Category: Venturing Out and About

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Denali National Park

We arrived at Denali’s Riley Creek Campground around 11 am as that was check-in/ check-out time there.   Your reservation does not secure a particular campsite, just that there will be a campsite that can fit our 40′ coach; so getting there as early as possible makes it more likely to get a nicer site.   The site we wanted was taken, but the one across the street from it was available.  We set up some of our things, but not everything as we saw on the campsite post they were leaving the next morning.  When they did, we immediately moved over there and enjoyed the next 6 nights in what we think is the best site in Riley Creek for a large rig.

That afternoon we walked over to the mercantile store as we heard there was huckleberry ice cream to be had.  It didn’t disappoint.

When we arrived, we had been dry-camping for the prior 4 nights, so we wanted to use the dump station before starting another 7 nights of dry-camping in Riley Creek Campground Denali National Park.  Their dump station was set up so it would take a very long time to dump and fill with water.  When you are dumping, the potable water is probably 40′ or more away; so the average RV had to move up about 25 feet or so for their fresh water line to reach, but that wasn’t far enough forward for the next vehicle to start dumping, so it took most folks twice the time to get out of the way for the next vehicle.   Lucky for us we found a line with only one rig in front of us, and we have a long fresh water hose so we could fill the tank and dump at the same time.

Our traveling companions had been to Riley Creek a couple other times, so they knew which were the best sites to try to get.   The best spot was taken so they took their #2 choice and set up.  We picked a site across from their first choice and noticed that the person in there was leaving the next day, so we deployed the bus just enough to live overnight as the site we were in was long enough but very narrow.

Next morning those folks left and we were ready to move.  That site was a much better setup for us, way more level and much wider too.  We stayed there for the next 6 nights.   It was also much better for deploying our solar suitcase to keep the generator running time to the very minimum.  A few of the days we didn’t need to run it at all.

Kathy and Sue wanted to go shopping in town, so one of the first days when it was cloudy and misting rain, that was what we did.   There are only a few things in the town of Denali:  restaurants, a few hotels, trinket shops and gas stations, also a few tour guide storefronts.   Not much else.  It’s all about the National Park across the river from the town.

We went for lunch at the place voted best pizza place in town.  We got a table outside so Dusty could come with us.  The pizza was as good, if not better than the last time we were here for dinner.   Dusty was very popular there.  It seemed like everyone had to come over and see him.  He mostly ignored them, except the kids who still had some food on their hands.  He wanted to lick those hands!  In the picture to the right you can see the Alaska Railroad Train across the river heading south toward the Denali Station.

Kathy, Sue and Larry went over to watch the Sled Dog Kennel demonstration.  The dogs are used all winter in the park, it’s quite amazing.  Then they walked back on a  3-mile forest trail that had quite a bit of elevation change.  Many sore knees after that!

 

We drove out the park road every day trying to see the Denali Mountain, and each time we were disappointed, as it was shrouded by clouds.   One of the days we decided to go for a hike on Savage Creek Canyon Trail.  We visited the Savage Creek Cabin on the way to the end of the road where the trail begins and heard a little talk about the history of the area from one of the tour guides.

It was a bit windy and mostly cloudy when we parked at the trailhead.  There was a large sign saying a grizzly bear had been seen in the area.  Not what you want to see when starting your hike!!!  (but  thankfully we never saw him)  We decided to walk up and around the river, over the road bridge so we would end up at our parking lot when we finished. (there was a small foot bridge at the other end of the trail that made it a loop.)  It was a short 2-mile hike thru some very pretty country.   Not far along the trail we came upon a ptarmigan (the chicken of Chicken, Alaska, fame)  I had only seen pictures, and this one was right on our trail and didn’t seem to care about us.  It just walks right up to us then darted into the underbrush.

Some of the areas were slippery and you could see the park service had tried to make them a bit less of an issue by strategically placing rocks to try to divert the water into small channels that emptied into the creek next to the trail.  When we got back we saw a caribou  crossing the creek and then eating in the bushes near the parking lot!

The next day Kathy and I drove over to Healy for lunch at 49th State Brewing.  They had a nice patio now out front that wasn’t there the last time we went there, so the Dust could also come with us and not have to stay in the car.  It was one of the scarce  almost warm day, so we wouldn’t have wanted to leave him in there.

 

 

 

On the last full day there we got to see Denali in all its glory!  We had an app that showed a real time view of Denali and we could see the cloud cover looked gone.  We took our last drive out the Park road and could see it clearly.  We could now leave feeling like camping there was a success!

The next morning we headed for the couple-hour drive to Fairbanks.

 

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K’esugi Ken & Talkeetna

We camped a couple days at Big Bear to catch up on laundry and supplies.  We did find our favorite taco joint while there.  It had moved so that made it a bit more challenging.  If you’re ever in Wasilla, try out Taco Cancun, you won’t regret it.

We drove up to K’esugi Ken Campground just a bit north of  Talkeetna.   What a nice campground, very wide, paved roads and beautiful campsites, and surprisingly they had 50 amp power.  Nothing else, no water or sewer there and no dump station either.   The campground was built on the side of a large mountain and the views were spectacular.  Our traveling companions had the site behind us and they could see Denali from the back of their campsite.   But it could only be seen the first day.  After that the clouds obscured it completely.  But prior to that happening, we drove back down the Parks Highway and over to a Denali Overlook and snapped a few pictures.   Denali was just as grand as I remembered it!

The next morning we drove over to Talkeetna, which turned out to be quite  a long way.   The road that goes over to Talkeetna was about 30 miles south of us; but what we didn’t realize was that turn-off was still a long way to the town, which looked to be right off the Parks Highway, but there was only one road to get there, which meant you drove way past it and then drove back up to it.  It was a bit deceiving until you really look at the map closely.

We finally got to the town and the train was there letting off passengers and tourists.   We had arrived at lunch time, so we went off to find the Denali Brewpub, which was right on the main road down to the River’s Edge Park.

The food was just Ok.  I would try somewhere else next time.  The patio was very nice, as the day was perfect, around 70 degrees and sunny.   Afterward we walked all around town, with me hanging outside all the gift shops with Dusty while Kathy shopped.

We ventured down to the park, and the river was high and moving very quickly.  There were a lot of signs about staying off the rocks due to the fast moving water scouring the dirt away under the rocks on the edges.  Of course there were a lot of folks that apparently didn’t or couldn’t read them and they were out on the rocks’ edge taking group photos and selfies.   Basically they were trying to warn you that if you fell into that fast moving frigid water, it wouldn’t be a rescue, but would be a body recovery.  Lucky for us (and them), no one fell in while we were there.

After a few hours wandering around the small town, we headed back to the car and drove the long way back to the campground.   Denali was no longer visible.

The following day Larry and Sue were going to try fly fishing in Troublesome Creek just up the road a mile or so, and we headed out to see other campgrounds in the area and visit a war memorial not far from one of them.  Also we did a short trail called the Moose Flats Trail.  And I was fairly happy we never saw a moose.   What we did see were mosquitos by the gross.  I wished I had brought my racket as the Deet seemed to have little effect on these buggers.

We spent four nights there and then headed up the road to Denali National Park for a week of dry camping.   No power/Water/Sewer @ Riley Creek Campground.

 

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Homer Spit

We got to Homer Spit on a glorious summer’s day!  Hasn’t been a whole lot of those on this trip, very different from our last trip to Alaska.  It was really windy when we arrived and got a bit more windy as the day went on, but the views were spectacular!!!  Later, after we set up the campsites, we headed down the spit and had a couple of beers over at the Salty Dawg, a true dive bar on the spit with extremely low clearances inside.   Then we walked over to Captain Paddies for Halibut.  It was one  of the best Halibut dinners I have experienced.  The place is nothing to look at really,  pretty much a tourist trap, almost a strip mall with a nicer facade.  Only “The Bus” had better Halibut in my opinion, and we will stop there on the way home; but Hyder, Alaska, is about 1,600 miles from here, so it will be a while.
It started to rain as we were leaving Captain Paddies and the wind made it a “driving rain”.  Lucky for us, it wasn’t actually raining hard yet, but the wind made it seem like it was raining pretty hard.

The next day was “shopping” day.  The merchants in town were very grateful for the money we left them.   Picked up some sweatshirts and tee shirts, and the much needed refrigerator magnet from the Salty Dawg!   Dusty even got a rain coat and a new jacket to help with the cold weather we have been experiencing.  (Now it will probably warm up, but I am sure he will get a lot of use on the way back home.)

 

We went out for Kathy’s Birthday celebration a couple nights after arriving. She chose Fat Olives up in Homer itself.  She couldn’t believe how good the Kachemak Bay Bowl was.   It was so good she had me take a picture of it so she could post it in the Tiffin Eats group online.  My pizza was over the top good too.   It probably was as good as the little pizza joint in Tribeca I would frequent when back East, but this pizza was a close second.

