A very nice weekend

2019-10-12/13 (Saturday/Sunday)

Another boring blog with no photos, I am afraid. These days driving on the highway are not that picturesque—or maybe we’ve just stopped noticing all the things that are “different”. But Saturday was a very nice day, breaking up our drive home (which is basically what our travels have become now.) We had to drive about 5 hours from the Indiana border (western, that is) to central Ohio. So we stopped for lunch at Arby’s, but otherwise were trying not to waste any time. We wanted to get to our friends, Gary and Jan, by 3:30 if possible for the kickoff of the MSU game. (Gary is, sadly, an Ohio State Uber-fan, and last week we exchanged some unpleasant text messages as his team pummeled mine. But the rest of the year, he is fine rooting for the Spartans.)

We sadly got stuck in some serious traffic outside of Indianapolis, so we didn’t make it to Gary’s local Walmart before the game started. Luckily, he taped the game so we could pick it up whenever we got there. We drove to Walmart, and he met us there so that we didn’t have to unhook the Jeep to drive to his house.

We had an absolutely lovely time with our friends, despite the worst loss that MSU has suffered in years. I am going to have to stay away from paying ANY attention to football all week, because the articles online are just horrifying to read (the game was horrifying to watch.) Luckily, we had friends to divert us (me) from misery. We caught up with our lives, our children and grandchildren news, and all kinds of other stuff. We are really very fond of them, and it is great that our travelers take us through central Ohio with some regularity so we get to keep up. I think we last saw them in May of 2018, on our way to Wisconsin.

At about 9:00, after a delicious dinner, we hugged Jan goodbye, and Gary brought us back “home” to the Walmart. Joe went right to sleep, but I was sitting and reading, with our new propane heater on to alleviate the chill. The darn thing set off the carbon monoxide detector, which required Joe to get up and the two of us spent some time wafting fresh air into the RV. We didn’t think the heater would cause that to happen; we had a baby one that was fine, but Joe bought this new one which is more powerful, and we’ve only used it twice. This was just a surprise.

Once that excitement ended, I went to bed and slept VERY soundly, until 8 this morning! And then, all we did was drive. I drove the first two hours, passing Columbus and almost to the border before we stopped for some lunch at a rest stop. Then Joe drove us through the West Virginia panhandle into Pennsylvania.

We stopped tonight at a Pennsylvania State Park where we’ve stopped before, quite early for us— 4:30, I think. We wanted to take it easy. Plus it is 30 miles from where we want to go tomorrow, before we finish the drive home. I remembered one place that I’d wanted to see last year, and we didn’t quite manage it—so we are going to have one more “experience” before we get home tomorrow evening.

Laundry and Football

2019-09-28 (Saturday)

Today was our combo laundry and football day. We woke up at our nice green state park campsite, and drove down into town, i.e. Castle Rock, WA. It is really a sweet little town-- a lovely riverwalk path, all the necessary small stores and civic buildings, etc. But what we were interested in, as I wrote in yesterday's blog, was a laundromat and good wifi reception, and that's what we got.

We set ourselves up in front of the laundromat at about 11:15 or so, and I loaded 3 loads of laundry into the machines. The washes were finished before 12:30 kickoff, but we had to juggle the dryers a little bit. For one thing, I had trouble using one of the machines and thought it wouldn't start. I also didn't get change out of the change machine after it ate my dollar bill, and Joey had to go next door to get more quarters. Then he was a good sport and stayed with the dryers after the game started. But it was all finished before halftime, and he did some of the folding, and I did the rest while I watched the game.

The game was MSU vs. Indiana, and I seem to be the only one who remembers that Indiana always gives the Spartans fits. This game was no different, and it was remarkably close right up until the very end. I was braced for the worst, but the Spartans pulled it out with the last drive, going ahead in a tied game with a field goal, leaving only 5 seconds left on the scoreboard. Indiana tried a razzle-dazzle, pass the football around like a hot potato trick play, trying to score in those 5 seconds. But on the second pass, the MSU defense knocked it loose, and it bounced into the end zone, where one of the Spartan defenders fell on it. So the final score was a 9-point win, but it wasn't anything like that. It was a great game if you were impartial (like the announcers--they were really enjoying it!) but a nail biter if you were me. But we won--YAY.

After the game, I started trying to figure out where we should drive tonight (about time, right?) Joey went and did the grocery shopping while I calculated our next moves. He even hooked up the Jeep alone. But I finally decided where we should head for (Mt. Hood), and then we left. There was a little sprinkle as we left town, and we saw another nice rainbow.

Before we got to Portland, we saw the Columbia River on our right, which was like seeing an old friend again (we drove next to the Columbia back when we visited Grand Coulee Dam.) We also caught glimpses of Mt. Hood in the far distance--a gleaming white upside-down cone. We were feeling a bit dumb that we hadn't seen Mt. Ranier-- we were pretty close to it for much of our time in Washington. But just after we crossed into Oregon and had maybe 10 miles along the Columbia River, I looked to my left (north, back into Washington) and said, "Holy Crap!  THERE'S Mt. Ranier." I mean, OMG, you can not MISS it, it is so dominating on the horizon!! It is simply humungous. Sadly, I couldn't get any photos of it.

