June 28 Going Home!

So where do I start. We are going home tomorrow after a simply wonderful excursion of North America. We initially started Christmas day and got into Palm Springs in 2 days. After spending 2 weeks there and flying home we got back to PS on March 9th, spent 2 weeks there and then pulled out. After the passing of our dear Father in law Kees Vandriel, we went back home for 4 days for the funeral and continued the trip from Phoenix. From there through the South to Florida, up to New York where we flew back home for one week to get caught up with kids, grand kids, work; we flew back and continued the trip up to the Maritimes, then across Quebec, Ontario, then dipping down into the States through "Tornado Ally" (where we did have some scares for sure) through the Midwest and into Washington.
We have had some ups and downs; yes Caroline and I have had some disagreements on how far to go, where to stay, even when to go out for dinner!! :) but at the end our faith and our love for each other continues to grow from this trip as well through our concerns for her cancer returning, which is always a possibility. There were no serious problems with the truck or the rig (nuances like resetting breakers and setting times on thermostats to work) but no accidents which we can be thankful to our Heavenly Father who has protected both of us and given us many memories which we will always cherish.
I'd also like to point out that we have met many good Christians and faithful Churches on our travels. We searched for either CRC, URC, OPC, or PCA churches and except for 2 weekends we found very true churches. The preaching we heard couldn't have been closer and more faithful than what we hear in our own Church and we are very thankful for that. So don't let it scare any of you if you feel a trip like this might be in your future, there are many other places to worship with fellow believers.
Today we worshipped at the URC in Burlington, again a very faithful Church.
Now technically speaking our RV trip is not done; we hope DV to continue with the rig some time in October through areas like Bryce canyon, Grand Canyon, Denver and so on, we have not finalized a route yet and wont until we leave. For now God bless you all and we'll send an email out when we hope to go to Palm Springs in October. Love Bill & Caroline

Some tidbits
We've driven approximately 430 hours from Palm Springs March 23rd
We've travelled just over 25,000 Kilometres from Palm Springs
I don't know how many gallons/litres of gas (I just may not add them up :))
I do know I went through about 15 gallons of Diesel Exhaust Fluid

June 26 Leavenworth

We headed out from Coeur d'Alene for Leavenworth. The Washington roads were some of the best we've travelled on our whole trip. The landscape was a little surprising, prairie fields until we hit the cascade mountain range. We pulled into our park around 1PM; we relaxed in our lounge chairs for a bit and then headed into Leavenworth. its a quaint Bavarian style village but we found it "touristy" again, lots of people, hard to find parking, lots of souvenirs; you know the drill. We drove down to the waterfront park and did some "Vandella". We had targeted a restaurant just out of town on a resort; when we got there they weren't taking any "low life" like us, only the guests at the resort. The temperature had risen some more, we decided to head back to our "campsite" and down a few brewsky. I made couple plates of worshies, cheese, and some very nice dipping sauce we had bought at one of the stores in town. It was nice when the sun went down over the mountain, it started to cool off. One thing that had me worried; we have 2 air conditioners on our rig, normally we only put one on when the temp is in the 80's. Well I couldn't get it going in Coeur d'Alene so I just left it as the one AC was doing the job. Well now after we pulled in I needed to work on this thermostat. I went through all the zones and settings and after a half hour just couldn't get it going. My last check was setting the time on the stat. Vwalla!! as soon as I had set the time, it started. Reeeally!! Now I've read the manual back and forth 5 times; no where did it say anything about making sure the time was set. I don't know, maybe just like a computer you try a bunch of things and hopefully something resets; in this case it was the time. By the time we got back from town the rig had gone from 33 degrees to a nice pleasant 23. Tomorrows forecast is over 105 so we are looking to getting to Anacortes for some cooler weather. Another good (hot) day.

 very nice roads in Washington

 first time I ever saw this. by each field there was a little blue sign indicating what crop; alfalfa, timothy, wheat, beans. Cool! 

 one of the dams on the Columbia river

 Cascades, getting closer to home

 a creek at our RV site

 ok, 2 things to note; just passed 30k on the odometer, we started from Langley on Dec 25th at 1000KM, from Palm Springs at 5000KM. 2. not the temperature in Leavenworth; that's right 40 degrees Celsius, translated; 110 US of A

 Leavenworth

 ditto

 this is the Good Sam book we have used for most of our research, we became members before we started the trip

we signed with Passport America half way through the trip; it was good most of the time at 50% discounts.

