Pass The Gravy

This is meat and potatoes country. Oh and don’t forget the sweet corn! It seems that we spend our time eating while planning what and where we will eat the next meal. We have sampled sweet corn from four different counties (so far). Everyone claims to have the best so we are compelled to try it and see for ourselves. Some more of my favorites; MaidRites (ground beef sandwiches), rhubarb pie, and fresh green beans right out of the garden.

Little Wall Lake - On a beautiful Sunday afternoon we went to Little Wall lake and had a picnic. This lake is about 3 miles from where I grew up. so memories of fishing, swimming and doing boy things ran through my memory that day. It was so nice and restful to just sit and wait for the sun to set.

Amana Colonies – This past week we took a side trip to southern Iowa and the Amana Colonies. Over 150 years ago a group of German immigrants established a communal settlement on 26,000 acres of land in the Iowa river valley. They founded seven villages and called their new home Amana. The name Amana was taken from the song of Solomon 4:8 and means “to remain true”. They farmed the land, established woolen mills, bakeries, meat shops, furniture shops and other businesses to provide their needs. Today, these businesses continue to thrive. Most are located in historical structures that are part of the National Historical Landmark called Amanas.

While in the Amanas, we toured the woolen mill, watched the craftsmen create beautiful handmade furniture out of walnut and cherry woods at the furniture factory and of course fattened up on some of the best German food this side of the Mississippi. The restaurants serve up huge portions “family style”. You want more? Just ask for a refill and another huge bowl of food will be served. I had to agree with a neighbor camper who exclaimed that he had to leave Amana “because there’s just too much good food to be had”.

National Balloon Festival, Indianola Iowa - We attended, or at least attempted to attend, the annual balloom festival in Indianola. When I say we attempted well we were about a half hour late from missing lift off. There were over 100 balloons and seeing them all up floating over the Iowa countryside was an impressive site to be sure. We ended up chasing them along with several hundred other crazy balloon enthusiasts. I guess I keep forgetting that things run on time here in Iowa, no Filipino time here.

Road Revelation #8 – Make sure to operate in local time. Not only is it important to adjust your clocks to the local time but to also consider the local customs and traditions. Around here in Iowa, if you snooze you lose.

Making Hay

Having had enough (for now) of Canada, it was time to head south for the good old USA. We crossed the border at Pembina just west of Minnesota in North Dakota. Passing through US Customs was a bit more difficult than the Canadian counterpart. Where it took us only 30 seconds to pass into Canada, it took around 20 minutes for the US inspection. We had a small problem with the agriculture inspector. She decided to take my lemons I had brought from our tree in San Diego. I told her I understood and it was ok, but she seemed to need to provide an explanation. She explained that it was really California’s fault. Oh well. I talked with a guy from Texas and it took him over 2 hours to clear. Seems they were sure they would find guns or ammo somewhere in his trailer. California, fruits and vegetables. Texas, guns and ammo, go figure.

Iowa, You Make Me Laugh – Well to be honest, the slogan is (or was, I guess they changed it for some reason) ”Iowa, you make me smile”. Iowa is my home or at least it was for the first 20 years of my life. Most of my family still lives here and we are enjoying see everyone. We are camped at Whispering Oaks RV park in Story City which is pretty much in the center of the state. It’s less than 2 miles to my Moms place so it’s quite convenient.

In Memory of Raymond Sellers – Ray was my step-dad for the past 20 years. When we arrived here in Iowa on Thursday July 12th, he had been admitted into a hospice house. He passed away on Sunday afternoon with most of his family around him. Having no kids from his first marriage, he always called us his “ready made family”. He was 90 years old, led a full life and was ready to meet his Lord.

Summer Evening in the Park – One of my fondest memories of growing up here in Iowa is enjoying the band concerts in the park on a warm summer evening. Last night I had the opportunity to show Mellie what Iowa is all about; a free concert in the park with the band playing John Phillip Sousa and other favorites. Not only was the concert free but they had free ice cream and cookies as well. But there’s more to it than just that. Imagine it was over 95 degrees with super high humidity for the past week. The night before it rained buckets. On the night of the concert the weather was perfect, 80 degrees and no wind. So people came from everywhere to enjoy and take advantage of this rare summer evening. They may not have the perfect weather of Southern California very often but they know how to enjoy it when they do.

Road Revelation #7 – Make hay when the sun shines. My Dad use to always say that. As a young kid I merely took it literally and thought it was rather obvious, you sure can’t bale hay when it’s raining. But now I see what he really meant. Enjoy life’s moments as they come, don’t waste an opportunity to relish in a beautiful day. Take in that free concert in the park and make hay when the sun shines.

Prairie Schooner eh?

