Hi, I’m Sammy Squirrel!  I am kind-a taking over for Spike this year as he hasn’t been around to do the talkin.  I saw him early this spring and he told me that he made it through the hunting season OK since he broke off both his spikes.  He said the hunters thought he was a girl.  I thought to myself that he was really smart to break off his spikes, but I expect that he was really clumsy.  Anyway, he headed up into the hills at the base of the Kenai Mountains where most of the other bulls hang out for the summer months.

My old lady and I took up residence in the bird house in the cottonwood tree next to grandma and grandpa’s house.  It gives me good access to the goodies on the deck in front of the camp kitchen.  Gramps puts out the best sunflower seeds with the bird seed.  I just love those things!  Although I sure have a lot of trouble getting to them. I had to chew up two of the plastic bird feeders to get to them.  Gramps called me a ‘fluffy-tailed rat’ for doing it.  That was the first time he threatened with the pellet gun.   All the visitors thought I was really cute and would throw out peanuts for me to eat and then take pictures while I was eating them, but I got into trouble by chewing up the deck boards trying to get to peanuts that fell in the cracks.

It was the Bird Seed Bucket that was really my downfall though.  I knew that was where gramps kept all those delicious sunflower seeds and I just had to get to them.  I was frantically chewing my way into the lid when I heard gramps coming so I got on top of the bucket.

“Have you been chewing on the bucket again?” Gramps asked.

“Who, me?” I replied.

“Yes you with the plastic chip on your nose!  I’m going to get my pellet gun!” he says.

Well I decided it was time that I make myself scarce so I guess that gramps will have to do the commentary from here on out.   Hopefully, I will see you next year!

MOOSE

Well I guess that put the fear into him and it will end him chewing on things.  We have noticed that he doesn’t spend as much time on the deck anymore.

The moose have been scarce this year, but it’s probably because we became so used to having Spike around all the time.  Momma moose spent some time eating the new greens before she had her yearly calf.  She has been a regular here in the park for years.  We think three years ago she was the mother of Spike and his sister, who came into the park with her twins later (photo later).

Momma moose wandered back into the park eating the new grass and leaves.  One of the campers was busy taking photos of her in the space next to his.  He had his video recorder busy, but notice that he was behind his auto.  Momma moose noticed this too and came over to investigate what he was doing.

We enjoyed this sight, but I could not blame him for hiding behind the camper.  Momma moose was as big as his car!  Moose are very curious so soon she started eating the leaves off the bushes and completely forgot about the camper.

Several weeks later, Brindle brought her calf into the park.  Brindle was Momma moose’s daughter the summer of 2007.  We named her Brindle because her face and mane are very blond for a moose.  She also has very blond eyebrows.  For the past four summers, she has been a regular visitor to the park and for the past three has shared her calves with us to our delight.  In early May when we first got here, I was trimming cottonwood saplings in the south end of the park.  I saw her walk through the other end of the park very heavy with her calf.  When she saw me working at the other end, she wandered down and watched me work for several minutes, then wandered off into the woods.  It was nice to be greeted by one of our other residents!

This summer she and her new calf spent several days eating the young bushes and leaves plus new grass in the park and across the road in the State Park.  She is so used to people in the park that she hangs around posing for photos for all the campers in the park.  This day she and her calf were very photogenic!

Sorry that this photo isn’t better, but we were limited by time and space.  We were eating breakfast one morning when Jan noticed Spike’s sister chewing on the willow leaves out behind the shop (we think it is his sister because she has the same long, narrow dewlap that he has).  We quickly went out on the deck to take pictures.  You can barely see the second calf behind the little red trailer peeking out behind the front calf.  We were hoping that they would come out behind the blue spruce to the willow beside the shop so we could get better photos.  However, the camper in space 16 came out with his camera to get a closer picture of them. It was a little too close for the momma so she took her calves down the back road to the woods again.  Hopefully we will see them again before we leave for the winter although we have noticed hoof prints in the roads where they have been browsing during the night.

SUMMER VISITORS (the human kind)

We had a great summer with lots of campers and family visitors.  The family started on the 11th of July with the arrival of Kevin’s son, Ryan Pyle.

A day later, Dave Cooper (Jan’s cousin) and Ron Miller (Dave’s brother-in-law) arrived followed two days later with Ryan’s firemen buddies, Dave Hunter and John Maddox.

On the 20th, Debbie, Paul, Jerod, Jordan & Jacob Post arrived for a Red Salmon fishing frenzy.  Two days later, Kyra Stromgren arrived for the Red Salmon season also (plus maybe to be with the Posts too).  Not to out done, Todd Andregg arrived on the 24th for the Red Fishing plus to complete the togetherness of all of Jan’s kids.

We had a great time with all Jan’s family, Ryan and his friends and our friends, Dave and Ronnie.  The Red Salmon fishing (more later) was great with one of the best years that we have had.  It started off with a bang!  237 thousand red salmon entered the Kenai river on the 16th of July, the highest one day entrance of reds ever recorded. On Monday and Tuesday, the 18th & 19th, 260,000 more came in the river.  It seemed that they were almost jumping out on the banks, there were so many of them, BUT OH,  WAS  IT  FUN!!!!!

That was who was here to help us harvest all of these wonderful, tasty red salmon, but first let’s go back and review our friends and families visits with all the other things that Alaska has to offer.

DAVE COOPER & RONNIE MILLER

On the 15th the reds weren’t in the river yet, so Dave, Ronnie, Jan, Gary & Betty Buchanan and I went clamming.  In this photo, Betty was taking the photo while I was parking the vehicle and bringing the 4-wheeler back to the beach.  Dave & Ronnie had never been clamming.  Gary & Betty were from Michigan and wanted to try it. ?  So off we went to Ninilchik Beach on a -3.5 foot low tide to try our luck.

Are you looking for these?

