Monday, August 5, 2013

Reasons for having an RV:  no packing and unpacking, our own pillows, better lighting, nightstands on either side of the bed, a refrigerator for leftovers and breakfasts, and we'll each have our own desk. 

Steve is hogging the tiny table and I'm blogging typing on a pile of pillows.

I'm reaching back to Saturday to get all our exploits in.  Steve went on two additional adventures on Saturday.  He visited EBR1 - Experimental Breeder Reactor 1.  It was the first electricity generating power plant and was decommissioned in 1964.  It's part of the Idaho National Laboratory.  Wikipedia has a nice page on it.

After that, he headed back to Craters of the Moon to take a 3 hour evening hike, starting at 7 pm.  He was hoping to take pictures of stars, but the hike ended before it was really dark enough.  He did get a picture of a night blooming flower.

 

 

On a two and a half week trip, you either pack a lot of luggage or you do laundry.  We usually choose laundry.  So Sunday was a designated laundry day.  We had checked on line and there was a laudromat in Arco, Idaho.  We even drove by and checked their hours - 8 am to 8 pm 7 days a week.  Good to go.  So bright and early Sunday we have breakfast, load up the car and head for the laudromat.  We go in and Steve notes there is no detergent or change available.  He heads for the gas station/convenience store next door and I load up washers.

 

Time for plan B.  No detergent available.  Unload the washers, pack up the car, and head for Idaho Falls.  Steve decides we should stop at the first grocery store we see in Idaho Falls and pick up detergent and a few extra items we need.  He pulls in at an Albertson's and parks in front of the laundromat next door.  Bingo!  He gets the laundry out while I run into Albertson's.

 

The washers are tiny.  We have three loads.  The instructions want you to put powder detergent in one container at the beginning of a cycle or liquid in a different spot after the first rinse.  I bought pods good for a single load.  No place to put them.  Steve decides he'll watch the loads and put the pods in appropriately.  There are signs around telling us not to use extra detergent as the water is soft.  Can you see where this is going?  Yup, had to send each load through an entire second cycle to get all the soap out.

 

Once we get everything in the dryer, Steve has me check on restaurants for lunch.  Urban Spoon (iPhone app) says there's a good mexican place at the end of the strip mall.  Yeah.  Only it's closed on Sunday.  We pass another restaurant closed on Sunday and I'm beginning to worry.  But the next recommendation from Urban Spoon, Smitty's, is open and doing a good business.  We have a good lunch.  By the way, in this part of the country, one of the sides available is tater tots, as in "Do you want chips, fries, or tots with that?"

 

Then it's on to Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.  I swear the scenery changes by state.  California was fertile fields followed by pine forested mountains.  When the pine forests changed to desert, we were in Nevada.  When irrigated farming started (and casinos stopped) we were in Idaho.  For the last bit of Idaho, irrigation wasn't required, but they were looking hard for flat spaces to farm.  When we ran out of farmland and were back in pine forested mountains, we had entered Wyoming.

 

 

 

I've heard of Jackson Hole, usually in terms of skiing.  Turns out hole is a term for valley, so this is the Jackson Valley, one side of which is the Grand Tetons.  There is a town called Jackson and a Jackson Hole ski resort.  Both of which seem very touristy.  Jeremy, Marilyn and John, this area reminds me of New Zealand.  Even part of the Snake River here looks like the braided rivers there.  And Jackson reminds me of Queensland.  Too many tourists, too many shops.  The antler arches are different, though.

 

 

We saw a number of these.  But this is what we came for:

 

 

a bear and her cub

 

Monday morning, Steve is awake early (5 am-ish) and heads out to take sunrise pictures.  Blessedly he lets me sleep.

 

He manages to catch the sunrise and some mule deer.

 

 

And this bird.  He got the name of it from a park ranger later, but he's now asleep, so I'll pass that information along later.  But it's a neat photo.

 

 

I'm awake by the time Steve returns.  He has plans to hike at Jenny Lake today.  Sounds doable.  We walk up to the Lodge for breakfast; we're staying in a "cabin" - motel like unit.  The walk up to the lodge and back tires me out and  I realize that my cold needs more sleep.  I urge Steve to go hiking and am almost asleep bfore the door closes.  I really did need the sleep; I sleep all day.

