Kings on the Road

Canadian Rockies Tour – Kootenay and Banff National Parks

Posted on July 6, 2016 by Kings On the Road

The Canadian Rockies have been on our bucket list for some time. Many RVers include Banff and Jasper on their Alaska itinerary but we chose to make it a separate trip to give us more time in this beautiful area. We left from Seattle east to Spokane, then north crossing the border in Idaho.

Our RV “Fred” in BC

The Canadian Rockies

Once in British Columbia we headed for Kootenay National Park near Radium Hot Springs. It was a beautiful drive north along the river valley. The Rockies in Canada are much different than the US. Great river valleys seem to separate each range so the drama is more intense. The towns are small and surrounded by wilderness. The headwaters of the Columbia River flow north through this valey and include one of the largest wetlands in the west. We stayed at Redstreak campground just outside town where a committee of bighorn sheep welcomed us daily. It was a little odd that our area, loop H, had nearly all sites full and pretty close together while other loops were nearly empty. Turns out early in the season (June) reservations are only taken for a few loops and the rest are first come, first served. So the planners get kind of packed together.

Radium Hot Springs pool and spa

Radium Hot Springs is the town in Kootenay National Park and also a very popular hot springs fed by water coming out of the ground at 40 degrees C. We enjoyed an afternoon at the spa associated with the springs and found it very high quality and relaxing. Marble Canyon was a beautiful slot canyon. Incredibly skinny with a creek crashing down thru it. Seven bridges provide access to visitors. And Parks Canada has setup their famous Red Chairs at a key viewpoint. Crashing water and deep chasms are always irresistable. Another wondrous spot nearby was the Paint Pots or Ochre Pots. Here iron oxide tints the mud to varying degrees providing a rich range of color. Back in the day, the mud was mined, dried and ground to tint paints. Now its protected like everything in the park.

Red chairs at Marble Canyon

Marble Canyon

Paint Pots

Banff National Park is the oldest national park in Canada. We stayed at Tunnel Mountain Trailer Court campground. This is a huge campground with full hookups that was very tidy and nicely setup. Our site was good-sized with separation between neighbors. We were happy to be in a no firepit area as we like to have our windows open and no campfire smoke. Our first full day we hiked the Johnston Canyon trail to the Ink Pots. This was about a 4 hour round-trip up a narrow canyon with some catwalks cantelivered along the sides. Spectacular waterfalls and a steady climb were features of this hike. We met nice people on the way. On the way back down the canyon we met 3 bus loads of tourists jamming their way up the trail. Seemed a bit much for a narrow trail. Maybe someone will think to stagger the busses. It was a beautiful day and a great hike.

Johnston Canyon

Johnston Creek Falls

Ink Pots

We scouted a lake to launch our kayak but the weather turned bad. Rain all day, temps stuck in the 40s. But a good day to visit the Cave and Basin site in Banff NP. This is where the Banff hot springs were “discovered” by 3 Canadian Pacific Railroad workers in 1883. The springs led directly to the creation of Canada’s first national park and the 3rd on earth. First Nations people (as Native Americans are known in Canada) had been using the hot springs for centuries. Parks Canada does a nice job interpreting the site while the hot pools there are no longer used by the public. Greater hot pools have been built up the mountain for public use today.

Historic Cave hot springs

Historic Basin hot springs

Banff is a busy tourist town serving 3.5 million visitors annually. There are countless shops and restaurants and a very good farmer’s market on Wednesdays in summer. While the weather was showery and cool we visited the nearby town of Canmore. It was less touristy and very nice. We had hoped to hike to an old CP railroad trestle but we couldn’t find it. Nearby Lake Louise is another town within Banff NP. Its also very touristy. By noon cars were parked way down along the road to Moraine Lake, one of the most famous spots. Lake Louise itself with the beautiful Fairmont Hotel was equally busy. Any thought of kayaking these lakes was quickly dismissed, we couldn’t get close. The pictures give you an idea why this place is so popular.

Moraine Lake

Lake Louise

A nice feature of Banff NP is the Bow Parkway. This two-lane road parallels the busy Trans Canada Highway 1 at a much slower pace, closer to nature. We saw a big bull elk stroll across right in front of us. The parkway affords views of Castle Mountain and many other beautiful places.

