Travels with Gunther and Kara

We’ve pretty much been doing nothing for the past week except hanging out at the Travel Camp at Fort Lewis. Unfortunately our time there ran out today so we moved over to the Ranier View Adult RV Park in Graham, WA this morning.

Getting ready to travel and hitching up with the cast on Neil’s foot was harder than normal but not as hard as we thought it would be. After getting an almost empty propane tank filled (we scored 2 buck a gallon propane at the Travel Camp) we finished up dumping, stowing, and hitching and hit the road about 1030 for our 26 mile drive. Hopping in I-5 North we went about 7 miles up then got off on WA-512 and then turned right onto WA-161 through Puyallup and Graham to the park.

Here’s a quick phone shot of our parking spot #13 on the top row as well as a shot of Mount Ranier looking to the southeast. I’ll have Neil grab some better photos as soon as a less hazy day comes by.

Ranier View is an adults only park…it’s got a nice view to the southeast toward the mountain due to the terraced nature of the property. We’ve got good satellite visibility, pretty decent internet, and the price is right at $500 a month including electricity. The sites are a bit closer together than we like but it’s really a pretty decent place to park if we have to be in the area for 6 or 8 weeks. We also looked at a place out in Elma, WA about 30 or 40 miles west of Fort Lewis…the people there were nicer and some of our RV-Dreams are staying there so we took a ride out and looked at it last week. Unfortunately the only sites they would rent us from not to after Labor Day were in the back of the park and the other RVs back in that area were…let’s call them well experienced RVs. The up front nicer spots were not available for long periods; guess they can charge higher rates for those so we passed on it and came here. We met Vance in the office this morning and had previously met Tina the manager (and maybe owner as well)…both were very helpful and offered to do anything Neil needs while we are here.

Mount Ranier is 14,411 feet high and has a topographic prominence of 13,211 feet (this is the distance it sticks up above the surrounding plain) and is the most heavily glaciered peak in the lower 48 states according to wikipedia. It’s actually quite striking; in the photo below the mountain is almost 28 miles away…we’re sitting at 963 feet elevation here in the park and it’s essentially flat all the way to the base of the mountain. Since it’s still an active volcano (actually a stratovolcano) we really hope it doesn’t decide to erupt while we are here although we’re not in the Puyallup River valley that it’s lahar mud flows almost always go down. Not likely we think; it’s shown no indication of activity for many years and is (according to the vulcanologists) highly unlikely to erupt with no warming. The mountain is behind our house from this viewpoint; the summit is just to the right of the ventilation fan exhaust you can see poking up above where the awning is.

We’ll be here at Ranier View until at least Labor Day…Neil has an appointment next week on Thursday to get another X-ray and see what his prognosis is. We’ve gone ahead and cancelled all of our previous plans until then and will hopefully be able to pick up our planned travels in Utah’s national parks as we head back east. We’ve got an appointment in early October at Junction City to get our slides fixed and have reservations first in Cedar Key FL for Oct 25 then back in Fort Myers starting Nov 1. Depending on how things go…we’ll pickup the parks in Utah or maybe just hit Salt Lake City or someplace else instead if he’s still in a cast or boot and can’t hike or kayak.

Connie is heading off to Houston from Jul 29-Aug 3 for the ASCLS Annual Convention…she gets to meet up with her med tech buddies and get some continuing education that she needs for her certification and California license. Neil will just hang out here while she’s gone…he’ll have BAT and can drive it easily since it’s an automatic transmission. We’ll run out next weekend and make sure we’re stocked up on TV dinners and beer so he doesn’t have to cook while she is gone.

Cyas.

Just a quick update on our plans. We drove out to Ranier View RV park near her yesterday and it’s pretty nice. I asked our friends on the RV-Dreams forum if they had any other recommendations in the area…Elma RV Park in Elma, WA near Olympia came up so we drove out there today on the way to Port Angeles to pick up Connie’s new laptop (it was on the way when our plans changed and Neil was unable to get the shipping address changed).

