Leavenworth, WA.

We took Washington Highway 2 to Leavenworth.  A touristy town but with a difference.  In the mountains, this town has a Bavarian motif.  We spent an afternoon being tourists and we didn't mind it.  It was cool out with a little sun.  Not too many other tourists as it was a weekday and early in the season.  We had lunch at a German restaurant and had a pork sandwich on rye bread with a German potato cake. 
It was fun and we recommend to anyone to go there and be a tourist.  It was at least different. 
http://www.leavenworth.org/modules/pages/index.php?pageid=1
We stayed at Icicle River RV Resort.  A very nice park and we got a spot on the river.  It was wonderful to go to sleep every night with the sound of the river, which was running very fast with all the snow melt. 
Here are a few pics.

And Now For Something Different

What we are listening to:    http://music.aol.com/video/david-gray-the-one-i-love-aol-sessions/david-gray/1412129

Turn up the volume and expand the window.  Hope you like it.  Let us know what you are listening to. 
Greg and Barb may have already heard this 3 or 4 times.  Chris

New Friends and lots of Wine

From Chris:  After leaving Bosie we headed into Washington.  We had a beautiful drive.  After spending 14 years in Corpus Christi, Texas it is nice seeing mountains, rivers, forests and lush farm land.  We landed in a town named Prosser.  Alex had reseached our path and our campground.  He did a very good job. 
No sooner had we parked the coach, then Chris went looking for answers to the normal RVer questions...  "Where do you go for good food" and "What is there to do in this area".  Well, there were 4 people sitting outside their two rigs and they seemed to be having a very good time.  Chris went right up to them and started asking questions.  Well, she didn't get very far as the 2 couples took Alex and Chris under their wings and we ended up having a wonderful 4 day visit.  Mike and Cheryle are from the Seattle area.  Kelly and Rocket are from Whistler, British Columbia.  What a riot the 4 of them are.  They have been friends for quite awhile. 
Right down the street, walking distance, is a wine tasting development with about 15 tasting rooms.  We tried as many as we could and we ended up with a nicely stocked wine supply.  We only bought about 10 bottles because we just don't have a lot of room in the coach for anymore.
The rest of the time there was spent doing two happy hours, one brunch and one very fun walk around the town and buying assorted items at the local farmers market on Saturday morning.
The 4 of them are planning on coming to Anacortes Washington, our next stop for 5 weeks, to meet us on 4th of July weekend.  That should be fun.
We are headed to Anacortes to visit Whidbey Island.  Whidbey is where we were stationed for 10 months and where Bill Torrance was born.  It is a wonderful place that Chris has dreamed of going back to ever since she left 3 weeks after Bill was born.
Below are some pics of our visit to Prosser.   The one above is Alex with his first wine purchase.

The Prosser Queen and her Court
Mike, Cheryl, Kelly and Rocket

Dead Horse State Park, Moab, Utah

I neglected to post any pictures of Dead Horse State Park.   We drove thru one afternoon and didn't expect to be impressed after spending time at Arches National Park and Canyonlands National park.   So we were surprised when Dead Horse captured our attention.  These are just a few pictures.  Again, none of our pictures do these parks justice.  You should probably Google each park and investigate them yourselves.  We hope that will make you want to go visit them. 
The bright blue lake in the second picture is an evaporative salt pond.

Boise, Who Knew?

Really, who knew that Boise was a riverfront (Boise River), safe, wonderful city that hosts Crosby, Stills and Nash AND The Eagles all in one month?  And they have the best Saturday morning downtown market Chris has ever been to. 

We actually came to Boise to visit our old neighbors from Corpus Christi, John and Pat, and our fulltime RVer friends Greg and Barb who are from Boise and are now hanging out here for the summer until they get back on the road in the fall.
We didn't make it to any of the concerts, but had some great dinners with our friends and had fun catching up.  Boise is a place that makes you feel very comfortable.  It's friendly, gentle, pleasant and sophisticated.  Nice place.

John and Pat        

                                                                         Barb and Greg 

Alex and Pilot hiking in the Boise foothills

Salt Lake City

The Salt Lake City area surprised us for a number of reasons. It's much larger than we thought and the mountains are right above the city. Big ones too. Not far on the other side of the city is the great Salt Lake. The thing about the lake is that it is beautiful in a stark, lonely kind of way even though the city is right there.

