Eighth Trip Update: April 12th - 17th

Hello all!`

Right now, Sunday, 17 May 09 at 11:30 AM we are at the KOA Campground in Cody, Wyoming, Rte 14/16/20, where we spent Saturday night following our full day at Yellowstone National Park (Old Faithful Geyser). Today our destination is South Dakota (Badlands, Crazy Horse, & Mt Rushmore. We are en route eastbound and we are homeward bound. Our planned route home is Rte 90 East to Chicago, IL; Columbus, OH; and Virginia. Our new projected arrival home to Alexandria, VA, is Thursday, 21 May 09. Our trip statistics follow to date:
* Depart Date: Sat., 4 Apr 09 (D + 47 days)
* Harvey-the-RV Silver Bullet Start Milage: 52,454
* Current RV Milage: 61,024 (D + 8, 570 miles)
** Last and best MPG to date was 9.5 mpg
** Worst MPG: 7.24 mpg
* Experience: All 4-Seasons (including a snow storm and scorching desert heat) -- "Priceless" -- Just What the doctor ordered... :-)

Blog & trip followers -- we want comments!!!! Please? :-0

Update - Tues., 12 May 09 -- California - Oregon to suburb of Seattle, Washington: On the 12th we left the Lakehead Campground in the Shasta Mountains and National Forest in California, and due north to Oregon, which we continued through nearly non-stop until Portland. We stopped in Portland around 4 pm to do a quick tour of the city. Portland is a very clean and pretty, but small city that seemed very nice. Surprisingly, Portland was empty, quiet, and devoid of the high population density and typical city hustle & bustle activity of a typical business downtown and waterfront area, especially so early in the later afternoon and early evening. However, the transportation system and small size of the downtown appeared to be designed for quickly and effectively moving commuters around and in & out of the city very effectively. From Portland we continued with a good bit of driving. We stopped and camped on the outskirts of Seattle late in the evening, and in the morning started our tour of Seattle.

Update - Wed., 13 May 09 -- Seattle to over Mt Baker and into Cheney, Washington: We started off the day (May 13th) by going straight to the icon of the city -- The Seattle Space Needle! We went to the top of the 502' spire to the observation deck. The 360% view of Seattle was incredible! We spent an hour or so before taking the elevator down 1-level below the observation deck to the 1-rotation per hour rotating restaurant for a 4-star dining experience of fresh Pacific Salmon for me (Shan) and and dungeoness crabcakes for dad (Scott). It's probably the most upscale place we've eaten the whole trip, and the food and view was great, albeit a bit pricey.

From the Space Needle we went to the adjoining Encounter Music Project museum & Science Fiction museums, both founded and owned by Co-founder of Microsoft Corporation (Paul Allen), who clearly needed a place to put all his invaluable collectibles and " priceless guitars." Moreover, the EMP museum had the most incredible historical collection of guitars that we'd ever seen!

The museums were outstanding, especially the EMP for a guitar enthusiast and "officionado" --like me! Seeing the exhibits on the history of music, guitars, and some famous artists like Jimmy Hendrix made quite an impression on me, as well as having expanded my knowledge and understanding of my primary musical instrument. Also, the EMP interactive exhibits were filled with actual instruments, and small recording booths for practicing and jamming -- dad and Icut our first CD!!! :-)

We didn't have as much time in the SciFi museum, but it had a lot of cool things to show. Namely a lot of Star Trek memorabilia. From there, we went to our final stop in Seattle. Leaving the museum in the typical rainy weather of the city, we took the monorail to a few short walking blocks to the Pike Place Public Market along the waterfront, which is famous for lots of fish, fruit, vegetables, but most known for the Pike Market "fish throwers"! We had a great conversation with some of the Pike Market Fish Vendors who tossed the purchased fish around like baseballs -- wow, what a neat, fun, and crazy place! Be sure to see the photobucket for these photos! We bought a 2 lbs fresh piece of Pacific Salmon, which we froze and transported to Cheney, Washington (suburb of Spokane) for our planned dinner the the next day during our visit the Schwalbe family.