On Thursday morning we woke up to a ship at the Homer Spit dock, it was the Hanseatic Nature cruise ship.   A smaller, 500′ long cruise liner holding maybe 240 passengers on a 20-day trip from Sapporo, Japan, to Seward, Ak.

 

We drove back up the peninsula a bit to Anchor Bay to watch the crazy boat recoveries I had heard about.  That was so fascinating I had a hard time believing it when I was originally told how it worked.  But it was real, and I hadn’t seen anything like it before.  They made it look normal.  The video below shows how they do it.

When we got back to the coach, Kathy wanted me to get takeout from Fat Olives, pizza this time.   It was just as good as the first time.

 

TSUNAMI ALERT 11 pm Saturday night!!     We had seen articles and even a few pictures about Tsunami alerts for the Homer Spit, and still we were very unprepared when it happened.   When my phone went off just after falling asleep Saturday night, I was in shock.  I told Kathy what the alert and was we both jumped out of bed and started getting clothes on and quickly figuring out what we had to have in case a tsunami actually hit the motorhome.   We needed phones, charger(s), laptop & charger, dog food and medicines, a change of clothes would have been nice, but that was an afterthought.  And we had no information about the Tsunami,  how long before it might hit us, etc.  The only thing I knew was I didn’t feel an earthquake, so we might have a bit of time.

Larry came over to make sure we had heard it and within a few minutes of that they were gone.   Within 5 minutes of them, we were packed and in the car.   It was pouring rain and the road out (the only road) was full of cars moving very slowly.  That’s when I started hoping the Tsunami was coming from Japan or somewhere that could take a really long time to get here.  Within 5 to 6 more  minutes, the cars starting moving faster and we got off the spit and followed the Tsunami Evacuation signs I had seen when we were driving around the area.

We came to a T intersection and there the signs ended.   I sort of knew what was in each direction from the prior visit to Homer 4 years ago, so I turned to the right, drove past the airport and continued driving till we were at 300 feet of elevation.   I decided to stop when I could see a road sign indicating a significant downgrade.  We found a large driveway and pulled into that and turned the car around to face out to the road.  Cars and motorhomes streamed by for about a half hour.

We started looking at anything we could find on our phones.  Lucky for us there was a bit of cell service way out there and we could read what was going on.  We found a news site that said the alert on Homer Spit was a mistake.  I called the Homer PD and they acknowledged it was safe to go back.  The alert was really for the Cook Inlet on the other side of the peninsula.

I am going to make a go bag and figure out a place to keep it so if something happened we could get out faster.

 

 

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Soldatna & Kenai City

We got to our campground early in the afternoon and set up camp.  It wasn’t long before it started to rain and the camp roads became a muddy mess very quickly.   That evening we noticed the water in our Brita pitcher had a brown tint and the water in the toilet looked the same,  It was even more noticeable in the toilet since the porcelain is so bright white.   Turns out it’s a known thing and was “safe” to drink.  Hopefully…

I went out and bought 10 gallons of drinking water and made sure I didn’t fill the fresh tank with that stuff.   We noticed that a Fantasy Tour group that had pulled in one evening didn’t even connect to the water.  They were warned not to by the tour company.  It was a fairly expensive campground and they didn’t even tell us about the problem.  You can fill up for free at the Fred Meyers in Soldatna with clean City Water.  Next time I will know.

We were there the July 4th week, so we drove over to the 4th of July Parade in Kenai City with our chairs.   It was a pretty long parade that had lots of things not seen in other 4th parades in my past, specifically, tow trucks and race cars and even small children in go carts.   The one thing we missed was marching bands. There was not even one.  I guess that’s what happens when music class is cut from school curriculum’s.  At least the Shriner’s were there in their odd little cars.   Hard to imagine a 4th of July Parade without the Fez’s.

One afternoon we decided to take a drive to the beach, it was almost sunny and a bit cold but we braved it anyway.  Figured it might take an act of god to get us out of the car.   We headed south on Kalifornsky Beach road.  We went past Kalifornsky Beach and all the way down to Kasilof Beach Dipnetting fish camp.   It was a couple days before Dipnetting season but there were hundreds of cars, tents and trailers lining the road down to the beach.   We drove all the way down, to a spot that I figured was far enough as after that it looked like loose beach sand.  Got turned around and headed back toward Kenai City.   Along the route Kathy spotted 3 moose along the tree line near the road and I was able to slow down and she got a few pictures.  I was one cow moose and two baby moose.   Then about 10 minutes further up the road there was a very large bull moose just a foot off the road, by the time I saw him i was concerned he might jump in front of us.   He didn’t, but I looked back and he was meandering across the highway behind us.  Yikes.  He had to be 9-10 feet tall.  Having that coming thru your car windshield could ruin a lot more that just your day.