We stayed at Hill Air Force Base just north of the city. Nice campground. Lots of F-15's and F-16's screaming by. We enjoyed being back on a jet base, but poor Pilot didn't appreciate it very much.

Here is an album of the Mormon Temple Square. It is lovely and the spring tulip gardens they had planted everywhere in the square made us speechless. We were able to attend an organ rehearsal in the Temple Tabernacle for a half hour. It should not be missed. We will be back to visit more of the Salt Lake area.

All you have to do to see the 17 pictures in the album is click on the picture of Alex above.  Once at the album, you can select "Slideshow".  Hope you enjoy them. 

Moab, UT

Moab.  Well, we spent a week here and didn't touch all that there is to see and do.  We'll have to come back and spend at least a month.  The main attactions for us at Moab were Arches and Canyonlands National Parks and Dead Horse State Park.    Alex had sprained his ankle so we didn't do a lot of hiking but we drove through the parks and were amazed at how beautiful the area is.  Here's a few pics to give you an idea. 

This was the view outside our coach in the RV Park.

Here's a link to Arches National Park slideshow.  For some reason we didn't get any pictures there. 

http://www.nps.gov/imr/customcf/apps/pgallery/display-slideshow.cfm?aid=602&gid=602&park=arch&sort=title&aTitle=Arches%20Slideshow

The following pictures are of Canyonlands National Park.  We believe that this Park is as impressive as Grand Canyon and there are not as many people and cars!!!

North Rim Canyon De Chelly

Antelope House Ruin

Canyon De Chelly

From Chris:   Last week at this time we were in Canyon De Chelly National Monument  http://www.nps.gov/cach/index.htm   in northeastern Arizona.  We spent two days at the park's campground.  There were no hook ups, but there was water and a dump available.  They don't take reservations, but if you can get in, it's free!!!   There are only a handful of sites that could accomodate a large rig. 
Canyon De Chelly is on the Navajo reservation.  This reservation encompasses part of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado.  It's BIG. 
We loved Canyon De Chelly.  It's not easy to get to, not easy to camp there and the small town near the park on the Navajo reservation could be considered depressing to some.  The good news is that there are signs that the Navajo government/nation is spending money on schools and drug and alcohol addiction.
To make it more difficult while we were there, there was a 24 hour sandstorm.  A real one.  It was very uncomfortable in 35 mph sustained winds and gusts over 70 mph.  We were stuck in the coach and even though we had everything closed up, we still got dust inside.  I'm still cleaning it up.  We are still glad we went to the Canyon in spite sandstorms and no hookups. 
The park is wonderful.  Words and pictures won't do it justice.  However, here are a few pictures that we took.  If you ever get near the area, GO.

South Rim

White House Ruin (above and below)

Heading North

From Alex:   Hi all,  we've left Canyon De Chelly and are very comfortable in Moab, Utah.  Canyon DeChelly National Park was challenging with no hookups and blowing sand up to 70 mph, but the scenery was breath-taking and worth the effort to be there.  Canyon De Chelly is like a "small-personal-Grand Canyon".  We were tired of the heavy winds and left early Thursday, 29 Apr.  Drove through sleet and snow to Moab, Utah.  It's a relatively small town catering to the kayak's, bicyclists, 4-wheelers and sight-seers of Arches and Canyonlands National Park.  Lots of young adults with boats, bikes and Jeeps.  I twisted my ankle so Chris has been doing just about everything while I rest.  It hasn't hurt this bad since High School basketball.  Chris wants me on the hiking trails in 2 days, so I'm resting.  Enjoy the pictures that Chris is going to download soon.

What's Inside

From Chris:   Some folks have asked to see what the inside of the coach looks like.  Well, we cleaned up the place since Uncle Gene was coming to dinner and we took some pics.  So, here they are.  We like the coach and are very comfortable.  At least Alex and I are, we can't speak for Pilot.  We really hope he likes it.
I think you can click on the pics to make them bigger.  But since I'm not good at this, it's a mystery.