Across Cook Inlet is 11,000 foot Mt. Redoubt, the group is heading out to the open sand bars where the famous Alaskan razor clams are found. Notice all the people already there and the many rocks and muddy streams between them and their destination. But being the hardy souls that they are, they will persevere and claim their prizes (Note that none of them have clam shovels or clam shooters with them).

I guess that they think the clams will just jump in their buckets.  Whoops,  no buckets! But along comes the Hero, Jon on the 4-wheeler loaded with  clam shooters, shovels and buckets to save the day!

And there it is!  The clams just waiting under the surface for us to come along and pick them up.  Notice the beautiful setting with Mt. Ilimana (over 11,000 feet) in the background.  How could this not be the perfect place to collect all the wonderful razor clams that one could want?

Well it is, but as Ronnie found out the clams don’t jump in the bucket!  After forcing the clam shooter down through the sand and mud then pulling it out (with a great deal of effort), NO CLAM!

So notices Gary who is busting his back pulling out a shooter full of empty sand!  “Hey, this is work!  How do I know if this dimple is really a clam or just a rock?”

Wait a minute, where’s Dave?  There he is, looking for dimples?  What is he going to do if he finds one?  He doesn’t have a shooter or shovel.

“Here they are!  It just takes a lot of effort to get these little guys out.  Keep at it guys!”

Left are the slices of the foot for yummy clam strips and the necks and cleaned bodies for chowder. We look back on the work and it was FUN! But the best part was ‘THE CLAM STRIPS FOR DINNER“!

Finally the clams were dug and we loaded everything for the trip home.  It was a good day with almost a hundred nice clams, not too many of them damaged! Now comes the cleaning process which takes a lot of time. Everybody pitches in and soon it is done.

START OF RED SEASON

Red season begins with a bang!  So many fish in the river.  Dave hung a nice one with his first cast.  It’s a fighter and he’s having fun fighting it to the shore.  The river is low and the fish are able to use the fast current to make the catching exciting.

It’s a good one! Hooked in the mouth and on the bank. It was the first of many. Dave managed to get his limit of three in just 20 minutes, then watched as the others limited out.

Almost at the same time Dave was bringing in his fish, Ronnie had one on and was fighting it.  They are hard to handle trying to get away in a swift river.

After several minutes having fun, Ronnie got his into the bank. Another nice red salmon! It was also the first of many that Ronnie would catch.

The work isn’t done until the fish are cleaned.  Dave and I are busy at the cleaning table cutting the fillets into pieces for packaging and freezing.  The tail section without bones are cut off, the rib section cleaned and cut, then the top fillet is removed just leaving the strip of bones with their meat.

Vacuum packaging the process salmon

The skin is removed from the piece and the remaining cubed for the freezer. The bags full of cubed bone pieces will be later thawed and canned. The separated pieces of the salmon are then taken to the shop where they are packaged in plastic and vacuumed sealed before freezing.

Ryan is a master at catching red salmon.  If there are any fish in the river, he is going to at least hook them.  However, he seems to have an affinity for hooking them everywhere but in the mouth which the F&G insist is the only way you can keep them.  They call it sporting: however, it is the only hunting and fishing where you are supposed to let a wounded animal loose. ??  We follow the rules: however, we do question when we see salmon trying to swim up the river with their bellies gashed open and the eggs hanging out.  Maybe F & G should consider rethinking this rule.  Why not keep the wounded ones and release the ones hooked in the mouth, they haven’t been damaged and will spawn without a problem.

He does seem to have a problem when he does catch one legally.  He tends to get himself as bloody as the fish!  And he gets scary looking!

I wound up without any photos of the firemen, Dave and John fishing.  They were always fishing with Ryan at a different place from the rest of us.  Therefore, all we heard were stories of how well they did.  Some of them were surely fishermen tales, but they did have several boxes of fish to take home with them.

THE POST FAMILY

The Post Family

Debbie, Paul, Jerod, Jordan, and Jacob arrived the morning of the 20th ready for red salmon fishing.  We stopped along the Cook Inlet to view the beautiful Alaska Range of mountains across the inlet.

Ryan & Post Boys ready to fish

It didn’t take long for them boys to get ready to go fishing.  Ryan took them down to the river for their first trip and it was a good one with each of them catching their limit of three.

Paul fighting a Red Salmon

After lunch we took Paul and Debbie down to the river for their first trip Red Salmon fishing.  It wasn’t too long before Paul had his first red on the line and was fighting to get it to the bank.

First Red

Soon he had his first red on the bank and was a happy camper!  From then on, you couldn’t stop him. He managed to catch his limit while the rest of us were getting ready to fish.  He had a blast fishing for reds!

Debbie's First Red Salmon

It took Debbie a little longer to figure out how to hook them, but when she finally figured out what she was doing wrong, she had no trouble catching her limit too.

Debbie & Jan with their Reds

Debbie and Jan both had good luck and caught their limits.

Cleaning our catch

Back at the park, it was time to clean our catch. I was cleaning and trimming the fillets while Paul was cutting up the separate pieces for vacuum packaging.

Post boys packaging fish

The fish then went to the shop to be vacuumed packed. The Post boys had that job while Debbie and Jan were fixing dinner for the rest of the crew. Everybody got into the act on this trip.

Moose Meadows Recreation Area

The next day the Posts were ready for more Red fishing!  I took them up to Moose Meadows where the state had installed several fishing platforms along the river.  However, everyone else in the Soldotna area had also gotten the fishing bug and there was no place to fish along the three different platforms and along the banks.

Fishing the Kasilof river

So I took them to the Kasilof river near our park. It’s a beautiful spot east of the Kasilof bridge and there wasn’t anyone there. Neither were the fish! We did get a lot of practice perfecting our salmon catching techniques though?

