Day 77 - Denver, Colorado

This is the #9 hole of my old home course in Denver (The Meadows). We lived on the 17th hole of this course and loved it. I was going to play here during our visit but got rained out and then they punched the greens (that wasn't nice of them). For a public course, I think it's beautiful!

Day 75 - Denver, Colorado

We're staying at the County fairgrounds. The other night we got home and we saw all of these guys walking around in their midevil garb so we went to see what it was all about. These guys actually go to war with each other and beat each other with their sticks. It was wild to watch. They just have fun. It's their hobby!

Day 73 & 74 Denver, Colorado

We made it to Denver! We didn't know where we were going to stay here but were extremely lucky to find camping at a County Fairgrounds right in the city and very close to where we used to live. It's a beautiful spot and extremely inexpensive.

For the next couple of weeks we will be visiting with old friends in the Denver area. This picture is of us, in our RV, with an old employee, Coleen Peppmuller. It was great to see her after all these years and to know that she still cares about us.

Day 72 - Travel to Denver

Glenwood Springs is a beautiful city which is famous for having an extremely large outdoor "natural thermal" heated pool and spa. Just outside of the city is Glenwood Canyon, which is simply gorgeous. You may remember John Denver fighting to stop them from putting a four lane highway through the canyon. He lost and I think they did a great job.

Dillon Reservoir is between Vail and Denver. The surrounding area is beautiful. I may be predjudice but I still think Colorado is the most beautiful place in the world (Well, in the USA anyhow).

Day 71 - Carbondale, Colorado

Today we visited with our good friends, Barb and Bill Grant, who we went to China with. Unlike the other friends we've visited on this trip, they were not in the video business but were friends when we lived in Denver.

Over the last year and a half they have built a beautiful home in this mountain paradise and they love their new location and new life. We had a wonderful visit!

Day 70 - Glenwood Springs, Colorado

We've arrived in Glenwood Springs. If you've never been here or elsewhere in the mountains of Colorado, it's absolutely beutiful and it surrounds you in every direction. Tonight we went to the local Elks club and had a wonderful dinner buffet for $5. What a deal!

Days 68 & 69 - Traveling

We left eastern Oregon and headed to Ogden, Utah. That's 380 miles and one of the longest days we've ever had driving the RV. Remember, we're only driving at 60 mph so that made for a long day. We made it just fine but were very tired. The next day we drove to Green River, Utah, which is in the middle of nowhere. It's just a place to spend the night.

Day 67- Side Note

Just wanted to take a break and thank those of you who have visited here often. We're really amazed by how many 'hits' we're getting per day, considering the number of people that are telling us we forgot to invite them at the start of the summer (our apologies). We're hoping that we've included everyone by now.

Thanks,

John & Janie

PS

Don't forget that you can click on any picture we post to enlarge it for a larger view.

Day 67 - Moving East

It's time to move east! We left Sunriver/Bend and headed east on Hwy 20 to Ontario, Oregon. The terrain immediately turned to a very desert type of terrain from the mountain terrain of the western part of Oregon. After this picture we went through a number of canyons that were, as I commented to Janie, really neat in an ugly sort of way. This was based on the desert follage. We'll be in Idaho tomorrow. If you don't see a post for a couple of days, it's because we're just in transit east without much to report.

Day 66 - Sunriver, Oregon

This morning we went to the Lava Lands National Monument just outside Sunriver. While the picture looks like they just had a forest fire, actually this was all caused by a volcano over 6,000 years ago. There are many volcanic mountains in this area.
This afternoon we drove into the National forest and then rode our bicycles down a trail to a waterfall. The ride and the waterfall were both wonderful. The mosquitoes could have been less but we lived.

Day 65 - Sunriver, Oregon

Sunriver is a resort communtity that has over 20 miles of paved bicycle trails. Today we did our share of the trails along the Deschutes river and a beautiful golf course. This is one of the best locations we've seen because there is something to do for everyone and it's all great. Highly recommended if you're ever close!

Day 64 - Sunriver, Oregon

After a relaxing morning, we decided to go on a kayaking trip down the Little Deschutes river in the afternoon. The trip was about 8 miles and was great fun. Thankfully, the whole trip was down stream!

Day 63 - Sunriver, Oregon

We've settled into this beautiful campground full of trees for a four night stay to simply relax and pretty much do nothing. We will have campfires, read our books and anything else that might be relaxing before we head out of Oregon toward Colorado.

Day 62 - Petersen Rock Gardens - Redmond, Oregon

Karin says she takes all of her guests to visit these rock gardens and we would be no different. To say the least, the gardens are wierd and very strange.

It seems that an old farmer from Denmark started building the gardens in 1935 and continued to build until his death in 1952.

