#50 - Coveys Great Adventure - October 2018 - Nehalem, Oregon

#50 - October 2018 - Nehalem, Oregon

Park central 

Arriving back at Nehalem Bay State Park feels a little like coming home. This is our fourth time camp hosting here, and we are always assigned the same site. When the park’s entrance station closes for the season on October first our coach and camp host sign are about the first things visitors see when they pull into the campground.  Some campers are old hands at the State’s self registration procedure, but many others appreciate a friendly face to help them pick a site, buy firewood, find local attractions and services and answer a very wide range of questions about the park and the area.

Let's do the time warp again...

We are supposed to be on duty about 20 hours a week, but we usually get the first visitor around 9 am and often see the last one close to 9 pm, give or take an hour either way. It makes for long days, but it also makes the time fly by. We both enjoy meeting the people and helping make the most of their stay at the park.

It’s hard to overstate how much the dogs like coming here. I don’t know what they like more; the deer casually strolling through the campground, or the beach where they can run off leash until they can’t run anymore. As soon as we pull off US 101 they start to perk up. By the time we get to the park they are pretty excited and can’t wait for us to get unhooked and set up in the site: “take us to the beach, please, please, hurry up!”

I’ve covered camp hosting, the park and the surrounding area pretty thoroughly in past posts, so here are some new pictures that show why we look forward to returning here every year.

The neighbors stop by (resident elk herd)

Haute cuisine on the north coast

Is it beach time yet?

More soon,

Bob

#49 – Coveys Great Adventure – September 2018 – WY, UT, ID, OR

#49 – September 2018 – WY, UT, ID, OR

We are finally slowing down; just four states and ten campgrounds this month.

We don’t do much detailed planning anymore. We used to, but after a couple of years we got pretty cavalier about making reservations more than one campground ahead. This summer, though, we have been quite surprised at the number of new RV’ers on the road. Lots of other geezers have decided to buy a trailer or motorhome and (queue Steppenwolf) “head out on the highway, looking for adventure.” RV sales are at record levels, but there are few new camp sites being added anywhere, so the competition for space is getting pretty intense, especially for major attractions like the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, etc.

Wind River Canyon has several miles like this

We had intended to continue across Montana to Glacier National Park, but fires closed the park. Despite what I just said, we decided to try to visit Yellowstone and then Grand Teton on short notice, instead. None of the campgrounds that are actually within Yellowstone have sites long enough for Ripley, so I started looking at parks near Cody and the east entrance to Yellowstone. We finally found a site at Buffalo Bill State Park just west of Cody, but had a few days to fill before we could get in. For no particular reason we chose Boysen State Park’s Tough Creek Campground  in Shoshoni just to slooowww down for a bit, and to see that part of Wyoming.

Tough Creek Campground is on a peninsula jutting out into the Boysen Reservoir, which is formed by the Wind River. We almost had the place to ourselves, and picked a beautiful shaded site right on the shore of the lake. The dogs had the run of the shoreline around the whole campground off-leash, a real treat for them. The only negative were the swarms of bugs drawn to our lights. The screens just couldn’t keep them all out.

The drive from Thermopolis to Tough Creek Campground on US 20 through the Wind River canyon is very scenic. Boysen Reservoir is very large and surrounded by rolling ranch land that was pretty brown at this time of year. I’ll bet it’s spectacular in the spring and early summer. This area is pretty remote and fuel and food need to be planned. Thermopolis is the only big town around and it’s about 30 miles from the campground.

Searching for the perfect taco

It seems like everything within 50 miles of Cody is named “Buffalo Bill  <fill in the blank>”. We were underwhelmed with the state park at first, but it became one of our favorite places this trip. Despite what the reservation system claimed, the lake shore site we had reserved was too small for us and obstructed by trees that would have added even more scratches to Ripley’s battle-scarred flanks.

North Fork Campground

As we were trying to figure out what our options were, the park manager showed up, quickly agreed that we wouldn’t fit and sent us a few miles down the road to the park's North Fork Campground first-come-first-serve section. It turned out to be one of the best places we’ve stayed this year. The site was huge, surrounded by grass in a park-like setting along a river with pretty spectacular cliffs on two sides. No utilities, but we loved it and so did the dogs.

Cody is clearly a tourist town, and to be fair, it seems to do a good job at that. It is big enough to have all the services you need, a good thing because Lucy needed to see a vet. Stephanie White, DVM at Cody Veterinary Hospital was able to see us right away and prescribed some medications to treat her problem and to make the old girl more comfortable. If you need a vet in Cody, go see Dr. White.

Bubble, bubble, etc.

I should have spent more time looking at the map, because using Cody as a base to explore Yellowstone is sub-optimal, at best. Most of the popular sites within the park are much closer to  the west side than the east. It’s 100 miles from Buffalo Bill State Park to Old Faithful, all of it two-lane road. Two major road construction projects added significantly to the slow pace of the many gawkers who seemed to have no particular place to go and all year to get there. Despite being mid-September, Yellowstone looked full to me but I was assured that what I considered  crowds were nothing like what they had been before Labor Day. I can easily foresee the day when you’ll need to make reservations just to enter this park.

