Daroga State Park

I know...  I had never heard of it either.  Very nice campground on the Columbia River, just south of Chelan.  A little windy in the evenings, but otherwise nice.  It made a nice base camp in June when we sent the kids to their Aunt & Uncle's place in Colorado.  Janae and I took a week and went RVing.  We went to Chelan, Grand Coulee, and Stehekin.  We had a really poor, long, wet winter and spring around Buckley, and this was a really nice change.  Mid 80's all week.  Well, the first day, was tough, but we got used to it by the second or third day.  I spent a great deal of time shirtless.  Oddly enough, and Janae tells me it was a coincidence, the number of bigfoot sightings in the area tripled that week... 
We spent one day traveling Lake Chelan to the small town of Stehekin.  Very nice place in the North Cascades, very close to the National Park.  Had a great time there seeing the sights and having lunch.  On the trip back downlake, we saw deer, mountain goats, and a bear.  A day later, we drove east toward the coulees.  We drove through several state parks including Steamboat Rock, Sun Lakes, and Bridgeport.  I envied the people fishing on Banks Lake.  And of course we made the customary trip to the Grand Coulee Dam.  What a great time we had without the kids (sorry guys).  I had been raised on camping trips to Alta Lake State Park on the eastside.  To be honest, it's a hell-hole.  One hundred degree temperatures.  Sand at the beach so hot you can't walk on it, rattlesnakes...  How we survived as kids I don't know.  In the last few years I've finally discovered some of the other parks east of the Cascades, finding them very nice.  We will be hitting more of them in the future.  But, our summer was only beginning, and I was still to face my final emasculation...  Stay tuned.

Bad Tom!

Have I been bad, or what?  All summer without a post...  I'm soooooo sorry.  Working nights again has messed me up.  Typically, I get home at 3am or so, and grab some Z-time.  I get up after not nearly enough sleep and finish loading the motorhome, and off we go.  To make it a long enough trip, we don't come home until my monday.  Typically this summer, we've arrived home in time for me to unload critical items, park the motorhome, shower, change, and head off to work until 3am.  As is normal during the summer, my work days are 14 to 15 hours, not leaving much time for this blog!  Will work on it the next couple of days, when I'll be home without working.

March 2010 Twanoh State Park

This weekend was out first outing of 2010. We saddled up and headed across the Tacoma Narrows to the Hood Canal. I don't think I've stayed there since I was a child with Mom and Dad. Definitely our first family outing there. We stayed at Twanoh State Park on the south side of the canal. I remembered that there were supposed to be lots of oysters, and a quick check of the WDF&W website confirmed this. Wow, there were a lot of them. I had remarked to the family that I couldn't promise anything because the low tides weren't very low, but we'd give it a try. Even with not so low, low tides it was like walking on a carpet of oysters! So, finding the oysters was no problem, but I had no experience shucking them. I do now, and my hands show it. I forgot that you are supposed to use gloves while shucking, and therefore didn't have any. Those black things covering the oysters are mussels... Sharp mussels... Oh, and barnacles, joy! My left hand got all tore up while holding the oysters and trying to insert an oyster knife with my right. It took about two limits (36 oysters) before I kinda got the hang of it. By the time I finished shucking Dakota's limit yesterday, I felt semi-proficient. Fried oysters Friday evening, and oyster stew when we got home this evening. We still have 18 in the fridge that I'll fix in the next couple of days. Unfortunately in Washington you must shuck the oysters on the beach leaving the shells there. So no barbecued oysters. Did I mention the weather? Beautifully sunny and warm on Friday and Saturday. Not too bad for having picked this weekend about a month ago, if I do say so myself... The kids had a great time. Colton had to explore the tide flats, finding crabs and eels among other things. Micaela took lots of photos to throw on her Facebook page. And even Dakota managed to have some fun, while handing me oysters to shuck. Dakota even found he likes old John Wayne movies. Go figure, The Duke!? He watched several on his bunk LCD screen last night. Weird. All in all a pretty good weekend spent together. Unfortunately, I work for the next five weekends. Man, that's a long time until we can depart on another adventure!

