Home in Florida and our Caribbean Cruise

The RV problems are behind us and we made it to our RV Lot in Lily Lake Golf and RV Resort in Frostproof, FL on Wednesday evening the 15^th.  It was good to get “home” and know that we weren't going to be driving the RV for a while.  NOW the Cruise excitement begins as we spent the next three days getting things done and packing for our Royal Caribbean Cruise on the Allure of the Seas that will depart on Sunday!  The lot looked good with almost no weeds growing; a few dead queen palms had some dead frons that Dick removed within an hour of arrival.  Haircuts done, last minute shopping for some clothes since we had not planned on a cruise and don’t carry many “dress up” items in the coach, and washing the car along with just resting filled the time.

Sunday morning the 19^th the weather was great and we headed down Florida Route 27 South to Fort Lauderdale and the ship.  WOW!  When we planned the cruise a few weeks ago we really just looked for one at the right time and departure location going to the Western Caribbean since we had not done that before.  We did not pay much attention to the ship itself!  What a surprise when we got there and saw that the Allure of the Seas is the LARGEST CRUISE SHIP AFLOAT with over 6,000 passengers and a crew of over 2,500!  It is simply HUGE!!!! 

The view of our ship towering over buildings by pier

We were assigned to an INSIDE BALCONY Stateroom #699 on the 12^th DECK!  Now most cruise ships have outside and inside rooms but I never heard of an inside room with a Balcony but on the Allure of the Seas they have opened up the entire inside of the ship from the 5^th or 6^th level up and have rows of staterooms with inside balconies above that up to the 14^th level. (The ship does not have a 13^th floor so our 12^th floor was very near the top!)  There is a carousel on the 5^th deck that we look down on from our balcony! 

View looking aft from our inside balcony

Solarium Starboard side

Solarium

Pat in Central Park area on ship

The Allure of the Seas - It's HUGE

The cruise schedule takes us for first day – at sea, 2^nd day – at Royal Caribbean’s Labadie Island Haiti, 3^rd day – Port visit to Falmouth, Jamaica, 4^th day at sea, 5^th day – Port visit to Cozumel, Mexico, 6^th day at sea with arrival and departure on Sunday.   Of course this large ship also has a large casino as well as something like 9 bars and 3 main dining rooms plus half a dozen specialty restaurants and numerous shops.  The main theater is absolutely huge with seating for what seems like a thousand and is larger than many of the Broadway theaters!  During this cruise the show Chicago was presented and we saw it one evening.  It was essentially the full show and was done very well.  We attended the water show that was held outside in the pool and stage area we could see from our balcony on the aft of the ship.  They cover the pool with a stage for some events and have the pool open for other events.  The ship also has a great children’s pool area and there were quite a few children aboard to use it. 

  There are two separate wave riders up on the 16^th deck on the fantail, one for surfing standing up and one for surf boarding on your knees if you can get up on them without falling.  Right across from our balcony was the landing area for one of the Zip Lines, it runs from the back of the ship forward and looked like it was about 150 feet long about 7 decks in the air, and it was used a lot! 

Zip Line Landing in Blue across from our stateroom

We chose to have regular dining with early seating and were seated at a table for six.  The other two couples were very nice folks, one couple, Ken and Maryanne are from the Washington DC area and he is a retired government worker, the second couple, Dexter and Ruthann were from Florida and he is a retired pastor while she is a nurse and is still working.  We enjoyed our evening meals and conversation with them.  Food?  The food was awesome!  Our waitress was a really great young lady named Mary Lee from the Philippines and she took excellent care of all of us and enjoyed joking around.  Here is a couple of photos from meals and of the dining room area.

Dining Room - multi levels

Music and Piano in Dining Room

Dick and Mary Lee with Lobster

 I can’t say enough about how warm and friendly all of the staff on the ship is.  Whatever Royal Caribbean is doing to select and train their staff personnel it works and all the other passengers we spoke to agreed and enjoyed them also.  Our cabin steward, named  Henry  Smith was top notch and made sure to always greet us most pleasantly and fulfill our every request as well as keep the cabin clean.