June 25 Coeur d'alene

We woke up to a clear blue sky with temperatures expecting to climb. Our plan was to golf one of the most famous courses and particular hole in the world. We first checked out the Post Falls and headed out to the course. Carolines back was feeling good so she wanted to give it a go; she had been doing regular back exercises and felt good. Well what a fantastic establishment this was. I have to say this has been THE nicest facility I have golfed; the fairways greens and even sand traps are simply immaculate. Now the price was a lot more that we normally are prepared to pay but this is still a holiday, and plus the fact we had not spent much on golf (I only played 3 rounds and one was a freebie at Bethpage Black) we agreed to splurge. And boy do they do it all, first they valet my truck, the range is free; they use floating balls, and guess why? yup, you hit them into the lake!! Then at the practice range they give you a back massage before you start the round. AND we get a caddie between 4 golfers. As I said the course is superb. The highlight of course is hole #14, it is a floating green typically 160 yards out for men, 115 for women. Us men hit first and we all hit the island. it was Carolines turn. Caroline couldn't see her ball in flight but the caddie did, she kept saying this looks , this looks reeealy close. Well when we got boated out to the green, we got up and saw how close it really was; 5 INCHES!!! An amazing shot. I mean to have a tap in birdie on one of the most famous holes in golf??? Well not only her but the whole group was stoked. On the boat back they gave her a certificate for getting the birdie. We had dinner on the deck watching a lot of hackers putting balls into the water, good entertainment. A great day.

 the dam as post falls, it originally was a hydro dam

 ditto

 a massage before the round! cool!

 very nice course

 gorgeous holes and views

 this is #13 along the lake

 and even the carts; mags, heated cloth seats, the front boot is actually a cooler compartment and cooler inside

 our caddies Erin, she was excellent

 THE hole, the only floating golf hole in the world

 in action

 yes I managed to put it on the island, albeit in the sand trap straight away, mens tee was 165 yards, women was 115 yards

 and this is how far Caroline's shot ended from the hole; 5 INCHES!!! She got a certificate which will be framed; way to go dear!!

June 24 Coeur d'Alene

We left Yellowstone park area and we had planned to stop in Missoula Montana after 4 hours; we tried one park which was rated highly in the good sam book, but it was FULL! On a Wednesday night? Really? Ok that made our decision easy, off to Coeur d'Alene Idaho. The I90 was really nice, but you guessed it, seems each State has money to spend on road improvements. I mean it was a nice road?? Of the 4 sections with roadwork, all 4 had signs 3 miles out to go into one lane, then only 45MPH, then when we get to where the signs say the work is being done? Nothing, Zippo!
We drove through 3 passes for the first time, the Dodge has been performing admirably, one climb I'd compare to Snowshed hill on the coke, I held her in 3rd gear at 55MPH with no lag. Lots of poop under this baby's hood. Our clocks moved back one hour, we are now on Pacific time. And I had my first road kill today, I saw the whites of this big beasts eyes about a 100 yards out. he moved one way, then changed his mind, then he froze and thump thump, I nailed him good! I think it was a baby ground hog, felt so bad! We have been fortunate though that we haven't hit anything big; on I90 across from Michigan to Iowa we saw at least 5 dead deer on the side of the road.
Pulled into a highly rated park which actually reminded us a bit of our park in Palm Springs (minus the golf course). Weather is warming up, we've been watching the Northwest heat up and are planning accordingly.

 yup, more roadwork

 the drive today reminded us a lot of driving through BC

 so I parked on the pad after I unhooked. there wasn't a lot of room left so I parked without even thinking that the slide still had to come out. Well this is how close it got after Caroline yelled out "where's the truck?". well the slide was out already and we saw how close WE (note I stress we) almost had some more body work to fix

 a nice spot complete with concrete patio

June 23 Yellowston park

Today was our last "tourist trap" location. We headed out after sous chef "Guillaume Extraordinair" prepared a scrumptious bacon and egg specialty breakfast for the handsome couple. We entered the park after our $30 (USD) guest fee, the drive was very nice although be it only 2 lanes for the next 300 miles; yes I said 300 miles!! We had decided to take in everything this park has to offer in one day as we have been watching the forecast and see that the next week will be hot in the Pacific Northwest. Now I have to say the tug of seeing our kids, grandkids, and especially our staff (get ready folks for the return of the BIG KAHUNA!!); as we are getting closer we are in all honesty getting a bit homesick.
We did the whole park today, lots of driving; this was the most driving I had done on an "off" day but we did enjoy it. I'll let the pictures and captions tell the story.

