Spent the night in Half Way Oregon. What an amazing place. We stayed about 8 miles north of town in a snow park in the foothills of the Wallowas. We made some new friends in the local area who invited us back to stay on their property and have a BBQ… Life is good… http://www.halfwayoregon.com
Go..
If you can…
That’s what the June full moon of 1967 was called. Tonight we are sitting next to the fire watching and waiting for the rare Summer Solstice full moon. Our Summer begins with a paddle board fishing trip on Brownlee Reservoir. We met and made some new friends here and look forward to meeting them again later this year.
Life is good.
The moon just came over the horizon.
Gotta go.
Priorities…
So..on our bike ride to another campground today we met Huffy. She seemed lost and underweight. What to do? We share our snacks and search for the owner. Huffy has a tag with a number on it. We call it about 15 times with no luck. So we go to the nearest place with a phone and have them try
No luck. We tell the staff our story and they give us food for Huffy. Oh… did I mention that it was a mile away from where Huffy was? So we ride back to the campground, and we can’t find Huffy to give her the food. We seek out the park host in hopes that he will feed Huffy for us if he can find her. We ride in the cold and rain to the host site. We knock on the door and who comes out first? Huffy.
We are glad to see Huffy is okay. Her owner explains the number on her collar is no longer working. We give him the dog food and chat for a bit and move on. Huffy is happy, healthy and very energetic.
Us? Wet. Happy. Cold and tired. But happy for Huffy.
We ride the 5 miles in the cold and rain back to our campground.
We did the right thing. That made our dinner taste better. We think our sleep will be good too…
Moved to Lemolo Lake today. Grueling 14 mile trip… So far far away. Lol It took more time to pack than to get there.
Staying at Poole Creek Campground on the lake. Paddle boards away!
Crater Lake and the surrounding area… Awesome. Nuff said. Spending a couple of days here.
Our campground views…
As the Jefferson’s would say: “We are moving on up….To the East side…”
Okay… now that I have you (older) folks singing the tune to the old 80’s sitcom, The Jefferson’s… If you have forgotten it this will help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L09qnRfZY-k
Heather, Dizzy and Dave are on the road to Cottonwood Canyon State Park. What will they expect to do there? They will work on trails with a trail crew, catch more Bass out of the John Day river and when not busy with those two main “chores” do some paddle boarding down the John Day.
Of course evenings will be with friends around the fire pit burning heaps and oodles of wood… while taking turns with the telescope to look at moons of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, as well as the glow of Mars. We don’t look at Uranus too much though…. Just saying.
So off to the “East Side” we go….
OH…we have no Internet there. No phone. No newspaper. No television. No cell phone reception.
We DO have lots of rattlesnakes and S-I-L-E-N-C-E………………………………….
YEA!!!
We will be there for a month. See you all when we get back.
We’re still moving around the country! We haven’t spent enough time online to do updates but we’ve been lots of places, taken a few pictures and we’ve got plenty to write about!
Tonight we’re camping just west of Biloxi, Mississippi. It was t-shirt and sandal weather today and will be for us for the next few days while we hang out on the Gulf of Mexico.
Stay tuned!!!!
We spent our last day in Wichita doing some mall-walking and people watching followed by the hunt for Christmas Light displays. We ate at the Old Mill Tasty Shop, a soda fountain and malt shop in Old Town. They still make soda the old fashioned way in any flavor you want, I had a cherry vanilla Dr. Pepper. Dave had a root beer float and we shared a Peanut Butter Banana Honey sandwich on homemade white bread. Then to top it all off the three of us shared a Butter Pecan malt with pecans. It was all so yummy and something you can’t find in too many places anymore. We ended the day with homemade candied bacon on vanilla ice cream….wow….soooo good!! And so sticky we didn’t dare try to touch the phone to get a picture…
On Sunday morning we got up bright and early to hit the road for Missouri, time for me to finally meet Dave’s parents!
