Mt Vernon, WA to Conconully, WA

We got on the road around 9am this morning and stopped first at the Safeway a block down the road from the Mt Vernon Elks where we were able to get our fuel at a $.03 a gallon discount.  We then headed north on I-5 to Cook Road and drove through some construction on our way to the North Cascades Highway.

We are getting to the 90 degree turn on Marblemount.

Seattle City Light has the railroad display in Newhalem.

In this photo, we’re approaching the first of two tunnels we drive through on our way east.

After going over Rainy Pass and Washington Pass, we are on the downhill side in eastern Washington.

We found a place to pull over in Winthrop, WA for our lunch break.

By this time, Ken decided that we would drive all the way to Conconully as it wasn’t that much further.  This next photo is a river crossing after going through the town of Winthrop.

We’re starting to see apple orchards.

After a brief stop in Omak to pick up a few grocery items we didn’t find yesterday, we were on the road to Conconully.

And we arrived at our friend’s lot in Conconully.  Mike and Marilyn’s fifth wheel is on the left and we’re on the right. 

We didn’t eat our dungeness crab last night, so tonight Marilyn joined us for crab salad and garlic bread for dinner.  We didn’t think he’d show up tonight, but Mike appeared later.  I had a brief visit before returning to the motorhome.  Mike and Ken had a longer catch up visit.  We’re looking forward to a relaxing time here along with some ATVing.  Mike will bringing up their Razor tomorrow and we’ll unload our ATV.  From what Marilyn told us earlier, we will be able to ride the ATV around town.  Hopefully there’ll also be some good trails to explore.

Lunch in Anacortes

We are planning on leaving Mt Vernon tomorrow, so we spent the day getting ready to leave.  Our first stop was at Poulsbo RV at the south end of Mt Vernon where we picked up our new Demco towbar.  We stopped by the post office to send a DVD of photos to Tara in California as I finally got her address.  From there, we decided to drive to Anacortes and have lunch at one of our favorite places while we’re in the area.  Gere-a-Deli has always been busy whenever we’re gone there.  This time, we didn’t have a very long wait in line and had a great meal as we always have had there.  Our timing seemed to be good, as there was a very long line of customers once we were seated and eating our lunch.  Ken needed to pick up some parts at Camping World, so we drove there via Bayview where we lived when we first got married and before moving to Idaho.  It has been remodeled over the years, but here are a couple of photos as it looks today.

After Camping World, we went to Walmart to get stocked up with some additional groceries.  Back at the motorhome, Ken installed the new towbar, washed the bugs off the front of the RV, and added to the fresh water tank.  We’re ready to drive over the North Cascade Highway toward Conconully where we will spend Labor Day weekend at our friend’s property that they have set up for RVs.

An Update on the Haines, AK Bear with Fishhook in Nose

I’ll probably add more to the blog later tonight or tomorrow, but Ken just showed me this article about the bear cub we saw in Haines with the fish hook in it’s nose.

Fishhook Successfully Removed From Bear Cub's Nose

 

This morning we did our usual morning stuff and then packed things up and moved the motorhome to the Mount Vernon Elks lodge for a couple of nights.  This gives us full hookups, so we’ll be able to catch up on laundry again.  After getting set up, we hopped into the truck and drove to Bellevue to see my Aunt Marian.  We had a great visit with her and she forced us to eat some of her blueberry pie.  First she twisted our arms, then she put some large servings of the pie on plates and heaped it with some whip cream.  We were powerless and graciously sat down and ate it.  Yum!  If I remember correctly, she said this is the 4th week anniversary of her falling and breaking her hip.  She is doing a stupendous job of recovering!  We love you, Aunt Marian!

Then we headed north, with a slight diversion to the west over Hwy 520 across Lake Washington.

There are some big boats in the lake and large houses along the shoreline.

Here’s one of the smaller boat harbors along the lake.

We continued on north to the Olive Garden near the Everett Mall where we met our friends Bill and Diane…sorry no photos…but I should have…Diane has lost a bunch of weight and she is looking terrific!  We are so proud of you Diane!  We had a great meal and a very enjoyable visit and hope to see you two again in our travels!

An Afternoon at My Brother’s House

After breakfast and getting a few things packed and ready to go, we headed out on our trip to my brother’s house for the afternoon.  We first made a stop at the Mt Vernon Elks lodge to see if they had a space available for our RV.  We’re ready for a full hookup site for a couple of nights to get things cleaned up a little bit more before we head toward eastern Washington.  They do have room for us, so we’ll move the motorhome over there in the morning before we go to visit my aunt in Bellevue and meet friends in the afternoon.

When we left the Elks, we headed south on Highway 9 hoping to find a car wash to get some of the grime washed off the truck.  We didn’t find one until we got to Snohomish and we didn’t get it perfectly clean, but we did get a good layer of dirt off the truck and it looks much better than earlier today.