Bull elk crossing

Castle Mountain

On to Jasper National Park.

Posted in British Columbia, Canada, RV Travel | Tagged Banff hot springs, Banff NP, Johnston Canyon, Kootenay NP, Lake Louise, Moraine Lake, Radium Hot Springs, Redstreak campground, Tunnel Mountain campground | 10 Comments

Canadian Rockies Tour – Wildlife

Posted on July 1, 2016 by Kings On the Road

Wildlife in the Canadian Rockies deserves its own post. We saw more wildlife in 3 weeks than we saw in 2 months in Alaska. It all started on our way to Canada when we stayed a few days near Newport WA where we took our kayak out on a small lake and spent about 45 minutes watching a moose munch on water lilies. We stayed away so as to not disturb her and then the moose started swimming sort of toward us. This is a very large animal so we paddled as fast as we could to keep a good space away. The moose swam as fast as we could paddle but never came too close. It was awesome! Wikipedia says moose can swim 6 mph for up to 2 hours. We believe it!

Moose and kayak

Moose love water lilies

Once in British Columbia and Alberta we saw Bighorn Sheep in and near Radium Hot Springs. One group of very mature sheep had huge horns and were totally oblivious of traffic in the median of downtown.

Bighorn Sheep

Very mature Bighorn Sheep

Further into Kootenay National Park, 11 km of the only highway had “no stopping” due to bears on the road. We didn’t see them. Banff National Park had warnings posted all over due to wolves visiting a campground looking for a bite to eat. (We’d all heard of bears visiting, but wolves?) As we visited Jasper National Park the wildlife really got busy. First we saw lots of elk lounging along the highway next to the Whistlers campground.

Young elk and calf

Mama elk

Then we saw bears… many, many bears…

Mama bear with 2 adorable cubs on a paved trail

Young cubs wrestling

Roadside bear

Roadside bear again

Bear swimming across lake

Then we had a rare sighting of caribou

Caribou

And more elk, huge bull elk

And coyote

And eagles

Eagle near Medicine Lake\

And lots of wildflowers

Harebells

Enjoying the wildlife. Remember you can click on the pics for a larger view.

Wildlife watchers

Posted in Alberta, British Columbia, Canada, RV Travel, Washington, wildlife | Tagged Banff NP, bears, bighorn sheep, caribou, coyote, eagle, elk, Jasper NP, Kootenay NP, moose, wildflowers | 5 Comments

Durango to Seattle – Part 2

Posted on June 4, 2016 by Kings On the Road

Here are some highlights and stories…from the second half of our trip. We like to mix up our travel routes even when repeating a beginning and end. Such is the case this year as we once again travel from Durango CO to Seattle WA. Last year we traveled thru Moab, around Salt Lake City, to Boise, western OR and Yakima WA to Seattle. This year we wanted to travel across southern Utah to Death Valley, then north on US395 to Oregon and then I-5 to Washington. We traveled this route from April 22 to May 13.

Death Valley National Park is one of our favorite parks. Whenever we are in the Las Vegas area we always try to visit Death Valley. This time was just an overnite stop at Texas Spring campground but we enjoyed it nevertheless.

Death Valley view

another view

camped at Texas Spring

US395 has been on our list since reading blogs about it from WheelingIt. Our first stop was Lone Pine CA, a small town at the base of Mt. Whitney the highest peak in the lower 48. We visited the Public Lands office to confirm our plan to boondock in the Alabama Hills area just west of town. It is a boondockers heaven. Easy road access to many many private, scenic sites for our rolling one-bedroom apartment. We found a nice spot, set up and went for a hike in the hills named after the Civil War raider CSS Alabama by Confederate sympathizers . Beautiful location, solar worked great, one of our alltime favorite boondocking sites.

Boondocking rainbow

Your boondocking land

Million dollar views

Beavertail cactus in the hills

Mt. Whitney and the Sierra Nevada

Campsite view

From Alabama Hills we traveled north on US395. Our first stop was near Bishop CA at the Laws Railroad Museum and Historical Site. The park is a well preserved narrow gauge railroad collection as well as a fine group of period buildings. The railroad was built as the Carson and Colorado from Mound House NV to Owens Lake CA. Eventually the mines played out and most of the Owens Valley was bought up by the water ravenous City of Los Angeles for water rights. The railroad town of Laws nearly ceased to exist. Preservationists opened the Laws Railroad Museum on April 1, 1966, 83 years to the day after the first train pulled into Laws.