Unfortunately, as we drove down the highway, there was a heavier rainstorm, and clouds, and I started to worry about driving in the dark. So as we passed Portland, we pulled over into a parking lot and used several different apps, until we found a county park about 15 minutes or so south of Portland. We got here just as it became truly dark, but the camp host came out to meet us, and now we are tucked in for the night. There's even a shower--an unexpected luxury. So we're feeling okay. Tomorrow we'll head for Klamath Falls, to see our godson Adam. And then into Northern California to Lassen Volcanic National Park (yes, more volcanoes). And we'll try to avoid the winter storm that is threatening the entire northwest. I didn't pack any winter jackets!

Spartans and Salmon

Deb & Joe at Marymere Falls

2019-09-21 Saturday

Wow, today was one of those really GREAT days!! Just a fantastic day from start to finish.

The first thing of the morning was dealing with the Michigan State football game. We are in a media hole, apparently. As soon as we arrived, Joe was looking at our connections for television and realized we had a problem. There is no local television reception here (we checked with the campground owner.) There is also no cable at the campground which we could have hooked into. We've never owned a satellite dish, and finally, our usual approach, it seems that ABC TV does not live-stream to this part of Washington. That meant that all our options for receiving a television picture of the Spartans game were out.

Yesterday afternoon, I suggested an idea to Joe: What if we Skyped to someone, and they put their computer so that the camera was facing their television. Would I be able to see the television screen and watch the game that way? Crazy as it sounds, he said that WOULD work. So I asked Beth if she would skype with me. But by this morning, she had totally forgotten--I called her at 8:30 a.m. my time (11:30 EDT-- the game was scheduled for noon) and I could tell that I'd be disrupting their happy family morning together. So I called Jimmy, figuring he'd "get it" about football.

Aimee's Sunroom with computer set up for football

Jim, being the great guy that he is, didn't even COMMENT on the situation. He just went downstairs, got Aimee's laptop (she wasn't home), and clicked on Skype on her machine. I, meanwhile, was struggling to get skype on MY machine-- it just was not working. Then I noticed that the Skype icon was on the desktop, and when I clicked it, I was instantly logged in as Joe. So I called Jim on Skype (we were on the phone at the same time as we did this), he answered, he aimed the computer's camera at his ginormous TV, pushed it closer, and voila! We were just in time for the kickoff!!!  I was absolutely beside myself with feeling smug! Even more fun for me, I turned off the sound from the computer, and listened to the game broadcast over Spartan Sports radio network--my fallback position if I could not get the game on tv (but football loses an awful lot when it's just over the radio.)

Tree roots

So I watched the entire game on Skype (Jim went back to whatever he was doing--he didn't need to stick around), feeling, as I said, pleased as punch. And, MSU won, so it was even more gratifying, especially considering last week's debacle. (AND, not to engage in too much shadenfreude, but Michigan was PUMMELED by Wisconsin, so that completed the football portion of my day very nicely.)

All of this activity took place beginning at 9:00a.m. Pacific Time, meaning that when the game ended, it was only 12:30 here. Joey and I had a hasty lunch, through our "traveling gear" into the Jeep, and with Cassie, we headed off for adventure in Olympic National Park. Nice to get football out of the way early so there's still time to do other stuff .

Our activity of choice turned out to be a hike to the Marymere waterfall. A ranger told me it was mostly easy, and the plus was it goes through old-growth forest to get there. The sign said it was 1.5 miles roundtrip, mostly gently going uphill, but with about 1/8th of a mile with a "steep" ascent. We were not sure what "steep" meant, but figured we would go as far as we could and see. We haven't done much hiking because Joe's legs are still pretty weak since his surgery, but he was determined to do it.

Long way down

The forest we walked through was just awesome! We went VERY slowly, taking our time not just to spare our energy, but because so much of the foliage and trees were so beautiful and interesting. I took a bunch of photos, many of which are here. The intense greens of the forest included the thick drooping moss which covered many of the tree branches like a carpet. There were redwoods, and the ones which were down and decomposing were amazing shades of reddish brown, just gorgeous. There were fascinating tangled roots, and moss and lichen growing on the tree bark. Other than a chipmunk, a squirrel (it was much smaller and cuter than our gray squirrels, being two shades of brown), and a banana slug, we saw no "animals" other than, of course, the lichen (i think they are classified as animal?) But we just loved going slowly and looking at everything so carefully.

We finally got to the rushing stream which came from the waterfall, and then the "steep" part. Yes, it was VERY steep-- going up there were lots of stairs, and they were high, uneven, often slippery, and not easy at all. Joe was a trooper, and climbed the ENTIRE thing. At the top, the waterfall was very pretty, but better than that was just the accomplishment of GETTING there. We felt quite proud of ourselves. The way down was much easier, I thought, and so was the rest of the hike faster (probably because both of our cameras had lost all their batteries so we couldn't take photos anymore.) All in all, I think the hike took us two hours, longer than for younger, faster people, but we were satisfied with our afternoon's adventure.