Our timing to see my brother today was good.  My cousin Clay was there visiting and had bought the teardrop trailer that Carl built and will be taking it home with him to Montana on Monday.  Up until today, we had only seen the photos that Carl and his wife Barb had posted online.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get the best photos possible, but my brother is a an excellent carpenter and did a fantastic job on this trailer.  In this first photo, the back of the trailer is lifted exposing the kitchen area.  At the upper left, there is a magnetic strip with a dozen spice jars attached to it.  There’s a two burner stove on the countertop, an ice chest slides into the lower left opening, and the top right drawer pulls out to expose a tub for a sink that can be pulled out to empty the water.

Ken is looking into the inside where there is a queen size bed that can be folded up to make a couch, and they also have cabinets inside for various items including a place to put their laptop computer so they can watch a movie.  Carl even fabricated the screen door which you don’t usually see on a teardrop trailer.

Here’s a better picture of the inside cabinets.  Carl does excellent finish work and cabinets.  In the past, he’s done some custom cabinet work for us in our earlier RV’s.

Here’s Carl standing by the teardrop.  On the lower right, he has a table and chairs set up for outside dining.  When not in use, the table slides into a space inside the trailer.

As Ken and Carl are looking at some features of the teardrop, Carl’s 10 month old puppy, Willie inspects Ken.

I didn’t get the right lighting for this next photo, but from left to right:  my cousin Clay, my brother Carl, Barb (Carl’s wife), and my sister Cris.

We had a clear night on our way back to Burlington, and here’s Mt Baker through the power lines.

Thanks Carl and Barb for a wonderful afternoon visit and meal.

Visiting with Nieces and Nephews

We had a very busy day today visiting with nieces and nephews.  We met our niece Robyn, her son Thomas, and boyfriend Jeff for breakfast in Burlington.  Thomas is always smiling and pretty much a typical 5 year old who loves to pose for photos.

As I was getting ready to get this photo of Robyn and Jeff, Thomas just had to lean in there enough to get his smiling mug in the shot.

After breakfast, we went back to the RV to take care of a few cleaning projects.  But believe me, after the trip to Alaska, it’s going to be ongoing for some time.  Later in the afternoon, we drove back to Snohomish to have dinner with our nephew James and his wife Tammy and daughter Gabrielle.  As Tammy was preparing the salad, Gabrielle decided to make her own salad mainly using the pieces Tammy cut off radishes, celery, etc.

In this picture, the salad doesn’t look too bad, but Gabrielle admitted that she wouldn’t eat it.  She later put it in a pan on the stove, added some water mixed with mayonnaise and heated it up to make soup.  She also decided not to eat the soup.

James had been out all day crabbing with his friend near Stanwood, WA.  He came home with 8 dungeness crab which he cleaned and cooked.  He then forced us to eat the darned things and we had to oblige…it was so mean of him…but we enjoyed it regardless and took home some remains.  After dinner, Gabrielle was looking for an audience while she played on the trampoline, so I obliged her and took a few photos.

We had a wonderful time today and tomorrow we will be headed in that general direction again to visit my brother.

A Day of Errands

I took the camera with me today, but failed to take any photos.  We started off by looking into getting a new towbar for the motorhome.  When we left Spring Branch, TX at the end of January, we started using a Blue Ox towbar that we got back refurbished from them.  This is the second one that has gone bad in a short time frame.  We looked today at a Demco towbar that has a kit that would work with the Blue Ox baseplate that is on the pickup.

From there, we drove on to Everett to see Ken’s footwear specialty store where he usually gets his orthotics.  Unfortunately, she told us that her usual supplier has started using inferior products to make them and she will no longer order from them and has been unsuccessful in finding anything as good.  If we were to be in this area for a longer time period, she could make a specialty orthotic (for a big price) that would be used for future orders at a lower big price.  With that disappointing information, we continued to Snohomish to pick up our mail and we dropped by to see our nephew James and his wife Tammy and their daughter Gabrielle.  They were busy putting new windows in their living room, but took time for a short visit.

From there, we drove back to Marysville to see if we could find a New Balance store at the outlet mall in Marysville…no luck!  We made a few purchases at Walmart and headed back to Mt Vernon to the RV for the evening.

 

 

Back in the Lower 48–Williams Lake, BC to Mt Vernon, WA

We had another long day of traveling and not much to speak of in the way of photos…primarily because the front window was covered with bugs.  When I got up this morning, I found that our coffee maker had died overnight.  So we made do without coffee until we were ready to get on the road, then made a brief stop at Walmart to pick up a new coffee maker and get some coffee to go from their in store McDonald’s.  We drove through a lot of scenic areas today, but after having been in Alaska for so long, it seems like once we got off the Cassiar Highway, we just kind of lost our interest and were ready to get back into the USA.  In this photo, we’re approaching US Customs.

