oh dam

Yeah, Oh damn, I'm so far behind in the things I "need" to do ~ blog posts (I think I'm four posts behind), replying to/writing emails (I think I owe ten people emails), planning our sight seeing adventures not to mention planning our next couple destinations.  I guess I'm a bit anal about our destinations - I "need" to know where we'll be next - what campground, fairgrounds or lodge.  If we didn't have Sir Arlo I wouldn't care about such things, but I'm the one that takes him out in the morning (these days in the vicinity of 6:15) and I have safety concerns about where we are for that reason ... Obsessive behavior you say ~ hell yeah I don't deny it, but I just can't get beyond that mind set!  Further, I'm "behind" on a couple sewing projects I wanted done by now!

With all that said, I had to do some back tracking to figure the last post and the pictures I'd uploaded for this post and not much of it made sense to me!  Because of the brain cramp I had to go into our iphoto to figure where the heck the photos were taken and what I was thinking (now seriously, could you go back and figure why you did something a week and a half ago and make sense of it!?!?) when I uploaded them in the order I did - consequently I deleted eight from this post and will put them in the "proper chronological order"!  I do make things difficult for myself don't I!

I believe I "promised" a post about our most interesting trip to the Grand Coulee Dam when we were staying in Moses Lake a week and a half ago!  So here we go ....

With several recommendations that we see the Dam while we were sort of in the area (60 miles or so south) off we went late one morning.

Arlo did some swimming in Lake Roosevelt.  Only a brief swim ... as I said previously, words can not adequately describe our Lake Roosevelt experience, and we realized in hind site that I truly should have videoed our experience.

It went like this .... when Sir swims he is on his "short" (six foot) leash and sometimes on his "long" (30 foot) leash.  This particular day he was on his 30 foot leash.  There were some boaters there putting their boat in the water ~ we usually take Sir to boat launches to swim because there is a short walk in shallow water then he reaches swimming depths so he isn't wading while chasing a stick or ball, but is actually swimming.  Of course we waited for the family to get their boat launched and truck/trailer parked and boat loaded with whatever you load into a boat for a fun afternoon.  As we were walking down to the launch a truck pulled in and an older gentleman asked me if Sir was going to go swimming ~ to which I responded that yes he was going to swim for a few minutes.  Rick was walking Sir down the launch ramp - leashed of course (isn't that what a responsible dog owner does in a public area?) when this "gentleman" let his two dogs out of the back of his truck - unleashed and they run full speed for the water ... Well Sir doesn't want anyone or anything running at him full speed (who does) so he barked and ran towards the "offending" dogs as much as he was able because Rick had his leash shortened to about three feet.  Well said "gentleman" went absolutely ballistic about "slap that son of a bitch - if you don't slap that son of a bitch I will" .... we pointed out to him that Sir was leashed and his dogs were not ... he just wouldn't stop - we didn't respond to him again for five or so minutes while he just kept it up non stop - I'd never seen anyone so out of control - sir was wading in the water - his dogs were swimming and coming towards Sir a few times and he just wouldn't stop with his insanity.  His mouth and vocabulary were just out of control and at one point I asked him if he was talking to me to which he replied "no I'm talking to your husband or whoever that son of a bitch is" ... clearly SOB was the phrase of the day, as well as several "F bombs" ... continuously ranting about slapping that SOB ... his wife was absolutely horrified and walked away from him as soon as he started.  Finally after about fifteen minutes of this insanity he left - with our wishes for an enjoyable afternoon - use your imagination to figure his response to that!  I was so proud of myself to have not engaged this crazy person other than to ask if he was talking his filthy mouth to me and Rick didn't reply at all other than to wish him a nice day when he left .... UGH

The first two photos are of Lake Roosevelt .  The one above is of the Lake looking towards the top of the dam.

The two shots above are of the Dam from one of the lower observation areas.

The lousy photo above is to show the "light board" that is used for the nightly light show on the dam.  No we didn't see the show!

We traveled past Banks Lake between Moses Lake and the Dam.  We had a grossly disgusting bug splattered windshield so there were not many blog worthy photos, or photos even worthy of saving on iphoto for that matter!  I suspect that the one below was taken through an open window.  I just loved how the water sparkles with the sun on it.  Hey, how about that beautiful blue sky as well!

Also in our travels that day we stopped at Dry Falls (we were warned in advance, thank you Chris and Larry, not to ask where the falls are).

This area reminded me of a "mini" grand canyon ... the terrain is so similar.

The end.

where's the tumbling tumbleweed?

As I'd mentioned previously (mmm it might have been on facebook tho) I was surprised to learn that there are areas in Washington state that the locals refer to as the desert.  This area is west of Spokane for 100 or so miles then a large area to the north (in and around the Grand Coulee Dam area - a different post).

How animals survive here is beyond me - but these fellas sure do look like they were surviving quite well!

This area reminded me so much of our first travel through the southwest and how much Rick loved the desert - me, well not so much.  I whined and whined (true story although I know it is hard to believe) that I wanted to see green ~ I was so tired of brown brown brown every where I looked!

There even were dust storms.  Then we'd be driving along and come upon these pretty little bodies of water!

We stayed in Moses Lake (WA) for three nights ~ had to have emergency road service come help us as we were leaving (trying to leave).  We had blown a hydraulic line and couldn't raise our jacks - no jacks up, no moving!  

