Parks – Page 2 – RV Travels in Europe and North America

April 13, 2018 Orcines FR

Today we reluctantly left Burgundy. But before leaving we wanted to take a look at some more of the Beaujolais country. Somewhere around Julien we made a wrong turn and quickly found ourselves on some small mountain roads heading into the Haute Beaujolais. It turned out to be a nice mistake as it is beautiful country. The Haute Beaujolais looks like it is dairy country with lots of valleys full of pastures and a pure white breed of cow we do not have in the US. After a while of wandering around and completely unsure of exactly where we were (reminds me of a line from Band of Brothers when one soldier asks if they are lost, the officer replies we are not lost, we are in France), we decided to punch in our final destination for the day and let the GPS take us there.

This breed of white cow is pretty large and all over Burgundy. We have never seen anything like this breed in the US. The background is typical of the country we drove thru today.

After a couple of hours and our first accidental experience of a French A road (think interstate with tolls) we ended up at Le Puy de Dome. It is an inactive volcano cone, where you are supposed to be able to see 11 departments of France from. The weather was not ideal as it was cold and windy, with high clouds. But the views were there to see, just a little gray from the clouds. The wind made it a little uncomfortable but we completed the circuit around the dome.

The view from the top of the Puy de Dome. Not a great day for photography but we will not be back on this trip. We think it would be spectacular on a bright day.

At the top is the ruins of a roman temple to Mercury built around 124 AD. The Puy de Dome apparently has been a tourist attraction for quite sometime.

Some of the ruins of the Temple of Mercury on Puy de Dome. Puy means volcanic hill in French.

After a week with Francoise it was time to fill up for the first time. The cost was $129 for 19 gallons which is $6.78/gallon. The good news is the distances between things to do are a lot less, so our daily cost of fuel so far is less than at home. On this trip our biggest cost has been admission to sites. Interestingly we are spending less per night than at home for campgrounds and we have not really tried to find free spots which abound around here.

François is the RV in the middle. Taken from the top Puy de Dome.

February 13, 2018 Bandon OR

Our last day in California on this trip was magnificent from a weather point of view. The skies were blue and it was relatively warm at about 60 degrees. The views going up the coast were spectacular.

The coast line of Northern California and Oregon are wild and spectacular.

Todays drive though was not about views but about brews. Let me say that on these beer tasting days we are very careful to only have a small tasting of tray of 4 or 5 shot sized glasses. I do not want anyone to think we are overindulging. Todays first stop was at Arch Rock Brewing in Gold Beach. This was by far the smallest brewery we visited. The tasting room was an alcove inside the door of the warehouse. In addition to tasting the beer we were able to observe a business meeting between the owner/brewer and some suppliers. The beer was truly terrific, particularly their porter and lager.

We continued north to Bandon which is one of the cutest towns on the coast. A brewery had opened there in the last year. The facility is really nice and the beer was good. They were a little optimistic and had the garage door open to the outside seating. But with a light jacket it was fun to pretend like it was summer.

Ron was still fighting the effects of the flu so we decided to stay in Bandon for the night. Our campsite is at Bullards Beach State Park near the ocean in Bandon.

February 6, 2018 Camp Pendleton CA

Ton brought up the idea of heading over to the coast. Our original hope was to stay at the Navy park on Coronado Island in San Diego, but as with every other time we could not get a reservation. We instead are at the Marine Base with an ocean front spot. We are not disappointed with not getting into Coronado.

We started out trying to get up for sunset but did not succeed. Ron ran out to try to get some just past sunset pictures but they did not turn out. On our way out of the park we stopped at one of Tons favorite spots the Cholla garden. The Cholla Cactus has one of the nastiest thorns of any cactus, but it has really nice flowers.

We took a back road from Palm Springs to Temecula which kept us off the freeways. The highway was called the Pine to Palms Highway and takes you thru the Santa Rosa Mountains. The climb out of Palm Springs is quite steep as you quickly go from Sea Level to 3000 feet. You go from desert to alpine and pass thru at least three different plant types. While the road is windy and narrow for Ron it is less nerve racking than dealing with Southern California Freeways.