mammoth springs, sulphur water simply oozing out of the ground. it continues to form an eerie looking landscape

 and to prove we were there!

 it actually looks kinda cool

 and then there was more road construction :(

 the hords waiting for old faithfull to blow. this was June 23rd, I can well imagine the traffic (which was bad enough now) in July and August.

 thar she blows!

 as we were driving around the park, we saw lots of bison, some elk, deer, and one little black bear which was too far away to get a decent shot. You always know when there is wildlife close to the road, a huge group of vehicles driving at 1 MPH!! This one got very close to the truck; Caroline is already in the "backed up" position :) (most other pics as we were driving she'd have her hands 2 feet outside of the truck. not this time)

 and then it walked across the road

 beautiful Yellowstone river

 the canyon where the river goes through is simply amazing

 there are 2 waterfalls in this canyon, this is the larger of the two

 more oozing

 Lake Yellowstone at around 8500 feet

 as it got closer Caroline got stage fright and put up the window quick. wouldn't want this bad boy sticking his antlers in the window now would we?

 

June 22 leaving tornado alley

This morning started with some apprehension; how far should we travel with our fridge not on; I decided after unhooking all cords and hoses to take a closer look. breakers were on, light came on the inverter switch. I thought of my IT guy (Dave) and did the computer thing; I unplugged the inverter cord from what looked initially like a regular plug, that was until I stuck my head underneath to discover it was actually a GFI plug; and guess what? the little tab on the plug was actually in the "kicked" position!! DUUUHHH! I then realized again that the RV mfg's do things which simply confound the normal soul.  I reset the breaker and Vwallah! it works!! This changed our mindset about how far we were willing to go today. We really wanted to get out of tornado alley, so we decided to go FAR, we initially were going to make one stop before Yellowstone Park. Not any more, we targeted an RV park about 20 minutes out from the park. The drive today was now the longest, over 810 KM's; it was also the first time I pulled in to gas up for the second time. The Flying J is a truck stop which makes it very easy for rigs like ours to gas up without worrying about knocking down the big canopy over the pumps. And what a find Caroline made; it is situated along the banks of the Yellowstone river, which we found out is the longest undammed river on the Continental USA. And the park is very nice, a beautiful spot right on the river, and high enough we are not concerned over flooding (the river is running high due to snow pack runoff as well as rains). The Midwest has had an abnormally high amount of rain this year, although we noticed a number of pivots sprinkling fields in Montana. It seems this time of year is when Wyoming and Montana's road works crews have decided to start work on repairing roads. In my humble opinion the roads today were some of the best we've been on; they don't need repair guys!! Every 10 miles signs of "left lane closed ahead" or "right lane closed ahead" had us prepared for slow downs. Seems the locals ignore the slow to 45 MPH as they confirm that there's no work going on!! Only after 3-4 of these slowdowns finally you see one worker repairing one of the bright colored cones on the road.
We pulled into our very nice site and were set up in 5 minutes (thanks Caroline). A nice organic chicken, organic beans, AND organic potato finished off a very nice day, that is until I finish my book tonight.

 very nice roads in South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana

 our first glimpse of real mountains since we left BC at Christmas! we had just entered Montana

 more nice views and roads

 just outside Billings Montana

 a great RV park in the mountains

 we hired a sous chef this evening, Mademoiselle Caralincha. She is an award winning chef here in Paradise Valley, she cooked up a superb combination of herbs, spices, chicken, beans and roasted potato; topped off with a couple glasses of Cupcake chardonnay (yes that's what its called!) and a Hagen Das for dessert. MMMMMMM!!!! Honestly though, Caroline has been so great in cooking meals on this trip. We do go out an average of once per week but that's at Carolines wish.

