Category Archives: National Landmark

National landmark or historical place

November 9, 2014 San Diego, California

We have been staying at the Admiral Baker RV Park outside of San Diego for almost ten days now. In the past you had to be past or current military to stay here but now it is open to the general public. We have enjoyed our stay here which included an unexpected fireworks display one night from the nearby San Diego Stadium. We later learned it was one of the biggest fireworks shows west of the Mississippi and a San Diego tradition which includes a musical soundtrack synchronized to fireworks from all over the world.

We also went to see the USS Midway aircraft carrier located in San Diego. The Midway was one of America’s longest-serving aircraft carriers with over sixty exhibits, 29 restored aircraft, and two flight simulators. Over 225,000 sailors served aboard this vessel during her time in service.

USS Midway was an aircraft carrier of the United States Navy, the lead ship of her class. Commissioned a week after the end of World War II, Midway was the largest ship in the world until 1955,

She was commissioned in 1945 at the end of World War 2 and was decommissioned in 1992, serving during the Vietnam War and was the Persian Gulf flagship during Operation Desert Storm.

F-4 Phantom II fighter, this is the first aircraft that I built training simulators for

F-4 Phantom II

Midway could launch a massive aircraft about every 60 seconds

The control room for launching and landing planes

Officer quarters

Enlisted rank quarters

Just like in an RV when you need to save water: get wet, soap up then rinse off.

Unconditional Surrender is a three-dimensional interpretation of a photo taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt of a Sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square, New York City on Aug. 14, 1945, following the announcement of V-J Day.

October 18, 2014 Huntington Beach, California

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We left our beautiful campsite in Ventura, California after ten wonderful days overlooking the ocean where we could hear the waves crashing against the rocks and watch surfers riding the waves. We drove south to Bolsa Chica State Beach Park in Huntington Beach. While we could see the ocean, this campground was not nearly as nice as the county park at Ventura. The camping sites were similar to a parking lot with sites very close together. The worst part of this campground was its very close proximity to Highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway. Traffic noise was constant with only some relief in the early morning hours. We have found that while the beach campgrounds offer beautiful views of the ocean, they are also located close to the Pacific Coast Highway and therefore have traffic noise. The breathtaking views we enjoyed while driving along the coast earlier this year come at a cost to beach campers. We did enjoy a few beautiful sunsets while we were there.

Sunset from the shores of Huntington Beach

While in the area we decided to drive to Long Beach to do some sightseeing. Our first stop was the USS Iowa battleship. It is known as the Battleship of Presidents and is the only battleship on the West Coast. She was the lead ship in her class of battleship and the fourth in the US Navy. She is the last lead ship of any class of the U.S. battleships and was the only ship of her class to have served in the Atlantic Ocean during World War II. During World War II she carried President Franklin D. Roosevelt across the Atlantic to Algeria for an important meeting in 1943 in Tehran with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin.

President Roosevelt used the USS Iowa in 1943

They installed a bathtub and elevator on the ship to accommodate Roosevelt. In 1944 she was sent to the Pacific Fleet where she shelled beachheads in advance of Allied amphibious landings. She also served during the Korean War and was reactivated in 1984 in response to an expanded Soviet Navy. The Iowa was decommissioned for the last time in 1990 and was moved to her current location in 2012.

This is a 2,000 pound 16 inch shell

The USS Iowa guns shot 16 inch shells with six bag of powder

The USS Iowa guns shot 16 inch shells and six bag of powder

Phalanx system protects the ship with firing 3,000 22 mm rounds per minute

The protected bridge area of the ship is a vault with 16 inch walls

The bridge is enclosed by 16 inch walls

Next we drove seven miles to the RMS Queen Mary where we took a guided tour of the transatlantic ocean liner.

She primarily sailed on the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967. She was officially retired in 1967 and has been moored in Long Beach since October 31, 1967. The ship now serves as a tourist attraction with a hotel, museum and restaurants. The ship is on the National Register of Historic Places and is also listed as a part of the Historic Hotels in America. In 2008 the ship was listed by Time Magazine as one of the 10 most haunted places in America. The Queen Mary’s original professionally manned wireless radio room was removed and later an amateur radio room was created and is manned today by volunteers from a local amateur radio club.

Established in 1979, W6RO was the first permanent amateur radio station to be installed aboard a museum ship and is manned most days by volunteers

Bill particularly enjoyed touring this room. We learned during the ship’s tour that legend has it originally the ship was to be named the Queen Victoria but when ship representatives asked King George V if they could name the ship after Britain’s greatest queen, he assumed they were talking about his wife, Queen Mary, and no one had the nerve to tell him otherwise.