We arrived at the beach and as we were setting up a nice couple came up and struck up a conversation about our drive down and the Tiger. Ron was hooking up things and Ton was outside speaking with the wife. A few minutes later Ron noticed water coming out of the truck. Sometime along the way one of us had bumped the water in the kitchen sink on. While we are driving we store some stuff in the sink so that was blocking the drain, and we had a flood. So tonight we are drying out the floor, and some of our dish towels and things are hanging up to dry.

We ended the day by doing something we have never done in seven or eight years of camping. We built a campfire and sat on the beach eating our dinner and enjoying the sound of the surf.

February 5, 2018 Joshua Tree NP

Today we visited one of our favorite national parks. Ton really loves cactuses and Joshua Trees. It was originally in our plans for the trip with our friends last fall, but we cut it out due to time constraints, so we decided to head over on our way to the coast.

The drive took a little longer than we thought, and we ended up driving around for over an hour looking for a place to spend the night. At that point Ron realized that we probably needed fuel, so we ended up driving back out into town to the Marine Base to get fuel. The fuel there was 50 cents a gallon cheaper than in town.

Part of the trip was along an old section of Route 66.

We got back to our campsite just in time for sunset, and had a nice walk shooting pictures of the sunset, rocks and Joshua tree’s. It was also fantastic weather, clear and 79 degrees, so for the first time on the trip we will not need the heater.

February 1, 2018 Lake Mead National Recreation Area

Ron woke up a little early to go for a walk and chase some big horn sheep around for a while trying to get pictures. Ton’s from yesterday were better.

After breakfast we set out to explore the rest of the park. We took a couple of short hikes and really enjoyed ourselves. The weather was perfect for hiking, mid to high 60’s, and we picked a couple of easy places that still gave us wonderful views of the Red sandstone that gives the park it’s name. We really enjoyed Valley of Fire, it is a nice size and has a variety of places to visit. It is the equal of many National Parks for things to see and do.

This Raven kept an eye on us for a few minutes while we were walking.

Our next stop was planned for Lake Mead National Recreation Area if you are wondering what the abbreviation in the title for the day is short for. Ton and I were both surprised by Lake Mead as we thought the Lake would be front and center, and for the first 40 miles it was almost invisible. Instead we had a drive thru a typical Mojave landscape with occasional burst of Red from Sandstone deposits. It was not at all what we expected. We are staying at a campground called Las Vegas Cove. Once again we are parked along a river and the Lake is far away. We enjoyed a nice dinner watching another colorful desert sunset. We managed to actually drive less than 100 miles and were content to park up around 2pm. Maybe we can slow down.

January 31, 2018 Valley of Fire SP

Our alarm was set for 4am so we could get up to witness the eclipse/Blue/Blood/Super moon. The skies were clear, but it was really cold. The temperatures had fallen more than we thought and it must of been around 20 degrees. Ton stuck her head out of the truck and told me to call her when the moon turned Red. I stuck around and watched the eclipse from the inside of the truck. When the moon turned Red I told Ton and she reluctantly rolled out of bed to take a look. After a few minutes she could not get a good picture and was very cold so she decided to get back under the blankets. I followed her a few minutes later. So while we witnessed the eclipse/Blue/Blood/Super moon we have no pictures to prove it, you will have to take our word for it.

Ton loves Joshua trees, we passed this one on the way to Valley of Fire.

After a little nap we got up and headed towards Las Vegas to Valley of Fire State Park. It is about 70 miles from Las Vegas and is quite striking. It has very Red Rocks throughout with many different shapes and forms. As we were arriving we noticed about 100 RV’s parked on BLM land just short of the state park and Lake Mead National Recreation Area. We assume camping is free there and we were tempted to park there for the night, but decided to opt for the State Park and pay the camping fee.

After we settled in we went for a short walk near the campground to a site of some Indian petroglyphs. They were quite impressive. Our reward for ponying up for the campground came in seeing 5 big horn sheep a couple of hundred yards from Scout. While we have been in lots of places with signs warning us to watch for big horns we had never actually seen one until today.

