A week dry camping in the Reno area...

Notice...Notice...Notice... To save a few $ we have changed our telephone service and number. We have one telephone now and the number is:

253-225-5482

Now onto our travels...We spent the last week dry camping at Washoe Lake State Park, between Reno and Carson City, NV. Virginia City, NV was a short drive away. Here are some pictures from there.

And here is the view of the Reno area on the drive back down from Virginia City.

One day we went to the Nevada State Museum in Carson City.
This is a painted rock just down the road from our campground. Pretty interesting...

The view of Lake Tahoe from the highway from Reno, where we reached elevations of nearly 9,000 ft!

More Lake Tahoe--



In Reno, we spent over 3-1/2 hours here:

The first RV!


The river runs through the center of Reno.

The first church in Reno--United Methodist--very beautiful.
The view of Washoe Lake and the campground from the top of a hike we took (Deadman's creek trail).
It was an experience dry camping. The campground had restrooms with showers. Each day we ran the generator for a couple of hours to charge the batteries. One of the little white dots just to the right of the center is our Big Sky. And we did some cooking outside, although not as much as we'd have liked because it was quite windy most of the time. We did go into several casinos, twice to have lunch and once into Harrah's in Reno to gamble. We lost the two dollars we bet.

Quincy California, bucks lake, Church and dancing...

Here we are in (of all places) Quincy, California. It is a very small town in the mountains at around 4000 ft. of elevation, buried in the forest. What a beautiful area, that is if you like trees, rivers and sun shine in the 70s. We arrived thursday and will depart in the morning (monday) and plan to head further east to the Reno area.

Being Sunday we went to Church at the local Community United Methodist Church in town. Beautiful little church with a very friendly congregation.



Last night, Saturday, I (Jackie) pursuaded Dick and the couple camped next to us (Vern and Debbie from Sonora, CA in their Montana) to go into town for the night life. We'd seen a sign at one place that there was dancing and at another that a local band was playing. We tried the "dancing" place first, but it was to canned music. So we headed down the street. The place was jumping. The band was great (a group of older men, one of whom played with Jim Reeves), we got to dance (very small dance floor but big enough until the locals decided maybe dancing was OK), and had a great evening with our new friends.

Not only could he play but sang great with out his teeth. I think he said he was 190 years old.


Wildflowers? Found this group of ? in the woods near a lake. Never have seen them before.

On Friday we drove up to Bucks Lake (17 miles straight up -- 15% grade!) to go for a walk. We stood on this part of the Pacific Crest Trail, then went down to the lake and walked part of the way around. Big lake and very pretty. We pretty much had it to ourselves, so CC had a ball.
Look closely--Jackie is in there among the big trees next to the lake!
Dick and CC on a rock enjoying the scenery and the sun.
The view of the valley from the top of the world at Bucks Lake Road. Well it felt like the top of the world after the long climb.
This small community has much to see and enjoy. We are so glad we found it!

We took a drive up to the 5950 level, where the views of the valley were fantastic. Luckily, we went up on a day that it was clear -- before the rally.
One of the few times that we could view Mount Shasta because of low clouds and rain.

Took a drive up to Castle Lake in the rain and cold (38deg) but wow what a view. Still lots of ice on the lake with low clouds.
The Montana rally was lots of fun for us. I counted about 30 rigs all parked in one area of the park. There was over 60 people and I bet about the same number of dogs. Below is a picture of one of our shared meals. Every one has pulled out but us and one other couple. We will be out of here in the morning.

About 10 of us went to a local river and did a hike. This is the "Middle Falls", 1 of 3 falls on the trail. We got back to the trucks before the sky opened up with heavy, heavy rain, thunder and lightening. Our trip back to the campground was with the wipers on fast.

A new friend at the rally had some old graphics from the front cap of a 2001 Big Sky Montana that he gave us. Dick pulled together some of the crew here that had experence on putting on the decals. What a difference in the looks of our truck. (It was fun taking pictures of the guys putting the graphics on the truck. And some of the "supervisors" who sat on the sidelines and gave instructions.-Jackie)

This is a picture of some of the "supervisors" during and after the decal installation.

