Skip navigation

Tag Archives: road trip

Out in the Dark

The girls and I recently returned from an adventurous fifteen-day roadtrip to Nevada and Utah. Did you know that eastern Nevada has LOTS of really high mountains? Like 10,000 feet and higher? Really an amazing landscape. And it’s so large, we barely saw any of it. And it’s remote. Really remote. Sky had a medical emergency on a Sunday and I managed to get a large animal veterinarian on the phone and he said, ‘Lady, you are in the middle of nowhere. No one here can take care of your dog. You need to go to Vegas or Salt Lake City.’ We ended up going to Elko, but that’s another story. Thanks to the wonders of modern veterinary medicine, Sky is fine now.

Our destination was the Nightscaper Conference in Kanab, Utah. Ken flew down to explore the sights and wrangle the dogs while I was filling my brain with more information than it could ever hold.

Here are a few images from the trip down there.

Ups and Downs of a Road Trip

The girls and I recently returned from two-plus weeks on the road with the new (to us) camper. It was a trip full of ups and downs. We crossed many steep passes in Oregon, Idaho and Montana. The northwest has lots of mountains. We drove to the top of Steens Mountain, nearly 10,000 feet high in SE Oregon and we drove to Stanley, Idaho – a tiny mountain town at over 6000 feet in the Sawtooth Mountains. I can’t begin to name all the passes we crossed in Oregon. Highway 395 just seems to go up and down all the time.

Seeing these beautiful places was a great high point of the trip but there were also lows. Smoke-filled sky in Oregon dimmed the views of and from Steens Mountain. Hot temperatures left Luna wilted and slowed down our adventures. And since it was unseasonably hot, the rattlesnakes were still active. I suppose the lowest of the lows was two flat tired on the 4 Runner. I did manage to to get them both changed and I endured two long trips (seventy miles, one way) to the tire store, taking up two full days of the trip.

The girls and I did enjoy camping next to a river with shady trees to provide afternoon respites. Morning and evening walks were delightful. Page Springs used to be a sleepy place, visited mainly by birders and other wildlife enthusiasts but in 2020 covid year, everyone is searching for out of the way places to camp. The campground host said it had been full most every night since Memorial Day. I remember when Ken and I camped there on our honeymoon and nearly had the place to ourselves.

Morning walks along the Blitzen River
My favorite juniper tree
Sagebrush taller than me
Peter French Round Barn

Driving North

We left Homer bound for Denali after a short stop in Anchorage. We had gone a charter fishing trip and caught some halibut. At the Anchorage airport there is a freezer locker where you can store your fish, for a fee.

We stopped a few times to take in the sights. At once place, numerous people were dip netting for hooligan or smelt. We’d never seen that before. Most of the people were waiting for the tide to turn and were spread out on the rocks anticipating that the fish would soon arrive. We also stopped at Tern Lake and Potter Marsh where we saw courting Mew Gulls and Arctic Terns. Arctic Terns migrate between Antarctica and the Arctic, a distance of about 12,000 miles, twice a year!

Hooligan fishing
We didn’t see anyone catch anything.
Mew Gulls
Arctic Tern

On the Road

Here are a few photos from a recent trip to Arizona. I met two friends in their RV near Phoenix. From there we went to Saguaro National Park and then to SE Arizona. It was a fun and interesting road trip.

Home, the morning I left. 17 degrees Fahrenheit.
A stunning sunset for much of the flight.
Nice to spend time with Wyatt Ann again!
Rooty Tooty Galoot pretty much rules the roost.
We visited the Biosphere 2. Interesting place. If you go, try to get a history tour.
This blimp hovers over Sierra Vista and watches comings and going through much of Cochise County.
Not unusual for southern AZ
An over the top holiday light display in Mesa.

A Change in the Scenery

Last week Ken and I and the dogs got away from home for a few days. Whidbey Island was our destination. Whidbey is over 50 miles long and lies at the north end of Puget Sound, otherwise known as the Salish Sea. You get there by taking a ferry or by bridge across Deception Pass at the island’s north end. We took the bridge. It’s a good place for beach walking, exploring small towns and history and eating good food. We did all that and I got to take my kayak out in Penn Cove (where they grow the wonderful mussels) with Ken’s brother.

We camped at Fort Ebey State Park in a beautiful forested setting. It was a short walk to a bluff trail that provided wonderful views of the strait and good birding opportunities. It’s part of a large system of trails for walkers and mountain bikers. Fort Ebey is one of a series of forts that were constructed for coastal defense beginning in the 1900’s. Several of these installations were converted to state parks in the 1960’s.

The dogs had a great time on the beaches and the sunsets were marvelous. Driving across the pass we enjoyed the first dusting of snow in the North Cascades and a walk in the big cedar trees along the Skagit River at Newhalem.

New snow
Liberty Bell
Moss-covered limbs on the Trail of the Cedars at Newhalem
I was so pleased to see that Sky’s big stump didn’t burn in last summer’s fire at Newhalem
Bridge across the Skagit
Ringing the bell
Look both ways before crossing the highway Luna
Deception Pass
A bird’s eye view of a seal from the Deception Pass bridge
The gulls and kelp make an interesting abstract as seen from the bluff at the state park
Beautiful views of the strait were a short walk from our campsite
A great kelp bed on the west side of Whidbey
A boy and his dog
This old boat could use a little work
This is where the mussels are grown
Getting the platforms ready for new mussels
Seals like the mussel platforms
Arriving in Coupeville for lunch. Mt Baker in the distance
There’s Carl
Sunset on the bluff
Morning on the bluff
Mt Rainier
Kelp
A dog and her stick
Limpet on driftwood
Lake Pondilla
Fort Casey ruins
This is how they used to protect the inland waters
A freighter travels towards Seattle
Kites
Crows
Fort Casey lighthouse
Ebey’s Landing beach
Mt Rainier and a ferry.
Birds use the kelp bed as a platform to hunt for food.
What’s that NOISY intruder?
This noisy parachute with a lawnmower engine was quite the disturbance. All the birds flew.
Luckily, he didn’t stay too long.

%d bloggers like this: