Home Sweet Home - Penrose Point

Home Base .................. The Beach on Puget Sound

Home sweet Penrose Point State Park Washington. After 4587 miles on the RV, we have arrived to the first “working” stop on our summer 2008 journey. Penrose Point is located on the Puget Sound about 15 miles from Tacoma (but 5 miles if you can fly.) It is a quiet park filled on the nice weekends by city-dwellers, clam diggers and fish-people. It is nestled in a forest described as second growth. The trees, mostly Douglas Fir and Maple, are tall and majestic. They not only shade the sun, but they catch most of the light rain in the area right up in the canopy.

We arrived in late April, meet the ranger staff, then we flew away to a camporee for Washington State Park Hosts. We endured countless demonstrations (ok, so you could count them) and seminars on the aspects of being a good host and representing the park in a professional manner. The Hall goal is to make ourselves available without making ourselves intrusive. As with other stops on our journey, the food was excellent. We also learned a little about Dutch Oven cooking, something Sally has vowed to try. Actually Sally is ready to go back to solar cooking at the last stop in the summer work cycle.

Driving across Snoqualmie Pass .... The Camporee

At the Dry Falls near Grand Coulee Dam

The first weekend at the campground was very quiet. We filled our hours doing small labor jobs and tending to the campground. We did, however, get the opportunity to attend a training session for the Harbor Wildwatch. We were participating with naturalists spotting and “collecting” saltwater animals for the touch tanks for the demonstrations. This was so much fun; we decided to get a license to do some collecting of our own.

Harbor WildWatch at Penrose Point

We bought shellfish licenses and we are now clam diggers. Our first clam dig got us three steamers (little neck clams), three horse clams and one cockle. We are just learning the process, but Sally steamed four of the clams and the cockle and made some delicious clam chowder. This could turn into a habit.

Our first "weekend" took us on a riding tour of the Olympic Peninsula. We drove up to Port Angeles, stopping at several state parks and visitor centers to retrieve the offerings (check our pamphlets) to prepare for future journeys in the area. We are sure we will try to stay one night at the Salt Creek Recreation Area in Clallam County. It has a beautiful view over to Vancouver Island in Canada. We also drove up Hurricane Ridge to see the Olympic Mountains. It has some very nice views. It still has several feet of snow, but the roads are clear.

View of Canada from Salt Creek & Sally at Hurricane Creek

The work is easy, the area is nice. Sally made a good choice for our first work stop. More on the area will appear as we explore.

Mt Ranier from Penrose Point
Happy Trails.

Up the West Coast

Cal-i-for-nia here we come. After about three weeks in the desert, we arrived in California. I-80 is a tough interstate. The mountains we climbed were tall enough to have snow (it was snowing as we drove across.) The road was rough from trucks using chains to drive the pass. We were coming across just a day before a big storm was to hit the area. The entire trip on I-80 was very windy, but the higher elevations were really “exciting”. The weather was enough to make us change our original route plans. We had planned to get off of the interstate, but changed our minds.

We drove to a quiet campground near Upper Lake California. We arrived early in the day (about 1 pm) and just took an afternoon to read and recharge our batteries.

We moved to Trinidad the next day. (California, not the Caribbean) Trinidad is the entry point for the Redwoods National Park. We stopped at the Park information center. We took a nice drive through the park. All along our drive we saw the roughness of the Pacific Ocean with it’s large beaches and rocky coastlines. It is a beautiful sight.

Magnificent Redwoods


Sally is dwarfed by the redwood stump

We moved on into Oregon with our first stop in Coos Bay. We stayed there three days to take advantage of the National Wildlife Refuges. We had been contacted by two of the coast refuges about working this summer. We actually got to meet one of our contacts while we out looking at the wildlife. We also took advantage of our stop to eat at a couple of seafood restaurants.

Driving the coast has its challenges. We drove Highway 101 from Trinidad, south of Eureka, CA, into Oregon. It is a drive with major changes in elevations - we drove through snow at about 1000 feet in elevation and rain and wind near 10 feet in elevation. The coastal road is very winding and narrow in many places. Some places it looks like the redwoods are right on the shoulder. It took nearly 6 hours to travel the 250 miles.

Snow on the road

Coos Bay is where the Redwood Country of California and Oregon gives way to the Oregon Dunes. The dunes are MUCH larger than what you may expect. They look more like hills!