We continued our travels through Canada leaving the beautiful Canadian Rockies behind us with the vast prairie lands ahead. As the driver in this expedition, I for one was rather relieved. No more mountains to climb, just nice flat wide roads that gently merge into a point at the horizon. I guess it was appropriate that the nice older man we met at a rest stop made the comment looking at our rig “Nice prairie schooner eh.” It really did feel like we were floating along in a vast sea of green and yellow. Yeah, yellow. That’s the color of the canola fields in bloom. Very pretty indeed.

Moose Jaw – No I’m not talking about some left over road kill. Moose Jaw is a nice quiet town in lower Saskatchewan on Canadian highway #1. We pulled into the Prairie Oasis RV park for the night. Besides the Casino Moose Jaw about the only other thing to see in town was Al Capone’s hideout. Seems at some point in his criminal career, Capone hid out here in Moose Jaw. There are actual tunnels that he used and these have been preserved as a tourist attraction. I might be stretching the definition of attraction but one sure could not call them “a historic site” eh? Guess we will never know for sure, we passed on seeing it opting to watch “Canadian Idol” on TV instead. No comments on Canadian singing talent. Sorry, my many Canadian friends and family would not be happy.

Winnipeg Manitoba – On our second day of sailing though the Canadian prairie we dropped anchor in a nice RV park just south of Winnipeg. Arrowhead RV park is actually in the town of Ile des Chenes (don’t ask me how to pronounce it, I could barely understand the instructions given by the camp manager, it was all French to me). But to be truthful, the biggest attraction to this place was they were members of Camp Club USA. What that means is we get a 50% discount, yeah! Time for another unscheduled stop. We decided to take a day off and tour Winnipeg. Near the center of town is the forks of the Red and Assiniboine rivers. This has been a traditional meeting place for centuries. Aboriginal peoples, fur trade rivals, settlers, merchants, politicians, immigrants and now Lande’s have congregated in the famous Forks National Historic site of Manitoba Canada. There are beautiful sculpture gardens, flower beds, river walks and lots of interesting shops to see. If you cross the foot bridge, Esplande Riel, you enter the French quarter of Winnipeg. More shops and restaurants to see.

Barbeque Quest – One of the activities we have added to our trip is a quest to find the best barbeque. When I saw the restaurant, Muddy Waters Barbeque, I though I had to give it the test. This way we can truly say we have looked for the best barbeque in all of North America not just in the US. They claimed to have Texan style slow cooked barbeque. The barbeque was ok (I was hungry) but having enjoyed real Texas barbeque and knowing the difference, I would be generous to give them a 3 on the 1 to 10 international barbeque scale. Sorry Canada it does not look like you will win the “best barbeque in North America” title.

Road revelation #6 – Be cautious of asking simple questions of talkative French guys. I made the mistake of asking the manager of the RV park “so what’s to see in Winnipeg?”. He went into a 20 minute lecture with maps, brochures, and personal accounts of several places not to miss (he even included his favorite grocery store and Home Depot location). I guess it would have been useful if I was able to understand him. I could not quite decide if he was talking French or English. But the maps were helpful anyway.

Oh Canada!

We drove the infamous Canada highway 1 from Vancouver to Lacombe (a small town north of Calgary) for our next “scheduled stop”. Lacombe is home to CUC (Canadian University College) and our niece Myla. So we have a number of friends in the area and enjoyed seeing everyone while there for the weekend.

Revelstoke British Columbia – The drive took two days so we pulled into a KOA campground Thursday evening in Revelstoke. Never mind the weird name, this place is beautiful! I have always been awed by the Rockies but when you see the Canadian Rockies you begin to realize that the US may not be the only place with purple mountain majesty. These mountains are like the Colorado Rockies on steroids. It probably didn’t hurt that we just happened to go through the area on beautiful hot sunny day.

Banff and Lake Louise – We didn’t spend much time here although it deserved much more attention. We were anxious to see our niece and friends so we only stopped for a few pictures and fuel. That’s when I almost got into real trouble. (see road revelation 5). As the amount of miles to empty approached less than 20, we began to panic. I could not find a gas station with Diesel. We came up on the Banff exit and I decided I had to try there. We have been to Banff before and I should have known better but when you are in a panic mode well I guess the thought process starts to slip a bit. Banff is a small ski town with small confusing streets. So here we are with our big rig cruising the town looking for diesel. When I finally saw a diesel pump at a station I just told Mellie “we’re going in!” She kinda groaned “Noooo” but it was too late. I didn’t hit anything. It was just that once at the pump I could easily see that there was no way to drive on through. Oh well, I filled up and then told Mellie to stand in the street to stop the traffic as I backed out of the station. What a trooper! Everyone was polite and did not get mad but we decided to leave town immediately anyway.

Note the clouds look much worse that it was, we only got a small amount of rain.

Road Revelation #5 – Don’t pass up the opportunity to top off your tank. When we were at around a half tank I passed several excellent truck stops. It would have been easy to slip in, top off and be on our way but no I wanted to go further on before bothering. I didn’t realize what real “bother” lay ahead.

