The Pacific Coast Highway

What can I say about the Pacific Coast Highway? You’ve seen one highway, you’ve seen them all. Just kidding! There’s so much beauty to behold here. But you judge for yourself.
Love, Trevor & Roni

Haystack Rock, Cannon Beach, OR

Seagull Playing With A Dog Cannon Beach, OR

Outside the Tidal Raves Restaurant, Depoe Bay, OR

Yaquina Head Lighthouse, Newport, OR

Heceta Head Lighthouse, 15 Miles South Of Yachats, OR

Cooks Chasm, Lincoln County, OR

Cape Perpetua, 2 Miles South Of Yachats, OR

Sunset At Cape Perpetua

Coos Bay, OR

Umpqua River Lighthouse, Winchester Bay, OR

The Views Outside Our Window

As we continue to travel across the country, we are more and more convinced that we ARE NOT the result of a cosmic accident and that the words of the apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans were divinely inspired: “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” Romans 1:20 New American Standard Version.

I would love to show you the views outside our window as Trevor drove our home through the winding mountain roads between Montana and Washington, but I’ll spare you the gory bug guts.

We are constantly amazed however, at the sights we see as we explore the areas around us; in Glacier National Park they seem to be never ending. My camera was in overdrive as I snapped pictures along the 1.5 mile hike up Hidden Lake Trail. The trail begins behind the visitor center at Logan’s Pass that lies atop the Continental Divide. Abundant wildflowers, streams of melting snow, big horn sheep, and mountain goats were a few of the things we enjoyed along the way. The mountain views, and the views down into the valleys were nice as well, but Hidden Lake is truly a gem. Many find the climb a bit difficult and are tempted to give up before they reach their destination. If you go there, allow yourself plenty of time and take a lot of rests along the way if you need to. Finishing the hike is well worth it! Once you get to the top, you have the option of hiking down to the lake as well. Due to grizzly activity, that trail down was closed the day we were there.

Another gorgeous trail there is Avalanche Trail. This trail is about 2 miles up, about 500 feet, through deep forest, with mountains and a beautiful stream that runs along the side of the trail. There’s a sign posted at the beginning of the trail warning that this is grizzly country, but we never saw any. Many find this trail difficult as well, so note the above, and finish the trail. At the end, there’s beautiful mountain scene containing 3 waterfalls and a gorgeous lake.
Needless to say, the park is awesome. There was a lot of road construction going on, so by next year, the Going To The Sun Road should be an even better drive up to Logan’s Pass. We didn’t mind being stuck in traffic though as I was able to take a lot of photos and Trev got to do some Bouldering (not really, this is a fake-out picture).

On our way to see Eureka, MT one day, we came across a lookout road leading to the top of Mt Marston. Thinking it’d be fun to check it out, we soon discovered it to be a very rough, dirt, rock- (or should I say boulder) strewn, fire lookout road. It was very rough on the car, and with it being a one lane road with two way traffic and no guardrails on a road climbing 4,000 feet, it was a little rough on our nerves as well. But the view from the top was amazing! It was well worth the trip with views of both Montana and Canadian mountains. You would think the air at the top of Mt. Marston, although a little thin, would be really fresh, wouldn’t you? We wouldn’t know, because our mouths, noses, tongues and lungs were so full of that dirt road, it was about all would could taste and smell the rest of the day.

We weren’t too excited about the view when we arrived at our spot in Washington, because although there’s an awesome view of Mount Baker from the park, you have to look through the local oil refinery to see it.
We did get a little excited though when sirens started going off at the refinery and we heard what sounded like an evacuation announcement coming over the loudspeaker. Turned out it was only a drill, but it seemed like they had a lot of drills!

Upon further exploration of the area, it turned out to be a nice place to visit after all.

Washington Park has a 2.2 mile loop road we liked to hike as often as we could. The loop takes you up high and down low (nothing like at Glacier, but still a good hike), through deep forest, and along waters with plenty of big rocks and sea life. We enjoyed watching a sea lion wrestle with a freshly caught fish and watching ferries haul cars and people through the bay with views of the San Juan Islands and the Olympic mountains. We took a ferry to San Juan Island on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

We enjoyed the sights of Roache Harbor, conversation with another couple visiting the area, and the sight of a big grey fox, something neither one of us had seen before.

While in Washington, we got to visit Seattle on two occasions where we enjoyed visits with family and coworkers and enjoyed local attractions as well.
We’re on into Oregon now. I’ve got some awesome pictures I plan to share with you next time.
We love and miss you all! Take care.
Love,
Trevor and Roni

Glacier National Park

We've only been here for a little more than a week, so there's only one thing I have to say; We're living in an awesome place!

