We got up about 8:00am. Joe tried out the showers. He said they were great, but that didn't motivate me to do the same... Besides it was only another 9 hours till we were docked. At 9:15 we had a port call at Ketchikan. Here Joe and I strolled off the ship, did some souvenir shopping, and got some sandwiches for lunch at the local grocery store. We were still stopping at these land locked towns... serviced only by the ferries and airplane. Despite that, this was a nice size town with about 16 miles of road.

After we got back on the ferry we watched them load the vehicles onto the car deck... quite the catastrophe. There were a number of towing boats and trailers, which had some problems maneuvering, and coming down the ramp. Two vehicles grounded their trailers, which had to be unhooked and then brought down with a forklift. It was quite the calamity of errors, again the lack of competent engineers was evident.

Needless to say this put us behind schedule by an hour and fifteen minutes... but we were finally underway. After the entertainment was over we headed up to enjoy our lunch... quite a bit cheaper and much better than the cafeteria food. Again Joe and I killed some time by reading and napping. About 4:45pm we headed down to the boat deck to watch our approach into Prince Rupert. Finally docked... we headed down to the car deck. Luckily getting the vehicles off was much easier than getting them on this morning... we were off the ship in about 20 minutes. Not bad since we were buried near the back of the deck.

We were now in Canada, and we passed through customs again. We decided to head into town to find a grocery store... we had to restock our freezer. Getting some recommendations from the checkout help, we went back down the road to a RV park we passed on the way in. We pulled into Park Avenue Campground, quickly hooked up, freshened up a bit (I still haven't had a shower) and headed down the street to the Anchor Inn Bar and Grill. There we enjoyed some brew and a nice meal. After that we walked back up to the RV Park and crashed for the evening.

As was the plan for the next few days we got up about 6:00am. After taking showers and unrigging we were under way at 7:40am. We had to stop and put some air in our tires, so we didn't actually start driving till about 7:55am. From Prince Rupert we continued east along Rt. 16. We stopped near Smithers for some gas, and then continued along in a small caravan of RV's and trucks down to Prince George.

The road was single lane but in great shape, and the traffic moved pretty well. The scenery along the way wasn't very exciting. There were quite a few farms with grazing cattle. There were also a large number of horse farms... don't know why they raised so many horses in this area... can't image that there is much of a market. Joe suggested that there may be a glue factory around??? We didn't notice one, but there were some really large lumber mills.

Pushing on past Prince George we planned to stop at our first KOA in quite awhile. Joe surfed through the KOA guide and found one near Williams Lake. We planned to make it to Seattle in 2 days (the itinerary planned for 4), so it was important to keep moving. It was just starting to get dark as we pulled into Williams Lake, when Joe informed me that the KOA was another 30 miles... Ugggg!!! We continued on and found it in about 40 minutes.

At the site we hooked up and grilled Teriyaki Kabobs for dinner. After dinner, Joe covertly changed the oil in the dark since it was about due. After some computer time, Joe headed to bed. I continued to work on the journal, but in about 45 minutes crawled into bed about 10:30pm. Have to get up at 6:00am again this morning. We hoped to get to Seattle with enough time for some sight seeing tomorrow.

 September 12, 1999

Again we got up about 6:00… Well Joe got up at 6:15, and I got up about 6:30. I headed up to the shower when Joe got back, and he vacuumed out the rig… boy did it need that. We unrigged and Joe topped off the oil, since he couldn't read the dipstick in the dark last night. About 7:50am we attempted to leave, but were stopped by a closed gate. After further inspection we noticed that there was nothing stopping us from opening it, so we did and continued down the road.

In about 50 miles we stopped for gas, and continued on our way. Here the scenery improved a bit. There were many really nice farms along the way. There were the usual cow pastures, but there were also nice clover and alfalfa fields. The land seemed pretty dry, and they had quite a few irrigation systems setup… never saw that for clover before.

After about another 150 miles the landscape changed dramatically. Now we were heading through some rugged mountainous terrain with a river valley below. The road followed the river valley along with some very active train tracks. The beautiful weather made this part of British Columbia really spectacular… it was an awesome day. The road continued through some tunnels in the mountainside and winded through an area called Hell's Gate.