Elma had some spots…but the only ones they would give us for a 6-7 week period were in the “permanent” section of the park in the back…and they were, well, let’s call it full of less than prime looking RVs. So we passed on it and went ahead and made a reservation with Ranier View. I’ll post a shot once we move over there; but it’s got good internet, satellite visibility for the DirecTV dish, and a great view of Mount Ranier which is about 25-30 miles from the park. Should make for some good photos while we are there.

That’s about it; we might do something fun early next week if we can figure out something doable with crutches and a cast.

Cyas.

July 4 for us was pretty much of a bust. We weren’t planning on going anywhere anyway…but the broken foot combined with the cool and overcast weather meant that we ended up canceling our BBQ plans. We had some lamb steaks that we marinated but decided since it was too cool to sit out anyway and since grilling is more work and Connie would have had to do all of the outside grill prep and cleanup we just decided to cook inside. So, we had some sautéed lamb with mashed potatoes, corn, and baked zucchini. It all tasted pretty good and we topped it off with some Malbec wine…then had some peach pie with Maple Walnut ice cream for dessert a bit later. After that we just watched TV until bedtime.

Friday we drove over to the National Guard campground nearby to see if we could get a reservation…no joy. We also checked out the McChord Air Force Base campground…they don’t take reservations but take drive ups only. We can likely get a space in there…but won’t have any internet or satellite TV and it will essentially be a crap shoot on whether we get in or not. It’s very likely that we’ll be OK anyway…but we’re still researching other options. We found a nice campground about 25 miles away in Gig Harbor, WA and are waiting to see if they have an availability for 6 weeks until after Labor Day. After that we headed over to Snoqualmie Falls which is 30 miles or so east of here. Connie visited this some years back on a COLA survey trip but it was the end of the dry season so there was only a trickle of water. Today it’s the end of the spring snowmelt so the falls were flowing pretty good. This is a 270 foot single drop waterfall; some of the water is diverted above the falls into the world’s first completely underground hydroelectric plant…it opened back in 1893 or so and is still supplying power to the Seattle grid. We snapped a few shots of the falls themselves…we had to walk maybe 150 yards from the parking lot for these and Neil was really glad to get back to the car.

After that we headed home. After stopping by the REI to cash in a 20 bucks free coupon we picked up the other day that’s only good for Fri/Sat/Sun (we got a bunch of Gu packages; they are gel packs of energy food that we carry on hikes and Neil takes them on bike rides) and then the Apple store to get a Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter then headed home. 

Dinner was Saurbraten made out of a leftover lamb steak with some wine, vinegar, and Worchestershire sauce…it was really yummy. After that we just watched more TV…evenings are going to get a little boring what with the cast, crutches and all.

Cyas.

Well; Neil had his appointment with the ortho folks today and here’s his shiny new cast.

He’s stuck in this for the next 3 weeks then the docs will evaluate to see whether it’s healing on it’s own or whether it needs screws to help it heal. In any event he’ll be in the cast and/or boot for 8 weeks minimum which gets us to the end of August.

So; we’re going to just cancel our plans for July and August in total…we’re extended here at the Travel Camp through Jul 18 and are working on a longer reservation through August. We’ll have to cancel September plans as well most likely…but will wait a few weeks on those just in case he’s a fast healer.

We’ll plan on doing some driving only with no hikes Fun Stuff…but at least for the next two months posts will probably be on a less frequent schedule. I’ll still try to post a couple times each week…but a daily post that reminded you his foot is still broke just ain’t worth the bits it takes to post.

Cyas.

Neil is seriously bummed today. Yesterday before we went kayaking on American Lake he tripped down the stairs from the bedroom to the living room and injured his foot. It was swelled up this morning…and since medical care on the economy with Tricare is hard and we were on a military base where it’s a whole bunch easier he decided to go to the Emergency Room and get it checked out.

Sure enough; the far left metatarsal bone in his left foot is broken clean through. Here’s a shot of his X-Ray…you can see the break between the two arrows drawn on the X-Ray. The bad news is that it’s broken…the good news is that the fracture twists as it goes through the bone so it tends to hold itself together and not be a displaced fracture. Still though…he’s got an appointment with the ortho folks tomorrow to see what the treatment plan is and how that will affect our planned travels. Healing time for this sort of thing is 6-8 weeks…however, this particular bone has less circulation than most so it’s a notoriously poor healer…this means that he might need some screws to hold it together or maybe wait two weeks and see before making that decision…hence the ortho consult tomorrow with Dr. Daniels. He’s in a walking boot with crutches at least for today and likely for 2-3 weeks unless the pin installation is necessary. 

