I left you back in May while we were in Utah.  We finished up the state by first visiting Monument Valley; which was spectacular! And of course we had to get that iconic photo like everyone does driving into the park.

Then on to Arches National Park where we were able to see all the amazing rock formations.

And we played real tourist by stopping for a minute at the Four Corners landmark. Yes, it was cheesy but what the heck!

And last but definitely not least, my favorite hike was at Canyonlands National Park. Remember how I was disappointed that some of the hiking at the Grand Canyon and Zion was a paved path? Well Canyonlands was what I think hiking should be like. No real trail. Just cairns marking the way. It was a long hike but fun because it wasn’t half way up and half way down. There was a long down but then a nice walk in the dry creek bed and then the long hike up. And best of all we were almost by ourselves the entire time. Just ran into four guys and a Park Ranger. No big crowds like at other National Parks. This is truly a hidden gem for hikers.

So that does it for Utah. And after this state and Arizona, I have to tell you — I needed a vacation. We had a three day drive to Oregon where we settled in for a couple of weeks in Bend and a couple of weeks in Sisters. We had some down time here but got in some golf and a couple of small trips. We went back to Mount. St. Helens. If you recall, we were there last year but it was overcast and I was recovering from food poisoning so the trip was a bust. This year the weather was beautiful and the wildflowers were in bloom. We had a nice long hike and thoroughly enjoyed the scenery. The photo at the top of the page is a panorama that Kean took which captured the mountains and the lake. Here are some more photos. (And yes that is my bony scraped up knee. We had just started the hike and I was reading a sign and down I went. No one could ever call me graceful that is for sure.)

The other trip we took from here was drive out to the Painted Hills. If you ever get a chance to see this, you have to go. The colors are truly amazing.

After leaving the Bend/Sisters area, we headed west to Winnebago service at their new Junction City location. We only had some regular maintenance items and a few repairs but we planned three days because RV service has been horrible for us in the past. Well I have to tell you, actual Winnebago service is outstanding. We had a place to park for the night since we got in the night before. And even though it was just a parking lot with electric service, it still was a great convenience. The tech met us in the lot at 8 am, went over what we wanted done, took the RV and we went to do some shopping. The tech called at 10:30 to let us know what was happening and again around 1:30 to say they would be done by 3:30. We were amazed. If service can wait, this is where we will head in the future. So we headed out early to our next destination — Newport Oregon. Newport is on the coast and we had a primo location right on the Pacific Ocean. The view from our front window was fabulous. However, it is windy and cool there so you really couldn’t spend too much time outside. We did get in some golf but it was cold and blustery. I told Kean that he would have to drag me kicking and screaming from that site if it was just 10 degrees warmer. Oh well, you can’t have everything.

From Oregon, we headed to Burlington Washington. Last year we stayed on Whidbey Island and it was too much driving to Anytime Fitness and the golf course that we liked so this year we elected to forgo the view of the Sound (because it wasn’t guaranteed we would have that site again) and stay inland for shorter drive times. The KOA was nice enough but the view wasn’t the same. I included a photo of our cow neighbors so you could see the difference. At least they were quiet and thankfully we couldn’t smell them. While here we visited with our friend, Dianah Parker. Unfortunately her husband Frank was out to sea so we missed him. Hopefully next year! We played lots of golf and did a day trip into Seattle and Vancouver BC. It was my first trip to Canada and it was really nice. A great city. Safe, clean, and really nice people. The buildings are mostly glass and have gardens on the rooftops. It was really cool to see and I would love to go back and explore some more.

So we are now up-to-date. We are firmly planted in Blanchard Idaho right now for two weeks. Look up Blanchard on a map and you will see we are out in the middle of nowhere. We are at a motor coach resort on a stay and play package so golf is the name of the game for 10 of the 14 days.