We drove from Coos Bay to Netarts, Oregon. The drive was once again exciting with the wind, rain and narrow roads. We have seen a lot of wet weather since getting into the coastal states. Lots of beautiful scenery, lots of good chowder, and lots of soup weather in April!

Netarts is very close to Tillamook, which is the home of Tillamook cheese. On the way north the next morning, we stopped to take a quick tour of the cheese factory and sample a bit of the cheese.

Making cheese in Tillamook

But after our arrival at Long Beach, Washington, the weather has taken a good turn. The boundary between Washington & Oregon is the Columbia River -and it is huge! The bridge from Astoria, OR, and Washington is not as long as the Ponchartrain bridge, but it is MUCH taller. Once we crossed, we stopped at Dismal Nitch to try to get some Washington information, but we were disappointed at the rest area, no kiosks. Dismal Nitch is where Lewis & Clark spent a week during an early November snow storm on their way to the beach. Their next stop was Disappointment Cape, but we drove right past. Finally we arrived in Long Beach - where Lewis & Clark found their goal. The Pacific Ocean, which they decided is not really as peaceful as the name suggests. But we enjoyed walking to the beach and dipping our feet in the water. Then we toured Marsh's Free Museum (you have to see the 2-headed calf and Jake, the Alligator Man).



Tom in the Pacific


The Museum

We did get a break in the weather, and a break from the road. It has been a nice stay.

Tomorrow we head to the May worksite at Penrose Point State Park on the Puget Sound west of Tacoma.

Spectacular Natural Wonders

The miles are rolling away fast and the touring is great. Since our last visit we have traveled to The Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, and Arches National Park. The views have been breathtaking (everyone breathe deeply). Many oooh-ahhh moments have happened.

After leaving Tucson, we parked the motor-home in Williams Arizona. It is about 60 miles away from the canyon. We hit the road to the canyon early to try and get good pictures. We did very well, walking the rim trail for about 2.5 miles, looking out over the havoc that nature does wroth. We learned a lot of history about the explorers of the canyon and the mining that brought people to the area. Most miners were disappointed with the finds, but some realized this could be an attractive tourist site. So they improved their claims and built hotels and shops. It is quite a history.

View from the rim...............Bright Angel Lodge

More views.........................Plus proof we were really there!

The second day in Williams is another misnomer; we spent the day going to Winslow (as in the Eagles song “Take It Easy”). Then we took a look at some cliff dwellings at Walnut Canyon on the way back to Williams.

Standing on the Corner...........Cliff Dwellers in Arizona

Dinner that evening was at the Route 66 Cafe. We enjoyed the malt - a real treat. Williams was the last town on Route 66 that was bypassed by I40. They have the traffic light in the local visitor center. Someday we'll do the whole route.

Note James Dean in the background!

We started heading for Moab Utah, with a stop planned for Monument Valley. There are rock formations that have been revered by the Navajo for centuries. There have been a few western films shot there (at least the exterior shots) including the first Stagecoach.

Monument Valley - can you imagine John Wayne riding through this scenery

Moab Utah is the home of Arches National Park. It is famous for the sandstone rock formations, weathered by rain and wind to create holes in the rock. Once again we started an early day to get decent pictures.

There really is too much to see in just a couple of days. We hope to make it back sometime and spend more time exploring.

The Arches

After leaving the red rock country, we traveled up through Salt Lake City and across towards Nevada. It was so windy crossing the Bonneville Salt Flats that we went through a dust/salt storm. We made an unscheduled stop at Wendover, NV, because it was too windy to drive comfortably.

Bonneville - Salt Storm?

Our tour through Nevada included a couple of nights in a little town close to Reno. We drove up to Reno and over the Sierra Nevada to see Lake Tahoe. It was gorgeous. We didn't realie that the lake was so clear!

Lake Tahoe

The next day we crossed into California and started north - but that story will have to wait for our next post.

Happy Trails!

Touring the Southwest

It has been more than 7 days and 1000 miles since our last post. We have explored the some of the sights of Corpus Christi Texas, Carlsbad Caverns New Mexico, White Sands Missile Range New Mexico and Tucson Arizona. We have had some wonderful tours, some self guided, others graciously lead by hosts.

RV Park on the bay--USS Lexington

We last posted in Corpus Christi. We had a wonderful visit with Sally’s nephew Brian, his wife Donice and their spunky daughter Evie. While in town, we visited the USS Lexington, a decommissioned World War II aircraft carrier. It is a floating museum dedicated to the effort in the Pacific and the aircraft used on carriers before and since WW II. We had a truly enjoyable time (and ate very well, again.) We thank our hosts, Brian and Donice.

