Niagra Falls today was absolutely amazing!  The weather was perfect too--82 degrees.  We went on the Cave of the Winds walk which was awesome, awesome, awesome, took a drive to see Lake Ontario, and drove over to Lockport to see the Erie Canal.  We lucked out and were there when they were raising and lowering the locks to let boats pass through. 

WE ARE IN NEW YORK!!! 3600 miles under out belt!  Wow!  Can't quite believe it.  We traveled through Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York today (about 280 mi).  We are staying at the Niagra  Falls Campground, $54/night, Good Sam Park on the US side.  We had made reservations at another park but when we drove in, we all agreed, we didn't want to spend the next 5 days there.  It was called AA Royal Motel and Campground--that should have been a red flag, right?  We had given them a credit card to hold the reservation so we had to forfeit one nights fee or stay someplace where we were very uncomfortable (very run down motel, junk all around).  Can't believe it was a Good Sam Park.  We are all glad we made the decision and this is 1000 percent nicer park. 

We went through Toledo yesterday and Cleveland today and saw Progressive Field where the
Cleveland Browns play.  Not too bad going through on a weekend but very glad to be staying put for 4 nights. 

Tomorrow we will go exploring the falls and decide what (if any) tours we might want to take.  We definitely plan to go to the Canadian side at some point.

Photos below, Progressive Field in Cleveland and dueling bar-b-ques cooking up a great dinner of marinated shrimp, stir fried noodles, asparagus and garlic bread on the barby. It did rain on us this morning but the weather is definitely turning our way.  It's supposed to be in the 80's this week:):)

I hope to have some fabulous pictures of the falls by tomorrow.

 

We're in a little town in Ohio called Bellevue, Gotta get away good sam park, $31, Long day today. 380+ miles but we're a short 280 from Niagra Falls. Can’t wait and the weather is supposed to be summer again--80’s all next week.  Den went and bought 2 more pairs of jeans today cause he only brought 2. Hopefully we won't need them for a while.

Hope everyone is well.  Hugs.

OK, we finally got our sunshine and a fabulous day on Mackinac Island. 

There are no cars allowed on the island!  We took a horse carriage around the island.  Renee and I saw an incredible butterfly exhibit, there is a fort there, the Grand Hotel built in 1829 (we heard it was $365/night), the Mackinaw Bridge, Arch Rock (complete with kayakers), lots and lots of bicyclers and fudge store galore, and a lovely ferry ride over.  And only horses, bikes, and walking for transportation.  We even saw a street sweeper being drawn by horses.  Can you imagine?

We enjoyed our first camp fire tonight and decided to stay one more night here before moving on.  Dick needs to get his oil changed tomorrow and Renee and I found a good looking kayaking spot (hopefully tomorrow it will be calm like it was today), and we can all relax for another day. 

The weather report is somewhat promising for next week--back in the 80's so we will look forward to getting back into our shorts. 

On Tuesday, we drove through three states, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan.  We're staying at Van Riper State Park in Champion MI, $22, a beautiful park in the UP (that's what the locals call the upper peninsula of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron). We had high hopes for kayaking and just enjoying this beautiful park but the weather continues to plague us:(  We plan to move to Mackinaw City Wednesday and take the ferry to Mackinac Island which is supposed to be fabulous.  It's supposed to be sunny and 75 tomorrow.  Yaaayyyy!  If it's not, we will just have to bundle up and go anyway just like we did in Alaska.  I was so happy to find I had a pair of gloves in my drawer yesterday.  Never thought I need those.

We decided to stay at another Michigan state park, Wilderness, in a town called St. Ignace.  We've been seeing signs for pasties along the way so can hardly wait to try them.  This is another beautiful park right on Lake Michigan, $28/night, electric only.

Please don't give up on this blog.  We have high hopes for tomorrow and some nice weather and good stuff coming our way.  Wifi is very slow tonight so will have to wait until tomorrow to post pictures.  