The one and only Queen Victoria – SORRY – Queen Mary cruiseliner

It was interesting to hear how the ship had first class sections of the ship that were off limits to non-first class passengers. Each afternoon, while the first class passengers were enjoying high tea, the other passengers were allowed access to one of the ships two swimming pools. Of course each day the water had to be drained and refilled since the first class passengers could never swim in water where other passengers had been swimming!

We enjoyed our time in Long Beach touring these two historic and very different ships.

September 22, 2014 Sequoia National Park

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Also while camping in the park we left Kings Canyon National Park and passed through to Sequoia National Park, the second oldest national park in the country, to see the General Sherman Tree. Named after the Civil War general, it is the world’s largest tree because of its

Sequoia World Records

General Sherman Tree

volume of total wood. It is 275 feet tall, has a trunk weighing 1,385 tons, has a circumference at the ground of nearly 103 feet and is estimated to be 2,200 years old. Its largest branch is almost seven feet in diameter. Every year the General Sherman grows enough new wood to produce a 60 foot tall tree of usual size. The tree is located in the Giant Forest and there was a nice paved trail on the half mile walk to the

Sherman Tree Trail

tree. The trail drops 200 feet down into the forest, making for quite a hike on the way back up. The trail was busy with many foreign tourists who enjoy renting RVs and camping in our national parks, especially after Labor Day.

General Sherman Tree

We stopped by the Visitors Center in Sequoia National Park and saw several great movies, including an excellent one on bears. Each campsite in Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks is equipped with a bear box for food storage and it is the law here that all food be properly stored. Bears have been known to break into cars so signs at parking areas throughout the park warn drivers to be sure all food is hidden or secured if in your car. We learned from the movie that the Grizzly Bear was hunted until they were all eliminated in California. If you look at the California state flag, adopted in 1911 it is a Grizzly Bear. Sadly, we did not see any bears while in either park.

We certainly enjoyed our time in both Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. Now that our summer goals have all been met, we will head back towards southern California for part of the winter. We are a little sad that our travels to the Pacific Northwest, Northern Cascades, Mount St Helens, Mt Rainier, Mt Shasta, Glacier National Park, Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks is over. It will be very hard to find places in the future to match their beauty! Our travels will slow down for the winter season and our blog posts will be less frequent. But stay tuned. We do have a few surprises coming up!

General Sherman tree is biggest by volume

The tree is eight horses wide

This is a US half dollar

September 20, 2014 Kings Canyon National Park

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We left Yosemite and fortunately did not have to travel back on the same curvy mountainous road we arrived on. Instead we took the road through the park which involved driving through four park tunnels which fortunately were high enough for the RV to pass through safely. We had planned on stopping by Mariposa Grove as we exited the south entrance of the park. Mariposa Grove was such a long drive from our campground we decided to wait and visit the grove as we exited the park since it was on the way. Mariposa Grove is the park’s largest stand of 500 giant sequoias. Since it was after Labor Day and not the weekend we felt confident we would have no problem finding a parking place for the RV and car. To our amazement, as we neared the parking areas of Mariposa Grove, all the parking lots were full and rangers were directing traffic to other areas of the park. This meant we would have to somehow find a parking spot for both vehicles and catch a shuttle bus to and from the grove. This was all a bit much for a travel day, so we decided to save the grove for when we come back someday to see the falls in the park in late spring or early summer.

We continued on to Coarsegold, California where we spent one night at a very nice Escapees park. We were warmly welcomed and immediately invited to their Happy Hour which we attended after getting settled into our campsite. We enjoyed meeting and talking with many of the people living and visiting there. We are so glad we became members of Escapees since we have enjoyed their parks, rallies and went to Baja Mexico with a group of Escapees last February. The Coarsegold area had recently been impacted by wildfires and the air was a bit smoky while we were there.

The next day we left early for several days of dry camping at Azalea Campground in Kings Canyon National Park. Once again we had to unhook the car and drive separately as we had a steady climb of 6,000 feet on Kings Highway to reach the campground along a curvy mountainous road. We expected the park to be fairly empty since this park is not as popular as Yosemite and it was after Labor Day. We didn’t have a reservation and we were quite surprised to find the park very crowded with weekend campers. We had to ride around the campground for awhile before finding a spot that would work for us. This is a nice campground but it is challenging to find level spots. We finally settled on a spot that was not as level as we would have liked and we were unable to get satellite tv. The next day was Sunday and the park emptied out and we were able to move to a much nicer site that was level and the satellite tv worked great.