So we got a very late start yesterday and came to Puyallup, WA at the base of Mt. Rainier - wait till you see photos, oh it is outstanding.  It's so hazy that I can't get a decent picture of it, but we'll be here for at least a week (although not at the Lodge where we are now, we are leaving here tomorrow and going to the Fairgrounds).  The mountain is covered with snow - it is 90 degrees down here at the base but the mountain itself is covered!

AHHH fresh fresh fresh

oh stop that ... I'm not the fresh one anymore ... it is fresh PRODUCE I'm referring to ~ there's just nothing like it for sure.

Along the way I love love love to frequent "farmers markets" ~ don't know what it is about them but it is one of my passions.  I've stopped at a few vendors along the side of the road lately (selling from the back of their pick um up trucks ~ seen some darn nasty sweet corn amongst them, lots of watermelons (no fans of them in this house) and pretty much learned to just keep on goin'.  

With all that said, another of the benefits of membership in fraternal organizations (and there are many benefits to our lifestyle ~ perhaps a well deserving post at another time) is that often times when those members have an abundance of fresh produce they bring it into the respective lodges to share - oh thank you so much brothers and sisters ...

Gotta go make us a tomato "samich" on lightly toasted whole wheat - light on the mayo, with salt and pepper.

Hopefully said "samich" might sustain me enough to work on the back log of photos I've loaded for future posts ~ let's see which will it be, the one of the trip from Coeur D'Alene to here in Moses Lake (through what the locals call the desert) or the one of the trip yesterday up to the Grand Coulee Dam (what the locals call the higher desert) that will be a post that no words can possibly describe the encounter we had and foolishly didn't video ... not to mention the post, sans photos, of our last 48 or 72 hours here in Moses Lake (Chris and Larry, I hope you are reading this, because ML is everything you suggested it might be) or our trip today (again, sans photos) to Potholes State Park and Potholes Reservoir ....

Okay, the bread is done toasting .... stay tuned y'all

yes we had no potatoes

Last week we were in Coeur D'Alene, ID for four nights.  We met up with old friends Chris and Larry, who  we met two years ago in the Keys.  They also are full timers and are traveling east from Washington state (their home state) while we are traveling west to Washington state (where we are now).  We had a terrific time and fell in love with Coeur D'Alene.

Having never been to Idaho before I made a foolish assumption that Idaho was all about potatoes!  WRONG, no way, no how, notta, just plain incorrect!  

Coeur D'Alene is a beautiful little city on the banks of gorgeous Lake Coeur D'Alene.

Right in the middle of "downtown" is the Coeur D'Alene Resort ~ WOW what a beautiful place.  I swear they must have planted 25,000 beautiful red geraniums around the property and in window boxes spanning parts of the  walkway and dock area.  I fully expected to see Auntie Gert tending to them!

What a lovely, "posh" property with rooms ranging from $199. to $499. a night with all kinds accommodations and activities offered.  Such "luxuries" are out of our range these days but it was truly a beautiful place.

Of course there were sea plane tours ~ no we didn't but I suspect King Richard would have enjoyed it!

Apparently this is one of the latest water sports - standing up on a surfboard type thing with an oar that you paddle yourself along with!  It's a mystery to me but I guess some think of it as fun - I think of it as a whole lot of energy required to do this!  Then again I guess that is one way those bodies look like they do and mine looks the way it does!

As I mentioned there is a boardwalk and docks all along this property.  Also, there is a large walking bridge over the access to the inside docks.  The photo below was taken from the top of that bridge looking down on one of the sections of the boardwalk.

And the photos below taken from the boardwalk looking out ~ is it gorgeous or what?

Check out the log cabin tucked into the mountain in the photo below - not a bad location huh!

There were a few of these lovely old wooden boats ~ two of them are shuttles for the resort.

surreal?

What is it about this photo ~ taken somewhere between Garrison, MT and Coeur D'Alene, ID that I love?  I think it's all the contrasts! 

Yellowstone ~ part 2

A bit longer than I anticipated to post this second part of our Yellowstone adventure.  Sorry!  

Saturday was a travel day (as will be today after King Richard gets up and going ~ last night was not a good sleeping night for anyone in this house other than Sir Arlo).  Additionally, I spent another marathon day at my sewing machine yesterday ~ yup should have taken a break and done the post but I didn't want to break my momentum and the "progress" I was making!  Anyway, better late than never and hopefully these pictures make it worth the wait.

The photo above is just a random shot of Yellowstone beauty.  

As I mentioned in the first post we stopped at Mammoth Hot Springs then we went on to Old Faithful.  Well as we're circling around and around and around the huge parking areas trying to find a spot Rick notices that OF is erupting!  DARN I wanted to see it so darn badly, well I thought I did, but I wasn't willing to wait 90 minutes for the next eruption!  Below is Sir posing oh so nicely in front of OF. 

After leaving Old Faithful we continued on our "loop" (which ended up being somewhere in the vicinity of 120+ miles) we came upon Yellowstone Lake (who knew).  These next two shots are coming down a mountain with the lake off in the distance.

Elks (Rick and I) looking at elk.

Random shots of the Lake - it was so outstandingly gorgeous!  Cold but beautiful, with awesome mountains in the background and a beautiful sky!

Yeah, this was a traffic stopper for sure

I think he just wanted to get to the other side to play with his friends!

More random shots to close with!