Depending on what the ortho says we’ll have to figure out how this affects our travel plans…it definitely puts the kibosh on hiking, kayaking, and biking for the next 6 to 8 weeks and might require us to stay here for awhile as well. The Travelcamp has a normal 14 day limit but that’s waived for anybody undergoing treatment…however, the space we’re in might be already reserved in which case we may have to either move elsewhere in the park or elsewhere in the city. We’ll wait and see before making any revised plans though. Crutches and the boot will make moving the rig much harder…but at least not impossible…we’ll have to wait and see.

This unfortunate news means that his running streak is likely over…he’s trying to decide whether being on the 8 week disabled list (like in baseball) breaks the streak or just puts it on hold…but he’s guessing that since Cal Ripken’s ironman streak would have been officially broken if he was injured that he’ll decide it’s officially over. If it is…then it is…at 6,141 days and 27,885.7 miles starting back on Labor Day in September 1996.

We had just ordered a new laptop for Connie and it’s on the way to our next destination…too late to reroute it so we’ll just have to drive over there one day next week if we end up not going over there…it’s only about 100 miles so won’t be too bad if we have to cancel that reservation.

Cyas.

Yesterday we ran some errands and bought some stuff we needed…and pretty much sat around the rest of the day. Today (Sunday) we headed off to Mass at St. John Bosco Parish and then headed off for the 45 mile drive to Seattle. We had a concert scheduled for 1400 and we figured that we would stop by Pikes Market and have some lunch. All was going well until we got to the Seneca Street exit off of I-5 about a mile from the concert hall where we had prepaid parking…and essentially came to a stop. Unbeknownst to us…today was the Gay Pride Parade here in Seattle…most of the roads we needed to go on were closed, the ones that weren’t were jammed pack with non moving traffic, and we were almost out of gas to boot. We finally figured out a place to get some gas; backtracked and filled up the Mazda, and then found a slightly moving street over to the other side of the parade route…once we were over there on the river side of it we breezed right to the concert hall parking lot and headed down to Pikes Market. By this time it was 1250…we spent an hour and a half going mostly nowhere…so we just had a beer, a cup of crab chowder, and a pretzel before heading back to the concert hall.

The concert was pretty decent; a couple of Wagner pieces followed by the Organ Symphony…the orchestra played pretty well but we didn’t like the way the organ was balanced for the venue. Either woever designed it grossly underestimated the amount of mid and high range pipes needed or the management of the venue tuned it so that the low end bass was outstanding but the mid and high ranges were almost non existent. Connie was not impressed…but at least they let it loose at the end of the Finale even if there was inadequate high end.

After that we drove home…Neil made some Sweet and Sour Pork over rice for dinner and we ate outside at our picnic table since it was hot…we had to break down and turn on the A/C when we came in as the temps are about 90 today and not expected to really cool much over night.

Here are a couple of shots of our site 301 here at the Fort Lewis Travel Camp…nicely wooded isn’t it?

The distance from the road to our picnic table is about the same as the distance from the picnic table to the lake shore continuing out to the right. We are definitely planning on some kayaking this week.

Here is a shot of our new RV sign; it was painted by an artist named Doodlebugs who lives in Michigan. We really like it; the size is about 18″ wide and 14″ high…we have a pole to hang it on in front of the rig as soon as we get some mounting hardware.

It will make our humble abode a lot more individualized and hopefully drive some traffic to the blog.

Tomorrow Connie has to work some so we’re going to wander up to the TV/Internet room in the morning and use free bandwidth instead of our limited air card. Tuesday and Wednesday we’ll probably do some fun stuff and I think on the 4th we’ll just do laundry and cookout instead of going out anywhere; the traffic is really bad here. 

Cyas.

