Week Six ~ Alaska Trip May 21-29, 2011

After helping and watching Gene and Sandy Teggatz get pulled out of the mud, we headed north. Some of the secondary roads in Iowa were pretty rough, but we had no major problems. We settled for the night in Pipestone MN. We were right across the street from the Pipestone National Monument, so after dinner we went exploring. It turns out that the National Monument was a site where only the Native Americans in the area can mine Pipestone. They used this stone to make their ceremonial pipes. There is also a site where they stage The Song of Hiawatha. We were too early in the season for that. While we were exploring the town we did find this unusual water tower for the town. Cool.
During our time watching TV that evening we saw some severe storm warnings. Well, we were to learn that when in Minnesota when they say severe, they mean SEVERE! (I know, Shannon, we SHOULD have remembered!) When the storm came through it was pretty wild for about five minutes. The wind was causing the slide awnings to flap, they sounded like they were going to be ripped off of the rig. The air conditioner covers and the vents were rattling and it was raining very hard. Probably not any worse than what people had a home this week, but in an RV it was attention getting. We pulled in the slides, turned off the breaker for the power and just sat and watched the lightning. Someone from the park came banging on our door and told us that we could go into town to the hotel if we were not comfortable in our rig. The thought of leaving the rig and driving somewhere downtown was not appealing, but it was good to know that there was an emergency plan in place for the park. After about a half an hour things had calmed down and we headed for bed. This is the scene that greeted us in the morning. Phil had a chance to break in his new duck shoes! We were a little concerned about getting stuck in the mud, but we drove out with no problems.

Very soon in our travels we crossed into North Dakota. We went by hundreds of fields that have been transformed into lakes. I don’t know how far behind all this rain has put the poor farmers in this region. When you see only the very tops of the field fence posts showing, you know they have a LOT of water to get rid of before their crops can begin to grow. At one point there were flagmen out because the water was over the road. Thankfully it was not too bad and we were able to travel through slowly. Soon we came into some oil drilling activity. There were LOTS of water trucks taking water to the wells, reminded us of home! We did pass by the geographical center of North America. We stopped in Glasglow MT for the night and it rained some more while we were there, big surprise. This looks like a tough area to live and make a living. I can only imagine what the winters are like up here!
Coming out of Glasgow in the morning we passed an area where they had life size dinosaurs all over the hillside. We went by too quickly to take pictures and the RV and truck are just too big to turn around for picture taking. From now on I will have the camera up next to me. I did have time to get the camera to take pictures of the road construction that we encountered. It may not have been the worst road conditions that we have ever encountered, but it was awful! We sat for quite a while waiting for our turn to travel through this area and then we had about two miles of no pavement, only WET and BUMPY dirt. Not fun.
We stayed the night at Fort Benton MT. It was wet there as well. We did go out for dinner that evening and drove around town a bit. It did not take long to cover the town. Nice little town that sits on the Missouri River. One thing about all the rain we have had, everything is very GREEN! When leaving Fort Benton we had a good travel day into Missoula MT. We couldn’t find a campground that suited us, most had limits of about 22’. NOT. So we found the local Wal-Mart and spent the night there. No problems, there were about ten RVers in the lot that night. Scenery in Montana was prettier in the western part of the state than in the eastern area. In the east they have hills; the ground looks like it has hives. In the western part you are truly coming to the mountains. The next day we crossed over into Idaho. We had not traveled too far before we encountered a couple of interesting things. One, when they have a pull over space that says it is the “chain up” area, that means you are going to go UP! Next we encountered a sign that showed that the road would be curves ahead, we have always called them ‘squigglies’. This sign said that we would encounter ‘squigglies’ for the next 99 miles! Oh great, curving roads going up and down mountains for the next 99 miles. Piece of cake. This is one reason I am glad that I am the navigator, not the driver. I don’t mind too much if the mountain is on MY side. However, when the drop off is on the passenger side, I am NOT a happy camper. Well, we went up, and up, and up. We had seen snow on the tops of the mountains. Well, before we reached the summit we saw it up much closer than we would like!

Yepper, that’s snow in them thar hills! It was also snowing enough to collect on the windshield. Not nice! Thankfully we drove out of it and the snow never coated the squiggly road. OK, enough of that stuff for the trip!
We were happier when we were down to somewhat level ground. The scenery has been just awesome. Here is a picture of where we stopped for lunch. Not too tough to tolerate! However, soon after we got down off the mountain we encountered some pretty severe head winds. It is tough on both the driver and the diesel mileage to drive this big sail in the wind, so we started looking for a place to camp for the night. We found a neat campground, only about four miles off the main road  by Tuncannon Creek in Dodge WA. No TV, cell service or air card coverage. Thankfully the park had WiFi, so Phil was able to surf. My computer would only pick it up sporadically, so I read a lot and did laundry. Phil did let me share his computer now and then. It was a pleasant evening.
The next day we dropped down into Oregon. I was surprised as too how quickly land formations can change. In this part of northern Oregon, the landscape opened up a lot. It was still a pretty ride. We were searching for a campground in Oregon
for the weekend, but were not able to find one. So we drove back up into Washington and found a place at Hood Park. It is an Army Corps of Engineers Park, which we always like. It is a small park and they are full for the holiday weekend. So, we are boondocking in the overflow area. What a hoot! We have not been boon docking with tenters all around for quite a while. We have spent a lot of time ‘people watching’. There is just about every kind of tent or vehicle that you can imagine here. It was especially fun to see people coming in at dusk or later to set up tents by flashlight. We will be here until Monday, I think. It is just too difficult to get into a campground on a holiday weekend without reservations. I’ll let you know when we are on the move again. We will be heading north through Washington to head into Canada next.