Jerod hooked a Red

Jerod with limit

That evening the Post family went back to Moose Meadows hoping that the crowd had left so they could fish.  The crowd had as least slimmed down so they could find a place.  Soon Jerod had one on and Jordan netted it for him, then took a bath in the river due to the very slippery rocks.  He didn’t loose Jerod’s fish though.

Family Catch

The result of their late evening efforts was another great catch of 12 between the five of them. By the time they got back to the park and cleaned their fish for the next day, it was midnight.   See it actually does get dark up here after midnight!

This wasn’t the last of their fishing trips while they were here although they did have other things to do.  They took the Seward Glacier cruise, a trip to Homer and a Rafting Trip down the Kasilof.  But those are other stories and we haven’t finished the Red fishing with the rest of the family.

KYRA & TODD

Kyra’s husband, Craig decided that she needed some time with her siblings this summer before she started nursing at school this fall so for a special surprise he bought her a ticket to Alaska.  She arrived in Anchorage the evening that Dave and Ronnie were heading back to Kansas and had a drink with them at the airport.  We picked her up in Kenai that evening.

Kyra & Jan at our flag

Kyra & Jon on the porch

It was nice to have her with us for a week and she got to have her first experience catching reds.  She arrived just in time to take the Seward Glacier tour with the Post family (see it later) and the trip to Homer.

Now Ky isn’t a fisherlady, but even though it took her awhile to get the knack of hooking Reds, when she finally got it, she got it!

Ky Red Fishing

That's a bunch of Reds

SHE DEFINITELY GOT IT!

Todd's Reds

Another Day of Beauties

So, a few days later Todd comes up.  Now Todd is a fisherman and he loves catching Reds.  He limited out his first morning (note that the limit was raised from 3 to 6 very early in the run).  Obviously he quickly got back into the swing of hooking the Reds.

Todd & Ryan Cleaning Reds

Ryan, Todd & Ky at the cleaning table

Then it comes time to take care of all those fish that you catch.  Todd and Ryan were busy at the old cleaning table in the park when the idea was generated that there could be some improvements in the cleaning table (but that is a later story in the blog!).

Building a campfire

So-mores for Nicole

But fishing wasn’t the only activity at the park.  Remember the Somores Queen Nicole from last year?  Well, Ky and Todd had to pay tribute to her becoming Dr. Nicole  this past spring  (note the charcoal marshmallow that Ky is hold and the one still in the sticking out of the firepit in front of the chair.  Congratulations Dr. Nicole (Somores) McWilliams!

Ky soaking foot?

Who's the Redhead?

Oh yeah, two other photos which had us wondering?  Now why would Ky be standing on the porch with one foot in a bucket of water?  Was she practicing standing in the river?  Or did she just happen to stumble into when walking on the porch? (Not that she tends to be clumsy or anything!)  And what about these two guy with those silly grins on their faces?  If you could see the label on Melissa’s hat and shirt, you would realize that it is the Kenai River Brewery labels.   ??????  What have they been doing?  Did they have a hard day fishing on the river?  Doesn’t she look a little pale?  I wonder if they smelled kind-of fishy?  We won’t show the other picture of Ryan laying in the park driveway!

WE DO HAVE FUN AT THE KASILOF RV PARK!

KENAI FJORDS GLACIER CRUISE

Post Family on Glacier Cruise

The Post family and Kyra drove to Seward the day after Kyra arrived to tour the glaciers of the Kenai Fjords National Park.  The Park is known for it’s many tidewater glaciers (those flowing directly out of the Harding Ice Field into the ocean) and it’s abundant sea life.  It was a beautiful day with clear skies, lots of sunshine and calm seas.  It promised to be an exciting trip.

Muirs lined up

The tourists on the ship were all lined up watching the Muirs (a type of seagull) lined up on the rocks of the shore.  They look something like a penguin with their white fronts and black backs.  We wondered ‘Who is watching Who’?

Paul & Debbie

Kyra & Debbie

The scenery was beautiful with the lush vegetation on the lower cliffs,  and shear, snow capped mountains falling into the water.  Plus the hint of the glaciers and ice field between the mountain peaks.

Sea Lions

They passed rookeries of seals and sea lions laying out on the rocks sunning themselves.  The birds were thick with many puffins diving and occasionally they would spots groups gulls gathered at a spot where whales were feeding on small schools of fish.  Humpback whales would appear off in the distance with a spout of water from their nostril.

Post Boys at Holgate Glacier

They arrived at Holgate Glacier and watched the ice calve off it’s face  leaving small icebergs in the water.  Some of the larger bergs had small harbor seals sunning on them.  The Captain turned off the ship’s engines so they could hear the glacier popping and snapping as the ice pushed down from the Harding Ice Field above until is broke off the face into the ocean.

Kyra with glacier ice

Jake eating some ice

The ship assistants collected some of the small chunks of ice from the water and gave them to the passengers to hold and exam.  Jake must have been hungry!

Trip Home

Exhausting Day

Debbie and Kyra chose to enjoy a bottle of good Alaskan beer rather than the ice on their way back home.  While the boys decided that they had seen enough and crashed.

TRIP TO HOMER

Homer, Alaska is located at the western end of the longest continuous highway in North America.  It is at the southern tip of the main Kenai Peninsula although the Kenai mountain range and the Kenai Fjords National Park are south of it across Kachemak Bay.  It’s know as a ’small drinking village with a fishing problem’.

Homer Overlook

Actually, it is a small town located on the side of a bluff overlooking the Kachemak Bay and the glaciers coming out of the Harding Ice Field in the mountains  across the Bay plus the great Alaska Range of mountain across the Cook Inlet to the west.  It is one of the many beautiful areas in Alaska.  Plus the Halibut Fishing is Great!

The action is out on the spit, a long stretch of sand and rock that sticks out into Kachemak Bay. The spit was originally created by a Tsunami back in the 1800’s and then fortified with stone keep it from disappearing back into the ocean.