Old Faithful lived up to our expectations. It is really neat to see steam and boiling hot water come billowing up out of the ground, especially on a schedule. Kids of all ages were excited by the show. The visitor center has a pretty interesting movie about the geyser and the park that is worth seeing. We did see a moose, a long way off, but still, clearly a moose. No buffalo, but we had seen enough of them in South Dakota. The bears must have been taking a break after the busy summer season because we didn’t see any of them, either.

Colter Bay

If I’d spent more time planning and map reading, I’d have realized that Old Faithful is just 40 miles from the Colter Bay RV Park in Grand Teton National Park, our next stop. We had planned to stay at Gros Ventre Campground near Jackson, about 30 miles south of Colter Bay. The National Park Service website claimed that space was readily available at Gros Ventre after Labor Day. That site needs to be revised, because when we arrived on Wednesday afternoon two weeks after the holiday, there were no sites left for anything over 30’. Did I mention that RV sales to retirees had exploded? They may be sold out until the snow falls. We immediately got on the phone  and got the last spot at Colter Bay RV Park for three times what we planned to pay at Gros Ventre.

The cost aside, Colter Bay turned out to be a neat place to stay and a good base for exploring the area. Colter Village is on the shore of Jackson Lake, surrounded by forests and possessing a terrific view of the mountains that everyone flocks here to see. The general store/deli/gift shop/laundromat/shower house was also the local Wifi hotspot, so lots of people (including us) congregated there throughout the day.

It turned out to be possible to get sensory overload in a place like this and to finally become blasé about the next spectacular pile of rock or pristine mountain lake that crops up. It takes awhile, but it happens. Judy Powell (Hi, Judy!) told us that the view from the deck of the restaurant at the Jackson Lake Lodge was the best in the park. She’s right, especially when accompanied by a martini. If I didn’t have to drive, we would have had a couple of martinis because that view really is special and the drinks were pretty good, too. Unfortunately, smoke from the fires to the west made it hard to get decent pictures.

Michelle Shober had recommended we visit the  National Museum of Wildlife Art just outside of Jackson. We were very impressed by what we found. If you come to this area, be sure to add at least a couple of hours to visit this museum. It is filled with an extensive collection of important, predominantly American wildlife paintings, drawings and

sculpture that spans at least two centuries. The museum building itself is pretty interesting and the exhibits are well organized and curated. We really enjoyed ourselves. There is a café in the museum that has a good rating, too.

The town of Jackson reminded me of Cody but on a smaller scale. It exists as a tourist center, but it isn’t tacky at all. Traffic and parking will certainly be an issue during the summer but wasn't a problem when we visited. Unfortunately, the road to Moose and Teton Village from the north was closed for bridge repair and the other route to those towns would have meant a 50 mile detour, so we didn’t get to see them this trip. One tip: Don’t buy fuel at the Chevron station at the north end of Jackson. It’s way, way more expensive than any other station I saw.

On the way to Jackson we hit a large antelope at about 60 mph. I saw it cross  in front of us, but I didn’t see it reverse direction because it was obscured by the side mirror. It hit squarely in the middle of the coach, killing it instantly. I didn’t have time to hit the brakes, but I wouldn’t have been able to avoid it even if I had been able to see it. Most of the damage was to the generator bay cover. I’ll be able to fix most of it when we get to Benson this winter. We also have an air leak that we need to get looked at. Apparently it hit something as it passed under the coach.

We were feeling a little pressure to keep moving west to make our date to camp host on the Oregon coast, but we decided to detour through Salt Lake City to see Liesa for a couple of days so it was time to leave. SLC is just under 300 miles from Colter Bay, a full day’s run. We planned a route that minimized interstates and were rewarded by great scenery for most of the day. We have stayed in North Salt Lake on our other visits, but decided to try the Salt Lake KOA this time because it is less than two miles from Liesa’s new apartment. It also backs up to the city park that contains one of our favorite dog parks. Like every KOA we have stayed in the sites are fairly close together, it's a little expensive and seems overrun with kids. It’s ok for a couple of nights but we’ll stay at Pony Express RV Park when we return for two weeks around Thanksgiving.

Kayeanne had flown out from Boston in June to see Liesa, but I hadn’t seen her since Xmas, and neither of us had seen her new apartment. She looked great. She’s done a "grownup" job on the apartment, it is nicely decorated and feels quite homey and comfortable. This is her first time living alone and it seems to be agreeing with her. I’m glad we decided to make the detour.

We decided to stop at Twin Falls, Idaho to have a shop we know there look for an air leak that had occurred when we hit the antelope. While not a problem, it did need to be attended to. At the same time I asked them to take a look at the chassis air conditioning. This trip we decided to try the RV park at the Twin Falls Fairground. The RV park is right next to the barns and corrals used during the county’s annual farm and livestock events. The space we got was certainly long enough and it had some shade, but it was very close to the adjoining site. Luckily, it wasn’t taken during our stay. They had just built a new shower house, one of the nicest I can remember in quite a while.

Twin Falls Truck Repair fixed an air leak, but not the major one. We’ll try to get by until we can take it to Kaiser Brake and Alignment in Eugene. The air conditioning problem looks like a dead compressor. I’m not sure what to do about that yet. I can change it, but I don’t have access to the equipment to evacuate and recharge the Freon in the system. I've got time to procrastinate, it’s getting cooler now.

