A stunning wildflower meadow on our summit hike at Mt. Revelstoke, B.C. - Friday, August 2, 2024

A stunning wildflower meadow on our summit hike at Mt. Revelstoke, B.C. - Friday, August 2, 2024
A stunning wildflower meadow on our summit hike at Mt. Revelstoke, B.C. - Friday, August 2, 2024

Friday, July 31, 2020

It's A Heat Wave! - Friday, July 31, 2020

Friday morning, we left Mountain Home, Idaho, on our way to Pendleton, Oregon. I drove three of our 4-1/2 hours today. There were no incidents, just a lot of mountains and hills to cross. I took it slow and easy. 

Bob spent a good deal of time working on the phone while I drove. We stopped at a rest area to retrieve our tuna out of the refrigerator. Lunch consisted of tuna that Bob prepared in advance. We scooped the tuna out of the dish with Wheat Thin crackers.

At 1:30 p.m., we arrived at Wildhorse Casino, Hotel, and RV Park. The office gave us a choice of sites, one had a gravel pad and one had an asphalt pad. The gravel pad site had good shade. Done deal, we took the site with shade. That worked out well. We're so thrilled we were able to get a site here. I had tried five other RV parks between here and the Columbia River, all were completely full. This campground had one back-in site left.

When we finished settling in our site, Bob headed over to the Sports Book at the casino to watch the Portland Trailblazers play and win their game in overtime. He was literally a happy camper! While he watched the game, he and his son Randall texted back and forth with their commentary on the game.

After the game, we had dinner in our 5th wheel. For dessert, we drove across the street to Dairy Queen for Blizzards.

The sites were quite nice with full hook-ups and it was quiet. They honor a Good Sam discount of 10%. The casino shuttle came to the campground if you needed a ride over. 

It should be noted that, though we didn't use it, there is a free parking lot for trucks and RVs in front of the hotel tower close to the main road. There are no hookups! We wanted to have electricity and water.

The outside temperature here was 101 degrees F. I'm so happy we have two A/C units! Our site was huge. There was more than enough room for our 5th wheel and pick-up.

Our site as seen from the side.

It's so nice to be in the shade!
Wildhorse Casino Hotel.

Wildhorse Casino RV Park.


A view of the inside rows of the RV park.

The inside rows of the Casino RV park.

A beautiful sunset out our back window.

Another sunset shot.

The RV park was dark and quiet and we slept well. Tomorrow morning, we want to leave early and arrive in Gig Harbor at 1:00 p.m.

A Walk with Surprises and a Drive to Mountain Home, Idaho - Thursday, July 30, 2020

For two days, Bob has been taking bike rides along a bike path that's just around the corner from our RV park. This morning, he invited me to walk with him to see how pretty it is.

I was excited to see more of Lakeside Storage and Museum (the storage yard next to the RV park). Come to find out, there's even more stuff across the street!

Old gas station and car-related signs at
Lakeside Storage and Museum.


Hey, I recognize Sinclair and Chevron!

Conoco is also familiar.
Check out the angry plane.


This plane looks like some kind of prototype.

Just so you know who owns all this memorabilia.

It was fun photographing these signs.

Local history. 

After crossing the Provo River Bridge, we walked 1/2 block and turned right just before Utah Lake State Park, and then turned right again into the parking lot for the Provo/Jordan River Parkway path. The path is paved and follows the river. It was about 7:30 a.m.

The Provo/Jordan River Parkway.

Magical in the morning sun.

I was telling Bob how "messy" the river looks with downed branches and some trash on the bank. Being in the city, it did not look manicured like some city rivers do. Because it's close to Utah Lake and a Waterfowl Management Area, this part of the pathway looks rather wild. 

A very large covey of quail moved across our path and into the horses' pasture. It looked like those quail had about 50 little ones. So cute!

Two adult quail on the right and three or
four babies visible on top of the left logs.


Baby quail on top of the middle log.

A downed tree in the river.