Sunday after changing campsites we decided to spend some time exploring Kings Canyon. Kings Canyon National Park is located in the southern Sierra Nevada mountain range. It includes some of the largest trees in the world, one of the deepest canyons in the United States, and some of the highest mountain peaks in the contiguous United States. We started by watching the movie on the park at the visitors center and then set out for General Grant Grove to see the General Grant Tree, the second largest living tree in the world.

General Grant Tree

It is 267 feet tall, over 3,000 years old and is known as our nation’s Christmas Tree. General Grant Grove is comprised of 154 acres of magnificent sequoias and there are paved walkways where you can stroll the area.

Trees from the Grant Grove parking lot

The through the tree view

Inside the tree that is as big as a large room

General Grant Grove is part of King’s Canyon National Park and was established by Congress in 1890. John Muir first visited KIngs Canyon from Yosemite in 1873 and lobbied to have the area preserved. We are so very fortunate that our forefathers had the wisdom to preserve these beautiful parks so many years ago!

When we first started up the pathway Bill was stung on his hand by a bee. He never saw the bee but only felt the sting. Later, on our way back down to the car I suddenly felt a terrible pain and stinging on my inner arm. I looked down and saw what appeared to be a yellow jacket. I think he must have been on my arm and when I put my arm down to my side he was trapped and stung me. The strange thing was the bee would not let go or stop stinging. As much as I frantically tried to get him off he was fighting to hold on and kept stinging. I finally turned to Bill in desperation and he managed to get the bee off. By this time the pain and stinging was horrible and I stood there amid the sea of tourists in General Grant Grove sobbing. What a sight! Fortunately we had a cooler of cold drinks in the car with several ice packs and I was able to get ice on my arm right away. Even with the ice the stinging pain continued for several hours. Never thought I would encounter killer bees in General Grant Grove! Do you think it is because I am from the south?? This grove was named for Ulysses S. Grant and there is a tree in the grove named Ulysses.

There were many activities to choose from in the park and we debated whether we should next take the 46 mile round trip on Kings Canyon Scenic Byway into the canyon since the road was a curvy mountainous road which dropped 3,000 feet onto the canyon floor. We were so glad we did since the views of the canyon were magnificent. Bill is a wonderful photographer but even he found it difficult to capture the beauty of the canyon on camera. I have no words to adequately describe the wonders of the canyon. The canyon valley floor was carved by glaciers during the Ice Age.

Roaring River, very clear water

Looking into Kings Canyon

Along the way we stopped at Roaring River Falls. We were skeptical whether we would see any running water but decided a little exercise wouldn’t hurt and made the short hike to the falls along a nice paved trail. We were pleasantly surprised to see a rather nice little falls.

Roaring River Falls

We continued driving on the canyon floor until we reached “The Roads End”. Here they had many parking areas and a small building where you could get wilderness permits for overnight hiking trips into the canyon. They had trails, one of which led to Muir’s Rock, Muir talked many times from this rock, the same rock where a picture of John Muir was taken and later used in the film on the park at the visitors center.

Muir rock, where he and others sat and enjoyed the Kings Canyon

We headed back and marveled at the views of the canyon from the opposite direction. It was now late in the day and the sun was reflecting off the canyon walls.

August 19, 2014 La Pine, Oregon

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We didn’t have a reservation at La Pine State Park which is unusual for us during the summer tourist season, but we decided to take a chance since it was the beginning of the week and not the weekend. The camp host showed us several sites to choose from and we happily settled into a nice pull through site with full hookup.

This turned out to be such a fascinating area to explore. We had no idea we would explore a lava tube (cave) and see huge cinder cones and lave flows in Oregon!

We were eager to explore Newberry National Volcanic Monument, established in 1990. Newberry Volcano, central Oregon’s sleeping giant, has a lava flow covering almost 1,200 square miles (about the size of Rhode Island), making it the largest volcano in the Cascades chain. Unlike other volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest, this volcano is a composite volcano with dramatic lava flows that were very fluid during the eruptions, making it similar to volcanoes you would see in Hawaii. Newberry has as many as 400 volcanic vents around its slopes. Newberry Volcano has a large volcanic depression called a caldera. Scientists think the violent eruption which caused the caldera and occurred about 75,000 years ago, is responsible for volcanic ash deposits as far away as the San Francisco area. Newberry Volcano has been erupting over 400,000 years with the last eruption occurring about 1,300 years ago. Geologists say that while it is a sleeping giant, it could reawaken at any time and they monitor it closely.

