Airplanes

While we were in Oregon I wanted to go see the Spruce Goose but got sidetracked the first day in Tillamook. This town on the very northwest coast of Oregon is famous for the Tillamook cheese that you can buy everywhere.   We got sidetracked here,not because of cheese but, because of blimps. Tillamook is home to one of the few blimp hangers left in  the US and is the largest wooden structure in the world. It is HUGE!! It is 1,072 ft long, 296 ft wide and 192 ft high. It covers 7 acres and the doors on each end are 120 ft high. .. Museum..The US Navy built 17 of these hangers in1942 with two being built at NAS Tillamook.The second was completed in 27 days, but was burned in 1992 and the one left now houses one of the top five privately owned aircraft collection in the nation with over 30 warbirds that are still flying.  A very interesting place.

After leaving the museum we saw a sign that read…. Munson Falls Natural Area. It was a nice afternoon so we thought.. lets check it out.  After about 10 minutes on a narrow gravel road we thought that this was a mistake. The end of the road came soon after that with a small turnaround and parking area. We got out and started down a narrow path through a rainforest. Trees dripping with moss and many different ferns and flowers along side a narrow creek. About 15 minutes walk and the trail ended with a beautiful view of a neat 100 ft high waterfalls. Really cool and interesting place.

 The next day we traveled to McMinnville OR and the Evergreen air & Space Museum.. Evergreen.. that is home to the famous Hughes H-4 Hercules, better known as the Spruce Goose. It is bigger than you can believe and is housed in a huge building and it dwarfs all the other planes that are there. The museum is really neat with many airplanes in one building and outside and many NASA and space  related displays in another building. There is also an IMAX theater there that has 2 or 3 different shows every day. Both museums were very interesting.They also had an art show going on with many weird metal sculptures. Very  unique and wonderful.

North to Oregon

As we headed north from Caspar Beach we were still on State Hwy 1 which still followed the edge of the continent. It is a very rugged, twisty, turny road along the coast that turns back inland to  meet with US-101 again. The weather has been cool, cloudy and rain but, we left on dry roads and climbed the twisty roads through the beautiful redwood forests. This whole area north of San Francisco is also known as the Redwood Empire and sometimes referred to as the Lost Coast. It is a very rugged and beautiful area and was the road that the Little Green Truck liked the least so far. The climbing at slow speeds and twisty roads overheated the transmission so we had to stop on a hill in the middle of the woods with nothing but redwood forests around.  We waited about 45 minutes, with only 2 cars passing us, for it to cool and started out again. Continued on the rest of the way to Hwy 101, stopping at the Drive Through Tree. The Ltlgrntruck wouldn't fit, so I walked through, brushing my head on the top most of the way through so it was about 6'5" and about the same wide, but still neat. Continued on to Eureka, CA. and stayed overnight at the fairgrounds where it started to rain again. Left the next morning on wet roads but no rain,yet. Arrived in Brookings, OR.where we stayed overnight. We went to the marina and watched some sea lions play We talked to a boater there that said they played there all the time and earlier in the year a mother and two babies stayed in the slip next to him until too many people started to come around. He also said the year has been the wettest and coldest that he could remember, just our luck, but we are still enjoying the new country, just wish it would dry a little and warm up. Left the Brookings area for the short drive to the Lincoln City area where we planned to stay for a week. Guess what, the whole week it rained. We did meet some fun people and Jan got to play cards every night. As you can tell, we do not look at all the tourist places, but like to see the back country, look at lighthouses and old buildings and meet people.

Northbound !

