Finally made it home!

After almost three months on the road we finally made it home to Oak Harbor, WA once again. After leaving Montana, which was not easy, we made our way to Coeur D'Alene, Idaho to the Blackwell Island RV Park for a relaxing evening. We had a great view of an Osprey nest with chicks inside and the parents making many fishing trips from the lake waters and back to the nest. A very enjoyable evening for sure.

Next we were off to Pullman to try and find the house that Lydia's parents lived in when she was born. We were saddened to see that it had been taken down and a large fraternity house had been built on the site. Walked the old town and saw the campus ... Go Cougars!!  Nonetheless, we had a nice time in Pullman at the city campground. We had several Magpies that would wait none to patiently for us to provide them with peanuts on the picnic table.

After Pullman we headed off for Yakima and the Sportsmen State Park on the East side of town. This was a great spot to rest up and prepare ourselves for the next days journey home. If you ever happen to be in Yakima and looking for a good camping spot, this is it. We had a great site with full hookups minus WiFi and cable but it didn't matter to us at all. Wonderful ponds and an interpretive trail for good birding as you can see.

The following morning we pulled out and headed for home back on Whidbey Island. It was nice to be back in our own home once again but after three months on the road the house certainly seemed larger than when we left. Our house sitter is to be commended here as flowers, a spotless house, and our attended birds were wonderful to come home to. Today we unpacked the truck and trailer, got a little lawn mowed and put water back in the hot tub. Yes, it is cool enough here to get in the tub again, eat your hearts out!! Tomorrow it is time to restock the pantry and get the truck and trailer washed and ready for our next trip into Canada and the Selkirk Loop. We will let you know when the blog is ready to go again.


Phil & Lydia

July,19 Butte, MT and points West

Well, the news wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. The turbo was okay but the boot and clamp had blown off. The fix only took about an hour and the nice folks at the Butte Ford dealer came and picked us up so we coul drive the truck back to the campground. Belive me, we were ready to depart form this place. The 2 Bar Lazy H is not a place we will ever recommend or visit again.

So we got the truck, and all hitched up to the RV and proceeded to do our walkaround and what did I spy, why none other than a nail in one of the tires on the passenger side of the RV! It was not leaking air so off to find a friendly Les Schwab (tire store) and get it fixed. We pulled in and a young enthusiastic gent came out, checked the pressure, which was still spot on, spread some soapy water on and still no leak. As soon as he touched the nail head it started leaking like crazy. So, off to the local A&W for a burger and a root beer while they fixed the flat.

By the time we ate and walked back to the tire shop he was done and we were ready to roll once again. This time to Missoula, MT and Jim and Mary's RV Park. Now we have hit 3 places that we would like to return to. This little park was superb! Clean, some of the nicest people you would ever like to meet, well treed and close to some of the best trout fishing in the country. We made a quick trip into town to visit the famous Grizzly Fly Shop and pick up some groceries and it was back to the RV park for some rest and relaxation with olives and onions involved.

It was not easy leaving Jim and Mary's this morning but we are nearing the end of our trip. Off to Coeur d'Alene, ID we went on some serious mountain roads. The views were magnificent and the roads horrible. 

Our park here in Idaho is at the Blackwell Island RV Resort right on the lake and is quite nice. Watching an Opsrey couple feed their babies.  We are certainly surrounded by some BIG class A RV's here.

Tomorrow we are off to Pullman, WA, the birthplace of my lovely wife Lydia, then Yakima and finally home on Whidbey Island. More to come..

Phil & Lydia

Casper, WY to Butte MT

Our sincere apologies for the delay in blogging again but the travel trail has been a bit rough lately.

We had a great drive from Casper to Sheridan and parked at the greatest campground we have been to yet. Peter D's Campground in Sheridan Wyoming is one of the few that we are already planning a return trip to. Some of the nicest people and the cleanest facilities we have seen to date.

Sheridan and northern Wyoming were great places to be. We both wish that we had a week to spend as there is so much to do and see. We made the most of what time we had and managed to squeeze in a nice little local museum, great restaurant, and attend a Vaudeville show at the famous Wyo Theatre. We decided to skip the rodeo even though it was their big event. A great time and we were sorry to leave but leave we must.

From Sheridan we drove on to Billings, MT to our second KOA of the trip. Not much to write home about from this one, other than it was our first back-in site of which we have had little practice. We did manage a trip to a huge Cabela's sporting goods store. Quite a place with just about anything you can imagine for hunting, fishing or anything else outdoors. We once again had some very serious thunderstorms in the afternoon and the roads in the RV park became little lakes and rivers.