January 30, 2018 Caliente NV

I love the west. Today we drove a ridiculous distance thru the Mojave Desert. We wanted to position ourselves to see the Blue Blood Super Moon eclipse tomorrow and decided a good place we had never been before would be Kershaw-Ryan State Park near Caliente Nevada. So to explain tomorrow is a blue moon, the moon is supposed to turn red after the eclipse, and it is a super moon. The only problem it was over 400 miles away. But we decided to go for it and if we were tired in Tonopah we would shorten up the trip.

The drive from Reno to Caliente is thru mostly unoccupied desert. Quite often you do not see anything built by a human for miles and miles. Our route once we got clear of the urban area around Reno was US 95 to Tonopah, US 6 to no where in particular NV351 to a small town we forgot the name of already and US 93 to Caliente. We are familiar with US95 from Fallon to Tonopah as it is the route we take whenever we go to see Alex or to Death Valley, we had one of our flat tires on US95 near Hawthorne a few years ago. We had never been on the rest of the roads on the trip but they were fun and really isolated. Route 6 goes thru long empty valleys with nothing to stop you. The roads are straight as an arrow for miles and miles. Ron began looking at how many miles it was before turns in the road and we had stretches of 11, 14, and the longest of 16 miles of perfectly straight roads.

This stretch of highway was 14 miles without a curve.

NV351 is also known as the extraterrestrial highway as it skirts Area 51 where everyone knows the government is secretly keeping the aliens that come to earth. The businesses along the road know a good thing when they see it so they have set up souvenir stands. We of course stopped and bought a magnet to put on the fridge at home.

Ron could not resist getting his picture taken with an alien.

Our stop for the night was at Kershaw-Ryan, Ron was a little worried about arriving late in the day as it is a small park. There was no need to worry as we have the place to ourselves. it is a pretty location in a little canyon, and all of the facilities look brand new. We went for a short evening stroll, and the Blue-Blood-Super Moon gave us a little preview.

August 5, 2017 Wanapum SP

The plan for the first day was to head from Portland taking Forest Service Road 25 and US-12. FS-25 is a summer only road that goes between Mt. Adams and Mt. St. Helens. We were looking for a new way to head east and this was new to us. FS-25 was a very rough road built just for Tigers. While paved there were areas of very high disrepair that required paying attention to what was going on. The drive was pretty but the views were spoiled by the intense smoke we are currently getting in the Pacific Northwest. A combination of a severe heat wave and very large wild fires in British Columbia made for very poor air quality and visibility.

In typical Corbin fashion we blew threw Yakima, Ron missed the campground and ended up driving an extra hour until we spotted Wanapum State Park. A little pricey compared to the Forest Service Campground we planned to stay in but having full services is nice as it was in the mid 90’s when we pulled in, so the AC is getting a test run tonight.

October 13, 2017 Pendleton OR

Today we started our trip in our rental RV which has been named Elephant for the trip. It is a 30 ft Cruise America Rental RV. It is certainly a different driving experience than Scout, much wider and also slower to turn.

Joining us on the trip this time are three of Ton’s best friends from Thailand. They are three sisters Jeap, Noi, and Dang. This will be their first time traveling in an RV so it should be an interesting experience for them.

We left early expecting a slow start with Portland traffic, but got a lucky surprise and shot out of Portland pretty much without slowing down. As we left Portland we ran into the after effects of the major fire which had burned in the Columbia River Gorge for a significant part of August and September. It has left quite a mark, and roads and parks in the gorge are still closed due to the after effects.

For the day we made stops in Hood River at a nice orchard, and walked around downtown Pendleton. The girls enjoyed the cowboy town and the turn of the 20th century architecture in Pendleton. We also stopped at the Pendleton Woolen Mills which is one of the landmarks of Pendleton.

Double rainbow in the Columbia River Gorge.

Tonight we are staying at Emigrant Ridge State Park where it apparently snowed seven inches last night. The camp host assured us that things were going to return to normal, even though it was flurrying when he told us this. We are going to give the Cruise America heater a good test tonight.

August 2, 2016 Stewart State Park

Paul, Dee and their girls were going to head off to Crater Lake despite the smoke that was still lingering. Ian and Julie were going to go swimming and Julie was going to prepare a proper English Roast Meal. Ton and I decided we would contribute by heading into Medford to get some beer.

