Stan and Connie Spielbusch's Web Site

StanAndConnie.com

September 2002

September 2002

This was a busy month -- since we had a service appointment in Indiana on the 23rd, we had just 3 weeks to go from Oregon to Indiana and see some sights along the way (and of course get some work done too).

Beautiful Astoria, Oregon

We stopped just north of Portland for a few days, mainly to visit Mt. St. Helens. But Astoria was also highly recommended by the locals, so we decided to check it out. Now we can highly recommend it too.

Astoria is on the coast at the very tip of Oregon, right at the mouth of the Columbia river. Washington is "just across the bridge" -- but it's a 4-mile-long bridge! This is likely one of the many reasons it's known as "little San Francisco".

(Click photos to enlarge)

Astoria also has some very steep roads in the residential area like San Fransisco, and of course a lot of places to get fresh seafood. One of the most popular attractions is the "Column", from which the photos above were taken (after climbing nearly 200 steps). The Astoria Column is a tall lighthouse-type structure built on the highest hill in the area. Its only function seems to be a commemmoration of Lewis and Clark, whose trail ends near here. The column is decorated with an intricate mural spiralling all the way to the top, telling the story of their expedition.

Mount St. Helens

This was one of the most awe-inspiring locations we've ever visited. Not because of beauty (it certainly has its own kind of beauty), but because it's so hard to imagine the force that caused such devastation, and the fact that it happened within our lifetimes rather than millions of years ago. It doesn't seem like that long since Mount St. Helens erupted, but it was actually about 20 years ago. This is enough time for forests to start growing back, but only on the land re-planted by the lumber companies. In the part set aside for the national monument and untouched since the eruption, the devastation is still very apparent.

Here's a view of the mountain from a distance, showing part of the mud-flow down the river which still doesn't allow much to grow on it.

Closer in you see a landscape more like Mars, with mud/lava flows and the erosion of the "soft" mud by snow-melt streams.

See the little "lump" in the middle of the crater? That's actually lava that's still oozing up, and the mound is growing every day. So in a way it's still erupting, just very slowly now. If you want to see what it looks like right now, check out the volcano-cam here: http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/

Northern Cascades Scenic Highway

When it came time to leave Washington (or at least get to north-central Washington where we had some business), we decided to take the advice of locals again and take the "most scenic highway in the world". We're sure glad we did!

Besides being 137 miles of excellent road in great condition, it has some fantastic scenery. Though there were some clouds hiding the higher peaks, we were still treated to some great vistas. Much of the road winds along a river, dotted by lakes created by dams. No wonder we saw postcards with "The dam state of Washington" on them!

There are a few surprises if you stop and look around at some of the many turn-outs. It seems like every national park has some point of interest called an "emerald pool". Well, I've never seen one that compares to this little pool along the road, surrounded by huge boulders that fall into the river and get rounded by the frequent torrents of water let loose by the dams.

Winthrop, Washington

At the end of the Northern Cascades highway, you feel like you just went through a time warp as you wind up right in the middle of this old-west-theme town.

Automobiles look strangely out of place in this quaint little tourist town, even though they do have a gas station. You gotta love the sign that shows the prices:

We also got to visit some friends that have an organic apple orchard in Brewster. Connie was excited to get to pick some apples, the first time she had ever seen an apple tree up close! Here's a nice close-up of the delicious Gala apples on the tree too.

Highway 17

Winding our way back down to I-90 on highway 17 and other "back roads", we happened on some more great scenery. One surprise was "Dry Falls", which looks just like a rest area along the highway but actually has its own visitor center and viewing area just like a miniature national park. This was once the location of a large waterfall which carved out the start of a canyon. It's an unusual site in the middle of the desert-like area of central Washington.

Of course we saw a few more dams creating long, skinny lakes in this canyon area, which made for some great scenery along with the steep cliffs.

Montana

We pretty much just whizzed through Montana -- we would show you some pictures of the "big sky", but the sky was so big it wouldn't fit in the camera!

Yellowstone

We did stop to see Yellowstone National park (which is mostly in Wyoming, but we stayed at a park in Livingston Montana). Yellowstone is one huge park! It took the whole day just to drive the loop road around the park (of course stopping often to see all of the sights).

What's in Yellowstone? Well, Old Faithful for one (the famous geyser). But there are many many more geysers, from bubbling little mud-pots to large steaming pools to violent water-spouts. Some are constantly active, while others may only erupt every several years. Yellowstone is actually the caldera (crater) of an enormous volcano, which is still active in the form of geysers -- the magma that caused the original volcano to erupt (more like an explosion) long ago is still hot and relatively near the surface, providing the heat for all of the geysers.

Also in Yellowstone you'll find waterfalls, huge lakes, colorful canyons, and lots of wildlife (the bison seem to own the roads)... and me!

Iowa

We pretty much had to zip across South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois to make our appointment in Indiana, but we did get to stay the night with some friends on their farm in Iowa. Once again Connie was excited to get a first-hand agriculture experience, this time with soy beans -- she ate some right off of the plant!

It was also fun to climb into a huge John Deer combine and see things from the farmer's perspective. The tires are bigger than Connie!

Now that our motorhome service is done, we're headed back to the Kansas City area and will stay there through Thanksgiving to visit family and friends. When we're in K.C. we actually stay in a great little RV park in Independence, Campus RV Park. It's a clean & friendly little park with all the ameneties we need, and with a lot of things to do in the area.

Thank you for visiting our travel site. Please visit our other sites too:

Campground Master -- A tracking program for your campground or inn. Easy to use and learn, but modern and powerful. One of the most inexpensive systems, great for small campgrounds. Designed by campground owners and full-time RVers.

MysteryPhotos -- Every week a new photo is shown, which may be a close-up of something, or a section of a common object or sight. Guess what it is and you might win a prize. Lots of fun for the whole family! Free screensaver and wallpaper too.

Awesome Screen Savers -- Cool photographic screen savers of the highest quality, for Windows PC's. Download FREE Lite versions of them all. Some are created with photos from our travels, some are awesome photos from NASA. (Contact me to have a screen saver made with your own photos!)

Cottonwood Software -- My shareware business site, currently featuring File-Ex 98: a Windows 95/98 dialog enhancement tool. Great for people who work with a lot of files.

Free -n- Cool -- Tons of Freebies, Giveaways, and Cool Sites -- all in one! You'll find a large selection of free samples you can get mailed to you, free games, screen savers, internet services, etc., plus hundreds of contests of all types, and a unique "intensely cool sites" list.