We can make the trip across Oregon to the coast in two days if we have to, but we decided to slow down a little and take a look at Klamath Falls and Medford, two cities that we have wanted to see for some time. We also wanted to see the logging museum at Collier Memorial State Park in Chiloquin. We had committed to camp host there last year but had to cancel when Liesa was injured.

We’d been through Burns, Oregon a few times on the way to someplace else but hadn’t stopped. Burns RV Park sounded like a good place to stay for the night and it certainly was everything we had hoped, but they were full! On a weekday in mid-September! Did I mention the record RV sales? The owners couldn’t have been more accommodating and they set us up with a space that wasn’t on their park map. They said that they had been full every night since they opened for the season on May 1. Burns is not a destination, it’s just the intersection of US 20 and US 395. Sheesh.

Old iron junkies will love this place

We couldn’t get a space at Collier State Park either, but Sportsman’s Retreat RV Park nearby had an opening. I think we were the only non-residents in the place. It was ok, just lacking the ambiance we like to see.

The Collier Logging Museum was very interesting. People have been logging commercially in the Northwest since the 1850’s on an ever increasing scale until the 1980’s when it became clear to everyone, including the wood products companies, that the methods and practices needed to change. The museum is predominantly about the equipment and techniques used by the timber harvesters and how that has evolved over time. There is an interesting section that focuses on the lives of the loggers when most of them lived in camps that moved frequently to cut fresh timber.

Klamath Falls is large enough to have all needed services but it didn’t look like it was thriving. I think it was in its hey-day when the timber industry was booming. It doesn’t seem to be going downhill, but I got a sense that people are marking time, waiting for the next economic wave. Luckily it did have a large tire store because we needed two new ones in a hurry. We forgot to release the car’s parking brake when we loaded it onto the tow dolly and dragged big holes in the rear tires as soon as we started down the road. Two flat tires caused a logistics challenge but three hours later we were on our way, poorer but wiser.

We have wanted to explore Medford, Oregon for some time, and we also wanted to see more of the areas around Grants Pass, so the Valley of the Rogue State Park was ideally situated roughly halfway between them. And, it is right across the river from the Del Rio winery, one of many good ones in the area. Aside from the noise from I5, Valley of the Rogue is a great park. The sites are spacious and there are fields and trails for the dogs to enjoy.

Medford is a real city, complete with Trader Joe’s and Costco, two of the hallmarks of civilized living. We didn’t spend a lot of time looking around, but our overall impression was positive. Several of the towns on the back road route from Medford to Grants Pass were quite attractive and small wineries seem to have sprung up everywhere.

We always look forward to coming to Eugene. We’ve been here so often it feels sort of homey. Eugene has all the services and amenities including (Trader Joe’s and Costco, of course), but is still pretty easy to get around. Traffic can get heavy but it never seems to get so clogged up that you can’t get where you want to go. I couldn’t get an appointment at Kaiser on short notice, so we had lots of spare time at Richardson County Park, just west of Eugene to catch up on laundry, cleaning and coach upkeep. The dogs really like it here, too. We’ve stayed at this park before and it's quite nice aside from the annoying lack of cell service. For some reason it is a dead zone for AT&T. We got an end site with lots of space and no close neighbors. We even got PBS on the antenna and watched Antiques Roadshow for the first time in months.

On September 30 we rolled into Nehalem Bay State Park for the fourth time in five years to camp host through October.

More soon.

#48 – Coveys Great Adventure – August 2018 – MI, IN, IL, WI, MN, SD, MT

#48 – August 2018 – MI, IN, IL, WI, MN, SD, MT

I thought July would be hard to beat, but not so. This month we visited six states and stayed in twelve campgrounds, counting a couple of Walmarts.

The only plans we had after Canada were to see Chicago and visit Mark and Nicole Tuggle. Looking at the map one night in Ontario, we realized that it wouldn’t be much of a detour to swing through Indianapolis to visit Kayeanne’s cousin Terry. A couple of phone calls and emails later we had a plan: Dearborn – Indianapolis – Chicago – Nekoosa MI – TBD, and that’s what we did.

We crossed the border near Detroit on August 1 and drove right by the city to the Wayne County Fairgrounds RV Park. It’s about half way between Dearborn and Ann Arbor, but more importantly just 20 minutes from the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation (drum roll, please), a place I’ve wanted to see for 30 years. The Museum itself is very large, especially when you include the 80-acre Greenfield Village complex. We only had one day so we passed up the Village and focused on the Museum, which included a tour of the River Rouge F150 pickup truck assembly line! Just driving through part of the River Rouge complex was fascinating.

I had a great time, and Kayeanne enjoyed it, too. You could spend a couple of days in the museum if you toured every exhibit and read all the plaques. I’m not sure what some of the exhibits had to do with “American Innovation” but that aside it was certainly worth the time and money. The plant tour alone was worth the price of admission. Since we had visited the Corning Glass Museum in May, we almost walked by the glass section. That would have been a mistake. While nowhere near the scale of the Corning, it was worth seeing. We also enjoyed the display of large steam engines, generators and really large machines that actually came from Ford plants. We didn’t go to the Village, maybe next trip.

Kayeanne hadn’t seen Terry in several years. Indianapolis isn’t a “destination” so there weren’t many RV parks to chose from. The Indianapolis KOA is actually 30 miles outside of the city in Greenfield, IN. It was a typical KOA: clean, lots of kids, hyper-friendly staff, lots of rules and expensive.