From Seattle, we headed out of the city en route to Cheney and Spokane., Washington, on Rte 90 over Mount Baker (elevation 6,278' / Snoqualmie Pass elevation 3,022'), where the rain turned to sleet and then to a full-fledge snow storm. At the Snoqualmie Pass Summit, the temp dropped to a low of 33.6 degrees F, which wasn't cold enough for an accumulation or black ice on the road, but it definitely slowed us down to a crawl -- especially on the back-side of the summit. As we went down the back-side of the summit the weather returned to temperate -- 60 degrees F, clear skies, and dry -- very wierd! It was an experience to remember. We drove several hours more until we reached Cheney, Washington, where we stayed at the Peaceful Pines campground on Rte 904.

In the morning(May 14th), we met up with Scott's old buddy Professor Dr Steve Schwalbe, COL, USAF (Ret), who showed us around Cheney, central Spokane, and gave us a tour of Eastern Washington University, where he works on staff as the Study Abroad Manager. We headed back to the Schwalbe household in the late afternoon, had dinner -- the Salmon we bought at the Pike Place Market in Seattle -- and learned and played the Air Force renowed billiard/pool game "Crud".

We departed the Schwalbes and Cheney, Washington by about 10:30 AM on Friday, 15 May and drove to the Airstream of Spokane Dealership to pick up a few "Airstream-specific related parts" needed for maintenance, and some airtream memorabilia, hats, and stuff...and then took a "Airstream Promotion Photo"! :-) We then continued our eastward trek along Rte 90 through Idaho and into Montana. We drove all day and then diverted southerly along Rte 191 en route to Yellowstone National Park. At about 10:00 PM we stopped at the KOA and camped in
Bozeman, Montana.

On the 16th we departed the Bozeman KOA and went on our way to Yellowstone National Park. About 2 hours and more than a hundred miles later along Rtes 191; 287; and 20; we arrived and entered Yellowstone from the west entrance. We drove along the southern road to Old Faithful. The road twisted and turned as it paralleled the Gallatin and Madison Rivers. We stopped often along the Upper, Mid, and Lower Geyser Basins en route to Old Faithful to see, photograph, and hike to the hot springs, geysers, mudpots, and fumeroles along the way, which were simply beautiful. Along the way we also saw and had to stop for buffalo in the road, as well as to photgraph the herds of buffalo raoming freely in theri natural habitat. We also stopped to see a very large Black Bear that was about 50 yards from the road and giving everyone a great show. We also saw many other herds of elk and gazelle that seemed to follow the herds of buffalo. One of the hot springs - "Saphire Pool", was incredible. The water in the pool was the most pure brilliant shade of saphire blue that we'd ever seen. Also, the runoffs of hot water through the sandstone and sulfer around it created a barage of colors, from yellow to purple.

Around 4:30 we arrived at the highlight of the park -- "Old Faith Geyser". The next predicted geyser eruption was at 5:30 pm, so we did looked around the park center for a while before nature's show. The Geyser was really awesome, and went on for a good 5 minutes and it spewed an estimated 100 feet into the air. It was really spectacular and we got lots of video and photographs of the entire event that reoccurs on a regular cylce every 90 minutes or so.

After seeing Old Faithful, we headed out of the park and begain heading east towards the badlands. We drove until around 10 PM until stopping at the KOA campground in Cody, Wyoming, for the night.

From here we'll continue on east to South Dakota to visit our next destinations of the Badlands; Crazy Horse; and Mt Rushmore, which we expect to reach on Moday, 18 May.

Stay tuned for more.

New Pictures up on our Photobucket:

http://photobucket.com/airstreamadventurers

'Till next time,

Scott & Shan
PS: Leave us a comment to let us know you're there!

Seventh Trip Update: April 31st - May 111th

Hello All!

Sorry for the long break between posts. We have been having so much fun and have been so busy since arriving in California that time has gotten away from us. As a result, this update picks up in Las Vegas and brings our Airstream Adventure through California from 1 -11 May.

Currently, we are camped at Lakehead in the Shasta-Trinity National Recreation Area between the Trinity Mountains and the Cascade Mountain Range of Northern California (241 miles north of Sacramento and about 60 miles from Oregon along Interstate Route 5, California. Tomorrow, Tues., 12 May our destination is Seattle, Washington, and then to make our way towards Spokane, Washington to start our Airstream Adventure eastward.

UPDATE - 30 Apr 09: What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas! ....Or we just ended up getting our feet tired by walking the strip until Two AM. It was a lot of fun though.

