Adamson House, Serra Retreat, Paramount Ranch and Mulholland Highway

While in the Malibu area this visit, and at the recommendation of Jana and Larry (our great RV hosts), we took in some of the tourist sights that we have not yet done.

Adamson House

Adamson House in Malibu was our first stop.   The house was build in the 1930's for Rhoda Rindge Adamson and her husband Merritt Adamson.  The house and land it sits on is in the Malibu Lagoon State Beach park.  The house itself is beautiful and has extensive decorative Malibu ceramic tiles throughout the house, pool and patios.  The history of the house is not the most interesting part of the tale.  Well it is interesting as it is beautiful but what we found of more interesting was Rhoda Adamson's family background.  Rhoda is the daughter of Frederick Hastings Rindge and Rhoda May Knight Rindge who were the last owners of Malibu which was a very large parcel of property between the mountains and the ocean in Malibu.  The Rindge's owned all of the land from Santa Monica to Oxynard (which is about 47 miles of winding ocean front) and inland 2 & 1/2 miles into the Malibu canyon.  A very large ranch!  Rhoda's father, Frederick bought the property for $10 an acre in 1892, and only 30 years later became the most valuable single real estate holding in the United States!  Frederick referred to the Malibu coast as the "American Riviera".  In 1905 when Frederick died at the tender age of 48, his wife May took over the running of the ranch.  May had a continuous battle with the County to keep Malibu a private family estate and free of public roads.  Finally after 20 years she lost the fight. The Roosevelt Highway (which is now known as the Pacific Coast Highway) opened in 1926.

When Frederick passed away he had left poor May, land rich but cash poor.  She thought she may find oil on her property but instead she found buff and red clay which lead to the creation of Malibu Potteries.  They produced Mayan, Moorish, Moroccan, Saracen and Persian designs (these are seen throughout the house and grounds).    Malibu Potteries only lasted for 5 or 6 years.

May Rindge's outspoken ways in business and public affairs earned her status as one of California's history shaping women.  This would have been in a time long before the women's liberation movement!  She died in 1941 at 76 years old.  In 1977 Adamson house was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

The back of the house which faces the pool. Not a large house by today's standards in the Malibu area, but for the time it was built was considered large.

This is one of the patios

Beautiful tile work from Malibu Tiles!

Beautiful fountain!

Garden bench

This fountain overlooks the grounds to the beach

All of the tiles were made at Malibu Tiles, including the tiles on the roof of the bath house.  They are 5 tiles deep with cement in-between each tile.  No wind is going to blow that roof off!

Check out the old wooden diving board

The pool looks out onto the Beach.  The pier in the background was built by the family and used for their private yacht 

Serra Retreat

The Serra Retreat is a Franciscan Monastery in Malibu overlooking the beautiful Pacific ocean.  They hold a number of interesting sounding retreats.  One rather odd sounding retreat is the Women's Serenity Retreat (Las Vegas).  Why it sounds odd to me is that I thought it was held in Las Vegas, so I am thinking there could be gambling involved!?  I was thinking of a few of my friends who might want to go on a gambling retreat!!  Woo Hoo!!! But it is actually held in the Serra Retreat House in Malibu on the grounds of the Monastery and it is a non-denominational, 12 step retreat open to all alcoholic women.  An AA Retreat in beautiful Malibu!  What a place to quit drinking!!  I am not sure how Las Vegas fits in to the retreat name.  As I said there are a number of other Retreats held here along with weddings and memorials.

The drive up to the grounds from the Pacific Coast Highway is a beautiful if somewhat winding narrow road.  Once we reached the top we were met with the most serene place that I have seen.  There are paths through the woods with white benches placed here and there.  It was SOOO quiet!  We wandered around outside some of the buildings and came upon this view.

Imagine a wedding here!!

We are on top of the hill and that is Malibu in the background

One of the buildings on the grounds

While wandering around the grounds I heard "cafeteria" chatter.  You know the sounds of knives and forks clinking against plates and bowls.  I could smell food... sort of like warm homemade soup smells and fresh baked bread (yeah and us not eating wheat!!!).  I said to Ray, it looks like there may be a place to grab a bite to eat.  So we headed in the direction of the noises and the smells.  As we rounded a bend in the path we saw a large cafeteria will some people inside eating.  We walked in and saw a buffet set up, with soups (yes I have a great sniffer!), other hot foods and a salad bar.  We kind of looked around to see what the cost was but nothing was noted anywhere.  We were basically ignored by everyone, but Ray did see a young fellow clearing dishes away so went and asked him how much the buffet was and did we seat ourselves.  The young fellow disappeared for a couple of minutes and then came back to inform us that the buffet was for the people on the retreat.  Damn!!!  Ray said we could of had a bowl of soup and no one would have known that we were not on the retreat!  But anyone who knows me very well, and being the stickler for rules, I would never have done that.