Just outside of the mountains we came to Hope where we filled our gas and propane tanks. We also stopped by a local market were Joe purchased $9.75 worth of ice cream products to exhaust our Canadian money supply. Leaving Hope we started back on a 2 lane divided highway heading into Vancouver. After a while this turned into a 3 then 4-lane road… first time for that since Chicago.

We didn't quite get to Vancouver, before turning off onto Rt. 13. This took us to the US border and we crossed back into the lower 48 states. This proved to be the easiest customs stop so far… they Just ask us if we were from Maryland (apparently seeing our license plate) then waved us through.

We continued on down to Seattle. We decided to head into town to do some site seeing, then go to a KOA about 15 minutes further south. At about 4:30pm we pulled into downtown Seattle, and parked near the Space Needle. Here we road to the top and surveyed the landscape from the 520' tower. It was such an awesome day… off to the South you could see (very clearly) Mt. Raineir… this is only visible about 85 days of the year. We stopped to enjoy a brew at the bar, and shop a bit in the gift shop. It was, by my perception of Seattle weather, an atypical day… not a cloud in the sky. In addition to that it was 78 degrees… it has been a while since Joe and I have worn shorts.

At the bottom of the Space Needle Joe consulted with the concierge for a place to eat. We decided on Elliott's Oyster House…a long walk away. Along the way I was nearly crushed by a car, that decided to roll though a stop sign and take a turn a touch too wide. I casually side stepped out of his road, and watched him smash his blazer into the concrete pillar of the overpass about 6 inches from where I was standing. I believe my exact words where "Damn", and we continued on our way.

We walked through the public market place, and then down to the waterfront. Seattle was excellent, however, we were probably getting a wrapped view due to the awesome weather. After a while we arrived at Elliott's and had a seat at the oyster bar. Neither Joe nor I partook of the delicacy. Instead I had crab and shrimp linguini, and Joe had his usual Filet-Migon … they were both scrumptious dishes.

From there we continued back, and stopped to watch the sunset over the bay and the mountains… an awesome site. Along the way back we happened to walk by the accident scene, and I collected a few pieces of crumbled cement and reflectors to remember the occasion. Finally back at the RV we headed out of town… quite a project… we only got slightly lost trying to get back onto Rt. 5.

Ten miles down Rt. 5 we got off the highway and followed the directions down to the KOA. The office had just closed so we had to self-register… a pain in the ass. Finally at our site we hooked up, and downloaded all the pictures from the last few days. Turned out to be a great day, even with driving 400 miles we got to spend some time in Seattle… and it was beautiful. After working on the computers for a while we headed to bed.

 September 13, 1999

Joe and I got up about 7:00 this morning. After showers, Joe made an attempt to update the website. I made some calls back home. After about 45 minutes I went to check on Joe, and things weren't going well. Since we had over 500 miles to cover today, we decided to just give up… Sorry no updates for quite some time now. We disconnected the RV and headed back out to the highway. Before getting on the Interstate we stopped to gas up.

From there we continued down Interstate 5 through the remainder of Washington State, and down to Portland, Oregon. This corridor was pretty densely populated with retail shops and the like, much like you would find along 95 back home. South of Portland the drive became fairly rural and was pretty boring, at least by our standards thus far. There were a number of farms and nice rolling countryside. Crossing into California we passed through an Agriculture inspection station where they questioned whether or not we had any fruits with us. We responded "No" and were on our way. Guess that there must be some sort of tax issue with fruits in CA, don't know what other reason they would care. Speaking of taxes, what we should have carried with us was fuel… gas prices, somewhat due to taxes, were as high as $1.99/gallon

In northern CA the scenery got a bit more exciting. We noticed a number of golden eagles and/or hawks riding the thermals over the farms searching for prey. Also, there were some huge cattle farms, some with what must have been 5,000 head of cattle sprawled out across acres and acres of grassland. There were also huge plots of, were guessing, peanut and almond trees. In addition, there were acres of tomatoes. We saw huge trucks full of them driving to canning factories. As they bounced over bumps some of their cargo would go rolling down the road. We even saw some vineyards growing grapes.