It’s been so cold and rainy, Kathy had to go to the sporting goods store and buy long underwear, socks, and a better jacket!  Now the sun should come out after spending the money!  We hope 🙂

The last evening in town we checked out St. Elias Brewery and had some wonderful pizzas!  And of course the beer was fantastic too.

Here are some of the 4th parade pics..

 

 

 

 

 

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Williwaw Campground in the Portage Valley

This campground is very nice, very secluded with no hookups and just a smidge of ATT cell service.  Our Starlink had no service at all due to the tall mountains ringing this campground.  It was pretty full every night we were there, if you go, make sure you get reservations for the bigger sites.

The drive to Williwaw was a bit White Knuckled.  The wind was howling and there were wind warnings.  We thought it was bad on the first leg from Palmer to Anchorage, but then we got on the section that runs along the northern Turnagain Arm.  That was worse than anything I had ever experienced.  Each time we came around a rock outcropping, the wind wanted to blow the bus off the road and into the water. After that first small “point”, I went a lot slower around all the rest.

The first mosquito I swatted with my new zapper, it sparked and lit on fire  for a second.  Wow!  Since then it’s been zapping them with its 2750 volts. Black Flag Zapper Racket

We drove over to Portage Lake on a blustery day, checked out the visitor center, and afterward we had to go check out the gift shop.  We checked out the glacier boat tour, but the boat was down for repairs, waiting for a part to come in from England.

After lunch we took a hike up the Trail of Blue Ice for a couple miles or so, swatting a zillion mosquitos while walking along.   About half way along the trail, a couple teenage girls came up to us and said they had stumbled upon a bear just ahead and wanted to know if they could walk with us. I noticed they didn’t have any bear spray with them.  Larry said sure, and proceeded to head toward the bear sighting.   And we kept going too.  I thought we should of course go the other way!   Luckily we didn’t see the bear and walked for another half hour, then turned around. The girls thanked us and kept going on toward the visitor center, which was probably another half mile away.  Then I noticed they were running up the trail.

We headed back and kept swatting the mosquitoes the whole way.  I wished I had brought the new zapper with me on that trek!

We hit a real rainy spell here in Williwaw, 3 straight days of rain without it ever stopping!  (Felt like 40 days and 40 nights).  I used the time to catch up on the blog and finishing the Perry Mason series.  We looked at driving over to Whittier for lunch but found out the only decent restaurant was closed.  We drove over anyway on one of the few sunny days.

While there we read a bit about that tunnel that was completed in 1943 as the main “highway” to move goods into Alaska for the war effort.   And a week later at the July 4th parade in Kenai, the woman sitting next to me told me when she was young, you could only get to Whittier via train or boat.  It opened to vehicle traffic on June 7, 2000 after a very extensive conversion from a World War II railroad tunnel.  It’s an odd experience as you straddle the rails when driving thru it as it’s only one car wide, meaning on the half hour you can go to Whittier from Portage and on the hour you can leave the city.   Good timing can save a lot of waiting!

With that in mind, we walked around a bit and then scrambled to get out of town on the hour;  and of coarse there was a train as we drove over,  and they were going to get thru the tunnel while it was outbound too.  We had to wait until after the train  cleared the other side of that very long tunnel.   It did and we proceeded to head back to Portage.

Once on that side of the mountain, we decided to drive over to Moose Flats to see if there were any moose to see.  There weren’t, so we headed back to Williwaw for the afternoon.

WhittierTrain

That evening we all drove over to the Double Musky for dinner.  It was a Cajun place out here in the middle of nowhere in Girdwood.   I tried the Gumbo and it wasn’t that good.  I think they burned the Roux.  I had the Jambalaya, which was good, probably a 6 of 10 on my Jambalaya scale.

Our Starlink did not work at all while at our site in the Williwaw campground.  I believe the problem was the tall mountains ringing that area only allowed us to connect when a satellite was directly overhead, and there aren’t many sats in the north latitudes yet.   We were able to extend our 4×4 MIMO Cellular antenna up off the roof on the batwing and get some AT&T signal.  It averaged -120dbm or worse.   I tried to use B14 but couldn’t get any signal with that, so I had to settle for B12 and a few other high-frequency bands aggregated together.   So surfing the web was not a fast thing, but we could check the weather and do emails and other internet things.