Paramount Ranch

Paramount Ranch is in the Agoura Hills  area of Malibu Canyon and runs just east off of Mullholand Highway.  It is the sight of countless Hollywood western moves and TV shows.  Dr Quinn Medicine Women was filmed there.  In the 1960's the site was used as Tombstone Arizona and Dodge City Kansas.  It has even been used for the hills of Montana, Ozark Mountains, Albuquerque and Missouri.  And that is just to name a few!  Back in the hills of the property is the site of where M.A.S.H was filmed.  You cannot drive your cars on the Ranch and it was quite a hike into the M.A.S.H site.  It was way to hot for me to be walking in the dry, dusty area.  There could have been a few rattle snakes hovering near by in the sage brush!!!  It does not appear that anything is currently being filmed on the property as it is open to the public.  All of the buildings that were used are still standing and are in great shape.  As you can see from this photo there is a new sheriff in town!

We came across this hues old oak tree (or two joined tress) that was so big Ray couldn't climb up into the "V" of the tree!

A nice fellow on his lunch break offered to take our photo 

Main Street USA

In October you can find the annual Calabasas Pumpkin Festival, which features 30 tones (yes tons!!!) of pumpkins, arts & craft booths, food, live entertainment and a petting zoo.  Parking is free and so is admission!  Can't get better then that in this day and time!

If you are ever in the area and feel like a nice hike, you should definitely stop in at the Paramount Ranch!


Mulholland Highway

Many of you may have watched Mulholland Drive the mystery movie in 2001.  I personally have not, but have heard about it. But how many have you actually have been on Mulholland Highway?  It is one of the most famous highways in Southern California.  It runs from Calabasas through the Santa Monica Mountains down to the the beach on Pacific Coast Highway. The highway consists of many twists and turns but the most famous are known as "the snake".  "The Snake" is a short section of road with 21 turns which ends at small restaurant called "The Rock Store".  Any Saturday or Sunday the parking lots and roadways can be jammed packed with motorcycles of every kind.  One year when we were visiting, we went riding through on Mulholland.  I was on behind Derian and Ray was on behind Cia.  Shortly after pulling into the Rock Store, Cia was approached by a film crew.  They were doing a short film on riding on Mulholland and wondered if they could follow us and film her when we left.  We still watch that "VHS" today.  Cia riding her Sporty with her Dad on behind her.  Pretty cool!

Mulholland Highway was named after William Mulholland. Mulholland was a civil engineer and was responsible for building the water infrastructure in Los Angeles.  He supervised the building of the Los Angeles Aqueduct which is a 233 mile long system bringing water from Owens Valley to the San Fernando Valley.

Hot hot hot,,,,,Las Vegas

As were were literally passing through Las Vegas, we decided to stop and spend a couple of nights.  Las Vegas has one campground on the "Strip".  This is a KOA at Circus Circus.  We have since heard that the KOA campground will be closing in 90 days!  So camping on the strip is soon going to be a thing of the past!  We had called ahead and booked our two nights and were given directions to the campground. Of course the directions were either relayed incorrectly,,,,,or I wrote them down wrong. Whatever!!!!  If we had our GPS then it would have been a non-issue.  After driving around aimlessly for about 30 minutes and keeping our eye on the gigantic Circus Circus sign as that was were we wanted to be, we finally arrived at the spot we were supposed to be.  Did I have a massive stress headache?  YUP!!!  Anyway after getting all set up, we decided to walk the strip.  At the suggestion of the woman working in the KOA office, we bought a 24 hour bus ticket which allows you to hop on and off as you wish, thankfully!  It was 107 degrees!!!  We got on the bus in front of Circus Circus and rode it right to Mandolay Bay.  We walked back as far as Ceasars Palace, by going through the casinos along the way because it was way too hot for this old bird outside!!  Of course we had to play some slots along the way.  Ray immediately won $100 which of course was pretty much eaten up at the next few stops.  Just outside of New York New York, we saw a couple sitting outside having a beer.  As there was an empty table I sat down and Ray went in to get the beers.  He came back looking slightly perplexed.  The two beer cost him $17.50    Was he impressed?  Not!  Did I care…..nope…that beer was nice and cold!

One of my favourite Hotels to go into is the Bellagio for it's beautiful gardens.  Ray's favourite thing about the Bellagio is the chocolate dipped strawberries!  Mine is the garden, but the strawberries were yummy too!