Laws Railroad Museum

1883 Narrow Gauge

Elegant period furnishings

Southern Pacific acquired C&C RR

At the depot

The drive north on US395 is beautiful. Up a long valley with the snow covered Sierra Nevada on the left and other towering mountains on the right. A very interesting side trip was to the ghost town of Bodie, now a California State Park. A rich gold strike in the late 1870s caused th town to grow to 8,500 inhabitants with 2000 buildings in ony a few years. By the 1930s Bodie was a ghost . The town looks very much like everyone just walked away several decades ago. Preserved in a state of “arrested decay” by the state of California.

1877 Boomtown Bodie

Where’d everybody go?

Bodie, population 8500

1877s boardwalk

J.S.Cain home

Overall, US395 did not disappoint us. It was a beautiful drive with far less traffic than any other north south route in California. We found picturesque places to stop along the way and there is still much to see on a return trip. We’ll definitely add this route to our collection of favorites.

Posted in California, State Parks, trains | Tagged Alabama Hills, Bodie ghost town, Laws Railroad Museum, US395 | 5 Comments

Durango to Seattle – Part 1

Posted on May 12, 2016 by Kings On the Road

We like to mix up our travel routes even when repeating a beginning and end. Such is the case this year as we once again travel from Durango CO to Seattle WA. Last year we traveled thru Moab, around Salt Lake City, to Boise, western OR and Yakima WA to Seattle. This year we wanted to travel across southern Utah to Death Valley, then north on US395 to Oregon and then I-5 to Washington. We traveled this route from April 22 to May 13. Some highlights and stories…

The route west from Durango took us to Page Arizona and Lake Powell, the huge reservoir created by the Glen Canyon Dam project. We stayed at the Lone Rock National Park Service campground right on the lake just into Utah. The camping area has no designated sites so campers spaced themselves out along the shore. Then the wind started. And it blew and blew and blew. Sand blasted against the RV and car. Too windy to leave, too windy to go out, we could only wait for it to subside. By the second morning we had sand drifts in front of the car and RV. Time to go as the forecast called for a one day respite and then more wind. Dreams of kayaking Lake Powell would have to wait until next time. This isn’t a 2 week vacation, its a lifestyle, we’ll be back.

Lone Rock

Lake Powell

Next up, Zion National Park. Wow, entering the park from the east is spectacular and a bit daunting in a large-ish RV. First of all there is a special fee for RVs since they have to close the old tunnel one-way to allow you thru the middle. $15 or 100+ mile detour – an easy choice. Then the geology and landscapes on the drive are breathtaking. After a night nearby we ventured back into the park the next day. Zion Canyon is accessible only by NPS free shuttle. This is a great service we hope more and more parks adopt. It reduces traffic, pollution, noise and allows visitors to hop on and off from differnt trailheads and attractions. We traveled to the furthest point for a hike up to the Narrows of Zion Canyon. Beautiful day, then after a lunch break on the Virgin River the weather changed abruptly. Wind, rain, cold forced us into the museum to wait it out. It didn’t stop, we left. Then again, we’ll be back.

Hiking to the Narrows

The Great White Throne

Lunchtime view on the Virgin River

Storms at the West Temple, Altar of Sacrifice and the Sentinel

Next up, Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada. This one has been on our list for a long time. Located less than an hours drive east of Las Vegas, Valley of Fire is a geologic wonder. We took several of the hikes including the White Domes, the incredible Fire Wave and a petroglyph trail. April is perfect time to visit, the winter is done and the summer heat has yet to arrive. We saw lots of wildflowers and even some edible mushrooms (desert shaggy mane) by the roadside.

White Domes trail

White Domes slot canyon

The Fire Wave

Mouse’s Tank Petroglyph Trail

Petroglyphs including atlatl

R. in rock

White on red

You can click on the images for a larger view.

