Home again

We are in Red Bluff today. We should be home Tuesday the 24. We are back in the heat. Today it got up to 96. Welcome home!!!

We stopped for three days in Salem, OR. We drove around the countryside one day and the next day we met with Erv's cousin, Bill Perin and he took us through the Mission Mill Museum. He's a docent there and he's a talker. We learned a lot about the mission from 1840's and the mill from 1870's (I think.) We were on the site for about 3 hours. Anyway it was really interesting. And they have a yarn shop in the museum.

We left there and drove down to Medford, OR for three more days. We drove the 80 miles up to Crater Lake. It is beautiful up there. I'd forgotten how big the lake was. We wondered around up there for a couple of hours. The weather up there was fantastic. The temp. was 68. As we drove back down the mountain the temp. went up to 95 when we got down to Medford. Yesterday we visited a few wineries in Sourthern Oregon. I've refilled my cellar again. It was getting pretty bare.

This is the last blog for this trip. And of course these are the last pictures I'll be sending. Hope you all enjoyed our trip. I know we did.

Coming home

We're in Bothell, WA today. We leave for Salem, OR in a couple of hours. We went to Seattle two days ago to Pike Place Market. It was very busy and a great place to people watch. I love it there even though I hate large crowds. They have huge bunches of flowers for $10 and some even larger for $15. Of course I got some Alder smoked salmon, YUM. I also got Mick's pepper jelly to use all sorts of ways. We ate lunch at Pike Brewery. We've eaten there before.

On the way here we stopped in two places in Canada. In Clinton, BC we went to a historical site called Hat Creek Ranch. It's a road house from the gold rush in 1898. but the most interesting thing was there was a Pow Wow held there. That's the only pictures we took after the goodbye dinner, so I didn't take any in Hope, BC. where we also stayed.

The dinner was not much to write home about, but the company was great. We were sorry to have to go.

See you all about Aug. 24 or 25. Can't wait!

Canada on the way home

We're in Smithers, BC right now. On the way here we stopped at a First Nation site and took some pictures of their buildings. We leave for Vanderhoof this morning on our last day of the tour. We should be back in the lower 48 on about five days. I will call you offspring when we get to Seattle.

We were in Stewart for two days so we could go across the border to view the bears in Hyder, AK. There is a stream where the salmon go to spawn, and of course the bears like it there. Well our luck didn't hold to see bears feeding on fish. We went there twice and only saw one bear who was more interested in berries than fish. At least we got pictures of it. One couple saw a Grizzle eating fish there at 7:oo yesterday morning. Dee said it tried to catch a fish and couldn't so she ate one that was laying on the bank. The bear peeled it like a banana before she ate it. I guess the skin is tough. Hyder is a dumpy little town about ready to fall apart in a brisk wind. They have a post office, but the mail only goes out twice a week and isn't delivered to houses. You have to pick it up yourself like the Waltons did on TV. Stewart is just a bit above Hyder. At least it's school is still open for kids to attend.

The road in and out of Stewart is beautiful. We drove by at least eight glaciers in various sizes. We could stop by one, the Bear Glacier, to get pictures. And the waterfalls up there are spectacular. Yosemite doesn't hold a candle to this 25 mile stretch of road. One of the falls had three falls coming down the mountain side-by-side meeting up in a huge fall into the Bear River. We also saw a bear running and I do mean running down the left side of the road. I think a motorcycle scared it and it ran for the bushes to hide. The roadsides are for the most part very dense with brush, so lots of bears could hide and not be seen. This was all while driving, so no pictures. There was no real place to pull over. But at least I have the pictures in my head.

That's about all of the things we've done since last we wrote. See you soon.