Читать книгу Small House, Big Yard - John O'Neal - Страница 4

Family and friends...

Well, after many years of planning, dreaming, and anticipating, we finally did the deed. It was with great pleasure that we sold the house, gave our kids any stuff they wanted, gave the rest to charity, and moved into the RV.

Hallelujah! We are now officially on the road.

Our RV home on wheels has everything we need in it. It is the same size as a small one bedroom house, complete with living room, dining room, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. We even have a patio.

We are always in touch because we have satellite radio, satellite TV (DirecTV), satellite internet, and a cell phone. We expect that having satellite internet access in the RV will be a big help to having a normal life as we move around. It was a little pricy but well worth it. We thought about only using Wi-Fi but that’s way too unreliable, and hard to find.

Other than clothes, we took almost nothing out of the house. I scanned all our pictures and transferred our music CDs to the computer. A few boxes of mementos and Family heirlooms were given to my son for storage in his attic and the rest was either sold or given away. All our worldly possessions, which we so carefully accumulated over the years, turned out to have almost no resale value. Who cares! We don't miss a thing.

Cindi and I continually marvel at how busy we have been since we retired. Every day is go, go, go. We did the complete round of doctors and dentists in preparation for being on the road. I had the lenses replaced in both of my eyes to solve a growing cataract problem. Cindi converted all our time-sensitive economic stuff to on-line payments and we got our new mailing address established.

We took last week off from our busy retired schedule and went to the annual Escapees RV Club national rally. This year it was in Lancaster, California, just to the north of L.A., so it was too close to pass up. They had four tracks of speakers on every RV subject you can imagine. It lasted for a week and we learned a LOT of stuff about RVs and RVing. One of the things we were most concerned about was the amount of weight we are carrying in the RV. An overloaded RV can make driving difficult at best and downright dangerous at worst. A while back I read that a third of all RVs on the road are overloaded, and full-timers are the worst offenders, so we were delighted to find out that we could get our RV weighed at the rally. Our RV is rated to gross out at 22,000 pounds while pulling a 6,000 pound toad. I was dreading the weigh-in but it turned out that we are at 21,850 pounds with a 3,400 pound toad. Happy days, I can start eating again!

By the way, did you know in the RV world, that a "tow" vehicle pulls things, like trailers and boats, and a "toad" vehicle is something being towed, like the car that is towed behind our RV. Yeah, I know you can get by just fine not knowing that, but it's interesting to us.

In addition to all the seminars, they also had a circus tent full of people selling everything that an RVer might need. We managed to find $500.00 worth of stuff that we couldn't live without.

While we were here we were hoping to see the famous Lancaster California poppy fields in bloom but they were two weeks late this year and we couldn't hang around. But never the less, a good time was had by all.

We leave Southern California with a happy heart. Cindi and I made a lot of friends that we will miss, but through the magic of the internet will be able to stay in contact with. The thing I will miss the most is being around the fine people that I had the pleasure of working with for almost 25 years. I can honestly say that I looked forward to going to work every single day because of the quality of the people that I worked with and their shared vision of public service.

Our immediate plan is to meander up the coast visiting Family and friends as we go. We will meet some RVing friends in Washington on June 1^st and head for Alaska for a few months. We will be part of a four RV caravan. Not sure where we're going, but since we are not the lead RV it doesn't much matter. Where we go, we go.

I plan to do an occasional newsletter of our adventures. Probably about once a month.

Family and friends...

Well here we are, staged just below the Canadian border. The trip up the west coast was glorious. We left Vista, California on May 1st and arrived in Seattle, Washington last week. Most of the trip we were on U.S. 101 and I-5. But we were on other highways enough to see some of small-town America. It's a great place and we plan to spend a lot more time seeing it. We have averaged a whopping 45 miles a day on our trip so far. We stopped many times and spent many days visiting with friends and relatives that we have not seen in a long time. It was a fantastic month getting reconnected with Family and friends that we really like, but seldom see. We stayed in RV Parks, State Parks, and an occasional driveway. But the most interesting place we stayed was in the gravel pit of a working concrete and asphalt plant on the Trinity River near Weaverville, California that a friend of ours owns. We were there 3 days, parked next to the scale that all the trucks got weighed on when they were coming and going. The scenery in that part of California is spectacular, and we saw much of it up close and personal. Many of the roads our friend Dale took us on in the surrounding hills were the width of a bulldozer blade. And forget about being paved. I still don’t know how he knew where the roads were, or where we were going for that matter.

I've played golf three times this month. Had a career day in Oregon when I shot a 77 on a par 72 course. My best round ever. Never hit a bad shot all day. My playing partner was an Oregon rancher who spends three months in Alaska every summer and three months every winter in Arizona. Spring and fall he works the ranch. I meet all kinds of interesting people playing golf.

The weather cooperated right up until we crossed the Washington State line. Since then it has been raining steadily for 6 days. It's the first time we have been in rain and we were really surprised at how noisy a heavy rain can be when it is banging on the top of an RV. Sounds like a bunch of midgets up there with little hammers.

We arrived in Seattle a few days earlier than the rest of our group so we would have time to dump our California residency. We took a day trip to Dallas to establish Texas residency and get our Texas driver's licenses. We flew from Seattle to Dallas, then took a cab to the nearest Department of Motor Vehicles and traded in our California drivers licenses for Texas drivers licenses. Then it was back to the airport for the return flight to Seattle. When we got back to the RV we took the California license plates off the car and RV then put on the Texas plates. We tore up the old registrations and put the new registrations in the vehicles. After that we called the insurance company with the happy news, and said goodbye to California forever. We are now proud Texans. We expect the change in state residency to save us at least $8,000.00 a year in taxes and fees.

Like all full-time RVers, we had to choose a state to be a resident of. Since Texas and South Dakota are clearly the best choices for people like us, businesses in both states exist that provide logistic support to full-time RVers. We had originally intended to be South Dakota residents because we thought it would be cool, but it turns out that the economics of the decision narrowly favored Texas in our particular case. We chose a company called Escapees.

http://www.escapees.com/

They helped us register to vote, register the vehicles, and get license plates, as well as providing us with a legal address, mail forwarding service, and email address. We did all that a month or two ago by mail and it was simple. The federal, state, and local governments in this county 100 miles north of Houston are very used to dealing with nomads like us and don’t blink an eye at dealing with absentee residents. We live on Rainbow Drive in Livingston, Texas, along with 25,000 other people on the same street.

As we go along we are getting used to the RV Park lifestyle. We are learning that there are basically three types of RV Parks,... RV Campgrounds, RV Resorts, and RV Parks that are neither campgrounds nor resorts. I call these plain old RV Parks for lack of a better term. At RV Campgrounds you park on dirt, under trees, with the smell of campfires in the air, surrounded by families with kids and/or grandkids. These are “destination” parks. At RV Resorts you park on a hard surface, typically concrete, next to retired people, trees are around for decoration and shade but do not cover where you park. RV Resorts all have grass lawns at every site, Jacuzzis, swimming pools, club houses, tennis courts, almost no kids, and occasionally a golf course. These are also “destination” parks. Plain old RV Parks are typically not destination parks. They are in the “we’re-just-passing-through-and-need-a-place-to-stay-for-a-night-or-two” category. They also have a significant number of “resident” RV’s who stay there for months or years. Destination parks tend to be really nice places to stay. Plain old RV Parks are more difficult to qualify, some are really nice and some are rundown. All three types of RV Parks are safe, friendly places that have a community atmosphere.

We have stayed at all three types so far. Some have been first rate and some have been pretty plain, but the rhythm of the parks is pretty much the same. There is an easygoing neighborhood friendliness about them. People are always walking the park for exercise and with the slightest bit of encouragement, and sometimes with none, they will stop and chat about where they have been, where they are headed, and share their RV experiences. We learn something new every day from talking to people. One thing we learned early on is that we hate parking under trees. They drop vegetation on the roof, which eventually rots, and then causes steaks down the sides of the RV when it rains. YUK! As you might imagine, we avoid campgrounds with trees as much as possible.

I mentioned last month that we are going to Alaska as part of a four RV caravan. That’s because we have a friend who is long-time RVer, who has been to Alaska many times. He invited us, along with a couple of other friends, to follow him around Alaska, caravan style. He also has a friend who owns a gold mine in the Yukon and he has agreed to give us a tour when we get there. That’s pretty much unheard of because miners don’t like people poking around their business.

Yesterday two of the three families that we are going with arrived in Seattle. Tomorrow we head for the beginning of the ALCON highway at Dawson's Creek, British Columbia, to meet up with the fourth Family of our group. From there it is on to Whitehorse in the Yukon, then cut over to Skagway, Alaska, board a ferry to Haines Junction, Alaska, then on to Anchorage and points north before turning back into the Yukon. It amazes me that less than two months ago I was still working and still living in Vista.

The internet system on the roof quit working because we are so far north that the antenna can’t see the satellite, which is above the equator, south of Texas. So I am switching to EarthLink dial-up until we get back in the U.S.

I think of our troops overseas everyday and wish them well. It’s going to be a long, hard, slog.

Family and friends…

This month has been an absolute adventure. Alaska really still is America’s frontier. I'll remember this month for the vastness of the land, the scenery, the lack of a "night time", the history, the gold fields, the neat little towns, the forest fires, the mosquitoes, and the really friendly people that we met everywhere. I'll have to divide this month into more than one newsletter because we covered so much territory and saw so many things.

On June 1st we crossed into British Columbia... just to the east of Seattle at a place called Sumas. We then connected up with Canadian Highway 97 and followed the Fraser River north, through a number of small towns. The Fraser River is a large river that runs south, down the middle of British Columbia, to Vancouver. The views along the river were spectacular.

We stopped the first night at Williams Lake, pop 10,000. The RV Park, such as it was, is built in the middle of the town rodeo grounds. It was here that we were introduced to the first of many RV Parks in Canada that only have hookups for water and a meager 15 amps of electrical service. No sewer connection and no cable TV. What we eventually discovered is that the electrical power in all remote RV Parks in Canada is suspect. We routinely ran into low voltage and low current. 100 volts with 15 amps of electricity is really crummy. That’s less than what you would get out of any wall outlet in your house. Our motor home is designed to operate on 120 volts with a robust 50 amps of electrical service. That way we can run the microwave, heater, water heater, both TVs, both air conditioners, and anything else we want at the same time. (Just in case I never mentioned it before, we bought the RV for many reasons, NOT INCLUDED in those reasons is because we want to rough it, camp, save money, or do without the creature comforts that we have grown to expect.) Yeah, I know... I'm spoiled.

The second night we stopped in Dawson Creek, pop 11,000. We chose an RV Park that advertised they have internet available. It turned out that on the outside wall of the office they have a pay phone with a modem plug on it. That was their idea of internet access. Of course that was totally worthless to me because I had no way to determine if EarthLink had a local number and I also had no money for the phone. As luck would have it there was a Super 8 motel near the RV Park that advertised free Wi-Fi in every room. I took my laptop in, explained my predicament to the girl behind the check-in counter, and she let me sit in the lobby and get on-line with no problem. This was the first of many people that I met this month who had a friendly, helpful, "we're all out here in the wilderness together" kind of attitude. Very friendly folks.