We certainly took advantage of the casino which was open nearly all the time.  We both played the slots and found a couple of machines that we tended to play a lot.  Of course we chose those few as they were the ones that paid us well.  The third night Dick hit one machine for over $200 on a $1 wager and even took a photo.  There were three of that particular slot machine in the casino and of course he returned to play them later.  He hit one of them for about $525 and brought his ticket up to the cabin to show Pat.  Of course not every machine paid but for the cruise we came out ahead even though we played a lot! 

Our Visit to Labadee Island was just to swim and snorkel and have lunch on the beach at one of the Royal Caribbean buffets they had set up for everyone.  We did take a snorkel boat out and Dick did snorkel while Pat stayed at the boat and did swim some by the boat.

Enjoying a drink on Snorkel boat

During our stop at Cozumel we took a tour to the Mayan Ruins and a bus ride around the Island.  Our visit to the ruins was not exciting but it was very informative as our guide was herself of Mayan ancestry and she presented them in an interesting way with great details.  The Mayan civilization covered much of the central Caribbean countries.  There are many theories as to why it essentially disappeared many years ago and many new discoveries about it continue.  We did observe several large Iguanas at the ruins and a photo of one is below.

Mayan Ruins

Iguana at Ruins

Our guide - Sylvia

  

After visiting the ruins our group continued on a bus ride around Cozumel Island stopping at a nice scenic rock formation on the coast.  Most of the island is actually a nature preserve and the road is the only thing between it and the shore except for a few small shops.  Here are some pictures of the beach and shops.

Beach on Cozumel

Beach cave at Cozumel

Beach Shop

Beach Shop

Pat at Beach Shop

All in all the cruise was really nice and we had a great time.  It was a great way to end up this 2014 Trip West.  We will leave the RV on our lot here in Florida and drive the van back home to Pennsylvania to spend the holidays with our family.  Here’s wishing all who may be following us along on this journey via this blog a warm and wonderful rest of the year and a Very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours.

Dick & Pat

Problems and Problems with our RV!

We have owned our 1999 Discovery RV since January 2005 and we have had very few problems with it.  This is probably because we take it in for routine maintenance at the Freightliner RV center in Gaffney, SC nearly every year on our trip home from Florida to Pennsylvania. 

That being said we just experienced a series of mishaps in a short period.  The first one is really minor but strange…I was walking from the back to the front of the coach when I somehow managed to snag the handle to the silverware drawer in a pleat on a front pocket of the shorts I was wearing and actually ripped the face off the drawer!  It will take removing several staples that held the drawer face and in the interim we had to shift the contents to a lower drawer and have put tape across the front to hold it together and stored towels in it.  This is such a minor thing but just the first in a series of events.

Later that morning I was pulling the coach out of a Pilot station where we had purchased fuel when I somehow managed to drive the right rear tires over a curb.  Now if you have never been in an RV to experience an event like that, I need to explain that it will rock the whole RV pretty hard from side to side.  In several instances in the past when I have hit a curb like this we have had our dish cupboard come open and dumped some dishes on the sink and floor, breaking several plates and bowls.  This time however we had a Velcro strap around the handles of the cupboard doors to prevent them from opening and that worked fine.  But, Pat happened to be back by the sink getting me a glass of water when I hit the curb.  The RV rocked so violently that she was thrown off balance and into the bench seat by the table, hitting her arm quite hard on the table edge.  That was bad enough, but the real strange thing was that the rocking was so violent that the built in refrigerator actually broke loose and came out of the wall about 6 or 7 inches!  Concerned for possible propane gas leaks I immediately checked the back of the refrigerator from outside the coach and found that miraculously both the gas and electric lines were still connected and the refrigerator was working fine. 

We managed to push the unit partially back into the wall but could not get it in all the way and the front remained about 2 inches out of the wall.  The screws that held it in place had actually ripped right out of the plywood and some of the facing wood around it was broken.  We made plans that when we got to Florida we would take the coach to a repair facility and leave it for a week while we go on our cruise.  We even arranged to have access to a friend’s home here to use for a night or two if we needed it and most importantly to put our refrigerated and frozen items in their refrigerator/freezer.