Guess what? Right about that exact moment of wild river thoughts, a long, slinky, furry black animal appeared at the base of a tree next to the river. It looked at us and skittered into the water. Could it possibly be? That looked just like a mink!!! That was the first animal that came to mind even though I've never seen one in the wild before. I wish I would have had my camera out and ready so I could "capture" it in a photo!

We discussed for a bit whether it was a mink or a weasel. It definitely was not an otter or a ferret. From every photo I can remember about an animal like that, I was 95% sure it was a mink. 

I asked some people walking on the trail if there were mink around here. The first two ladies I asked didn't speak English. They just looked perplexed. Then I asked a lady who looks like she walks this area all the time. She said she has seen the animal but hadn't seen it recently. We told her we just saw it a few minutes ago.

Continuing on our walk, we stayed on the fork in the trail that went closest to the river. I looked across the river and saw another mink walking on a rock along the opposite shore. Again, the critter was curious about us but slunk off into the brush or water. It was hard to see once it got off the grey rock. We looped back onto the main path to head back.

We asked another couple about seeing the critter and they said they had just seen one, but they thought it was an otter. Nope, I know what otters look like...they're big and fat and brown with a thick tail. I told them I was pretty sure it was a mink. I couldn't wait to get back to the 5th wheel to identify it!

Heading back.

A view of the Wasatch Range.

Me hanging out amongst the cool items on display.

Lakeside Storage has quite a collection!



Back at the 5th wheel, I immediately logged onto the computer and found what I was looking for. We definitely saw TWO mink on that two-mile walk. I am so impressed. WOW!

Today, we travel to Mountain Home, Idaho. We'll be crossing some mountains. 

Bob drove us through the traffic in Salt Lake City, Ogden, Bountiful, and the other suburbs of Salt Lake City. There was some road construction, but we went through about 10:30 a.m. There were some hairy moments, but we made it through. 

We stopped at a rest area near the border with Idaho and gave Sunnie his insulin. I took over driving for a couple of hours. We made it to Mountain Home close to 5:00 p.m.


Photos of Mountain Home RV Park, just 0.8 miles off I-84, are below. 

This is a beautiful, modern, clean, well-run RV park. As soon as we pulled up to the park's stop sign, a gentleman in a golf cart greeted us and told us to wait right there. He got our name, picked up our paperwork from the office, and led us to our campsite. He explained to Bob where all the utilities were located. The sites had plenty of space between them. The section we were in was older and had beautiful shade trees.

We loved our shady site. It was 103 degrees!

Beautifully manicured lawns. 

Our site was in the older section of the park. Two weeks ago, they opened a huge new section. You can see below that the trees aren't providing shade yet.

New section of the RV park.

The older section of the RV park. 

I did two loads of laundry this afternoon. Even though there were signs in the laundry room asking people not to wash pet beds, one of the washing machines I used had black pet hair on the top of the washer.

We settled in nicely and liked this RV Park a lot. Tomorrow, we are heading to Pendleton, Oregon. 

Originally, we wanted to stay in Boardman or Stanfield, a little farther along our route, but every park I called was full. It's hot summertime and many people boat and do watersports in the Columbia River. I finally found one last back-in campsite at the Wildhorse Casino RV Park in Pendleton. Whew! I'm glad we got it. We would not want to sleep overnight in a Rest Area with no power. The temperature in Pendleton is forecast to be 101 degrees F.!

Tomorrow we will reach our destination in Gig Harbor, Washington. The weather will be in the 80s! Yay.

Thursday, July 30, 2020

Synchronicity - Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Synchronicity:
  1. coincidence in time; contemporaneousness; simultaneousness.
  2. Physics, Electricity: the state of being synchronous.
  3. Psychoanalysis: the simultaneous occurrence of causally unrelated events and the belief that the simultaneity has meaning beyond mere coincidence.
How does this relate to today's blog? Simple, we left San Antonio a day early to avoid possible delays by Hurricane Hanna. That meant we had an extra day in our schedule before we needed to be in Gig Harbor. When we were in Albuquerque, we thought about going on the Sandia Tramway or going to the Balloon Museum, but Bob was lukewarm to those options.

