On the Homestretch, PUPPIES, and the 12-Month Wrap Up

Since we’d stayed longer at Diamond Lake than planned, we decided to skip Maupin near the Deschutes River and find a campground closer to our route along Hwy 97. There are definite advantages to jello planning. 😊  We snagged a spot at the Sherman County RV Park in Mono, OR for Tuesday, 7/18. It was convenient and the sunset view of Mt. Adams was a bonus!

Mt. Adams in a rosy light.

We have reservations for our final three stops. The first was another old favorite – Wanapum State Park in Vantage, WA.  Yes, we are back in Washington State!!! We usually stop here for just one night as we’re coming or going along I90. We opted for two nights this time through so we could spend a little more time exploring the area. The campground is right on the Columbia River and it’s a green gem surrounded by miles of barren, brown hills. Even those glow in the evening light and have their own spartan appeal. What else we have here is WIND! It was been blowing like crazy. Once we’re parked and set up, I kind of like listening to it howl outside. The tenters on the other hand were not enjoying it so much. Lol.

We call these "wind generators" and they were working overtime! Lol. 

The hills turn golden in the evening light.

The Columbia River.

Very cool clouds!

We visited Gingko State Park just a couple miles down the road. The Gingko Petrified Forest Interpretive Center is great – and you know how I love petrified wood! This area is unique in the sheer variety of species that have been found. There is a 3-mile trail with the different types of petrified wood identified along the way. It was my turn to do the highland two-step, when I leaned over to look at one of the exhibits and Rog yells, “Snake!”  There was a Western Pacific Rattlesnake snugged up under the front of the exhibit about two feet from my two feet. Lol. He wasn’t interested in us and we let him have that particular exhibit all to himself.

Gorgeous chunks of petrified wood at the Visitor's Center.

Happy to leave this exhibit to Mr. Slytherin. :)  

Our second stop was a place we’d visited many years ago – Pearrygin Lake State Park near Winthrop, WA. Rog recalled that the last time we were here the Blue Jays won the world series with a walk-off home run, that would have been 1993. Been awhile, eh? Lol. We arrived on Friday, 7/21 for a three-night stay.  We had a nice time, although Pearrygin Lake is open to power boats so we opted not to take the kayak out. We did hit the farmer’s market in Twisp and visited Winthrop, which is a cowboy themed touristy town. Rog got in one day of mountain biking on the trail around the lake.

Pearrygin Lake. 

Abandoned farm buildings along the trail.

New ride?? Lol.

Golden Marmot - campground clowns.

Pano of the mountain bike trail around Pearrygin Lake.

Lots of barren, brown hills to ride.

We took Hwy 20 across the mountains and through North Cascades National Park. We stopped off at the visitor’s center and enjoyed a short film about bears, specifically grizzly bears!, in the North Cascades. While there have been only a few documented sightings, who knows, maybe someday we won’t need to travel to Yellowstone or Alaska to see a grizzly. While not everyone agrees, I would love that! 😊

Stunning views of the North Cascades.

Hwy 20 earns its designation as a Scenic Highway.

Views into the North Cascades National Park.

Our final stop, purely coincidence I’m sure, was a Whatcom County park on Silver Lake about 30 miles from Bellingham (puppy!!). The Maple Creek campground we’re in is just gorgeous – the quintessential western Washington campground. Situated in a towering forest of moss draped cedar and fir, with vine maples and sword ferns filling the understory. Not a single yucca or pine in sight. Lol. It is so green and calm – just looking out the window is a meditation.    

This looks like home! :)

Missed the green moss and shady forests.

The lake is lovely and we enjoyed taking the kayak out for a long paddle. Rog was also excited about the number and quality of the mountain bike trails in this area. He stopped at a bike shop to get the skinny on the best areas to ride and spent Wednesday on the trails. It’s been a while since Rog did any riding in the Pacific Northwest and he got quickly reacquainted with that horticultural demon bent on ripping the flesh off unsuspecting bicyclists – the Himalayan blackberry. Ouch.

Silver Lake from the kayak.

Happy mountain biker on the trail with Bellingham in the distance.

The Galbraith trail system near Bellingham. 

While Rog rode, I camped at Starbucks to take advantage of the Wi-Fi, unfortunately we have NO cell service at the campground. Randi and Ryan have been house hunting and made an offer on a house in Covington, which was accepted. They are equal parts thrilled and terrified.  It has been especially nerve wracking to be completely out of touch during this time.  I’m stressed out and it’s not even my loan! Lol. The whole process has sure changed since we bought our house in 1983, it took us 4 months to close and they have a closing date only 2 weeks out and everything is rush, rush, rush. Our fingers are crossed that it all works out.