We stopped at the Ed Roman "King Of Las Vegas" Guitar shop on the morning of 1 May before leaving Vegas. It was filled with lots of pricey handmade guitars that I wish I had the money to buy. We spent about 2-hours there.

From Vegas we took Rte-15 into Riverside, California, to visit our friends -- the Bruces, who hosted us at a local Italian restaurant with Friday night Kareoke, to catch up. After dinner we visited their home which has a magnificent panaramic mountain vista of the resevoir below and the city lights of Riverside beyond the resevoir.

On the 1st of May we left Riverside and headed a bit farther south to San Diego CA, to visit the San Diego Zoo and Balboa Park, and then to meet up with one of Scott's friends -- Billy and Patty Bird, who Scott grew up with. Billy and Patty took us to Pacific Beach to watch the surfers on the wave machine and to stroll along Pacific Beach. Then, we went to Casa Del Riza in Old Town, San Diego for a great "Cinco De Mayo Party" that celebrates the historical Mexican Liberation from French rule and domination. The Cinco De Mayo party included mariachi bands, dinner, dancing, singing, and a great rock n roll band on stage at the far end of Old Town San Diego. At about 10 PM, Billy, Patty, daughter Venessa, and Granddaughter Venassa treated to a late evening windshield tour of all of downtown San Diego, Coronado island, and surrounding areas -- it was great fun!

We camped Saturday and Sunday nights at "Campland On The Bay" in San Diego. On Sunday, 2 May, we reconnected with the Bruce family at San Diego Sea World Park. It was amazingly and really quite an impressive park. You can see it on TV, but to see a Killer Whale jump out of the water 20 feet high in front of you with a trainer standing on "Shamu the Killer Whale's nose is astounding."

On the 3rd of May (Monday), we headed up the coastal Pacific Highway to the world famous Santa Monica Pier. There was an artist on the Santa Monica Pier doing clay sculture portraits. We both got ours done. We camped on Malibu Beach and took out the instruments and jammed on the beach a bit before turning in for the night.

On Tuesday the 4th of May, we stopped at Vandenburg Air Force Base on the California coast just north of Santa Barbara where we watched a USAF Delta rocket launch. This was amazing and serendipious because we had no previous knowledge of this launch. We just happened to be at the right place at the right time. We still don't know what payload that it was carrying. When we were at NASA in Cape Canaveral, Florida, the Endeavor Space Shuttle was on the launch pad, but we didn't get to see it launched. Bottom Line: It was amazing to see a live Delta launch!

After the Delta launch we continued northerly towards San Luis Obispo to see San Simeon The Hurst Castle), but we got sidetracked by the fog bank that moved into Morro Bay that captured our interest and imagination. It was like being in Stephen King novel -- "The Mist." We had a lot of fun with the video camera filming in the mist on the pier at Morro Bay -- It was eeeerie! As a result of the sidetrack, we arrived too late at San Simeon to see the castle, but we didn't care because the Delta Launch and the experience in the fog bank were infinitely more fun than some old castle tour! We then stopped near San Simeon to watch the Parachute Surfers.

Leaving southern California, we began our adventure in central California by driving along the Big Sur coastline towards Montery CA (dad's ole graduate school stomping grounds). The drive along Big Sur in the morning was absolutely amazing, from the giant fog bank creeping over the mountains and flooding everything in sight until it looked like Steven King's "The Mist", to the sheer cliffs along the water, and the beautiful waves and coves in shallow water. Hopefully the pictures we took will do it some justice. We made it within around ~40 miles of Montery before dark, and stopped in the Kirk Creek Campground on Big Sur for the night. We camped at Kirk Creek in the Los Padres National Forest in Big Sur along the cliffs of the Pacific Ocean, high above the surf. The fog and mist had moved in so we didn't get to see the view to the ocean horizon until the morning.

In the morning we continued on up in the morning, continuing to explore the cost. While stopped at a construction flag on Big Sur we ran into a group of Hostel Bums, from Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and Sweden. They'd been traveling around the world for the past two years, and were touring America, in a Canadian van. Quite a funny group to run into, but really interesting to talk with.