 

Steve has a great day and take lots of pictures.  Unfortunately, some of them don't want to transfer to my computer.  But here's some of what he saw:

 

 

 





Jackson Lake

Jenny Lake

 

 

The chapel was built before the land became National Park Land.   The park was established in the early 1920's consisting of only the actual mountains.  When John D. Rockefeller, Jr. visited around 1926, he realized that more area needed to be preserved and started buying up land.  He tried for 20 years to get the government to accept the land as a gift.  In the meantime, he built lodges and other items needed and established the company that runs the lodges today.  In the 50's, the government finally accepted all this land into the national park.

 

Tomorrow we're going to try a float trip!

 

 

Saturday, August 3, 2013 Craters of the Moon National Monument

I wake up to a gentle shaking this morning.  "It's 7:30.  There's a cave walk at 9:00 I'd like to take.  Can we please? Huh? Please?"  Groan.  Anyone who knows me knows I'm grumpy in the morning, especially when you wake me up.  I pull myself out of bed and start getting ready.  "You have to wear closed toe shoes." OK.  "Where's your water bottle?  We have to take water bottles."  Dirty look.  Steve finds my water bottle without help.  "Did you pack a flashlight?" No, I packed a water bottle, Steve packed a flashlight.  Almost ready.  "Grab a breakfast bar to eat on the way.  Then we'll be on time."  Not my favorite way to start the day.  I need to work on teaching Steve what vacation and retirement mean.

But it was a good idea.  The weather was cool and the skies were blue.  A walk through a lava field shows the variations in the lava.  Although it all looks black at a distance,  it seems to come in all colors of the rainbow.

 

 

And there are all different textures.  This one reminds me of trying to frost a cake.

 

 

 

There are smooth boulder shapes and rough spiky rocks.  These look like rising dinner rolls.

 

Note the tiny evergreen in the middle of the picture.  This lava flow is 2000 years old and plants are just beginning to sprout in pockets where dust has collected.

 

The goal of the walk is to visit a lava cave.  These are formed as the lava flows downhill.  The outside of the flow cools, forming a shell that the hot lava flows through.  When the hot lava stops, the hollow shell remains.  At some point, part of the shell collapses, creating an opening to the cave.

 

This was the first cave we came to.

 

 

 

According to the map, it goes in quite a long ways.  I guess I'm not into spelunking.  I'm not crawling on volcanic rock to get into a cave.  The cave that was the goal of the walk was Indian cave.  This cave was actually used by indigenous people ages ago for shelter.  I ran out of steam before we reached the cave and stop to rest and turn back.

 

 

The rest group moves on and I experience the silence.  I have never not heard anything.   As I head back to the parking lot, at times I can even see the highway that borders the park, but hear no traffic.  Apparently the volcanic rock absorbs sounds.  An insect buzzes me for about 15 seconds and if I turn my head just right I can hear the wind against my ear.  Pretty amazing.

 

 

There is a 52 mile system of fissures along which these volcanoes erupted between 15,000 and 2,000 years ago.  Eruptions occurred roughly every 2000 years, so we're overdue.

 

 

Steve's out taking a night time walk, hoping to get some good pictures of stars.  We forget how beautiful the stars are when there's no light pollution.  If he gets any good pictures, I'll post them tomorrow.

 















Friday, August 2, 2013

I stopped yesterday's blog entry without talking about dinner.  We ate at the Star Hotel, which is a Basque (an area of Spain) restaurant.  The Basques helped settle this area.  If you are any where close to Elko, Nevada, you shouldn't miss this restaurant.

Steve ordered one of the specials, the bacon wrapped fillet, for $18, while I had the salmon for $20.  Then they brought out the bread, soup and salad, all served family style.  We tried to pace ourselves, because we knew there were side dishes coming, but we weren't ready when they started bringing the food.  Here's what our table looked like:

 

My salmon is in front, with green beans, red beans and white beans, the Basque bread, french fries, spaghetti and at the other end, Steve's fillet.  And everything was delicious!

We could have gotten 3 servings at least out of each of our entrees.  And since we're on the road, there's no point in doggie bags.  I might have to break down and get a cooler. 

Friday morning we headed for the local museum, the Northeastern Nevada Museum.  Part of the reason we came through Elko was that one of Steve's distant relatives donated a wing to this museum.  He was a big game hunter and wanted to give his trophies to a museum so that others could enjoy them.