 

 

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Calgary

We left early on Friday morning to head north toward Calgary and fuel up near Trans Canada Highway 1, which was at least a couple hours away.   That fuel stop would allow our next fill to be in Grand Prairie, about 500 miles north.  GP is the last reasonable priced fuel stop before Anchorage.  Lucky for us, we left the smoke behind in Waterton and it was an enjoyable ride till we got to the fuel station.   Then it got difficult.  Seems it was the start of the Canadian long weekend and everyone needed fuel, so it was a madhouse getting in and out of there.   Not real fun with a 65′ long rig with all the folks jockeying for position.   And of course I forgot to take into account I was paying in Canada money when I prepaid inside, so I had to do it twice to fill the tank, which only meant I was there even longer.

We arrived in Cochran and Google Maps took me thru a new neighborhood with lots of small roundabouts.   Next time I will look much closer to the route it wants to take and set a few way-points if it’s going to do something stupid like that.  Bow Rivers Edge Campground was down this odd roadway with construction all around it.

We paid and pulled into our site.   It was fairly tight once in there and there were fairly tall hedges between us and our neighbors.   It was a bit smokey there, so when it cleared up the next day, there was a bit of celebrating going on all over the campground.  It was so smoky that I started to research filters on Consumer Reports.   Of course, I didn’t find any of their tested models available near me and ended up buying a 3M Filtrete Air Purifier model at Lowes.   It surprisingly worked well and now we have one for our time in Alaska too.  Last time in Alaska we were dodging smoke most of the trip.

We went out with our travel companions one evening while there to a local Tap Room, Half Hitch Brewing for Burgers.  The beer was good and so were the burgers.

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2023 Escapade (Tucson)

Drove over to Tucson for Escapade this spring.   Met up with friends Tami and Scott and traveled in together so we could park next to one another.   We were escorted out to the fence line on the south 40 of the property.   Not sure if it was a further walk to the main buildings than the last time we attended, but it sure seemed like it.   I guess you need to know someone to get reasonably close camping.

After our arrival  Saturday morning, I deployed my new 4-panel suitcase to see how well it worked with the sun relatively low in the sky.  It was pretty windy that morning, so I had to employ my newly installed D rings and large lag screws to hold them down.  And lucky for us I did that,  because it only got windier as the week went on.   A couple of the days were pretty cloudy, and by the evening on the second day of clouds, my batteries were around 40% SOC.  Not a great starting point for the sun going down, better if it’s just coming up.

We were in the solar area and were not supposed to run our genny; but I decided no one was around to hear it and ran it for a couple hours, bringing the batteries up to ~90%.   7 days of boondocking and I needed to run the genny for 2 hours.  If it hadn’t  been very cloudy for a couple days in a row, I would not have needed the genny.  And I may have not needed it when I used it, but I had never let them get below 40% since I put them in back in 2019.   The below screenshot shows that 400 watts of panels putting out a respectable 364 watts of power at noon one of the days.

We got to test out the new Power Watchdog on the way there and back and our new roller shades in the front area of the bus.  I can’t believe I didn’t get a picture of the new solar suitcase deployed.   It really worked out very well for helping to keep the batteries topped off.

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Valley of the Rogue

We were meeting back up with friends at this campground and staying for a few days.   When I was setting this camping up, I noticed how close it was to the 5 freeway.  So when we arrived and found our spot, I was pleasantly surprised how quiet it was.  And the Rogue River had a very small rapids area right across from us by Scott and Tami’s spot, so there was the sounds of the water right there making it a pleasant experience.

I spent some of the time there cleaning the basement that had gotten a bit dirty over the last several months.  Did some rearranging of stuff under there to lessen the weight on the right rear of the coach that I had found out about traversing a couple unoccupied weigh stations along the way to Champoeg.  (Shampoo)

One afternoon we headed over to Grant’s Pass for lunch along the Rogue River.  Was a pretty nice place with tables next to and overlooking the river.  Food was very good too.  (River’s Edge Restaurant)

One evening we were sitting outside our friends’ coach sipping on some beer and above us were hundreds of birds circling.  They looked like hawks to me and Scott thought they were turkey vultures.   I kept trying to get them into a picture but could only get some of them in any one shot.   They stuck around for a couple hours riding the thermals and dropping down and doing it again.  It was pretty cool as I had not seen that many birds doing anything like that before.