We met Terry at a nice restaurant on a lake not far from his place. We had a wonderful time talking about family, jobs (he worked in the auto industry for many years), places we’d been and wanted to see. What with one thing and another, we whiled away several hours. I hope we can get together more often.

Somewhat lacking in ambiance....

One of Kayeanne’s must-do destinations for this trip was Chicago. I was fully on-board with that, but there are logistics issues. The closest RV parks to downtown are at least 1.5 hours each way by train, making for very long days. That simply isn’t feasible with the dogs. There is only one alternative, but it isn’t for the faint-hearted. The truck marshaling yard for the McCormick Place Convention Center let’s RVs boondock when there is no big event being held. The good news is that it is right downtown beside Lake Shore Blvd, just across from Lake Michigan. The bad news is that it is a huge concrete parking lot surrounded by highways and train tracks. It has NO amenities whatsoever, but it sure is close to the city. We spent three nights there, a little tense but without incident. We discovered the lovely park that runs for miles along the lake and walked the dogs there twice a day, some compensation for being shut up in the coach all day.

Good martini

We made the mistake of driving into the city after we arrived the first day to have a drink in the bar on the 92nd floor of the Hancock Building. Parking cost $35 for two hours, actually more than the bar bill. The next day we walked over to the Convention Center and took the train to the Loop. That was a bit pricey and it didn’t run very often during non-rush hour. Then we tried Lyft and became immediate converts. Yes, it’s a little more expensive than the train but it is sooo much more pleasant and convenient. All of the drivers were polite, knowledgeable and knew the city very well. We’re hooked.

I asked Mark Tuggle for a list of must-see places in Chicago and at the top of his list was the architectural river cruise. He was right, it was the hi-point of our visit. Chicago is filled with iconic buildings, many with interesting stories. Most of them are on or adjacent to the Chicago River. We really enjoyed the tour, especially the commentary by the docent from the Chicago Architecture Center.

Small lot? No problem

Given our time constraints we decided to pick one museum and choose the Chicago History Museum. It was pretty disappointing because it’s geared more towards kids than adults. I was also determined to have a real Chicago hot-dog, but the local place recommended by the Museum was pretty lousy. Mark assures me that what I had wasn’t a true Chi dog.

On the other hand, we had a great lunch at the Broken English Taco Pub. Darts and Guinness and tacos: who'd a thunk it? And reasonable prices, too. It’s a fun place catering to the business district lunch crowd, but I’ll bet they do a huge after-work business.

The Chicago we visited is a far cry from the one that is unfortunately experiencing such awful violence. We walked all over the downtown and waterfront areas and never felt any concern for our safety. On the contrary, the people were all friendly and often went out of their way to be helpful. The city was also very clean, cleaner than any we could remember. We'll be back, someday.

Neighbors at Lake Farm Park

Kayeanne was born in Madison, Wisconsin, but had never visited the city as a child or adult.  Lake Farm County Park campground ticked all the boxes: it was close to town, had big sites with power and water, and was very reasonably priced. It proved to be a good base. We spent four days exploring the city and its surroundings.

We both liked Madison. It’s a very approachable city, easy to get around as long as the university isn’t in session. The neighborhoods around the lakes are quite attractive. I’ll bet it is a real challenge to get around in winter when the snow piles up and the student housing fills up. We also spent a couple of days doing laundry, cleaning the coach and generally getting caught up after so much traveling.

Local museums are some of our favorite places to visit, and we found a great one in Stoughton. These places are always a labor of love and source of great pride. The staff people are often as or more interesting than the museum itself.

There was no way we were visiting Wisconsin without going to Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright's home and school. We have visited several FLW sites since touring Taliesin West in Arizona a couple of years ago, including Falling Waters in PA and the University of Southern Florida campus, so we were really looking forward to seeing it. Despite calling ahead and being assured that they had ample parking for big RV's, the visit almost ended badly. Fortunately, I didn't take their

word for it and walked the parking lots and driveways before turning in. No way that it was going to work. We parked across the street in a spot that really was big enough.

To me, the most striking thing about FLW designs is the extraordinary level of detail he gave to every aspect of the site, the structure itself and even the furnishings and decor. Every color and texture is intentional, every sight line is carefully planned, and no fitting,

corner or joint is left to chance. I'm not sure how livable these houses are, because nothing is allowed to impinge on the vision of his design, including comfort and utility. That said, I'd love to try it. Everywhere you look is so interesting, everything you touch has a purpose for being in that exact place. Don't miss it if you are anywhere near the area.

We’ve been trying to get together with Mark and Nicole Tuggle for a few years. Mark and I worked together for over 15 years but hadn’t seen each other for five years. Nicole rightly blames me for getting him into motorcycles but despite that, they warmly welcomed us to their lake house in Nekoosa, WI. We had hoped to boondock in their driveway, but we would have had a real fight getting in and out while adding even more scratches to Ripley. Luckily, Wilderness County Park was a few miles away and had lots of sites available.

It was great to see Mark again and to get to know Nicole. “Good hosts” is an understatement when describing how nicely they treated us. We had a great time enjoying the lake, visiting a local brewery, eating Nicole’s great cooking and generally just hanging out together.
Sharing a common interest in drinking wine always bodes well, too. The dogs all got along, too! I even got to ride a motorcycle for a few minutes, the first time in over four years. A great time with good friends that I hope to repeat as soon as we can. Hey guys, remember it is much warmer in Arizona in February....

