Day 5. Friday September 4, 2009 We have arrived at a KOA campground in Hardin. The trail boss called ahead a couple of days ago and made reservations for the holiday weekend. She didn’t want to get caught up short without a place to stay over the holiday weekend. On the road this morning, we saw a terrible wreck of a truck and a tow trailer on the other side of the causeway. We passed by within minutes after it happened, and not much was recognizable, ‘cept the tow trailer was upside down, crumpled and gushing what looked like water from [View Full Entry]

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Day 4. Thursday September 3, 2009. I, myself, woke up refreshed this morning. We grilled chicken last night for supper; a boneless, skinless, dry chicken breast for Nan and a couple of bone-in, skin-on, juicy chicken thighs for myself. The sides were smashed taters and beans, chased down with some chilled Chardonnay. Not too long after supper, it was a cleansing shower in the rig for me quickly followed by twelve hours of restful sleep. This morning, we drive into Three Forks for breakfast at a local café. The one we ate at five years ago during our trip through the [View Full Entry]

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St. Regis to Three Forks Montana Day 3. Wednesday, September 2. Today was just a hard day of driving up and down mountain passes, and long stretches in “Big Sky” country. On the climbs, I put The Beast in tow mode and chugged up with the 18 wheelers. Going down, tow mode causes the transmission to help brake the rig. The speed limit for our weighted rig on the downhill side was 25 mph. I used tow mode and the hand toggle for applying the brakes in Uncle Joe. This was a handy feature and helped control our speed of descent [View Full Entry]

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Day 2. Tuesday, September 1. Boy howdy; Tuesday was a long day. Monday night was a long night. Monday night, we relived a previous night on an outing in Uncle Joe about air management. At Nan’s age, she gets hot during the night. At my age, I don’t like a whole lot of loud noise or commotion during the night, like the sound of the loud ceiling air vent in our bedroom in Uncle Joe. This was voo-de-jay. Forget the details, we figured it out to nobody’s satisfaction. Tuesday morning, “Honey, I’m going to check the air pressure in that tire.&rdqu [View Full Entry]

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Day 1. We left the homestead Monday morning by 10:30 a.m. After recruiting friends and neighbors to watch over the house, we set the alarm, crossed our fingers, hitched up and headed out. We are headed east from south Puget Sound to the Black Hills and Badlands of South Dakota; through central Washington State, the panhandle of Idaho, a bit of Montana, into Wyoming and the Devils Tower, and into South Dakota. Our destination for the first day was a city campground on Moses Lake. Along the way, we made at least two rest stops to stretch and move about. Ok; [View Full Entry]

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Report from the Road; Uncle Joe’s shakedown cruise. We recently acquired a HitchHiker 5th wheel. This is a report of our shakedown cruise on the west side of the Olympic Peninsula. We left port Monday morning May 12, 20009 about 11 a.m.; hitched up and headed west for the Pacific Ocean. We found the day loaded with drizzle. The Beast has a gps navigation system that provides vocal turn-by-turn narration to a destination. We arrived at the Dunes RV Resort in Copalis, WA, notwithstanding the turn-by-turn narration. “At the next intersection make a legal U-turn.&rdq [View Full Entry]

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This past week, we finally made our much anticipated trip to the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. Read more about this gorgeous place at John Day Website Moreover, there are at least three separate sections of the John Day Fossil Beds, and our focus was on the Painted Hills section near Mitchell Oregon. As described online, the Painted Hills Unit contains 3,132 acres of scenic marvels unique even in the Pacific Northwest. Located 9 miles northwest of Mitchell, and 75 miles east of Bend, the Painted Hills are visited year-round [View Full Entry]

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Selected Oregon Waterfalls North America » United States » Oregon By Paddymac April 27th 2007 Paddrick (Paddy)[url='/Videos/2906.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/2906.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;'] Selected Oregon WaterfallsEvery time I upgrade my camera I head to some of my favorite Oregon wa [View Full Entry]

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[url='/Videos/2899.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/2899.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;'] Wild Beaches of Olympic Peninsula Over more than a dozen years I have made photo safaris to the west coast of the Olympic Peninsula, to photograph the Wild Beaches of this remote region. From other posts in this blog, you have read about (and have seen photos of) some of my fishing trips on the glacier fed rivers on the west side of the Olympics, flowing into the Pacific Ocean. In the fall when the rains return after summer time, the fresh flow of water triggers the senses of sa [View Full Entry]

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Paddy Mackin of NW Exposures and his two faithful grips (Nan and Shaddy) made a twelve day photo safari in early October to the east side of the Cascade Range in Washington State. The caravan was comprised of a lightweight, fold-out Quicksilver tent trailer towed behind a four cylinder, sure-footed, all-wheel- drive Subaru Forester. This combo downshifts from 5th to 3rd gear going up steeper inclines, and sometimes crawls up a very steep ascent in second gear, often behind of creep of slow 18 wheelers. The first photo destination on the safari was 5-star rated, 300 foot Clear Cre [View Full Entry]

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