2020/06/15 - Monday - Vacation - Day 04 - Snow

We left on our usual time of 9.  Our first stop was at a DMV, but they wanted me to wait in a long line just to use the kiosk, so I left and headed over to a different kiosk to get the necessary tags for the RV.

Next stop was at a Walmart at the next town up the road.  We then stopped at a Costco Gas to fill up the RV.

Once we reached I-5, the next rest area we stopped for lunch.

We stopped in Weed to get more gas for the RV.

Once we stopped for the night, we unload the van and headed further north to Crater Lake.  By the time we got to the top it was foggy and snow/ice was blowing around.  We could not see the lake and the East Rim Drive was also closed, so no going all the way around.  After taking several photo shots, we headed back to the south entrance area and had dinner.

Back to RV to relax and get ready for the next day of driving...

2013/07/09 – Tuesday – Vacation - Day 19 - Hikes and Exploring

After getting up, we needed a few items from the store, so a shopping we went.

Once we got everything gathered up, we headed out for our first hike of the day.  Once we determined which one to do, we headed that way to Mossy Cave Trail hike.  This canyon had some water running in it.  Once at the location of the two items, we explored around the waterfall and then over to the “Cave”, which was an overhang with water trickling under through the moss.  That hike was about 1 mile round trip and we spent about 30 minutes there.

Next hike was at the far Southern tip of the park, called Bristlecone Loop Trail.  We finally got there and started our hike.  It is on the rim of the area.  The hike was about 1.1 miles round trip and we spent about 45 minutes exploring the area.

We returned to the RV for lunch and we wanted to make sure Turquoise was ok, and he was.

The last hike of the day for us was going to be moderate.  We headed back into the park and started the Navajo Loop Trail.  This trail starts at the top of the rim and head downhill. The view going down and going up are really cool with high cliff walls and very tall trees growing between very tight canyons.  The climb up was steep with a lot of switchbacks and we had to go through a small “tunnel” more like an arch along the route.  The hike was about 2.2 miles and it took us about 1.5 hours.

Now that everybody was tired, we still haven’t done all the viewing areas on long the route, so we returned to the southern end and proceeded to stop at all the viewing areas all the way back to the main entrance. 

We stopped at the visitor center so Amanda could get her JR Ranger booklet reviewed and she can get her badge this makes it her 55^th completed.

We started looking for a place for dinner and we finally decided on a place about 3 miles out of town.  The food was good, but it is not that cheap.

Before heading back to the RV, I decided to head out for a little adventure down a dirt road to a reservoir.  On the way there I had to hit the brakes hard because a doe ran across the road.  Once at the reservoir we made our way around the lake, we were able to see deer, a spring, and ducks with ducklings

Back at the RV, Turquoise is still not 100%, so we had to do a little cleaning up.

Offloading all the photos for the day will take a while.

Tonight I was told to make sure my light-stick was turned off because it is after “quite hours”.  I guess my light shines to bright.

2011/04/30 - Saturday - Sugarloaf Fun

After our cold night we got ready to go for an off-roading trip.  We found a seat for Amanda so she could have fun also.

We got going and started up the road into the mountains.  It didn't take long to hit some snow on the road.  Our leader hit a section that they had a little problem but got through it, by the time L hit that section we could not get out of the ditch, so he let out more air out of our tires to get better traction.  Finally he was able to get going again.

The trail finally had snow on it at all times (as we were getting higher), but the roads had a lot of nogles so it was somewhat slow going. 

We where having fun, almost everybody had to winch at one time or another - they would sink into the snow and could not go any further, so winching was required.  I had to pull winch lines several times for a few of the guys.

We got within sight of the lookout on Sugarloaf, but only three jeeps in the group made it there, we made it to the last part of the road, but we turned down the very steep bank and headed back down the road.

During the time near the top, two Jeeps had problems.  One had some type of clutch problem, and another had some type of electrical problem (but fixed good enough to continue without any problems).

On the way back, we tried to go to another hill top, but the snow was getting to soft.  While L was turning around we herd a loud (and felt) bang, after looking outside, I could see a broken peace.  After checking we broke the passenger front axle and later we found out we also broke the other axle.

We made it back to the camping location and got ready for dinner.

Dinner was good with fun time around the camp fire.

We also got a full tank of propane so hopefully we will have good warm night sleep - which we did!

2008/01/25 – Friday – What to do tomorrow

I think I will still do what I did for work, but I now sure how detailed I will get on the day-to-day things. I will tag what I have done; so looking at the tags will get some of things I/the family did that day.

Lunch was at the bar with friends

We went out for dinner at a little at a little chain place – it was a ok place, not sure I want to go back…

Well, I talked with the J&L A. about going up to their place, but he said they were snowed in and strongly suggested we don’t try it. I did call around to find some 33” chains, but nobody had any in stock. I need to buy a pair (actually I two pairs).

If you looked at the picture a day – I got a good flower shot of the peach tree. But over half of the tree does not have any blossoms; hopefully the rest of the tree is ok.