We were also both exhausted and not quite ready to go home. So we continued on along US 101 toward Sol Duc Hot Springs, which were supposedly 16 miles but an hour's drive. As we passed another turnout for a campground, I impetuously turned in to see what it was like. It was one of the ONP campgrounds (first come, first served) and it was really pretty! It was also pretty uneven almost everywhere, but there were a number of level-ish sites that we thought we could manage. As we continued on the road, we were brainstorming about the next couple of days, something I started yesterday and had still not 100% decided about. The encouraging thing is that there were a number of empty campsites, even tonight, a Saturday. And many of the ones which were occupied, we could see the people were leaving tomorrow. So we feel a lot more encouraged about finding a spot there.

About 15 minutes later, we reached the Sol Duc turnoff. As we went through the gate, I asked the ranger, "Is there anything we can do here besides hiking? We are exhausted." He smiled and said, "Sure! Go to the Salmon Cascades, you can see the salmon!" We were surprised to hear it was a definite thing (the ranger yesterday had said that "maybe we'd be lucky" to see some salmon, although it was "a little early." So we turned off to see the salmon.

Wow, it was FANTASTIC. I could have stayed there for hours--Joey had to drag me away. The Sol Duc river at that point was rushing over the rocks, forming a small but very fast and rough (at least to my eyes) cascade, and there were salmon leaping up trying to get back to their spawning area!  It was fascinating, and exciting, and just a "wow moment" to watch  the wild salmon leaping out of the water and hurling themselves toward the rushing waterfalls. We'd seen them do this on a fish ladder by a dam, but never in the wild this way.

Very old tree (also very big)

There were some "stepped" rocks which offered sort of a natural fish ladder, and several times we saw a fish end up on the bottom "step" and swim UP the steps to the top. There, there was a small pool (we thought of it as a "holding area", where they would try to enter yet another rushing area over the adjacent rocks to continue moving up. We could see several fish in that small area all the time, sometimes they'd get into a big flapping mess--and then one would leave the area, moving into the tumbling rushing water going right by it.

 Lots of times, we'd see a fish hurl itself up, only to hit against one of the slick rocks and slide back down. I wasn't the only one yelling encouragement (at least, I don't THINK I was!) One time, there was a fish just lying in the lowest "step" for at least 10 or so minutes. I was afraid he'd given himself a concussion or something jumping that far, but after a bit, suddenly he started swimming up the natural ladder area to the next level. I guess he was just resting! Other times, we'd see a fish just jump into the air, almost straight up, and splash down again, nowhere near reaching the next level of the cascade.

As I said, I could have stayed there for hours. (Unfortunately, it was near dusk, and my camera's zoom wasn't good enough to get any good photos.) After about 5-10 minutes, Joey went back to get Cassie, and took her for a walk. I hardly noticed he was gone, I just couldn't stop watching the water (I was kind of mesmerized) and the fish. It was just fascinating. By the time he dragged me away, we'd easily been there 30 minutes or so, and he pointed out that a) we were concerned about driving back home in the dark (the road through the park to this point, from even before the hiking area, was another serpentine road with no shoulders) and b) he would need to eat some real food soon, not just the snacks we'd brought. So we turned around and headed back to Port Angeles. We stopped at a Mexican restaurant for dinner, and it really hit the spot! And then we drove home  to the RV.

On the way, we decided that rather than stay at this KOA any more nights, we would leave tomorrow morning as scheduled. Unfortunately, it's supposed to be raining all morning and into the afternoon, which puts a kibosh on many park activities. So the current plan is to leave and go get some things we need at the store, then drive to the local theater (in two vehicles--we won't hook up the Jeep.) We want to catch the 1:15 show of Downton Abbey, which is playing there now. Then after the movie, we will go to the Fairholme Campground we'd seen earlier, which will put us about 40 miles (at least an hour) closer to the western parts of the park, which we want to see on Monday and Tuesday. Plus the campground will be a LOT prettier! Only problem is, it will have absolutely NO phone reception. We will have to work around that, like we did in the Cascades. It's only for two days, and we won't be in the campground most of the time. So it should work out, and be a lot more enjoyable than two more nights here at the KOA, although the KOA is actually the prettiest one we've ever seen. Nevertheless, we don't love it, and it's expensive, so we are ready to move on.

Looking up to the sky

Variety of plants in hollow tree

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A Quiet Day, except for Football

Masonic Hall, Columbia Falls, MT

2019-09-14 Saturday

Today we had a very quiet day, if you define quiet as, no sightseeing. It was NOT quiet during the MSU football game, when I (along with all the other Spartan fans in the world) was screaming murder at the coaches and officials. No joy in Mudville after the worst loss I think I’ve ever seen them take. Time to move on.