 

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Mt. Hood and the Fruit Loop

We arrived as early as we could at Toll Bridge Park, which is probably 20 miles south of Hood River (which is on the Columbia River).

It’s a first-come, first-served campground, (FCFS) meaning you cannot make reservations; you can only get a site if there is an empty one when you arrive, or at least, before you give up.   The west loop, which is where I hoped to get a site, was a bit too tight for our bus and “of course”, none of the sites that were long enough for us were empty, so we continued to the east loop where there  were many empty sites to choose from.  We picked a 65′ pull-thru, one of the half-moon type pull-thru’s which are never as long as they state.  Ours was the same, shorter than it stated, so our car is close to blocking the exit of the campsite behind us.

The next day we took a drive up to the Timberline Lodge, apparently the hotel they filmed The Shining (Jack Nicholson’s version).   It was very cool (cold) up there and the view of Mt. Hood was spectacular as the lodge is just above the timberline.

Geez, guess I should have read this article prior to coming here about: Mt Hood     After coming down off the mountain, we headed over to Government Camp and found  a pub for lunch.

We headed out the next day to drive the fruit loop and pick up some fresh fruit.  It seems most of the fruit we saw driving were pears.  We did find some great apples, peaches and blueberries.  There are a lot of stores/farm stands around the loop.  That 16% grade was really short, but I doubt I would want to drive the bus on it anyway.

And no day driving around looking for fruit stands could be complete without a stop at a winery/brewery.   That purple stuff was wild berry hard cider.  I took a sip, it was very sweet.  My beer was much better.

We also found Ethan’s favorite tortilla chips while wandering the roadways, and currently they are Kathy’s favorite too!

One afternoon we headed down to Hood River, which was a very nice area to wander around.  Just about every building had a small plaque on it explaining what it was used for when built, most in the early 1900’s.   While Kathy was shopping, I sat around with the dog breathing in car exhaust.  Not sure why it was so noticeable, but it was.  Hopefully folks will pull their head out of the sand and seriously look at electric cars.  I won’t be buying another gas powered car.  The only thing holding me back at the moment is none of the current electric cars can be towed behind our motorhome with 4 wheels on the ground.  I would have to deal with a large trailer and that’s one hassle I don’t want to deal with.

I noticed this hole in the very tall tree next to us and hoped that there wouldn’t be a storm coming thru the few days we camped there.

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Blanchard, Idaho (CDA)

We decided to go to the Stoneridge Golf and RV Resort about 30 miles northwest of CDA.  I’ve found that the most expensive places often have last-minute campsites available, even though this wasn’t really last minute.  I was calling when it was only a couple weeks prior to the Labor Day Weekend, so every other place had no openings for that long weekend.

Turned out Stoneridge was a very nice place to camp (glamp?)   It did seem to have an identity crisis though.  All the paperwork when we got there had the name “Motorcoach RV Resort Idaho” on them.   I had asked the guy next door (who in the first conversation let me know he was an “owner”) about the name, and he wasn’t aware of that name.  Not sure how that works, if one of the site owners isn’t aware of the place’s actual name.

The place was extremely nice.  Lush grass and flowers everywhere!  If this was closer to home, I could see investing in a lot here.  But it’s very far and is only open May to October due to cold weather.

 

 

 

 

 

The day after arriving, we headed up to Newport on the Pend Oreille River, which is a tributary of the Columbia River.  The drive through the area just south of the town was a very depressed looking area, and the town itself, which I believe is in Washington State, is only a slight upgrade.   We did enjoy a drive over to the Albeni Falls Dam a few miles upriver for some pretty views.

The following day we met with the in laws to check out their new motorhome, new pup, and to see the lake house construction progress.   The lake house cabin was anything but a cabin.  It was very large with lots of steel beams and columns, three stories, right on the lake with three nice-sized decks, one on each level.  It will be a gorgeous home when it is done!  Hopefully John will get this done soon so he can retire!   We then headed back up to Stoneridge so they could see this place and we could get lunch on the deck at the deli.

Lunch was pretty good, and while we were munching down, the wind really started to blow, knocking over one of the unoccupied tables and umbrella behind us!   Thank goodness it didn’t hit the man and his daughter only a few feet away!

We drove over to our rig for desert just as the rain started, which only lasted a little while.  We bid Stacy and John adieu and they headed back home.  We were heading out the next morning toward Potlatch, ID.