Posted in Arizona, national parks, Nevada, RV Travel, State Parks, Utah | Tagged desert, Kayaking, Lake Powell, massive rock formations, mushrooms, Valley of Fire State Park, Zion National Park | 2 Comments

Solar Upgrade

Posted on May 8, 2016 by Kings On the Road

Solar Success

Thanks to our friend Mark, we recently upgraded to 680 watts of solar power. Mark designed the economical system using 4 used Sharp 170 watt panels found on craigslist (LA) for $105 each. Here is a link to the panel specs. Note the 25 year warranty. http://files.sharpusa.com/Downloads/Solar/Products/sol_dow_NE170U1.pdf . On ebay we found the state of the art controller https://centrix-intl.com/details.asp?Parent2ID=2&productid=10533 and remote display https://centrix-intl.com/details.asp?Parent2ID=2&productid=11076 . Many connectors, fuses, circuit breakers and knobs we found on amazon. We made our own brackets and tilting arms using aluminum from a local metal supply house. Wire, conduit, screws, etc we obtained at the closest Home Depot. The entire package cost $1375. Two of us working two days and we got the system up and running. Mark’s expertise made it all possible, we were his helpers. The idea is that anyone can have solar with a small budget and a knowledgeable friend. Thanks Mark.

We are still getting used to having abundant electricity while boondocking off the grid. We’ve never felt very comfortable running much off our batteries. Always afraid we’d run the batts down too low. Now we see we can have 28 amps flowing into our batteries by 11 in the morning. On our mostly sunny days we can have our batteries fully charged by afternoon. During the day we can pretty much run anything on 110 volts. In the morning we can brew a pot of coffee, toast a bagel or scramble some tofu in the electric skillet. In the evening we can watch TV for a while, jump online with our laptops or read to the wee hours. From Spring thru early Fall we can use the panels laying flat on the roof of the RV. Come late Fall and Winter when the sun is lower in the sky, we will position the RV to tilt the panels southward with the simple tilting supports we’ve installed. This will maximize our power during the weakest time of year.

Thanks again to our friend Mark. We now have a basic solar system that enables us to boondock off-the-grid for as long as we like without using our diesel generator. Our adventure possibilities just got bigger.

Posted in RV, RV Travel | Tagged boondocking, Solar | 6 Comments

First Full Year Fulltime RVing

Posted on May 1, 2016 by Kings On the Road

The week of April 20th marks the end of our first full year fulltime RVing. We had spent more time in our motorhome than our home for most of the previous 7 years but we did not cut loose of the home on salt water in Florida until April 2015. During this first 12 months we traveled from Pine Island in Southwest Florida to visit family in Jacksonville Florida, then on across the continent to Seattle Washington to visit more family, then on to British Columbia, Yukon Territory and Alaska. After returning to Seattle again we traveled south thru Oregon to California where we parked the RV for a couple weeks to fly to Hawaii for a visit and a cruise. Back in California we headed south for the winter before joining a RV caravan to Baja Mexico. From Baja our travels took us back to southern California and Arizona, finishing the year in our favorite western town of Durango Colorado. Year one – 15,558 miles in the motorhome and an additional 14,316 miles in our towed Honda CRV.

When we decided to hold off on buying another house we set some pretty lofty travel (for us) goals. We did it! Oh there were some stumbles along the way. Literally a broken ankle Dianne suffered in Alaska. A couple viruses, what can you do? Occasional RV repair issues, every home has maintenance, just different than a sticks and bricks home. After a year we think we are further away from another house home than we were a year ago. We like this lifestyle. Our one bedroom apartment on wheels provides seemingly endless new experiences. If we don’t like something, we move on. If we like it, we stay longer or plan to return. We meet new people along the way who share some or most of our lifestyle. We try to live in the best weather places all year. Our hiking/exercise is often in places like Washington’s Cascades, Sedona’s Red Rocks, Denali National Park, Point Lobos in California, Joshua Tree NP or the beaches of Baja Mexico.

Keeping up with our mail is a challenge. Meeting up with people on the road seems to be more dificult than we might expect. Even though we are among wanderers, we all travel with some purpose. We are people who make plans and do things. While we headed to Durango for doctors and dentists, some friends visited parks in southern Utah. When we finished in Durango and headed to southern Utah our friends were off to a wedding in BC. Then as we approached St. George Utah we just missed our friends who had been there for a long time. They flew to Italy for 6 weeks. And so it goes. We still keep in touch and share stories.

We hope to continue targeting lofty travel goals for the foreseeable future. Friends with health issues remind us that we won’t be able to do this forever. Someday we will settle down in more or less one place again. Meanwhile we are trying out many possibilities.