The next day we found an internet cafe in Dawson Creek that let you bring in your own PC and plug it into their DSL connection for $3.00 an hour. It worked great. Subsequently, internet cafes became the way for me to stay on line during the month. Practically every town we stopped at, which by the way were far and few between the further north we went, had DSL available in a hotel lobby or an internet cafe on a pay as you go basis. They also had PCs available for people who did not want to use their own. Dawson Creek also has a Wal-Mart, but since we stocked up in Seattle, we didn't go in. However, we did load up on fried chicken at the KFC so I would have lunch in the frig for the next couple of days. As many of you know, the refrigerator in the RV is way less than half the size of one in a normal house, so we have to go shopping on a pretty regular basis. Plus, we don't have the luxury of a big pantry for a lot of canned goods and the like.

But I digress. Dawson Creek is located on the eastern border of British Columbia ...at the edge of the wilderness. To the west and north is the Yukon and Alaska. To the east is the rest of Canada, and civilization. Dawson Creek is where the Alaska Highway, originally called the ALCAN, starts. The highway is just over 1,400 miles long and terminates at the town of Delta Junction, Alaska... 95 miles south of Fairbanks. The highway was built in 1942 by the U.S. Army to serve as a military highway during WWII. They started construction in March and, incredibly, finished in October. It was an amazing accomplishment considering the utter desolation and harshness of the territory. When construction equipment broke down they just left it where it broke. And when they finished the road, the army left all the remaining equipment where it sat because it was too expensive to haul it out. As a result there is still equipment lying around, and a number of small towns have stocked museums with the leftovers.

http://www.tourismdawsoncreek.com/

In 1948 the road was opened to the public. It has been continually straightened and improved by Canada from the original “S” shaped gravel road ever since. The last major improvement effort was completed in the late 1990's. We found it to be a first rate, paved, straight, two lane road with wide shoulders for most of its length. However, the road isn't so good that you can put your vehicle on cruise control and just sit there. You have to actually drive every mile. But it's easy to find your way on the road. There is a milepost marker, a small white pole, on the side of the road every mile. You can buy a book called the Milepost that describes what is located at each mile post marker. Every 30-40 miles along the road is a mini-town. The typical mini-town has a population of about 15-25 people and has a hotel, gas station, restaurant, and maybe a store. Every 150-200 miles there is an actual town of 200-400 people. We saw many RVs on the road but we also saw many tourists in cars. Lots of people use the Alaska Highway in a variety of vehicles to go see Alaska.

From Dawson Creek, mile 0, we headed northwest, stopping for the night every 250 miles or so. I say "night," but it never got dark. The sun would go down around 11:30 p.m. but it never actually got dark. It was the strangest thing to be thinking that is must be about 4:00 in the afternoon only to find out that it is actually 9:00 at night. And every day just kept getting longer and longer. British Columbia and the Yukon are light years away from Southern California. The Yukon is about twice the size of California, but the population of the whole territory is only 31,000 people, and 22,000 of them live in Whitehorse. The wilderness just goes on forever and it never gets boring. Just the sky alone is an ever changing panorama.

We spent our first night in the Yukon in Watson Lake. Watson Lake, population 1,800, is an interesting place because that's where the sign forest is. In 1942 a homesick soldier nailed a sign up on a pole pointing to his hometown. Other soldiers saw this and soon did the same thing. Since then countless 1,000s of others have followed suit. People come from all over the world to leave signs from their hometown. The good folks of Watson Lake keep putting more and more telephone poles into the ground so people have something to nail their signs to. I saved my old California license plates specifically for the sign forest.

http://www.yukoninfo.com/watson/signpostforest.htm

We crossed the continental divide at the northern end of the Rocky Mountains between Watson Lake and Whitehorse. We were very glad to see Whitehorse because it got us back to a city with all the good things cities have to offer the weary traveler. They have a Wal-Mart, Kentucky Fried Chicken, internet cafe, golf course, and things to see and do for tourists. Whitehorse is a historically important town on the Yukon River that connected the interior of the Yukon with the gold fields of Dawson City and Alaska. Riverboats used to move people and goods on the Yukon River in the same manner that riverboats plied the Mississippi River. We spent 3 glorious days in Whitehorse, stocked up the old frig, and had a great time seeing the sights. We visited the fish ladder on the Yukon River and took a tour of the last surviving old time riverboat. The best old time “dance hall” type show we have ever seen was in Whitehorse. The performers were world class. I played a round of golf at the only golf course within many 100s of miles. It was a nice course, with grass greens instead of oil greens. But all I really remember about playing there is the mosquitoes. There were millions of them on the course. The guys I played with told me that they were having an early warm spring and while the mosquitoes are always really bad, they were exceptional just now. We had been warned that the mosquito is the national bird of the Yukon and Alaska but I was not prepared for how many there were. Sometimes they flew right into your mouth. On a lighter note, we got a real chuckle when we drove past the airport. A DC-3 crashed at the airport in the 1950s and it was damaged so badly that it couldn't be repaired. So the locals put it on a pole and have been using it as a weathervane ever since. It always rotates to point into the wind.

http://travelyukon.com/about_yukon/yukon_communities/whitehorse

From Whitehouse we left the Alaska Highway and drove 125 miles due south to the American coastal town of Skagway, AK pop 860. Skagway is a very neat little town that owes its existence to the Klondike gold rush in 1897-98.

When gold was first discovered in the Yukon, it was found in the rivers and streams in the vicinity of a small mining camp called Dawson City. This caused a massive stampede of gold hunters from all over the world to rush there to strike it rich. A LOT of people made the trip. Some stopped at Skagway, others at mining towns along the way, but most made it all the way to Dawson City and the surrounding gold fields. It’s an incredible story of human perseverance. The only way for potential miners to get to Dawson City in those days was to take a boat from Seattle to Skagway, buy supplies, walk into Canada, then hike 33 miles up the Chilkoot Pass in knee deep snow to a lake at the headwaters of the Yukon River. Canada stationed Mounties at the border and would not allow anyone in who was not bringing enough supplies to last a year. So each miner had to bring about 2,000 pounds of supplies. They made the round trip up and down the Chilkoot Pass, in the snow, about 30 times to get all their stuff moved to the top. They would then build themselves a raft and float down the Yukon River with their supplies to Dawson City. The trip from Seattle to Dawson City took about 18 months, most of it through some of the most desolate territory on the planet. Simply amazing.

Skagway takes great pride in retaining the look and feel of the original gold rush town. It's a very neat place to spend some time. We were there 3 days which is just about right. There were four big cruise ships tied up at the pier each day we were there. When they left each day we had the place to ourselves.

Since Skagway was our first stop in Alaska, we had all our mail forwarded by the Escapees mail service to General Delivery at the post office. It was waiting for us when we arrived. The next time we got mail was at the Fairbanks, AK post office. The next time we will get mail after that will be at the RV Park we will be staying at in Calgary, Canada next month. Getting mail is not a problem, we just have to let our mail forwarding service know where and when to send it. Usually we pick General Delivery in some small town post office that we know we will be going through a week or so down the road. Here it's a little different because we are dealing with greater distances, rural locations, and the Canadian mail system.

From Skagway we took a ferry to Haines, AK, pop 2,800, continuing on our way north to Anchorage. There is an extensive system of ferries all along the Alaska coast that link the towns along the way. For example, it is 13 miles by ferry from Skagway to Haines, but 359 miles by road. And there are some towns that don't even have roads to them, Juneau for example. The ferry ride was pretty cool. It cost $26.00 a person and $2.80 per foot of vehicle. It's a big ferry with cabins, lounges, and a restaurant. We learned that some people stay on it for days. They tour Alaska by ferry and bring their car along. It carried a couple of dozen RVs plus many cars with no problem. Getting the larger RV's on and off the ferry was an adventure for the drivers but everything turned out OK. I drove the car on first and Cindi brought the RV on board while I took pictures. :)

http://www.akferry.com/

On the way to the RV Park in Haines we stopped at a fish market that was selling King salmon that had been caught that same morning. We barbequed it that night for dinner. Ummm good! Sharon, our Trail Boss, had a birthday in Haines so we decided to surprise her with a birthday cake. We went to the local bakery and discovered that the lady who bakes their cakes was off that day. When we told the owner our situation she sent us over to the ladies house who readily agreed to come back to work and bake us a cake. And not just any cake, she decided to surprise us with one that looked just like Sharon’s RV.

From Haines it was a straight shot 150 miles north to Haines Junction, back in the Yukon. We got back on the Alaska Highway there. We have been on paved roads for most of the trip so we have had little problem driving. However, most of the roads in and around Alaska have permafrost damage so you need to be paying attention as you cruise down the road. The section of highway from about 20 miles south of the Alaska border to about 150 miles into Alaska was the worst. It has big permafrost heaves in it. What that means is that the winter daytime heat from the highway has caused the underlying permafrost to thaw and re-freeze which causes the highway to buckle up. There are so many places like this that they can't keep up with fixing them. So, as a warning to drivers, the highway department just hammers three stakes in the ground to form a tripod and hangs a red flag on it next to the road at the worst spots. If you hit one of these heaves going faster than 30 mph your RV feels like it is on a roller coaster. That first day in Alaska was a long one.

Family and friends...

I just couldn't wait a month to send this. We saw the most unusual thing last night in downtown Anchorage. We were wandering around after dinner seeing the sights and came across the local fishing hole. The river that runs through town, called Ship Creek, has salmon in it today. They started running last week and will continue for the next four months or so. The locals were out in force to catch their limit of one fish per day. Nobody seemed to think it strange that they were fishing right in the middle of a major city. At 10:00 p.m. in broad daylight.

We parked the car and went down to the bank and watched them for more than an hour. They call it combat fishing because the fishermen stand in the knee deep water facing each other about ten yards apart and cast their hooks half way across the distance between them. They are only allowed to keep the fish that bite on the hook. If they “snag” a fish they have to release them. It was fascinating to watch them go at it. When someone caught one, they would clean it right there on the bank, walk to their car, and drive home.

http://www.alaskanoutfitting.com/fishing/shipcreek/shipcreek.shtml

Friends & Family...

We left off the last newsletter at mid-month, back on the Alaska Highway, crossing the border from the Yukon Territory to Alaska. The population of Alaska, at just over 600,000 people, has fewer people than any decent sized city in the lower 48. As a result, they don’t have much political clout in Congress. The people in Alaska say that every time a politician in Washington D.C. wants to score points, and show how “environmental” they are, they designate another chunk of Alaska as a national park. They're half afraid that they will end up being the smallest state located within the largest national park.

When we crossed the border, rather than continuing on to the end of the Alaska Highway at Delta Junction, we turned southwest at Tok and headed for Anchorage. By the way, Tok is a typical little Alaska town, but with an interesting history. It was originally called Tokyo. They changed their name on December 8th, 1941. The other thing we learned when we spent the night there is that they have no town government or services of any kind. They have never needed either. I never thought to ask who provides their water and electricity.