Well, at least the weather was nice today. We packed up and headed out around 1000 for our 160 mile trip from Leavenworth to Fort Lewis slightly south of Tacoma. Our route came across US-2 through the mountains…it was narrow, steep, curvy, full of patched potholes, and generally not a road one really wanted to be on. We got onto I-5 (thankfully south of the detour for the bridge that was damaged a month or so ago) and were in stop and go traffic for 45 miles until we got off at exit 120 for Joint Base Lewis-McChord which is the proper name of the base here. Ug. To say our travel day was lousy was an understatement.

After that we were prepared for a hard time parking; but to our surprise we’re in site 301 which is a beautiful pull through site right on the lake. Neil got some photos that I will post tomorrow.

We were really tired out so Neil went on a bike ride and then we had some pasta with chicken we cooked yesterday and garlic…topped with some cheese and it was pretty yummy.

We discovered that we have ongoing slide issues today…I’ll post more later once Neil talks to New Horizons and sees what the deal is…but we’re pretty unhappy campers with our slide operation right now; so I won’t blast anybody until we have a few more details and facts to go on. At least they move; so it’s not as bad as it could be.

On the bright side; the lake is about 20 steps from our driver’s side windows and we will be able to launch our kayak and paddle around this beautiful lake with ease. There is a restaurant about 5 miles away on the other side of the lake so we will likely paddle up there and back to have lunch one day…we’re here until July 8.

 We also got our new RV sign delivered from the artist who painted it today; it was waiting on us when we arrived. I’ll grab a photo of it as well and post tomorrow when I’m feeling more sociable…right now the slide issues and road issues have us pretty much bummed out. No worries though; we’ll sort them out and get things fixed and it’s not like they are major problems like slides not moving or them falling out; it’s just some operational issues with noises and some rubbing; hopefully the fix will be relatively easy.

Cyas.

Man, Levenworth WA is a really great little town…we wish we could spend some more time here as the scenery is great, the food wonderful, the hikes outstanding, and it’s generally a really nice place.

We woke up this morning to some light drizzle but it was scheduled to end by 1100 so we had coffee and Neil baked some Cinnamon Buns for breakfast. After that we packed up a lunch and headed out for a hike at the Icicle Creek Gorge about 20 miles or so from here. 

Our first stop was about half way up the gorge to the trailhead…all of the water shots in this post are different views of either Icicle Creek or one of it’s small tributaries.

Then we headed out on our hike. This was a four mile loop hike essentially right up and down the banks of Icicle Creek. We started with a half mile down stream, then crossed to the left (west) side of the stream and headed upstream for 2 miles, then crossing back to the east side and a mile and a half back to the parking area.

Neil especially liked this one…the layers in the rocks were really striking.

This was the largest waterfall we spotted on our hike; again note the really cool layers in the rocks on the side.

About a mile into our hike we stopped for lunch at a little overlook with a wall we could sit on while we ate. Connie spotted this cloud hugging the peaks so Neil grabbed a quick shot.

After lunch we continued on up the path; here’s a shot of a cedar swamp area and also of some sort of strange mushroom/fungus thing we saw on the side of a cedar.

Right as we began our hike we ran into an Australian couple a few years older than us…they are on a year long round the world trip and are staying in a series of houses that they arranged to house swap with people from around the world. As we were proceeding clockwise around the loop they went the other way…we met them about halfway around and stopped to chat for 10 or 15 minutes about traveling and the mysteries of life on the road. Neil got some shots of some pretty wildflowers that Connie saw.

At the farthest north end of our hike we snapped a couple of photos of the waterfall under the bridge we were about to cross.

After this we headed downstream on the east side of the creek the last mile and a half or so back to the parking lot. Along the way we happened across a bunch of breeding male Western Tanagers; they were all displaying, fighting, and competing for the attention of a female likely located nearby.