We next toured the Carlsbad Caverns National Park. There is a cave with many interesting formations. We visited Mammoth Cave 2 years ago and it is the longest cave, but Carlsbad has many interesting rooms with views, (of course) of different rock formations.

Carlsbad Caverns - the sign - the entrance - the Big Room

One thing to note before you get the impression it is all fun and adventure, we still have to maintain our motor-home and ourselves. We traveled over 750 miles in two days between Corpus Christi and Carlsbad. That takes a lot out of travelers.

Golf in White Sands

Our next stop was a day trip to White Sands Missile Range and White Sands National Monument near Las Cruces New Mexico. WSMR is where the first atomic bomb exploded and where the US started it’s space program with the V-2 rockets brought back from Germany at the end of World War II. There is a museum(fascinating, but small). It includes one of the original V-2s and many other missiles tested there. Then there is white sand. It’s a very white desert of gypsum sand dunes in the middle of a “normal” desert. It was an interesting side trip, and afterwards we did some food shopping in Las Cruces, then moved on to a campground where we holed up for two nights just to recharge before moving to Tucson.

We needed a day of rest before meeting up with our friends Glenn and Karin and our favorite 60pound lapdog, Cooper. They are the buddies we traveled to and from Alaska with last year. They’ve led us on a whirlwind tour of beautiful desert scenery and exceptional weather (for those of us from Alabama). It’s nice and warm during the day, cool at night and very, very, very dry!

Hiking in the desert ---Hummingbirds Close up---Desert in Bloom

We’ve been hiking in Sabino State Park and driving through the Saguaro National Park. Tucson had a very rainy winter which led to the best spring blooming season in 10 years. The desert is full of beautiful blooms – wildflowers and cactus! We have lots of pictures. We also visited the Sonora Desert Museum which is more like a cross between a zoo and a botanical garden. We got very friendly with hummingbirds and a couple of Harris’s Hawks and saw lost more beautiful desert blooms. Finally we toured Kartchner Caverns – a pristine cave that is still growing. You have to go through two airlocks entering and leaving and walk through a mister to keep the lint down. They are very careful to affect the cave environment as little as possible. Unfortunately that means no pictures. And finally we went to Tombstone so Tom could have his picture made in front of the OK Corral.

Lunch in the Crystal Palace in Tombstone near the OK Corral --- Sonora Desert Museum

We’ve also had lots of really good food – rouladen, steaks at a western themed steak house, Chinese, pancakes, pork chops on the grill, curry, Mexican and more. We also enjoyed the pool and hot tub at the park they live in. It was a great stay and we hated to leave.

Now we are on our way to Northern Arizona to visit the Grand Canyon. Then it’s on to Utah.

On the Road Again!

It's spring and Tom & Sally have hit the road again!

It has been a while since our last posting. We have finished our winter volunteer stint at Eufaula National Wildlife Refuge. We spent a lot of time helping with updating the filing and other necessary administrative items. We also enjoyed outside work related activities. The birds have been magnificent. We have seen ducks and geese and other waterfowl, and Tom has seen a Whooping Crane that flew in with some sandhill cranes. They are very rare, only about 600 known to be in existence. The known birds are numbered and have a radio transmitter attached. This one was something like 948 and a person from the University of Minnesota came down in a van to track the migration.

We started our journey this summer with a visit to the to the house doctor. We needed some minor repairs on the RV and truck. Both items went off without a hitch, so we actually made our first stop at a campground scheduled for the second day. We are members of a club called Escapees. They have a park near Fairhope Alabama. We stayed there two nights. We walked along the beach and enjoyed the company of those who live the nomadic life. Even made it to the Flora-Bama!

The Beach at Gulf Shores - strong wind warning in effect

We then moved over to New Orleans (or Westwego on the south bank to be exact.) Friday Stephen and the Murphy’s threw a crawfish boil for 40. It was quite a treat and we thank all those who put so much effort into the party. We were able to sit around a visit on Saturday and Sunday. Easter services were grand and the brunch at Patois was fantastic.

The crawfish are ready!

Birthday party in the backyard

We moved on the Abbeville Louisiana to Betty’s RV Park on Monday to rest and relax a little bit. This park is a great hang out (see last year’s blog) with a chance to enjoy the company of other RV’ers. Betty has a “Happy Hour” where folks bring snacks and drinks and just talk about the activities everyone enjoyed during the day. We got to see a few people we saw last year, in all another good time.