 This snail is covered in roses!

As we walk from casino to casino we pretty much stick to the newer Casinos as the older ones are way to smokey for my lungs.  The heat surprisingly enough didn't seem to bother my lungs at all which I find really odd.  By the end of the day Ray's feet and knees were killing him!  When we got to Ceasar's Palace we bought our tickets to see Shania Twain on Saturday night.

Another favourite hotel is the Wynn.  The gardens there are beautiful too.

Yes this is Popeye eating his spinach!

Carousel covered in roses

By the time we got back to our campsite, we were exhausted!  Early night for us that was for sure.  Saturday morning we decided to unhook the truck and find the Camping World store.  We wanted to see if they had any cheap GPS's.  After a lot of driving around we did find it and were quite surprised that it was so small!  We bought a few things, but not a GPS.  We went from there and staying on Las Vegas Blvd ended up at one of the Outlet Malls (surprise surprise).  I can find a mall anywhere even without a GPS!  It wasn't me who did the majority of the shopping this time, it was Ray.  The guy who hates to shop bought himself some new duds!  We pretty much spent the majority of the day at the mall as it is so large and it was nice and cool there!!

Guess who?

Later that night we shared some appies and had some drinks (no complaining of the price this time) before heading to the Shania concert.  We had seen Shania in Vancouver about 10 years ago and were quite impressed with how down to earth she was.  She got people up on the stage with her and even came out into the crowd.  We were not sure what to expect because, after all this was a Las Vegas show!  She did not disappoint us at all and I am very surprised that for a big star that she did come out into the audience many times!  She allowed people to take photos of themselves with her.  She was surrounded by people and it was impossible to get close to her, but I did manage to be right beside her.  I could have touched her.  I turned around to make sure Ray was going to get a photo but he was a bit slow on getting his phone out.  He did get this picture of her as she was walking away.   It isn't a great shot, but you can see how she just comes out and greats people.

She played for about an hour and 3/4 and had an amazing light show.  I would recommend if you are in Vegas when she is playing take in her show.  She ended the show with her song "I feel like a woman" and this light show behind her.  Oh and no she did not ride out on a horse at any time.

All in all we had a great time in Vegas, we do prefer going when it is a bit cooler out though.  It is just a bit more pleasant being outdoors if it isn't 107 degrees!

After about a 5 hour drive we arrived in Malibu at our favourite campground.  From Vegas I had called and pre booked our site.  Malibu RV Park is were we will be hanging our hat for the next two weeks.  I will likely post another page next week.  Stay tuned!

Red Canyon, Bryce Canyon and the most amazing of all, Zion

What a day we have had!  We left our campsite this morning at about 0745 and headed down Highway 15 to a turn off that would take us through some of the most amazing and colourful landscape yet.  I had already said that I really liked Utah, having been driving for a day in Wyoming which was flat at times and other times rolling hills.  Lots of ranches and lots of wind!  Snow fences along the highways had indicated a great amount of snow that could and would, blow in drifts onto the highway.  So coming into Utah and seeing the terrain change so quickly to mountains, was absolutely a relief for my eyeballs!  As we were heading south, we skirted Salt Lake City and continued down to a beautiful city called Provo.  Beautifully kept homes against the rugged multi coloured mountains.  Gorgeous!  You could see the ski hills in the distance.  We drove to our campsite of the day.  We stayed in a KOA campground in Fillmore.  I have to say KOA campgrounds are excellent campgrounds.  They are reliable like an old shoe.  Offering all sorts of service you need when travelling.  Good clean showers (if you don't want to use the one in your trailer), laundry and decent (although slow) wifi, the sites are all very well kept.  You can rent Kabins if you do not have a trailer.  Anyway it was so hot last night when we parked, we put on the air-conditioning in the trailer and went for a walk about.  We ran into a guy who was travelling with his wife and kids.  They were from Alaska and were travelling in a renovated school bus that he had renovated himself.  We didn't go into it, but did have a great chat with him.  As I said in the last blog entry, I have had to use my oxygen as Utah is quite high.  I slept with it last night and had a great sleep!

Getting back to our drive today, we took Highway 20 which took us right into Red Canyon.  Red Canyon is a strip of highway on the way to Bryce.  The colors are magnificent and my photos do not do it justice at all.