We stopped at an interesting Art Gallery on Big Sur and we bought a few interesting musical items and momentos. We reached Montery around 2 PM and our first stop was the Naval Postgraduate School, where dad (Scott) went to graduate school. We toured the campus a bit and stopping by the base exchange. Then, we went down to the Montery Yacht Club where dad (Scott) use to be an avid member. He manged to meet up with the current Comadore of the Yacht Club (Ron Baxter), who was kind enough to take us out for a sailing cruise on the bay and to watch the tradintional Wednesday night races. I got to see the Shield boats flying the spinnakers that dad use to race. It was a very nice evening. After the sail, we grabbed dinner at the clubhouse and then headed to the campground.

In the morning we stopped by DLI (Defense Language Institute) where dad (Scott) studied Russian. We then headed on to the Monterey Aquarium which was an amazing stop. We then drove the Monterey Peninsula 17 mile drive from Pacific Grove to Carmel, and then we stopped at the Spanish Mission in Carmel.

From Carmel we headed on up to Yosemite, staying at another KOA 23miles outside of the national park.

We spent all of Friday in Yosemite, driving through the park, hiking a few of the trails, and waterfalls, and doing a bunch of photography. The park is amazingly beautiful, and far more rewarding then I had expected.

In the evening, we heard of a special natural phenomenon that happens at Yosemite falls on a full moon, which we were lucky enough to see and to photograph. The full moon creates a lunar rainbow ("Moon Bow") across the mist of Yosemite Falls. It is very vauge to the eye, but when photographed correctly, is absolutely amazing. I learned quite a bit from some of the other more experienced photographers there, and got some really good shots.

Around midnight we left the park, and this is where we experienced some bumps in the road. Leaving Yosemite, we ovburned out our breaks going down the mountain, as well as our alternater. We overheated our breaks and boiled the brake fluid causing the brakes to fail 31 miles from Yosemite Park along a 6 % downhill grade. It was touch and go there for awhile, but thank God that our guardian angels were watching over us. Luckily, we were able to stop the vehical safely, but we had quite an adventure trying to get out of the small roads with limited breaking. At the same time our alternator decided to dye after 59,000 miles. However, we found a safe place for the night. It was an interesting experience that we don't want to go through again -- did it, done it, don't want to do it again.

On Saturday, 9 May we we're in Oakdale, CA, trying to figure out what we would do about our mechanical repairs (replace the alternator and getting the brakes checked out). The repair shop couldn't replace the alternator until Monday, so we decided to do it ourselves. We went to the local NAPA auto parts store and bought a new rebuilt alternator and had the motorhome all fixed and back on the road within a couple hours.

We arrived in San Francisco on Saturday early evening (around 6 PM). We spent the evening photographing the Golden Gate Bridge in the remaining daylight and then at night with a full moon as a back drop. I got some incredible photos. We camped at Candlestick RV Park on Saturday night -- directly across from the Candlestick Park (home of the S.F. 49ers Football franchise).

We spent Sunday on the SF Embarcadero and Fishermans Wharf. We ate lunch at #9 Fisherman's Grotto, then went on a 30-minute "Rocket Boat" ride on SF Bay. The Rocket Boat is powered by 4800 HP jet engines and water jets (no propellers) to go over 40 knots. The boat is about 75 foot long and it carrys about 75 people. Everyone wears seat belts and they give everyone an exciting ride and view of the Bay. The rocket boat is the fastest thing on the Bay.

We departed SF around 4 PM to visit our cousins Maryjane & Gus and their family in Novato, California (about 25 miles north of SF in Northern Marin County). We had a great dinner and visit with them.

We departed Novato at noon and drove to Sacramento where we did a windshield drive by the California State Capital where we took some photos and then to Old Sacremento where we ate lunch and enjoyed the historic Old Sacremento.

From Sacramento our next destination is Seattle, Washington; then Spokane. After Spokane and visiting with our friends Steve, Ingrid and Sophie, we will start heading east to return home at lightening speed via Yellowstone National Park, Mt Rushmore & Crazy Horse; Ohio, and home to Virginia -- all by 17 May 09 (6 more days), hopefully!

We are still having a great time on our Airstream Adventure. Stay tuned -- more to follow!

New Pictures up on our Photobucket:

http://photobucket.com/airstreamadventurers

'Till next time,

Scott & Shan

PS: Leave us a comment to let us know you're there!