Medford and Ashland between them have 8 breweries now. We decided to check out 3 of them. The first stop was Walkabout brewery. This was the one we were most interested in, but when we pulled up the parking lot was empty, we got out to verify it was closed and it was, as we were walking back to Scout a guy walked out and said sorry they were closed. We asked when they were open and he asked if we were from out of town, we said we were and he said come on in and try a sampler. You have got to love people who are passionate about their business. We had a great chat about beer in the area, and enjoyed some good beer. Of course we took some back to share later. The other two breweries were ok, but we picked up samples none the less. Mission completed we headed back to the park.

While we were gone Julie had cooked up a wonderful authentic English Roast meal. Good food and good beer made for a great night.

August 1, 2016 Stewart State Park

Good friends made a tough day enjoyable. Besides the smoke from the fire which was about 20 air miles away, the high temperature for the day was 104 degrees. Not exactly ideal camping conditions. But with our friends there we all made the best of it, and surprisingly the park was almost at capacity. I guess Oregonians are a tough lot. Dee cooked up a fantastic Thai meal on cookstoves, Ton and I were thoroughly impressed.

Interesting shot of the sun thru the smoke at our campground.

July 30, 2016 Joseph Stewart SP

We are starting the trip out by joining some friends of ours on a weekend outing to Southern Oregon. The state park we are staying at is halfway between Medford OR and Crater Lake. One of our good friends from Portland has never visited Crater Lake during their time in the US, as they are English. They are going to use the State Park as a base for a trip into the National Park.

It was an uneventful drive until we got off of I-5 at Canyonville. As we were heading east out of Canyonville we began to see smoke from a forest fire and quite a bit of fire fighting equipment. We decided to press on using the logic that they would close the road if the fire was a threat. After a few miles we could actually see the flames and several helicopters attacking the fire. But as there was no one stopping us we pressed on. The smoke was very thick at times reducing visibility to less than half a mile.

Fire fighting helicopter attacking the fire near the road we were on.

Eventually we arrived at a smoky Stewart State Park. Several people were leaving, but we all decided to stay and see how it went.

October 12, 2015 Crater Lake NP

Today we headed south towards Eastern California. As we had a little bit of time during the day we swung thru one of our favorite National Parks, Crater Lake. It was a small detour to run the rim road around the lake. As always it was beautiful, but Ron had forgotten that the forest around the lake is almost 100% evergreen. So no fall colors.

The view of Crater Lake from near the visitors center.

For the night we stayed at a small Air National Guard Base near Klamath Falls. Maybe the quietest military installation we have seen. I am not sure there are any permanent personnel on the base even though there is a barracks. It should be a quiet night.

June 9, 2015 Ochocho Mountain OR

Today we began heading west with a plan to visit the Painted Hills National Monument. Oregon is running a tourism promotion touting the seven natural wonders of Oregon. The Painted Hills are one of the seven wonders, as is the Wallowa Mountains, The Columbia Gorge, the Coast, Crater Lake, Smith Rock, and Mt. Hood. We are having a debate with Ron saying that Leslie Gulch needs to be in the list, but Ton saying that of the six we have seen none of them should be dropped. Tomorrow we are going to visit Smith Rock which will need to be spectacular or Ron is going to drop it in favor of Leslie Gulch!

We arrived in the evening at Painted Hills and the light was quite nice for pictures and for viewing of the colors. We have been here many times and the colors and the formations are quite beautiful.

Painted Hills National Monument in Eastern Oregon.

Tonight we are spending the night in a Forest Service Campground on the crest of Ochoco Mountain. Nice and quiet surrounded by 100 foot plus Ponderosa Pines.

June 8, 2015 Wallowa Lake OR

Today we headed over to Joseph. Our plan for the day was to do as much of the Hells Canyon Loop as we can. We knew part of the road was closed for construction and the detour was closed due to snow, but we knew we could make it to the Hells Canyon overlook. When we stopped to fill up the guy at the gas station got our hopes up when he told us the road was open. We had our doubts but we were going to head that way anyway. The drive up the mountain is on a Forest Service Road which has pavement about one step ahead of gravel.