The colours are so much more vibrant in real life.  We continued on towards Bryce Canyon and noticing dark black clouds in the distance, we were hoping to get to Bryce before the rains came.  Highway 20 is a winding road through the mountains and finally coming into a valley where it hooks up with Highway 89.  Driving through the valley the sky was getting blacker by the minute.  We took Highway 12 into Bryce Canyon City.  It is not really a "city" but more like a few blocks of motels, campgrounds, restaurants, gas stations and of course the usual tourist stores where you can buy native art work (they call it "indian art"not "native",,,but being politically correct we Canadians would not say that).  We finally enter the Bryce Canyon National Park and after paying our $25 entry fee we start the very long drive u to the canyon.  You are actually driving along side the canyon but cannot see it for a couple of miles.  The road in for the public is about 18 miles and throughout that there are many very tight curves and many observation points, all of which have a few RV spots.  Here are some of the pictures we took along the way at different look outs.

You can clearly see the storm brewing behind Ray!

 The rains they are are coming!!!

It was truly beautiful.  Some have said it is better than the Grand Canyon, but it wasn't.  It is different and beautiful in its own way.  It did not make me cry when I saw it, as the Grand Canyon did.  There I was so overwhelmed with the immensity that I started to cry.


Zion National Park.  It is very hard for me to describe this place.  It is a canyon you are driving through not looking down into.  It is like you are in the bowels of the earth as in spots the road is so narrow and you are winding through the canyon.  We had entered the park from the east side.  It cost $25 to enter the park and another $15 for the "escort" through the tunnel.  There are two tunnels to go through.  The first is just a very short one but the 2nd one is one mile long and as the road is so narrow inside, they need to shut down the traffic so larger vehicles such as an RV can go through.  You are escorted into the tunnel and out the other end.  It is pitch black inside!

After entering the park gates you immediately come around a corner and into the canyon.  It is surreal and looks like you are on a different planet. Very weird feeling!  Flat rocks and bare rocky mountains together.  There are a number of pull out areas to park, get out and take photos, but of course as we went through all of these pull outs were full so we weren't able to stop to get good photos. All of the below are taken from the window of the truck as we are moving and certainly do not do any justice at all to the scenery.

 This particular photo was taken in a wider part of the canyon.

 Entrance to the first tunnel.

Driving through the one mile long tunnel, there are two areas where they have blasted right through the mountain to let the light in and give you a view point of the above mountain.  I am surprised this photo turned out as we came upon the opening quite suddenly.  Once you exit the long tunnel you then proceed at 20 MPH down a long and winding road to the bottom.  You cannot possibly go more than 20 MPH as the corners are so tight.  I would love to return to Utah again to explore this area maybe by car so it is easier to pull over to take better pictures.  I suggest you google Zion National Park for some better photos!

New York to Utah

It is July 7th today and we have covered a lot of ground in two days.  We left our campsite in Guelph at about 5:30 am on Saturday.  As I walked to the truck there was the reminder of Alisha staring at me.  It was like a little goodbye to Nana and Gramps.  This will be on our truck until we get it cleaned when we arrive in California.  I had to share this photo!  We crossed into New York State at Niagara Falls.  People say that the US side of the falls is just a nice as the Canadian side, but I think they are lying.  The horseshoe shaped falls on the Canadian side is spectacular, even if we only saw it from the bridge!  We had been there quite a few years ago on a trip to Ontario, and had not planned to visit it again this trip.  But I can say that it still looks the same as it did years ago! 

We followed Highway 90 through the northern part of New York, going  through the outskirts of Buffalo.  From the highway Buffalo appears to be a steel driven town and is spread out for miles.  It appears to be quite run down and dirty.  Many of the very old buildings or factories are in disrepair and look as though they are crumbling down under their own weight.  After New York City, Buffalo is the most populous city in the State with a population of approximately 300,000  We ran into the first of many tolls on this particular highway in New York.  This toll was only $2.75