We drove to the Newberry Caldera and stopped by the Lava Lands Visitors Center which included exhibits and 3-D topographic models of the volcano. We picked up a free pass to drive to the top of the Lava Butte Cinder Cone. The parking area at the top is very small so they limit traffic to 10 cars at a time. The pass gave us thirty minutes to explore the cone. The view at the top was magnificent. This cone is 7,000 years old and the lava flow from this cone once dammed up the Deschutes River.

We drove to an Obsidian Lava Flow and hiked a short distance to stairs that took us to the top of the lava flow. It was amazing to see the huge piles of lava rocks. What makes this lava flow special is the presence of large amounts of obsidian rock (black glass). I spoke with a lady who is an Oregon native. She said there used to be even more obsidian rock many years ago but people over the years carried them off. Today there are signs warning it is against the law to remove any rocks. The lady also said that there is only one other obsidian lava flow in the world, and that is in Russia.

We read there was a lava cave where we could walk inside a lava flow. So while in the area we went to the Lava River Cave. This is one of the longest, uncollapsed lava tubes in the

We could see our breath!

Northwest. The cave was once the pathway of an underground stream of molten lava. We knew the cave was going to be cold and dark, so we took jackets and flashlights. We entered the cave and immediately started to descend. The cave stays at a constant temperature of 42 degrees and it was very dark, even with flashlights. We picked our way slowly over rocks and uneven surfaces, occasionally coming to narrow flights of stairs taking us higher and further into the cave. The cave is a mile long and I found it more claustrophobic and unsettling than Bill. I don’t tend to be claustrophobic, but the dark lava walls and rocky uneven surface made me uncomfortable. There were quite a few tourists in the cave and I wondered how those walking with flipflops and using their cameras for light ever made it back out safely. I read the forest service is working on improvements to the cave with boardwalks over the uneven rocky surfaces and new stairways to make it more accessible to everyone. Hopefully this can be done without destroying the natural setting of the cave. There are bats living in the cave but we didn’t see any.

While at La Pine we got our first taste of cold weather. We awoke one morning to the sound of the heat pumps struggling to keep up and discovered the outside temperature was 38 degrees. Yikes! It wasn’t that long ago we were complaining about the heat. Now instead of searching for a campsite with shade, we were hunting sites with full sun!

August 7, 2014 Columbia River Gorge Part 2

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Wow it was hot! As much as we loved our site at the county park in Moro,

The little town of Moro, Oregon amid the trees and wheat fields as seen from our campground

Mural on the side of a little cafe where we had breakfast in Moro, Oregon

there was no shade and we cooked in the sun! On our last day in the area we decided to drive up to Mt Hood and then come back through to the Gorge area, cross back over into Washington state, and see the gorge from that side.

Mt Hood, Oregon’s tallest peak at 11,245 feet, is a dormant volcano believed to

Mt Hood

Zoomed in view of Mt Hood from the north side

have been formed 11 to 14 million years ago. Mt Hood has had at least four major eruptions during the past 15,000 years, with the most recent eruption occurring shortly before the arrival of Lewis and Clark in 1805. Mt Hood has twelve glaciers and is the source of five main rivers which flow into the Columbia. It is the second most climbed glaciated mountain in the world with the first being Mt Fuji in Japan. We could see Mt Hood and Mt Adams from our campsite, though with the haze from the heat, it was not a clear view. With the grandeur of Mt Hood and the magnificence of the Columbia Gorge, this area is quite a jewel! We could only imagine what Lewis and Clark must have thought!

As we left the campground we continued to see the dry wheat fields and then canyons, but the farther we drove we began to see glacier carved valleys with trees and vineyards. We reached Timberline Lodge which at an elevation of 6,000 feet was the closest point we would get to Mt Hood. This area has the longest ski season in North America and has the most night ski acreage in the United States. We saw many people dressed for snowboarding and it seemed strange to see people in winter clothing on this very hot day. Timberline Lodge, built in the 1930’s by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and dedicated in 1937 by President Franklin Roosevelt, is a historical landmark and was featured in the movie “The Shining”.

Mt Hood from the south side skiing lodge

The Hood Valley is a one of the finest fruit producing regions in the world due to the fertile volcanic soil and the area’s temperate climate. Over 50% of America’s winter pears, as well as a large number of Bartlett pears come from this area. It is also known for its magnificent Pippin apples. We passed many orchards of apple and pear trees, as well as bushes full of blackberries.