Anchorage was established in 1914 as a railroad construction port for the Alaska Railroad, which was built between 1915 and 1923. Today the city has a population of 360,000. The city is on a strip of coastal lowland and extends up the lower alpine slopes of the Chugach Mountains. To the south is Turnagain Arm, a fiord that has some of the world's highest tides. Knik Arm, another fiord, lies to the west and north. All this water and topography makes for a beautiful setting for the city. Anchorage and the surrounding area have a lot for tourists to see and do. Most of it has to do with glaciers, water, and boats. The Alaska Railroad is still an important part of the Alaska infrastructure. The first time we were here, on a guided land tour from a cruise ship, we rode the train between Fairbanks and Anchorage. We were happy to get to Anchorage for all the things that a city has to offer, like an RV repair place. Our brand new RV has been holding together extremely well, but the ABS brake light on the dash had been coming on so we wanted to have that looked at by a factory certified dealer. It turned out to be a faulty indicator.

After a few days of resting up and seeing the city, it was on to Denali National Park, located about halfway to Fairbanks. We were looking forward to stopping at the park because last time we were there, on the train, it was so hot that none of the critters the park is famous for were out and about. And we didn't get to see Mount McKinley last time because the weather was so bad on the mountain that it was blocked from view. Denali turned out to be a bust this time around too for the same reason, way too hot. And the mountain was shrouded in weather again. Didn't see squat. So after spending the night boon docking in one of the hotel parking lots, it was on to Fairbanks.

Fairbanks is a hardscrabble city of 82,000 hardy souls in the interior of the state. Everything about the city speaks to being an island in the middle of a vast wilderness. The winters are so harsh that the city never fully recovers before the next winter comes around.

We couldn’t help but notice that every vehicle has an electric extension cord sticking out of the grill so they can keep their engines from freezing overnight. Winters are very long, lasting from mid-October to mid-April. They are bitterly cold and dry, with temperatures sometimes dipping down to -65 °F. The average January low is -19 °F and the average January high is -2 °F. (Remember, water freezes at +32 °F.) Winter snowfall averages around 65 inches per year. And as you might not expect, it gets hot there in the summer. It was in the 90s when we came here off that cruise a few years ago and in the 90s again when we came back in the RV. The locals told us that temps that high were not common, but not rare either.

We learned a lot about the Alaska pipeline, gold mining, and dog sled racing in Fairbanks. Susan Butcher, winner of four Iditarod dogsled races lives just outside of town. We took a riverboat cruise/tour that went past her house and training camp. She happened to be out in her yard so the riverboat stopped and she came out to speak with everyone.

Fairbanks has never been a shopping Mecca, it's about as far out in the boondocks as I ever expect to be. The people in Fairbanks were all excited about the Wal-Mart that just opened last month. Being so far north, the sun is up for 21 hours and 49 minutes on the 21st of June with 24 hours of usable daylight. Conversely, the sun is up for 3 hours and 42 minutes on the 21st of December with 6 hours and 33 minutes of usable daylight. We were there in mid-June. I went out to play golf at 8:00 p.m. and the course was fairly crowded. We finished at 11:30 p.m. and there was still plenty of daylight left. Oddly enough, I ended up playing with a guy up there on business, who lives in San Diego, and is the cousin of John Thom who worked used to work for me down there. Small world.

The first stop after leaving Fairbanks was Delta Junction. That's where the end of the Alaska Highway (Mile marker 1422) is. We stayed long enough to have lunch, take some pictures, and buy some tee shirts. Then it was back on the road to Tok for dinner and an overnight stay. This time instead of turning southwest to Anchorage, we turned northeast toward the Top of the World Highway and Dawson City.

While we were in Alaska, the Yukon Territory had 5,000 lightning strikes that started 380 fires. Twice the normal amount. The locals are calling this the year that the Yukon burned. And burn it did. Fire departments are far and few between and they only fight fires in towns ...never in the wilderness. When we arrived in Tok in preparation for crossing the border we drove into the smoke. We were in a lot of smoke for the next 10 days. The Alaska Highway, in the Yukon, was closed a number of times, at a number of places, for a number of days. Considering that the Alaska Highway is the only road for nearly 1,500 miles, a lot of people got stuck all over the place. When we eventually got back to Whitehorse after leaving Dawson City we heard all kinds of stories. We spent the night in the Whitehorse Wal-Mart parking lot along with dozens of other RVers because the two RV Parks in town were full. The parking lot looked like an RV Dealership.

But back to Tok... When we left Tok it was a short drive to the cutoff for the Top of the World Highway. When we got there, there was a saw horse across the road with a big sign on it saying "Highway Closed Due To Fire." While we guys were standing there scratching our heads (and other body parts) and discussing what to do, an RV drove up from the opposite direction. The driver told us the fire wasn't so bad... so we moved the saw horse out of the way, told the girls it was clear ahead, and started off for Dawson City, 180 miles away. It didn't take long before we were driving through burnt forest. An hour later we were driving through the fire. Cindi, who was driving, was NOT a happy camper. I, on the other hand, got some great pictures. :) After a half hour of fire on both sides of the road we were past it and back into burnt forest again. Shortly after that the road turned from pavement to dirt. And it was worse than dirt; the road was like a washboard. We had to slow down to 15 MPH or the RV would have been shaken apart. We were the third RV in line and drove the whole way in a dust cloud. It was slow going for a long time before we arrived at the halfway point, Chicken, Alaska.

http://www.nebraskaweatherphotos.org/Top-of-the-World-Highway.html

Chicken, Alaska was settled by gold miners in the late 1800s. In 1902 the local post office was established so the community needed a name. Due to the prevalence of Ptarmigan in the area that name was suggested as the official name for the new community. However, the miners could not agree on how to spell the bird's name so they decided to call the town Chicken instead. We would have stayed to do some sightseeing in town but we were running out of daytime, not daylight, so we decided to push on. Not to mention the smoke was almost as thick as fog.

http://www.chickenalaska.com/

After lunch at Chicken, it was back on that washboard dirt road again. The scenery is supposed to be spectacular on the Top of the World Highway but there was so much smoke that we couldn't see much. And we ate so much dust on that road that it's going to take months to get it all cleaned out of the nooks and crannies of our brand new RV.

Hours later, having crossed into the Yukon, we arrived on a hill overlooking Dawson City located at the confluence of the Klondike River and Yukon River. At the bottom of the hill we didn't find a bridge across the mighty Yukon River. Instead, a tiny ferry boat was chugging toward our four RVs. It turns out that Canada provides free ferry boats to the cities that are located on rivers that cannot be bridged. Being the trooper that she is, Cindi drove right on to that little ferry with no problem. We didn't even unhook the car.

Dawson City got its start during the Klondike Gold Rush in 1896. It was a thriving community of 40,000 people in its heyday. Today the population is 2,000. Dawson City and the surrounding gold fields were far and away the highlight of the month for us. Dawson City is a wonderful tourist town for seeing what the Yukon was like, and is still like. The locals have retained the spirit of the original mining camp. The challenges of living in such a harsh environment in the middle of nowhere are mind boggling. Because the whole town is built on permafrost, none of the roads in town are paved and the buildings are on shims. Even the runway, at the little airport, is gravel. The place is like going back in time a hundred years. And like everywhere we went in Alaska, the people in the Yukon were very friendly to tourists.

We stayed at the one and only RV Park, located downtown. Actually, everything was downtown. While we were in the RV Park we saw the oddest thing. It was a German tour bus. The people sat in the front during the day. When they parked for the night they all slept in coffin sized spaces in the back of the bus. They also towed a trailer that served as a kitchen. I went over and talked to them about it, very interesting. I use the term “for the night” loosely because we were having 23 hours of light while we were here.

It’s difficult to describe the surrounding environment because it’s like no place else we’ve ever been. The whole area has been mined continuously since 1898 and the land has been savaged by succeeding generations of people using ever more destructive equipment. And as the equipment either wore out or became obsolete it was abandoned where it sat. To keep this edition of the newsletter a reasonable size, I’ll describe the gold mining process later.

We were in Dawson City on June 21st, the longest day of the year. So we trundled up to the top of the Dome, a very large hill overlooking the town, along with everybody else in town to watch the sun dip down to just below the horizon and then reappear minutes later. It was a big party. When we left at 1:30 a.m. there were still people arriving with a case of beer under each arm. It is one of the two big social events of the year in Dawson City. The other big event is the day that the ice breaks up in the Yukon River. The locals have a pool every year where they bet on the day and hour the river will break up. (This year it was May 5th.)

We spent a week in Dawson City and were sorry to leave. Even with all the smoke in the air, it is a great place.

http://travelyukon.com/about-yukon/yukon-communities/dawson-city

But we can’t leave the Yukon just yet. We need to talk about gold mining.

In 1896 some miners were fishing in a creek a few miles from a native fishing village when they saw gold in the water. They started turning over rocks and found slabs of gold the size of cheese slices. They told their friends, who told their friends. Pretty soon gold was found on other nearby creeks and tributaries.

But the world didn’t know what was happening in the Yukon until 1897 when the steamship Excelsior landed in San Francisco. On board was more than half a million dollars worth of Klondike gold. News of the great discovery travelled over the wires like wildfire. When the steamer Portland landed in Seattle three days later, a crowd of 5,000 greeted the 68 miners on board. Over a million dollars worth of gold was carried down the gangplank in a battered assortment of suitcases and rope-tied bags. The Klondike Gold Rush was on. The small fishing village nearby the original discovery mushroomed into the second largest city in the Yukon. The miners renamed it Dawson City.

Gold is still being mined in the Yukon gold fields by 140 mining companies from May to September. April is spent getting the equipment ready, and October is spent preparing the equipment for winter. The claims are highly structured and regulated. You can’t just go out and start digging. We were surprised to learn that the territory is still today one of the world's leading producers of gold.

The same original creeks and tributaries are being mined by each generation of miners who continue to find gold because of improved technology from generation to generation. The gold in the Yukon is placer gold. That means that it is gold that is sitting in dirt and rocks rather than being part of another rock, like in a vein. The method of separating placer gold from the surrounding dirt is to shake it with running water in a sluice box. That has never changed.

A hundred years ago when gold was plentiful they used pans and hand-powered shaker boxes to sluice. Then came picks and shovels to dig for the gold below the surface. In the 1920’s huge dredges were built in places like Ohio and shipped to the Yukon. These floating house-sized machines tore the land apart by creating a pond for itself to float in and then moving forward as it chewed up more land, sluiced it, and spit the left over material out the back. As you drive around you can still see miles and miles of rocks piled up where the dredges had worked. You can even tour one of the dredges that has become a tourist attraction. Today they use heavy machinery to dig with, and trucks to bring the dirt to the sluicing machines. They sluice tons of material down to get about a footlocker size box of paydirt. They then take the sluiced paydirt, which contains the gold, and sluice it some more on a succession of smaller machines to ultimately completely separate the gold. It’s quite a process.

