The Pacific Coast

On Sunday the 11th, we left the Olympic Peninsula and headed southwest to one of our favorite campgrounds, Cape Disappointment. It is at the mouth of the Columbia river, on the Washington side. There we met members of the Malen family that we had seen at the end of July at the family reunion. Laddy, Pris's cousin, brought along a slab of Salmon that he had caught earlier in the Columbia. We grilled it up and made general pigs of ourselves.

The weather was cold and rainy when we arrived but improved after the first night. That allowed us to start hiking again. The first photo shows one of the light houses just inside the north jetty of the Columbia, reached on one of our hikes.

On Wednesday, we crossed into Oregon and headed south. We enjoyed great weather and scenery! The second photo is an example of the Oregon coast at its best. For our Florida friends, it is not at all like Cocoa beach! We spent Wednesday and Thursday nights at William Tubman State Park. We had not been here before and enjoyed the privacy. The park is located near the Oregon Dunes NRA. The dunes are 40 miles long and can reach heights of more than 500 feet. They provide an impressive view while driving down the highway. On Friday it was on to Brookings, Oregon, just above the California border. We stayed at a private campground in Brookings, that had full hookups. That was necessary to ensure that I could see the Florida-Tennessee football game on Saturday. Everything worked out great, I saw the game and we won! The Oregon coast drive is one of the most beautiful drives in the country. There are many viewpoints along the road where you can see waves crashing on the rocks, numerous lighthouses, birds, seals, and sea lions. There are numerous state campgrounds with gorgeous views located on this highway. It's also a favorite route for bicyclists who can travel all the way down the entire coast of Oregon.

On Sunday the 18th, we headed south for California. After 45 minutes driving, we stopped for breakfast south of Crescent City, right off the beach. The third photo shows the gorgeous weather and views we had. One of the joys of traveling in our motor home is the ability to pull off the road at a beautiful spot and make our own breakfast or lunch. Besides the touring and eating regional food, another thing that we have enjoyed is meeting people from different parts of the country. Everyone is friendly and out and enjoying doing what we like to do. We have met people from ND taking their son to his freshmen year at WSU to a lady who mushes her Malmuts at the Ocean Dunes Recreational Area and lots of people in between. It is good to be out in the USA.

Puget Sound

We left Jasper NP on Labor Day and made our way southwest, crossing into the US on Wednesday, September 7. Our first stop was in a Costco in Bremerton Washington, before heading off to Whidbey Island. Whidbey is one of the Islands in Puget sound that you can drive onto. We stayed at Fort Ebey State Park on the island. Fort Ebey is one of four forts built around 1900, to guard the entrance to the shipping lanes going to the Seattle area. By WW2 they were obsolete and today they are all state parks. The town of Coupeville is on the south side of Penn Cove, on the east side of Whidbey Island. They commercially grow mussels in Penn Cove. We discovered Coupeville and Penn Cove mussels in 1999, on a prior camping trip. I have sampled mussels all over the country, in Europe, Australia and New Zealand and think Penn Cove mussels are the best! By the weekend, we had to leave the Fort Ebey SP as it was booked up. We took the ferry across to Fort Townsend on the Olympic peninsula and went to Dungeness spit campground, which is a county park east of Port Angeles.

The first photo shows the view of the Straits of Juan De Fuca from the bluff behind our campsite. Across the straits is Vancouver Island, Canada.

The second photo shows the Dungeness Spit with a tanker heading west in the straits.

Jasper National Park

Tues. August 30 we headed north on the Ice fields Parkway to Jasper, Alberta. The Rockies at Lake Louise are part of Banff NP, but half way up the highway it turns into Jasper NP. It was a spectacular drive as we saw high mountains on both sides of the road, many of them with glaciers. The traffic is very light in the early mornings but builds in the late morning and afternoons. Although there are never very many cars. We see fewer American cars, but lots of rental campers, mainly rented by European tourists. There are also quite a few tour buses. We drove the length of the highway to the town of Jasper, set up our campsite, which we had reserved, and went into town to load up on groceries. We enjoyed the six days that we were in Lake Louise but the shopping was very limited. The town consisted of a small village with about a half a dozen shops, and only a very small grocery store. Every town has their coffee shops and bakeries, which we enjoyed. The town of Jasper is much larger than Lake Louise with many shops, two grocery stores and many highly recommended restaurants. We have been surprised at how many fine restaurants there are that feature Canadian fare-elk, bison, venison, fresh locally grown vegetables. We've had some outstanding meals, plus some great Canadian wines. The visitor information centers in each town have had a wealth of information. We have found the brochures that feature the local hikes have been very informative. We try to get out each day and do some hiking along with our car touring. There are many great drives and hikes to beautiful mountain lakes and falls.
We visited the Columbia Ice fields Center which is located about an hour's drive south of Jasper. Across the road from the center is the Athabasca glacier, which is the most easily accessible glacier in the park.
Photo 1 shows the glacier, from the center. Originally, the glacier extended to the spot where I took the photo. As you can see, the glacier has retreated quite a lot since then. We saw the same thing in Glacier NP where they estimate that all of the glaciers will be GONE between 2020 and 2030. Better get up to see them while they are still there. Specially built buses take people right onto the glacier.



Photo 2 shows Pris in front of one of those behemoths. The melt water from the Athabasca Glacier is the origin of the Athabasca River, which runs down the valley, past our campground and through the town site of Jasper.









About 20 miles south of our campground are the Athabasca Falls, which is shown in photo 3.









The 4th photo is of Maligne Lake, one of the prettiest we have seen. It is about 40 miles southeast of Jasper town site.








Early September marks the beginning of the Elk Rutting season, where the boys get very interested in the girls! The rangers warn campers about getting too close to the males, they have been known to charge even automobiles. There were elk in the campground at Jasper, we saw 6 this morning. The bulls bugle all night long, trying to entice those illusive girls.