Family at the Salty Dawg

Inside the Salty Dawg Saloon

It is a tourist attraction and as such has many gift shops, eateries and Halibut charters.  Highlight among them is the Old Salty Dawg Saloon which was originally the lighthouse and log cabin base for the caretaker.  It has been turned into a saloon with very low ceilings.

The walls and ceilings are covered with sea paraphernalia, some  ladies’ unmentionables and thousands of dollar bills with names and addresses on them. The benches and table are carved with initials and names all varnished into the surface after many, many years.  It was a watering hole for sailors and fisherman since it became a saloon and remains that way today, although the day time patrons are mostly tourists.

Kyra & Debbie Salty Dawg

Not only on the inside, but the outside of the Salty Dawg has it’s own paraphernalia and oddities, not including the two sitting on the rocks smiling.

Buttwackers

Located behind the Salty Dawg is another gift shop with a Halibut cleaning area called ‘Buttwhackers’.  Many of the Captains from the Halibut Charters bring their catch into this area where the tourists can watch them fillet the fish.  Often there are a group of young women that do the filleting much to the pleasure of the guys watching.  Note that Todd is not watching the girls fillet the fish.  Ha!

Original Andreggs caged!

Three Monkeys!

Take your pick!  Need I say more?

KASILOF RIVER RAFTING TRIP

Loaded and ready to go!

The Posts wanted to take a rafting trip down the Kasilof from Tustemena Lake to the river bridge just a mile away from the park.  The river is not considered dangerous but it is swift and very remote.  There are very few houses located on it and those are just a few miles from the end of the trip.  It takes about three hours from the Lake to the boat ramp just before the bridge.  We loaded up the big three person pontoon boat, the two person raft and the one person pontoon boat and took them up to the lake where they would start their trip.

On to the river

Paul is rowing the big boat with the girls in the front taking pictures.  The raft was tied to the boat so it wouldn’t get away if it got loose (not a good idea!).  Jake and Jordan were in the raft and Jerod was on the single pontoon.

The Tustemena Lake is behind them around a couple of bends and here the current is slow prior to the river narrowing down and becoming more shallow.  Tustemena Lake is quite large and very shallow causing it to be very dangerous in strong winds.  It often can get waves 6 to 10 feet high is a very short period when the wind comes up.  Fortunately today was cool and rainy with no wind.

Girls in front of Paul

Jake took a bath!

The river becomes more narrow and much swifter the further downstream they went.  The boys were wanting to try rowing the different boats for the fun of it.  Jake had just gotten his turn and was still trying to get the one person pontoon boat to do what he wanted it to do when a fallen tree in the river got in his road.  Whoops!  I guess Grandsons like to test the water to see how cold it is.  Like Travis last year , Jake took a bath when the tree caught the boat and flipped it.  Fortunately, no one was hurt, nothing was damaged,  nothing was lost, only Jake had a very cold trip down the rest of the river.

End of Trip

A couple of hours later after a wild ride downstream, everyone was hugging as the trip was over.  I picked them up at the bridge, we loaded the boats back on the trailer and headed home where they would warm back up.

NEW CLEANING TABLE

Building the new cleaning table

After standing out in the rain or frying in the sun cleaning fish, Todd and I decided that we needed to improve the cleaning table as our building project this year.  We had a problem though.  We couldn’t dismantle the old one until the new one was ready as people were still cleaning fish on the old one.  Therefore, we decided to build the frame for the new cleaning table on the trailer, then haul it out to the area and replace the old one.

Hauling the table

It worked pretty good except we found we needed a couple of gorillas to move the water soaked old one out of the road and replace it with the new frame.  We got Jan to help!

Putting on the roof.

We finally got it in place and are putting on the plastic roofing.  The metal table was added with a new splash backing.  An additional cleaning station to allow three to work at the same time and three individual hoses were added for each cleaning station.  The water is now strained to keep all the fish scraps from going down the drain and the drain lets the cleaning water off into the ditch area along the road.  It turned out to be a good addition to the park.

The finished new Cleaning Table

There was only one problem with this!

Todd considering the new addition!

Todd was left with time to think about what to do next year!!!!!!!!

Tune in next year to see what he came up with!

We will close up the park and fly back to Kansas City, then after a short visit will head back to Hoxie for the winter.

See you later!

DECEPTION PASS, WHIDBEY ISLAND, WASHINGTON

After Chris and Mark picked us up in Vancouver, we drove back down toward Seattle.  We decided to take a trip around Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound west of Burlington.  It is a beautiful Island with lots of inlets and bays.  We toured Deception Pass State Park and stopped at Rosario Bay, a small bay pointing at the sound and originally home of the Samish Indians.  There is a small day park there with picnic facilities.

Mark, Chris and I are in front of the Maiden of the sea.  The Samish story is about a beautiful young maiden who saw a young man come up out of the ocean one day and she immediately fell in love with him.  He wanted her to go back down in the sea and live with him, but her parents wouldn’t let her.  Then the sea would no longer provide food for the Indians of the Bay.  Finally, her parents relented and she married the young man of the sea then went with him. The sea again became bountiful for the tribe.

Each year she would come back to visit her parents, but eventually she became more and more like the sea and finally never returned; however, the sea never again held back it’s bounty to the Indians of the bay.

On the backside of the park, there is an inlet to the Skagit Bay, a beautiful area overlooking the coast line of Washington.  The clouds began to roll in from the sea shrouding the tops of the trees in fog.

CODY’S FAMILY, MORGAN HILL, CALIFORNIA

We stopped for several days in Morgan Hill to visit Cody, Margaret and the grandsons, Jimmy and Nelson.  Jimmy had to show us how they played water baseball by filling water balloons, then having Margaret pitch them to him.  It was a wet game on a warm afternoon.  Cody took us to Jim’s school in Seaside, California and we got to tour through the school and his classrooms.  He had to show off their pet  snake for us.  We also got to visit Nelson’s High School on the trip although we didn’t tour the classrooms.  School was over for the day and Nelson was practicing baseball with one of his team mates.