I hadn't given this much thought when Steve mentioned it , so I wasn't really prepared to see taxidermied endangered species.  We're assuming they weren't endangered when he hunted them.

One thing I found neat was the Pony Express cabin they had out front.  I had not known that the company had cabins for the riders.  I assumed they stopped at stage coach stops.

 

 

 

After the museum, we hopped in the car and headed for Arco, Idaho, the closest town to Craters of the Moon National park.  We stop in Wells, Nevada for lunch at Bella's Espresso House, recommended on Trip Advisor.  Good recommendation.  The small towns of Nevada seem to consist of casinos, hotels and restaurants. There was even a casino at the truck stop.

At this point, we leave I-80 and head north on US 93.  The scenery changes to more rolling hills.  We're in an open range area and there are bridges for the cattle to cross the road.

As we near the border with Idaho, the valley floors seem to be a little greener but there are still only trees around buildings.  And you can no longer tell where streams are by a row of trees.  The last Nevada town seems to be less than a mile from Idaho and has hotels, casinos, and restaurants.  And I'm not sure it's as big as Mulberry.  Oh, and RV parks.  They get a lot of traffic from Idaho, where gambling is illegal.

As we cross over into Idaho, the scenery shifts a bit.  Its greener, especially around towns and the valley floors aren't flat, but gently rolling.  I see actual cowboys!  There are maybe 50 cows in a fenced area and four guys on horses surrounding a pickup truck.  We stop at the Salmon Falls Creek rest stop and take a picture and then stop at a historical marker a few miles away.

 

 

 



For those who don't want to strain their eyes, a dam was built across the creek in 1910 to create a reservoir for irrigation.  Someone miscalculated - the reservoir didn't fill up until 1984!  But irrigation is the key difference between this area and the Nevada we passed through.  There are farms here, but anything that isn't irrigated is brown.  And we still have mountains to look at.

 

 

We make it to Arco, Idaho, and get ready to tour Craters of the Moon National Park tomorrow.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Reno sits in a desert valley, surrounded by light brown hills. We start the day by looking for gas and breakfast.  I suggest Bob Evans, Cracker Barrel or McDonald's, as I know what I can eat there.  Steve checks Urban Spoon and google and laughingly tells me the nearest Bob Evans is in Missouri and there are no Cracker Barrels in Nevada.  But Urban Spoon (iPhone app) leads us to a local restaurant named Jacks which serves up a decent breakfast. 

We stop for gas before hitting I-80 east again and encounter something we've never seen before - a cash or ATM only gas station.  So we fill up.  We could probably make it to our next stop without filling up, but we know it is sometimes 150 miles or more between gas stations.

We pass from one desert valley to the next.  But unlike Indiana valleys, the valley floor is flat and goes for miles.  They look much the same at first glance, but each seems to have it's own character.

One valley looks like it might have salt flats, like they used to land the space shuttle on when it couldn't land in Florida.  Lots of flat white areas.  Near the shoulder area of the road, people have used dark rocks to spell out messages - their name or initials or Deb heart Steve.

Another valley has small patches of dark rock that seem to be almost uniform in size.  Fist sized dark brown rocks creating a scarred look.

And for most of the day we follow the railroad and, it turns out, the California Trail that the wagon trains used.  There are historical markers at the rest stops and an interpretive center that we didn't stop at.  Here's a sign you won't see at a Midwest rest stop:

 

This is open range country and the rest stops and freeway entrances have cattle gates to keep out the cows.  We only see a few cows scattered throughout, except for a herd of about 20 who were huddled together in the shade of a billboard.  It's only in the 80's today, but there are few trees.  If you see a row of green across the valley, it's probably a stream with trees and other vegetation along it's banks.

 

We keep seeing small clouds of dust near the ground and assume they are cars on a dirt road or a farmer in the field.  But at least some of them are small dust storms.  We see one ahead and I try for a picture:

 

 

It's hard to see, but in the middle of the picture is a cloud rising from the road.  That's really a small dust storm - wind kicking up the dust.  I'm sure there is a more technical name for it.