I slept in this morning, and Joe made us a yummy brunch of fresh baked biscuits and bacon and eggs. After that, I took Cassie for a walk, and then did laundry (just the linens) and read my book. After that, 2pm local time, was the football game. Time to move on.

At about 7:00, Joe suggested it was time for dinner. He’d been searching on google, and had discovered a 5-star pizza place. Sure, why not? So we got into the Jeep and drove about 6 or 8 blocks from the RV park to what turned out to be a FABULOUS pizza place. Best pizza we’ve had in ages. Better than the pizza places in HP. We told the waitress when she asked, saying we were from New Jersey. Oh, she says—the owner is from New Jersey too! Well, no WONDER the guy knows from pizza! We complimented him on the way out. He is from Verona, NJ. The pizza, as I said, was fabulous.

After that, we decided some ice cream was in order. Again, google was sending us to the best 5-star ice cream, this time in Whitefish, MT, about a 15-20 minute drive from where we are. It seemed silly (no ice cream in Columbia Falls?) but what the heck, it was an adventure. So we drove there. I had the chocolate, and Joey had “huckleberry” flavored ice cream (no, it was not no-sugar-added .) I thought it was good, but frankly, not as good as Thomas Sweet or Woodside Farms Creamery in Newark near Beth. But it was a fun adventure. Whitefish is clearly a tourist-based town. We walked a little bit after the ice cream and looked into the windows of some of the shops— many very upscale stores. Columbia Falls, in contrast, seemed to have more funky places. 

And then we drove home. That was our day! I heard some ladies talking while I was folding laundry, saying the park was 40% busier this year than last year. And that the roads and parking lots were really crowded. So we are not going to try to go up the Going-to-the-Sun Road tomorrow from this west side of the park (the road closes part the way as of Monday, so even the locals may be trying to get a last look at the scenery before that.) Instead we will head west.

I took one photo today, of the Masonic Hall here in Columbia Falls, up across from the pizza place. The building was very interesting on the outside— it was like a cinder block building with NO windows. The entire exterior was painted with tromp d’oeil (or however it’s spelled) paintings. But my phone was supposed to email the photo to me, and it is stuck in “pending”. And I am tired. So it’s bedtime, and no photos for today.

Dinosaurs Again, and Ghengis Khan

Most Complete T-Rex Skeleton Ever Found

2019-09-07 Saturday

We woke up today to gray skies, but the rain had stopped falling. Joey told me he had been up in the middle of the night (I slept like a log!!) because he heard a “strange noise.” Upon investigation, it seems that our oldest water hose had burst. Since it had already been repaired twice, we put “new water hose” on our shopping list.

Despite having the Jeep still hooked up from last night, it still took us a ridiculous amount of time to leave the campground. I took Cassie for a long walk, and she played with another dog in the huge fenced in dog yard, so that was nice for her to get some exercise. Finally, we pulled out just at 11:00. We drove about 15 minutes to the Museum of the Rockies, adjacent to the Montana State University (wrong MSU again!) campus. There was a large RV Parking area, so we were comfortable leaving the RV there while we went inside.

This museum is famous for its dinosaur collection, and it certainly did not disappoint! Montana is one of the premier states for dinosaur discoveries, and the museum focused on Montana in the presentations. This was no problem, because just to name one thing, the most complete T-Rex skeleton ever discovered was found in Montana, and it is in this museum! MSU (the one here, I mean) has a distinguished paleontology department as a result of the rich fossil record in their backyard. All of the displays included the name of the person who first found the bone(s), as well as the team who removed it from the rock. Often these folks were interns or doctoral students studying at this school.

The displays also were excellent in  that the beginning of the dinosaur section included some basics, such as what paleontology is, how the museum handles its samples, and the fact that all the displays included whether it was the real thing (labeled B for bone) or a replica (R). They explained that sometimes the real bones are still being studied. There was even a small lab included, with a volunteer inside working on cleaning some bones. The sign on the door said to “knock if you have a question,” and we actually did that at one point.

Bottom line, we got to the Museum at 11:30ish, and we stayed all day, until 4:00 (it closed an hour early, much to our dismay.) We did take a break to go have some lunch in the RV, but otherwise, we were with the dinosaurs. There were amazing samples and explanations, including the fact that paleontolgists now classify dinosaurs as either “non-avian” or “avian.” Most of the extinct larger dinosaurs are “non-avian,” but a particular class of dinosaur is still alive--they are the “avian” class--which we call BIRDS! I knew that the general understanding now was that birds “evolved” from dinosaurs, but from a paleontological point of view, apparently they ARE still considered dinosaurs. To put it another way, dinosaurs are not extinct! Only some are, the way some mammals (such as the ones we saw at the Ashfall Fossil Beds) are extinct. [Note: Blogger has become impossible to manipulate photos into... so all my photos will be at the end of the blog (I hope.)]

