2007 Fall Trip to Indio, CA

We are writing this from Creston BC on Saturday October 13th. We have been on the road for 8 Days. Back to the beginning where we left our motor home parking in Richmond BC on Saturday October 6th. We got away about 10 am and headed for the Alex Fraser bridge and then wound our way through Surrey BC to get to Highway 1 then over the Coquhalla Highway to Kelowna BC arriving in the Wal Mart parking lot about 4 pm. Yes I said Wal Mart parking lot because all the good RV Campgrounds in Kelowna have be bought out for development and closed. Our stay for two nights was good and Wal Mart got our money as we shopped. We had a great three days with Alan and Jen. We celebrated Thanksgiving with Jen’s family on Sunday and went walking with Alan on Monday and of course had our Chiropractic Treatment in between. On Monday night we moved the motor home to the lot outside Westgate RV as we had an appointment first thing Tuesday morning for some motor home warranty work. We ran into Al Sol in the morning when he dropped off his motor home to have it serviced. We had breakfast with Al. Trish joined us later during breakfast. We visited a winery and had lunch with Alan while the work was done. The work was completed to our satisfaction and we were on the road to Bob and Beth Thurston’s in OK Falls. We spent 3 great days at the Thurston’s. Marilyn and Beth shopped, Bob and I played golf. During the middle day we cleaned the motor home and rearranged the load so we were ready for the drive south. Today we left OK Falls and Sunny Bay at 8:45 am. The trip went well. We went over the Salmo Creston Summit (also known as Kootney Pass) and boy is that a long uphill grind slowing the motor home down to 40km. We made it in lots of sunshine and a great day. One thing we tried today was to run the generator all the time we were on the road and had a slow cooker plugged in and tied down so it would not tip over. The chicken dish we had this evening was delicious.
Today is a beautiful day. We crossed the USA boarder just a few KMs south of Creston. It was an easy crossing with just the usual questions. The boarder officers eyes widen after he ask how long we will be in the USA and we said 6 months but he just said have a good trip. We then started the trip south east going to Highway 2 heading for Kalispell MO. We gassed up at Porthill ID and at an even dollar we paid $.79 a litre. We have since paid considerably less for gas. Today’s trip was great and we arrived in Kalispell at about 3 pm after setting our clocks ahead one hour. We stayed in the driveway of our friends from Happy Wanderer in Indio CA, Cliff and Grace Kracher. We had a good visit over the balance of the afternoon, went out for dinner and went back to the Kracher home for coffee and dessert. We were up and at it early Monday morning and had a wonderful breakfast with Cliff and Grace. We were on the road by 8:15 am for the long 550 KM drive to Livingston, MT. We arrived late at the campground and were met by Barb and Norm Hewton who are the next door neighbors of Marilyn’s brother in Fenlon Falls ON. We received a call from Norm and Barb while we were on route. They said they were in Saskatoon SK, wanted to know where we were and could they join us. We agreed to meet in Livingston MT. It is a small world. We are staying about 50 miles north of Yellowstone National Park. The next day we did a 250 mile drive of Yellowstone in great sunny weather. Old Faithful was right on schedule and we saw two eruptions, one before we went for lunch and one after lunch. We had a packed day seeing all the sites including the hot pools, mud spots and lots of wildlife. The scenery was wonderful. As we were arriving back at the motor homes it started to rain. The next day, Wednesday, we left in pouring rain which continued for most of the day. After lunch we arrived at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Park. We drove the 5 miles out to the end of the battlefield and back passing all the grave sites including the many at Custer’s Last Stand. It was strange driving in this park knowing the history we had read many years ago. We stayed overnight in Ranchester WY. The sun was back the next day as we set out for Custer SD. We passed lots of open pit coal mines, oil wells and went through interesting canyons arriving in a lovely campground at about 4pm. Friday was a beautiful sunny day just right for our visit to Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse. Again after knowing about the carved heads of four American Presidents on Mount Rushmore getting to visit the site was awesome. This is a well put together American National Park and a great site to visit. After lunch we visited the site of the Crazy House which is another carving taking in the whole mountain. Now this is spectacular! Crazy Horse was the Lakota Chief who fought against Custer in the battle of the little Bighorn. The Indians wanted to have a statue of one of their great chiefs to match the sculptures of the American Presidents at Mount Rushmore. The individual the Indians asked to sculpture this mountain made this the balance of his life’s work and after his death his wife and 7 of his children have carried on. The sheer size of this project, which will not be finished for many years, makes it I believe more impressive then Mount Rushmore. This day was quite a day and one we will remember for a long time. We arrived back to a great beef dip dinner which Marilyn had been cooking in the slow cooker all day. We have decided to stay in Custer SD two more days as you may have noticed a snow storm which is going to hit the Colorado Rockies at Denver and west, the exact route we are traveling. We decided to hold up here two more days until the weather clears. On Saturday we visited the Jewel Caves and what a great experience that turned out to be. This cave is the second longest in the world and the end has still not been discovered. We descended down 350’ into the cave on a Ranger led walk through a section of the cave. The walk lasted about 90 minutes and was a great experience. Tomorrow is Sunday and we may take it easy before we head south west for Cheyenne WY and eventually I-70 through the mountains. I was just outside to turn off the water and it has started to snow.
