Our 2019 Adventures

Hi Everyone You haven't heard from us in the last few days since we were busy working.  Ok, not really working but volunteering. This past Thursday was a training day and Friday - Sunday were actual work days.  The work is not hard and it is very enjoyable.  People march into the Gift shop to browse or shop.  Our job is to "take their money".  Using of the cash register or the credit card device.  The great news is that we're now off for six days.   The Museum is on the two floors above the Gift shop.   This is a self-guided tour.   The Lighthouse tour is our primary "job".   This is the one we actually take them on discussing various things along the way.   Starting with the building we just left.   It was the actual U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters from 1939 - 1968.   It housed 16 personnel except during WWII, when 100 personnel were housed ...

We finally made our destination by 12 noon local time. First, we need to comment on "what a difference a day makes".  Eastern Oregon is certainly nothing like the central and coastal topography.  As we got closer to the mountains of the Cascade Range, the thicker the foliage and more beautiful our surroundings became. Additionally, the temperature dropped from 37 degrees to 30! In reference to the mountain peaks posted yesterday; we were not sure and did not want to post false information.   As a result we left the names out.   These were in fact Mt. Hood, Powder & Wolf mountains as presented left to right. Today we got pretty close to Mt. Washington: The route taken, could not have been more beautiful.   Glad we were forced to take the smaller state roads to reach the coast avoiding the interstate.   These were winding through the mountains, rewarding us on every turn. ...

This morning at rush hour, we drove through Boise, ID.   Thank goodness most of the traffic (bumper to bumper) was heading in the opposite direction.   For a short time, we thought we were driving through Atlanta.   It appears, that this capital city, is larger than we had thought.   Glad we were not caught in that mess. What seems like "forever", we finally made it into Eastern Oregon. I don't know if this is just a misconception on our part, but Oregon does not seem to be what we had preconditioned our minds to expect.   Many of the pictures previously seen are of thick arboreal areas, very green and forest like.   Well, at least the eastern central part of Oregon is nothing like that.   It is very desert like.   Reminds us of Arizona and Nevada (Las Vegas) type or topography.   Beautiful in its own right, but not those thick arboreal areas previously seen in pictures of the state.   ...

Hi everyone We made it to the "spud" state.    Beautiful ride getting here.   The landscape is awesome with mountains as backdrops, made it a fun ride.  Continuing to see Pronghorns along the way.  They are everywhere in large and small numbers.  We are also enjoying seeing again  Magpies .  Their habitat exists only in the west and we first saw them when we visited Yellowstone National Park a couple of years ago.  Beautiful, large (noisy) bird. In my haste to post last night's blog, I left out the pics from Fort Bridger.  Here they are now. As mentioned earlier, the ride through Utah was beautiful.   We had visited Utah before but only the Southern part of the state.   It is mainly a desert like environment.   However, our ride today took us to the northern part of Utah and it couldn't be more different than the south western desert like environment we h...