There is just about every kind of rock you can imagine in the gardens and they all came from within an 85 mile radius of the gardens.

Some of them are kind of pretty, in a very strange sort of way. It was an enjoyable walk in any case.

Day 61 - Bend, Oregon

It seems that some people have never heard of Bend, Oregon. It is a beautiful area of central Oregon set on a beautiful river. They even have their own mountain they have named "The Three Sisters", just like up in Canada.

We came here to spend a couple of days with another old video friend, Karin Cody. We've known Karin for many years but hadn't seen her for about 15 years. She looks great!

Karin lives on a couple of acres outside of Bend and has two horses, a dog, a couple of cats and eight chickens. She is living in a double-wide house while she is slowly building a new home on the property.

The first night we were here Karin through a party and had all of her friends over for a bar-be-que. It was a great evening and it was wonderful to meet all of her friends.

Day 60 - Mt. Hood, Oregon

When we got into Hood River we had planned on spending the night at Wal-Mart because we knew we were moving on this morning but they don't allow overnight stays (most welcome us). We got a phone book and found an American Legion and were welcomed. We spent the night for free and had a great dinner there.

The trip from Hood River to Mt. Hood is filled with orchards of all types. We stopped and got some cherries, peach's, cantaloupe and corn. These places are not always the cheapest but the stuff is fress and it's a fun way to shop!

Mount Hood is not the tallest mountain we've seen but it is beautiful. It's only a little over 11,000 feet tall (Colorado is full of 14,000 foot mountains) but can easily be seen from Portland on a clear day (they actually have a few of those).

This is the Timberline Lodge located on Mount Hood at a little over 6,ooo feet in elevation. It's reported that the outside was used in the movie "The Shining". The lodge is really pretty and serves as a ski lodge in the winter.

Day 59 - Bonneville Dam, Columbia River Gorge, Oregon

The Bonneville dam was built on the Columbia river in 1933 and is a major producer of electricity for the area. It was built as a WPA project under Roosevelt and has been upgraded several times to produce larger amounts of electricity.

I was surprised to see that they still allow tourist into the turbine area of the dam (you know, the terrorist thing) but they did and it was interesting.

This dam was one of the first in the country to utilize fish ladders to allow the salmon to return to their spawning grounds above the dam. They are very much involved with making sure the fish are not effected by the dam. You can go into the visitor's center and actually see the fish swimming up the ladders.

This is an extremely large white sturgeon that is housed in the fish hatchery at the dam. Sturgeon can become 20 feet long and live for over 100 years. From a distance, they could easily be mistaken for a shark but, of course, they aren't dangerous.

Day 59 - Columbia River Gorge, Oregon

Leaving Portland, we headed east on I84 through the Columbia River Gorge. The trip between Portland and Hood River is one fantastic view after another. It's simply gorgeous! The trip to Hood River from Portland is only about 60 miles but it took us about 5 hours. It was extremely enjoyable.

On the route you come across the Multnomah Falls right on the interstate. We love water falls and this is one of the best we've ever seen. It is one of the tallest water drops of any U.S. water falls. It's so relaxing to sit and watch the water fall into the pond at the bottom.

Day 58 - Mt. St. Helens Area, Washington

Today we decided to go see Mt. St. Helens, which is north of Portland. To start the day, we were given the wrong directions and ended up at the wrong location. By the time we finally got to the visitors center, we found out we were still 47 miles from the viewing area. We dedided that we'd seen a lot of mountains before and the only way this one was different was that half of it's top blew off back in 1980. We skipped it and drove back to Portland. About a 150 mile round trip without the payoff. Oh well, nice drive!
At least the day finished well! We had dinner with some old friends, Ellen and Marty Graham, in Portland. Marty is in a video related business and has been a friend for over 20 years. He works for a company called Rentrak. If you have ever read or heard on the news that a particular movie opened with a huge box office over the weekend, determining those figures is one of the things Marty's company does. The rest is complicated. We had a wonderful time visiting with old friends we don't see enough.

Day 56 - McMinnville area, Oregon

We started the day at the Evergreen Aviation Museum. This museum has all sorts of aircraft from the beginning of flight to today and they feature the Spruce Goose.

As you can see, Howard Hughe's Spruce Goose is the central point of the museum. We had seen it before when it was in Long Beach, Calif. This is the largest wooden aircraft ever built.

They even have a free wine tasting right in the museum. The wine was quite good. The museum is totally surrounded by grape vines. They have the grapes processed and labled for them by another company.

After the museum, we visited a number of wineries for wine tastings. Most of the wineries in the Willamette valley are small boutique types, rather than large national brands. The valley specializes in Pinot Noir, which is our favorite.

We had a wonderful lunch of fresh bread, cheese, salami and, of course, wine. It was so enjoyable to just sit and sip!