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Tonight we're staying at a KOA just outside of Duluth MN.  Nice park, with wifi $38/night.  Denny was able to get the slider in this morning and we got on the road around 10:30.  We met up with Dick and Renee here and Denny was able to fix the slide out, thank goodness.  You just don't realize all the things you take for granted in your RV until they don't work.  Turns out the bolt that keeps it aligned had gotten sheared off.  After stopping a couple of places, he was able to find a replacement bolt and got it in and WA LA, it works again!  He also checked out the water pump and found that it just had an air lock in it and it's now working fine. 

We are on the upper edge of Lake Superior here (but haven't seen it yet) and plan to head up to upper Lake Michigan and Lake Huron and take a ferry to Mackinac Island if the weather cooperates. We just heard on the news that the temps are 17 degrees below normal right now. And we can believe it!  By the way, our antenna tv is working pretty well most of the time. 

I hope to send pix tomorrow.  Pretty pooped tonight after fighting the wind all day again today and worrying about what we were going to do about the slider and water pump.  Otherwise all is well and we are having a great time.  Good to be with our special buddies for a couple of weeks.  

Just checking in here in Grand Forks, ND.  Nothing too exciting to report other than 40 mph side winds most all the way from Williston, a defunked water pump (on the trailer) and a slide out that won't slide out.  Otherwise all is good.  Night night.

Williston, ND, boomtown.  We're glad this was along our route so we could see what the big deal is.  We stayed at the only RV park available, Lewis & Clark State Park, $30/night. This is a super nice park right on Lake Sakakawea (on the Missouri River), 18 miles out of town, with full hookups.  North Dakota's coffers must be pretty healthy--this is a really nice State Park.

We had planned on exploring today and maybe talking to some of the folks who live and work here in the oil fields but, during the night it started raining and the wind blew so hard, we were a little worried about the "T" word.  It rained sideways all day today so our exploring turned into a quick run into town long enough to have dinner and a look around.  So.... I don't have much in the way of pictures but if you'd like to know more about oil fracking in Williston, check out YouTube or Google oil fracking in Williston, ND.  There are some really good documentaries and information about all aspects of fracking (which, by the way, is short for fracturing rock and shale). We really knew very little about it before we started out but are glad we are somewhat knowledgeable about it and could see it first hand.  Thanks Rick and Polly for suggesting it.  I just wish you could have order better weather for us:)

We did find out from a fellow camper that the boom that began in 2009 has cooled off due to low oil prices and some are now saying Williston is in "bust" mode.  Even so, we read that this is the fastest growing city in the US, three years in a row. 

We saw lots of trains pulling oil tankers.  I counted 100 tankers on one train that had 4 engines pulling it.  Many are heading for Bakersfield.  Supposedly, these shipments have slowed down tremendously due to oil prices.  We're pretty glad about oil prices though.  We haven't paid more than $2.75/gal since leaving CA.

Hello all.  We spent the last three days at Johnson's at St. Mary RV Park, St. Mary, MT, just 1/8 mi. from the eastern entrance to Glacier National Park.  Nice location, nice restaurant, nice views of Lower St. Mary Lake, $43/night.  On the down side, no cell service, no wifi (or very limited only at the office, but I was rarely able to sign on), no TV signal, and only a talk radio station from Calgary, Canada:/ 

On our way here, about and hour west of Kalispell MT, we stopped for a lunch break along a stream and spotted our first black bear.  Pretty cool!

Our first day at Glacier, we took the shuttle through the park, took a short hike, and had a picnic lunch at Sprague Creek on the west side of the park.  The weather was a little drizzly and cool until the afternoon. 

We saw the remnants of the recent fire on the east side.  The west side fire is still burning but controlled.  The skies were super smokey the whole time we were here.

The second day, we drove up to Many Glacier which is on the northeast side of the park, hoping to find a nice calm little kayaking lake.  We launched at Swift Current Lake as recommended by the ranger and before I got back to the ramp, there were white caps everywhere.  At least I can say I did it! This was the nicest weather day but VERY windy.  On our way back to camp, a little black bear cub came up over the bank and walked right toward us.  He was too fast for us to get the camera out.  So cute.  Mama bear was no where to be seen. 