Golden Spike Historic Site

Oregon Trail

Myra Canyon Trestle, British Columbia

Mile Zero-Alaska Highway

Wild mushroom picker

Happy fishermen

Shooting the train

Whale spotting

Aloha! Mahalo! Hawaii

Banzai Pipeline

Monzogranite picnic area

Malecon, La Paz, Baja Mexico

Petting a baby whale

Beachfront camping

The Girl from the Sea of Cortez

“Standin’ on the corner in Winslow Arizona”

Posted in RV, RV Travel | Tagged Fulltiming | 7 Comments

Winslow, La Posada, McHood Park and Petrified Forest

Posted on April 27, 2016 by Kings On the Road

Winslow Arizona. Yes there are many of us standing on the corner. Taking it easy. And “there’s a girl my lord in a flat bed Ford slowing down to take a look at me”. Winslow does the best it can with the Eagles song. Today there are flowers and candles for Glenn Frey who recently died and reminded us all that we are getting older. Today Winslow is a small town trying to survive being bypassed when Interstate 40 replaced Route 66.

“Standin’ on the corner in Winslow Arizona”

Yet there is more to Winslow. La Posada Hotel is an original Sante Fe Railroad hotel designed by famed Southwest architect Mary Jane Colter and operated by the legendary Fred Harvey Company. The place has been lovingly restored after falling on hard times for decades. The Turquoise Room is not served by Harvey Girls anymore, but the cuisine is still first class. The decor is priceless. The service is up to the standards of the Fred Harvey tradition. Each room is named and totally unique. Many rooms overlook the BNSF main line, still one of the busiest in the country. Train watchers will see up to 100 trains per day. The public spaces are filled with original artwork. The entire property is special. You just feel it when you walk in the door. The staff welcomes tourists, railfans as well as guests.

Casual Entrance to La Posada Hotel

Trainside hotel entrance

Southwest style

Trackside view

Outdoor space

BNSF main line – Long Beach to Chicago

And then there is McHood Park, a campground about 5 miles from town. We believe the park is named after the very first Harvey Girl. Our initial attraction to the place was that it is FREE. No hookups but we don’t care, we have solar. The park is beautiful. Situated on a reservoir on Clear Creek, the area is surrounded by gorgeous rock formations. There is great kayaking. Many of the sites are paved and all are well spaced. Several have covered picnic tables on concrete slabs. There are more amenities here than most paid parks. While we couldn’t stay long this time, we’ll be back. Stays are limited to 14 days. We don’t usually write about campsites but this was such a nice surprise.

Our campsite in McHood Park

Clear Creek Reservoir

And just a little ways East on I-40 is Petrified Forest National Park and the Painted Desert. What a unique sight! A zillion years ago fallen trees soaked up silica from volcanic ash and crystallized into quartz. Gorgeous wood fossilized and turned into agate in a rainbow of colors! To protect this treasure Petrified Forest was one the first areas designated as a National Monument in 1906. For decades people walked off with souveniers but the park service does a great job showing the large quantity and size of remaining specimens. In addition the park preserves The Painted Desert Inn, another architect Mary Jane Colter, Fred Harvey masterpiece. There are beautiful murals by renowned Hopi artist Fred Kabotie and fine views of the Painted Desert, a geologic beauty stretching hundreds of miles across northern Arizona. Within the park are numerous petroglyph sites including “Newspaper Rock”, one the finest we have ever seen.

Painted Desert Inn

Fred Harvey story

Fred Kabotie “Buffalo Dance” Mural

Petrified wood
(sitting on)

Newspaper Rock petroglyphs-up to 2000 years old

Painted Desert

Trains and history and photography, we found all 3 around Winslow. Please click on the images for a larger view.

Posted in Arizona, national parks, RV Travel, trains | Tagged agate, Fred Harvey, Free camping, Kayaking, La Posada Hotel, Painted Desert, Sante Fe RR, The Eagles, Train watching, Winslow | 6 Comments

Cottonwood Arizona

Posted on April 23, 2016 by Kings On the Road

Many years ago we camped in our RV at Dead Horse Ranch State Park near Cottonwood AZ. It was probably the first time we considered going full time in the motorhome. The surroundings were so peaceful, the trails so inviting, we thought we could get used to this. So now we’ve returned and we are not disappointed by the area again.

