GOOD TO BE HOME

(Don't forget you can double click any pic to make it larger)

We returned to the US on March 28th. 

Waiting at the airport

Collins & I were happy to be back.  Snuggles doesn’t much care where she is, so long as we are with her.  She is the best traveling dog ever!  She sleeps most of the time we travel & adapts really well to where ever we take her.  She may not be the happiest dog when we arrive at my brother & sister-in-law’s house because they have 2 dogs of their own, so Snuggles isn’t Queen Bee anymore.  However, she has gotten used to them & basically just ignores them.


Karen, Daughter Pam, Mom & Niece Jamie

We spent about 2 1/2 weeks in IL.  It was good being there.  My mom was there from FL the first week, so she got to celebrate Easter with all the family. 

Granddaughters Becca & Katie

Son in law Aaron, Daughter Pam & Mom

Collins & I also had time to spend with our kids & grandkids. 




















Eric, husband of niece Katie, her dad Brian & my Sister Diane

Granddaughter Becca, Grandsons Tyler & Ryan

Since it was Easter, some of the kids had fun coloring eggs.

Niece Courtney, GD Becca, Niece Megan, Sister Colette



Grandson Danny

Mom, Katie & Courtney

Niece Jamie & my sister Colette



Tyler & Ryan

Son in Law Dave & GS Tylere

Daughter Paula & GS Danny

Becca

We even made it to a couple of baseball/softball games.  Unfortunately, Tyler was sick, so we didn't get to any of his games.

Becca

 

Danny

GS Ryan

Ryan

Ryan

Becca in her birthday outfit

We really enjoyed the time we spent there.  I even had a chance to take Becca shopping for her birthday.










April 17th it was time to start our journey “home”.  We left the RV parked outside Tacoma, Washington, which was 2100 miles from IL.  Since we don’t like to start our journey too early ( 9 AM is about our style) & we didn’t like to drive at night, we knew it would take us 4 days to reach our destination.  We were very surprised when we turned on the news before going to bed in Sioux Falls, IA to learn we could have 6-8” of snow when we woke the next morning.  Luckily for us, the storm was slow in arriving & we only had a dusting when we woke.  We had some snow on the road that morning, but by afternoon the sun was shinning.  From there we had pretty good weather until we hit the mountains in Washington, where it was raining.  We were happy to arrive at our destination safe & sound.  We had decided to stay in a cabin at the campground for Sat & Sunday because we were taking the RV for new front tires & some other checks on Monday & didn’t feel like setting everything up & taking it all down again. 

Collins checks out the RV

We did go to the storage lot on Sunday & removed the cover.  Thankfully, everything was fine & the RV even started on it’s own.  I thought for sure we’d have to call for a jump start.

Collins on the roof of the RV removing the cover

Monday morning we took the RV for new front tires & got the suspension checked.  Tires for this baby are expensive, but with the upcoming trip to Alaska we thought it was a good idea.  Everything else was fine!
At last, we took it back to the campground we stayed in last fall & started the job of unpacking.  The biggest problem was that we were going on a cruise to the inside passage of Alaska in a week & I had to figure out what to take for that & I couldn’t really put the luggage away.  We were also putting the RV back in storage while we were gone, so everything had to be put away to move it again. 

We also took the time to visit Rhododendron Park.  It had Rhodys of every size & color you could imagine.  Being former gardeners we really enjoyed it

April 30th we put the RV back in storage & went to Vancouver, Canada.  We decided to go a day early so we could do a little sight seeing.  We thought Vancouver was a really nice city.  We toured Grandville Island the afternoon we arrived.  It’s kind of an eclectic area of shops, public market & boat docks. 

Stanley Park

Stanley Park

Since we weren’t scheduled to board our ship until 3PM, we were able to check out the downtown & Stanley Park.  Stanley Park is right on the water’s edge & has gardens, bike paths & so much more to see. 

Stanley Park

Stanley Park

We spent several hours driving & walking around it.  It was a beautiful park. 

Totem Poles at Stanley park



Our cruise ship



Our ship at the Vancouver Port 

By 3PM we were boarding our floating home for a week. 

Leaving Vancouver

Collins & I really aren’t “cruise” people, but we wanted to see the Inside Passage of Alaska.  We’d  heard so much about how beautiful it was.  We had lousy weather all but one day.  It rained, was cloudy & foggy.  Unfortunately, we often didn’t have much view of anything. 

