May 9, 2013 - 1st Day Castle Rock, WA

May 9 Left at 9:00 27299.2 Foggy thru Seattle, as we clear Olympia the sun comes out. High wispy clouds. Stop at the rest area. No cookies. As we left this morning, Phoenix immediately headed under the couch but did not cry. As we were stopping at the rest area, she started talking to us as she came out from under the couch. I held her as we got out of the RV, she was not sure about the noise and cars so willingly went back in. As soon as Mike sat down in his seat she was back under the couch, but no crying again. Hopefully she is getting...

Dec 27, 2012 - Day 2: Castle Rock to Seven Feathers

Now there's an image-rich title. There was a rock on the Toutle River shaped like a castle that gave travellers in the state of Washington a navigation aid way back in the day. And there is a Native American band who have a casino in southern Oregon ... And in between the two places is the leg we travelled on the second day, all the while wondering about the state of the weather in the Siskiyou Mountains. In the morning, at Castle Rock, it was sunny with some clouds. A good omen and welcome after the previous day of rain and more rain. But...

Sep 14, 2012 - castle rock, wa

visited mt. st. helens. My pictures didn't come out well because of fires near enough to make it smokey. But WOW I've seen it on tv but, even 30 years later the signs of distruction miles and miles away. everything in the several mile blast area, was first buried by the cubic mile of mountian to a depth of 600 ft. It was after the landslide the the eruption happened, and for miles those thing not buried disappeared... farther away the one tree stomp got pic of shows how the tree was just blown away, and that was over six miles away.

Jul 9, 2012 - To Castle Rock, WA

Regretfully, we leave Oregon today. At Madras, we turn onto Route 26. Almost immediately, we travel down into a canyon. We know this means we will have to make the climb back up. It is a long steep climb but we make it. Our flashers are on with all the trucks. I think Oregon wants to check how many Thunder Eggs we are taking with us! They need a bridge here! We head to the Mt. Hood Scenic Byway. We have wonderful views of Mt. Hood. Of course, we have been seeing Mt. Hood all week from the High Desert. We cross the 45th Parallel. We turn...

Feb 16, 2012 - 1st Day out

First night is always Castle Rock so Day 2 is really Day 1. I worked at See's through Valentine's so now it is time to relax. We will be at our son's Friday and then they are going with us for a few days to southern California. Ride along with us and enjoy the national parks.

Aug 16, 2011 - Mt St Helens

On our way back to Poulsbo, we stopped at Mt St Helens and took the trip up to the top. Merlene was really not ready for the ride but she tuffed it out. I took a little more gas than I expected to get up there but made it back to the gas station before running out. We ate lunch at the site where Merlene's picture was taken. We stayed at an RV park just outside Castle Rock, WA

Jul 5, 2011 - The Official Start

July 5, 2011 Offical start of this trip. Last two days were spent with Mike and Candy hooking up tow bars and CB radios. RG is off on another adventure. This time he is headed for The Rally, his first, our third. We will spend the first 4 nights at the Thousand Trails in Bend before moving over to the Deschutes County Fairgrounds in Redmond, Oregon on the 10th. We are on our 2nd day of perfectly clear skies, hopefully it will last, temps have been in the 70’s. We have been able to sit outside until the sun sets without jackets. Mt. Hood...

Jun 6, 2011 - Mount St. Helen National Monument

We started out at the main visitor center this morning before we started the 49 mile drive along the dead end highway paralleling the volcanoes destruction. After watching a movie showing actual footage of events leading up to the final eruption, we browsed artifacts in the museum and then walked a nice trail through the wetlands behind the center. We stopped at all four of the other visitor centers along the route and hiked to higher elevations at many of those and several of the overlooks along the route. Flowers were blooming everywhere...

Sep 20, 2010 - Wet Washington

We have fallen behind on our journal again. What's new? After Moses Lake we drove to our rendevous with Mr and Mrs Craig Weed. We broke the drive up into two days, spending one night in White Salmon, Wa. alongside the mighty Columbia River. More blackberries were picked and consumed wherever we stopped. The next day we drove into our next camp, alongside Silver Lake on the highway to Mt. St Helen. We had a day to get camp squared away before our friends arrived. We launched the Nancy Gail and paddled around parts of the lake a few...

Apr 24, 2010 - Day 33 Mt. St. Helens

After a comfortable night outside Wally World, we headed up I-5 toward Mt. St. Helens. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate. We had showers most of the day as you can see. Since "the season" hasn't begun, many of the places at MSH were not open. The visitor center had a lot of good information and informative displays. The movie there really showed the devastation - as did the before and after photographs. We were able to drive about 40 miles up the road to a place where we would normally have been able to see the volcano. However,...

Feb 18, 2010 - Down Day

Feb 18, 10:18 63549 Off to Castle Rock today. Our down day when I can get the RV organized and cleaned and Mike and Michael can run around or sit and watch sports on TV. There is a small dinner party tonight, Michael/Candy, Mike/Me and Ted/Diane, another couple that are show car enthusiast.

Aug 2, 2009 - Down past Olympia

Today had a relatively short 2 1/2 hour drive down to Castle Rock, Washington which is about 40 miles south of Olympia. We took the scenic 101 out and it was a lovely drive right along the coast with great views of the San Juan Islands. We arrived at our campground without incident again. The Toutle River RV Resort just opened this season. This soon to be mega park is going to hold up to 800 rigs when it is completely done. However, they have done just a great job today on the landscaping and design of the park. The only downside is it is...