To Estes Park and West Yellowstone

So, here we are in West Yellowstone, MT. Been a long time since I posted. We left home on June 25th, heading toward Estes Park, CO for the big Longtine Family Reunion. It was an interesting beginning. We left that evening, and made it to Spokane. You see, we needed to pick Micaela and Dakota up from church camp in Medical Lake on Friday morning. So, we boondocked it in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Although it may seem odd, it's not uncommon in the RVing world (check out the fringers of a Wal-Mart parking lot some evening or early morning).

On the 26th, we picked up the kids and headed for Montana. We ended up in Deer Lodge, MT taking Micaela to the ER for a foot injury that occured at camp. Yup, broken, so into a walking cast (or boot if you will) she goes. I titled this Longtine RV Adventures, didn't I?

Eventually, we arrived at YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park. Everyone had a good time, although it does take some time to remember some names and faces. The kids of course hit it off well with all the other youngsters. Miniature gold was enjoyed by all, and sometimes for many times a day. I got together with Mike and Lisa, Mike Stork, Scott and Josh Smith, and Ed to climb Flattop Mountain and Mt. Haullet (sp?), ending up at just over 12,700 feet in elevation. Amazing how the lack of oxygen sturck most everyone at about 12,000 feet. You really had to concentrate on breathing correctly. By the way, that peak behind Mike Stork's head is, I believe, Mt. Haullet. Mike eventually went on and climbed another peak just to the south of Haullet, that was over 13,000 in elevation. Can't remember the name of it right now. Mike, Mike, and Ed had an adventure of their own coming down the glacier after that, but you should ask them about it. Janae and Colton enjoyed horseback riding on a couple of occassions. However, Micaela was not happy, as she couldn't go due to her foot. Micaela was excited to fine that her walking cast did not keep her from rafting with Dakota and me on the Cache Le Poudre River. We enjoyed viewing the local wildlife including elk, deer, and owls along with a thunderstorm or two. The original plan was that we would check out on Saturday morning July 4th, along with everyone else. However, Janae found out that her Aunt Nancy would be at her Aunt Pam's house Friday evening. So we changed our plans, and checked out Friday Afternoon, saying our goodbye's a little early.

We arrived at Pam and Darrell's house in Parker, Co on the evening of the 3rd. We got to visit with Janae's Aunt Nancy for a bit that evening. After watching firworks the eveing of the 4th, we returned to Pam and Darrells where Dakota found his sole-brother, a toad. We went to a local amusement park with them. Now, Janae had been to this park many times in past, but never got to go down the alpine slides due to poor weather. This time she, along with the rest of us got to ride them. Later that night, we ended up at an interesting Mexican restaurant that he live shows, cliff diving, and an arcade for the kids. Very unusual. We left the morning of the 6th to head to West Yellowstone. This was tough on the kids, as they had become quite attached to Janae's neice, Taylor. We arrived in West Yellowstone on the evening of the 7th.

North Carolina

Wow, it's been a while. Unfortunately, the RV has been in the shop for warranty work since before Thanksgiving. That's a while. I've got three work weeks of working weekends, and we will hopefully have it back by then for some camping.

When we arrived back from Alaska, we began planning a trip to North Carolina. Jana's father is turning 80 years old, and we're going there for the celebration. So we bought airline tickets ($1300 For six of us roundtrip!), a rental car, and hotel for the first night. Being an outdoorsy type, I looked around and found a BassPro Shop in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (Think Cabelas). I told Jana that on Monday, I was driving there. She said that was cool, as she'd like to go for the boardwalk. So everybody is happy! But wait, it gets better... On a whim, I checked locations for Captain George's. There's one in Myrtle Beach! Now you have to understand. Captain George's is the gold bar standard of Seafood Buffets. I have never found a place anywhere near as good. Rows and rows of serving tables. For crying out loud, in 2004 they served 1/13th of all the crab legs served in the world! My stomach hurts just thinking about it. And the variety of seafood! Oh man, I'm shakin' like a leaf...