As we continued our drive back from Mt Hood we noticed a geocache with an unusual name. This geocache was in honor of a pioneer woman’s grave. She continues to be a reminder of those pioneers who traveled west in search of a better life. Today people still leave items in her honor at the gravesite. This was just another one of those fascinating finds we would have never known about had it not been for geocaching!

We crossed from Oregon back into Washington

Washington State uses a profile of Washington’s head for their state road signs

to see the Gorge from the other side. The views were

This Falls was completely submerged by the Dalles Dam

magnificent. We came to Stonehenge Memorial, built by a local entrepreneur to honor the soldiers of that area who had lost their lives in WW1. It is a full scale replica of England’s Stonehenge and was completed between 1918 and 1929. There are also memorials there to local soldiers who lost their lives in WWII, Korea and Vietnam. We noticed that all the columns had plaques with the names of soldiers who died serving their country. This Stonehenge sat high on a bluff with magnificent views of the Columbia River Gorge.

We crossed the bridge back into Oregon and headed home for our final evening in Moro, marveling at what a beautiful area this turned out to be, knowing how glad we were to have made a stop here.

August 6, 2014 Columbia River Gorge

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As I mentioned in the last post, the reason we came to this area of Oregon was to see the Columbia River Gorge. The Gorge is a canyon of the Columbia River which stretches 80 miles and is up to 4,000 feet deep. The Gorge is the only navigable route from the Cascades and the water from the Columbia River flows to the Pacific Ocean. It is also the boundary between Washington and Oregon. The Gorge is a federally protected scenic area and makes up the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area. This area is the largest scenic area in the United States. The way the Gorge was made is really quite amazing. Thousands of years ago glaciers dammed up the waters of the Missoula River. Over time the water built up until finally it was released from Montana with such force that it carved a canyon through the mountains as it roared toward the Pacific Ocean.

On our first day in the area we drove the Oregon Scenic Byway to see Multnomah Falls about a 90 minute drive from our campground. On the Washington side of the Gorge we could see Mt Adams and on the Oregon side was majestic Mt Hood.

Zoomed view of Mt Adams in Washington

Mt Hood

Zoomed view of Mt. Hood

This Scenic Byway was built from 1913-1922 and was considered an engineering marvel at that time. It was built in such a way as to showcase the waterfalls and beautiful spots through the Gorge and in the words of its engineer “not mar what God had put there”. As we drove we could see smoke from the wildfires still burning, though they were closer to being contained. The camp host had warned us this was a very popular attraction so we should avoid the weekend and get an early start. We followed her advice but when we reached the parking lot for the falls it was full with lines of cars searching for a parking spot. We ended up playing car tag where one of us would circle the parking lot while the other one would get out and walk up to the falls to take a look and then come back to the car and circle the lot while the other one took a turn. What a pain! Regardless, the falls was beautiful. The upper falls drops 542 feet and the lower falls 69 feet, making it the tallest waterfall in the state of Oregon. A sign at the waterfall says it is the second tallest year round waterfall in the United States, though some would argue with that distinction.

Multnomah Falls

A little farther down the road we came to Horsetail Falls which is supposedly in the shape of a horse’s tail. It has a drop of 192 feet and was also beautiful. There was not a long line of cars so it was easier to view the waterfall and less hectic getting pictures. Near the falls we had a nice picnic lunch in the shade.

Can you find Bill at Horsetail Falls?

Bill determined there was a geocache nearby and we not only found the geocache but blackberries on both sides of the road as far as the eye could see. We sure wished we had a bucket or a large container in the car but instead filled up a baggie left over from lunch. I made a delicious blackberry cobbler when we returned home!

We then decided to stop at the Bonneville Lock and Dam on the way home. Bonneville Lock and Dam was built and is operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and spans the Columbia River, linking Washington and Oregon. It was the first federal lock and dam on the

8 dams on the Columbia-Snake River drop the water 730 feet

Columbia and Snake rivers. Construction began in 1933 and was dedicated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937. It cost $88.4 million. In 1986 it was placed on the National

Bonneville Dam First Powerhouse

View of the Bonneville Dam spillway

Register of Historic Places. As we drove in we went through a security checkpoint where a guard asked if we had any explosives or weapons. Everyone who passes through is asked to open their car trunk for inspection. They had a very nice visitors center where we watched

Bonneville Dam Visitors Center

Generator turbine

several interesting movies and looked at displays. We learned that the dam supplies enough energy to meet the power needs of 900,000 homes. They had nice observation decks to view the dam as well as the fish ladder. We were fascinated with the fish ladder which was planned