Charlie, one of the guys we're traveling with, has a friend who used to be a miner in Dawson City and still lives nearby. He took us to two mines of friends of his for a look see. Both were within easy driving distance of Dawson City. One was an 8 man operation. (The owner, 5 equipment operator/drivers and 2 mechanics to keep all the vehicles and machinery running.) Working a 12 hour day, the 5 equipment operators produce a footlocker sized box of sluiced material. At the end of the day the owner takes the footlocker to a separate location on the claim and locks it up for the night. The next morning he sluices the material by himself. It takes him about 5 hours a day and yields an average of 60 ounces a day.

We also saw a much smaller, although identical, one man operation. He does all the work himself and recovers about 8 ounces a day. We were very lucky to get tours of these mining operations because mine owners are VERY suspicious of strangers and don’t allow them on their claims.

Driving around, we saw lots of other mining operations but didn’t approach any.

We went 4,500 miles this month. That’s a TON of miles, WAY more than we were expecting to go, or should have gone. We thought it would be at least a two month trip but our guides decided they needed to get back to San Diego to attend a wedding. So we pretty much raced around. We spent $525 on RV parks. Spent $1,520 on gas at an average price, in Canada, of $2.70 a gallon. The price of gas in Alaska was in the $2.19 a gallon range. We found food to be way more expensive as we got further into the wilderness.

You certainly don't need an RV to travel the Alaska Highway, although lots of people do drive them. We even saw quite a number of rental RVs. But a car would work just fine. Every 30 miles or so along the highway you can find gas stations, motels, and restaurants. There are also lots of places to tent camp along the way. People short on time just fly up there and rent a car. Any way you get there, it's a great place to visit.

The weather this month has been pretty close to perfect. No rain at all. That's good because rain is a pain in the ass for RVers. Had a few days of temps around 90 degrees, but it got back to the normal 70's after that. Did not see very much wild life along the Alaska Highway or up in Alaska. We saw an occasional bear or sheep once in a while, but not often. Maybe the fact that we drive in the heat of the day has something to do with that.

We never did get used to the amount of daylight. Our body clocks were always confused about when to eat and/or sleep.

Both Alaska and the Yukon are great tourist places. And there are thousands of college age kids, from all over the world, working up there during the tourist season. They tell me the work is fun and the pay is great. Every kid we talked to said they were having an adventure.

Every place we went in Alaska we met wonderful people. The hospitality of folks in this part of the world is amazing. Certainly noteworthy. For example, when I played golf with a threesome in Anchorage, one of the players gave me his business card and said to call him if I needed anything while I was in town. That was kind of typical of the people who live up here. Another noteworthy thing about this part of the world is the mosquitoes. Every place we have been in the world there is something that all the locals talk about, maybe it's traffic, or the weather, or the cost of living, or whatever. Here... it's mosquitoes. They are the number one topic of conversation. The numbers are astounding. They swarm like bees. And this year they out in force early because of the early heat.

An odd thing, at least to me, in both the Yukon and Alaska is the TV satellite dishes that people have attached to their houses. Instead of pointing up at the sky like they do in California, they all point directly at the horizon, or slightly below it.

We were pretty much out of touch this month. We saw no American TV, radio, or newspapers. Canada had their national elections yesterday so all the Canadian news this month has revolved around that. We sure learned a lot about Canadian politics this month. Today we are back in Dawson Creek, British Columbia. Mile Zero on the Alaska Highway. Tomorrow we head for Calgary, Alberta to attend the Calgary Stampede which starts on July 9th.

Family & friends...

So here we are back in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, at the beginning of the Alaska Highway. It sure seems way longer than a mere 30 days since we left here. We literally raced around the Yukon and Alaska so our friends, who were acting as our guides, could get home to Temecula in time to attend a wedding. What should have been a leisurely 2-3 month trip was done in a month. We had a wonderful time, saw a lot, but it was also good to be back on our own again.

Since we were tired, dirty, and worn out from a month in the wilderness, we moved over to Grande Prairie, Alberta for three days just to catch our breath and clean up the RV. The difference in the "look and feel" between Dawson Creek, which is clearly located in the Canadian wilderness, and Grande Prairie, which is clearly not in the wilderness, was VERY obvious. And they are only 85 miles apart east to west. We were astounded at the difference.

A bit of magic happened to me in Grand Prairie. I was walking through Costco minding my own business when this really nice Callaway driver jumped right off the shelf and landed in my cart. So what’s a body to do? I gave it a good home.

After resting up in Grande Prairie, we spent the next few days slowly working our way south on Highway 93 from the northern end of the Rocky Mountains. This area of the Rockies is called Jasper National Park and the scenery along the way is spectacular. People come from all over Europe to enjoy this area. The weather was threatening to rain as we drove south along the Rockies so the sky was constantly highlighting the mountains with light and shadows as we went along. I spent the whole time taking pictures.

By the way, was I remiss in not mentioning that Cindi is the one who drives the RV? I haven’t driven it a single mile. My job is to sit in the passenger seat and take in all the scenery as it rises up to greet us. The big picture windows on the front of the RV really provide great visibility. When we started the trip, I assumed that I would get a lot of reading done, but it hasn't worked out that way at all. I'm so afraid that I might miss something that I never read while we are moving. In fact, I sit there with a camera on my lap and take pictures all day long. Except when I’m rummaging around in the refrigerator that is. (And Cindi might add… the bathroom.)

We spent a couple of days in a little town called Hinton where I had a chance to get in some mountain golf and see what the new driver would do. One of the guys I played golf with is a Mountie. He told me that after leaving Calgary we would be going right by the RCMP Academy in Regina and suggested that we stop and see it. Which we will do. We get a lot of excellent tips of places to see from casual conservations with locals.

We were a little ahead of schedule for the Calgary Stampede so we stopped for a couple of days near the bottom of Jasper National Park at a very cool little town called Banff, where Highway 93 meets the Trans-Canada highway. Banff looks exactly like a southern German or Swiss town. Set in the Rockies, with tons of shopping and sights to see, Banff was one of those delightful surprises that happen as we go down the road.

The second week this month was spent in Calgary, Alberta. Calgary became one of our favorite cities. (Seems like I say that a lot about the places we have been.) We arrived a couple of days before the Stampede started so we had some time to sightsee before attending the Stampede. One of the things we do in all cities is take a guided city tour. That way we get the most bang for our time with a minimum of wandering around aimlessly. On this tour we learned that Alberta Province is where the Canadian west begins. The Province is noted for oil, oilmen, cattle ranches and cowboys. It’s their version of Texas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Montana all rolled into one. Edmonton (pop 620,000) to the north is like Dallas, and Calgary (pop 770,000) to the south is like Houston.

We also heard that they were having the North American Horse Jumping Championship on the other side of town. So after the city tour we drove over to see it. Unfortunately, we got there late in the afternoon of their last day so we only got to see the last hour, but it was still very interesting and we got to see the "high end" of the horse-people food chain. Very posh. Wish we had heard about it a day earlier, but now we know to keep an eye out for it down the road.

We also learned that Canada, like the U.S., was settled from east to west. The middle of both countries were left pretty much empty as people pushed on to the west coast. Before Canada was united, there were a significant number of people living in British Columbia on the Pacific Coast. Interestingly enough, BC considered being an independent country or becoming a U.S. state before ultimately deciding to become a Canadian Province in 1871. Apparently it was touch and go for a while. They agreed to join Canada only after the Canadian government promised to build a trans-continental railroad. It was at about this same time that the British government bought, from the Hudson Bay Company, a huge land mass in the middle of the country which eventually became the Alberta and Saskatchewan Provinces. (Sounds very similar to our Louisiana Purchase.)

The railroad was the key to settling the middle part of the country, which up to that time had been populated exclusively by French fur trappers. Even today, the population of the two central Provinces combined is only 3.5 million people. The most notable difference between Canadian and American westward expansion is how the governments dealt with the people who already lived there. For example, the U.S. used the Army to keep the peace in the new territories whereas Canada used Mounties, a police force, not a military force.

The Calgary Stampede was a real hoot! The whole city gets into the mood and a good time is had by all. The stampede grounds consist of a horse racetrack, rodeo grounds, stadium, miscellaneous buildings, and a promenade area. Very similar to the Del Mar racetrack complex if they added a rodeo area. We had a great time even though we are not "cowboy people" and had never been to a rodeo. We spent the first day looking around the "carnival" part of the grounds and listening to the various bands. The next day we went to the actual rodeo. They do the traditional rodeo stuff in the afternoons (ridin' and ropin') and in the evenings they have the chuck wagon races. The "Chucks" as they are called, are something else. Each team consists of a chuck wagon and four outriders. They line up the wagons side by side, four at a time, pointing the wrong way on the racetrack. When the horn sounds, the outriders gather up supplies and utensils that are lying on the ground and throw them into the back of their wagon. At which time the wagons take off by doing a u-turn on the track, and the race is on. The horses reminded us of the Huskies that pull the sleds in Alaska. They are bred to race and they love doing it. The driver’s job is to control the horses, not to get them to run. They do that at full speed with no encouragement. The Chucks are a big deal and the best teams have no shortage of commercial endorsements. At the completion of each evening, they have a singing and dancing show in front of the grandstand that is nothing short of spectacular. Best live show we have ever seen anywhere!

The closest RV Park we could find was about 15 miles out of town, so rather than drive downtown to the stampede grounds every day and hunt for a parking spot, we stopped at one of the outlying subway stations and took the subway downtown. That worked out really well for us because the subway took us exactly where we wanted to go. The subway system costs $2.00 ($1.52 US) to ride anywhere on the system. Like the subway system in Vienna, Austria, there are no ticket takers or turnstiles. People are on the honor system to buy tickets from machines in the stations. Same as Vienna, we never saw anyone checking passengers.

Before we knew it, it was time to head for Wisconsin. The plan was to head east on the Trans-Canada highway until we got to Winnipeg, and then turn south to Minnesota. Since we didn't have much time to get to Oshkosh, WI, we did something new to us. We drove straight through without staying in any RV parks. We stayed in Wal-Mart, Costco, and Casino parking lots each night. RVer's call that boondocking, and although we don't like doing it, it is a common practice in the RV community when people are covering a lot of distance in a short amount of time.

The first night we spent in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. The second day we arrived in Regina early enough to go see the RCMP Academy and museum. As luck would have it, we were there on the one day a week that they perform an evening sunset flag lowering parade. It was fun to watch the parade and talk to the Mounties that were there watching too. The next morning we stopped at the Saskatchewan capitol building in Regina for a tour and learned a little bit about the history of the place, and a lot about Canadian politics. Regina (pop 180,000) is a beautiful little town. It would have been nice to spend a lot more time there. But alas, Oshkosh wouldn't wait.

