HEADING FOR NEBRASKA!

Happy 4^th of July!  And greetings from Cheyenne, Wyoming!  I’m on the road again, for CAMPER ADVENTURES #8, and my destination is – NEBRASKA! 

But, first let me backtrack… 

Wednesday, June 22^nd - I left home (Palm Springs CA) with my kittys, AJ and Navidad, for the drive up to Lisa’s place on Lake Wooten in WA.  We arrived at the lake on Friday the 24^th.

Tuesday, 28^th – From Lake Wooten, Bummy Burstein (who had been visiting the evening before) and I took the Bremerton Ferry to Seattle.  After dropping him off at his hotel [for the ASLTA Conference], I then got on I-90 and turned eastward.  I drove for about an hour and stopped at the Snoqualmie River RV Park and Campground in Fall City, WA.  Being that it was late afternoon and my route was going to take me over the Cascades, this was a good place to spend my first night in the camper. 

Wednesday, 29^th - The drive up and over the Cascades was most lovely, despite the heavy cloud cover and occasional bursts of rain.  The pine trees, the tops of which jutted through much of the low-hanging clouds, were a beautiful green – “Forest Green” sounds about right.  As soon as I reached the lower altitudes, continuing on I-90, the terrain and sky took on a marked change.  It was sunny and dry and the countryside morphed from desert-like to a landscape of rolling green hills, completely barren of trees.  Mulling over this fascinating difference between western and eastern Washington, I wondered if “Pacific Northwest” applied to Washington’s eastern half as well.  I did a Google search later and, according to Wikipedia, in part --

"The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners.  A common concept of the Pacific Northwest includes the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington, and the Canadian province of British Columbia.  This definition is often restricted further to include only the coastal areas."

There’s more but I’d venture an interpretation that “Pacific Northwest” means different things to different folks. 

Traveling in the camper, I usually try to avoid driving on the interstate, unless there’s really no choice or I’m in a hurry to get to Point B.  As soon as I saw the exit for Rt. 26 E, I was off the interstate and driving along a more exciting two-lane road.  Eventually, I got on Rt. 127 S and then connected to Rt. 12 E, stopping at the Hillview RV Park in Clarkston, WA.  This is an historic area.  I was here once before, in my camper -- and so were Lewis and Clark, in their tents. 

Thursday, 30^th – Continuing on Rt. 12 E, I crossed the Snake River into Lewiston, Idaho and soon connected to Rt. 95 S.  Lordy, this was one heckuva beautiful drive!   

This entire stretch of Rt. 95, until I switched over to Rt. 55 S, traversed through the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area and the Nez Perce National Forest.  The narrow two-lane road snaked through high canyon walls, which were alternately rocky in places and thickly covered with pine and other trees at other places.  Winding along, sometimes on my right and sometimes on my left, was a fast moving river.  The current and rapids looked downright scary – not a river I’d want to dip my toe in!

Rt. 55 S, the Payette River Scenic Byway, took me up and over another mountain range and through a ski resort town called McCall.  As soon as the road descended, I could only admire the colorful contrast of colors in the valley before me.  The sky was blue, and the lush summer green fields and meadows, dotted with flowers and cattle, were surrounded by snow-capped mountains.

Both of these routes had the usual strategically placed warning signs.  I didn’t encounter “falling rock” or “crossing game” or “open range livestock.”  Nor did I encounter “stock.”  That’s what the sign said -- “Watch For Stock.”  Never seen that one before. 

At Boise, I got on I-84 E and got a site at the Mountain Home RV Park in Mountain Home, ID.  I stayed here for two nights, taking advantage of the wireless to check my emails and take care of personal First-of-the-Month business.