On Sunday, Nelson was playing baseball with his  team at Monterey.  He plays first base and pitches for his team.  It was a double-header and we got to watch a lot of baseball.  After the game, we went down to Cannery Row where the shops and restaurants were located.

After the boys posed with one of the locals, we all went to Bubba’s Shrimp House for dinner.  As always, we had a wonderful visit and a fun time with Cody’s family.

NAPA VALLEY WINE TOUR

We met Jan’s daughter, Kyra and her husband Craig and Craig’s father, Bus and his stepmother, Carol at the Del Dotto Winery on friday afternoon after their trip from Kansas City. We toured the winery caves where they aged the vineyards wines sampling lots of good reds and purchased a few for home.

We had stayed the previous night In Calistoga in our 5th Wheel, but were planning on staying with the group at the rental house for the weekend.  The house was well off the highway through a very narrow, tree covered lane.  It was close getting the camper in beside the house and gave us some concern about backing it out, but that was for later.

After a wonderful dinner at the Ristorante Allegro that evening, we managed to get around  the next morning in time to tour the Mumms Napa winery and partake of their delicious champagne.  It was an interesting tour through their facility and then another tour of the various varieties of the champagne that they produce.  Jan and I were a tangle of arms, but we didn’t spill a drop!

After a stop at the Culinary Institute of America for lunch, we drove to the top of Spring mountain between Napa and Sonoma valleys where Pride Mountain winery is located.  Their vineyards were on the peak and the sides of the mountain allowing for cooler summer growing temperatures.

Hanna Winery in upper Sonoma valley was one of the highlights of our tour.  The area was beautiful with vineyards covering the hillsides and their wines were very good.  Of course many bottles were taken home with us.

The Rombauer winery was also a delight. It was located on the side of the hills in the center of Napa valley.  Their white wines were excellent and their hillside gardens were beautiful.

Our last stop for the extended weekend was at the Chimney Rock winery in the Stag’s Leap District of Napa.  The red wines were great, but what made the stop a special treat was meeting the owners son and the two wine makers.

Oh yes, and the problem with backing the 5th Wheel out of the narrow lane to the rental house!  Well with the aid of everyone guiding me on all sides and stopping the traffic on the highway, I did manage to back it all the way without running off the road or hitting a tree.  We quickly backed out on the highway, bid everyone goodbye and were on our way to Yosemite National Park.

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK

We arrived in Yosemite in the rain after a difficult drive on Highway 120 from Manteca to the Park. We had been told that Highway 140 was limited to vehicle lengths of 45 feet plus we would have to drive further south to reach Merced. On 120 there is a five mile climb up the side of a mountain with very sharp hairpin curves that is no fun to drive especially pulling a 5th Wheel!  Once reaching the top, it was still 60 miles on a narrow two lane road in the rain.  We were very happy to reach our campground in El Portal.

It had been 45 years since I had been in the Park and it was the first time for Jan, so we were excited.  The next morning was sunny and bright as we entered the Park.  Our first sight was of El Capitan, bright and beautiful above the trees.

We decided to drive to the park Visitors Center and leave the truck while we took a tour of the park on their shuttle buses.   This way we could get a feel for the park and decide which areas we wanted to spend more time.  At the Visitors Center, we picked up maps of the Park, looked at their displays and toured the village.

Our first stop on the bus was across from Yosemite Falls.  It is so tall (vertical drop of 2425 feet) that you have to be on the other side of the valley floor to see all of it.  The upper falls is a drop of 1430 feet.  In early October, the snows from last winter were mostly melted in the high country above Yosemite and the summer had been dry.

Yesterdays rain was the first of the year, so the amount of water over the falls was not significant, but yet it was spectacular.

The sunny, clear skies didn’t last too long and by the time we were able to see Half Dome, the clouds had begun to move it.  Even in the greyness, the mountain is a beautiful sight.  It was sliced in half  by a glacier that carved out the whole valley.

The Merced river flows through the valley floor fed by the many cascading falls draining the Sierra Mountain which surround the valley.  The Merced is a sparkling, crystal clear stream with trout lurking in the shadows behind the rocks.  The National Park Service has done a great job making the many scenic vistas available by walking and biking  trails through the valley floor.

Here a wooden walking bridge crosses the river and in the background Sentinel Rocks rise above the valley floor making a picturesque scene.

A short walk up the trail from the wooden bridge is this wonderful view of Cathedral Rock across the grassy meadow and low pines.   Yosemite provides so many great scenic areas that your mind almost becomes saturated with the wonder of it all.  However as the darker clouds in the background behind Cathedral Rock began to show, it wasn’t long before clouds and rain began reduce the photo opportunities.

We drove up to the vista of Bridalveil Falls as the rain began.  It had obviously started raining in the high country above the falls prior to our arrival as much more water was falling than we had previously seen earlier in the day.  The falling rain in this photo gave an unusual quality to the falls and the trees in the foreground.  The wind was also producing a mist of the water cascading down reminding us of how the falls had been named ‘Bridalveil’.

As the rain became heavier, we drove out of the valley back toward our campground in El Portal.  Our last look at the valley was spectacular in an unusual way.  The rain had begun to hide the scenic mountains in its mist.  Cathedral Rock and Bridalveil Falls could still be seen on the right and El Capitan on the left, but Half Dome had disappeared in the rain.  It was definitely a beautiful way to end a wonderful day in one of the most scenic National Parks.