We did usually get "dressed" for dinner, then we'd go to the piano bar for awhile in the evenings.

Downtown Juneau

Tram to mountain top in Juneau

It rained in Juneau, but we did take a tram to the top of a mountain. 

View of Juneau from tram

We were able to see out over the city, but we couldn’t walk the trails because there was still too much snow. 

Juneau



Collins & Snuggles meet a bear

Downtown Skagway

It also rained in Skagway, but we went to a couple of the museums & learned some on the history about the gold rush. 

We went to Glacier Bay, which was interesting.  We found the blue ice in the glaciers fascinating. 

Again, it was a cloudy day, so we weren’t able to see much of the surrounding mountains.   

The most ironic thing was the day we arrived in Ketchikan it was bright & sunny. 

They are one of the rainiest places in the world with an average of 12.5’ of rain a year. 





 

Houses on the creek

That day we took a tour of the city.  It was a quaint little town, but the only way in or out is by boat or plane.  It takes a special person to live there.  Juneau is the same way.

Ketchikan Waterfront

We arrived back in Vancouver the morning of May 8th & drove back to Tacoma to get our home out of storage again.  We were staying 5 days at the same campground, to give ourselves time to finally get fully unpacked, groceries & a few other odds & ends.

View from the walking path

May 13th we moved further north in Washington.  We’re staying on a Naval Air Station Base on Whidbey Island.  Whidbey Island is in Puget Sound. 

Bald Eagles

The campground at this base has been totally updated & is really nice.  It has nice level concrete pads with full hookups.  The best part is that it over looks the water.  The views are beautiful.  There are walking paths all around & there are bald Eagles here.  They are something to see. 
 

Flipflops found on the beach

The Camp Host has been here 10 years & he takes care of it as tho it was his own personal garden.  He is planting all kinds of flowers around the campground.  He is also very creative & has made “art” with the driftwood he has found on the beach. 

 

 

Swing on grass in front of our RV- Puget Sound on other side of fence

Park Art

Beware of the sea creature

The bad thing about this place is  there are a lot of airplanes flying over at all times of day & night.  Sometimes they do continuous touch & goes for hours at a time & sometimes til around 11:30 at night.  It’s so loud you can’t hear the TV or yourselves talking.  Luckily, they seem to have the weekends off.  This is a beautiful place, but I wouldn’t come back.

May 17th - We wanted to visit Victoria on Vancouver Island while we were here.  We watched the weather, hoping for a sunny day, which is a trick around here!  We finally had a forecast for a couple non rainy days to we decided to go.  It’s no easy fete to get there.  We had to go to a town about half hour away, then take the Ferry on a 3 hour trip.  There is only 1 trip each way, so we didn’t want to miss that Ferry.  Of course, it decided to rain. 

We arrived in Sidney, right next to Victoria and headed straight to another “wow” adventure by visiting Butchart Gardens. Over a hundred years ago a penniless emigrant became a self made millionaire &, to his wife’s credit & subsequent perusals by other family members, a 55 acre gravel pit & cement factory was transformed into their residential Paradise. 

Luckily, we had rain jackets & big umbrellas because it rained during our whole visit.






Although one thinks that all of Canada experiences severe Winters, some coastline locations are very mild; the Palms trees, used for adding a unique touch to selected beds in these gardens, demonstrates this is one of them. The climate is so perfect, & the efforts so great, that not only are there hundreds of garage size Rhododendrons in bloom with stunning colors we have never seen before, but hundreds more of other flowering trees, bushes &, of course, hundreds of thousands of flowers combined to overwhelm your senses. Fifty gardeners maintain these grounds, including large manicured lawns ensuring you can take in the big pictures of awe, as well as being astounded by all the little pictures that greet you around each twist in the paths. Summertime weekends include concerts & strategically placed night lights, transform the gardens into a whole different beauty. No matter how one extols the efforts required to bring in tons of dirt, as well as create a stream & pond within this old rock quarry, it is necessary to actually see it, to fully appreciate the stunning results. This was one of those moments where we were reminded just how fortunate we are to be venturing down our present road.  

Parliamentary Building

After spending several hours at the beautiful gardens, we set out for downtown Victoria.  There we were able to visit the Parliamentary Building, then took a bus tour around the city. 