Man Camp 2008 (Deer hunting you sick freaks!)

2008 Man camp opened with the usual 7 hour trip to Deep Lake in far NE Washington State. Vince and I endured hour upon hour of tall tales from Dave, who is temporarily (so he says anyways) living on the public dole. The Obama-Biden 2008 bumper sticker on his truck probably tells the true story . Once again, Vince explained that his wife would be pleased if he didn't return with freezer meat. Talk about foreshadowing... Upon arrival at the cabin, I made the customary mistake of taking the bed in the loft. At first glance it doesn't seem like a bad choice, until the woodstove warms up... When it's warmed up to a mere 85 or so downstairs it's "two degrees less than lava" in the loft. And it doesn't help when Dave gets up at 2 am and "stokes it til it glows". Nothing like waking up lying on top of my sleeping bag, in a puddle of sweat. Pretty picture, huh? So anyways, the next day started fairly uneventfully, as we slept in til the crack of dawn. Now, we know that morning is the best time to ambush a deer (or so all the experts say). However, in eleven years (I think) of hunting whitetails in the area, we've only bagged one in the morning. All the rest from noon to dark... We confirmed that we still had permission to hunt some private property and set up around 3pm for the evening hunt. I saw nothing but does. Vince and Dave saw a few small bucks in a different direction sparring (actually seeing one getting knocked to the ground and getting back up to fight). After about 45 minutes with light failing, Dave put the stalk on them, across the open field but they spooked and flew across the fence and into the puckerbrush. (I can hear the deer talking about it right now... Hey dude, there's a disfigured troll coming this way... Whoa! There's something you don't see every day! I'm outta here!) Day two dawned wet. Now this is eastern Washington, the dry side of the state, right? Well, it poured all day. Once again we set up for the evening hunt. I sat in the loft of the barn with a view of the upper field and Dave to my left along the far fenceline. Soon after setting up, I saw a doe and another deer in the field some distance in front of me. One was bedded down while the doe fed. Eventually another doe came into the field. The bedded deer ( a spike) stood up and they all began feeding towards me. Since they were feeding towards me and there was plenty of light left, I waited, hoping something bigger might come into the field.


Eventually, they got to within 100 yards of me and suddenly freaked and took off to the right. One doe flew over the fence and was gone, while the spike and other doe stopped, staring over towards Dave's area (found out later that two bucks had come out in front of him). Then the spike laid down again. A few minutes later, I heard a rifle shot from Dave's direction. I looked over that direction and saw a couple of deer standing around wondering what the heck that was. My spike stood up, and I decided to take it. I pressed the trigger, only to hear the proverbial loudest sound in a gunfight... "click". "Uh, I know I put a round in the chamber..." Racked that one out, put another in, and pressed... Boom! A Brown and White pile on the ground at 185 yards! Another shot from Dave, and I saw deer scattering. It was then that I made my error as I said, "I got mine." Wouldn't have been bad except Vince was there to change the intent and meaning of my innocent statement. Of course it instantly became the "it's all about me" trip. Even after I went over to help Dave look for a trail (Did I mention he missed by a wide margin? "Canadian officials are searching for the source of two artillery rounds which struck a church steeple in downtown Kamploops this evening...") Sure, it wasn't his fault, it was the new gizmo on his scope... Whatever Dave... As I walked over to check my deer, Vince was already there and says to me, "I thought you said you shot the spike?" I did... "Uh, you shot the doe..." What? "It's ok man, it's camp meat..." A couple of seconds ( and a foul word or two) later I saw the antlers. I shall not forgive him anytime soon. Anyways, I got mine! Vince ( the cold blooded one)
did a fine job of frying up my deer heart for dinner. By the way, I'd be happy to help anyone with disposal of elk or deer heart they might have lying around!