Two days later at about 7 PM we had just gotten set up at a campground in Fredericksburg, TX and were planning on seeing the area and its many attractions the next day when BAM, both air conditioning units shut down and it appeared that we had lost power to the coach from the power pedestal.  I checked with the coach next door and they had power and I could see others had power too.  I even hooked up my 30 amp extension cord and tried to plug into the pedestal of the vacant spot on the other side of the coach but still showing no power coming into our coach.  Then I got out my multi-meter and tested our pedestal.  It DID have power!  Now what? We have a Progressive Industries Energy Management System (EMS) that we bought and had installed in line between the power we receive from any pedestal and the coaches power distribution panel.  It is a very good power protection system and has saved our fanny on several occasions when it found things like and open neutral or other wiring problems with the pedestal power.  The EMS gives a series of codes whenever it is receiving power and its display was now blank, which is why I thought we were not connecting to power.  Now I was really confused but decided it had to be a problem with the EMS.  Since Progressive Industries has a fantastic and well-earned reputation for support I called the number on the EMS and left a message.  Within an hour I had a call back from an engineer at Progressive.  After explaining our situation he talked me through opening and testing their system.  Sure enough the EMS was not working!  He then talked me through a way to by-pass the EMS using an internal connector that Progressive has built into the system just in case it should fail.  That got us power and the engineer offered that Progressive would put a replacement board in express mail to me the next morning.  The next place we could receive mail was in Frostproof, FL where we were headed to our RV lot there, but would not be there for several days.  The part was shipped to me care of General Delivery in Frostproof.  At least we had the power working and the AC to cool us in the Texas heat. 

OOPS for some reason the next day I turned the front AC off and when I tried to restart it a while later it would not start.  I opened the ceiling access and found that when I tried to turn the “squirrel cage” which is a fan that moves the air in the coach, it was very difficult to turn.  It should be freewheeling.  I then went on the roof and took off the shroud around the AC and found that the roof fan that pushes air through the fins was also very difficult to turn.  I was sure there was a problem with the AC and called Marshall Godwin, he is very knowledgeable on RV repair matters and gives training sessions on all sorts of repairs at our Discovery Rallies in Florida each January.  Marshall said it sure sounded like the AC motor was shot and would have to be replaced.  I thanked him and then called another Discovery owner, Gary Osborn, who is a certified RV Technician to see if he concurred and ask him about getting a copy of the instructions he had given in a training session on replacing an AC motor.  Gary was more than helpful, he agreed it would be a bad AC motor and told me of an RV business about 30 miles from us that likely would have the motor we needed.  Then Gary offered that since he was currently staying in a Texas state park just west of Houston and we were only a half days drive from there, and we were headed east anyway, we should pick up the replacement motor and then drive over to see him the next day and spend the next night in the park and he would help me install it.  Boy did I jump on that offer!  Pat and I spent the afternoon going to Kerrville, TX and getting the motor.

It was now Thursday October 9^th and we headed off to see Gary Osborn and his wife Debbie and get the AC motor replaced.  We got to the state park where they were staying and Pat managed to get us assigned to the spot next to Gary’s coach.  Well bad luck found us again when I was hooking up to the electric service at that site.  Remember I had bypassed the EMS so had no protection from any power problem that we might encounter from a campsite power source.  Each time I threw on the circuit breaker at the post we got power to the coach but then it would go off again!  I was standing there frustrated when Gary walked up and he quickly found that the breaker on the pedestal was indeed loose/defective.  We moved to the RV space the other side of Gary’s RV and the power worked there.  We notified the park and they said they would have maintenance repair the defective breaker on the first spot.

Gary & Debbie Osborn

Gary and I took the new AC motor up on the roof of our coach and in a matter of about 20 minutes Gary had the motor changed out and the AC worked!  In the Texas heat we really appreciated that!  THEN I showed Gary the Refrigerator that had come out of the wall.  He too had never heard of anyone experiencing such an event.  He however has replaced refrigerators like ours and after checking the connections on the back he and I spent about an hour and got the refrigerator reinstalled!  Some of the wood facing around the face of the refrigerator in the coach had been broken but we were able to get it to where unless you were specifically looking for damage you would never notice it.  When we told Pat it was fixed she was ecstatic!  We no longer need to have it repaired in Florida!  That evening we took Gary and Debbie out to dinner!