Shortly after these we arrived back at the parking lot and headed home. After a quick shower we headed into town for dinner; we were looking for Schnitzel ad Spatezel. Our first choice Ludwigs turned out to have 1 person in it and it smelled funny so we left. Our second choice which according to Yelp reviews had the best Schnitzel in town actually didn’t have it at all…but we didn’t figure that out until we tried to order some. So; we had a couple of beers and split a Brat for appetizer on the rooftop terrace looking out over the town and mountains…all was good. After that we headed out for our third choice…Andreas Keller Restaurant and it turned out to be truly outstanding. We had some German Liebframulch wine and listened to the live music by the accordion player while we ordered. Connie had Jaegerschnitzel which was grilled pork served with mushroom sauce, spatezel, and red cabbage. Neil chose the Schnitzel cordon Bleu which was pork cutlet stuffed with ham and cheese then fried to it was golden brown and delicious. It was served with cream sauce and spatezel. Both were really good and there were no leftovers. We debated having dessert…there was German Layer Cake and Nutella Cheesecake (both fresh made) on the dessert tray but decided we were too full so we headed home for recliner and TV instead.

We would definitely return to Leavenworth; it’s a truly nice town and there is clearly a lot more to do than we had time for in our 3 days here. Tomorrow we’re off after breakfast and coffee headed for the Travelcamp at Fort Lewis WA which is an Army base in Tacoma south of Seattle. We’ve got another Saint Saëns concert on Sunday afternoon, have to pick up our package with our new RV sign from the base, and will have some fun stuff later on next week. We’ll be at Fort Lewis for 10 days and will likely spend at least a couple of them for Connie to work and to recover from our trip to Canada…we ended up acting a lot more like we were in go go go vacation mode than we normally do with very few days to just rest and relax…we keep reminding ourselves we are RETIRED and don’t need to be on a deadline…but i’s hard to remember.

Cyas.

Today was supposed to be sort of rainy so we deferred our planned hike until tomorrow. Instead; Connie worked in the morning while Neil did some maintenance. He had to hose out some gravel from our undercarriage from our aborted parking attempt yesterday, wash the rear windows of the house as they get really filthy when we travel in the rain and we like to have a view other than through a dirty window, and replace a couple of burned out light bulbs. We have some night lights (they’re actually a dim 12v bulb like you normally have in the glove compartment of a car) that illuminate our stairs, bathroom, and bedroom floor so we can get up in the middle of the night for a bathroom visit or walk down our 4 stairs to the living room without tripping down the stairs and without needing to turn any overhead lights on and disturb the other one who might still be sleeping. One of those had burned out and once was loose and just needed tightening. Neil also turned on the propane as we forgot to turn it on during our parking adventures yesterday and we can’t cook without it.

After that; Neil went on a bike ride through the streets adjacent to town and got a couple snapshots of the Wenatchee River which runs through town…it’s running quite high and rapid-dy…it’s still swollen with snow melt and some rain up in the mountains.

The river is running pretty high and he took these right at his turnaround point about 5 miles up from the campground. After his ride he had a shower and then we had a sammy for lunch followed by a short afternoon siesta. After that it was off to town to get a couple of things we needed at some of the shops…a new purse for Connie and then something for the human kid’s anniversary which we’ll mail as soon as we get it boxed up. We were going to come home and cook some chicken for dinner…but upon further review decided to visit the biergarten again and have some beers, brats, and pretzels. We had a pint each of Dirty Faced Amber, Dark Lager IPA, and Priebe Porter along with a brat and pretzel that we shared. We’ll cook the chicken during the day tomorrow and save the cooked chicken for dinner on our Friday travel day as we have already penciled in to have Wiener Schnitzel and Spaetzel for dinner tomorrow weight.

After that we headed home for TV, email, plane reservations (for Connie’s trip next month from Portland to Houston for her convention), and web browsing. While we were sitting in the rig we had a small earthquake…it was 4.3 on the RIchter scale according to the news…details are here. The epicenter was about 20 miles north from where we are parked in Leavenworth. After living in southern CA for some years back in the submarine days…we’ll never not recognize an earthquake again.

That was pretty much all the excitement for today; we’re planning on doing our hike in the AM then then will either laze the afternoon away or maybe wander down and sit in the hot tub awhile before heading out to dinner.

Cyas. 

This month we celebrated our 1 year anniversary of the full time lifestyle on June 15. Exactly one year ago we pulled out from Camp Horizons headed back to Fairfax, VA with our new home. I figured that the anniversary was worth a little introspective/evaluation.