It took 4 of us to get the graphics installed and took a little over an hour per side. Many thanks to Butch, Robbie, Ray for all the help and also to Dave for the graphics. What a great bunch of people.

Just a reminder you can click on any picture and blow it up for more details.

It has been a really fun time. My fears of being the "newbies" who were not part of the group were unfounded. We were made a part of the group in no time, and are looking forward to seeing all the these great folks again! It was so much fun and we made some lasting friendships. (Jackie) And we learned to play Mexican Train Dominoes, although I'm not sure I'll get Dick to play again as he was the biggest loser! In spite of the crummy weather (rain, wind, cold), it was a great rally. And our truck looks super!

(Dick) I was told that I was the big winner at Mexican Train because I had the most points. LOL

I was going through Internet withdrawal so we went out today and purchased an air card so we can have internet just about most places. I still need to get the computer in the truck working with it so we can go online when we are going down the road.

Southern Oregon and California

We left the Palasades and ventured south on Hwy 97 through the center of Oregon and made our next stop at Collier Memorial State park. It's in the trees so we had a hard time finding just the right spot to put the rig into. I think we took out some trees when we left.
We spent one afternoon at a logging museum and was amazed at the mutitude of equipment they had there.

Another side trip up to view Crater Lake National Park. We are at a little over 7000 feet of elevation and all the roads around the crater are closed, but did get a view from visitors center.

Here are a few views of the lake, crystal clear.

We are now at Lake Siskiyou California at the Montana owners rally but will up-date this Blog at another time. We are not sure where we will go from here but either toward San Francisco, Sacramento or maybe Reno. I guess you will just have to check back and see what we decided.

Give us a shout and let us know how you all are doing.

The Cove Palisades, OR

This is a view of the lake and coulee from up above the Cove Palisades. We wound down into the coulee, across a bridge and partway up the other side before coming to the campground.
Here is a shot of the moon coming up over the rocks. There are turkey vulture flying around, getting ready to roost for the night in a tree in the park.

Just thought we'd add a picture of CC -- she is still with us. (She didn't much like the high 90degree weather!)

View of the lake at the bottom of the coulee.

The turkey buzzard tree.

In flight, ready to land.

To give an idea of the height of the coulee wall, look for the boat in the water.

Just some pictures of the unique gealogy in the area.

bikes, trucks, church, falls and down on the old farm...

It's May 13 and we are back in Ephrata to see the Dentist but the rig is still in The Dalles area of Oregon. Here are some pictures that we took last week and wanted to share. The bike ride was 6 miles each way above the river and it was a lot of fun.

Because of the heavy winds we went for a long truck ride on two days and here are some pictures that show some of what we found. We went out to breakfast and Church on Mothers day and just relaxed after a long walk along the river trail.

We will depart The Dalles on Thursday and go South on Hwy 97 down the center of Oregon and find a place to camp as we need to be in Northern California on the 22nd.

The WiFi hot spots are few and far between in Oregon so will post again when we get a chance.

Please leave a comment so we can get some idea if this Blog is being looked at.

second stop, still in Oregon...

On Monday, 5/5, we moved west to the Deschutes River Campground (OR State Recreation Area), 66 miles. We are backed up to the river, with a wonderful view (again). The geese and their goslings seem to have made this area their home.

Yesterday, 5/6, we took a “road trip”, starting with a local road just on the other side of the Deschutes River, which lead up, up, up, above the Columbia heading west. It came down just before The Dalles, where we stopped at a PetCo for supplies for CC. Then we went to the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center and Museum. It was great. From there we took historic highway 30 heading west, where the views are incredible. Back home at 5:00 for a relaxing evening. Weather forecast for today is winds gusting to 50, so no bicycle trip today. We don’t have internet access in the park, so are going to go into town (Biggs) and see what we can find. Then maybe another “road trip” to see the scenery.

We are going to leave the BigSky here and take off Tuesday morning for Ephrata for Rotary and dentist appointments. Then back on Wednesday evening, to pull out early Thursday and head south to the Bend area.