About 20 miles from our destination we had to make a gas stop. Since there were some RV parks in the area and it was getting quite late we decided to just stay here in Lakehead Campground. We drove up the road to Lakehead RV park, which was dark and appeared to be closed. Just as we were about to leave a young girl came out and gave us a site. This was a very unorganized transaction, but with no map we headed back to the campground. We had a heck of a time finding a site in the dark, but finally pulled into one. We hooked up the RV, and since it was hot, decided to start the air conditioner. This in turn blew the fuse on the power box. No big deal, we'll just get one from another box. Well after scavenging through about 6 other hookups I determined that we were parked in the only spot that used fuses… every other hookup had a circuit breaker. So I unrigged the RV and moved. We had planned to do laundry but they only had 2 machines. So we opted to get to bed early and head into Redding in the morning and find a Laundromat.

As planned we got up early. Joe beat me to the showers, and managed to get us unrigged and ready to leave while I took mine. We were underway quickly to Redding for a much needed laundry stop. Twenty miles later we pulled into the north end of town, had some breakfast at McDonalds, and inquired about where we might find a Laundromat. We were in luck… there was one right across the street.

Once there we separated our overflowing laundry bags into 5 loads, which we did simultaneously (a great benefit of Laundromats). As luck would have it there was also a Mailboxes Etc in the plaza, so I got some stamps and mailed out some postcards. After about 1.5 hours we had our clothes folded, stuffed back into the Winnebaigis, and we were on our way.

We continued on down to Sacramento. Joe mused about taking off on the motorcycle to see a friend of his in San Francisco, then meeting up with me at Yosemite. Unfortunately he couldn't get a hold of him, so we continued on. The Sacramento area was your typical metropolis… nothing special there. We continued down to Modesto and turned off Interstate 5 onto 120 heading toward Yosemite. We made a slight wrong turn and thus ended up entering the park from the south. We drove along the road through a large area of construction and narrow road… a bit unnerving in the Winnebaigis. Soon we came to the Yosemite Valley. It was an awesome sight, huge towering walls of shear rocks rose up from the valley floor amongst stands of redwoods.

By this time Joe had decided that he was not interested in backpacking mumbling something about "If I were meant to carry all my belongings with me, I would have been born a century ago and been called a pioneer." Instead, while I was backpacking, he would take off on the motorcycle to Reno where I would meet him on Friday.

It was just about 5:00pm and things were closing down in the valley. I was just in time to get some information from a park ranger about camping for the night. Unfortunately the only campgrounds that had space were back outside the valley in the northern area of the park. I also determined that I would need a permit to backpack, which I could no longer get tonight. This being the case we headed out the valley and up to 120. The drive was very scenic and hilly… the Winnebaigis was being challenged but surviving the climbs.

After about an hour drive we came to White Wolf campground. This was your typical self-register National Park campground. It wasn't exactly designed for RVs… but after driving around the narrow road for a bit we managed to get into a site. We started the generator and fooled on the computers a bit. I prepared some chicken and Rice'a'roni for dinner, while Joe built a fire with some wood left at the sight… we even got to use his hug bow saw (I knew that we brought that for a reason). After dinner we relaxed in front of the campfire, and looked back on our journey… a nice quite evening amongst the redwoods and beneath a brilliant blanket of stars. On that note we called it a night.

This morning we woke up to a pretty cold RV. I crawled out of bed to turn on the heat and start the hot water heater for showers. This seemed to be the land of extremes… 85 degrees during the day and low 30s at night. After about a half-hour the water was hot and the rig was almost warm. After showers, Joe packed up his dry bag and tank bag for his 2-day jaunt to Reno. We pulled out to a parking area, unloaded the motorcycle. Joe packed up and was on his way… Can't say much for what his travels were like from there… Perhaps I'll get him to write some later.