We left Gary and Debbie the next morning and headed to Slidell, Louisiana to meet up with Dick’s cousin David Van Slyke and his wife Debbie who live in Gretna, LA.  We could not meet them that evening but Saturday morning they came to the RV and we spent the day with them.  Dave is almost the same age as Dick and they spent many weeks together when they were youngsters.  Dick would go to his Aunt and Uncle’s dairy farm by Oxford, NY.  Dave was their grandson and lived nearby and when Dick was at the farm he stayed there with him and they played and shot 22’s and BB guns and fished and helped with bailing hay and milking the cows.  Both of them were very happy to see each other and Pat and Debbie chatted and listened a lot.  For lunch we went to a seafood place that both sells fresh fish and shellfish and sells a limited menu of seafood meals.  Their shrimp platters were amazing, the Catfish platter was too and Dave’s Shrimp Po-boy was huge!  Great food and a neat experience! 

Sunday morning we again hit the road, this time headed for Florida and our lot in Frostproof but first a stop at Egland Air Force Base family camp by Niceville, FL.  We arrived a little late in the day and had a hard time finding the FAMCAMP with a little detour through a woody campground area that was NOT meant for big RVs before we finally got to the right place and set up for the night.  We chose Egland, near Niceville, as we wanted to see our friends Bonnie and Terry Rarick who live in Niceville.  Bonnie and Terry used to live in Blandon, PA and their son was a member of the Boy Scout Troop 183 that both of us and Dick Jr belonged to.  Bonnie also operated a beauty salon and cut Pat’s hair for years and sometimes even cut Dick’s hair.  We had called them while still on the road and asked if they would be available to go out to dinner so we could buy them dinner.  They said yes and we asked them to pick a restaurant and they chose a great seafood restaurant.  We thoroughly enjoyed the evening catching up on each other’s activities.

Monday the 13^th we got off to an early start, leaving camp at about 9AM but then, before we could even get off the base, the dashboard on the RV lit up with Stop Engine and Low Voltage lights and the temperature gauge pegged at the top of high.  Dick immediately pulled off to the side of the road and shut off the coach.  Now what???? Made a panic call to Marshall Godwin once again and he immediately said it sounded like a broken Serpentine Belt.  Well Dick lifted our bed in the back of the RV and opened the hatch to the top of our Cummins Diesel engine.  Sure enough Dick could see the broken serpentine belt!  

We called Good Sam’s Emergency Road Service and they dispatched a service mechanic from a nearby garage.  Too bad we were on base as it meant the driver ended up having to go through a vehicle search and delays due to base security and did not get to us for about an hour and a half.  The good news was that Dick had a spare serpentine belt and the mechanic was able to change it.  While looking at the engine Dick noticed that another belt seemed loose and when the mechanic looked at it sure enough, the belt for the coach air conditioner that runs off the fan shaft was not only loose but the idler pulley for the bolt that should be located on the air conditioner was missing!  The mechanic said it was best to just remove the belt until we could locate and install a new idler pulley so he removed the belt for us.  OK folks, if you add up all the bold and underlined items in this post you will have the quick summary of what has taken me so long to write out.  

Too many incidents in a short time!  No pictures but lengthy descriptions!

Some family time with Pat’s brother and on to Hemet

Friday the 12^th, after spending the previous night at Seven Feathers Casino and RV Park located at exit 99 of I-5 in Southeast Oregon, we again got going south on I-5 heading into California on our way to have some family time by a visit to Pat’s brother Bob and his wife Cherie at their home in Modesto, CA.  The trip was just straight driving on the Interstate, not much fun but essential to cover the distance in a reasonable time frame. 

We arrived at Bob and Cherie’s and were able to park the RV on the street directly in front of their home.  It was great to see them both.  Bob, who uses a wheelchair since his polio returned with a vengeance a few years ago,  was diagnosed with cancer a little over a year ago and while he is still being treated regularly we were anxious to see him in person and found him in good spirits and looking great.  Cherie on the other hand was experiencing a lot of pain and is anxiously awaiting her appointment with another doctor.  She had not been out of the house in quite a while.  We just enjoyed being with and visiting them and seeing their daughter Jennifer and her children.  What sharp kids they are and with great manners!

We did go out to eat a couple of times and one afternoon Bob drove all of us, including Cherie, up to visit a nice casino in Jackson, California.  It was about an hour and a half’s drive to get there and we enjoyed a nice crab leg and prime rib buffet as well as partook of some gambling.  Only Bob had any luck but it was an enjoyable trip and Cherie through enjoyed getting out and about for the first time in a long time.