Lake Tahoe

Our trip out of Yosemite was on Highway 14o south to Merced.  The highway was limited to vehicles 45 feet and we were pushing that limit with our 5th Wheel and truck.  But after the difficult trip driving up 120, we decided we would spend the extra time and distance on 140.  It turned out that the length restriction was based on the ability to turn onto a detoured bridge where the highway had been damaged by a rockslide.  We had no difficulty turning onto the bridge in the confined area and the trip down to Merced was easy compared to the trip up 120.  Our only difficulty driving to Lake Tahoe was another blow-out on the trailer.  That was the second one this trip and hopefully the last one for awhile as the blow-out was on the last of the lousy Goodyear 2 ply trailer tires on the camper.  All the five tires are now 8 and  10 ply truck tires which will hopefully carry the weight of the camper.

We arrived at the Lake Tahoe Valley RV Resort in South Lake Tahoe the evening of October 7th.  The resort was a very large campground located in a grove of huge Ponderosa pine trees although it was late in the summer season and there were very few campers.  The next morning we decided to drive around Lake Tahoe in the truck.  Heading west from the park, we climbed up to the top of a mountain above Emerald Lake, thank goodness we didn’t put the 5th Wheel as some of the hairpin curves on the climb would have had us running over the back of the camper, they were so tight.  The view from the top was spectacular with the bay below us and Lake Tahoe in the distance.

The only island in Lake Tahoe is in Emerald Bay.  It is called Fannette and has rock tea house built on the very peak.  In the photo, a tour boat has come down the bay around the Island to the rock castle at the end and then cruised back out of the bay.

We drove  on up the western side of the lake past several of the large ski areas including  Hollywood, Alpine and Squaw Valley (home of the 1960 Winter Olympics).

Up around the north end of the lake past Incline Village and down the eastern side, we stopped for lunch at Zephur Cove  and strolled the beach.  The lake was beautiful blue.  On south we passed the numerous Casinos at Stateline and under the slopes of Heavenly Valley ski area.  Soon we were back to park where the 5th Wheel was waiting for the next leg of our trip home.

MOAB, UTAH & the NATIONAL PARKS

CANYON LANDS NATIONAL PARK

We left Lake Tahoe on Highway 50 through Carson City then east and north to reach Interstate 80.  We stopped overnight in Elko, Nevada and then again in Green River, Utah before driving into Moab in the morning of October 11th.  We decided that we wanted to see all the National Parks in the area so we drove back north to the entrance of Canyonlands.

Canyonlands National Park is approximately 35.6 miles north to south, 22.5 miles east to west and extends over 500 square miles of untamed and untraveled canyons. Canyonlands was formed by the erosion of the native sandstone by the Colorado and Green rivers where they come together to form the mighty Colorado river which made the Grand Canyon.

The park is separated into two areas, northern is called ‘Isle in the Sky’ and is up on the plateau above the canyons formed by the Colorado and Green rivers. Therefore all of the vistas from the park paved roads look down.  The first overlook is just past the Visitor Center looking down toward Moab as the Colorado river cuts through the sandstone bluffs into the park.  The canyon has incredible colors of rust reds, creams, lime greens and far off blues and purples.

Along the road, the rocks form unusual shapes that remind you of other things such as the arch along the right which looks like a mouse head touching the bluff face.  Up here the rocks are a lighter tan sandstone with stripes of darker tan to redish and even grey to black.

Juniper trees grow in the crevasses of the rocks on the tops of the bluffs.  The winter snows and winds twist them into unusual shapes.

It is a wonder that they can survive in these harsh climates of summer heat and dryness and winter cold, snow and winds.

Further down the plateau, we found another pullout to the overlook of Buck Canyon.  Here the cuts by the Colorado river have left deep secondary canyons in the lower plateau.  It was interesting to see the many 4 x 4 roads and trails left over for years on the  lower plateau.  Canyonlands National Park has hundreds of miles of unpaved roads and trails that explore the canyon bottoms.  These roads lead to Indian Cliff dwellings, Indian petroglyphs, natural arches and unlimited beauty.

As we turned to the west on the upper plateau, the canyons are formed by the Green River coming down north from Utah and Wyoming’s Flaming Gorge and Teton mountains. The Green river had cut into the sedimentary layers and sandstone rocks to create cliffs and canyons every bit as deep and beautiful as the Colorado.

Typical of the vistas along the drive was the Steamboat butte and Steeple Rock, a pinnacle of hard sandstone left as the water washed away the softer layers of sediment and stone.

We drove south onto the top of a bluff overlooking the Green river canyon.  The National Park Service had built viewing platforms on the rock surfaces at the edge of the cliffs with stone abutments and wooden railings for safety.

They were needed as the drop from the edge of stone abutments was 250 feet straight down to the floor of the canyon.

In the background, the cream sandstone buttes were rounded and sliced off by a glacier that once covered this area.  Note that Canyonlands also has a half dome.

On the way back to the Colorado side of the Isle of the Sky, these cliffs of orange sandstone formed the break between the Green and Colorado rivers.  In the distance at the left edge of the photo, the Green river flows into the Colorado adding it’s strength to carve the Grand Canyon.  Beyond this point, the Glen Canyon and Lake Powell starts.

That was where we would head the next day to visit the lower half of Canyonlands called the ‘Needles’.

We left ‘Isle of the Sky’ in mid-afternoon and decided to visit the many petroglyph sites along the Colorado river before it enters the National Park.  The rock cliffs along the river are a prime area for finding petroglyphs, Indian drawings carved into the rock surfaces.  The cliff faces have been coated by dark ‘desert varnish’ caused by rain water leaching out the minerals above the faces creating a dark layer on the surface.   The Indians, in this case the Ute Indians then used other rocks to chip or scrape the surface  through the coating of varnish allowing the lighter rock to show through to create a drawing.  Petroglyph drawings have been found all over the western states depicting the Indians in their native costumes, symbols of water holes or direction to locations and of many animals including mountain sheep, buffalo, horses, dogs and in the above case a bear.  This bear is unusual because of it’s size. It is approximately six feet long and three feet wide.  Also visible are mountain sheep, symbols and even a hunter with bow and arrow at the nose of the bear.