 As you saw on the previous post we had a great time at  ATHS National show. When the ATHS show ended Sunday we went along with about 40 other trucks on a bridge tour. They had a route set up that took us on 5 bridges in the San Francisco Bay area... The Oakland Bay .. Golden Gate..Richmond-SanRaFael..Carquinez and Benicia/Martinez bridges. We stopped for a mini truck show and a delicious box lunch at a park along Hwy-1 on the Pacific Ocean.We drove the ltlgrntruck through parts of downtown San Francisco.... Wow What Fun... sure glad we were playing follow the leader... Just  like everywhere we go people standing on the sidewalks point and wave and give us thumb's up. It still amazes us the reactions of people to the ltlgrntruck.  When the tour group turned south we left them and turned north on the beginning of our journey through the Pacific Northwest.  Our first stop was on the Russian River at Duncan Mills. We realy do not make too many plans on our travels. This area was a surprise. We were just headed to Hwy-1 on the coast but found this area a favorite getaway for S.F. people. It has a redwood grove nearby and the  river is a favorite for canoeing and kayaking.  A neat area, so we stayed a couple of days.  When we left, we went on the coastal highway. WOW again. The coast is amazing. Sometimes when looking I forgot to look where the truck was going much to Jan's dismay.  So we didn't travel very far and made many stops just to look at the new world we had entered. We saw lots of sea lions and seals and stopped at a couple of lighthouse and landed at Caspar Beach between Mendecino and Fort Bragg where we stayed for 2 days enjoying the rain !!! not. We met several interesting people in town.  One stopped us on the street by standing directly in front of us to take our picture where he was joined by another person who had just grabbed his camera out of his car.  One of the locals( transplants from New York who used to sell clothes to the Meijer stores that we retired from... Small,small world ) told us that times were so bad that most people had to wear "2-3 hats, like flippin' burgers and growin' weed in the garage" just to keep their heads above water.  We can attest to the hardships a lot of people are going thru.  We see so many "for sale", "closed" and just plain empty buildings.  God help this country.

ATHS==Reno to Pleasanton

We left Reno on May 24 in a caravan of about 40 old trucks from the ATHS chapter show. Along with the Little Green Truck from MI there were trucks from IA, OH and South AZ that I remember. The route we took was north out of Reno to US-70 in CA. This highway takes you through the Feather River Canyon to Sacremento and was a beautiful drive. The club had a photographer driving along who took pictures and a video of the caravan that we could buy at Pleasanton. We stopped in Oroville where some very nice people provided all of us with a very nice barbecue lunch with more food than we could eat. Thank you to our hosts to whom we were never introduced. We left and headed for Sacremento where we found a campsite at Cal-Expo rv Park and because it was raining we stayed put for two days. Some of the others that were staying at motels went to the Hayes Truck museum and the CA. Railroad Museum..... maybe next time for us.We arrived at the Alameda fairgrounds on Wed. with the sun shining and a pleasant afternoon.We were parked on the asphalt parking lot but as we walked around we found a nice grassy area where some trucks were parked and talked the people in charge into letting us move.   Thank you guys as it made things so much nicer for Grizzly. There were about 700 trucks of all kinds at the show.  Everything was well organized and well run and we had a great time.  . We stayed in the trailer at the fairgrounds for the four days and enjoyed meeting many new friends. I took some pictures that I uploaded to our Picassa Web Albums but, as we will get a picture book of all the trucks in the show, I did not take all that many. They said that they were going to have the pictures on the website ATHS.org   photos 1  photos2 .

"Challenge" sent via VANILLA

And now I am privileged to pass this award to" these were the words in David's vanilla blog
 The Little Green Truck considered it more of a challenge than an award since the idea was to list 10 things that we love.
1. God
2. each other
3. family, friends and traveling companion, Grizzly
4. traveling with the Little Green Truck
5. meeting new and interesting people

6. seeing wildlife
7. seeing God's beautiful outdoors.
8. reading a good book
9. fixing a gourmet meal together
10. chocolate
Since it was answers for both of us, chocolate ended up #10, had it just been for me it might have moved up to #4.  It's hard to say, most of that depends on how long I have been without chocolate.  But we both agree that we enjoy meeting the people through our travels.  They are giving us some great memories to hold on to for the time that we are no longer able to travel.  Thank you all for entering our lives, especially the ones with which we have managed to keep in touch. Hopefully when you read this you will take the challenge and think of ten things you love and if there are any people on the list..... tell them... and pass it on.