Bonneville Dam fish ladder

by the Corps engineers to allow migratory fish to continue their migration from the sea, upstream to the tributaries of the Columbia and Snake Rivers. There are actually workers whose job it is to spend all day counting fish! This information is used by biologists and engineers to track increases and decreases in fish runs. Between 700,000 and 1.5 million adult salmon and steelhead fish swimming upstream, and between 24 and 43 million salmon and other fish migrating downstream, pass through the Bonneville Dam in an average year! At one point we went downstairs in the Visitors Center where we were then underwater and watched fish swim in the ladder by looking through underwater viewing windows. Cool!

the fish ladder as seen from the underwater viewing window

At the bottom are lampreys, really ugly fish

Diane thinks this fish is really ugly and creepy!

On our second day in Oregon the temperature really started to rise and it was around 100 degrees by the end of the day. Seems the temperatures in Montana, Idaho and Washington were catching up with us. The main objective for today was to visit the Dalles (pronounced Dowles) Dam which is completely located in Washington state. We made a reservation for a

Exterior view of the Dalles Dam Powerhouse

tour and headed over to the Visitors Center. There were twelve of us scheduled for the free tour and a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers employee gave the hour and a half tour. We were driven by trolley over to the dam where we could actually go inside the facility and see the

Generator room in the Dalles Dam

generators supplying power. The generating capacity is 1.8 million kilowatts, enough to light up two cities the size of Portland. Here they had more fish ladders and we could walk on catwalks and see the fish going over or through the ladders. Yes, they have fish counters here too! They also had an underwater viewing window and while we were fish watching, a duck swam by!! The guide did an excellent job of describing what goes on at this dam, which was built over a 5 year period with completion in 1957. The Dam has a unique design in the shape of a backward “L” which takes advantage of the natural rock formation in the river.

Exterior view of the Dalles Dam fish ladder

Dalles Dam fish ladder as seen from the catwalk

On the way home we drove into the town of Dalles because the town had several murals along Main Street. Dalles marks the end of the Oregon Trail, a trail known as the source of the greatest peacetime migration in history. We chose three we particularly liked for the blog. There is a strong Lewis and Clark influence in the state as we drove on roads marked “The Lewis and Clark Trail” and “The Oregon Trail” and we tried to picture what it must have looked like to Lewis and Clark as they paddled through the Columbia Gorge. It is in this area they bartered with the Indians for horses, and it seems the Indians “saw them coming” so to speak and came out ahead on the deal as they forced Lewis and Clark to barter for three horses, two of which were not good horses in order to get one good horse. I bet when Lewis and Clark traveled down the Columbia Gorge they must have been wondering where the elusive Pacific Ocean could be!

As we traveled home later in the day we were behind several fire vehicles who had spent the day fighting the nearby wildfires.

August 5, 2014 Montana, Idaho and Washington, Oh MY!

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We left Missoula, and with our visit to Glacier National Park completed, we headed once again west and south. Over the next several months we will gradually make our way back south for the winter. As we traveled through western Montana we marveled at all the open land with few houses in the distance. We concluded that people must each own a lot of land since there was so much land and so few homes. We continued to see cattle and horses on the dry, rocky farmland and little if any crops. It appeared it would take a lot of irrigation to grow much of anything.

I don’t know when, if ever, we have crossed through three states in one day, but we did today as we made our way through Montana, the north western tip of Idaho, and just over the border into Washington.

After one night stops in Spokane Valley and Kennewick where the daily temperatures approached 100 degrees, we headed west and south towards Oregon. We had planned on staying two or more nights in Kennewick, but the campground was new and had absolutely no shade and we were cooking in the broiling sun.

As we headed west through Washington, we continued to marvel at the difference between eastern and western Washington. Here in eastern Washington the grass was a golden brown surrounded by steep rocky cliffs. Occasionally we would see some corn growing in areas where they had worked hard at irrigating the fields. We saw many power lines, fields of wind turbines called wind farms, and long long trains racing beside us on tracks fairly close to the interstate. While in Montana, Idaho and eastern Washington we often heard train whistles in the distance during the night.

Eventually we began to see the mighty Columbia River, an important passageway for Lewis and Clark. This was the beginning of the magnificent Columbia River Gorge, and the reason we came to this area. But much much more on that later! As we approached the Oregon border we began to see vineyards appearing, though it appeared that irrigation was still a struggle, as well as field after field of wheat. We saw the John Day Dam and Mt Adams in the

John Day Lock and Dam was completed in 1971. John Day Lock has the highest lift (110 feet) of any U.S. lock.

distance and we stopped at an overlook to take a break and snap some pictures. Mt Adams, at 12,276 feet high is the second highest peak in the Northwest after Mt Rainier.