With the information I had received from the ranger the night before I planned my day. First I headed back to the Valley. I took a moment to bask in the glory of El Capitan then continued on to the visitor's center. There I did a bit of shopping, picked a trail for backpacking and got my permit and a BRFC. From the valley I went back up to 120 to an area called Crane Flat. Here there was a 1 mile trail the lead down a grove of Giant Sequoias. Wow what a sight… these trees were huge beyond belief, and some of them were over 2500 years old, having survived over 100 fires during their life… awesome. After that short walk I got some gas and drove about an hour further down 120. The Winnebaigis was really laboring over the hills. I parked at the trailhead and took most of the food out of the RV and loaded it into the Bear-proof boxes (a federal law… supposedly bears damage over 800 cars each year due to improper food storage). I spent about an hour packing up a light load for my one-day trip. After a quick bite to eat I started out about 4:30pm.

The route was 6.3 miles out to Ten Lakes and then back. Since I got a late start I didn't plan to make it back to the lakes today, but wanted to cover about 3.5 to 4 miles so I could get out fairly early tomorrow. The terrain was great, it was nice having a trial to follow after our trailless excursions in Denali. It continued up gradually, finally I decided that I was far enough for the night and found a level spot to setup camp. I prepared some freeze-dried chicken gumbo for dinner. After that I packed up the food, toiletries and garbage into the BRFC, and crawled into the tent. I read a magazine by my candle lantern for about an hour and went to sleep about 9:30pm.

I had a tough time getting to sleep for the first few hours, but before I knew it… it was 2:45am… I unzipped the tent to peer out at the awesome display of stars. It was freaking cold so I crawled back into my sleeping bag and went back to sleep. The sun peaked over the ridge about 8:15 and started to warm things up… by 9:00 it was nice and warm out, so I finally got up. I had some trail mix for breakfast, spent about an hour breaking down camp, and headed back out on the trail.

A bit further down the trail I came to a big grassy meadow… this would have been a nicer place to camp but who's complaining. From there the trail began a steep ascent up a ridge. This was quite a workout, and it was starting to get pretty hot. I took many breaks along the way, but eventually made it to the top. I continued on about another mile where the trial started down to the lakes. Not wanting to lose the altitude or time, I decided to walk out to a ridge that provided a vista of 5 of the 10 lakes, rather than actually walking the additional half-mile down to them. The view was awesome… far out in the distance there was a towering ridge of stone beneath a light blue sky speckled with clouds. Inside of that was a huge stand of forest that led down to these small turquoise blue lakes… a sight well worth the journey. After taking a few pictures I started on my journey back.

I continued down the ridge I climbed up and past last night's campsite. From what I remembered, the hike from here should be flat to slightly downhill. I continued on a bit and stopped at a stream to get some additional water. The sun was pretty bright now, and much of the trail ahead was unshaded. After what seemed like far too long I came to a trail crossing at the 2-mile point. I took a break for a cliff bar here, and continued on. The trail descended down a rock face I recalled from the night before. Then back into the forest for the last half-mile. Finally I made it back to the RV… which luckily had no signs of bear damage.

I was pretty beat from the hike, so I cranked up the generator, started the air-conditioner and napped for about 30 minutes. After that I quickly unpacked my gear, gather the food from the bear cabinet, and readied the Winnebaigis for travel. I had a hell of a time starting the thing… thought I was going to kill the battery but I finally got it running. It really didn't like the altitude, or for that matter the hills the past few days. In any case it got me down to the Tuolumne ranger station were I returned my BRFC, and headed out of the park. I originally planned on staying at a National Forest campground just outside the park, but being that it was at 9,000 feet elevation I didn't think that I would get the rig running in the morning. So, I continued down 120 till it met 395… there was a small town called Lee Vining.

I made camp at Mono Vista RV park, a very nice campground with grassy sites over looking Mono Lake. Besides being at a more desirable altitude, it also had water and electric. I dumped the holding tanks on the way in, cleaned up and stored all my backpacking gear, and vacuumed… a pretty productive evening. I cooked up some Kraft Mac'n'Cheese for dinner. Unfortunately I had to run to get some milk, since our refrigerator turned ours into a solid chunk… must work better at high altitudes or something. Joe and I exchanged some voice mail, and made plans for our rendezvous in the morning. I enjoyed a nice hot shower after 40 hours of being dirty, and went to bed about 10:00pm.