Pahrump to Reno

As we prepared to leave Pahrump for Reno for the ATHS chapter truck show, we started looking around at our route north. Since Pahrump is only about 40 miles from Death Valley and it was on our way north, I thought we would go  that way and see what it was like. NOT....  As we talked to locals and looked at weather reports, we found that the daytime temps. were already over 105 degrees.  People said it really does  get that hot and it was only the middle of May. They, also, said that as it is 200 ft below sea level, we would find 7 and 8 % grades to get out on the other side. Since the little green truck doesn't really like these climbs with these temps, we decided to take the easier route up US 95 to Reno.  As this route is mostly desert we were quite surprised when we got to the place we picked to stop for the night. As we entered town we saw a lot of bunker looking structures and in town there was a Munitions Museum ????  All kind of Questions.  On the other end of town was a very large lake that we didn't see  until the next morning. We didn't go to the museum but learned that the town has been an ammunition depot for many years.  It started as a Navy Depot in 1930 and was transferred to the Army in 1977. Last night we were listening to one of our hero's Gov. Jan Brewer defend herself and her state and she said that her father had worked at the  Hawthorne munitions depot during WW II. How interesting when a place you have been to is personally referenced by someone. As we left in the morning the road followed along the shore of Walker Lake,  12 mi. long by 5 mi. wide lake in the desert. It was a beautiful drive along the lake.  As we left the area we entered another world on the edge of the desert.The area becomes a farming area as you come into Fallon & Fernley & Reno. We stayed at a campground outside of Reno for a couple of days and then went to the parking lot of T.E.C. Trucks, a Volvo, Mack truck dealer that helped sponsor the truck show.  have a neat grille made to look like a new Volvo truck.  They furnished hotdogs, hamburgers, salads, cookies and drinks all three days of the show. They even managed to get the little green truck in for an oil change and to help me adjust the brakes and repair some air lines.  were all great guys and the truck show was great because of their help in-spite of the cold winds and snow and sleet we experienced .... this was May21-22-23 .... crazy weather.

Yuma AZ to Pahrump NV

We have been a little lazy about keeping the blog updated, but will try a little harder. We left Yuma and headed  north on a very nice sunny day, stopping in Quartzite for lunch. The next stop was Lake Havesu and the London Bridge and then on to Kingman and the Blake Rv Park and Horse Motel.

talked to the owner when he came over to see the truck.  He explained the horse motel part....they have 12 stalls that people traveling with horses rent to rest  the horses while traveling. Horses do not travel well in trailers and need a solid place to rest so he rents the stalls out and has a corral to walk them. The horses owners do the feeding and care.....another unique idea. Stayed for two nights. We were trying to decide if  we wanted to go to the Grand Canyon. While we were thinking about it, some people stopped in and said it was snowing in Williams and at the Canyon ( the first of May !!!!)  This made up our minds..... next trip. Even though the weather was cool.. in the 60's, we left for Nevada and took the highway to Las Vegas across the Hoover Dam. Signs on the highways said no commercial or rental trucks crossing the dam, but we're an rv so we went that way. We stopped in Cloride NV for lunch.. another out in nowhere town that we saw signs for and went to check out. A unique, almost ghost town in the desert. Lunch was at Yesterdays Restaurant.... good food. While we waited for it to open a truck stopped in the middle of the road and a guy got out to check out the ltlgrntruck and spent a 1/2 hr talking. One other car passed and two other guys walked by. A  real busy morning. From there it was on to the Hoover Dam, then Las Vegas and on to Pahrump which is about 65 miles NW of Vegas on the edge of Death Valley.
Jan managed to find some entertainment there.  There were at least 3 casinos in town.  The rv park was playing Texas hold-em the night we pulled in.  Once we got settled Jan went to find out about the stakes. So Mondays and Wednesdays were texas hold-em games and Tuesdays and Thursdays were cribbage games. The rest of the nights were spent checking out the casinos. At $5 for the buy in, the card games were good entertainment.

Algodones, Mexico

We spent the last week of April going back and forth across the border for various treatments.  Our first day across we had breakfast at the open air restaurant set in behind various shops.  Then we picked up 2 bottles of "creamed tequila".  We had a taste of it last year, yummmm..good stuff!
The next day, Monday we headed across before 8am to see Dr. Brock and Danny and hopefully start some chelation treatments.  They are incredible.  Even tho' their chelation rooms were always full with "winter visitors" coming and going, they remembered our names on sight and who had recommended them to us!!! They said Al and Roxie had been there earlier in the year and are doing great!  Always good to hear about friends!!
So now it is time to hook up to chelation.  Bob spends the time getting an appointment with; a dermatologist for him( at my request), and a dentist for cleaning for both of us.  After my first treatment we head back across the border with 2 more (1 each) bottles of "creamed tequila".  OOPS!!!  Only allowed 1 liter per person every 30 days.  We were given the option of returning our purchases or dumping them out.  Hmmmm... back we go to return them........  darn!!!!
It was so HOT Tuesday that we did not go across.  Wednesday we had decided to be there by 7am, get our treatments and get back home before it got HOT again.  Much better!
I went with Bob to the dermatologist to have his head examined.  The Dr. wanted to know why we were there.  He checked Bob's head and said all was fine, nothing cancerous. Thank you, Lord! All this for $30 and no referral from a regular MD.  Why can't the rest of the world be this simple??
Next was my glasses, check-up, 2 pair of glasses (using my old frames)and no-tinting this time, $149  I had my teeth cleaned, then went across the street for my haircut, while Bob had his cleaning. Then back home for the day. As you can tell, the prices for services are so good that there are a lot of US and Canadian citizens taking advantage of the Mexican  services. Most of the doctors,dentists and technicians were trained in the US and the medicines are the same ones sold in the US--- Just a lot cheaper. No pictures as Jan's little camera is broke and to lazy to take the bigger one over.