We spent an hour the night before de-icing the car and lucky for us the freezing rain turned to just wet rain so everything didn’t freeze over again. The roads were fine and clear but the fields and trees were still encased in ice, it made for a really pretty morning drive.
We came into Missouri on Route 66 which took us right into Joplin. We drove around a bit and found Cunningham Park. The EF5 tornado that swept through Joplin in 2011 came right through this park. It’s now a beautifully done memorial park. From the displays you can look down the path of the tornado, a 6 mile swath devoid of trees. There are hundreds of survivor stories from that day, I love the stories of the Butterfly People.
Cunningham Park
Butterfly People
From Joplin we started following the backroads that headed in the general direction we wanted to go. Looking at our Atlas we found the George Washington Carver National Monument and took a detour to check it out. Worthy stop but we didn’t have enough time to really delve into the exhibits. After chatting with the Ranger and volunteer inside we decided to spend the little time we had walking the interpretive trail to see the Carver Cabin. Next time we come out here we’ll make sure to plan a couple of hours to walk through the Center. George Washington Carver was an impressive man.
The Carver Trail
George Washington Carver Bio
We pulled into the Colonial Mountain Inn around 4, unpacked, then hit the town for a BBQ dinner! Neither of us had ever been here so it was quite an experience! It’s a very bright, flashy, colorful, and busy town, even now in the “off-season”. There is so much to do there with the shows, amusement parks, museums, restaurants, zoos, tours…. We wanted to see all of it but almost every activity would take a day to truly explore, and none of them are what we would consider budget-friendly, definitely something to save up for. The museums alone will take us a week to check out. We just didn’t have the time this trip so we settled for a couple of meals out and a driving tour. We still had fun!
We also highly recommend the motel. It’s under new management and a renovation but the owners are super friendly and very hospitable and it’s affordable! The day we left there was a crew there from a show called Hotel Impossible on the Travel Channel, apparently they will be featured on it. Check it out if you’re in Branson.
On Wednesday we rolled out of bed around 1130, had a big brunch and eventually headed downtown to the Wichita Sedgewick County Historical Museum. We only made it through 1 1/2 of the 4 floors before the museum closed, we were so engrossed in the displays. Awesome museum, we’re looking forward to our next trip out here to finish walking through the building. One of the displays is called “Wichita Cottage” and is a perfect replica of a middle class family’s home in the 1890s. It’s an amazing, very detailed display, down to the way the house was wired!
We also came across the America3, a huge racing yacht built and raced in the early 90’s. Unlike most racing yachts built by boat builders and enthusiasts this was built by aerospace engineers. It’s massive! The mast is 110 feet tall and the keel is huge! I’ve never seen one like it.
From the river we wandered through town admiring more of the gorgeous historic buildings and eventually ended up in Old Town. There we found the Museum of World Treasures, another one on our must-do list for next trip.
We’re really impressed with Wichita. It’s very clean, very artsy, and has lots of history.
Today it’s just really icy so instead of driving around we skated down the road to the Spangles restaurant for hot cocoa, coffee and wifi.
We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!
On Monday we took a road trip to Kearney, Nebraska, where I lived from kindergarten to 4th grade. I don’t remember much about the town so it was interesting to see. It’s a really nice town, lots of old brick houses and business buildings, cobblestone streets downtown, a lot of city parks and old tree lined streets. We found the two houses I lived in, one of the elementary schools I went to and the movie theatre my dad started in the mid-80’s. The rest of the tour was pretty much new to me. We only spent the afternoon there (and didn’t get many pictures) but I’d love to go back and hang out for awhile.
We started the Kearney tour at the Great Platte River Road Archway. We didn’t have time for the tour of the arch but we walked the grounds for awhile. Great Platte River Road Archway
The trip up there was pretty fun, too. We took the backroads, as we’re prone to do, and came across a smiling barn, the World’s Largest Ball of Sisal Twine and stumbled across the Geographical Center of the Lower 48 States.
DaveHeatherDizzy 