Further along the river was an unusual arch called ‘Jug Handle Arch’.  Note the three climbers on the face of the handle.

Below the handle in an area where the rock was coated with ‘desert varnish’ were another series of petroglyphs.  Note again the Indian with the bow and arrow obviously shooting at the deer, also the two figures of Indians in costume.

As we were leaving the area for the drive back to Moab, the sun was going down in the west and shed it’s orange glow on the chalk bluffs on the opposite side of the river.  It was obvious that the Ute Indians inhabited this region extensively in the past.  Both sides of the river had areas where the rock walls were protected adequately to retain the desert varnish coating and most of these area were covered with petroglyphs.  It would have been an ideal location with plenty of water, game and fish.

THE NEEDLES

The next day we drove south from Moab to visit the lower half of Canyonlands National Park called ‘the Needles’.  On the way we passed a beautiful arch along the side of the road.  The sun was shinning on the back side and illuminating the opening.  We reached the turnoff to the park several miles south of the arch and proceeded west toward the Needles.

As we reached a winding river area, there was a parking area for Newspaper Rock which turned out to be a large outcropping of sandstone, the lower portion darkened with desert varnish and covered with

Indian petroglyphs.  This rock had a huge number of drawings of about every type that I have seen, thus the name ‘Newspaper Rock’!  There are horses with Indians riding and shooting, buffalo, sheep, deer, dogs, figures and lots of symbols.  The petroglyphs were in excellent conditions due to the care the Park had given them by blocking off any intrusion by vandals.

The Isle in the Sky was on the the top of the canyon and we were looking down on the bluffs and cut canyons.  The Needles is down on the floor of the canyon and now we were driving on the floor of those canyons looking up at the bluff.

As we drove into the canyon floor, we began to see the spires rising into the air.  The floor level where we were driving was a dry grass meadow with a small river running it’s length toward the Colorado river.  The red bluff rose a couple hundred feet to the next level where these two spires had eroded to needle shapes.  Both needles were only a mile or so apart.

Red Butte was the end of a rock outcropping that extended several miles along the park road.

Further into the park the rock color began to change to more tans and browns.  Wooden Shoe arch was unique in that it looked sculpted out of the softer tan sandstone, but it was huge and sat on top of a long bluff over looking the valley floor.

Beyond Wooden Shoe we entered Mushroom Park where water had eroded the softer sandstone away from under slightly hard stone domes.

Typical of this area was the Kissing Arch with two of these domes  just touching each other is if in a kiss.

And the funny looking pinnacle among a stand of rock mushrooms that looked like the head of a bird.  The valley floor in this area was covered with these eroded pinnacles in all kinds of shapes.  The paved road through the Needles Park was a very small part of the National Park, but it was impossible to travel into the other areas without a 4 wheel drive vehicle.  Also you were not allowed to drive off the paved roads without obtaining a permit from the National Park Service at the Visitors Center.  This was primarily to assure that campers and hikers were not lost in this vast primitive area.  A vehicle break down or getting stuck in the loose sand of a river bed could be very dangerous.

The Needles  was a long bluff of pinnacles  that had been eroded over the millennial along the southern horizon.  Unfortunately the paved road didn’t lead to there.

NATURAL BRIDGES NATIONAL MONUMENT

After leaving The Needles of Canyonlands National Park, we drove south toward four corners on Highway 191 with the idea of then taking Highway 95 west and north to the second of the National Parks in the Moab area, Capitol Reef.  However, on the way up 95, we  took a side road over to the National Monument called ‘Natural Bridges’.  It was an interesting and beautiful side trip.

The distinction between an arch and a natural bridge seems to be that a river or stream carves out a bridge and

continues to run through it whereas an arch is carved by wind and water, but a stream or river does not run through it.  I am not sure what constitutes a National Park verses a National Monument; however, to us Natural Bridges was every bit as beautiful as a National Park.

Although the stream was not named under Sipapu and Kachina Bridges, they were cut by the water flowing down White Canyon.  Note that Sipapu is considered a young bridge in the sense that there is still a great deal of rock surrounding the opening thus it will take a great deal more erosion before the bridge is broken.

Just down White canyon from Sipapu Bridge is the remains of a Puebloan cliff dwelling called ‘Horse Collar Ruins’.  Approximately 900 years ago, Mesa Verde cliff dwellers populated this region building their homes in the cliff crevasses near water.  As the region became more arid, the people moved further south.

Closeup views of the ruins show a group of rock building ruins with a door outline.  The right photo shows a covered rock area behind the large rocks in front and two round rooms in fairly good condition still standing.  This was the only ruins visible in the area as far as we were told.

Upstream views of Kachina Natural Bridge were difficult to obtain without walking quite a distance so we decided to photograph Kachina from the downstream side.  Actually Kachina was very similar to Sipapu although it was narrower and taller.  Also this bridge is more fragile as the bridge above the opening is much thinner. This was a beautiful bridge though with expansive shelves of rock along sides below our viewing position. There were trails which led down to the stream.

However, the trails were steep and it was a long distance to the stream below.  Further along the road we saw an outcropping of rock from the side of the bluff thatlooked like an Indian Head even to the long nose and high cheekbones.

Owachomo Natural Bridge was formed by the streams coming down Armstrong and Tuma canyons; however, over time the streams have either dried up or diverted to a different area leaving the bridge dry.  The bridge is considered old as the upper rock bridge is very thin and may someday break down.  Looking closely at the photograph you can see several major cracks across the span of the bridge.

Although the Monument is small, it is a beautiful place and well worth the trip to spend time there.  It would be interesting to walk the trails to the canyon floor to see the bridges up close and to look at the cliff dwellings.

