2011 Pacific Northwest Summary

In the summer of 2011 we explored the US Pacific Northwest, mainly Oregon and Washington State but hitting Glacier, Yellowstone and Badlands National parks on the way back home.

Click here for the first interesting post of the trip

The map below marks the major places we visited. If you click on a marker you will get a link to the first post for that area.

View Travels Summer 2011 in a larger map

Favourite Days

While almost everyday of the trip was great and I encourage you to look at them all, these are the ones I consider the most memorable. 

If you click on the picture you will be taken the post for the day

Crater Lake NP	Olympic NP	Mount Rainier Railway	Glacier NP
Yellowstone NP	Badlands NP	North Cascades NP	Grand Coulee

Statistics

4 1/2 months or 140 days since we left home (May 10 – Sep 26). Together with last year that makes about 250 days we have stayed in the RV.

Stayed in 13 states, travelled through 4 more

37 campgrounds

9900 pictures saved (who know how many taken, at least double)

Distances

1. 14000 km on the RV
2. 12000 km on the CRV just in day trips. Wow.
3. 320 km walking

Money

1. $4000 in gas for the RV
2. $1000 in gas for the CRV
3. $4200 in campground fees or about $30 a day
4. As we mostly do no cost stuff like hiking during the day we only spent about $400 on extras like the dune buggy’s and the Lake Chelan cruise.
5. $80 for National Parks/Monuments annual pass (I think we got our money’s worth)
6. $30 for Oregon state parks annual pass
7. $30 for Washington state parks annual pass
8. I didn’t calculate food because we would have had to buy that at home
9. We also ate out about as much as when at home.

Sep 28 - Backyard

Definitely the last post, I promise, but I had to show this picture.

This is what happens when you ignore your backyard for the summer.

I have some heavy duty pruning to do.

I had a kid doing the front lawn but to save money I told him to ignore the back.

Sep 24-26 – To Home

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On Saturday and Sunday We got an idea as to how much corn is grown. Two days and 750 miles / 1200 km of almost continuous corn fields as far as the eye can see. There were even some in Michigan.
There is not much else to say other than the RV took a beating on some of the sections of the interstate. You can drive for miles on smooth highway and then all of sudden there are potholes everything and I worry that the RV is going to shake itself apart. Very tiring.
Today, we got home about 3:30 pm today.
A crazy day weather wise. Last night it was so windy that there were small branches from the tree over the RV falling on the roof all night. I worried about the solar panels but no damage.
We got on the road and the wind was still quite strong but worst of all it was gusty so I never knew when I was going to be blown around. And then for good measure it started pouring. I have to say that this morning we had the worst weather we have seen all trip. It was a very tiring drive.
We outran the storm at London and moved into clear sunny skies. It was nice to get home in the sun and to be able to unload stuff. The storm is coming our way and the weather looks bad for the rest of the week.
We also discovered the cheapest gas we have seen yet, $3.22 a US gallon or about 85 cents a litre, in Flint Michigan. We usually have been paying in the 3.70 to 3.90 range, which is still very good compared to Canadian prices.
Customs was also a breeze.

1. How long have you been away
2. Where have you been
3. Anything to declare
4. Thank you

And now to collapse for a few days…
Tomorrow I will do one more post of some summary statistics and that will be it for this year.

Sep 23 – To Worthington, Minnesota

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A long mind numbing straight drive across South Dakota. We drove for 7 hours today just because there didn’t seem to be any point in stopping.

We did stop once in Mitchell, South Dakota at another one of those places that everyone says you must see, once. The Corn Palace.

Every year the town spends about $100,000 to decorate the outside and some of the inside, entirely with different kinds and colours of corn. They say it draws 500,000 tourists into town each year so I guess it is worth it.

On the inside is a basketball court and bleachers and more murals.

We had to buy some popcorn.

Tonight we are Wal-Mart “camping”.

On another note, all trip we have been wondering where the Canadians are. We like to watch license plates on the road and in parking lots. Up until last week we had not seen a single Canadian plate from east of Alberta. We see all kinds of American plates from the eastern states so it is not just the driving distance.

At a lot of the ranger talks in the parks they ask where everyone is from. Not once has there been another Canadian.