I could have spent a lot longer in the dinosaur section, because I didn’t have time to watch a number of videos, such as one which showed a day in the life of the paleontologists who found a particular fossil. I did sit through one which explained how the microbes and bacteria which we saw at Yellowstone (all those colorful bacterial mats at Grand Prismatic Pool, for instance) are actually examples of what happened all over the Earth as the geologic ages passed. The reason Yellowstone is so fascinating is that we can see for ourselves life forms which survive based on chemicals rather than on light (such as plants.)

Meanwhile, the dinosaur bones were the stars of the exhibit. The T-Rex was found in Montana, and is on loan to the museum. It was found on Bureau of Land Management land, which means it is strictly speaking owned by the American people. It’s on loan from the BLM. The skeleton is the most complete T-Rex ever found, and we were fascinated by the reconstruction. The creature had two sets of ribs, but no sternum attaching them-- Joey told me he thinks they must have been contained by the musculature of the animal.

One thing we noticed (which is what we asked the volunteer worker about) was an odd, long bone which seemed to come down between the two femurs. It looked very odd, and was something we saw in almost all the dinosaurs. The volunteer said she thought the bone was analogous to the pubic bone in people, but here it seemed to extend quite far from the pelvic bones. Joey added while I was writing this that what really freaked him out was the similarity of the “hands” of the bipedal dinosaurs to human hands--they have not evolved that differently. He says he also learned a lot about the comparative anatomy of birds that he didn’t know before-- the scientists who study this stuff do a lot of work with modern animals looking for similarities in bone structures, which helps to understand what the dinosaur’s body functioned like.

Another thing we learned was that some of the features of some dinosaurs, such as the plates on the back of a stegosaurus, may have been for “display”, the way modern birds have colorful features for display (think of peacocks, for example.) So several of the reconstructed dinosaurs were depicted with some distinct colors, with feathers in various parts of their bodies (this is known from the bones themselves.) It was just fascinating. We saw dinosaurs which probably burrowed underground (again, similarities to features in modern burrowing animals), and clutches of dinosaur eggs. Most everything in the dinosaur exhibit was original--there were not very many reconstructions, although the series of triceratops skulls had several reconstructions in order to present a complete display of the animals from when they were babies, through the juvenile stage, to adulthood. The skull undergoes certain changes as the animal ages.

One more funny thing-- I read that T-Rex’s teeth replaced themselves every six months, so the animal went through a number of sets of teeth. This sounds so weird, but the display explanation added, “Humans only replace their set of teeth once during their lives.” Until then, I had never thought of people as “replacing” a set of teeth this way--but of course, that’s what happens when we lose our “baby teeth” for our adult ones. The same thing was true of dinosaurs, only more frequently during their life span.

All in all, this was so interesting, but at about 3:00 they announced that the museum was closing an hour early for a private event. We hadn’t seen ANYTHING else except a movie in the planetarium, on how the earth was created. Joey said it was very good-- sadly, I fell asleep while Jupiter was the only planet, and I missed the rest of the movie. But besides this, there was a hall of “original peoples” of Yellowstone Park, i.e. Native Americans who lived in the vicinity. In that hall there were also posters and photos of the original stores and hotels set up in the late 19th century for tourists. I have to say, we pretty much ran through that section.

To our surprise, when we went into the next room, it had a lot of early 20th century vehicles used in Montana, including a set-up of a gas station, a “sheep wagon” (which looked sort of like a covered wagon with a bed, stove, table, and cupboards--in other words, an RV!-- for the guy who followed sheep herds over the prairie), and a “tar-paper shack”. We looked around for 10 more minutes.

Then we hurried into the last exhibit, a temporary exhibit on Ghengis Khan. We started at the wrong end for that-- and I found it fascinating, but Joey wasn’t as interested as I was. I have a book on Genghis Khan, so I knew his history. Basically he united the Mongol tribes, controlled most of Asia (the idea of the Mongols sweeping down and conquering people was entirely true), and then he implemented a lot of ideas which we still use today, such as diplomatic immunity for political representatives of other areas, the pony express concept (which was described by Marco Polo), national parks (he set aside some of his favorite hunting areas and forbade settlements there), wearing trousers (men wore robes before that, but trousers were much more convenient for riding horses), protection of water sources, religious freedom, the use of paper money (also reported on by Marco Polo), and tollbooths! There was also a brief video explaining that Ghengis Kahn (or perhaps one of HIS ancestors) was the progenitor of a huge percentage of Asian people--discovered by tracing the Y chromosome which unites this large group. So maybe he also populated the countries as well as ruling them!

Ghengis Khan also wrote a code of laws and morality (he lived at the beginning of the 13th century), including such items as, “All religions are to be respected equally,” and “Lies, theft, treachery and adultery are forbidden...whoever violates these commands is to be put to death.”  Joey’s favorite was, “Do not wash clothes until they are completely worn out.” I had to notice this one: “Don’t behave as high as a mountain. Though a mountain is high, it will be climbed by animals.”