I hope you enjoy the photos.

Love,
Trevor & Roni

Still Truckin

It's been so long since I last updated our blog, I thought I should take a moment to let you know we haven't driven over a cliff somewhere. We've just been really busy with friends and family.


While still in Ohio, we attended our nephew's wedding and had a nice time visiting with family there. On our way back to camp, we stopped to tour the U.S. Air Force Museum. We really enjoyed this museum. So many planes! So many other interesting things to see and to read about! Two planes just made me laugh! One, a C-123K in the process of being restored, looked like one of those silver bullet RV's, only with wings. The other one, a North Vietnamese MiG-17 Fighter, bore a strong resemblance to a Perch. Do you see it too or is it just me?


We arrived in Minnesota on June 19th, just in time to celebrate Father's Day with Trevor's family. We had a great lunch and visit at his sister's home, before heading to a campground further north, where it was convenient to visit with friends and family in that area. We experienced a bit of deja vu when, on the second night there, a tornado came through town. Much like our Ohio visit, on the second night there, the nearest damage to us was about a mile away from the campground. We were beginning to think we were tornado magnets or something.

Soon the Dog Days of Summer were upon us, the heat at times being pretty unbearable, for me anyway; I hate heat and humidity. The nice thing was, we had already arranged to take vacation time during the hottest week, where we bore it out with our granddaughters at an awesome place called Kamp Dels.


Kamp Dels has everything! A lake with fishing piers, and pontoon boats for rent. A gift shop, store, and snack bar. Tennis courts, basketball courts, mini golf, horseback riding, pony rides, a driving range, and our most favorites of all, a petting zoo, a swimming pool and a water park! Guess where we spent most of our time? When we weren't in the water, we were feeding the animals in the petting zoo, right behind our RV. On our first night there, I heard a strange sound in the middle of the night (4 am). I thought one of our granddaughters was having an asthma (they don't have asthma) attack or something. It turned out to be a young rooster just learning to crow. It was funny to hear, and we especially appreciated him waking all the other roosters up, because we didn't want to get too much sleep while we were on vacation!


Kamp Dels also has many activities going on all the time. They had a Scavenger Hunt one, very hot evening. Because of the heat, none of us wanted to participate, except for my oldest granddaughter. She was bound and determined to do it, whether anyone else joined her or not. We decided to take her to the location in question, but we were going to sit with a bottle of water and watch. When we saw the list, we realized, we had all but 3 of the items in the RV, so at that point we became a team. One of the items we didn't have was a worm. The other one was a cup of lake water. When Trevor stopped to get the lake water, there was a boy fishing on the pier there. Trev borrowed a worm from him. Upon turning our items in at the office, the girls each won a token for a free ice cream cone. When Trevor brought the borrowed worm back to the boy on the pier, my oldest granddaughter gave the boy her ice cream token. The boy wasn't catching any fish, so we're hoping the ice cream made him feel a little better about his day.


We're currently staying in an awesome place where we share a serene setting with wild and tame animals alike. The management is great. In fact, we love them like our own children. Oh wait, they are are our own children. My granddaughters are here, and we've had such a great time together, learning how to sew their first skirt, practicing Krav Maga skills, bike riding, movie going, and traveling in the RV. It's been fun to watch them build “Stuffy Town”. I have a very creative family, and these two are making their own mark at a young age. They've built a whole town for their stuffed animals, with every kind of business you can think of, homes, apartments, etc. The stuffies even went camping with them and their Auntie Pam and slept outside in their own tents!


There are only two more weeks before we leave here to head out for new adventures. In the meantime, we've still got a lot of visiting to do. We'll miss Minnesota, the place where people work hard, play hard, and crash hard, but at the same time, we're looking forward to what lies ahead. I just got my camera out of the shop, so hoping photos at a later date will be better than the ones attached to this post! Take care guys! We love you!


Love, Trevor & Roni

Chillin

After our whirlwind tour around the country this past year and with the price of diesel (and a stay at Myrtle Beach) being so high, we decided we should chill for a while. No, not in Minnesota, but I'm not going to tell you where. If word gets out about this little gem where the rent is cheap, grass and trees are plentiful, and everything you need is within walking distance, it'll ruin it for us in the future.