I awoke to the chime of my cellphone alarm at 6:00am. After hitting snooze twice I got up, and readied the RV for travel. I had to get an early start… Joe and I made plans to meet in Reno before 12:00. I got on the road by 7:00am and continued up 395 toward Reno. The drive was pretty nice there were some nice lakes, and more huge cattle farms… even bigger than the previous ones.

I crossed from CA into Nevada and my cellphone rang… it was a pretty sleepy Joe wondering where I was. I told him that I would be at our rendezvous point before 10:00am… He responded with "I guess I better get my butt moving then" Ohh by the way Happy Birthday Joe! I continued up 395 through Carson City. The capitol of Nevada was your typical casino/tourist trap… typical of most towns we saw in Nevada. In another 30 minutes Joe and I talked on our phones till we met at Reno City Mall & Casino.

We exchanged stories of our independent trips over a quick breakfast. From there Joe took me into town on the motorcycle. We toured the El Dorado Hotel (where he stayed the past 2 nights) and adjoining casino's. We both contributed slightly to the casino fund playing a bit of blackjack. After that we stopped by the restaurant for some lunch… I had a excellent club sandwich and Joe had a burger. From there we headed back to the RV, loaded up the motorcycle and left Reno.

While attempting to purchase fuel, we had a heck of a time finding a place that took credit cards… after our 3^rd station we fueled up and started heading east along Interstate 80. Nevada is a lot of nothingness… just dry desert like land with some rocky outcroppings. The road on the other hand was in excellent shape… probably the best we have seen all trip. At each exit there was a small town and casinos. You can see why this area is a good test sight for the military… there isn't much other use for the land. We did notice a few huge landfills and prisons along the way… also a good use.

We decided to make camp at one of the larger towns called Elko. Here we stayed at double-dice RV park, where we had a real full hookup (water, electric, sewer, cable, and phone). They offered free shuttles to the local casinos but we opted for a quite evening in the rig. Joe went to bed pretty early while I stayed up till 1:00am working on the journal.

Joe and I got up about 7:00, showered and left Double-Dice. We stopped by McDonalds for some breakfast, and then continued east on interstate 80. The remainder of Nevada was much the same as the previous day. The red rocky hills in this section were pretty awesome however.

Cresting a hill we entered into Utah… and traveled across the salt flats. This was a pretty interesting site. It was a huge very flat area covered by white salt deposits. It kinda looked like there was a dusting of snow covering the earth, but the 80 degree temperatures made this seem pretty ridiculous. We drove by the famous Bonneville speedway… where they set the land speed records. And we passed by a Morton Salt factory making some use of the surrounding salt deposits.

We were nearly out of gas, so we started looking for a place to fuel up. As we came to each exit there was a sign stating "No Services". This went on for about 30 miles when luckily we came to a gas station, and refueled… Wheeewww!!! Hadn't need our reserve 5 gallons all through Alaska… would have been embarrassing to need them in Utah.

We continued on to Salt Lake City, where the plan was to stop at a bar to watch the PSU game. I thought that Salt Lake City might be dry… but luckily I was wrong. We drove around town for a bit in search of a bar, then as luck would have it, stumbled upon a PSU clad lady walking toward a bar. We parked the RV nearby and joined some fellow PSU alumni watching the game at The Port of Call Bar… a really nice sports bar.

We had to purchase a 5-dollar membership to the bar… some local law... But, we got to watch an awesome game with PSU winning in the final minutes… A great time. After the game was over we walked up to Temple Square and took some pictures of the Mormon Temple and its gardens. Salt Lake City was very nice and impressively clean, not a bad little city.

Leaving town I80 was closed so we detoured around until we rejoined the interstate just outside the city. The mountains to the east were very impressive red jagged rock. We continued along 80 into Wyoming where the road got pretty hilly again and the Winnebaigis was once again being challenged by the hills.

We stopped for the night at a KOA in Lyman. The facilities here were typical of the KOA's. Their pool was open, so Joe and I took a dip in the 92 degree heated water… more of a hot tub than a pool. It was pretty damn cold drying off however. Joe prepared some soup and sandwiches for dinner. After dishes we worked diligently on the website content for about 3 hours. Tomorrow we have to concur the Rocky Mountains… its all downhill from there.