Home 14,506 miles

We are home--John in Abiquiu and me in Rio Rancho...the mileage is really 14,746 from my house.   A wonderful trip and my top 10:

1.  Athabasca Glacier and Icefield Center--why do they have ten toilet paper dispensers and only one extra roll of tp?

2.  John Wells, trapper in Fort Nelson BC who has trapped on 500 square miles for over 40 years.

3  Midnight baseball

4.  Pizza at Mountain High Pizza Pie in Talkeetna

5.  King Crab burgers at Soapy Smith's

6.  Fishing all day for halibut, in the rain

7.  The Olympic Rain Forest

8.  Water, water everywhere, all colors--clear, turquoise, aqua, chocolate, green

9.  A brother who starts the generator so I can grind coffee beans

10.  Home, safe and sound

Thanks to everyone who has followed the blog, commented via phone, email and on the blog.  We enjoyed the comments and, although it took quite a bit of time, the blog was a great opportunity to share our adventure with others. 

I'll encourage everyone to step out of their daily comfort zone and explore.  "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the  moments that take our breath away" is a saying on a box my dear friend Rhonda Matthews gave me.  True, we had our breath taken away many times.

Linda

August 4-6

The 4th and 5th we had to pay our dues and drive 951 miles to arrive in Moab, Utah--home of Canyonlands National Park and Arches National Park.  John and I spent the first night on our trip, way back on June 1 in Moab at the Spanish Trail RV Park and then visited both national parks.

Yesterday afternoon, on the way into Moab, we stopped at the Arches Visitor Center so Evan could learn a bit about the area and the history.  This morning we arrived at Arches at 7 am.  Below are some of the images

John captured this while we were walking up to the North Window

Is the boy wearing a dunce hat?  John captured this in front of the Turret Arc

We walked up the lower viewpoint of the Delicate Arch, which you can see behind Evan 

In Canyonlands, we hiked to the Mesa Arch, which John really likes and he captured Evan and then I got a quick shot of both of them....not easy with lots and lots of people around!

Last shot of the day--we were at this overlook at Canyonlands and I looked at Evan - saw John's reflection in his sunglasses and motioned to Evan to move his head up and down and he thought I was crazy, until I showed him what was happening.  Great to have such a good helper!

Tomorrow morning we will head back to Abiquiu and the last 330 miles of our trip.

August 2 and 3

Yesterday we left early in the morning to drive the 250+ miles to Crescent, Oregon and the Big Pines RV Park.  We arrived shortly after noon and John and Evan took off fishing, but they came home empty handed.

This morning we left early for Crater Lake National Park which is the deepest lake in the US, fed by rain and snow, but not rivers or streams.  It is considered to be the cleanest large body of water in the world and is a intense blue color.  The lake rests within a caldera formed over 7,700 years ago when a 12,000 foot tall volcano collapsed.  Here's an image John captured of the western side of the caldera--Wizard Island.  The Island is 6940 ft tall and is one of four volcanos within the lake.

I captured another view of Wizard Island just as we were leaving the park.

Here is the lake from the opposite side, showing part of the caldera.

We spent the day driving the 33 mile rim and stopping at all the pullouts.  Here are a few of the wonders:

John and Evan when we first arrived with Wizard Island in the background.

This is around Grotto Cove--the rocks are covered with moss in some areas like the trees in the rain forest, as evidence in the background

It snows over 500 inches a year at the lake and the roads were 100 %  opened on July 9!  Can you imagine?  On the way to our picnic lunch the boys filled the cooler from this snowbank right beside the road.  John is over 6 foot tall, so there you have it.

Vidae Falls is a cascading waterfall fed by spring creeks and it drops over 100 feet.  John got ole Evan in his shades here.

The valleys have "Pinnacles" which are spires which are described as "Fossil Fumaroles" which marked spots where volcanic gas rose up through hot ash deposits, cementing the ash into solid rock.  In NM we have Tent Rocks which are formed from sandstone and they are very smooth on the surface.  These are very rough and rocky.

We stopped for a picnic lunch and this little guy, and many of his/her friends, tried their best to share!

There are hundreds of these Golden-Mantled Ground Squirrels around.  We stopped and Evan was having some nuts and John captured him sharing.

Tomorrow we leave for Idaho en route to Utah.

August 1

Well, we have been on the road for two months and today marks the beginning of the third--a day with some great highlights.  We went to Mount St. Helen's National Volcanic Monument and then took a helicopter ride!

The image above, taken by Evan, was in the early morning at an educational center.  Little did we imagine, we would be riding on it in the afternoon!

When Mt. St. Helen blew on May 18, 1980, over 90% of the mountain blew out on a horizontal basis creating a valley full of trees, ash, rocks and water. Evan took this image at the Visitor's Center, check out the huge crater--there is still a lot of activity in that region of the mountain.

John took this image of the valley from the helicopter and you can see the white cliffs--that is actually ash which got to several thousand feet in depth as the blast created a new valley and several new lakes like the one in the top of the image.

John and Evan at the Visitor's Center

As we walked on a trail, this tree was splintered by the blast--the mountain was over 5 miles away and it is estimated that this tree was over 150 years old, which equates to very big.  Looks like a toothpick was split in half by some guy.  Evan's image.

The helicopter ride was great--and we all got a free tee shirt when it was over, "I Flew the Blast Zone!"  Wonder how many questions we'll get when wearing those.

Tomorrow morning we will pack up and head to Crater Lake National Park in Oregon.