All this information was, as I said, at the very end of the large exhibit, and we didn’t have time for most of it (including the information about horses, warfare, etc.) They even had a dance group from Mongolia (which is now an independent nation) so we could learn more about the Mongol art and music-- of course, we did not go to that either. At ten minutes to four, I rushed into the gift shop, looked around hastily, and let them kick me and the last stragglers out of the museum. I could have used the extra hour!! All in all, this museum was absolutely fantastic, and I’m still thinking of going back tomorrow; our admission was good for two days.

From there, we drove to Walmart, where we are spending the night. The wifi reception was excellent, and we were able to watch the entire Michigan State (the right MSU) football game. There was also a home game for the wrong MSU today, and we are joined in the Walmart parking lot by at least 20 other RVs. It is quite remarkable; I have never seen so many overnighters at once. Our guess is that they are here for the game--the RV park we stayed in last night was booked solid tonight so we couldn’t have stayed even if we’d wanted to. After the game was over, we went inside and paid for our free parking with a $200 purchase of groceries, a new water hose as mentioned above, some TV cables to perhaps get local TV stations on my computer, and a pair of sweat pants for Joey, among other items. Now, I just have to fight with my blog platform, in an attempt to upload some of the many museum photos I took today. And then, to sleep!

Comparative leg sizes

Clutches of Dinosaur Eggs

Feet and Leg Bones--they got stuck in the mud!

Comparison of Horned Dinosaur skulls as they aged

Tyrannosaurus again, with some other skulls of other T-Rexes

Neck of previously unknown dinosaur, still being studied

Ghengis Khan

 

Interior of Tar Paper Shack

Varieties of Wyoming

2019-08-30 Friday (lots of photos, but having trouble with internet, so will upload scenery photos later)

We woke up this morning with an agenda to leave our campground early, so we'd have no trouble getting to tonight's campground with plenty of time to set up our TV connections for the MSU football game. Despite a nice morning with showers and shmoozing with Beth on FaceTime, we left by 10:00, which was right on time.

We started driving west from Casper toward Lander, Wyoming, and as soon as we got out of the city, I started in with the wow wow wows again over the scenery. Wyoming really is a spectacular state-- no matter what route we've taken (and this one was new for us), it's been so beautifyl. Unfortunately, most of my photos are on my iPad, and the iPad is refusing to connect to the internet, which is not good here (more on that later.) I hope I can get the photos into the blog tomorrow, because that is what most of the blog is about!

At a little before noon, I noticed on my map that we were just about to pass a historical interpretation site called the Devil's Gap and Mormon Hand Cart site. We pulled into the area and immediately saw the Devil's Gap in the near distance--a distinct break in the rock walls ahead of us. But just as I took a few photos of that, Joe said, "Look on the side of the road!" and there were 3 antelope just looking at us! When we got too close, they started to depart, but I was able to get some photos of them.

Hand-cart replicas. Mom pulled one handle, Father pulled the other.

We ate some lunch, then got out to explore the interpretive site. There was no one there but us, although it seemed like some kind of ranch or something like that--there were quite a few buildings and several parking areas, including a large one for "trekkers" (we were not sure what that meant.) But as we wandered down the steps toward the area saying "visitor's center", a man came out to greet us. The site is run by the Church of Latter Day Saints, and he was a Mormon who was there to give information to visitors. He told us about the history of the site, and when we went into the small museum, it made everything even clearer to us.

Example of loaded handcart

In the 1850s, there were a lot of Mormons moving west to Salt Lake City. The church set up a fund to help finance this immigration, but the funds ran low because so many were coming to America to join the church out west. So Brigham Young came up with the idea that instead of having to pay for expensive large wagons and teams of animals to pull them, the people could move their belongings in small hand-carts which they pulled themselves. Small settlements were then set up along the trail, and the Mormons in Utah would send out regular supplies to the settlements, so the immigrants could have their supplies replenished every few months as they ran out.

The Martin Company set out in 1856, but unfortunately were delayed in their departure due to a lack of hand-carts-- the builders could not keep up with the demand. As a result, they left late, and missed the window of opportunity to safely complete their journey. When they arrived at the settlements, there were no supplies for them. Many of them died along the trail, and this site where we were was the area where many of them died, before finally being rescued by members of the church coming from Utah after hearing that there were two companies (there was another one 2 weeks ahead of the Martin Company) who had run out of supplies and were stranded. As our guide/host said, "This really marks the site of a disaster rather than a triumph." He said he himself was descended from survivors of this migration.

It seems that this location is a place where members of the church come to re-experience the travails of their ancestors. "Trekkers" come and head off into the surrounding hills, pulling handcarts for several days to understand better the ordeal it must have been for those in 1856. Our guide told us that 20,000 people had come during the past summer, although it is winding down now. It was all very interesting. I told Joey that this reminded me a lot of the concept of the March of the Living, that Jewish kids go on to visit the concentration camps in Europe. As our guide said, it's important not to forget your own history.

