A Modern Marvel in our backyard

A new "Galloping Gertie" is under construction across the Tacoma Narrows over Puget Sound near Tacoma. We cross the Narrows on our trips to Sequim. Here are a couple pictures of the new suspension bridge that has gradually taken shape over the last two years. It was fascinating to watch the suspension cables being strung. Now the road bed is completely in place.

Same-o, same-o

For those of you who have been worried about how we are making out driving in all the wintry weather that has hit the U.S. in the last month..... Well, don't worry! We have been stuck on the same route down and up the Pacific Coast from Tacoma to LA since early February. Four trips in a row! The good news is that we have not had any "winter driving adventures". The down side is that we are very bored of the route and we aren't making much moola.

It takes about 2 days driving time each way and with loading, delivering and laying over to await a new load a usual round trip takes 6 days. Sometimes we go straight down I-5 and sometimes we vary the route by going down route 97 in Oregon or Hwy 99 in the San Joaquin valley of California.

HERE ARE SOME SCENES FROM OUR TRAVELS...

These first two pictures are of the beautiful, towering evergreens that line the Willamette Pass Hiway east of Eugene in Oregon. Willamette Pass to Oregon-97 is our alternate route through Oregon. We like 97 because it is less hilly and a narrower road- so you can really see the countryside.

When you cross the top of Willamette pass you are treated to peek-a-boo views of this pristine mountain lake

After traveling 150+ miles through the high desert of eastern side of the Cascade mountains on Hwy 97 in Oregon you come to this beautiful lake above Klamath Falls.

I took this picture of a jet trail in Northern California. It was amazing to me because it appeared to be going straight up like a rocket ship!?

Here is a picture from old Hiway 99 in the San Joaquin valley in CA. There is always more to see when we travel the older route- like these flowering trees that lined the route for literally one hundred miles. Plus the hiway is still lined with stately old Eucalyptus trees and palm trees which are fun to see.

Please NO MORE SNOW

We arrived back at our home in Kettle Falls on Monday afternoon for a one week break from truck driving. We made it in the driveway just as the last rays of sun were hitting the side of the house. And we were delighted to see that the snow was mostly gone.

Then each of the next three mornings we woke up to fresh new snow falls including this 4" dump. Happily, the snow mostly melts by afternoon.

A visit in Bellingham, WA

Our truck deliveries brought us to Bellingham on Sunday. We spent the afternoon with my cousin Elizabeth and her daughter Molly--and we visited our former cat, Wylie, who now happily resides with Elizabeth. Here we all are. Wylie is the grey mop that Elizabeth is holding. Molly is holding Maxx.

Another tight parking job

Just another day at the beach for Kurt, but I was amazed at how easily he backed our 53' trailer into this extremely narrow space.

Only inches on each side and he did not touch either of the neighboring trailers as he backed in. (I know this for a fact-even though I had my eyes closed for most of the manuever)

Spring in California--OR maybe not!

We are back in California this week-

We had a lovely drive over the Grapevine on I-5 on Wednesday morning- blue skies and about 65 degrees

- and 50 miles of fruit trees are blooming in the San Joaquin valley

BUT look what a difference two days makes.

Here we are parked at the truck stop at the top of the Grapvine on Friday morning. This time the weather is more like 32 degrees and the strong wind blowing SNOW sideways around us.

Visitors

On our last trip past Longview WA we were visited by our friends Bobbie and Mike

Time to get the truck washed

Here we are driving in to the wash bay as another truck is leaving out the other side. We will get the tractor, the trailer and the engine washed- for a total of $70. Notice the road film on the sides of the tractor

Once inside the bay 6 to 8 guys go to work spraying and scrubbing our truck. It took 15 minutes to wash all 65 feet of our vehicle.

Back out into the sunshine and look how shiny we are!
[We washed the truck on Saturday in California- by Monday morning we were in the rain in Seattle-- end of shiny truck :( ]

Oranges look even sadder!- But they are going to Market

Here is a picture from this week of an orange grove in California. The trees look awful-makes us wonder if they will lose the trees too.