The land between Calgary and Winnipeg is similar to the American mid-west. It is flat, with hundreds of miles of fertile farm land. Wheat, canola (which is a bright yellow flower), corn, and hay seem to be the crops of choice. They even farm the land between the east and west bound lanes of the freeway. That's when there were more than two lanes. About half the distance the Trans-Canada highway is two lanes, half the time four lanes. Considering that this is the main east-west highway in the country, we were surprised to see that the highway is in such disrepair. The road is crap and we had to drive 45-50 miles an hour most of the time because the RV was getting beat to death.

We arrived in Winnipeg after dark so we decided to spend the majority of the next day in Winnipeg and then leave in the afternoon. We must not have seen the good part of Winnipeg because it reminded us of Tijuana (although it was nicely landscaped).

It was absolutely GREAT to be back in the good ol' U.S.A.

We crossed the border at the junction of North Dakota and Minnesota and headed directly southeast on state highways. After being in Canada all that time, the American secondary highways were an absolute delight. Like driving on glass. As we passed through little town after little town, we were struck by how clean and well-kept every single town in Minnesota was. It was like one Norman Rockwell painting after another. Too bad we didn't have time to stop.

Minneapolis and St. Paul were delights. Especially downtown St. Paul. Both are modern cities with a sense of their past. We only had four days there and it wasn't nearly enough. We spent all our time with Cindi's relatives that we haven't seen in many years, and some of my cousins that I haven't seen since 1963. The Family reunions were really special and we had a great time catching up. We definitely will be back. Oh yeah, the RV Park was very near the Mall of America. That's quite the place.

We continued to pass through neat little towns on the way to Wisconsin Dells as we continued our practice of avoiding the Interstate Freeways. Wisconsin Dells is a very popular family tourist town built around a huge lake. Not much there for us. We didn’t bring any kids, and we don’t do water sports. But we enjoyed walking around and getting our exercise.

We have been in Oshkosh, Wisconsin this week attending the EAA Air Venture Fly-in. The Oshkosh Fly-in is a seven day annual event attended by private individuals who own airplanes (and people like me who have an interest in airplanes). They get together to show off their airplane to other pilots, look at other people's airplanes, talk about airplanes, buy airplane stuff, and visit with airplane manufacturers. It's by far the largest gathering of its kind in the world. That week sees 11,000 - 12,000 airplanes and 770,000 people show up at this little airport just outside of town. To give you an idea of the scale, we talked to people from other countries where they do the same thing, and they say 200 - 300 airplanes attend. We paid a little extra to stay at the temporary RV Park that they had set up at the airport so we were within walking distance to everything.

Many of the pilots bring tents with them and camp next to, or under, their airplane. They park the airplanes together by type. For example, planes built before 1925 are in the antique area, the warbird area has all the old military planes, the jet area has jets, and many areas are dedicated to specific popular models of airplanes. There is even an ultra-light area with its own runway. That makes it real easy for pilots and people who have an interest in a specific type of plane to get together and compare notes. We just wandered around and looked at the planes and talked to the owners. Everyone there is there to socialize, so tourists like us are welcome.

We arrived 3 days before the Fly-in started, which turned out to be a good thing because none of the spectator fences were put up yet. We spent the afternoons sitting under the wing of a DC-3 or a B-25 that were parked next to the taxiway that connects the runways to the parking ramps. From that vantage point we were able to see all the planes up close as they landed and taxied by. It was too cool!

When the Fly-in formally started there was an airshow everyday. We would wander over to the runway every afternoon, look for a wing to sit under, and watch the show. It's incredible how many planes they put in the air at the same time. Good thing my camera is digital or I would be going broke buying film. And even the weather has cooperated, it has been beautiful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EAA_AirVenture_Oshkosh

We are starting to learn some facts of life about RVing. One thing that is becoming clear is that our best meals, far and away, are in the RV, not in restaurants. Another thing is that it takes 15 days to have mail forwarded to a Canadian address vice 3 days in the U.S. We still love the RV and the lifestyle... a LOT. We don't like rain because it's difficult to keep the RV clean.

We did without TV news, radio talk shows, and newspapers all the while we were out of the country and felt much happier in our ignorance. Now that we are back we are still doing without those things and don't miss them at all.

Friends & Family...

When last month ended, we were sitting in an open field in Wisconsin at the Oshkosh airport, surrounded by many hundreds of other RVs, listening to the roar of airplane engines. As this month ends, we are sitting all alone in quite, rural, southern Virginia. We’re at Cindi's sister's house. They recently bought an older house on fifty-two acres of land, and they're in the process of making improvements. One of the first things they did was build a RV pad with full hook-ups for visiting relatives. The set up here is as nice as any RV park we have stayed at, ...and better than most. I'm sitting at the dining room table in the RV as I type this and when I look out the window my view is across their "backyard" to a 2 acre pond about 150 yards away. We have been here for 10 days visiting and resting up. It's by far the longest we have ever stopped in one place since we started RVing.

After we left Oshkosh, we stopped in southern Wisconsin for a couple of days to see the rest of Cindi's aunts, uncles, and cousins that she hasn’t seen in forever. It was good to see them again and catch up on what they have been doing. I even got a chance to play some golf with Uncle Dave. Then it was off to northern Indiana to tour the factory where our RV was born and get some repairs made.

Along the way to Indiana we decided to stop in Chicago for a few days to see the city. We found a nice little RV Park in the southwest suburbs about 30 miles from downtown. There was a commuter train terminal about a mile from the park, so we took the 55 minute train ride into the city every morning with the commuters. One of the first things we did was take the Grayline city tour and learn about Chicago's important contributions and rich legacy in the world of architecture. Chicago is a very vibrant city. Plenty of commerce and shopping. Lots of hustle and bustle. Lots of people on the streets all day long.

Chicago is a walkable city so we did PLENTY of walking. Chicago is also a very livable city, and they are building expensive high rise apartment buildings like crazy. Downtown Chicago is called the Loop. It got its name when they built an elevated subway track around the perimeter of the downtown business district and shopping area. As soon as the elevated subway extension was completed it became desirable for businesses to be located in this downtown area. Hence the term, "Being in the Loop," was introduced into the American lexicon. The weather was absolutely perfect every day, and we couldn't have asked for a better time. We left thinking that we would surely be back for another visit when we could spend more time here and really see it in depth.

Our RV was built in Nappanee, Indiana. We decided to go there for a factory tour and get some minor repairs made. As it turned out, the factory was booked up for repair services, so they sent us 25 miles up the road to a repair center in Elkhart that handles their overflow. Fortunately, the repair facility had a place for us to stay for free while the repairs were being done. Too cool! The money we saved on RV parking paid for the repairs that weren't covered by the warranty. We arrived in Elkhart on a Saturday afternoon, and decided to spend the first night in a local RV park so we could do laundry and get our bearings. The idea was to move to the repair center on Sunday afternoon so we could get started with them first thing on Monday morning. As luck would have it, when we were setting up at the RV Park, an F-15 fighter jet and a P-51 Mustang flew over the park in a tight formation. That could only mean one thing... that's right, there was an airshow in town! Yippee! Sunday morning we got up early and drove over to the local airport just as they were opening the parking lot. We parked the RV right next to the runway, opened the slides, put out the awning, got out the lawn furniture, set up the BBQ, and watched the show. It was a perfect day to be an RVer.

While the RV was being repaired, we had plenty of time to sightsee in the area. For reasons unknown to us, northern Indiana is home to many of the RV manufacturers. Not only did we tour the Gulfstream factory, but we also toured two others. We would have toured the factory where they make HUM-Vs for the military, but they quit giving tours because of "security" concerns. We have heard that same security crap all over the U.S. at places we wanted to see. I suspect that most of the places are closed more because of "lawyer liability" concerns rather than security. In any event, it's very irritating to someone like me who believes in an open society. I fear it’s only going to get worse as more places decide they are “special” and let the security zealots wall them in.

Northern Indiana is also Amish territory. We spent a day touring the Amish country side and learning about their way of life. We found it interesting that the local shopping malls had covered buggy parking for the Amish to leave their rigs at while shopping.

When we left Elkhart, we went south a few miles, picked up Route 30 and headed east. Route 30 is called the Lincoln Highway. It’s a fascinating story. It stretches from New York City to San Francisco. Built between 1916 and 1925, it was the nation's first trans-continental highway in an era when there weren’t many cars and paved roads where a novelty. There is lots and lots of history on the 3,400 mile road, and one of these days, we would like to spend a few months driving it from end to end. This time, we stayed on it through Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The States have put up Lincoln Highway sign posts every few miles to mark the route, kind of like the Route 66 signs out west.

http://lincolnhighway.jameslin.name/

Along the way, we stopped at Canton, Ohio, to tour the Football Hall of Fame; drove through Pittsburgh, saw the downtown; drove through Latrobe, PA, home of Arnold Palmer (you golf fans will appreciate that); and stopped in Ligonier, PA, an historic Revolutionary War village where my brother Michael retired to after spending 20 years as an Air Force fighter pilot. We set up the RV on the street in front of his house for a couple of days and ran an extension cord to his front porch for electricity. While we were there Mike took me over to spend an afternoon at the Steelers’ training camp. All the fans were trying to figure out how to pronounce the new rookie quarterbacks name. Nobody got Roethlisberger correct. I guess we’ll have to wait until he gets into a game, assuming he does, and see how the announcers say it. It was really good to see my brother and his wife again. We don't see them nearly often enough. A few miles after leaving Mike’s house we drove past the 911 Flight 93 crash site. The site is not open to the public and Mike told me there is nothing to see there anyhow. Of course the powers that be have only had three years to do something.

Our next stop was northern Virginia near Washington D.C. We stayed at a state park near Herndon, VA, where we lived from 1983 to 1989. We went to our old neighborhood, saw the house we had custom built, and visited with some of the neighbors that are still there. It was a lot of fun to see them all again. It was like we never left. We also saw old friends and met their new wives and children. That was VERY cool. While we were in the area, we saw the new WWII Memorial that was built on the Mall in Washington, D.C. We also saw the new Air & Space Museum addition out by Dulles Airport. Both are worth the trip, but I think Cindi may have had her fill of airplanes for a while. :)

From there, it was on to Delaware to see my #1 son, Mark, and his family. My only grandson, Logan, is four years old and full of energy. Ever since we left Oshkosh, we have been on a schedule to get to Mark's house the day after he arrived home from hiking up Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. He was in a group of 14 hikers, 5 guides, and 70 porters. The porters carried all the camp equipment, food, and water. They also set up and tore down the camp each day and prepared all the meals. The trip up the mountain took 7 days and then 2 days down. (That's his idea of a vacation.) Through the magic of digital photography, we were able to relive the trip as soon as he got home.