Continuing along Highway I-90 we left New York State and entered Pennsylvania which is lush this time of year with green rolling hills.  It didn't take long to get through this State as we were in the most northernly part following along Lake Erie.  It was a beautiful sunny morning and a great day for a drive.  Then we entered Ohio which was the real beginning of the tolls.  They call the I-90 the Ohio Turnpike and I suppose we could have taken a secondary highway but we always want to take the "fastest" route!  The Ohio turnpike tolls I would think are to provide monies for the upkeep of the highway, but really it is not a great highway at all for being an Interstate highway!!!  I hope all the money they took from us, is put to good use!!!  As there are Starbucks at all of the Service Plazas, which are totally different than a Rest Stop.  They offer restaurants and gift shops as well as information booths and washroom facilities.  While I love to see Starbucks on the highways, I think that is where our money is going???  Okay, I will not complain!  A bit of frivolous information on the Ohio Turnpike.  It is a 241 mile long toll highway.  The official name for the highway is the James W. Shocknessy Ohio Turnpike.  Mr Shocknessy was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention from Ohio in 1956 & 1960.  He was also the first chairman of the Ohio Turnpike Commission.  The turnpike was built between 1949 and 1955.  The turnpike not only runs on the I-90 but also on the I-76 and I-80.  So if you are travelling in Ohio and don't want to pay the exorbitant tolls, you best find another way to cross Ohio!  I-90 through Indiana also is a toll highway.  Our total amount of tolls we paid in the two days of driving was $98.75 (I bet you can imagine what Ray had to say about it all!!!!)   We went through Cleveland which is huge!  The city itself has a population of about 390,000 but if you add in the surrounding area the population is closer to 800,000.  Traffic was great though as it was Saturday morning and still quite early and everyone was probably still celebrating the July 4th holiday!  Continuing west we saw a Harley dealer sign along the "turnpike" so pulled off the road into a town called Avon.  This town has a motto.  "We make Duct Tape, Respect the Nest!"  Avon Ohio is apparently the Duct tape capital of the world and is the home of "Duck" band duct tape.  They have an annual Duct Tape Festival every year.  Boy Red Green would sure love this town!

Next State is Indiana (more highway tolls).  We were going to camp for the night in a tiny place called Howe.  They had a great campsite and it was the biggest one that I have seen yet.  It looked like they tried to squeeze as many campers into this site that they could.  You literally would not have been able to "swing a cat by the tail" between one site and the next one.  There were kids everywhere!  You could barely drive through the site without the possibility of  driving into someone and whoever was out walking took no notice of the trucks driving on the narrow roadways.  The girl in the office had told us to find our spot and phone her with our credit card number (yup that was how big it was!).  But after driving past the few sites available and seeing how crowded they were, we got outta of there!!!  We drove up the road and crossed into Michigan and camped in a quiet campsite in Sturgis Michigan.  When we left in the morning we crossed back into Indiana and continued on our westerly way.

Anyone who owns an RV or has been to an RV show may know that most of the RV's are made in northern Indiana.  Ours is a Rockwood which is made by Forest River.  The Forest River Plant is in Goshen Indiana.  We were half an hour from Goshen.  Ray really really wanted to go by there and see if we could have a tour of their plant.  Is that a guy thing?????  Would have been great but it was Sunday morning!  In Elkhart which is close to Goshen, there is an RV and Motorhome museum!  Again, it was Sunday and it was closed.  Mind you I think I would have been bored out of my skull in that museum 

Chicago Illinois - as we were driving closer to Chicago we turned on the news and heard that there had been 5 police related shootings over the long weekend and a Gary Police Office had been killed.  And we think that we are busy in Abbotsford on a long weekend?  Nothing compares to this.  I guess things got out of hand with the July 4th celebrations!  In 1833 the primary industry in Chicago was fur trading.  In the 1850's and 1860's pork and beef where high on the economic scale.  In the late 19th century Chicago was home to the Western Wheel Company which manufactured bicycles.  In the 1930's radios were manufactured here (Motorola, Walkie-talkies and Handie Talkies for the army).  Today Chicago is home to Boeing, McDonald's, Motorola and United Airlines.  You can see this large metropolitan city has boomed from the early years onward.

After leaving Ohio we went through the southern part of Wisconsin and into southern Minnesota.  Minnesota has acres and acres of corn fields  We kind of wondered why there seemed to be nothing else growing in the southern part of the State and then we came through a fairly small town called Blue River.  It is apparently the home of the Jolly Green Giant and have a huge statue of the said green guy visible from the highway.  The Vally of the Jolly Green Giant refers to the Minnesota River valley.  The Minnesota Valley Canning Company was the original name of the Green Giant Company.  This local plant cans both peas and corn.  So I guess that explains the acres of corn we saw.  Ray was quite impressed with the acres and acres of wind farms!!  Another crazy thing in Minnesota is the SPAM museum in Dexter.  The museum is in honour of the "food" product called SPAM.  If you want to call that food!  Imagine having a museum for SPAM! 

On crossing the State line into South Dakota we started seeing giant billboards advertising "Wall Drugs".  These signs varied in size and information on the signs.  But what was odd was the first sign said to be sure and visit Wall Drugs which was 355 miles away.  Apparently the old highway went through the city of Wall, which brought many tourists to the small town.  When the highway went in the owners of Wall Drugs decided they needed to do some serious advertising to get people to come and visit their town and to support the tourist economy.  Our friend Barb Flett had told us to be sure and stop in and visit Wall Drugs.  So we did.  It is quite a small town but the Wall Drug store is massive!  It takes up the entire city block.  There is everything imaginable in there from souvenirs made in China to local art and pottery made by the local native Indian tribes.  You could buy boots, clothing, jewellery, books and even lunch.  If you are ever in the area, it is well worth stopping in and have a free ice water or a 5 cent cup of coffee (just don't expect Starbucks coffee).