It was hard to pull ourselves away, but the calendar kept nudging us to keep moving west. We stopped overnight at Camp Walmart in Albert Lea, Minnesota (a new state!) because we were determined to see one of this state's claims to fame: the Spam Museum! I can't tell you how much we (I) were looking forward to this. Mark was right, it was the high point of the hour or so that we spent there. Who knew that there was so much history to this lowly canned treat. It's even been featured on Broadway and helped win WW ll.


South Dakota surprised both of us: it was pretty attractive. I think we expected sun-blasted tundra, but got rolling green fields, hills and river valleys. It wasn’t even too hot, which the natives seemed a little giddy about.

Sioux Falls is a small, attractive city with a strong sense of civic pride. It was clear that folks are pretty happy with their town and it showed. Falls Park runs right through the center of town. Several waterfalls, bridges, lots of grass and shade make it a well-used and loved area for locals of all ages. Big Sioux Campground turned out to be a great place, too. 

After a couple of days we pulled in the slides and headed west to the Badlands. On Mark’s recommendation we stopped at the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site. Those of us old enough to remember “duck and cover” may experience a disturbing case of deja vu. Over 400 Minuteman ll ICBM’s were housed in silos near here. The exhibits are fascinating; don’t miss the film. They also offer a tour of the last remaining silo, but that requires reservations weeks in advance. Next time we plan to come through this area, I will certainly make the silo tour a priority.

The Badlands National Park was another one of Kayeanne’s must-see places on this trip. Not as spectacular as Bryce or Zion, it is nonetheless well worth seeing. We stayed right in the park at Cedar Lodge Campground, which is not up to the NPS’ usual standards but we made do.

They're everywhere!

If you don’t mind driving 30 miles on a maintained dirt and gravel road, the 80 mile circle of the whole park is certainly worth doing. Many exotic and varied rock formations interspersed with wild flowers, “painted desert” landscapes and extensive wildlife made for an interesting day trip. Be sure to see the prairie dog town. Take lots of water, there isn’t any available once you leave the Lodge, and one Kodak moment after another will make it a long day.

Kayeanne really wanted to visit the Black Hills region. Mount Rushmore, the Black Hills and the Crazy Horse Monument promised to fill several days. Then Kayeanne’s brother, Grant, who we had visited in Florida in April called. He was in Yellowstone on his way east. Grant was moving from Florida to Cape Cod via California. A little schedule massage and we met for dinner in Keystone, SD. Who said this is a big country?

Aside from the Black Hills not actually being black, nothing disappointed us about this area.  I now understand why Harley riders flock to Sturgis every year: the roads in must have been designed by motorcyclists. I really want to come back with a bike. Simply driving around is worth being here.

The Black Hills in any color are beautiful and Mt. Rushmore is all it is touted to be, but Crazy Horse is way above the four presidents in scale and presence. Not to run down Rushmore, but those images were created explicitly to draw tourists and built to a budget. Crazy Horse, by contrast, has a vision and a passion that just leaps off the stone as soon as you see it. The audacity and the sheer scale and astounding. I hope I live long enough to see it completed.

Creekside Mountain Resort in Hill City turned out to be a small, immaculate family-run RV park a couple of miles outside of a neat town. Our site came with acres of grass that the dogs really enjoyed. The park’s back gate opened onto the George S. Mickelson Trail, a 100 mile long biking and hiking path on an old narrow gauge railroad bed. Every morning we walked a couple of miles through trees, along fields and over streams. That’s a great way to start the day.

Hill City is a good place to stay to visit all of the Black Hills attractions. It is also the location of the South Dakota State Railroad Museum. SDSRM is a small but quite interesting museum that we really enjoyed. The railroads were the key to opening the West to development, especially areas like the Black Hills where mining and logging were the primary economic drivers. The museum is clearly a well-loved local institution and worth a visit.

Just outside of town is the South Dakota Civilian Conservation Corp Museum. You wouldn’t think one room in the city information center would be very interesting, but you’d be wrong. For those who don't recall it, the CCC was a remarkable organization created during the Great Depression to provide jobs for millions of unemployed young men. It only lasted for nine years before WW ll eliminated the need for it, but accomplished so much during that brief period.

Wall art is everywhere in Rapid City

We hadn’t planned to spend any time in Rapid City, but when I put out one of the awnings the day we arrived at Creekside the canvas ripped wide open. We could live without the shade, but that same panel is the slide topper, too. Given how much trouble we have had with slide leaks even with the toppers intact, it immediately became a priority to get it fixed. Luckily, Black Hills Tent and Awning was able to get right to it. While they were working on it we toured Rapid City, visited the Museum of Geology at the SD School of Mines, the Black Hills Gold Jewelry Factory and shopped at the Prairie Edge Trading Co. and Gallery, a very unique store/museum/art gallery where Kayeanne found her birthday present, a lovely jacket.  Rapid City is an attractive, interesting small city that we would be happy to revisit.

Despite Custer State Park and the town of Custer being just up the road, the actual battle took place 300 miles west in what is now Garryowen, Montana.  The 7^th Ranch RV Park lived up to its ratings and we spent four pleasant days there visiting the Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument, driving around the area and making a day trip/shopping run to Billings.

