2024-08-10 Lakeview Oregon Visiting Chris

 We are in Lakeview Oregon "Mooch docking" at Chris's house. It is always good to see him.

We went for a motorcycle ride today to see some potential campsites on US Forest or BLM land.

Chris talked me into using an app called OnX. He uses it for his work. It has the Forest and BLM clearly color coded and has many of the lower class roads that hikers and hunters might use mapped out. It is good for finding these areas where you can do dispersed camping. 

Chris showing me some tips in the app.

We rode the bikes and checked out some really good sites that are close to Lakeview.

The main access road to this area was paved for miles then turned to dirt but still good enough to get our rig into them. Including this one with a small spring feed trout pond that a someone has stocked with trout. 

It was 2 in the afternoon and the trout were rising. You could camp there and catch your dinner. 

The smoke from the wildfires was heavy today but not horrible. In town it was thick this morning. Up where we rode to was at a higher elevation and had less smoke. 

Chris took us down the road a little further to a scenic overlook. I want to camp out here soon if I can pull Nancy away from walking distance access to Chris's house for a few days. 😁

  

By the time we got back to Lakeview the smoke had greatly reduced and we could see blue sky again.

It was a good day.

TTFN

Doug and Nancy

2024-08-06 Reflections on the trip so far.

 Again, I'm feeling very grateful and blessed that we can do this trip. It has been an wonderfully aggravating and rewarding experience all at the same time. And I would not have traded it for anything. 

Camper issues are always lurking and there are several things we need to do but nothing holding us from continuing. We keep saying we will fix X,Y and Z when we get to Chris's place. The hardest part has been the planning and finding places to stay. It is a lot more stressful and time consuming than I thought it would be. We are now experimenting with dispersed camping and the first experience at Carbella's Campground in Emigrant, MT was wonderful. The second attempt was towards Delmoe Lake area but we did not make it 1/4 mile down the 10 mile access road. Ended up at Lewis and Clark Caverns Campground for the might.  

Our site at Martys in Kalispell, MT 

Ron was such a wonderful host. 

70 something years young and I could have sat and chatted with him all day long.

A very interesting man with uncommon knowledge.

We are both very impressed Harvest Host and especially BoonDockers Welcome. I would say 80% of our stays have been with them and mostly with BoonDockers Welcome. All the hosts have been wonderful people and eager to help in any way they can make our stays enjoyable. These are seriously good people. The same for all the additional guests at the sites that had more than one staying a night.  

We got lucky today. I was cooking outside on the grill and the weather changed fast. I got the burgers off the grill just as it started to rain. Once inside we heard the rain on the camper. Usually a soothing sound but today it very infrequent and loud. It kept getting louder until we both realized at the same time it was hail. Nothing damaging and it was over in about two minutes. Then it bright sunshine and blue sky's. It reminded of my childhood growing up in Nebraska. 

I took a ride up to a ski area on the Western side of the Teton's. It did not disappoint. As always when riding around these mountains the views change so fast it is hard to believe they are the same mountains. 

We did some adulting today. That is our term for doing the necessary things like paying bills and answering emails. My retiree medical account changed banks last month. Two plus hours on the phone later I have the new information coming so we can pick it up at Chris's when we get there. Fun, fun fun. 

Sunset tonight.

TTFN 

Doug and Nancy

08-05-2024 Grand Teton National Park Ride

Feeling very grateful and blessed today as we road out to Grand Teton National Park from our location in Teton Springs Campground in Victor, ID our home for the next few days.

We took Rt. 33 out of Victor to Rt. 22. This was a very steep climb and then decent into a little town named Wilson that was loaded with many curves and switchbacks. Wilson had many places to eat and shop but still had the small isolated town feel to it.

Our first glimpse of the Tetons did not prepare us for what was coming in the way of views and scenery. We had some sightings of the mountains from the highway but at a distance as we road into Victor yesterday.

Eventually entering the Grand Teton National Park.

Complete with the flag offsetting the mountains and deer as waited in line.

The trees and local flowers were already stunning and making us very happy for the bright sunshine and good visibility.

After a little mishap with the HD GPS, and I have a few suggestions for what Harley Davidson can do with this version of the Boombox/GPS/Stereo that are not fit to be printed here, we found our way to the scenic Jenny Lake loop road.

Again, Nancy has made my job to create a post about the ride next to impossible with so many great pictures and this will be apparent as we go farther in this post. There are so many pictures from this trip now that I want blow-up, frame and hang on a wall at home that we will need more wall space. Not kidding. This road was very busy but if you get the chance just do it. Well worth the time to get there. Once there good luck finding a place to park in the one place to get really a really good look at Jenny Lake and the Tetons beyond. Sometimes it is good to be a motorcycle and you can fit into nooks and crannies when parking is limited. Here is a small sample of the pictures Nancy, and eventually I once parked, got.

And more to come. We kept going and taking more pictures until we got to the Damn on Jackson Lake.

                                                           

    

If you keep going North it is not very far to the Southern part of Yellowstone National Park but since we had just been there we turned around and heading back to Victor.

Somewhere along the way back we stopped at one of the many pull-offs.

All I can say is "Happy That Much". Some of will you who worked at Osram will know the reference used here.

Just a few more pictures picked out by us showing more of this great Park. OK maybe more that a few. By all means necessary go here if you get the chance. I think it s safe to say this is our favorite stop on the trip so far. But this opinion may change before the end of the trip.

TTFN.

Doug and Nancy