  

Pat & Bob at Costco

We stayed at Bob & Cherie’s for four nights and really enjoyed every minute.  We bid them farewell on Wednesday October 17^th after Pat had taken Bob to get a chemo treatment in the morning and after we all went out to lunch.  Dick even got the RV refueled while they were at the doctors so we were ready to hit the road and we did.  We stopped that night at the military FAMCAMP RV park at Naval Air Station, Lemoore, California.  Thursday we then got back onto I-5 and drove over the Grapevine as it is called and through the area northwest of Los Angles in a LOT OF TAFFIC!!!  It is rather amazing how easily Dick make driving in all that traffic look while pulling our car behind the RV!  Sometimes we were VERY close to some of that traffic and we did not see any other RV’s on those stretches of freeway.  Our RV easily handled the Grapevine which is a very winding and steep portion of I-5 going over the mountains just north of LA.  The trip uphill was a bit slow but we were in no hurry and the trip back down was a continual use of the exhaust brake often supplemented by the regular coach brakes.  We reached Hemet and the Golden Palms RV Resort late in the afternoon and quickly settled into our location.  Since we had hit all the traffic just about lunchtime we never stopped for lunch and we were really hungry by the time we finished setting up so we quickly had dinner at a Marie Calendar’s Restaurant.

Salton Sea and Seeing Dear Friends

From San Diego we headed east for the first time this trip!  We have very good friends, Gary and Katy Rovetto, Gary was Dick’s fraternity brother at the University of Idaho and we have seen them at their home in Payson, Arizona several times over the past few years.  We had been planning on visiting them again this trip but Dick had received an email from Gary a month ago letting us know that they were selling their place in Arizona and were going to move to Ecuador in South America.  We had not known the timing of our getting to their area and the potential sale of their property but had been keeping in touch.  A few days ago we found out they had sold and settled on their property and were planning on leaving Payson and visiting some relatives in California and the Pacific Northwest and Gary and Dick set up for us to meet for a day at a spa and RV Park by the Salton Sea on Thursday Oct. 2^nd.  Gary and Katy had been there once before. 

We had never been there and the drive to it from San Diego was out I-5 and into the dessert through some really dry and rugged terrain.  It took us about 5 hours to get out to the SPA and find Gary and Katy.   We got a site directly across from the site where they had their 5^th wheel RV parked.  It was great to see them and we shared a grilled hamburger dinner on the patio by their rig and talked well into the evening.  They are excited about their coming move and have high hopes about their move to a place where they have already made friends and found things there to their liking.  They spent last winter visiting Equador and really felt it was a place for them to enjoy living.  Gary is a former Navy fighter pilot in Vietnam and they once ran a flying business in the San Juan islands in Peugeot Sound Washington before he became a pilot for Continental Airlines.  He retired as a senior pilot from Continental.  

Gary and Katy by the Salton Sea

Friday we took a drive around the Salton Sea.  The Salton Sea is not really a sea but rather is a lake located  332 feet below sea level in southeastern California.   The Salton Sink as the area is called was originally part of what is now the Gulf of California.  Unlike most lakes it has no natural outlet flowing to the ocean; whatever flows in, does not flow out. The whole lake was dry and the land being developed as an agricultural empire by the California Development company.  They needed water for the agriculture and the company tapped the Colorado River for that purpose.  In 1905 after an unusually wet winter the Colorado River broke through the canal and the river’s entire volume poured into the nearest low spot – the Salton Sink.  Water inundated entire communities, the main line of the Southern Pacific Railroad.  The newly filled lake flooded nearly 350,000 acres.    By the 1950's the Salton Sea ad become a popular resort area.  Yacht clubs, large marinas and a championship golf course attracted celebrities.  However by the 1970's recurring floods ended the dreams of most folks for the desert ‘Eden”.  The lake has become a major area for migratory waterfowl and hundreds of species of birds.  The once terrific fishing has been reduced to only Tilapia fishing and we saw no boats on the waters of the lake.  There is a big question whether the lake can be saved or is destined to dry up once again.  Federal, state and local entities as well as interest groups and individuals are trying to save the Salton Sea.  However, funding is very limited and the future of the lake is in question.