 Our view from the deck at sous chef's Caralincha's restaurant

June 22 The aftermath of a tornado warning

It is Monday morning, yesterday we were blessed by being able to worship with a RCUS here in Rapid City. The RCUS is predominately here in the West, and we will see if we can meet one more on the way home. Again, Caroline and I were pleasantly confident that the Church is much larger than we could imagine after experiencing many of them throughout this trip. Its funny when you are brought up in one federation of Churches that until you do worship with different denominations you then get a sense of how large the Church really is. The service was as Reformed as it could be, matter of fact we've seen things such as silent prayer, prayer of confession, and audience participation which I think we could introduce into our service (maybe i'll write a letter when we get back :))
I did not have a good sleep last night. It started at about 12 midnight, the wind picked up, the thunder and lighting started, and this was after what we thought was a mild evening compared to the 2 other nights where the thunder and lightning had started much earlier.
This time the wind was much fiercer than the previous nights; after I was awoken, I tried to open the rig door and I could feel then how hard it was, I actually had trouble pushing it open; good thing it was coming from the left, if it came from my right, it surely would've ripped the door out of my hand (you're probably thinking what's this idiot doing, opening his trailer door in the middle of a lighting/thunder/wind storm!!). My educated guess was the gusts were at least 50 MPH!!, the trailer this time was rocking from the force. This time the lightning was much closer as well. I didn't want to turn any lights on at first so I sat by the only window which the blind was up; the bathroom! I literally sat on the toilet watching the show, it was something I had never seen or experienced before, and in all honesty I do not want to experience again! You watch shows on TV about storms and then tornadoes; and you guessed it, I was just waiting to see a tornado come out of this dark scary situation. It also started to hail, my worry again is that when one is inside a "mobile home:, ythe structure is not designed to have golf ball size hailstones getting thrown at you at a 100 MPH; the plastic shower and bathroom vent coverings will surely crack or break. I had visions of going up on the roof and getting plastic tote lids cut up with duct tape and repairing huge holes in these vent covers. I watched for about a half hour and I could see the lighting move East of us; I went back to bed as it seemed to be subsiding. Well it didn't ; about 2AM the wind picked up again; im guessing this was the tail end of the system with the wind pushing it out. It woke me again, as it seemed to be more fierce than a couple hours earlier. At least this time no thunder and lightning.
This morning the skies are completely clear and it should be a beautiful day.

June 20 Mt Rushmore & Crazy Horse

After our tornado scare last night guess what? As I'm writing this yes they have issued a severe thunderstorm warning and possible tornado watch! Not as much lightning as last night so we'll pray for less severe weather tonight.
Today we took off on highway 16 towards our first stop; Mt Rushmore. The history of Rushmore is basically a memorial was decided to commemorate 4 past presidents; George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. The project was commissioned to Gutzon Borglum, a Dutch/American, it was started in 1927 and was finished in 1941. Initially busts were to have been done down to the waists, but funds ran out due to the 2nd world war so only the heads were done. its one of those tourist spots that you get o, you look at it, you take some pictures and then you say OK I saw it, on to the next tourist trap!
We kept on down the highway and stopped at Crazy Horse, this monument is somewhat different; the Mt Rushmore was USA government driven, Crazy Horse is driven by the native Indians of America. They started this project by hiring a well known sculptor by the name of Korczak Ziolkowski. The project was designed to honor the Indian leader Crazy Horse, it was started in 1948. The guy literally started by using a hammer and chisel to put dynamite into small holes to blast rock out. Over the years technology has changed and they are using GPS, lasers and intricate dynamite to continue the monument. Its considerably larger than Mt Rushmore, maybe the Indian people set out to do it this way since the USA government basically took everything away from them over the years. The government has offered millions of dollars in funding but the Indians have refused; they are continuing the project on private funding.
We headed out to explore some of the smaller towns on route, also visiting an underwater waterfall!
We finished the day with a nice discounted dinner at Ruby Tuesdays, a US chain.

 it was kinda cool doing the speed limit at 80! don't worry I didn't have the 5th wheel behind me :)

 an Americon icon

 the Crazy horse is much larger than Rushmore, her are some stats; the head is 87 feet, a feather will add another 44'. The arm and hand will extend out 263 feet out from his chin. The horses head will be 219 feet high.

yup the picture proves I didn't copy any pics off the internet :)

a closer view

a cool horse made up of scrap metal, including bottle caps

 an old mine with a waterfall

 never seen this before.