July 18, 2007

July 18, 2007

We are back in Itasca, IL getting our lives re-organized. We are committed to cutting back our storage burden here from two to just one unit. That means we have to spend a few hours a day going thru boxes and discarding things we thought might come in handy at some imaginary time in the future. We are also discarding useful items we would prefer to upgrade sooner rather than later. It is a little easier now a year later.

Tonight we are relaxing in Itasca’s central park listening to an oldies band. Unfortunately it is cut short by an incoming thunderstorm. And a thunderstorm it is. The lightning flashes continuously for hours. After watching it from a dry couch for most of the night I get the bright idea to catch one on film. Photographing lightning at night is not for the impatient. Inevitably it flashes where I am not pointing the camera and my trigger finger is tiring of holding the auto focus down in anticipation. But stubborn is my middle name and I finally got one that resembles the throbbing blood vessels in my arms.

July 12, 2007

July 12, 2007

After the 4th holiday festivities, we drove with my parents to their home in Godfrey, IL. I saw an article about the St. Louis Science Museum in one of my father’s AAA travel magazines so Aimee and I went to investigate today. The museum is not big but has tons of hands-on exhibits designed for the younger generation. Fortunately Aimee is married to a big kid. We spend most of our time in the optical illusion area trying out each of the effects. When we are finished we are bug-eyed and seeing double. Our vision of the world depends on a strange union of our eyes and brains and it is amazing how easy it is to fool our perceptions.

On the drive back, we stopped in downtown Alton to see the new monument for the final Lincoln-Douglas debate that took place here in 1858.

July 4, 2007

July 4, 2007

July 4 is a special day for us. Last year on this date Aimee and I officially went “on the road” in the RV. We returned to the scene of the crime at my sister’s house in suburban Milwaukee, WI to celebrate independence with my relatives.

The village was nice enough to schedule some fireworks to commemorate our one-year anniversary.

June 29, 2007

June 29, 2007

Another chapter in our adventure comes to a close. Our Pacific Coast tour took us over 4000 miles crisscrossing from beach to mountain and back again. A break in Chicago will allow us time to relax, catch up on our mail, plan our next journey and HOPEFULLY let our replacement refrigerator show up. In early August we fly back to Seattle. From there we plan to explore the Mountain Time zone of the US. Till then the author is on vacation.

June 28, 2007

June 28, 2007

We spend the morning packing up, draining all the water, and taking the RV to the storage lot. We catch a cab to the airport and hang out till our planes depart for Chicago. I feel like I was in a comedy skit. I am never in a hurry to board the plane, so when I finally walked up to the jet way with my “group 4” boarding pass, there were only about ten passengers left waiting. Still the ticket agent, who had to be new or really conscientious, went very slowly thru each of the prior seating groups, pausing, looking around, and announcing last call for each one. I had a beer for lunch so I enjoyed the moment.

June 27, 2007

June 27, 2007

We have a free day before our flight out of the Seattle-Tacoma airport, so we decide to visit Mt. Rainier National Park. On the few days when the skies are cloud-free around here, you can’t miss Rainier. It towers over the metropolitan area. Unlike the Rockies that consist of a continuous line of peaks, the Cascades Mountains seem to be fewer in number and more isolated. I am sure this is because of their volcanic origin. We drive around the north side of the park and enter the northeast gate. We proceed up the mountain to the Sunrise Visitor Center for great views of the mountain. Rainier is pretty much a drive-up mountain. It is the fifth oldest national park established in 1899.

We take a look at the exhibits which are mainly about Rainier’s past volcanic activity and the cities most at risk when she blows again.

At 2pm we take the Ranger walk. It is led by an elementary school teacher from Philadelphia who works here during his summer break. On the walk he tells us about his experience climbing Rainier a couple years ago. Using a telescope we spot a line of climbers roped together making the climb. Since Rainier has more snow on its peak than all the rest of the Cascades combined, the trek is over treacherous glaciers where you have to worry about sliding down the mountain or falling thru a crevasse.

After the ranger walk we hike around a little bit. There are still patches of snow on the trails making hiking unpleasant in tennis shoes. Plus we are too early for the fields of mountain wildflowers. After a short while we abandon the mountain, drive back down and stay in an RV park in Puyallup, WA. When we get there we find the park had some unwanted excitement this morning. In most of the metropolitan RV parks there are quite a few “year-round” campers. I think mostly they are construction workers following their work around the country. A propane deliveryman forgot to shut off the electricity and sparked a fire completely gutting one of the “year-rounder’s” Fifth Wheel Trailers. Must have been pretty good fire because it also scorched both his neighbor’s rigs. Nobody was hurt but sadly the owner’s pet dog wasn’t able to escape the blaze.

June 26, 2007

June 26, 2007

From Hoquiam, WA we finish our journey around the Olympic Peninsula ending near the Seattle area. We stop at the local Camping World to check on the status of our refrigerator order. Unfortunately nothing had been ordered yet! We also find a parking spot for the RV at a Public Storage facility because we have flight reservations to the Chicago area on Thursday. We spend the night at a KOA in Kent, WA. Surprisingly one of the more expensive parks, as much as the ones on the East Coast.