Rapid City South Dakota. I think I could live here. It is in what is called the Black Hills, and has rolling green fields with pine trees scattered all over. The hills themselves are covered in pine trees. Everything is lush and green.  And of course they even have a huge Harley Davidson Dealer which has the largest parking lot that I have ever seen, and they are apparently expanding it. Ray said that when they were in Sturgis last summer the parking lot was full of thousands of motorcycles.  Not ones for sale but ones that had been ridden into the area for the yearly rally. 

We camped the night in and RV just south of Sturgis.  This place was great, you could buy a bottle of wine for $4.50…mind you that bottle of wine was only one glass!!  How sad was I?

In the morning we packed and drove into Sturgis. We parked on the side of the road across from the Harley dealership and walked the town. There really is not much to Sturgis other than t-shirt shops and bars. It was pretty quiet unlike when the motorcycle rally is on. Kind of reminded me of Mayberry RFD, and I expected to see Sheriff Andy Taylor and Deputy Barney Fife walking the beat. After walking through town and dropping a bundle of cash in the Harley store we headed to Deadwood. Now Deadwood is an old cowboy town where apparently Wild Bill Hickok was shot in the back playing cards. This town is literally full of casinos and bars (and a Harley shop,,,,did I say that I am all Harley shopped out?)  . It was way to early for a beer and we did look for somewhere to have breakfast but we were too late for that. Oh well! There was a very cool shop called Bling & Beer. They have a bar set up in the shop where the husband can have a beer while the wife shops for all things bling. Just about everything in the store had bling on it, including the cutest pair of leopard cowboy boots! They had a bling strap around the ankle! OMG cute or what! I tried a pair on and was going to buy them, but the bling straps didn't come with them. You had to buy them separately for an extra $25 so Ray asked if they would give us a deal on the straps and they said no. So we left the boots with them and walked out. It was the principle of it. So no, Lori did not get the leopard boots.

MT Rushmore is as amazing as it looks in photos. It really is amazing the vision that Gutzon Borglum had when he saw this mountain and proceeded to blast out the beginnings of the Presidents faces. Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and of course the most famous one of all Lincoln.  Two miles east of the mountain is a town called Keystone. We pulled into Keystone before heading to the monument. This tiny town reminded me a bit of Skagway as it looked like an old western town (even had a shoot out on the street). But instead of being brown buildings they were all stark white with red trim. Very different. There were so many people in  the streets, but we did manage to have a bite to eat and also took in the Borglum museum. It was pretty interesting. After leaving Keystone we rounded a curve in the road that had a pull out, and got our first glimpse of Mt Rushmore. It was high above us with Washington facing our way.  This particular photo was taken from just below the mountain.

Well this morning we arose about 5;45. Ray was up first and put on the coffee. Dan Dorling,,,good thing we didn't borrow your GPS as when Ray was building the coffee he knocked our GPS into the sink full of water!! Looks like we will be buying a new one somewhere along the line, as this one will turn on, but will not let you do anything.

We left The BJ Campground in Lusk Wyoming at 6:30.  We stopped at a gas station to fill the beast (which by the way we are getting between 7.5 to 10 miles per gallon).  I decided to grab a coffee.  I should know better than to buy coffee from a service station.  It was disgusting!!!!!  The elevation of Lusk is about 5000 feet and Ray asked how I was feeling.  I was not bad really.  Around 1030 we stopped at a McDonald's on the highway.  I went in to buy a coffee and use the facilities.  By the time I got back to the truck my heart was racing and I just felt exhausted!  No need to worry though, I plugged in my oxygen concentrator into the truck and away we went.  It really did help me!  I guess when you are at 6700 feet or more and are just sitting in the truck, of course you will feel fine, until you get up and walk a short distance.  

We crossed into Utah this afternoon and I fell in love with the scenery!  We went from boring rolling dry plains in Wyoming to beautiful mountains.  Made me kind of home sick!  

Tonight we are parked in Fillmore Utah.  Tomorrow we head to Bryce Canyon and then Zion.  We are really looking forward to seeing the beautiful colours!!!  I will try to post again tomorrow night, but it all depends on wifi.

Lori and Ray

Family time.