 

I'm writing this on Friday morning and Steve is anxious to get going.  He wanted to be at the museum at 9 am and we're going to be a bit late.  So I'll log off for now and tell you about Thursday's dinner later.

 

 

First Post

July 31, 2013

Steve and I started the road part of our road trip this morning.  But for those who've been out of the loop, here's some background.

A friend of ours, Leigh, who lives in California, is heading back to Indiana to work on a PhD this fall.  She didn't want to drive her car and shipping was expensive.  We're retired, we're flexible, so we volunteered.   Leigh and her husband Wes have recently purchased a fixer upper and they think there are only 3 people (Steve and I being 2) who don't think they are crazy.   I think that's 3 more people than think Steve and I are sane for volunteering to drive a Prius from California to Indiana.

Anyway, after comparing schedules, we decided that today would be the day to leave California and head east.  That would give us a whole day after returning from a family reunion in Vermont to do laundry and repack before flying to Sacramento.  No sweat!

What we didn't count on was my coming down with a monster cold.  The reunion ended Saturday night and Sunday morning I woke up with a bad cold.  No way could I miss our flights home, so I loaded up with medicine and Kleenex and we headed home.  First, a 2 hour drive to Albany, followed by a flight to Baltimore.  Then we changed planes for Indianapolis.  Finally back in Indiana, when we reached our neighborhood at 10:30 pm, all the lights were out: street lights, apartment buildings, everything.  Our next door neighbor was just pulling into her driveway and had some news.  The power  company said a transformer had blown and it would be 12:30 am before power would be restored.

I didn't need power to go to sleep, so I was in bed in about 15 minutes.  We had power when I got up the next morning and started laundry.  Steve had gotten up earlier and his was almost done.  Bless a man who does his own laundry!  I had it easy Monday.  It was sleep, laundry, eat, sleep.  Still have a cold, but was feeling I might survive two more plane flights on Tuesday.  Luckily, the dogs are at their second home, Jocelyn's, so we didn't have to worry about them.

Steve meanwhile is running around trying to get a list of things done before we leave, including some shelves installed in the room Leigh will be staying in.  Sorry Leigh, he'll finish them when we return.  But he did get a lot accomplished that we hadn't finished before we took off for the reunion.

I did survive the two flights on Tuesday, without too much trauma.  One poor guy who was on both flights tried to strike up a conversation with us, but between Steve's hearing aids and my cold (I keep losing my voice), it didn't go well.  Steve did ask him about the Brickyard race, that's why he'd been in Indiana.  He said it was a smooth race and Ryan from Purdue  won.

Leigh picked us up in Sacramento and we drove to Vacaville.  I didn't realize this area was so FLAT.  Maybe flatter than Indiana, except you can see mountains in the distance.  It's also very dry.

I crashed early at Wes and Leigh's.  Leigh made me some almond pound cake for breakfast and the aroma was tantalizing every time my coughing woke me up at night.  I love all my friends who help me with my food allergies.

Wednesday morning was finally here!  Time to go!  Not quite, Steve has two projects he wants Wes' help with - a cell phone antenna that he wants to be able to mount to a tripod and a repair to a suitcase.  Yeah! I get to nap some more.  If you have questions about the cell phone antenna, talk to Steve.

It's after lunch when we finally get on the road and I need another nap.  I sleep until we're through Sacramento and up in the mountains on our way to Reno, our first overnight stop.

 

Rest stops aren't like this in Indiana!

Apparently, this stretch of I80 parallels the path of the original transcontinental railroad.

We could usually see the railroad tracks across the valley and even saw a freight train.  Part of what we are driving through is the Donner Pass area.  For a history lesson, check out Wikipedia. 

And finally, a scenic overlook where we can actually take a picture.  Here's Donner Lake.

The white speck in the lake is a sailboat, big enough to have two sails.  The photo doesn't do the colors justice.

We finally roll into Reno, where we are staying at the Nugget Casino for one night.  It's my first stay in a casino and hopefully my last.  Our room is on a no smoking floor and is fine.  But the rest of the casino strongly smells of smoke, including the smoke free restaurants.  I'm still coughing and won't be doing any hiking soon, but we've made it through day one!

This is my first blog entry ever and I have no idea what I'm doing, so please excuse typos and other errors.  Hope the pictures show up right, too!  With luck, we'll have better photo opportunities as we go along.