So, there we were, surrounded by Indians! No, that was Gen. George Custer that was in that predicament. We were just taking a leisurly drive around the Little Big Horn Battlefield because it was so busy we couldn't find a parking place for the rig. What a change has happened over the last 30 years since I was here with my young (at the time) daughters. The last time I was here there was no driving loop around the battlefield. This time we could stop, make a cel phone call and listen to the story of what happened at a specific spot. The museum is still fantastic and really tells the story (both sides, Native American and Cavalry) of what happened during the battle. If you haven't been here then put it on your bucket list.

From Billings it was on to Livingston, MT and our second favorite RV park, the Rock Canyon RV park. We were right on the Yellowstone River and got to see White Pelican floating along, and a Peregrine Falcon on the cliffs.  It is located about 50 miles from the northern entrance into Yellowstone National Park but we were just too strapped for time to make the trip there. We did manage however to get into town and make a small birthday purchase for my 62'nd birthday. They had a closeout sale at Dan Bailey's Fly shop and I managed to snag a super nice graphite fly rod there. This shop has been around since 1938 and they really know their business. So, after several years away from fishing, and Lydia bugging me to take her, I am ready to get back into it once again.

Livingston also has a great railroad museum that we enjoyed visiting. I even got to send some code on an ancient Vibroplex bug/sounder combination. It definitely sounded like morse code but very different on a sounder.

From Livingstone to Butte, MT is where the fun begins. Lydia started off driving what was to be a rather short 110 mile day. With about 40 miles to go we switched seats and off we went. Headed up and over the Continental Divide and 20 miles short of our destination we heard a loud bang and quickly got over to the shoulder of I-90. To our surprise, no flats so I looked under the hood and saw nothing amiss and tried starting the engine. It started right up so we thought we would try and continue up and over the Divide ... that didn't happen. As soon as I took off I saw 0 psi on the turbo gauge and the truck would barely move forward. Still on the shoulder we parked again, chocked the trailer tires and called AAA for a tow. Anaconda was the closest tow that could take both truck and trailer so we waited almost 2 hours for them to arrive. We called the local Ford dealer to make sure they had a turbo in stock (which they did) and waited for the tow truck.

The ride up and over the Divide was pretty hair-raising with all of our posessions careening down the mountain with one of the good old boys from Deliverance at the wheel. We were happy to see the Ford dealer when we got there. No mechanics on Saturday off course so the driver pulled our trailer out to our next scheduled RV stop. Unfortunately this is not one of our favorite places to spend the night. What a great birthday!

Oh well, we are looking forward to getting our truck back tomorrow and heading towards home again. So, we have been delayed by only a day and a half so far. Doing housekeeping today and resting, reading and playing some banjo. Home is sounding better all the time..

Phil & Lydia

Colorado to Wyoming

Sorry about the delay in getting the blog current but internet access can be tough on the road.

We left you in Limon Colorado and that is when we drove to Littleton to see the last batch of relatives on this trip. We had a great visit (my first meeting) with Lydia's cousins Phyllis and Dave and got to see her Uncle Phil too. Had some great fajitas on the back deck and talked ourselves silly catching up after many years. That was until the daily thunderstorms arrived! I guess we had almost forgotten how loud thunder can be when it is up close and personal.

We spent the night at Chatfield State Park (thanks Steve and Sally) and can give it a great recommendation. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay there and wish we had more time to explore the area. I even had a fun little frog companion in the shower. He didn't think too much of the running water but came hopping back when I turned the shower off. We saw lots of King Birds, a Bullock's Oriole, and an amazing amount of Broadtailed Hummingbirds who were really putting on a show.

After Littleton we headed to Cheyenne, WY. Another nice little RV park and a visit to a Sierra Trading Post outlet store, which is a great outdoor products place to shop. Back at the RV park we found that they do a BBQ every night and we feasted on an order of ribs, spicy beans and potato salad. Good food for sure. Another nightly thunderstorm and we were off to Casper, WY the next morning.

We had a nice drive up I25 today if you can call the interstate highway system a nice drive. There is some spectacular scenery coming this way, and I suppose any route would have been the same. Even finally got to see an antelope along side the road. Lots of roadwork everywhere we go and boy do we need it. It seems as if the entire interstate highway system is crumbling under our tires!

Our campground here is one of our few KOA's along our route. It is a nice place to park for a night but once again the nightly storms have kept us in the RV for most of the afternoon. Watching the weather report tonite we were glad to be out of Cheyenne, as they had golf ball hail today!!! 

Tomorrow we are off to Sheridan, WY and a night of Vaudeville at the famous WYO Theatre.