We wandered around the site for perhaps an hour before finally getting back on the road. Not long afterwards, as I was looking down, suddenly the RV swerved violently back and forth! As I looked up, I caught a glimpse of SOMETHING. I made some kind of exclamation (you can imagine what kind) and Joey said an antelope had just run across the road RIGHT in front of our RV, and he had both braked and swerved to miss it. If it had hit us and come through our windshield, we'd have been in big trouble! It was VERY scary for both of us.

After that, there were no more incidents, and we arrived in Lander at 4pm. We went into the center of town to see if there seemed to be strong wifi, because we were willing to go elsewhere if necessary. Then Joe called the campground, where they insisted that the wifi was usually pretty good at our assigned site, but if not, it was very strong at the office and we could sit there to watch our game. So we went to the campsite and checked in, but as soon as we got to our space, we didn't have any wifi or any decent internet connection.

I'll spare the details, but we spent an hour, both trying to connect via internet, and by using an app on my phone to connect to the radio network in East Lansing that broadcasts the Spartan games. Just before 5pm local (7pm EDT), we got everything working, both radio and tv. We were able to watch or listen to maybe 90% of the game, I'd say-- but the internet did keep cutting out. When the picture was lost, I'd turn on the radio. It was a little crazy, I guess, but football fans ARE a little crazy.

Joey made us dinner while we were watching, and at halftime we did give up and go sit in the patio area near the campsite office. Luckily it was an absolutely lovely, mild evening, and very nice to sit out. The game ended at 8:30 (MSU won, 28-7), and after we put our electronic paraphernalia back into the RV, we went out for ice cream in the Jeep. Then Joey went to bed, while I did the dishes and then wrote this blog. I just hope I can upload it-- the internet is really NOT what I'd prefer, that is for sure!! And I suspect it will get worse from here on, so we are probably lucky we at least saw the first game of the season. And that was the evening-- I will try to upload this, and then I am going to bed. We have a long drive tomorrow, to Idaho.

Great Day in East Lansing

Deb & Joe at Spartan Stadium

Friday, Aug. 31, 2018 [Note: I am missing a couple of photos]

Friday was just a great day for us! We started out with showers in the excellent shower house at the campground, and then drove about 90 minutes to East Lansing-- or to be precise, to Okemos, the town adjacent to E.L.Our reasoning was that we knew that the game-day parking lot would not open before 3:30 (and they DO stick to that!), but we wanted to get into town early for a particular reason--we needed white MSU shirts to wear to the game. They had decided to "stripe the stadium", meaning that depending what section you are in, you are supposed to wear either green or white. We only owned green shirts, which is what we had with us, but we were in a white section. So of course, we headed to Walmart. We knew we'd be able to park, and also that they would have a healthy selection of Spartan swag, including t-shirts.

We went inside, and the store did not disappoint us, having their entire "sports" section set up behind a Spartan sun tent. They didn't have as much fun "stuff" as I remembered from last time, but we did both find white MSU t-shirts that we liked. Then, resisting the impulse to buy new folding chairs in green and white, we went back to the RV and had lunch.

Walmart's Spartan Section

It was only about 1:30 by that time, however, and I was hoping to see just a little of downtown EL and maybe figure out how to get into the Student Book Store, where I just KNEW that I'd be able to furnish and entire house, if desired, with the MSU-themed items they would have. So we drove slowly into town, noticing all the new buildings, and the absolute mobs of people (not a big surprise on game day). We even caught a glimpse of our first apartment building, although we didn't drive past it for logistical reasons. Joe drove, and with me directing, we were lucky enough to find a large space on the curb a few blocks away from Grand River Avenue (the main drag through town) where we could slide the RV in and just fit!

At that point, Joe made the wise decision to stay in the RV and relax. I had a little over an hour to go shopping. I headed down the street, noticing all the students on their porches (so many of the houses are obviously rentals--I wonder why Joe and I ended up in a single apartment instead of a fun house?)  They were just starting to set up for their pre-game parties.

The town was simply MOBBED, and I noticed an awful lot of people closer to my age than to college age! There was hardly a soul who was not wearing and MSU t-shirt, if not a complete green and white outfit. DEFINITELY game day in the Big Ten! I went to the Student Book Store, and as expected, there were about three rooms devoted to Spartan swag-- I have no idea where the BOOKS might have been, because I did not see ANY! But I spent well over 30 minutes browsing through EVERYTHING (I WANTED everything, too, but I knew I truly did not need a deck of MSU playing cards, or any more MSU coffee mugs, or a Vera Bradly MSU-pattern tote bag, or ANYTHING else... and Cassie did not need a new MSU leash, and the car did not need another MSU magnet. The RV, however, DID need an MSU license plate frame , and Joe did need to replace his horribly faded Block-S green hat with a new one (identical). And I needed just one (ok, two) new magnets for my refrigerator. I *almost* needed an MSU garden stake, but then I decided against that too.

By the time I left the store, it was time to start heading back to the RV so we could continue with the main event of the day. We carefully drove back through the residential streets, dodging large groups of students who were gathering on porches everywhere, and found our way to the RV parking lot at the very fringes of the campus. I didn't mind driving down there, because the route took us past Holmes Hall and Akers Hall, our freshman year residences. The trees seem a lot taller on the East Campus than they were 40 years ago!!