Even in Washington state we would only see the occasional BC plate and we have seen less than 10 Alberta plates, no Saskatchewan and last week  1 Manitoba, 1 Quebec, 6 Ontario motorcycles, 1 Rv and 3 cars. Nothing at all from father east. Where is everybody?

Sep 22 – Badlands National Park

So sad. This was our last day of sightseeing before we make a beeline for home. It seem appropriate that it is also the last day of summer.

Another long post with lots of pictures. There are just so many interesting formations here.

Our campsite. There are so few trees here they have to build these shelters over the picnic tables to give you at least a bit of shade in the afternoon.

First up was the Notch Trail. It was another bad one for Jennie. Right in the description “Not for those with a fear of heights” but she was game so off we went. It starts out easy enough.

Then comes the ladder. Again it starts out easy enough but the top is almost vertical.

 

Then you climb along a ledge with the gully below.

and then up a small slot to the notch for the view.

In this park you are actually allowed to hike anywhere, I guess because you can’t hurt much other than yourselves so we did a bit of exploring off the trail.

The view from where I was standing.

Working our way back.

We took the gully part of the way and then back down the ladder.

On to the Door Trail we started yesterday. It is called the door trail because it is a notch in the wall that you can go through. The Window Trail went to another notch with a steep cliff that you can just look and not go through.

At the end of the boardwalk you go out into this.

You must try to find these little yellow poles that tell you where the path is. It is very rocky so there is no obvious path, no one else was out to follow and the poles are very hard to see. There is one just right of center below.

But wow…

One formation looked like a little pulpit. It seemed appropriate.

Next we went back to all the viewpoints on the Badlands Loop Road that we skipped yesterday when we were in the RV.

The road follows “The Wall” for its 30 km length . On top is a grassland prairie going as far as the eye can see.

Then the eroded cliffs.

and at the bottom another prairie off to the horizon.

The dust trail is from a truck on a dirt road.

One section had this red and yellow clay.

What little vegetation was ugly but there were a few flowers.

And so our trip is essentially over. Sigh!

I figure it will take us 4 days to get home, mostly on the interstate highways so probably not a lot of interesting sights.

I will do some posts just for the record and then then a final summary of trip statistics when we get home.

Sep 21 – To Badlands National Park

Yesterday was sunny but cold and very windy. We had seen everything on our must see list in the Black Hill so we took a day off.

Today we drove to the Cedar Pass Campground inside Badlands National Park. I was worried that we would have no internet here but Verizon came through again.

Click to to a map of our drive

On the way we passed Wall, South Dakota home of the famous Wall Drugs Store. It seems like every mile for 100 miles on either side of it there are billboards telling you to stop in. It grew from a simple drugstore offering free ice water to travelers in the 30’s to a block sized complex of stores. Even knowing it was a huge tourist trap, all the blogs I read had talked about it so we had stop stop. Even mid week in late September it was busy.

I had read and we had heard from several people that going to the Badlands after Yellowstone might be a bit of a letdown. It might not have the colour but all the different formations are just fascinating. We had only planned to stay one night but changed our minds and will stay two so we can really check this place out tomorrow.

After we entered the park with the RV we stopped at the first viewpoint. This greeted us.

But the view …

This convinced us that we had to stay longer. Now rather than trying to fit the RV into all the viewpoint parking lots we went straight to the campground knowing we would be back tomorrow with the CRV. We also checked the weather to make sure it was good (mobile internet is wonderful).

After we dropped the RV at the campsite, we went to the visitor’s center, watched a movie and got more brochures.

We had been told the views are much better when the sun is low in the evening or morning so we went back to the RV, had a nap and around 5 we went out to do a few of the very short hikes.

This is the view from our campsite.

and from above back down to the campground.

First we did the Cliff Shelf Trail with view to the west, back down into the valley.

Next we did the Window Trail to a small notch in the ridge wall with views to the south.

There were a lot of rabbits near the trail. There is a lot of life in this seemingly barren area.

Finally we did a small part of the Door Trail to another viewpoint east.

The trail continues after the boardwalk for a 1 km loop out into the badlands. There are just yellow posts to follow every once in a while.

A sign said to be careful as a lot of people get lost here. Since the sun was getting low we decided this could wait until tomorrow.

Back to the RV and a final shot of the view.