Ten more days and home again..

Phil & Lydia

Out of Kansas and into Colorado.

After a fun time in Dodge City, KS we headed out to Lamar, CO. No internet there due to storms the day before. They also had some power problems but our site checked out good. The RV park was one of the rustic ones that we seem to favor. Everything was clean and neat, just no concrete slabs to park on. Here I am taking a picture of Lydia taking a picture of the great sky.

We had a great time at the Big Timbers Museum in Lamar. Some very nice displays about the early days of Lamar and a big massacre at Sandy Hill back in the 1800's. We are really having a ball at these small town museums and learning quite a bit about the areas we are visiting.

We did have a big thunderstorm pass us to the North and another to the South which gave us a little trepidation being so out in the open as we were.



Then we left Lamar for Limon, CO and another wonderful little museum, the Limon Heritage Museum. There was even a nice display brought in from the Smithsonian for our viewing pleasure. After leaving the museum a massive thunderstorm was fast approaching so we headed for the RV and a small measure of safety at the campground office if needed. Again we got lucky and the storm passed us to the North.

No special birds to report at either of these locations and I was surprised that we never saw a single antelope along the way.

We are off to Littleton, CO for our last relative visit with Lydia's cousins and a stay at Chatfield State Park. More to come and 1600 miles to go before home.

Phil & Lydia

On The Road Again!

We left Shawnee, OK the morning of July 6th and headed to Fort Supply, Oklahoma for our first night heading home. The trip up Hwy 177 was beautiful if ever Oklahoma was. The green rolling hills and farms were just magnificent. We are enjoying using backroads whenever we can, much less truck traffic and the scenery is much better.

Fort Supply is up in the Northwest corner of Oklahoma just before you enter the panhandle. The campground we stayed in was operated by the Corps of Engineers and was very nice. The only thing missing was bathrooms and showers in walking distance from our camping area. There were some in other areas that we could have used, but we still enjoyed our visit immensely.

It did cool off in the evening long enough to go for a walk by the lake and watch a Mississippi Kite pluck insects from the air ... a beautiful bird to see.  We also saw literally hundreds of Red-winged Blackbirds, and several flotillas of Canad Geese on the lake. A very nice spot.

We left Fort Supply this morning, July 7th, and headed into Kansas and Dodge City looking for Matt Dillon and Miss Kitty. Turns out that they were away on business so we made do by visiting the Dodge City Boot Hill Museum.

Even though it was a little touristy it was still fun and interesting. There were a few original buildings, some great artifacts and some true museum pieces on display. Called Boot Hill because of the old cemetary where they always buried them with their boots on. It was a good diversion, as we have a dear friend on our mind constantly today, who is having surgery.

Our campground here might not be to everyones liking but we are enjoying all it has to offer. A little rustic but good cable TV, internet and clean hot showers. Also quite a showing of King Birds nesting in the trees here. 

Tomorrow we are off to Lamar, CO after a fairly short drive, for another relaxing day on the road. We are both a little home sick and ready to see our little slice of heaven again soon.

More soon - Phil & Lydia

Oklahoma to Folorida and back again.

Our trip to Florida went off without too many hitches. Flying is absolutely a most miserable option for travel nowadays. Our first flight out of Oklahoma was delayed and the second was cancelled. The third time was the charm and off we went to Tampa Bay and more relatives.

Florida still has lots of sand, sun and humidity, but it also has some of our favorite nephews and a stirling niece (hi guys). We had a great visit with everyone, Lydia's dear sister Polly and her Mom, who took some time to remember her, and another newly found relative, Margaret Towner, first ordained female Presbyterian minister.

We saw some wonderful birds as we toured Miyakka State Park as well as the back yard. Roseate Spoonbills, Ladderback Woodpeckers, Cardinals, Bluejays, Black Vultures (great flocks of them), Great Blue and Little Blue Herons, Ospreys, Egrets and a few more that are escaping my memory at the moment. Good birding altogether and alligators to boot!

All in all, a wonderful week away from the heat of Oklahoma and into the heat of Florida.

Back in Oklahoma we are preparing to start our return trip to the Pacific Northwest. Lydia had her last infusion before heading home and tomorrow is an oil change and check up for the truck. A few minor fixes on the travel trailer and we will be ready to depart on July 6th. Off to Fort Supply, Oklahoma followed by Dodge City, Kansas. If internet services are good we should be blogging every day again soon.

We are ready to hit the road again and ready to be at home at the same time. I am afraid the travel bug may have bit us pretty hard. Shorter trips in the future, but certainly more of them.

See you soon....

Phil and Lydia