Well here it is July 5th.  The day after July 4th. Independence Day for the United States of America.  How old is America you ask? The United States is 238 years old while Canada is a mere 147 years old. We are really such a young country in comparison.  Tonight we are in a campground in Sturgis Michigan.  This is not the same "Sturgis" of the motorcycle fame.  That Stugis is in South Dakota and we hope to be there within two days travel.  We had a long drive today leaving Guelph this morning at 0650 hrs (that is 6:50 am for those not used to a 24 hour clock).  I am feeling rather blue tonight as I sit and start this portion of the blog.  Blue because I have left some of my family behind.  Read on and you will see what I have left behind.

We arrived in Guelph on Saturday June 21st at about 6:00 pm.  We were pretty tired from the drive down from Sault Ste Marie, and as Riki and Alisha had a family wedding they were attending, we had arranged to see them on Sunday which gave us plenty of time to set up our campsite.  We had chosen Guelph Lake Conservation Park as it was very close to Riki and Brad's house (12 minutes according to the GS).  The campsites in this park are the biggest by far that we have seen.  Over the next two weeks we actually stayed in three sites because we had not pre-booked and were camping over the July long weekend.  Our first site was quite shaded, but as it was very humid and we were having rain storms daily, we really did not mind.  Also as we only had electric and water (no sewage hook ups) we were happy to be right across from the showers and washroom.  Sunday morning Riki brought Alisha over and dropped her off so she could have breakfast with Gramps (aka: Papa/Pops) and I.  Riki had to pick up Madison from Brad's parents as they had babysat her the previous night.  She was so happy to see us but was also a bit shy for all of 10 minutes!  Ray made us breakfast while her and I got to visit with each other.  Madison has changed so much since I saw her in March. In March she was just starting to sit on her own. She had dark auburn hair. Now she is a little blonde chubby baby who crawls all over the place and walks around the furniture! No peace for Mom and Dad that is for certain! This photo she looks like she has red hair, but trust me, it is blonde.

Over the next week Alisha was still in school so our routine became Riki coming over with Madison after lunch for a couple of hours and then going and picking up Alisha and bringing her back to the campsite.  We had dinner together either at Riki & Brad's or at the campsite.  Ray and I were lucky to be able to attend the Kindergarteners class picnic.  Well I was a participant while Ray sat on a bench and visited with another grandfather who was also there.  Alisha was a bit disappointed when we told her that we would not be there for the weekend as we were heading up to Newmarket to visit with my brother Jimmy and his wife Sue.

As the long weekend was approaching and we had not pre booked our campsite, we had to move our 5th wheel from our site near the shower house and with electrical and water hook ups, to an unserviced campsite.  The unserviced sites are also very large and more level that the first site we had been in.  The site was large enough that we could play bacci ball, ring toss and whatever else it was that Riki brought for Alisha to play with.  

June 27 Ray and I headed up to Newmarket to visit with my brother Jimmy and his wife Sue.  We took Highway 24 (or 124) out of Guelph and meandered our way.  It is about an hour and a half drive and we were not expected until about 3:00 or so.  I decided that we needed a Harley Davidson fix, so I Googled to see if there was a dealer in Newmarket.  The closest one was in Richmond Hill which if I remembered correctly, was only about 20 minutes from Newmarket.  I didn't have to twist Ray's arm at all to go.  Having lived in Richmond Hill in the 70's I figured that I could find an address on Yonge Street easy enough, but punched it in to the GPS anyway as it has been about 37 years.  Anyone who has driven on Yonge Street will know that it is light after light basically from Newmarket to downtown Toronto, so when the GPS took us over to the 404 I was not surprised as it was giving us the shortest route possible.  What I did not realize was how much Aurora and Richmond Hill had changed and basically blended together right down to the city of Toronto.  The GPS had indicated that it was 19 kms to the location and Ray said if he had known it was that far he would not have gone.  19 kms on Highway 404 is like going from Mission to Abbotsford.  We got off the 404 on Highway 7 and quickly found Davis Harley Davidson.  What was the real shocker for me was really how the area had changed!  This what I would have called Thornhill, not Richmond Hill.  For those in BC, Thornhill is to Toronto what Burnaby is to Vancouver.  This was not the Richmond Hill that I remembered!  After finding a place to park we wandered around the dealership admiring their bikes.  After about half an hour and dropping a few dollars on a couple of t-shirts we headed north again for Newmarket to my brothers house.