Boy did we make the right decision to stay in Custer SD. I mentioned above it was snowing when I went out to turn off and bring in the water hoses. It went down to 26F or -7C when I woke up at 7am with 1” of snow. We watched the news and saw it was snowing heavy south of us towards Cheyenne and Denver and of course in the Colorado Rockies on our route I-70. We had a leisure get up with a big breakfast. The ladies went out to a dollar store they had spotted yesterday. After lunch Marilyn and I went to the National Wood Carving Museum. A good museum featuring the works of one carver plus a section featuring carvers from all over North America. I spent the balance of the afternoon with small projects on the motor home. This campground was great with great owners. A quiet place to rest and enjoy the woods. We awoke the next morning to sunshine and got on the road early. We have to say that South Dakota has the best roads we have ever seen however I-25 north of Denver CO is the worst road we have ever driven. Our drive to Cheyenne WY was going great until after lunch when a wind storm started the likes of which we had never seen. All of a sudden we here a loud noise and we were able to pull over right away. Could not see anything until our friends pulled over and said my awning was coming off. Apparently the wind coming sideways was so strong it lifted the awning. After spending time on the roof of the MH in a big big wind trying to tie the awning down and after a number of stops and a slow trip we arrived in south Cheyenne WY. The first thing we did was get the motor home in the lea of a building and extend the awning then roll it up again. I then climbed on a ladder and strapped the top arms. A scary afternoon. The campground, which was a Buffalo ranch, was not that great but after a shower and good dinner we felt better. The next morning was sunny and the trip to Denver Co was good except for the roads north of Fort Collins which were full of pot holes and a lot worse then I-10 west of Beaumont. After lunch it was up through Denver CO the mile high city and on to the Colorado Rockies. We were at 11,500 ft just before the Eisenhower Tunnel and 10,500 at Vail Pass. The scenery was great and we enjoyed that part of the trip. The surprise was Glenwood Canyon the part of the drive along the start of the Colorado River and into our campground on the river at Glenwood Springs. Marilyn and I went to the hot springs in Glenwood Springs and had a great time and after purchased groceries. This camp ground was located in a beautiful setting. The run the next day into Moab was uneventful and the scenery changed drastically to a desert and vast areas of nothing. Then the scenery changed again to the red cliffs and canyons as we came into Moab UT. We found a great campground. We spent the next two days visiting Arches Monument National Park and Canyon lands National Park. All we can say is the visit to these two parks was fantastic. The Arches, Cliffs, Canyons, Rivers and outstanding scenery will be remembered forever. I will produce a second half set of pictures and share then in the next few days. We even thought Canyon Lands was more impressive then the Grand Canyon south side. A side trip we made was to a winery was interesting. I had heard about the Castle Creek winery and the fact it had a movie museum in the basement was a bonus. Many movies were filmed in this area over the years. The museum was impressive. We purchased two bottles of wine from them. A surprise was that this was a lodge on the Colorado River beneath the red cliffs. What a setting!
The next morning we parted company with Hewtons who headed for Salt Lake City. We had a great time with Norm and Barb with lots of shared meals both in the MH and out at restaurants and of course our picnic lunches in the parks. The happy hours were fun also. Marilyn and I headed for Indio CA arriving west of Flagstaff after a day of driving through Navajo & Hopi Indian Reservation country which is a very dry desert area. It was good to see the trees near Flagstaff. On Sunday we drove to Indio and Happy Wanderers arriving about 2:45 pm. We were greeted by our friends Jim and Wendy who had margarita happy hour then invited us for dinner. Thank you for a great welcome back to our winter home. Our home in the desert survived very well but now the cleanup of the Motor Home, our yard and getting every in his place starts tomorrow morning. We hope you enjoyed this travelogue. We were on the road for 23 days and drove 5000 km.