We continued to our next destination: Provo, Utah. It just so happened that one of Bob's clients from San Antonio was in Park City for a few months. They had flown back to San Antonio to attend to some business and Bob didn't know if they would be in town. He called and found out they would be flying back on Tuesday evening. They invited us to their rental home in Park City for happy hour and to go to dinner on Wednesday. How awesome is that?

Today, Bob did an early-morning, 20-mile bike ride from the campground up to the mouth of the canyon by Bridal Veil Falls. He loved it! 

I walked around the RV park in the afternoon to take photos.

The entrance to Lakeside RV Campground.

We are the 5th wheel on the right. 

Lakeside storage next to the RV Park.

Signs in the storage yard.

The silver pick-up is where we are camped.
Long, "buddy" sites.* 

*Buddy sites are when two RVs pull in in opposite directions so their doors face each other. Normally, there are only a few sites in an RV park with this accommodation (for people camping together who are close friends). In this park, all sites are buddy sites.

As I walked through the campground, I saw a raised bank that looked like there might be water on the other side. There were railroad-tie steps going up onto the bank, so I checked it out. The Provo River was right there! A trail went along the river, but trees were down on the trail. A big wind storm must have come through recently. I was in flip flops and decided not to walk the trail at this time.

The trail along the Provo River.

The Provo River.

Very long "buddy" sites at the RV park.

RV Park Office with a pool behind it.


Pool area.

By the time I finished meandering, it was time to get ready for Park City. We left at 3:00 p.m. for a 1-1/2 hour drive to their house. 

Wasatch Mountain geology.

On the East Coast, they call this a "notch."

On the way, we stopped to see Bridal Veil Falls. It was absolutely gorgeous and hadn't been on our radar as a possible destination. Neither of us knew it was there. The day was so warm that the locals started at the base of the falls and hiked UP the rocky bottom "apron" portion of the falls. There's a local legend that goes with the falls, too.

Here's the legend.

Bridal Veil Falls (note the people at the bottom).

On our drive to Park City, we went through a tunnel, passed the entrance to Timpanogos Cave (on my bucket list for a long time), crossed an earthen dam, saw two reservoirs, and were amazed at the number of people out boating, fishing, waterskiing, and jet skiing on a Wednesday afternoon. Wow!

The tunnels.

One of the large reservoirs.

Once we found their house, we were warmly welcomed by Troy, their son. Then I met Dwayne, Tesha, and their two pups: Turner and Riley. Troy was our bartender and fixed our drinks exactly as we asked for them. 

The temperature was very pleasant and we had drinks on the side deck along with chips and salsa. Silly me, I forgot to take my camera outside, so I missed a lot of photo ops. The pups were adorable and loved playing. Turner even has his own social media page!

Their house was in the heart of old town Park City. It was easy to walk a few blocks to the restaurant. 

Olympic Winter Games venue city, 2002.

Wasatch Brew Pub.

The Egyptian Theater.

History of The Egyptian Theater.

A tribute to Banksy.
Bob, Tesha, Dwayne, Troy, and my empty chair.

Masks were required and we wore them until we were seated at our table. Our waitress told us a favorite dish there is the trout. I didn't hesitate to order the trout which is my favorite fish, and I was very happy with my choice. Bob and Dwayne also had the trout which came with lemon risotto and buttered spinach. Mmm! Thank you so much, Dwayne and Tesha, for a memorable dinner and evening. 

Unfortunately, we had to hurry home to give Sunnie his insulin by 11:00 p.m.

Sunnie says "Hi."

Our drive back to the campground was pretty cool. We took I-80 to I-215. I-215
goes along the base of Salt Lake City's foothills, so we had a beautiful view of the city lights.

We are thankful for this coincidence in timing and a wonderful visit. 

Travel Bug out.