The real reason we’re here, as if you haven’t guessed 😊, is a chance to see the puppy. We’ve been in contact with Cheryl at Mountainview Mastiffs and set an appointment for 1pm on Thursday, 7/27. Cuteness overload coming up! He won’t be ready to come home until August 5^th, so this is just a “getting to know you” visit and a chance to steal a few puppy kisses. We had a wonderful time and, of the two boys in the litter, we really liked our guy's temperament the best. He was friendly and laid back, playful but not as determined as his brother to devour my sandals and a few tasty toes too. Lol. We haven't decided on a name yet, but made a list of about 20 possibilities. The two top contenders are Logan and Riley. We'll wait to see if his personality is more X-men Wolverine (Logan) or carefree and happy, as in "the life of Riley" or something totally different. Lol. 

Proud puppy parents. Do we look smitten?? We are!!

Hey, leave the toes alone! :)

Our boy with his pooky. Awwwww. :)

Nap time!

I’ve been stressing out about ending our trip and feeling overwhelmed with the long list of chores and deferred maintenance, both on the house and RV, awaiting us. Yes, I’m already making to-do lists! As some of you have commented on the blog, it is hard to see it end. We are thinking about a short trip to Oregon in August (total solar eclipse!) so, if you’re game, I may continue posting if we do anything remotely blog-worthy. Lol.  We’ll see. 

I do want to thank every one of you for coming along for the ride. Sharing our adventures was so much fun and I found it made me pay more attention and take greater care to capture and document our year on the road. I never would have done it without your comments and words of encouragement! Thank you so much! Safe travels to you all until our next adventure. 😊

12-Month Wrap-Up: We pulled into home on Friday, 7/28. So where are we at the end of one year on the road? Our final tally was 370 days to be exact. We added 1254 miles this month, so we put a total of 14,879 miles on the RV, pumped 1774 gallons of diesel, and stayed at 101 different places. That’s a lot of moving and if we ever do this again we would want to set a slower pace – maybe cover less territory and stay in each area longer. I think some of our favorite camping was free, we either boondocked or moochdocked a total of 58 nights and we’d try to do more of that. While reservations for certain places at certain times are important, I think we’d also do much more jello planning on the fly.

Ok, so this part of home we did NOT miss! Lol.

It was an utterly fantastic year, but it's good to be home again too.

We did see a lot on this trip though! In our final month, we added two National Parks (Crater Lake and North Cascades) bringing our final total to 34 National Parks/Monuments, more state/local parks than I care to count, plus Disney and Universal Studios. Since we covered old territory this month the total number of states we’ve visited remains at 35. 

Wow! We covered a lot of the US. You can see we missed the middle and a few states in the Northeast.
Alaska will be a trip all its own and Hawaii - well that isn't happening in the RV. Lol. 

We stayed remarkably busy. During our Fitbit challenge we walked 10K+ steps every day for over 90 consecutive days. Yeah, I’ve fallen hard off that band wagon. Lol. We hiked, biked, kayaked, and challenging ourselves to get out of our comfort zones. We spoiled each other too and I’ll pass on any count of the number of times we indulged in our favorite vices (ice cream and craft beer, anyone? Lol).

Most of all we had fun together. Yeah, there were times we were a little crabby with each other. But, ya know, that happens in the “big house” too. Considering we occupied less than 300 sq ft together for an entire year and no blood was shed, that’s pretty darn amazing. (Feel free to recommend Rog for canonization, it’s well deserved. Lol.) We also met some kindred spirits on the road and made wonderful new friends. That was an unexpected bonus and we look forward to crossing paths again in the future.

We loved visiting the national and state parks and found beauty everywhere we went. As we crossed the country, we did find some of the regional differences hilarious. Did you know the type of road kill you see varies by region, makes sense when you think about it, but I never had. No smooshed armadillos in the PNW. Lol.  And then there were areas in the Midwest where even the most modest home had a huge, elaborate front door and a whole state where nearly everyone had one of those Rubbermaid mailboxes. Some things just cracked us up and others were kind of creepy – like the white crosses planted for traffic fatalities in Montana by the American Legion, over 2000 of them. In a few places, there were 10-15 crosses. Hello?! How about you sign the curves and reduce the dang speed limit and plant fewer crosses!

We live in a fantastically diverse, fabulous country. Yeah, we have lots to work on – might I point out that our parks need more funding and our roads and infrastructure are in desperate need of attention in many areas – wait, I’ve already mentioned that? Then pay attention! Lol. There were some hard times too. Losing Callie was the worst and the presidential primary and election was frustrating and frightening. But those things would have happened anyway and maybe being on the road wasn’t a bad way to spend the year. While the frequent lack of internet connectivity could be maddening it certainly reduced our exposure to the insanity and staying active in the parks was a great distraction from both personal and political grief. 😊

We don’t have any plans (right now) for another trip this long, although we did joke about stopping by home and making another lap. I’m sure it won’t take any time at all for us to slip back into our routines at home. We’ll have a puppy to raise, lend a hand to get Randi and Ryan settled in their new house, work on getting rid of those extra pounds we’ve managed to acquire (less ice cream and craft beer in our future, sigh) and most importantly reconnect with families and friends. We’ll send a shout out for a “We’re Baaaaack BBQ” once we get settled in. Looking forward to seeing you all then!