Capitol Reef National Park

After leaving the Natural Bridges, we drove across Glen Canyon at the head waters of Lake Powell heading north on 95 towards Hanksville and the cutoff to Capitol Reef.  By this time is was getting late in the afternoon so we drove across the park stopping occasionally to take photos and hoping to reach the Visitor Center before it closed, but we didn’t make it.   Again the paved road allows a very limited view of the park, but we enjoyed the drive through the park.

Although the two photos above seem very dissimilar in terms of the rock formations, the photo of the mountain on the right is extension an extension of the Castle Mountain on the left.  That seemed to be the rule in Capitol Reef with significantly different colored and kinds of stone in the reefs.

Back down the road from the Visitor Center is the original school house for the children of the area.  There were several farming communities in the park area and just outside of the park boundaries.  None of these still use this school.  There is a small stream that the road follows through the park area and again located on the walls of the rock cliffs are petroglyphs from the original Indian inhabitants.

There were many buttes along the drive such as Organ Pipe with it’s variety of colored rock from the reds, oranges, creams and blacks.  The shear face of the mountain was evidence of the streams force in eroding the wall or evidence of a glacier that carved the face.

Again on the other side of the stream is a shearing of the face of the rock butte.  This is also a reef area where the shearing of the rock faces can also occur

by one side of the reef grinding against the other and as the rock is pushed upward, the shaved faces become visible.

Along the stream, the rock faces provide beautiful shapes and colors to enjoy on our drive.  The setting sun added to the colors and the shadows.  Again along these walls were Indian Petroglyphs.  There were large numbers of them, but the weather and rain had eroded them to the point that many were barely visible.

Partway through the Park was this old cabin where the Behunin family lived and farmed.  Here is there story:

In 1882 Elijah Behunin and his family built this cabin, and Behunin was one of the first settlers in the area.

A family of ten lived here.  Braided rugs covered the dirt floor.  Ends of dress materials became curtains.  There was a fireplace to cook in, and a water supply near the door.  The family probably ate outside.

Father, mother and the two smallest children slept in the cabin.  The post bed almost filled one side of the room.  By widening a dugout in the cliff, the older boys had a place to sleep.  The girls made a bed in an old wagon.  They only lived here a few years before storms and floods had destroyed their gardens and fields forcing them to move on to higher ground.

The early pioneers obviously were very hardy individuals!  As we left the park, the sun was setting.  We drove back to I-70, then to Highway 191 on our way back to Moab and our camper.  We had driven over 500 miles on the tour and seen two National Parks and a National Monument.

ARCHES NATIONAL PARK

We had visited ‘Isle of the Sky’ above  the canyon floor, but at the same elevation of Moab.  Then we visited the canyon floor at ‘The Needles’ and ‘Capitol Reef’.  Now we climbed up over 1000 feet to the Arches National Park.  Our first view of the beautiful buttes, pinnacles,spires and arches of dark red sandstone were called ‘Park Avenue’.  We stopped for a photograph then drove around the buttes where the high elevation (4800 feet) valley led us off to the arches.

On our left as we drove along the park road was a group of pinnacles that had been named ‘Three Gossips’.

On the right was a butte called ‘Courthouse Towers’ which rose out of the valley floor over 250 feet.

The road climbed up into the Windows Section of the Park. Just before the turnoff to the

Garden of Eden were a group of pinnacles with the center one called ‘Balanced Rock’.  It certainly wouldn’t take much of a shake for it to be unbalanced!  Driving up through the Garden of Eden we saw the butte with the North and South Windows.

The Park Service has built a parking area and gravel walking paths up to each of the arches and off to the right side where the Turret Arch was located in another butte.

Although he is difficult to see, the tiny black figure at the black bottom of the arch is a man.  It gives you a reference to the height of the arch.   There were walking paths to the base of the arch and then you could climb up through the rocks at the base.

The arches are beautiful with their bright red-orange stone and carved shapes.  We walked under the South arch, then around to the back side of both Window arches.  The trail around the back was not as well developed, but it was fun seeing the arches from both sides.

From the Garden of Eden, we drove out to the Wolfe Ranch.  Although we didn’t walk to the top of the bluff (a three mile hike up 500 feet in elevation).  Us old blue-hairs just took a photo from the lower viewing area.

Wolfe Ranch was interesting with it’s log cabin soddy (although now covered with tar paper), a semi-cellar and post-rail corral.  There was also a rock outcropping near the ranch with  Indian petroglyphs carved into it.

We took the left photo from the road and then drove through the Devil’s Garden campground to the back side of the bluff.  I climbed up a sand dune to the back side of  Skyline Arch.  The sun shinning through the arch was interesting.

An unusual arch was hidden in between these rocks on the left.  It was almost as if these pointed rocks were pushed up out of the earth with gaps between them.  We walked through the gaps to reach the Sand dune arch.  The arch was actually the color shown in the photo on the right.  The yellow-orange rock which formed the touching arch was backed by of one of the pinkish-red pointed rocks. The Sand Dune arch rock was  lit by the sun, causing the sand and rock to glow.  There were eight more arches in the Devil’s Garden on a seven mile trail.  The parking lot was crowded and cars were parked illegally along the side of the road.  Neither of us felt up to a 7 mile walk in the middle of the afternoon.  It was sunny and warm and we decided that we had seen enough arches for one trip.  We will leave them for the next time.

I saved this one arch from the Garden of Eden area for the final photo from Arches National Park.  It is called ‘Double Arch’ and in our eyes was the most beautiful and interesting arch in the Park.

From Moab we drove back to Kansas with a short stop in Castle Rock, Colorado to meet some of Jan’s friends that she knew when she and Kyle lived there.   We arrived home on the 16th of October a week ahead of a snow storm that dumped on the Colorado mountains and closed I-70.   We were happy to be home and plan to stay for the winter.

See you next summer!