Devastated home sites by the Salton Sea

In our drive around the lake we stopped at several park areas along the shore, observed white pelicans nearly everywhere along the shore.  There were also many dead fish and the smell was horrible in places.  The area other than for a couple of spas that take advantage of some heated water sources gives the appearance of desolation with abandoned building and skeletons of old RVs and trailers littering many sites.  There are a few homes that are still occupied but it is one of the most desolate and forlorn places we have ever seen.  The one bright spot is the abundant agriculture that is going on toward the northeast shore of the lake.  We saw many fields of date palms and other fruit and nut trees that appear to be thriving.

From our perspective, the two nights and intervening day we spent in the area was enough to let us know we would not return. 

On Saturday, Oct 4^th, after saying good bye to Gary and Katy we decided to continue our journey east by going up to I-10 and passing through Blythe, California to try and visit Pat’s cousin Betty Barrozo, who is the only remaining cousin at that level in her family.  On the way to reach I-10 from the Salton Sea we drove through a very isolated but beautiful area on a road called Boxed Canyon Road.  When we mentioned that road to Betty she immediately stated that it had been years since she had been there but that she used to go there on family outings using it as a halfway meeting point with Pat’s family from Brawley, CA.  One of those small world happenings to realize we had just been through a spot where Pat’s mom and her brothers and parents used to spend time visiting with relatives.    We offered to take Betty to lunch but she turned the tables on us by taking us to the Mexican restaurant that she and her family operate.  We chatted at length with Betty and met her daughter who runs the day to day operations of the restaurant.  The food was great!

Betty had Dick drive us all in her Jaguar to and back from the restaurant.  He enjoyed driving it even if he couldn't find the trunk release to open the trunk and get Betty’s wheel chair out at the restaurant!  After saying good bye to Betty we drove over the border from California into Arizona and went on to the Gila Bend Air Force Auxiliary Field FAMCAMP in Gila Bend.  We arrived late and after dark on this small out of the way air base but were able to get set up enough to get by with electric and water services.

Visit to a Paradise!

Thursday September 11^th found us on the road again but this time only about an hour south of Portland we took a short side trip east to visit with Steve & Peg Mitchell in or near Lyons, OR.  Steve is a shipmate of Dick’s from the USS Firedrake who has attended some prior reunions and had invited us to stop by and stay with them at their new retirement home in the woods. 

Were we ever glad that we took Steve up on his gracious invitation to at least stop by.  Now sometimes a GPS plays tricks on you and this was one of those times.  I had phone conversations with Steve about bringing our RV in to where they are located and after he checked we agreed that I would drive the RV to a golf course that was near their home and park in a lot there as he had made arrangements with the course so it would be OK.  Well, Pat found the golf course on her GPS on her laptop and off we went down what was quickly becoming a narrower and narrower road.  At one point the pavement turned to gravel but then back to pavement, however suddenly the GPS “Lady” announced “In 200 yards park your vehicle and proceed on foot”…well that was an unexpected surprise.  We kept on driving and the road did continue but the GPS said it had ended!  We were in the hills and valleys of Oregon and it was beautiful and very green even though they had not had much rain.  The river that the road followed was obviously very low, but VERY clear. 

Suddenly in all the dense pine and hemlock forest around us I looked to the left and there was a clearing with someone on a golf cart on a fairway!  We made it and were able to park just fine on the grass parking lot.  Steve met us and we drove back a couple of more miles to his place.  What a fantastic place they have.  It had been Steve dad’s place many years back. They have redone the “main cabin” which is their home, added two small fully equipped cabins, one of which is attached to his garage and one free standing.  Their deck is very large and the whole place is located in among many large trees, most of which are hemlock, cedar and pine and has that great fresh outdoor scent that only woods like that can create. The photos below show their home in the woods, Steve and Peg with their very friendly dog with the side of one of their cabins.  The another shows the great bear carvings that Steve has mounted to a tree near their driveway.  The next photo is of a huge 7 x 7 elk rack that Steve has mounted in their living room.  I can’t find the words to adequately describe the awesome way in which Peg and Steve have decorated their home.  Everything is just perfect for the setting of their home in the woods.

 Below is a shot of a large petrified log that Steve has just off from his deck.  Sorry I didn’t place something by it to give size perspective but it is about 4 feet long and about a foot in diameter!  Also a shot of the Racoon carving on their deck.