The RV is holding up real well and we are still loving life. Everyday Cindi and I look at each other and just smile at our good fortune. We like our new house and love being together. We can't imagine ever staying in a hotel again. We would actually be much more comfortable in the hotel parking lot. But, we have also learned a number of painful lessons this month. For example, dumb old us learned about severe thunderstorms and what that means to a RV. Our first day in Chicago we were watching the weather channel describe an approaching thunderstorm with a lot of interest because we could see it coming out our front window as it moved right at us. It never occurred to us to do anything but watch. When the first 60 knot wind gust slammed into the side of the RV and the antenna on the roof tried to unscrew itself and fly away, it occurred to us that maybe we should put the antenna down and disconnect our power cable from the RV park electrical system. You should have seen us running around like crazy trying to get all that done as fast as possible while the RV was bucking like a wild bronco in the wind. Being the slow learners that we are, the same exact thing happened to us again a week later in Indiana and this time we learned that rain hitting sideways on the RV goes right through the slideout seals and soaks our carpeting. We're not sure how we missed that bit of information the first time around. Now we know to put the antenna down and bring in the slideouts as soon as a bad storm gets close.

Another lesson we learned the hard way is to ask if the park we are staying in has a closing time if it has an entry gate. Near Herndon, we stayed in a large County park that had a very nice RV Park on the grounds. It never occurred to us that they might close the park at 8:00 p.m., so when we came back from a night out at 11:00 p.m. we were surprised to find the gates closed and locked. We were debating whether we should spend the night in a motel or hike the mile or two to the RV when a maintenance guy drove up from the inside and unlocked the gate so he could go home. Lucky us! If we had been two minutes earlier or later, we would have missed him. We learned the next day that there is a back entrance to the park that is never locked.

We also learned about bad RV parks this month. There are three types of places for RVers to stay. RV Resorts, RV Campgrounds, and RV Parks. RV Resorts have concrete pads, manicured lawns and hedges, few if any trees, club houses, swimming pools, Jacuzzis, and sometimes times, a golf course. RV Campgrounds have dirt pads, lots of trees, campfires, playgrounds, and lots of families. RV Parks are all the parks that are not Resorts or Campgrounds. The price to stay at all of these parks is about the same. $20.00 to $30.00 a night for the single night rate. Less per night if you get a weekly or monthly rate. While we prefer the resorts, we don't stay at them as often as we would like because they are not located where we have been traveling.

Well, this month we learned about a new category of RV Parks. They are called "Sleazy motels that have a few RV pads out back for desperate people who have no other place to go" RV Parks. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we stayed at two such parks. One in Wisconsin and one in Delaware. Yuk! They were so filthy that we hated to even walk on the grass, much less touch anything. And, to add insult to injury, they were both outrageously priced because there was absolutely no competition anywhere close.

We have a catalog that contains all the RV parks in the country. It is about the size of a large telephone book and it provides basic information about each RV park. It also provides a one to five star rating to each park. What we learned is to NEVER stay at a place with a zero star rating no matter what!

We continue our practice of avoiding interstate freeways and especially toll roads whenever possible. State highways are more scenic and in better repair than the freeways. And while we may save gas because state highways are on a more direct line with where we're headed, our gas mileage suffers because of all the hills, curves, and stop & go driving through the small towns. We average 60 MPH on freeways and 50 MPH on State highways. Either way, we go about 150 miles a day, so we are stopping well before dark. We like to be on the road by 11:00AM and set up in the new park no later than 4:00 p.m. The exception is when we need to be somewhere far away in a short amount of time. We will drive 250-300 miles those days. Toll roads are to be avoided whenever possible because they charge you more than the cost of both vehicles. We are charged as a four axle vehicle.

Right now we are watching hurricane Frances to see where it's headed. We would like to leave here today, Labor Day, but it looks like Frances is headed directly toward Tennessee, which is where we want to go. What we need to determine is if we can get there ahead of the storm or if we should wait and let it pass. We need to decide in the next couple of hours.

Our best to you all.

Friends & Family...

We will remember September as the month of the hurricanes. We started the month off by lingering in south-central Virginia at Cindi's sister's house to allow Hurricane Frances to pass through to the west of us. And then less than 2 weeks later we had to skedaddle out of Nashville, Tennessee with Hurricane Ivan bearing down on us. But thanks to our house being on wheels, and keeping a constant eye on the weather channel on TV, we had another month of very pleasant weather. Not counting Seattle, where it rained every day we were there, we have averaged about 1 rain day a month since we left San Diego. Which is a very good thing. Rain makes it impossible to keep the RV clean, both inside and out.

Our ultimate destination this month was the Motosat DataStorm (our internet satellite) rally in Kerrville, Texas, just west of San Antonio. We debated between taking the southern route along the gulf coast and stuffing ourselves on gulf coast shrimp (yum, yum, yum) as we went along or to cross the length of Tennessee to see friends and the sights. Considering how weather events unfolded, we made the right choice by going across Tennessee.

We decided to spend as much time as possible in Tennessee because we both think eastern Tennessee is one of the most beautiful areas we have ever been in. It might even be a potential "winter over" place some year. So we came across the bottom of Virginia and entered Tennessee at Bristol, the most northeast tip of the state. We stopped at the visitor center there and were told that instead of going to Knoxville, we should head south to the little town of Pigeon Forge, tucked up against the northern foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. So that's what we did. It was a beautiful drive through beautiful country. It turns out that Pigeon Forge is famous as the home of Dollywood and a ton of other entertainment venues with a country theme.

As luck would have it, we were there the weekend they were having their annual Shades of the Past automobile rally. Thousands of people from all over the east coast were there showing off their 1925 to 1975 cars. Pigeon Forge has a four mile long, four lane divided road right through the middle of town. The road is lined with motels, restaurants, shops, amusement parks, and theaters. During Shades of the Past week, visitors line both sides of the road with folding chairs and sit there all day, and most of the evening, watching the cars cruise up and down the street. Since we aren't "car" people, we spent our time in Dollywood and saw a couple of evening shows. One of the shows we saw was a troop of Chinese acrobats. They were pretty amazing, but the thing I remember the most was the family sitting next to us. They were obviously local people with southern accents to prove it. They had a really cute four year old adopted Chinese girl with them who spoke with a perfect southern Tennessee accent just like her parents. It sure was cute to hear that voice coming out of that face.

We had our first car trouble of the trip in Pigeon Forge. When we came out of a dinner theater one night, our car wouldn't start. It acted exactly like it was out of gas, but I knew that wasn't the problem. Naturally, the sight of me standing there with the hood up while scratching my head, and other body parts, drew a crowd of "car people". Everyone agreed that whatever the problem was, it wasn't going to get fixed at 11:00 p.m. in the theater parking lot. So I called a tow company and had it taken to the local Chevy dealer. Then I hitched a ride to the car rental place. The amazing part of the story was that we were able to find a car rental place open at that time of night. The rental company was one of those places on the edge of town, up a dirt road, that rents all kinds of things to all kinds of people. We got their last available car. A 10 year old Crown Victoria that looked like it had been in at least two wrecks. But it did run. Too bad none of the lights on the dash worked considering it was DARK and we had to drive through the sticks to get back to the RV. When we went to pick up the car at the Chevy dealer the next day, we learned that the problem was that the electronic ignition system on the steering column was not "reading" the car key properly, so it thought we were using a "fake" key to start the car. The result was that the engine would turn over but it wouldn't start.

Our next stop after Pigeon Forge was Nashville. If you like country music, you HAVE to go to Nashville. The WHOLE city evolves around that industry. Cindi and I are not "fans" so 99% of the country stuff was lost on us, but we did go to the Grand Ole Opry, Country Music Hall of Fame, Ryman Auditorium (original home to the Grand Ole Opry), and a host of other country music venues. I would say we got our fill of country music between Pigeon Forge and Nashville. But we liked Nashville a lot, and it's too bad we had to out-run the hurricane and leave before we got to see the non-country music things like the riverboat, Jack Daniels factory, and The Hermitage. But I'm sure we will return to Nashville, it's a very cool place. As we left town, we could see Ivan in the rear view mirror quickly approaching.

Memphis was our next stop. It's on the Mississippi River at the southwest tip of the state. The western half of Tennessee is flat and uninteresting, completely different than the eastern half. Memphis is noted for Blues, BBQ, soul music, and Graceland. We were very disappointed with the place. It seemed to us to be a city that is WAY past its riverboat glory days when cotton was king. Now it has a rundown look and feel to it. There doesn't seem to be any money or vibrancy in the city. However, if you liked Elvis, you will LOVE Graceland. It is a whole museum complex. We aren't Elvis fans, so we only spent a couple of hours there, but I can see how a person could spend a whole day. We were surprised at how modest of a house and compound Elvis lived in. We know lots of people who live in nicer houses than Elvis lived in. We enjoyed the Gibson guitar factory. The factory is downtown, so we took a tour, and were very impressed with their products.

Memphis is also where we hope to have finally gotten our leaky roof problem fixed. When an RV is moving, especially at very slow speeds going into places like gas stations, parking lots, and the like, each of the wheels leave level ground independently of each other which causes the RV to twist and otherwise deal with a lot of stress. In a car you don't notice. In the case of an RV, it means that the frame and the roof flexes and twists. This in turn causes the sealant that covers the fasteners (screws) to get stretched and develop cracks. We have been having intermittent leaks in the roof for almost a year, and each time we discover one we have it "patched" on the top where we think the water was getting in. It's hard to solve these kinds of problems because we are in rain so seldom, and when the roof does leak, it doesn't necessarily follow that the leak is directly above where the water is coming in. So when we got to Memphis, we left it with an RV dealer and told him to caulk the whole damn roof. And then we went sight-seeing. Next time we're in rain we'll see what happens.

After Memphis, we drove diagonally southwest across Arkansas until we got to Texas and then on to San Antonio. It would have been nice to have enough spare time to spend a day or two in Arkansas, but as it turned out we only stopped once for lunch and gas, and that was it. In San Antonio we, of course, had to see the Alamo and the Riverwalk shopping/restaurant complex. Both were well worth the visit. They have done a good job of restoring and presenting the Alamo buildings, grounds, and story. The Riverwalk is a great shopping and "date" place. They did a real nice job of making the downtown area an inviting place. We were also able to visit with our niece, Amber, and nephew, Scott, for the first time in years and meet their spouses.

The last few days we have been at the Motosat DataStorm rally in Kerrville, Texas which is about 70 miles west of San Antonio. The DataStorm system is the internet access system that we use in the RV. It has been very, very cool to be in an RV Park with 85 other DataStorm users and attend the seminars being presented by the Motosat company officials. They sent the top three guys in the company to talk to us. The RV Park here is really a resort park. It is far and away the nicest and best park we have ever stayed in. The range of RVs here with DataStorms on them vary from $50K, 24 foot RVs, all the way to the 45 foot, $1.5M Prevost RV parked right next to us.

The weeks are flying by. It seems like every time we turn around we're saying, "Can you believe it's Friday already?" You would think that we would have plenty of time to get bored, but the opposite has been the case. Tomorrow we head for Houston to catch a cruise ship. By this time next month, we will be back in San Diego where we started from... with six months of full-time RVing under our belts. AMAZING!

Family & Friends...