Cottonwood sits at about 3300 feet elevation just south of Sedona along the Verde River, Arizonas only wild and scenic river. We arrived March 23rd as the weather was becoming very nice. We still had some coldish nights and we did have some rare Arizona rain, but most days were glorious. This time around we hiked trails in Sedona and Cottonwood. Paddled our new-to-us kayak down a stretch of the Verde River. We visited historic mining boomtown of Jerome and the copper company town of Clarkdale. Clarkdale is home to the Verde Canyon Railway, a first class tourist train through the valley. There are many ancestral Native American sites in the area. We visited the National Park Service sites at Tuzigoot and many other cliff dwellings un labeled but visible in the valley. Montezuma Castle, Montezuma Well are other well known sites but we learned of many more including Palatki, Honanki and the V Bar V ranch pictograph site. Some of these will just have to wait until next time.

We always know we’ve found a good area when we find things to come back to. We’ve always lived in an area people visited on vacation. Now we’re finding new areas for our full time “vacation” lifestyle.

Sedona red rock hiking

more Sedona

Jerome “ghost” town

Paddling the Verde River

Tuzigoot National Monument

Verde Valley Model Railroad – Clarkdale

Headframe – Jerome

Posted in Arizona, national parks, RV Travel, State Parks, trains | Tagged Dead Horse Ranch State Park, Hiking, Kayaking, Verde Canyon Railway, Verde River | 4 Comments

Joshua Tree National Park

Posted on April 2, 2016 by Kings On the Road

Joshua Tree

We’d been there before but couldn’t wait to return to Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California. In January we were staying at an RV park near Palm Springs so it was less than an hour drive to the park. The south entrance took us to Cottonwood Springs, a California Fan Palm oasis in the mountainous desert. Joshua Tree is a huge preserve in the mountains at the juncture of the Colorado Desert and the Mohave Desert. It was established to protect plants, especially the Joshua Tree, which were being dug up to landscape Los Angeles. It is a rugged landscape of Monzogranite boulders and formations eroded by wind and water. The Joshua Trees stand out in this stark landscape like Dr. Suess characters.

Cottonwood Springs Oasis

Mountains and Alluvial Fan mosiac

Monzogranite picnic area

Arch Rock

Sheltering rock

Gold mining here until 1969

Joshua trees and monzogranite

We went back to Joshua Tree in March and the desert was blooming. Be sure to click on the photos for a larger image. Moisture from El Nino helped the desert put on a the best show in years.

Blooming Yucca

Joshua Trees in Bloom

Beavertail Cactus

Ocotillo

Brittle Bush

Flowers everywhere

Lupine

and even Daisies

Posted in California, Desert, national parks, RV Travel | Tagged cactus, Colorado Desert, Flowers, Joshua Tree National Park, Mohave Desert, Oasis | 12 Comments

Baja, Part 6 – The Trip Back to the USA

Posted on March 25, 2016 by Kings On the Road

This is our final blog about our Baja adventure. Most RV caravans escort members each and every day. A unique feature of our caravan was 18 days on our own. For a group of us the return trip North began by traveling together from Los Barrilles to Playa Santispac. By now we are quite Mexicanized. At this point the roads seemed wider, the towns more attractive. We even used cruise control for the first ime in Mexico. The mountains and beaches of Baja are beautiful. Playa Santispac is a gorgeous beach on the protected waters of Bahia de Concepcion in the Sea of Cortez. With our friends Grant and Arabelle we hired a boat for a tour of the bay and found beautiful shells, sea lions and pelicans. Another day we borrowed Mike and Madeliene’s kayak for a paddle around some islands in the bay. From Santispac near Mulege the entire caravan regrouped for the trip back north to the USA. The highlight of the return was whale watching at Guerrero Negro (see previous blog https://kingsontheroad.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/whales-of-baja/). We also stopped again at El Pabellon beach where owner Jose prepared a a delicious clams ranchero over a campfire right on the beach. The last night the group stayed at Santo Tomas Vineyard, a beautiful facility offering world class wine and olive oil.

The social aspect of the trip exceeded expectations. Our group was experienced and diverse with no attitudes. Maybe we’ll travel together again through Baja. We would love it!