A few statistics of our first year:

Number of campsites: 42

Longest stay: 110 days at Fort Myers, FL

Shortest stay: overnight (7 times)

Average length of stay: 7.75 days (excludes Fort Myers and the overnight stops)

Number of nights without full hookups: 14 no sewer, 13 no sewer or  water, no boon docking stops, 20 days on 30 amp power, remaining days 50 amp power…so 87% of the time we had full 50 amp hookups and 93% of the time we had electrical/water/sewer hookups. Since 30 amps really isn’t a limitation unless you need to run air conditioners only having 30 vice 50 amps isn’t any burden at all.

Total towing miles: 9,497

Total driving miles (car): 28,189; of these 9,497 were while moving with BAT and another 18,692 were non towing…i.e., doing fun stuff, running errands, and other stuff while parked. 

Expenses

I was going to total up our entire spending and categorize it like our friend Howard from RV-Dreams does…but decided that was too much trouble and nobody cares much about the details anyway…not to mention the idea that I wasn’t really comfortable putting all those precise income and outlay numbers out there. First, it’s nobody else’s business and second I don’t want to make anyone feel superior or inferior based on any numbers I might publish. So; suffice to say that we’re living comfortably on Neil’s Navy pension, Connie’s ACP Pension, and the income from her part time job with Northern Virginia Community College…without spending any of our “retirement” money at this point. If any of our readers are considering a similar lifestyle and would like to have some more detail please let us know via a comment with your email and we’ll talk offline. about it.

Biggest Pluses: Seeing all the cool places we have been and being amazed that we’re not actually spending any of our “retirement money” yet; and then moving someplace new before you get bored.

Biggest Minuses: There have been a couple of these. Finding doctors in semi-emergency mode is a pain and we realized we could have retired earlier given the state of our finances. Following that would be rig issues…getting things fixed at the New Horizons factory works pretty well but getting things fixed on the road is much harder. The factory service rep essentially leaves you on your own to find repairs and then it’s an issue of who has to pay. While we love our New Horizons Majestic and would not have bought anything else (or not bought it given the issue we have had)…and despite all the issues being relatively minor; getting things fixed under our “2 year hitch to bumper warranty) has been…well, let’s call it problematic to be diplomatic. The warranty page does state they have a 2 year warranty on materials and workmanship but then in the fine print talks about components being covered by separate vendor warranties. What they don’t tell you in the fine print is that these vendor warranties are only for a year and (we have yet to get a decent answer as to whether there is really a full 2 year warranty or whether it’s a 2 year warranty except when it’s not; and have not gotten a decent answer as to whether the vendor items with 1 year warranty are covered by New Horizons for the second year under their warranty. Connie’s biggest minus would probably be the difficulty of finding a decent nail and hair place on the road and the attendant difficulty in getting things done the way she likes them…followed closely by every grocery store in the country having a different layout making finding your normal stuff difficult…followed closely by the lack of what she deems sufficient hot water. An RV only has an 8 gallon water heater and because of the short pipe runs the temperature set point for the heater is set lower than what would be common in a house…so having enough hot water to take a shower, wash your hair, and shave the larger areas that ladies have to shave (ha says Neil, any shaving is more than I have to do!) becomes difficult without taking a submarine shower which means turning the shower on and off. A submarine shower is really required anyway since the shower is pretty small compared to a house.

Hmm, looking at the above two paragraphs one might assume that we aren’t liking our new life since the plus paragraph is much shorter than the minus paragraph. That isn’t true though; as none of the minuses has really been anything other than a nit-noid sort of issue no different from the issues one has with a sticks and bricks house. Overall the pluses have far outweighed the minuses; we’ve seen a lot of places we never went before, and we’ve revisited several places we did go before to do other/different things.

I think that all of us would wholeheartedly recommend this lifestyle for anybody; and don’t really worry that you can’t afford to do it the same way we do. That might be true; but as I said we could easily have cut our expenses by 1/3 if we had to and we know lots of people doing it for even less than that including our friends Howard and Linda from RV-Dreams. They park in free/very low cost places and boondock without hookups a lot though…but that’s what they want to do anyway.

Would we do it again. Answer: YES, we should have done it sooner.