This month started with a vacation. :) We took a 7 day cruise on Norwegian Cruise lines out of Houston to the western Caribbean. Houston is so far inland that we thought that we would meet the cruise line people at the Houston airport and be bused to the ship somewhere on the coast. But it turns out that Galveston Bay, located on the east side of Houston, is a major sea port with access to the Gulf of Mexico. Who would have thought? The cruise was excellent, although the ports of call weren't much. We have been on so many cruises by now that in our opinion, when we take a Caribbean or Mexican cruise, the ship is really the destination for us and the ports of call are pretty much incidental. That's why we try to always pick the biggest, newest ships to cruise on. They really are like a floating five star all inclusive resort. We really like cruising a lot and recommend it to everyone. It's a great vacation value. We typically pay less than $100.00 a day each for a cruise.

http://www.vacationstogo.com/

A couple of months ago the LED readout on the instrument panel on the steering column of the RV started going bad and was becoming hard to read. So I called the Workhorse chassis guys to see about getting it fixed. They told me that because the instrument panel is driven by a mini-computer, it cannot be fixed by local dealers but had to be removed and mailed back to the Workhorse factory in Ohio for repair. Since that sounded like a time consuming process I asked them if there was a place in Houston to get it fixed. As luck would have it, they recommended a GMC car/truck dealer that is 15 miles from the dock where our cruise ship sails from. That was absolutely perfect. It gave us a place to leave the RV for free while we were cruising. It also gave us a place to get the 60,000 mile maintenance done on the Chevy Malibu that we tow, not to mention a place to leave the car for free too. How perfect is that? Couldn't have been better. So I called them and made the appointment to have the work done on both the RV and the car.

We dropped the RV and car off on a Saturday. The dealership is a huge, brand new facility that has new car sales, used car sales, a service department for cars and trucks, and a GMC parts department. All in all, a very impressive dealership. Texas sized. The whole place is extremely well lighted 24 hours a day and they have music speakers attached to every light pole. We learned later that the cost of concrete to cover the facility was more than a million dollars. The service department is closed on weekends so we left the keys, instructions of what we wanted done, and our email address in the drop box. The email method of communicating with the service manager worked great. Every night I checked my email at the ship's cyber cafe and we were able to effectively get all the work done that needed to be done. However, on Thursday it became apparent that the cluster they mailed to Ohio would not be back before the end of the cruise. So I asked if they could move the RV to someplace near enough to an electrical outlet so we could plug the RV in with an extension cord and live in it over the weekend. They could, so we did. On Monday morning when much to everyone’s surprise, the cluster did not arrive, we found out that the cluster was still at the factory in Ohio and wouldn't be back until Thursday. Yikes!!!

Fortunately, when we arrived at the dealership the fresh water tank was mostly full and the two waste tanks were mostly empty. So by maximizing our use of the bathrooms in the dealership, and minimizing our use of water in the RV, we were able to make it through the week. By about Tuesday the salesmen were used to us padding around the lot in our robes and using their restroom facilities. Sleeping at night reminded us of Alaska since it was always light 24 hours a day on the lot. The only difference is that in Alaska we didn't have LOUD music playing. Since they worked two shifts, the music on the light poles was only turned off between 2:00 AM and 6:00 AM. We stayed at some unusual places on lap number one. The car dealership in Houston is now at the top of the list.

The paranoia over terrorism continued to plague us. Everywhere we go we find access restricted, or denied, to what used to be popular tourist attractions. The reason is always given as "security concerns". But that’s not true. It’s really because management has been looking for an excuse to stop having to deal with tourists, or the lawyers have scared management into stopping the tours. Government facilities and factory tours are the worst. The most ridiculous was our experience at the Johnson Space Flight Center in Houston. The $18.00 tour has been so watered down that I wish they would just stop the thing all together rather than waste people's time and money. It was pathetic. And to top it off, they took Polaroid pictures of everyone before the tour. What a joke. I can’t contain my contempt for those clowns. Sometimes I wonder who is winning the war on terror.

Since we spent so much unexpected time in Houston, we decided to skip the back roads and stay on I-10 and I-8 to get back to San Diego. The scenery on the trip across Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona was quite a bit different from the run across Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. But Cindi and I really like the desert, and western history, so we never tire of the "wide open spaces". As is our custom, we stopped at every visitor center that we happened upon and asked them what they recommended we see in the area. In West Texas we stopped at a really excellent museum that was dedicated to the 40 year period of the great cattle drives after the Civil War. It was tremendously interesting, we learned a lot about the cattle drive era, and I’m sure we will be back to learn even more about this period.

http://www.thewildwest.org/cowboys/wildwestcowboyfacts/230-cattledrivestraildrives

We stopped in El Paso for a couple of days. El Paso is a true border town. Mexico is so close you can throw a rock across the Rio Grande River and have it land on solid ground. The Mexican side of the river is lower in elevation than the American side so it’s easy to look across and see the neighborhoods closest to the river. The difference between the two countries is astounding. While we were there I got a chance to play a round of golf in the famous West Texas wind. I expected the day to be a disaster, but I had one of my best rounds ever. I love those days.

Crossing southern New Mexico we stopped for a couple of hours at a mining ghost town. It’s the only thing at an off ramp on the I-10 freeway. There is nothing else for miles. The whole place is privately owned and is being run by a girl in her early 20’s, by herself, because nobody else in her family wants to live there. We found that to be a uniquely American story.

In Tucson, Arizona we stayed at the nicest RV Park we have been in so far. Some of the RV spots had private Jacuzzis right on the site. I also had a chance to get another round of golf in. Happy days.

By the time we got to Yuma, AZ we were so anxious to get back to California that we only stayed 2 days instead of the planned 4 and spent the other 2 days in San Diego. From there it was "home" to the RV Park just north of Temecula that we started from.

So now lap number one around the country is officially in the books. We had a great time and enjoyed every minute. We started on 04/04/04 and returned on October 27th. That is REALLY FAST for as far as we went. And we never want to go that fast again. But I'm glad to report that Cindi and I spent every minute together in our little tin can and never once got tired of each other’s company. We are very happy together and can't wait to start lap number two in April. Living in such a small space has been really easy. It’s such a carefree life style.

Lap number one took six months...

we went 13,838 miles, the largest single chunk was to Alaska and back,

Cindi drove every single mile,

we averaged a move every three days,

we spent $4,650.00 on gasoline,

we spent $2,300.00 on RV Parks,

we confirmed that America is full of really nice, friendly people,

we learned to prefer back roads rather than freeways,

we saw the worst drivers in Maryland and Virginia, (tailgating, speeding, running red lights, and pulling out in traffic)

we saw a tremendous amount of freeway construction and repair going on everywhere we went,

we wish all the states made their street signs as easy to see as California does, Delaware was the worst offender in this area,

we barely scratched the surface of this great land,

the time went by unbelievably fast.

We didn't really have a favorite spot because we absolutely enjoyed every single place we stopped. And seeing old friends and relatives that we haven't seen in a long time was worth the trip alone. But having said that, we want to spend a lot more time in Oregon, Utah, Tennessee, and Texas. Texas is SO big, and has so many distinct regions, that we figure it will take us months to see all the parts. We think we'll start with the Hill Country around Austin and go from there.

Like all new RVers, we continue to look at all the new RVs as they come on the market, but we haven't seen anything that we like nearly as much as what we bought. If we ever do buy another RV it will probably be a used one in 2011 or so. While all RVs get a little better each year, there hasn't really been any earth shaking innovations since the introduction of lighter materials in the 1980's and the introduction of slide-outs in the 1990's. Every once in a while we met someone with our same exact RV and we took great delight in visiting each other’s RV to see how they have been personalized. That happened in Minnesota, Indiana, and Arizona.

Since our return to Southern California it has been, and continues to be, the annual appointments with the regular doctors... GP guy, foot guy, eye guy, skin guy, and teeth guy. And getting ready for our Australia/New Zealand trip. We leave for Australia/New Zealand in a few days, on November 10th, returning on December 24th. We will be out of telephone range, but will be able to stay in touch via email pretty easily. So if you need to reach us... don't dial, type.

When we start out on lap number two, we don't expect to race around like we did last year because lap number one was schedule driven. We had to be at each of the following places at a specific time; Seattle, Calgary, Oshkosh, Delaware, Kerrville, Houston, Vista, Temecula, and LAX. That's way too many places to have to be at on a schedule basis. Not to mention that it also determined exactly what our route would be. We also don't expect to drive nearly as many miles or move every three days. We're thinking that next time around we'll move every week or two for no more than 150 miles at a time.

Oh yeah, I had a birthday this month. 61 years old if you can believe that.

Please keep our guys in Iraq in your thoughts. You can bet that home is certainly in theirs.

G'Day Mate...

Well, we arrived in Australia safe and sound.

The flight was 14 hours long. That's a long time to sit in one seat. Left LAX at 10:30 p.m. arrived Sydney at 9:00 p.m. I read a book, watched a movie, and had a late dinner the first 3 hours. Then slept for 9 hours, read for 2 more hours and then we landed. Piece of cake for me. It was a much longer flight for Cindi because she didn't sleep much.

Because we crossed the International Dateline, we didn't have a November 11th, but we will get two December 24th's when we return.

We rented a car at the Sydney airport with no problems, all we needed was our driver’s license. We made the reservations on the internet before we left the U.S. so the price was way lower than if we had rented it after we got there. Sydney is on the east coast of Australia, about halfway between the top and bottom. So after collecting our luggage, we drove south along the coast, about 180 miles, to Batemans Bay where we were staying for the first part of our trip. Driving on the wrong side of the road definitely takes some getting used to. Not to mention we are upside down. :)

Our first impressions...

Australia is unique. It doesn't remind us of any other country we have been to.

The natives are very friendly although they speak some form of English that is unfamiliar to us. Most of the time we understand the words, it’s how they string the words together in phrases that causes us to say "uh?"

Eating in restaurants is way more expensive than in the U. S. We were surprised that getting free refills of coffee or soft drinks in a restaurant is unheard of. Also, there is no tipping.

McDonalds, Subway, Burger King, and KFC are everywhere. So is K-Mart. Have not seen any other "brands" we recognize.

We are staying in a timeshare for three weeks before we meet up with our guided tour group back up in Sydney. So we spent the first morning scouting out Bateman's Bay and food shopping at the local supermarket. First thing we bought was a coffee maker. It turns out that Australia is a nation of tea and instant coffee drinkers. Coffee made in a "drip" type coffee maker using ground coffee is practically unknown. K-Mart only had 1 brand of drip coffee maker, but 15 brands of coffee "kettles" to choose from. It was a similar story in the supermarket. One brand of coffee grounds, 20 brands of instant coffee to choose from. Did a little sightseeing at a local beach just to the north of Bateman's Bay today. While we were there a bunch of kangaroos came out of the woods to eat the neighborhood grass. Nobody paid them any attention to them except us. I, of course, was circling them with my camera to get the best shots.

This part of Australia is definitely not a tourist area so we were something of a novelty with the natives. Every time we opened our mouths we would be asked where we're from. And then a conversation would start from there. We spent our time looking around the area and doing day trips up and down the coast. The area is beautiful, the weather was perfect, and the people very friendly. We had lunch at a winery, attended a music festival, happened upon an Australian Ladies Tour golf tournament and followed a couple of the girls around, visited a number of little towns, and saw lots of really cool beaches. Cindi really likes it here. She keeps talking about moving here.