Any place where many people have died, especially in a battle, seems to take on a unique aura. While the number of dead were nothing like the scale of Gettysburg, Little Big Horn had a similar feeling for me. Maybe it’s the graves, but I think its more than that. Ghosts? Probably not, but there is something about so much fear and rage and dying that imbues these places with a unique presence. The site itself covers many acres and the museum does a good job detailing the events that took place. The guided tours are given exclusively by Crow Indians, the victors of the battle, but the losers of the war. It was a special experience to hear our guide speak so familiarly of the people on both sides that day, but especially of his direct ancestors who actually took part. The battle was only 150 years ago, just a few generations, and the Crow oral history tradition certainly keeps it alive. Great tour, don’t miss it if you visit this area.

More soon,

Bob

#47 - Coveys Great Adventure – July 2018 – Eastern Canada

July 2018 – Eastern Canada

Kayeanne took this one. Crystal
Beach wan't all bad

Ten campgrounds in five provinces in one month made July pretty hectic, and it didn’t start out very auspiciously. I had a bad feeling when we were directed to back into a pull through site on grass at Crystal Beach. A lot of rain had fallen in June and the campground management was clearly worried that the ground might be too soft for our heavy coach. I should have listened to my gut, because after sitting for four days we had to dig trenches in front of the wheels and fill them with gravel to finally claw our way out of that campsite. Charlie’s lighter coach pulled right out, but not ours. Unfortunately we were so focused on getting out that we didn’t take any pictures, but I had blisters for a couple of weeks. I am not planning a return visit to Crystal Beach.

Yes, we did go to Green Gables

From Crystal Beach we explored Summerside and the western part of PEI. Summerside is quite pleasant and offers a lot of services that can be in short supply in the smaller towns on that side of the island. We stopped at a Tim Horton’s to try poutine, which is french fries topped with cheese curds and smothered in gravy. Yum!

Friends

Right next door was Bishops Machine Shop Museum. “Machine Shop Museum” is a phrase that I simply cannot ignore. My father was a machinist. Long before the days of automation, CNC machining, CAD design and 3D printing, guys with lathes, drill presses and forges built the tools and machines that fed the world and moved goods and people in ways that were unimaginable to their grandfathers. In those days the plows and harrows and threshing machines were often built in the community, because money was scarce and shipping took months. When it broke down the local machinist was usually the one to fix it. Four generations of Bishops supported their community, finally closing shop in 1980. I’m glad that the people of Summerside value that contribution and support the museum the way they do. Noah, the enthusiastic young docent on duty that day was a pleasure to meet.

We moved to Northumberland Provincial Park on the southeast side of the island to see Charlottetown and the north and east coasts. Northumberland was our first experience with Canadian provincial parks and we were impressed. Our sites were on a bluff overlooking the Northumberland Straight. We had 180º views of the ocean, the Wood Islands Lighthouse and the ferry that connects PEI to Nova Scotia. The dogs really enjoyed the beach below the bluffs. Two or three times a day they got to run off leash, sticking their noses into everything.

Charlottetown is the capital of PEI and its largest city. It has all the shopping and services that we wanted but was easy to get around. One day we visited Peakes Quay, a park, marina, shopping and entertainment area in Charlottetown harbor. The shops got us for a few dollars, and we had a very good lunch at the upper deck restaurant.

Charlie and Mollie suggested a road trip to North Lake on the northern tip of the island, with a stop at the historic East Point Lighthouse. We got a bit of a late start so we stopped in Montague for brunch at the Captain’s Cove. All the food served there is made from scratch and everything was delicious. The seafood chowder was outstanding; be sure to try the onion rings, too.

East Point Lighthouse is on a dramatic headland that is slowly eroding away due to its very exposed location. Like the US, the Canadian government stopped maintaining the old manned lighthouses years ago. Most of the lighthouses that survive have been turned over to local organizations who maintain and develop them as attractions. We’ve climbed enough towers and lighthouses that we decided not to pay the $5 per person fee to visit the top of this one. The gift shop, though, had a very interesting collection of handcrafts produced by PEI crafts people. We had a great time.

While it certainly attracts tourists, North Lake is still primarily a fishing village. It was cod fishing on the Grand Banks that first brought Europeans to northeast Canada hundreds of  years ago. The seemingly limitless cod were finally exhausted and since 1992 are carefully protected to try to restore the stocks to sustainable levels. Lobster is the main fishery, but I saw a few boats rigged for fin fishing. 

  

If you go to PEI be sure to allocate a day to visit the Orwell Corner Historic Village. The Village presents an unvarnished view of the lives of farmers and their families from roughly 1890 through the end of the 1940’s. Most of the original buildings survive; I found the store to be particularly interesting. Tea and cookies at the town hall were quite good, and others also lauded the sandwiches. If the blacksmith or the machine shop is giving demonstrations, be sure to attend. The visitors center has a very interesting collection of farm equipment, and the narratives that the residents of the area have provided were really fascinating. There are several Youtube videos of the Village; here’s one.

I think I may have forgotten to mention just how strikingly beautiful this island is. Everywhere you look is a picture-postcard view of verdant fields, lovely harbors and tidy villages. Every house seems well cared for, every yard is manicured and there is NO trash along the roads at all. Oh, and no graffiti, either. It grows on you after awhile: PEI is a really, really nice place to visit.