For tonight, we had planned to stay at the casino in Bow, WA.  Upon our arrival, we followed the signs to RV parking to find it led us into a Thousand Trails Campground.  It seems the casino used their RV parking area for something else and failed to remove the signs.  So we decided to continue south toward the casino in the Marysville area.  But, we remembered there was a Camping World in Mt Vernon, WA and after a quick call we found out we could camp there for two nights without a problem.  We found out just in time to take the freeway exit and head to Camping World.  They have back in sights with 30amp electric and we’re happy campers.  While in this area, we’ll be visiting with family.  We have a niece in this area, and we’ll move to the casino near Marysville on Saturday to visit my brother and sister who live in this area.

Houston, BC to Williams Lake, BC

We don’t have any photos to post today even though we saw some interesting things along our journey.  We had a long driving day for us today…about 340 miles.  We attempted a few places earlier for an overnight, but there was just no appeal to them.  We finally selected a casino at Williams Lake that offered free overnight RV parking and we took them up on it.  Tomorrow we will continue on our way.  We will be heading toward a crossing in western Washington to be able to visit with family before continuing on toward eastern Washington.  Ken has a high school reunion in Moses Lake somewhere around the 9th of September and we plan to be back in Spokane around the 11th or 12th.

Stewart, BC to Houston, BC

What a surprise…it was raining again this morning…will we ever get out of it?  We packed things up and first headed into Stewart to take on additional fuel.  After that, we headed out toward the Cassiar Highway.  This photo turned out blurred, but we saw at least one of the cubs that we saw while driving in the other day.

As we headed further east, we saw signs for water over road.  The river had been overflowing onto the other lane of travel and there were several ice chunks floating in the muddy water, so we assumed it must be coming from a glacier.

We stopped briefly to get a photo of Bear Glacier.

Not too much farther, a vehicle coming from the opposite direction was stopped and alerted us to another bear.

After it safely crossed the road, we continued on our way.  About 10 miles down the Cassiar, we crossed the Nass River Bridge, a one lane wood plank bridge which is about 130 feet above the river.

A detour in the Hazelton area, took us through Gitwangak where they have several old totem poles in the village.

St. Paul’s church and bell tower are also in this small town.

We stopped for lunch at a turnout at Skeena Crossing.

We finished lunch, and drove on to Houston, BC where we are spending the night at Silverthorne RV Park.

Blind Pursuit (a Kindle book) and Bears in Hyder

It rained most of the day, so once again we hung out at the motorhome for most of the day.  I have really been enjoying my new Kindle, and I’ve found several free ebooks as well as inexpensive ebooks online. Today I was reading one that I purchased from Amazon for just $.99 and I couldn’t put it down. The book is Blind Pursuit by Michael Prescott and here’s a little about it that I borrowed from Amazon’s website:  “In the dead of night, psychologist Erin Reilly is abducted from her Tucson home. Her kidnapper -- a serial killer who burns his victims alive. Tormented by his obsession, he wants Erin to cure him before he kills again. If she fails, she'll become his next victim.
While Erin's twin sister Annie searches desperately for her, Erin delves into her captor's psyche and his past, discovering a secret guilt ... a complex web of crime and betrayal ... and an unexpected connection between the killer and herself.” 

In the late afternoon, we went for a drive back to see if the grizzlies would be at the viewing site.  As we were headed out on the walkway, Ken saw them on the road and we followed along until they came down through the brush to the river.

The cub could have been chasing fish in the river, but seemed more like it was just having a good time splashing around in the water.

After spending just a short time in the river, they both headed up into the brush.  We watched for a while, then headed back to the RV for the evening.

Salmon Glacier Sightseeing Trip

We didn’t leave the motorhome until around 2pm this afternoon as it had been raining most of the day and finally cleared up a little.  We crossed the border to Hyder, Alaska and we just had to get this photo of this golf cart that has been converted to a snow plow.

We planned to take a drive to see Salmon Glacier as we were blocked by snow on our last visit here in 2009.  We decided to stop at the bear viewing walkway first and were fortunate to be there when the grizzly sow and her cub were indulging in chum salmon.  The sow spent most of her time in the river catching salmon.

The cub is beginning to get curious about things and apparently wanted to learn a little bit more about the two legged creatures up on the walkway.

And there was some play time.

And some food to eat too.

Clouds were beginning to lower in the valley, but we were also lucky enough to get some good views of Salmon Glacier.  This is a photo of the toe of the glacier also known as the terminus.

And here’s a view of Salmon Glacier from the summit.

We continued on the road another 6 miles for a view of Berendon Glacier.

And here are a couple of photos from the Granduc Mine site.

On the way back to the RV, we stopped again at the bear viewing area, but the bears weren’t around this time.  We wandered around for a short while, then headed back to the motorhome for the evening.