Inside Parliamentary Building

Inside Parliamentary Building

We drove thru a park that had Peacocks wandering around

It’s right on the harbor & a stop for many cruise ships.  We had decided to  take the tour & go back the next day to see the other things of interest.  We were staying overnight in Victoria. 

On Sat. we went to Craigdarroch Castle.  It was built in the 1890’s by a wealthy coal baron, Robert Dunsmuir,a Scottish immigrant who actually Insout as a miner himself.  they say he spent around $500,000 building it & died the year before it was finished. 

His widow & family lived there for many years.  It reminded us of the Biltmore, in North Carolina, in some ways.  It’s not a large, but it’s opulence is reflected in the four floors of exquisite stained glass windows, intricate woodwork and fabulous Victorian era Furnishings.  The paneling going up the staircases was absolutely beautiful. 

It had great views of Victoria & the water.  It has over 20,000’ of interior space & is in the process of being restored.  We spent several hours wandering thru it. 

Before we caught the Ferry back to Washington, we wandered around Fisherman’s Wharf. 

The most interesting part of that were all the “house” boats docked there.  Some of them looked just like houses. 

We then took a water taxi back to our car, waiting at the Ferry Dock. 

We did a lot of sightseeing in a short period of time, but we didn’t want to go thru the “Ferry” thing a second time.  It was long & expensive.

May 31^st. From the beginning of our journeys, we set a goal to visit the four corners of the contiguous United States. Having visited the first three in prior years, all that remained was the northwest… Cape Flattery, WA.



After waiting 8 days for sunshine, we finally got our opportunity to visit this corner. One first has to understand that the other three corners were easy to reach by car & perhaps a few hundred feet of walking .

Here comes the Ferry

Thinking the same was occurring here, we set forth on the 3 ½ hour drive, plus half hour by ferry .

Us on the Ferry

What we didn’t know was the narrow roads had been laid out by a drunken surveyor who couldn’t see more than a few hundred feet at a time. Hence, we snaked our way to Cape Flattery where events took a turn for the worse. While a sign stated the “corner” was a mere ½ mile down the trail, we later determined that distance was “as the crow flies”. Not being crows, we took the longer route. The trail starts off wide, graveled & with a minor downward pitch. However, once on the trail it quickly becomes narrow, muddy & at least an 8 degree drop. It’s interesting how two people experiencing the same event see things differently: all the way down this trail, Karen was extolling the beauty of the huge trees, birds singing & sounds of a bubbling brook. I, on the other hand, kept thinking how this was going to be a bitch of a climb back. In the end, Snuggles agreed with me. To better appreciate the length of the trail, it’s necessary to understand we went thru 3 temperate zones. At the trail head it was large pine & red wood trees with dappled sunlight; in the center was a dense rain forest, huge ferns & no sunlight.

Us at Cape Flattery- The most northwest spot of the contiguous US

And finally, trails end has you a hundred feet above the coast looking across Puget Sound to Victoria  Island, Canada. Couldn’t help but think of Sarah &, instead of Canada, her gazing on Russia.

Tonnish Island across from Cape Flattery

Although the scenery was beautiful, it was a very long day.  Luckily, we made the ferry by 15 minutes, otherwise, we would have had to wait another hour and 45 minutes.
During our 2 weeks on Whidbey Island, we were preparing for our great summer journey to Canada & Alaska.  We did some last minute maintenance, stocked up on some of our favorite groceries & laid out our trip route.  We had decided not to make campground reservations, since we weren’t sure what the roads would be like, or where we might want to spend more time.  We had purchased “The Milepost”, which is supposed to be the bible of Alaska travel.  It tells you everything, mile by mile.  What no one tells you, is that it is the most confusing guidebook you’ll ever read.  To begin with, there are several routes you can take in & out.  This book jumps all over the place.  As an example, one day our maps were on pages 92 & 93 & information was on pages 102-116.  The next day, the maps were on pages 235-236 and the information 253-272.  I was ready to tear my hair out, because I am the navigator.  I had little tabs of paper with notes all thru the book.  Finally, Collins suggested we lay it all out on a spread sheet.  What a wonderful idea that turned out to be!!  Funny thing, a few days before we were to leave, we got two new neighbors who were leaving for Canada/Alaska the day after we were.  We all commented on how crazy the Milepost book was.  I told them what we had done & offered them a copy.  Needless to say, I saved them hours of hair pulling. 

Stay tuned for the next installation of our Canadian/Alaskan Adventures!!