At 3:36, we were already the 6th RV into the lot, meaning we didn't get a place along the curb (and grass) at the edge of the lot. But that was okay, because we wanted to be as near as possible to where the shuttle would pick us up. All in all, there were about 15-16 RVs in the lot by 6:00pm. Most of them had tailgate parties going on, or at least dinner-- but at MY RV, my husband decided to put on the new license plate holder. Of course, it turned out not to be the 10 minute job he expected (something about "locking bolts" holding the license in place, which had to be removed and replaced with something more manageable.) I, otoh, was not stupid-- I sat in a lounge chair in the shade cast by the RV, eating chips and dip and drinking a vodka and tonic.

In the end, we did NOT make any dinner-- at 6pm, Joe had finished the license frame renovation, and it was time to start heading for the station. We had to walk a short distance to catch the shuttle bus. On the ride, we chatted with other passengers, one of whom happened to come from..... Metuchen, NJ!  I mean, how CRAZY is that?

So we got to the stadium, and wending our way through the huge crowds of tailgaters at the foot of the Sacred Building (and past a couple of idiots waving placards and begging us to come to Jesus), we found our way inside, trudged up the zig-zag ramp to the very highest reaches of the stadium, treated ourselves to some stadium food in lieu of a healthier dinner, and finally looked down on the Kingdom of the Spartans from a very fine birds-eye view (our favorite vantage point.) We were in time to see the Spartan Marching Band's pre-game show, enjoy the gentle breeze cooling the warm eveing, and just drink in the atmosphere.

The game was much closer than we expected (or hoped!), which made it exciting, since in the end the Spartans narrowly avoided being upset by a supposedly much inferior team (which was, in truth, quite a good team!) All in all, it was a marvelous evening, and we totally loved it. Joe was so pleased that physically he was in good shape, despite all the walking the event entailed. The game ended sometime around 10:30, and we went DOWN the endless ramp, found our way back to our shuttle point, and rode back to the RV lot again. We waited for a little while, so that some of the massive traffic could clear out of the campus, had a snack, and finally just before midnight, we pulled out of the parking lot and returned to the Walmart. According to our "parking app", it was legal to spend the night there, and we have done it before... but just in case, we waited until the store closed at midnight so there was nobody to ask permission from, in case they would have refused it!

And finally we went to sleep-- it was very quiet, the temperature was low enough to be quite comfortable, and we felt completely happy with the way our day had gone. YAY! V-4-MSU!

Michigan State 45, Jacksonville State 7

August 29, 2014

What a great way to celebrate our anniversary! After I wrote the last blog, we had a very quick dinner and then caught a shuttle bus from our parking lot to Spartan Stadium. As we got closer, the crowds were getting bigger, and it became clear that we were on the very fringes of the tailgate celebrations. The area around the stadium was just PACKED with people and tailgating set-ups, as well as students coming from the dorms and others getting off the parking lot shuttles from other lots. So much energy, it was just electric.

It has been a long time since we’ve been in Spartan Stadium, and it has changed so much. The electronic scoreboard is only two years old, and it’s the biggest in the state of Michigan—5,300 square feet. Completely massive. We asked someone to take our photo with the scoreboard in the background before we crossed the street and joined the throngs heading into the stadium. I was afraid it would take a while to get in, but they instituted a “no bags” policy a few years ago—meaning no pocketbooks or any other kind of bag. As a result, everyone moved in smoothly… but also, my only camera was my phone. All these photos were taken with my phone, but it died before the game got going, so I have no action shots.

Once inside, we encountered a Spartan Spirit store which was packed with green clothing and people who were buying it as if there were no tomorrow. I squished into the store and discovered they had the kind of decals we wanted for the RV, but the lines were simply not moving at all, and I wanted to go up to our seats. In fact, we really should have left about 30 minutes earlier, because I forgot about the pre-game show with the band. We got there just in time to hear them play the MSU Fight Song, and then they waited in formation for the team to come out and take the field.

The game was wonderful, even though it was not exactly full of tension. The Spartans scored in 4 plays on their first possession, and they scored in two plays on their second possession. By halftime the score was 38-0. We just relaxed and enjoyed the beautiful evening—although it had been overcast, there was no rain, a nice breeze was blowing, and we just loved the entire experience. When the game was over, we found that the Spartan Spirit store was still open, with almost no one there anymore, and we bought a bunch of decals and magnets for our RV (yes of COURSE we did!). We caught one of the last shuttles back to the parking lot (there were still a few RVs there), and went to the Walmart in Okemos to spend the night. All in all, it was so much fun and we loved the whole experience. I just keep thinking we should go back for a whole weekend sometime, because there is so much new stuff to see on the campus since we went to school there. We will have to find some time.

Meanwhile: GO GREEN!!!! Next week against the Oregon Ducks will be a very different game…. Details to follow.