Sleepless in Seattle

Seattle - After our brief stay in Oregon we moved on to Seattle Washington. It was the second of July and Seattle seemed like a nice place to rest for a few days and wait out the up coming holiday. After all, there’s no sense in getting into the holiday traffic if you don’t need to. Now mind you our goal is to avoid, at all cost, crowds and hassles (more on this in a moment).

You remember how I mentioned the overcast weather we found in Oregon? Well when we arrived in Seattle they are in the middle of the hottest, sunniest July on record. Nothing but clear blue skies and 80 to 90 degree weather. The weather is so unusual that I swear you would see people just standing outside, mouth agape staring up at the sky. If they were a bunch of turkeys and it started to rain they would drown. Naw, these guys understand rain, they would run for cover at the nearest Starbucks.

On the third of July we decided to visit the famous Pikes Market in downtown Seattle. Wow what a treat. There was so much to see and do. Piles of fresh fruits, vegetable and beautiful cut flowers for sale for as far as the eye could see. And the famous fish market where they throw fish to the amazement of the crowd was not a disappointment. Every corner seemed to have another street musician playing funky music. The atmosphere was electric.

One of our quests is to try local foods as we travel so we purchased several items at the market. We selected fresh Copper River Sockeye Salmon filet (expensive but oh so good!) from the famous Pikes Fish market. But since it was a filet instead of a whole fish they didn’t throw it for us, oh well. Then we got a few vegetable and some fruit. Fresh cherries and peaches were my choices. Back at the trailer, I selected one of the peaches to fix for a little snack and on the bottom of the peach there’s a sticker, “California grown”! Oh well, it was good anyway.

So by now you are wondering what fun, exciting Fourth of July celebration did we attend in beautiful Seattle with record breaking sunny weather. Well, we didn’t. Oh there were many to pick from with one of the largest drawing over 400 thousand. Nope we opted instead to head into Vancouver BC. Now don’t think us unpatriotic we just wanted to see Vancouver before we had to move on and well there’s that crowd thing. We were in Canada for only a few miles when the traffic began to slow. Then it began to stop. We got caught in one of the worst traffic jams in I think Vancouver’s history! Seems a big rig had crashed on one of the bridges, caught fire and the whole freeway was shut down for several hours. A couple of hours later (it seemed a lot longer than that) we made it to the next exit, we took our chance and turned around heading back to Seattle without seeing anything of Vancouver.

Back at camp we barbequed a nice tri-tip roast and had a wonderful meal. Ah, life is good. It had been a hot, stressful day so it was so nice to just relax after having a wonderful meal and turn in for a good night’s sleep. It was about that time when the war broke out. At least that’s what it seemed like. Fireworks were going off all around. They are legal here and it seemed everyone had tons to blow up. Wow how exciting. We could see explosions in any direction. But having seen fireworks many times before I am not all that impressed. I just want to go to bed. The explosions continued however for literally hours. I think I finally fell asleep out of exhaustion around 2 AM. Sleepless in Seattle!

Road Revelation #4 – All is not what it appears to be, look closely.
When buying local produce, be the one to make the selections rather than the helpful clerk behind the counter. You may not get what you think it is if you don’t.

On The Road Again

Yep! We made it! The house is sold, the money is in the bank and we are officially on our Great Escape. Thursday June 28 we pulled out of the “Casa Chocolat” driveway for the last time, not exactly bright and early but closer to 11:00 to be truthful. I had hoped to leave by 9 with the plan to be rolling even earlier but I must admit it was a little hard to leave. Enough, no looking back now (well except to be sure the trailer is still there once in awhile). No this is not Mellie's new ride

Note the custom logos on hat and shirt, cool huh!

Lodi and the Sacramento River Delta

– Our first night found us in Lodi California. Thanks to our late start we did not pull into the RV park until after 9 pm. Consequently we quickly decided that this would be a nice place to stay for a couple of days. After all, there’s no rush anymore. Lodi is a nice quiet farming town with lots of fruit trees and vineyards. We attended church and unexpectedly ran into some acquaintances. So we were invited to their house for lunch and had a wonderful time reminiscing and catching up. I guess it points out the fact that we have not traveled far enough to get outside of our circle of friends. When this trip is completed that circle will cover all of the US I guess.


Sutherlin Oregon – Sunday we continued our trek northward. Not far from the California state line as we drove into Oregon the all to familiar clear blue skies transformed into a white overcast. It’s ok, we will get use to it. San Diegans are so spoiled with almost perfect weather.






Road Revelation #3 – Slow Down! I found I needed to remind myself what the whole purpose of this trip was, to SLOW DOWN. After a very hectic 3 week escrow we found that we were stuck in high gear. So when we arrived in Lodi late in the evening it was a pleasant revelation to just decide to stop for a couple of days. So those of you ahead on our agenda be warned, this rig makes frequent and unscheduled stops. We may be late. No let me rephrase that, we will be there in our time.