Newmarket, the sign at the beginning of the city says the population is 85,000 but I believe the sign must be old as the new housing growth just never ends.  Each time we come to Newmarket it is more and more spread out. We spent two nights at Jimmy's.  The first night my niece Amanda and her husband, Jeff arrived with their crew of 6 delightful kids.  Laurel is the oldest at 9 years, followed by Holly 7 years, Cadence 5 years, Reid 4 years, Brier is 2 and baby Harrison will be one in August.  Very well behaved kids they are.  Oh yeah they also had Wilbur with them.  Wilbur is their dog who I believe is 2 years old so very much a large gangly puppy who loves to have you through a frisbee or anything else you happen to have in your hand.  He spent the next few hours going from person to person, whoever had the frisbee by their feet!  With kids climbing trees, dog playing frisbee and Laurel making a wooden teepee, we had a quite an evening.  With so many of us there, Sue had thought to bring in lots of fruit to eat and order in pizza for dinner.  No one need to cook there!  On our 2nd night we had a feast of BBQ's tenderloin steaks and a feast of crab legs.

On returning to our camp site in Guelph, the long weekend was in full swing!  It was so full of campers!!  And so many campfires!!!  It was not a good thing to subject my lungs to that is for sure.  But nothing a few puffs of ventolin did not fix.  All nestled into our tenting site, Riki and Brad brought the kids out.  Alisha was so excited as she was going to be spending the next few nights with us.  Riki said that she had packed her bag first thing in the morning.  Riki was also pretty sure that Alisha would ask to come home the first night.  But she spent the next 5 nights with us and never asked to go home once!  Mind you she did see Riki every day and baby Madison too.

On Monday June 30th we decided to take Alisha on a drive.  She had been wanting so bad to go for a drive so that she could watch a movie in the truck as we have the kids DVD screen which had only been used once previously by Riley and Sadie just after we got the truck.  So we head off with Alisha happy in the back watching a movie.  She did not ask us where we were going and for all she cared we could have been going to the moon.  She sat back there with a huge grin on her face.  A we neared our surprise destination, I pointed out a sign to her that said "African Lion Safari" with a picture of a huge lion.  She was very excited when we pulled into the parking lot.  Now the African Lion Safari which is in Rockton Ontario, is the very best "game farm" that I have ever seen!  You have the choice of driving your own vehicle into the game area or taking the tour guided bus.  We opted to take our truck and drive at our own pace.  Unfortunately we were stopped and as we had the 5th wheel hitch in the back the girl at the gate (lets call her the "warden"), told Ray that he had to turn around and rent a locker and take the hitch out and lock it up as the baboons would take the pins out and then the hitch.  Anyone who knows Ray can imagine how impressed he was!!!!  For those who don't now him that well, lets say he was less then impressed!!  The lockers were $5 to rent and we had no idea if the hitch would even fit in, so very reluctantly we decided to take the guided tour bus through the game area at $5 for each of us (that is over the $101 it cost to get in).  Alisha didn't really care as she had never been.  I was a bit disappointed as it really is an adventure to take your own vehicle through.  But I do say now that being on the bus, you are given the tour guide info that you just don't get if you drive yourself.  We saw so many animals!  But by far my favourite were the Giraffes!  Of course I took the wrong camera lens so my photos could have been much better then these photos.  

I think we were able to give Alisha some memories that she will cherish this past week.  Spending time with Nana and Gramps has been great for her especially camping in the trailer.  When it rained we watched movies that she provided (Barbie, Decpicable Me 1 & 2, Shrek and I can't remember what else).  We did some yoga and took some walks including onto the dam.  The weather was sunny, hot, humid and stormy all together!  My friend Nancy Prentice came and spent a night with us.  While she was here we had a camp fire and made s'mores.  I am not sure if Alisha liked eating them or toasting the marshmallows.  We do know that Gramps was not interested in eating them but he did toast marshmallows for them.  Nancy taught Alisha a new game called "Baby Racoon".  This game involves the racoons going and forging for food and recognizing and watching out for predators.  a learning game for sure!  

 Nancy, Alisha and I on Canada Day

 Yoga with Nana

 Brad and Madison

 S'Mores!!

Hitching a ride with Gramps on one of our walks.

One thing that we noticed while being in Ontario especially around Newmarket, Toronto or any of the major highways.  There are no HOV lanes here!!  At times there is 12 lanes of traffic, but no HOV lanes.  mmmmmm….. that is just odd!

So now tonight we sit in our campsite in southern Michigan and reflect on the last two weeks.  I miss my daughter and my grand daughters.  Next time I see Madison she will be walking (probably running as at 8 months old she is walking around the furniture).  Alisha is such a sweet well behaved girl.  Today when we stopped at one of the many travel centres, as I walked to the truck I saw on the passenger side door written in the dust, a 5 year olds printing "a l i s h a".  Tears sprang to my eyes at the same times as a smile to my face.