As we crossed the bridge between Washington and Oregon we caught the first whiff of smoke from the Oregon wildfires burning about thirty miles away. As we approached our home for the next several days we saw some llamas in a field.

Welcome to Oregon

We are staying the next several days at a county park in Moro, Oregon. For the low price of $25 a night we get full hookups with 50 AMP service, free WIFI and cable TV and they have laundry facilities. Quite a deal! The only drawback is there is no shade, but the temperatures were 10 to 15 degrees cooler than we left behind in Washington and there was a stiff breeze with gusts of 20 mph so we opened the windows and enjoyed Mother Nature’s air conditioning. From our campground we can see Mt Hood and Mt Adams in the distance! While the air appeared smoky in the distance, we could not smell smoke at the campground. The super friendly camp host came by to greet us and spent about an hour filling us in on all the interesting places to visit in the Columbia River Gorge area. Later Bill stepped outside and snapped some great sunset pictures which may had been enhanced by the smoke in the distance.

A zoomed view of Mount Hood from our campground just before sunset

Our first sunset over the wheat fields

July 7, 2014 Federal Way, Washington, part 3

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Bill also visited the Living Computer Museum in downtown Seattle, a small museum with a computer collection assembled by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen. The collection reflected milestones in the evolution of computers and how people use them. Paul Allen wanted to preserve the history that put he and Bill Gates on the path to founding Microsoft.

All of the computers are operational and are hands-on for the museum goers.

Letter from Paul G. Allen

It is possible that no other technology on earth has so continually renewed itself as computer technology. Advances in this field arrive in such swift succession that even the software and hardware of a few seasons ago are considered obsolete. The decades-old computers and software in this collection, therefore, are truly worthy of our preservation and study – both for the cutting-edge innovations of their day as well as for their historical significance.The Living Computer Museum also fulfills my hope that the achievements of early computer engineers aren’t lost to time. I wanted to provide a website and repository that recognized the efforts of those creative engineers who made some of the early breakthroughs in interactive computing that changed the world.

This is a paper card punch that Bill used during college to create computer programs

Bill used this Data General Nova computer and a Teletype to develop F-4 fighter jet simulation programs

Bill used paper tape for a short time to program computers from 1975 to 1984

Paul Allen and Bill gates in 1968 at a Seattle school

This is a typical 1977 memory module that would hold 8,000 characters

It use to take a crane to move one computer

This is the inside wiring of a Control Data computer from twenty years ago

The very popular Radio Shack TRS-80

This oversized box is a 3D printer making plastic parts

We stopped at an REI in Seattle, their flagship store, for a little shopping.

This REI store has everything for the outdoors!!!

Bill was excited to visit the Microsoft Campus and tour their Visitors Center where they have hands-on exhibits starting with their first personal computer to their latest innovations. It was interesting to read about the history of Microsoft.

Bill Gates in the lower left and Paul Allen in the lower right

Microsoft has many products on display in their visitor center

Lastly we visited the Boeing Future of Flight and Aviation Center in Everett, Washington north of Seattle. We explored the museum and then took a tour of the Boeing factory. They bused us from the museum over to the factory which is the largest building in the world by volume. It comprises 472,000,000 cubic feet, which equates to 75 football fields. We were taken to two separate areas of the building. In both areas we entered a underground tunnel and walked a third of a mile before being taken up on a freight elevator to a catwalk where we could look down and see the airplanes being built. We had an excellent, enthusiastic guide who did a great job explaining what we were seeing. We saw their new Boeing Dreamliner 787 which is being unveiled in England at the end of this month. We also saw how they are now building aircraft with the latest technology, including the use of composite materials which make the aircraft lighter and faster. It was an amazing experience! One note of explanation: we were not allowed to take cell phones, cameras, purses, etc on the tour, therefore, no pictures inside the factory! All the pictures you see here were taken in the Boeing Future of Flight Museum in a separate building from the factory.

