National Parks, Monuments, Recreation Areas, Seashores, etc. in US and Canada
The end of Vermont Mud Season can only mean one thing… it’s time to get ready for the next trip!
We’ve been a bit distracted because the late-season skiing has been spectacular, and we’re still mulling over and refining our ideas for the next adventure. So let’s begin this blog season with a quick recap of the 2017 trip.
The last time I wrote about Dana and Muffin, we’d just visited with them in Eugene and I talked about how they’d helped to inspire our conversion from ordinary folks into camper-owning road warriors. Here’s kind of an update to that.
Yosemite has been on both of our bucket lists for a long time. We didn’t think our schedule would allow us to visit this year. However, our 2 loops through No Cal provided an interesting opportunity. To get from Grover Beach to Tahoe City, the shortest ‘no interstates’ route took us through Yosemite. And we could have 2 free days. As with most of the larger and more popular National Parks, campsites are are sold out months in advance. I checked for cancellations and found exactly one, in Yosemite Valley, for the days we’d be passing through. The universe spoke. I snagged the reservation.
For those of you who read most of our posts or periodically peek at our map, you’re likely thinking, ‘If they’re going from Oregon to California, why are they heading north?’ Hmmm…
A few weeks ago, I hopped on a plane out of Boston’s Logan airport, and headed towards Portland, Oregon. Once I landed, there was no stopping the adventures – I immediately jumped into Sue and Doug’s RV, and we headed off on our whirlwind tour through eastern Oregon.
Doug had toured Crater Lake in his youth, and we visited together in 2012. Mo had never been. It’s one of those places that’s so amazing that you can visit over and over again. Let’s go! Except, uh oh, there were several wildfires just west of Crater Lake, impacting air quality and visibility. *Sigh*
The smoke cleared! Mostly. For a little while. Where we happened to be. Yee-hah!
Having skirted the worst of the smoke, we entered the North Cascades National Park from the west, up wind from the nearest wildfires. Although the air quality was improved – it smelled like a 24/7 campfire but it didn’t hurt to breathe – the skies were still smoky and views obscured. Oh, and add to the wildfires a record breaking epic heat wave torturing the Pacific Northwest. We’d figure out how to turn this into an adventure…
Early explorers called the area around Glacier National Park The Crown of the Continent. If we’d have been here first, we’d likely call it something similar. The hiking in Glacier National Park was mind-blowing. The glaciers, and the broad, deep glacial-carved valleys and long, skinny, clear lakes, were unlike any views we’d ever seen before anywhere. And we experienced a new type of adventure – patiently queueing.
Stan and Cyndee were driving their new truck camper from Vermont to Big Sky, Montana. We were on our way from Yellowstone to Glacier National Park. The paths would cross, but the timing was off and it appeared we wouldn’t get to meet up (does this sound familiar?). Then the sun set, Jupiter aligned with Mars, schedules changed just a teeny bit, and we found ourselves a window of opportunity. We held over an extra day at a free campground overlooking the Yellowstone River, conveniently close to an air-conditioned museum on that scorching day in Columbus, Montana, then took a short detour to the south to meet our friends as they arrived at their destination.