Mexico

We are in Andrade Ca. which is the name of the border crossing into Los Algadones, Mexico. We have spent the last week since leaving Boerne, TX traveling across the southern Texas plains to Carlsbad, New Mexico.  We spent two days there and went to the Carlsbad Caverns.  Carlsbad Caverns National Park is a United States National Park in the Guadalupe Mountains in southeastern New Mexico. It became a national park in 1924.  What an amazing place. I took the hike down the natural entrance while Jan looked around the gift shop and then she took the elevator down 754 ft to the Big Room where we met and continued the tour together.  We left Carlsbad traveling through the Guadalupe mountains ( they have a neat, informative visitor center at the park) and then on to El Paso,TX and Las Cruces NM where we spent the night. The next day, heading towards Tucson, AZ  on  I-10 we began seeing signs saying “ see the Thing” after 150 miles and signs every few miles Jan said we should stop…. ha-ha, like I wanted to go to a tee shirt shop. Well the signs also said there was a Dairy Queen there also, so I thought okay—Ice cream sounds good so we stopped. Well it was a tee shirt shop, but we spent the dollar each to  see the Thing.  Boy was I surprised, so surprised that I had to go out to the truck and get the camera and take some pictures. The Thing is in a collection of old cars, wagons buggies, guns, wood carvings and many other strange things housed in three steel pole buildings behind the gift shop and I talked to the manager who would or could not tell us much about the collection.  He said he read that it was started by a world traveling family of collectors in the ‘40’s in California and spent some time traveling with a circus. He wouldn't say  much else except thought that it arrived a this location in the mid ‘60’s and has been there since.  I took some pictures and did find one website roadsideamerica.with a review and a short video.  I am glad that Jan’s curiosity was aroused and that we stopped at this old time roadside attraction. Stopping at Tucson and leaving early for us we stopped at the Space Age Restaurant ( complete with a flying saucer on it’s roof) in Gila Bend for breakfast and headed towards Yuma and the border crossing. Arriving in mid-afternoon to 88 degree temps and an almost empty campground. I am also loading more pictures of all of this on our web albums.

New Mexico

We left Borne TX and the Escapees Class BoF Rally with kind of mixed feelings. This was a great rally and we met a lot of neat new friends. Much fun but, the urge to see new places was felt by all.A few were staying a while but we pulled out on a nice sunny morning after a week of clouds and lots of rain.We headed north and drove through many miles of beautiful wildflowers. All along the route to San Angelo (our first planned overnight stop) we saw people stopped along side the road taking pictures. At a couple of our stops we talked to local people and the all said that it has bee a few years since the flowers have been so profuse. The last few years have been so dry that not many flowers showed.  a great spring to be in south central Texas.We left San Angelo and felt lazy so we only traveled about 125 miles to Midland. We stopped for the night. Midland is the center of most of the TX oilfields....the area produces one fifth of the nation's total petroleum and natural gas output and has the third-largest oil field in the United States. . It is also hometown of former First Lady Laura Bush and the childhood home of former President George W. Bush. It is also home to The  Commemorative Air Force (CAF). Associated with the CAF is the American Airpower Heritage Museum. Leaving this morning we traveled across the plains of south Texas.  It still amazes me when I think of people traveling across this country on foot and horseback.The vast distances and unyielding landscape are still mind boggling today, let alone on horseback at a time when there were no roads. arrived early..... (Mountain Time change) to the warm weather we have been looking for..... It was 86 degrees today. The Caverns tomorrow.