July 7^th came all too soon, and it was time to leave PEI, and to leave Charlie and Mollie. The last six weeks have been great. They are the epitome of what “good friends” means, and it was really hard to say goodbye. We will always remember this time together. They headed home to New Hampshire and we crossed back over the Confederation Bridge and turned left to Nova Scotia.

For some reason, the mosquitoes that plagued us everywhere we went in New Hampshire, Maine and PEI have (mostly) avoided Nova Scotia. If nothing else, that made NS one of my favorite places.  

I picked Amherst Shores Provincial Park because it was about the right driving distance from Northumberland. The park turned out to be very nice, and we discovered a few local attractions, too. 

The Malagash Salt Mine Museum is a small gem. This mine once was the largest in the world, and all that is left is this museum in the basement of the old union hall. Check their website for dates and hours. The food at The Chowder House in Tatamagouche was quite good. The Tatamagouche Brewery was a pleasant place to sit and people watch, but the beer was just so-so. 

After a few days at Amherst we moved on to Graves Island Provincial Park to explore Halifax, Lunenburg and the surrounding area. Graves Island is one of the nicest parks we’ve stayed in quite awhile. The sites are huge, and ours was like having our own private yard. The dogs were able to be off leash most of the time, a real treat for them.

Lunenburg is all about the sea, and the focal point is the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic right on the waterfront. The history of the Maritimes is inextricably linked to fishing. The Fisheries Museum was interesting, but to me it attempts to serve too many constituencies: the fishermen, the communities they live(d) in, the fisheries, the processors, the politics, the boat builders, etc., and seems to come up a little short in all respects. I came away feeling like I didn’t get much real information about any of the topics, but I did enjoy the building itself, many of the exhibits  and the setting right on the harbor. The gift shop was quite good, too. We had a great lunch at The Grand Banker overlooking the harbor. 

Chester harbor

On the way home that day we drove through Chester and were quite taken with this small, very pretty town and picturesque harbor. We liked the town so much we went back the next day to window shop.

Halifax is a small city with all the congestion issues of much larger places. We tried to go to the Maritime Museum but construction, traffic, and general craziness led us to turn around and head home. That was certainly disappointing, but the route to Halifax led us through Peggy’s Cove. Everyone we talked to about Nova Scotia urged us to go to Peggy’s Cove and the Swissair Flight 111 Memorial, and they were right.

Peggy’s Cove is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. The vivid sunlight, the incredible blue sea, the pure white foam on the hard gray rocks, the huge sky and the stark view of the lighthouse against that sky are images that stay with me. The cove, a small harbor is a strikingly attractive place, too. It just seems so… perfect. If you go, go early because the place is small and the number of visitors isn’t.

Swissair 111 crashed into the sea about five miles offshore of Peggy’s Cove in September, 1989, killing all aboard. The memorial to the victims and to the spontaneous all-hands rescue effort by local fishermen is quite moving. The site is a rocky promontory that serves as a fitting backdrop to the stark granite plinths that mark the memories of all who died, and that acknowledges the humanity of those that rallied to help. It is a marked contrast to the exuberant beauty of Peggy’s Cove.

And, for something completely different, we moved directly across Nova Scotia to Glooscap Campground in Parrsboro, right on the Bay of Fundy. This is an old town campground, now a county park, that has been managed by the same character for almost 25 years. 

Most of the RV sites are seasonal renters who have been coming here for years. Size does matter because there are only five sites in the park that can fit our coach, and only one that didn’t require too much creativity to get in or out. Site 15 is right on the Bay of Funday, with sweeping 180º views. Wonderful.

Bay of Fundy at half-tide

Once a center of wooden shipbuilding, Parrsboro is busy reinventing itself as a destination. The Fundy Geological Museum is clearly something the whole town is proud of. It is small, but well designed, curated and enthusiastically managed by the volunteer docents. We spent a couple of hours there one afternoon and quite enjoyed ourselves.

It has also become the site for Parrsboro’s main event, the annual Gem and Mineral Show. 

Fundy Geological Museum was fun

FORCE, the Fundy Ocean Research Center for Energy, was one of those serendipity discoveries that we hope for. FORCE is developing systems to use the huge tidal flow of the Bay of Fundy to generate electricity. That turned out to be a bigger challenge than they originally thought. Their first generator lasted less than two days before the force of the tides tore it apart. They are about to deploy the next one. They envision a field of generators that will compliment wind and solar power generation. The visitors center is several miles down a dirt road, but well worth the effort.

Model of tidal power generator to be set on
the sea floor of the Bay of Fundy

We realized at this point that the time we had allocated to Nova Scotia was woefully short of what we needed. There is so much that we didn’t get to see like Yarmouth, Sydney and all of Cape Breton Island. We’re not planning a return trip just yet, but we are hoping that we can make it back soon. Now, though, it was time to head North.

"World's Biggest Ax" 

Mariners Point Campground in Nackawic, New Brunswick, wasn’t quite where I thought it was when I was searching for a place for us to stay on the way to Quebec. You’d think I’d have figured out how to read Google Maps by now, but I still managed to put us in the middle of nowhere, 45 miles from Fredericton. The park was ok, we got a nice spot facing the St. John River. The huge wood fiber plant nearby really, really smelled badly when the wind shifted. We didn’t regret moving on.