But I will tell you what's so great about this place. I can write here! There aren't any oceans, mountains, or other distractions. The yard is huge and we don't have to mow it. Our walking/biking path is just outside our door and if you care to swim with all the kids who just got out of school, there's a big pool with a water slide just steps away. For the most part it's very quiet here (or it was until the pool opened), but at the same time, there are lots of activities going on all the time.


We've seen new police recruits being trained in the art of making felony stops (I was so tempted to ask if I could play cops and robbers too!), fire fighters, as they played with their new ladder truck, horses being trained to race, ducks swimming in the yard in ponds left by torrential rains, three kinds of squirrels, red, gray and black, newborn bunnies in their nest, and hens, and roosters as they learn to crow for the first time. There's been a huge garage sale, a Rib Fest, a dog show we didn't attend, and friends and family that have come to visit.


The funniest thing we've seen here is a trouble making rabbit on the race track. We watched him from the grandstand with Christy and Gordon. He'd wait until a racehorse came barreling toward him, then just as the horse came near, he'd run across the track! What a bad little bunny!


One day, we saw a whole fleet of K-9 police cruisers pull in. Within seconds, there were German Shepherds everywhere. Apparently, the whole convention of them had to do their business in the park at the same time. As I watched the dogs, I also watched something in the grass that I thought must be birds. They remained there the whole time the dogs were in the area. Later, as we got ready to go for a bike ride, I asked Trevor what that was in the grass. They'd been there too long to be birds. Our bike ride ended as soon as we approached the things in question and discovered they were two abandoned kittens. Trevor had mentioned earlier, that he heard a cat crying while the dogs were in the park. I was amazed those two little kittens survived the dog invasion. Those are some very well-trained puppies!


It's been almost a year since our dog, Andy died. I still find myself grieving for him. We made a firm decision not to get another dog. A couple of days before we found the kittens, I told Trevor, we've had lots of cats, and when they died, I never grieved for them for a whole year. Maybe we should get a cat. So you can imagine the scenario that was going on as we carried the kittens back to the RV. I had even told our neighbor Mike (the angel with the key to the lights I told you about in our last post), I was thinking about a cat. When he saw those kittens, he said exactly what I was thinking, “It's a sign from God”. Now you have to be very careful about “signs from God”. Not everything is what it appears to be. Remember, the bible says, “And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.” 2 Corinthians 11:14 ESV

As the precious little kittens slept snuggled in my arms, Trevor put the phone on my lap with implicit instructions to call him at Walmart if I changed my mind about him buying the cat litter, cat box, scooper, and kitten food. I picked it up once while he was gone, but wasn't going to give them up, if they really were a gift from God. I prayed a prayer I've often prayed when faced with things I want, and am pretty sure I shouldn't have. “Lord, if this is not of you, please take my desire for this away from me.” The desire left, and before I could call Trevor, there was a family of seven gathered beside the RV. They took the kittens home with them and were very pleased to receive the items Trev picked up as well.


Lately, I've been blessed by getting a nice dog fix, almost on a daily basis. We met a man named Danny who walks through the park with his very friendly dog, Angus. Angus always seems happy to see us and he and Trevor have a good time chasing each other around the yard.

Speaking of gifts from God, our friends, Gordon and Christy visited for a weekend recently. It was great to spend time with them and hear all about their plans for the near future.


We decided to go to church together that Sunday and found one listed on the internet that we thought we'd like to attend. So many churches are falling prey to lies they've been taught. Locating one we can bear to sit through is very difficult. This one was amazing. Trevor and I went there again last Sunday and spoke with a really nice couple for about 20 minutes after the service. We planned to get together this week. The woman we spoke with called the other day to say she wouldn't be able to make it this week. I said it was just as well, because I was having trouble with a very sore throat. I know I sounded pretty bad on the phone.

Later that day, a car pulled up near the RV around lunchtime. My morning caller walked up with chicken noodle soup for me, meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy and green beans for Trev, banana bread, and strawberry pie. How sweet is the love of Christ through others? I won't tell her name, but if you're reading this, you know who you are. Thanks so much and bless you for such a sweet gift!

One VERY special gift I need to share before I sign off. We asked a lot of you to pray for our pastor in Alpharetta who was diagnosed with cancer. He had to go through radiation and chemotherapy before they'd perform surgery to remove a tumor. He had the surgery on May 25th. When they looked inside, the tumor was completely gone! They removed the area where it had been, just to be sure no cancer was left behind. The pathology report came back as all clear! God is good! Thanks so much for your prayers.

We love you and miss you guys. Take care.


Love, Trevor and Roni