As usual the scenery was spectacular and quite different than the terrain we had been driving thru earlier in the week. The Wallowa Mountains get quite a bit more moisture than the Hart and Steens Mountain, and the Owyhee’s so this had a much more of an Alpine feel with evergreens up to the tree line as opposed to the high desert feel of the other mountains. Also, the wildflowers were out which is always a treat for Ton who really loves the mountain wildflowers.

Some of the wildflowers just breaking out.

We stopped at the Hells Canyon overlook for lunch and a view of the canyon. Hells Canyon is on the border of Idaho and Oregon. The canyon was carved by the Snake River and is actually deeper than the Grand Canyon. It is not as beautiful because the sides of the gorge are not quite as steep so the views into the Canyon while spectacular do not match up with the Grand Canyon.

After lunch we headed on to the loop, and as we guessed the guy at the gas station was wrong and the road was closed just past the turnoff. We headed back to spend the night at Wallowa Lake State Park near Joseph Oregon. It is a well developed State Park on the lake which is also the grave site of Chief Joseph of the Nez Pierce Tribe.

A view of the Wallowa’s, sometimes called Oregons’ Alps. They are actually one of the western most branches of the Rockies.

June 6, 2015 Lake Owyhee SP

Today we started up Steens Mountain thinking that the loop to the top of the mountain was open. But when we got to the next gate above our campground we discovered it was still closed. So fortunately we headed towards the Owyhees early. It was about 150 miles to the beginning of the road that would lead us into the Owyhees. This drive is one of the most lonely we have been on. I commented yesterday about the empty roads, but todays road OR-78 is even more empty. There was about a 50 mile stretch of this road with no buildings at all, and maybe only two crossroads to indicate there may be people around.

We arrived at Succor Creek Highway about noon which is the beginning of the Succor Creek-Leslie Gulch Backcountry Byway. Calling the Succor Creek Highway is a bit optimistic, it is actually a mix of 1.5 lanes of good gravel, and 1 lane of dirt for the 50 plus miles. When you include the 30 mile roundtrip into Leslie Gulch it makes for a pretty good dirt road drive. However, it is worth every bit of the effort.

Ton was very excited about going to Leslie Gulch, I did not know really what to expect. In a word Leslie Gulch is fantastic. The rock is volcanic and has been shaped by water and wind into fantastic shapes. Ton took a bunch of pictures that she does not think does the place justice.

We took a chance and drove to the other end of the road to Lake Owyhee State Park, thinking it would be empty like the other parks this trip. We were wrong! There were two fishing tournaments going on and it looked like we were going to have to drive back out, but at the last minute someone said that at 7pm the handicapped spots were available if they had not been claimed, since it was 6:50 we ended up spending the night in a nice flat space with all of the amenities.

Part of the views going into Leslie Gulch.

June 5, 2015 Steens Mountain OR

Today was a busy day. We drove from LaPine to Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge. The title is interesting as it is set up to protect the Pronghorn, but Pronghorn are not Antelope, though they are frequently referred to as Pronghorn Antelope. We arrived at the refuge about noon and drove the roads hoping to spot some Pronghorns. After driving for about two hours we spotted three single Pronghorns and a couple of Grouse.

After several hours and only three Pronghorn to show for our efforts we decided to drive over to Frenchglen for the night. As we were leaving the Refuge we suddenly came upon about 50 or 60 Pronghorn. Ton took some nice pictures.

Spent several hours on the Pronghorn Refuge looking for Pronghorn without success, only to come across these guys leaving the refuge.

Southeast Oregon is really amazing to me for how empty it is. There are miles and miles with great vistas. Sometimes you can go 45 minutes without seeing another car on the roads. Despite the emptiness, the roads are really good whether they are paved or gravel. Everyone tends to stress the risk of driving in these empty lands, but it does not take much common sense to stay out of trouble out here.

April 18, 2015 Gold Beach OR

Today we cruised down Highway 101 from Tillamook to Gold Beach. We have been cruising this road many times since we moved here 17 years ago. It is a truly incredible stretch of road that I do not think I can do justice. We also realized how spoiled we are having such ready access to this road as today was a little hazy so we were kind of ho hum as we passed on a lot of the spectacular pull outs along the road.