No idea: it's July!

Riviere du Loup is about a hundred miles northeast of Quebec City on the Saint Lawrence River. It’s a popular vacation destination for Quebec residents. Camping Du Quai reflected that: we were the only US campers and there were only a handful of non-French speakers in the whole place. No one could explain why they have a Christmas-in-July celebration, at least not in English.

I picked R du L because we needed a small city to rest and resupply, and to ease our way into the Francophile culture of Quebec. I was surprised at how many people speak no English at all. They weren’t refusing to speak English, they simply couldn’t. Many of those who tried were virtually incomprehensible, at least to me.

I wanted to make Kayeanne’s 65th birthday something she would remember. After much googling and examination of the internet tea leaves, I picked Le Saint-Patrice. It was everything I hoped it would be. If you find yourself in R du L, grab your favorite honey and go. It was an exceptional dining experience in every way. Kayeanne had cod in bacon butter sauce and I had salmon with lemon confit. Five thumbs up!

Quebec City was on Kayeanne’s gotta-see-it list. Our stay at Camping Transit in Levis began poorly when the coach wouldn’t start after we checked in, blocking their driveway for about 30 minutes until I fumbled my way to getting it to respond. The campground was pretty disappointing. The electrical power wasn’t very robust and the weather was hot. We were unable to run more than one of our three A/C units without blowing the breaker. Needless to say, we weren’t happy campers.

That and a couple of other niggles aside, Camping Transit was ideally placed to visit QC. It’s only ten minutes to the ferry in Levis that crosses the St. Lawrence and docks right at Old Town Quebec. If you visit QC, stay in the city or stay in Levis and use the ferry. They cross about every 30 minutes all day for $3.

Upper Quebec

Quebec City is a lovely, vibrant place that is almost overwhelmed with tourists. We spent most of two days walking all over it. We visited the Citadel (boring, terrible guide), the Museum of Civilization (quite PC and not interesting except the Michel Dallaire exhibit), the Chocolate Factory and Museum (yum! fabulous ice cream, too!), the Basilica (eh) and lots of other places. We walked miles soaking up the textures and the life of the city. I think the residents must look forward to winter when the hoards of tourists recede and life can return to normal. The number of visitors from every corner of the world is really pretty staggering. It is certainly worth visiting, but in the Spring or Fall. 

Old Town Quebec

Our next stop was Niagara Falls, from the Canadian side. It is too far to drive directly there from Quebec City, so we boondocked at Walmart in Kingston, Ontario, to split the mileage. The lot was ok, and we were able to get Wifi from the Lowe’s store next door.

We had been having a problem with some of the coach systems like the wipers and the cruise control intermittently turning off. When we started the coach the next morning, none of those items would turn on. I’d been hoping that would happen because it is much easier to diagnose a hard fault than an intermittent one. I had an idea what the problem might be and a test confirmed that one of the solenoids feeding power to one of the accessory fuse banks had failed. The auto parts store across the street had one in stock at a really painful price (3x the US cost!) but an hour later we were on the road with everything running.

Scott’s Family Campground in Niagara was a mixed bag. It is as close to the Falls as any campground in the area and it is less expensive than the others, always a good thing. But the utility layout was the screwiest I’ve ever seen. The sewer connection ended up under the coach, behind the wrong-side rear wheels. Oh, and it sloped uphill. Draining the tanks took some creativity to avoid an unpleasant event. The power connection and water spigot were also inefficiently positioned, but at the end of the day we coped with it all and focused on seeing the sights.

I was a little underwhelmed by the Falls and overwhelmed by the crowds. I guess falling water, even large volumes of it, don’t excite me very much. We took lots of pictures, got drenched by the spray and dodged hordes of other tourists. Several people recommended the Behind the Falls Tour. Had I known we would have to stand in line for almost two hours as we slooowly shuffled our way to a couple of small elevators to stand in line to shuffle by an opening to watch water fall….I would have passed. Sorry folks, I couldn’t wait to get out of there. On a positive note, the sushi in the lobby of the visitor center was quite good and not expensive, and Kayeanne was much happier and more impressed than I was.

Very tight fit

The Welland Canal Museum and Lock 5 viewing area was a few miles from our campground in St. Catherine. We arrived just before a 750’ long bulk carrier arrived at the lock. Given that the lock is 78’ wide and the ship is 75’ wide, it was a real treat to see it enter the lock under its own power without touching anything. Not to belabor the point, but that is 18 inches of clearance on a 750’ long ship! Really impressed. And, the Museum was interesting, too.

The next day we set out to see Niagara-on-the-Lake, have lunch and visit a couple of wineries. The town was completely jammed. Their annual music festival was being held in the park in the center of town. There was no parking for any price, and the crowds had decided that the streets were easier to navigate than the packed sidewalks. Absolute chaos! We finally crawled our way through town and out the other side. We quickly decided that what we really needed was ....wine.

The first winery we came to was Konzelmann. We lucked out; the wine was good, it was reasonably priced and the staff were fun. We sampled everything, bought some Cab to go and headed home in a much better frame of mind than when we arrived. 

The next day we headed for the Dearborn, MI, back in the USS...A (thanks Paul and John).

That wraps up our first Canadian trip. We both hope it won’t be our last.

More soon,

Bob