Boeing’s technology

HK36 Fuel Cell Electric Airplane Demonstrator

June 30, 2014 Mount St. Helens, Washington

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We left Bainbridge Island on June 29th which was the first year anniversary of our new life living on the road in our RV. From the beauty of Picture Rocks and Sleepy Bear Dunes in Michigan, to walking among the Gila Cliff Dwellers in New Mexico, to camping among the giant saguaros in Arizona, seeing the breathtaking Pacific coastline, standing where Lewis and Clark looked out over the Pacific, walking and driving among the ancient redwoods, hiking the rain forests in Oregon, and seeing the power of Mount St Helens and majesty of Mount Rainier, what a truly magnificent year it has been!! We can’t wait to see what delights our second year brings.

We spent one night on the road at a private campground in Olympia, the capital of Washington. We got a peak at the capitol building as we passed by on the freeway.

Much of this drive was on Interstate 5, and it had been awhile since we had driven on a freeway. We hadn’t missed the freeway traffic over the past several weeks and it was not a welcome reunion.

We arrived at Seaquest State Park and to our surprise there was only one other RV parked in the full hookup section of the park. Since this is summer and the week of July 4^th, we expected the park to be crowded. It remained empty during our entire stay, and when we drove through other parts of the campground they were also fairly empty. It was nice having that section of the park to ourselves, making for a nice quiet stay, very unusual for a state park in the summer. Our stay there was made even more relaxing by a lack of cell phone and internet reception in the park. Bill was able to get satellite tv.

The next day we drove 54 miles to MT ST Helens National Volcanic Monument on the Spirit Mountain Highway. We crossed the 2,340-foot-long Hoffstadt Creek Bridge, built to replace the original bridge after it was destroyed by a torrent of volcanic mud and rock traveling at speeds of more than 100 mph after the 1980 eruption. As we drove up the highway we could see the devastating effects of the 1980 eruption on the landscape and forests and the recovery efforts taking place with lots of tree plantings. After driving to an elevation of 4,200 feet we arrived at the Johnson Ridge Observatory, named for the volcanologist killed at this site. It was a very windy day, one of those days when you can’t keep a hat on and my visor blew across the walkway and was almost gone forever. Even though the wind was a bit of a nuisance, it blows all the clouds away that blocks visibility needed when viewing mountainous areas.

At the Johnson Ridge Observatory we saw live seismographs, geologic exhibits, and viewed an excellent movie on the eruption of MT ST Helens on May 18, 1980. The eruption was an incredible explosion with such force that it blew 1,313 feet off the north face of the volcano and blew smoke and ash 80,000 feet into the air. It released a mile wide avalanche that raised Spirit Lake by more than 200 feet and shattered forests like matchsticks. Morning became night in minutes, halting traffic for a hundred miles and covering parts of three states with a fine gray powder. Today MT ST Helens stands at 8,365 feet.

We attended two Ranger talks at the Observatory. During one talk the Ranger explained the difference between lava flows at MT ST Helens and those in Hawaii. The lava from ST Helens is a thicker, silt based gray lava whereas the ones in Hawaii are more fluid based and red. He talked about the 1980 eruption and gave demonstrations on how eruptions occur, to the delight of some school children present.

The second Ranger talk focused on how scientists watch for and monitor volcanic activity and predict future eruptions. Two months before the 1980 eruption, scientist noticed puffs of steam and ash, increased seismic activity, as well as a growing bulge on the north side that grew five feet a day. They knew it was a matter of WHEN, not IF, the volcano would erupt and took precautions, however fifty-seven people died during the eruption. Until then, the mountain had been asleep for 123 years.

MT ST Helens last erupted from 2004 to early 2008, leaving a 1,320 foot tall lava dome which is formed from the cooling of lava on the crater floor. The lava during this three and a half year eruption was enough to fill 36,800 Olympic swimming pools and replaced about 7% of the volume lost during the 1980 blast. While the mountain appears quiet, the watching and waiting continues.

While in the area we drove 45 minutes south to Vancouver, Washington to meet Bill’s friend Robert and his wife Sandy for dinner. Bill and Robert worked together in Florida about 15 years ago. It was nice for Bill to visit with old friends, and nice for me to meet new friends!

Through the Eyes of the Selphs

Bill and Diane's travel notes and pictures

Category Archives: National Landmark

November 9, 2014 San Diego, California

October 18, 2014 Huntington Beach, California

September 22, 2014 Sequoia National Park

September 20, 2014 Kings Canyon National Park

August 19, 2014 La Pine, Oregon

August 7, 2014 Columbia River Gorge Part 2

August 6, 2014 Columbia River Gorge

August 5, 2014 Montana, Idaho and Washington, Oh MY!

July 7, 2014 Federal Way, Washington, part 3

June 30, 2014 Mount St. Helens, Washington