So, the next morning we got Dave's scope dialed in while Vince torched piles of garbage, processed wood products, and endangered wolf carcasses on his property...(hope the Ecology Department and Fish and Game don't hear about that Vince!) It was only off about three feet high at 20 yards. I still don't know how he missed at 60 yards! Nothing much happened that day after that. Sure we went hunting, but nothing eventful happened. Oh wait, my camera fell out of the truck and no longer works. Yea! So, not many photos from the rest of the trip.... Oh, and then there was the "Sleepy Vince" incident in the middle of the field... Thursday at about noon, it started snowing. We set up again, and as luck would have it, a suicidal 1X2 buck stepped in front of Dave. Dave managed to put it down at about a yard with the butt of his rifle... Ok, really about 185 yards. He was actually aiming at a fawn about 10 yards away, missed, and the stray round struck this poor bastard in the ass. Died of blood loss from a punctured hemorrhoid...Hey, wait a second, where's Dave's blaze orange? Boy, it'd be a shame if Fish & Game saw that, huh? Ya, I know, you took it off before the photo... Whatever... Oh yeah, that loud "click"? A light primer strike... weird.

Can you tell we had a good time?

We survived

Dad tells me that people have become concerned about our status. Seems that life in general intruded upon my posts. Good news. We all made it back to the good ol USA! Oh sure, there were a few minutes of doubt as Janae searched for her missing ID as we approached the Sumas, WA border crossing (Found literally a mile from the crossing). But all ended well.

When last I blogged, we were in Seward enjoying the good life of playing on the beach, fishing, and just relaxing. We stayed there for about a week and a half before the kids were ready to leave, shortly after the Kenai Fjords cruise. Hey, they couldn't access the internet for the whole time we were there! So we moved out, heading through Palmer and back up towards Tok, where we had previously watched the 4th of July parade. (If you drive to and from Alaska, Tok is the town you must pass through both directions.) We stayed two nights in the Sourdough Campground there, having a great time, enjoying their evening entertainment. Colton and I enjoyed the pancake toss, both getting our pancake in the bucket and earning a free breakfast in the campground's restaurant. We then continued out of Alaska and back into the Yukon. We stayed the next evening in Haines Junction. The mosquitos in the campground were rather fierce, and I was the only one to venture outside to hook-up, and later to get to the Wi-Fi hotspot in the laundry room. That was enough, we enjoyed mosquito bites for several days just from the couple of times I quickly opened and closed the door. I actually saw a couple of people walking around with mosquito nets over their heads... We had cable TV here, and oddly enough there were a couple of Seattle stations on their cable. That was just weird being that far away from home and watching the local news.

Anyway we continued retracing our path along the AlCan until we reached the Cassiar highway (Hwy 37 I think?) We then headed south and back into British Columbia. Once again we were on a pretty desolate route. No power poles and very few vehicles or people. Our first evening on the Cassiar we stayed at a campground on Joe Irwin Lake. Once again, no power, only generators for the campground's use. We got a site right on the lakeshore. Everyone had a great time sitting around the campfire and taking a paddleboat out on the lake. The next day we stopped at Dease Lake for food and groceries and I spoke with a NWCMP Officer who was in plain clothes fueling up his Expedition. He was going to get new tires on his work rig... Seven hour trip to Whitehorse to get tires! We steadily worked our way down the Cassiar to the cut-off road to Stewart, BC and Hyder, AK.















What's so special about Hyder, Alaska you might ask? Well, how about a National forest Service site which has a raised deck walkway along Fish Creek? Where you can watch Brown Bears feeding on salmon mere feet away? Pretty cool, eh? Unfortunately, the salmon hadn't really come in, and in the morning we saw only eagles, no bears. We continued up the gravel road to the Salmon Glacier, which was quite a sight.














Eventually, we turned around and stopped again at Fish Creek. After a few minutes, a juvenile brown bear walked out of the brush downstream of us and began walking up toward us. It was pretty cool, watching this young guy being really paranoid, afraid that an older bear might show up and chase him away. Unfortunately, that was it for the bears, and we headed home. Although, it's really not that far to go back up to Stewart and Hyder again some time, hopefully when there are more bears present. The rest of the trip back was relatively uneventful, as we were traveling through much more civilized areas. We were very happy to see the relatively low gas prices once back in the good ol' US of A. Quite the trip, and we would highly recommend it if you get the chance...