As far as RV parks go, this one is very nice.  RV parks run the gamut from primitive (e.g., boondocking on BLM land), to campgrounds with no restrooms or with vault toilets, to private RV parks with or without amenities.  There’s a certain type of RVer, probably no different from a similar breed of folk who prefer “foo-foo” cruise ships (I’m the Windjammer type), who will rate an RV park based on just one thing – its restroom/shower facilities.  I’m not particularly fussy, but this RV Park gets high marks from me.  There’s a men’s restroom with its door painted yellow.  There’s a women’s restroom with its door painted orange.  Then there are four private rooms, each with a shower, a toilet, and a sink, and those doors are painted red, purple, blue, and green.  The assortment of rainbow colors sure made me feel very welcome and when I went to take my shower I picked the blue door.        

Saturday, July 2^nd – Rt. 30 E overlapped for awhile with I-84 and then veered off into a scenic loop drive called the Thousand Springs Scenic Byway.  Taking this route added about two more hours to my driving time, but it was well worth it.  There are fossil beds in this area and the byway took me through several small towns and even smaller farm communities.  I’ll never tire of these small towns.  I’ll never tire of the old motels with the cool (or gaudy) neon signs, the old movie theaters, the old banks and department stores, and the run-down remnants of bygone gas stations with the impossibly small garage doors.  No “box stores” in these towns.  McDonald’s would look out of place here and would even disturb my sense of the environment.  I often wonder, driving through these small towns – have many of the locals ever been to a Home Depot, or a Wal-Mart’s, or an Applebee’s?  This sort of puts things in perspective methinks.

Rt. 30 soon overlapped for a few miles with I-84 and then with I-86 E and I-15 S before veering off  towards and through the Caribou Range and the Caribou-Targhee National Forest.  Along the way there were large yellow rectangular warning signs to watch for deer.  The scent of skunk road kill wafted through my window now and then and, sadly, there were a couple of deer that had been hit as well.  Other mountain ranges surrounded me and the one to my right, high and snow-capped, was especially beautiful against the blue sky.  The sky, with nary a cloud, reminded me of Palm Springs, only hereabouts it was around 40 degrees cooler. 

Reaching a mountain’s pass or summit almost always gives me an anticipatory thrill.  You never know what you’ll see once you begin the descent.  Crossing over one such summit today, once again, as with the other day, the view of the valley below caught my breath.  Some sights just simply defy description.  Suffice it to say, the phrase “How Green Was My Valley” is the best I can offer. 

By mid-afternoon I crossed into Wyoming.  For about 10 miles or so, Wyoming looked just like Idaho, and then the distinctive geological features that define Wyoming came into view – rocky, flat-top buttes.  I soon arrived at the pick-your-own-site Riverside RV Park in Kemmerer.  As the name denotes, there’s a river and since there were several available sites, I naturally picked the one with a view of the river. 

Sunday, July 3^rd – Rt. 30 E overlapped with I-80 E all the way to Cheyenne, WY, my next stop for the night.  Wyoming, being such a rural state with acres and acres of grazing land, does not have an extensive grid of connecting highways like other states.  Not wanting to add time and miles on state roads today, the interstate was the only route I could take.  But even then, this particular 345-mile stretch of I-80 afforded a very satisfactory scenic drive.  The terrain started off flat, then there were hills and buttes, a few jutting rock formations, and finally, on the approach to Cheyenne, the refreshingly beautiful trees of the Medicine Bow National Forest.  Along the way, less than a hundred miles to my south, were Utah and Colorado.  Mountain ranges bordered those state lines.  They were big, beautiful, and snow-capped as well.   

Arriving in Cheyenne, I got a site at the A B Camping RV Park.  As I write this, it is Monday, July 4^th and I’m at the same RV Park for a second night.  I have internet access here (cable, too!) and it’s a good thing I stayed an extra day because I got an email today from my bank that they suspect credit card fraud.  I checked my account online and they were right!  I made the necessary call, the account is now closed, I’m not liable for the fraudulent charges, and my credit card is now in tiny pieces.  I have no idea how that happened but at least I will sleep OK tonight.

Tomorrow I cross into – NEBRASKA! 

With apologies to my picture-loving readers, I didn’t take pictures or video on this drive from Washington to Wyoming.  Hopefully the one below will do for now…smile!