By the way, RV's are pretty much unknown here. Trailers are fairly common, but self contained RVs like you see in the States are far and few between. We have seen a few but they are the smaller variety and are week-end things only. They call them Caravans instead of RVs.

We made a couple of three day trips inland to see the capital city, Canberra. Like Washington D. C., it's a one industry town. We visited Parliament House when the House of Commons was in session and sat in the gallery for a while and watched them conduct "Question Time". It was really comical to see the way the ruling party and the opposition party yelled back and forth and insulted each other over the issues. Whenever Cindi and I would laugh at some outrageous thing being said on the floor the people sitting next to us would laugh at us laughing. It was a real hoot. Between the two trips, we toured every public government building in town, including the mint. We now know a LOT about Aussie history, organization, and government. On our second trip their High Court was hearing a case so we sat in on that for a while, very interesting. And we spent at lot of time in the War Museum, that’s a pretty special place.

On one of our day trips we drove past a golf course high on a bluff overlooking the ocean. So the next day I went back to play it. It's a beautiful course, much better than Bajamar, the coastal course I used to play in Mexico. It cost $41.00 to play including the club rental. On the second hole I put my drive right in the middle of the fairway but I walked along the left side of the fairway to admire the ocean view. Then I looked down the grassy slope and saw a golf ball laying way down there on the wet rocks just waiting for me to come down and pick it up. So naturally I started down the slope.

Although I got going way too fast, actually I was running at full speed, I figured that I still had everything under control. Why I thought that, I can't imagine. When I hit the bottom I pitched head first onto the very sharp wet rocks. Fortunately my hands and arms took most of the impact. I don’t think I was ever never unconscious but it did take a minute or two for me to sit up. I was bleeding like a stuck pig, my hands wouldn’t work, and my clothes were all torn up. The end result was a gouged up face, beat up and scratched hands and knees, a shoved in finger, and really, really, sore forearms.

So back up the hill I climbed with the thought of getting some help. I flagged down a twosome in a golf cart and when they saw me their eyes got real big. I thought that’s not a good sign. They drove me back to the starter shop and took off. The guy in the starter shop told me that I had really done my nose up "good and proper" and that he thought I was going to need plastic surgery. Since there was no hospital in town, he took me to the local place in town where paramedics park their ambulances. I don't remember what they called it. In any event, after some discussion about how much I was bleeding and what I thought we should do about it; they loaded me in an ambulance and carted me off to the hospital in the next town. On the way to the hospital the paramedic told me that a big chunk at the top my nose was missing and that I would need plastic surgery.

When I got to the empty emergency room I laid there for a while and eventually a nurse came and looked at me. After looking me over, and saying that it looked like plastic surgery was needed, she telephoned the doctor who was on duty... at home. When the doctor arrived, the nurse explained how I had come to grief on the rocks. He looked me over and decided to call the surgeon that was on duty, also at home, because it looked to him that the missing chunk of meat would have to be replaced. When the surgeon arrived he put two stitches in and told me that my

nose would probably look fine when it healed. In any event, he said that if I didn't like the looks of it when I got home I could always get it fixed then. So much for socialized medicine. But on the plus side, the total cost for everything, including medicine at the drug store, was $112.00. No one ever asked me if I had medical insurance.

A related expense to the accident was that Cindi had to take a taxi from the time share to the hospital. After getting the rental car keys from me, she then had to take another taxi from the hospital to the golf course to get the rental car. All that was good for me because that meant she was distracted doing other things while I was getting repaired.

It's been 10 days since my misadventure. The stitches have been removed and I'm on the mend. The only things that ever hurt, and still do, are my left knee and my forearms. My forearms hurt a LOT. The day after I got the stitches out I went back and finished playing the rest of the 17 holes that I didn't complete the first time. Cindi came along this time to keep me out of trouble. :)

G'Day Mate...

Before we left the States we signed up for a three week guided tour with a company named Globus. (Two weeks in Australia and one week in New Zealand.) We chose Globus because they provide all transportation, hotels, and a guided tour upon arrival at each new town. Then you are on your own until it's time to move to the next town. We stayed in each town 4 days. We thought we were very clever to add three weeks at the beginning, and one week at the end, of the Globus tour so we could take advantage of their airfare. It turned out that people were constantly joining and leaving our Globus tour as we went along because they were staying in some places longer, or shorter, than the tour. Now that's really clever.

We drove up to Sydney on a Friday afternoon for a look see and to wait for our tour group to arrive. Four million of the 20 million Aussies live in Sydney, and since we arrived in town during rush hour, every one of them was on the road. Cars were coming at us from every conceivable direction... none of them familiar. And the roads are REALLY skinny. After a very exciting trip through town we immediately turned in the rental car. Good thing too because we had a $3000.00 deductible in case of an accident. (They call them "smashes" here.)

Sydney is a beautiful city located on a beautiful bay. It is reminiscent of San Francisco, but the weather is way better, and the citizens aren't freaks. We spent three glorious days kicking around the city having a great time while we waited for our tour group to fly in from LAX. Sydney is a great tourist town and there is a lot to see. The people are very helpful and friendly. It's simple to get around on the subway and buses.

Since we arrived in Australia we have been eating at a lot of fish & chips places. Many places serve a great tasting white fish called John Dory that we have never heard of before. Yum, good stuff. We were surprised to see tourists walking over the TOP of the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge. We were stunned. Where are all the liability lawyers? :) It would like if they let tourists walk around the top of the Golden Gate Bridge. And I don’t mean where the cars drive, I mean at the top.

After four more days in Sydney with the tour group, we got on a plane and headed north for the Great Barrier Reef, located just off the coast of a town called Cairns. Cairns is very much of a summer beach resort type town. Lots and lots of tourists, mostly with back packs. We enjoyed walking around Cairns in the evening. Until we got to Cairns the summer weather had been great, mid 70s practically every day. Cairns is way to the north, much closer to the equator, so it was hot and humid like Florida. I snorkeled out on the Great Barrier Reef a couple of times. It was pretty neat. One thing we came across in Cairns that we had not seen before was the night time zoo. The zoo in town closes at sunset. Then they open it up an hour later with a BBQ dinner and a guided tour of the zoo at night. At the midpoint of the tour they bring out little cakes for the tourists, but not for us to eat. Dozens of kangaroos come out of the dark and eat the cake. There were so many of them it was difficult not to trip over their tails.

After four days in and around Cairns it was time to head south to Melbourne. Melbourne is Australia's other big city. In fact, the reason that the capital of Australia, Canberra, was built from scratch out in the boondocks is because the location was halfway between Melbourne and Sydney, both of which wanted their city to be the capital.

We liked Melbourne a lot. Actually, we liked ever single place in Australia that we went. We will remember Melbourne as a walking city. We walked practically every place we went. Again, there was a lot for tourists to see and do. We could have easily spent a week here. Melbourne completed the first two weeks of the guided tour. Then it was off to New Zealand for the last week of the guided tour and a then a week on our own.

We spent a total of five weeks in Australia and barely scratched the surface. Australia is a very tourist friendly country and it is extremely easy to get around from place to place. We would like to go back and spend at least three months kicking around.

Merry Christmas to everyone on this Christmas Eve...

It surprised us to learn that New Zealand is on two separate islands.

We flew into Auckland from Melbourne and the weather immediately went downhill. Here we were, smack in the middle of December, their SUMMER, and it was very cold and rainy. We even had hail of all things. The locals were in shock. Still on the Globus tour, we only spent one night in Auckland before heading south to Christchurch, the largest city on the south island.

We spent a day and a half in Christchurch and it rained the whole time so we only saw the city from the bus. Blah.

Our next stop was further south in the pretty little tourist town of Queenstown. Queenstown is one of the most scenic places we have ever been. The lake and surrounding mountains make for pleasing vistas everywhere you look. The town itself is very artsy and friendly. We spent two whole days here and loved it.

The last stop on the guided tour was back up in Auckland. We spent two days seeing the sights of this working class port city before saying goodbye to the tour group. Then we picked up our rent-a-car and headed north to the Bay of Islands. This area is the number one tourist destination in New Zealand for the locals. They flock here for the beaches and other water activities. The area was very scenic and we enjoyed our stay there.

New Zealand is known for sheep. There are sheep farms everywhere. They raise a number of different breeds depending on what the sheep will be used for. They may raise lambs for meat, or sheep for wool. Sheep may also be raised for milk. Some farmers specialize in breeding sheep to sell to other farmers. We stopped at one of the farms that advertised that they give tours. It was really interesting to learn about the different types of sheep and what they're used for. Watching them sheer sheep was quite an education too. But the BEST part was watching the sheep dogs working the flock. The dogs were absolutely amazing on how they could get the sheep to do exactly what they wanted them to do. And the dogs in turn were guided with whistles and hand signals by the farmers, even though the sheep might be half a mile away.

From the Bay of Islands we drove south to Rotorua. Rotorua is well-known for geothermal activity. There are a number of geysers, notably the Pohutu geyser at Whakarewarewa, and hot mud pools located in the city, which owe their presence to the Rotorua caldera. Rotorua is nicknamed Sulphur City, because of the aforementioned thermal activity. We can certainly attest to the fact that the sulphur gives off an odor unique to Rotorua that adds to the visitor experience. We never actually got used to it. Rotorua is also a walking town. Even though we had a car we walked to a lot of places.

http://www.rotoruanz.com/

As I write this Cindi and I are safe and sound back in our house on wheels that we left in Temecula, CA. We left Auckland at 7:30 p.m. on December 24th and arrived at Los Angeles at 10:30 a.m. on, you guessed it, December 24th. So we had two Christmas Eves.

That fits nicely with the three Springs we had this year. One in San Diego, one in Alaska, and one in Australia. My allergies got a real workout and I went through a ton of Kleenex.

The trip was excellent. We recommend both Australia and New Zealand to anyone thinking of going. One of the things we learned is that getting around over there is as easy as getting around in the States. If we go back we will definitely go with no hotel reservations or rental car reservations and just wing it. Everything a tourist needs is readily available locally and can easily be booked locally. It's as easy as moving around the U.S. making reservations as you go.

Driving a rental car in both countries was a piece of cake. Eventually I got used to looking in the right places for oncoming cars. Actually, I looked in every possible direction all the time. But I never did get used to the turn signal and windshield wiper toggle switches being on the opposite sides of the steering column from what I’m used to. So when I would get in high stress situations, like in a round-about, I would turn on the wipers by mistake. So there we would be... going around the round-about with our windshield wipers going and no turn signal on. I'm sure everyone was looking at us and chuckling. But having a car sure gave us a lot of flexibility.

My hands, wrists, forearms, and knees have healed up. The face is coming along nicely. I don’t scare little children anymore when they see me.

I wish we could have stayed another 2 or 3 months, we barely scratched the surface of seeing the two countries. I hope we go back some day.

But the best part of the trip was still when we went through customs and the immigration officer at LAX said "Welcome home."