But just after seeing these trees we saw a number of trucks hauling oranges- so they must have had some fruit worth saving after the January freezes

Freeway bird- UPGRADE

Version 1.o
For the last three trips through the Sacramento River delta in California we have seen solitary white birds just standing alongside the freeway. Sometimes they are in the median between the lanes- unfazed by the noise and motion of passing vehicles. I finally got a good picture of one. I think they are Egrets


Version 2.0
On yet another trip through the delta we got this close up

A quick visit to Sequim

We got back to Sequim over the weekend. We met up with my sister, Su, and had a nice visit with our brother Jay--even getting him to smile for the camera.

Later we took a nice hike on the Olympic Discovery Trail near Sequim with Su, Jeff and Tucker.

Then later that day we got this great shot of Mt Rainier catching the last rays of the sun at sunset

Back to the Evergreen Northwest

Here is our route for our first trip in February. Tacoma to Salt Lake City, over to Stockton and then north again to Tacoma. No bad weather- YAY- but it is still winter everywhere east of the pacific coast mountains. It was great to get back to the Pacific northwest and see green again.


Here is a picture from my favorite Rest Area in Oregon. It is a thrill for me to be back under the evergreens after a week of driving in the more arid places in the american west. In my experience there doesn't seem to be any place out side of the Pacific Northwest (and the redwoods of CA) that grows towering trees like these.

Another Idaho-ism

Also along the Idaho highways - at least every 5 minutes we passed a truck like this. At first we thought they carried Idaho's famous potatoes but the tubers were more football sized. We think they are carrying sugar beets--- Hmm, a truck every 5 minutes all day long, 7 days a week-- that's a LOT of sugar!

Along the "Oregon Trail"

Today we stopped at a historical site along Interstate 84 in southern Idaho. The highway follows the route of the historic Oregon Trail and they have preserved a portion of the actual trail ruts from the emigrant wagons. Fascinating!

More family visits

On our way north from California we had time to spend with Kurt's baby sister, Mary Jo in Eugene. Here they are together. The insets are our two beautiful red-headed nieces- Taylor and Claire.

A surprise for Lisa's birthday

Joanie made a surprise visit to Denver for Lisa's birthday (Her 30th- wow!). Amy and Tim also were in on the surprise and we all arrived at Lisa's school in the middle of her class day. She was quite overwhelmed by her "sneaky" family- but she managed to carry on with her kindergartners. Here she is being the wonderful teacher that she is!

More storm damage

We saw more winter storm damage when we got to California. The usually robust and dark evergreen orange trees were, instead, a sickly paler green and very droopy.

Ice Storm Aftermath

On Tuesday we came upon the aftermath of the Ice Storm that went through Oklahoma. As we entered the state all seemed well- it was cold but there was no sign of snow or ice


Quite suddenly- as if there was a line where the ice started/stopped- we were surrounded by ice draped trees. It was really quite pretty- even glistening in the sun. Luckily again for us, the roads were perfectly dry and not icy.

As we drove on---for the next 100 miles!! -- the ice coat thickened. The trees were sagging, even the blades of grass were coated

Eventually the trees were broken from the weight. We saw where power poles had snapped too.

As we approached Oklahoma City there was more evidence of why the interstate had been closed during the height of the storm. Many vehicles were in the ditch.



AS for us...........we sailed on through. The roads were dry the whole way. We are in Amarillo Texas tonight.

Winter Storm!

Almost everyone in the country has experienced a winter storm in the last 5 days. Washington state was pounded (again) with snow and then freezing temps. Denver had the same- only colder. The middle of the country either got snow or an ice storm and the East coast has gotten lots of rain. Luckily for us we dawdled on the east coast over the weekend and we decided on a southerly route to cross the country.
On Monday morning we checked the Weather Channel and saw that we would be meeting the storm in Tennessee. Again- luckily for us—the storm was all rain by the time we crossed under it. Here are three pictures of us approaching and going though the storm
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Two more states for us

We loaded chocolate in New Hampshire on Friday, spent Saturday with Tim and Amy, visited my uncle in Washington DC on Sunday afternoon and drove into southwest Virgina by Sunday night.

On Monday we finished the rest of Virginia and then crossed all of Tennesee and half of Arkansas- both new states since Joanie started traveling in June.