The park was absolutely beautiful but I must say, once you've seen Alaska glaciers, others pale in comparison.   Sadly, many of the glaciers are shrinking away. 

We're heading east on Hwy. 2 now for probably around the next 1500 miles.  Everything is going smooth and hope you are all doing well.  Thanks for your comments.  It's great hearing from ya'll. Kisses and hugs.
 

Hi there! We've been off the grid for a few days while in Glacier N P. All is well and I hope to be able to catch up tonight in the big city of Havre MT.

We thankfully woke up to beautiful blue skies and calm winds on Saturday and started our short journey to Sagle, Idaho.  It was great seeing Rick and Polly and their beautiful home which is right near Lake Pend Oreille (pronounced Pond Arel).  After a relaxing day of cards sharing our trip plans, Rick fixed us a wonderful dinner of Egg Plan Parmesan. Deliciosso!!

On Sunday they gave us the Sagle/Sandpoint tour around the lake and town and had a delightful late lunch at Trinity, their favorite watering hole overlooking the beach.  A beautiful day, though very hazy due to all the fires happening all around Idaho and Washington. 

A wonderful visit with great friends.  Today we will move on to Glacier National Park.

Well, today was a little bit different picture than yesterday.  Everything started out just great and stayed that way until we were about 60 miles from our destination, Peaceful Pines RV Resort, Cheney, WA.  We had heard there would be high winds near Spokane today but everything was fine most of the day.  After we stopped for lunch, the winds came up and everything changed.

When we got to around Lind WA (3 pm) we stopped at a rest area for a break and while we were there, we heard sirens heading north (the way we were heading).  When we got back on US 395 we saw a cloud of black smoke and the traffic slowed down to a crawl.  Well, evidently there was a traffic accident due to the high winds that started a fire and this closed down the highway all together.  At this point, they turned us all around and we didn't know quite what to do.  Thankfully we had a regular ordinary old map (in addition to the GPS and Mapquest) and could see a reasonable detour around the fire.  So, we re-programmed our GPS and took about a 100 mi. detour.  Along that route, we encountered a dust storm so bad, we couldn't see 2 feet in front of us combined with the smoke from fires everywhere in Washington.  Then, along the way, we passed by ANOTHER fire that had just started (by a farmer who was mowing late in the afternoon) and luckily, the wind was blowing away from us or we would have been stuck there too.

While we were trying to get back to our destination at "Peaceful Pines" we tuned into the local AM station which told us basically, the state of WA was on fire, under a major dust storm, and experiencing flash flooding.  Luckily (for us, not them), this was happening in places we had just passed through earlier today.

We arrived at Peaceful Pines about 2 hrs. after anticipated.  Let's just say this is one of those one or more "throw back" martini nights Doreen Orion writes about in her book "Queen of the Road" or at least a couple glasses of chardonnay (Renee, you know what I'm talkin' about). 

Needless to say, we drove quite a bit farther than planned today (440 mi) and not only farther, but tougher, much tougher!  Poor Den.  I would have helped drive today but the wind was so crazy, I knew he wouldn't relax, which would defeat the purpose of me driving.

Oh, and when we got to Peaceful Pines, the first words out of their mouth was "Our pump is out and we have no water. So if you want to go somewhere else, we will undersand".  Our answer, "We aren't going anywhere".  An hour or so later, they came over and told us they got it working.  Thankfully, we can have a shower tomorrow morning and be on our way to Sagle, Idaho to visit with Rick and Polly, our long time friends from Redding and Wagon West.

Peaceful Pines RV Resort, Cheney, WA, $31.05/night. Cable TV and Wifi.  A little piece of Heaven. Ahhhh!

We left home this morning at 8 am under gorgeous blue skies.  Very smooth sailing today (340 mi) and we are staying in Redmond OR, just north of Bend at the Expo RV park which is part of the fairgrounds here.  Nice new park and super easy setup.  Nice level concrete spots. $36/night.  Believe it or not, we didn't bring the satellite and are using the new digital antenna we bought before we left!  So far Denny is happy--50ish stations:)

Ready, set, go! We're 95% ready to take off bright and early tomorrow morning.