  

Here are two more snapshots from Steve’s. One is the scale model of the Firedrake that he had built and hopes to be able to bring to a Firedrake reunion.  It is perfect in every detail!  The other is a jacket patch that he acquired that is just so perfect I had to have a photo of it to include here!  A true patch of Navy Pride!

 

We took a short walk up the road to Steve’s cousin’s home.  Wow! What a lovely place also.  It is a large octagon wood home with a vaulted ceiling that is just beautiful.   We returned to Steve’s home and enjoyed a nice lunch that Peg prepared for us.  

After Steve got out of the Navy he went to work for Del Monte and just retired last year after I believe 43 or more years with them.  He worked his way up in the company and managed several plants and other great jobs.  When he found out that Pat’s dad had worked for Del Monte he insisted on giving her a Del Monte ball cap in camouflage colors.

I would be very remiss if I failed to mention that while I was looking at and admiring a great collection of bamboo fishing rods that Steve had displayed their home, Steve proceeded to give me one of his bamboo rods with two tip pieces in a case. He insisted that I take it as he showed me a large collection of them he had in addition to the ones on display.  I greatly appreciate it and will put it to use fly fishing in PA and hopefully elsewhere! 

While we would have loved to spend the night or several nights with Steve and Peg in one of their cabins as Steve and Peg had so graciously offered, we needed to move on to get some miles on toward going to Bob and Cherie’s tomorrow so after a truly wonderful visit Steve drove us back to the RV and we departed about 4 PM.  Steve and Peg, thank you so much and we do hope to return someday when we can spend longer and would love to have you visit us in Pennsylvania.

On to Portland, Oregon to see friends

Friday September 5^th, the day after our fantastic day in Glacier NP we broke camp once again headed for Portland, Oregon via a night in Spokane, Washington.  To achieve that in two days it took two rather long days on the road again.  The trip to Spokane would take us south in Montana from the east side of Glacier down around the south side of the park and right through the town of West Glacier that we had gone to when we crossed the park on Going to the Sun Highway.  The scenery was beautiful and we then headed southwest to join up with I-90 west of Missoula, Montana.  The roadway started to look familiar remembering that way back in 1963 through 1966 I had driven I-90 both east and west while attending the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho each time I returned to my home outside Buffalo, New York.  The trip from Montana to Spokane goes over what is called Lookout Pass and continues all the way across the state of Idaho to Washington State.  It was a strange feeling to go all the way across Idaho without stopping or heading south to Moscow!

We spent the night in Spokane at the military FAMCAMP located at Fairchild Air Force Base just outside Spokane.  We found that we were able to buy our meals and eat in the base chow hall where the active duty and reserve personnel dined.  The food facilities sure have changed since I was on active duty and each meal item was priced separately like a cafeteria.

Off again on Saturday to Portland we experienced the shock of leaving the mountains and all their beauty behind us as we entered the relatively barren lands of Eastern Washington where dust devils were common to see crossing the vacant land and plowed fields.  Our route took us southwest from Fairchild AFB down I-90 and US-395 to Pasco, Washington where we crossed the Columbia River into the state of Oregon and headed almost directly west on I-84 toward Portland.

The purpose of going to Portland area was to visit Dick’s old college fraternity brother and roommate George Branson and his wife Becky.  In an unusual move, we took the RV to an RV Park located on Jensen Beach Island in the middle of the Columbia River between Portland and Vancouver, left it there, and went to stay a few days with George and Becky in their phenomenal 25^th floor condo on the south side of Portland.  The condo has an amazing view of Portland and also the freeway system leading into and south of the city.

 

 Portland is a dynamic city that has been transformed into a refreshing and thriving metropolis with clean tree lined streets and sparkling buildings.  We spent three delightful days with George & Becky catching up on their and our many travels and families.  On Monday the 8^th Becky & George took us out to a really special treat for lunch at a Brazilian Steakhouse named Fogo de Chao.  We had never been to one before and we really enjoyed their famous and fabulous salad bar and Dick and George additionally had the full variety of fine meats that are served and individually carved right at the table.  Many thanks to Beck & George for that special treat!

Also we wanted to visit Pat’s cousin Corky Tennent and his wife Sandy in Kelso, Washington and to see dear Navy friends Ken and Billie Voss in Vancouver, Washington, both only a short distance from Portland so, after bidding the Bransons a fond farewell on Tuesday morning, we returned to the RV and then headed north to see Corky and Sandy. 