We stopped at two light houses that we had not visited before, the Yaquina Head light house in Newport and the Umpqua River light house. As we were coming into Newport Ton and I were debating whether we had been there. We decided to go visit to see and it turns out we had somehow missed it in our previous trips. This lighthouse is managed by the BLM and has quite a nice visitor center. The Yaquina Head lighthouse is the tallest of the Oregon lighthouses and is located on a nice head land with great views of the ocean. The other lighthouse is quite different it is run by the Oregon State Parks, but is located in the middle of a neighborhood of Coast Guard family housing. You can see the lighthouse but cannot approach it as it is fenced off as part of the perimeter of the Coast Guard housing. The housing is a typical style of housing that was built in the 60’s but the location is great, one of the benefits of military housing is it is quite often located on very high value real estate. I am not sure where the Coasties who are quartered there work as it is about half way between Reedsport and Coos Bay, but the view is probably worth the commute. The lighthouse is quite a way in land and overlooks some of the Oregon Dunes that stretch between Reedsport and Coos Bay.

We stopped for the night in Gold Beach and found a nice little Camp Ground right on the beach for a very reasonable price. The very light haze that had followed us down the coast was still present so the sunset was not as spectacular as the location led us to believe it would be.

March 27, 2015 Christmas Valley OR

Today we did a loop from LaPine to Christmas Valley Oregon. Our friend Tim told us about a geological feature called Crack in the Ground so we decided to head out to Christmas Valley to check it out. Our original plan for this trip was to go to the Owyhees, but due to the delay for the plumbing issues we decided to wait until later in the year to go there.

In route we stopped at Fort Rock, which is an interesting formation formed when volcanic rock was pumped into an ancient lake about 10000 years ago. It is a state park. We took a quick walk but the high winds and blowing dust discouraged us a bit.

Next we moved on to Christmas Valley to check out crack in the rock. This is a relatively new feature caused by volcanic activity. It is a fissure in the ground that runs for about 2 miles and at places is up to 70 feet deep. Getting there was interesting as we traveled 7 miles on a very washboarded forest service road. We finally figured out that the washboard was less of a problem at 30 mph than it was at 20 mph. We climbed down into the crack and followed for about half a mile. It was very interesting and at least in this area a pretty easy walk.

Crack in the Rock caused by volcanic activity.

March 24, 2015 Malheur National Wildlife Refuge

In the morning we woke up to a reply from the Provan dealer in Redmond saying to just swing by at our convenience and they could replace the failed shower valve. We decided to go ahead with our tour of the wildlife refuge and go to Redmond tomorrow to take care of the problem. Tonight we will be taking a $2 shower.

The Malheur Wildlife refuge is run by the Fish and Wildlife Service and contains two large shallow lakes and the remnants of a turn of the 20th century irrigation system that had destroyed a large natural wetland. The Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to use the irrigation system to restore the wetlands over time. It is quite large running from north of Malheur lake to the base of the Steens Mountains near Frenchglen, Oregon over 187,000 acres.

After a quick stop at the nice visitors center and museum we decided to drive the patrol road which is about 25 miles of gravel through the central “wetlands” of the refuge. This time of year the migratory waterfowl are passing through including Snow Geese and Swans sometimes by the thousands.

On the easy gravel road we did not see too many sightings of birds, mostly Canadian Geese, and one flock of snow birds. We also saw a small herd of mule deer. Ron was excited to see a grouse but was not fast enough to get a picture.

When we got to the southern end of the patrol road near French Glen we decided to drive around the base of the Steens Mountain. Steens Mountain is one of our favorite places in Oregon. It is an upthrust mountain that is 35 miles long and rises 6000 feet out of the desert to an elevation just a little shy of 10000 feet. On the west side of the mountains is typical Oregon sagebrush desert. On the east side in the rain shadow of Steens Mt. is the Alvord desert a 12 by 7 mile dry lake bed. There are roads to the top of Steen Mountain that are accessible in the summer and we decided that we would be returning later in the year to climb the mountain in Scout.

At the end of the day Ton wanted to drive into the refuge for a beauty shot of the refuge sign, and right before the headquarters in a farmers field, were all of the snow geese we had spent the day looking for.