Much to our surprise in addition to Corky and Sandy, Corky’s brother “JD” and sister “Bitsy” were there.  Pat had not seen them in many years and it was great to see them.  We had visited Corky & Sandy a couple of years ago on an earlier trip but with Corky’s health failing due his colon cancer the visit was especially important and we greatly enjoyed the afternoon with all of them. 

From the Tennent’s we headed back south to Vancouver, WA and went to Ken and Billie Voss’s home.  Ken and Billie are very dear friends from back in Dick’s Navy days where Dick and Ken served as Department Heads on the USS Firedrake (AE-14) an ammunition ship deployed to Vietnam in 1969 - 71.  We have seen them frequently since then as we attend the Firedrake reunions around the country. 

Ken and Dick co-hosted one of the reunions in Vancouver in 2007.  We went out to dinner with them to a local BBQ restaurant and the next day we again visited with them and ended the day with a salad bar dinner at a Green Tomatoes Restaurant.  It was good spending time with them.

Glacier Park

The trip from Gillette to the East gate to Glacier National Park took us through a lot of open country both in Wyoming and central to western Montana.  Since I had traveled this country on several other occasions it seemed obvious to us that this year had been a wetter than normal year for this area based on the color of the vegetation and the status of crops along the way.  We delayed our departure from Gillette until Dick had made some bank deposits and picked up a General Deliver package that we should have remembered to pick up before the three day Labor Day weekend.  Despite the late start Dick wanted to push on and we drove all the way to Great Falls, Montana where we found a campsite at Malstrom, Air Force Base Gateway FAMCAMP.  A FAMCAMP is a military sponsored RV campsite that may be used by active duty personnel when making permanent change of station relocations and is also available for general use by active duty and retired military personnel.  They normally have utility hook-ups and charge fees ranging around $20 per night. Malstrom was no exception and was conveniently located just outside the main gate to the base making access easier.

Wednesday September 3rd found us with only a few hours needed to drive from Great Falls to our next campsite just outside the East side of Glacier National Park so we drove it more leisurely and when we got to the town of Browning, MT in the Blackfeet Indian Reservation we stopped to have lunch at the casino there.  The food was excellent and Dick got a nice two pork chop dinner for only $8.00.  Dick stepped up to one slot machine while we were waiting for our meal and he proceeded to win $35 in a very short time.  Of course after dinner we played the slots and for a change very good luck was with us.  Dick got onto one “Lucky Ducky” nickel machine and pulled out $350 from it plus hit some on a couple of other machines while Pat ended up $50 ahead as well!  Not bad for an unscheduled stop!  We then drove about an hour to reach the Johnson’s RV Park in St. Mary.  We had received a strong recommendation for Johnson’s from our good friends Jim & Bonnie Larson who had spent time there and we were not disappointed.  Our spot was on a hill with our front windshield facing directly across toward a nice view of the entrance area for Glacier National Park. We booked it for two nights at a reasonably pricey $44 per night with full hook-ups.

WOW!  We have been to a lot of National Parks and certainly many of them are beautiful, BUT GLACIER IS AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL!  For practical purposes there is one main way to see Glacier and that is by driving the Going to the Sun highway that traverses the park on a more or less East West basis.  It is about 50 miles long with traffic restrictions that exclude most RV’s and towing due to very sharp turns and overhanging rocks.  At one point Pat had to fold in her passenger side mirror to be sure I didn't hit the rocks when we had to pull all the way to the right to avoid oncoming traffic! 

 

We had a glorious day to take our drive across Going to the Sun.  Hardly a cloud in the sky.  Of course our Golden Age Passports got us free admission to the park but the trip would be more than worth any entrance fee!  We had hopes to see the many forms of wildlife that the park is noted for, however we only saw on black bear soon after we got going on the road and then we did see numerous mountain goats up on the sides of some rocky slopes.  The goats were pretty far away and binoculars helped a lot.  What we did see however was the scenery!  There are not enough positive adjectives in my vocabulary to do it justice but let’s just suffice to say it was spectacular with views of the very rocky Rocky Mountains.  All I kept saying to Pat was that this is what the Rocky Mountains should look like in my mind.  The tops of most of them were raw bare rock above the tree line.  Our photos will try to give you a glimpse of what it is like but we really encourage anyone to come and see it for yourself!