After two days of hard driving in a tremendous wind (gusts up to 50 miles per hour) we have arrived at Corpus Christi Texas. On the way we made a stop at Aransas NWR where we spent the morning driving the auto tour route and looking at the birds. And Sally finally got to see her whooper in the wild from the observation tower.

Aransas Refuge

We are stopped now in Corpus Christi for sight seeing and to see our grand niece Evie. Brian and Donice (Sally’s nephew and niece) live here in this area of the Gulf of Mexico. We are staying in a very nice campground that Brian found for us, with a pool and hot tub, horse shoes and in general all the amenities snowbirders look for in a winter home.

Beach near Corpus Christi

This summer we'll be traveling west again - just not quite as far north. We're spending May & June camp-hosting at a couple of Washington State Parks. Then in August we'll be at Malheuer National Wildlife Refuge in the hig desert of eastern Oregon. We're spending six weeks getting to Washington - Tom has a complete itinerary but we expect to deviate a little. Here's the plan from here forward:

• Ride across Texas
• Visit Carlsbad Caverns
• Head for Tucson to spend a week with our friends Glenn & Karin who went to Alaska with us
• Grand Canyon & Hoover Dam
• Four Corners (Utah, Arizona, California, New Mexico)
• Moab, UT
• Then either across Nevada and California to the coast and up I-5 to Tacoma or north to a camp host training session in eastern Washington before heading to our first assignment

The gas prices have not frightened us off completely, and the wind and the miles have not deterred us. So look for postings in the near future. Good luck to everyone out there.

PS: Don't you love the pictures? - Sally has a new camera and is having a great time with it.

• North to Washington

Mid-January Update - no snow :-(

It's already been a month since our last update - can hardly believe it!

We are still at the Eufaula NWR volunteering. We've been able to work outside some, but the weather has not been the best. It is winter and that means gloomy days with occasional rain. Some areas north of us in Alabama got snow overnight, but we just got rain. No complaints though - every inch helps the drought situation here.

We had a great Christmas, traveling all over as usual. The Hall family Christmas was the 22nd - we stayed at Tom's dad's house the night before and drove all the way from Gordo to Eufaula after the party Saturday. The next day we headed south for a couple of days at Sally's dad's house. Of course we watched the Chrismas Story (Sally's annual Christmas ritual). Christmas we headed back to Eufaula and ate Chinese for lunch. No singing waiters, but still pretty close...

Since then we've done some relaxing at home and taken turns giving each other a day of solitude. That really helps when you live in less than 300 square feet!

For Sally's birthday we went to Atlanta for the Thrashers - Montreal hockey game. It was two for Thursday so we got half price tickets and sat in the lower level for the first time. Tom caught a t-shirt during the first intermission - an unexpected birthday gift for Sally it turns out. Atlanta didn't win, but at least they got one point in the standings.

This coming weekend is the first weekend of Mardis Gras and we are visiting Stephen & Katie in New Orleans and hit some parades. Maybe afterwards we'll get a chance to post some pictures.

We have decided where we are going for next summer. We'll be in Washington volunteering as campground hosts during May & June. July we'll take off to explore. Then in August we'll volunteer at the Malheur NWR in southeast Oregon. On the way, we should be able to explore some of the Southwest (Carlsbad Caverns, Grand Canyon, etc.)

Hope everyone has a Happy New Year - keep in touch.

Annual Christmas Letter

Merry Christmas

Happy New Year

From the traveling Halls

We have had a wonderful year in 2007. It has been so exciting, as you know if you've read our previous posts.

We spent the summer in Alaska - a trip of a lifetime. But we hope not the last time we get to visit. Sally is even tempted to make Alaska home one day (but Tom adds that she says that about every place we visit!)

We visited with many of our friends and relatives - all the way from Tacoma WA to Seaford DE to Florida to New Orleans and Alabama.

Stephen finished his year of clerking with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, passed the bar in Louisiana and started work with a law firm in New Orleans. He and Katie bought a home in Uptown New Orleans. It's a beautiful modified shotgun - a very "New Orleans" type of home.

Tom turned 50 in Alaska - a big milestone celebrated with our friends Glenn & Karin (and Cooper).

We hope that all of you have had a great year, too, and that we all have a wonderful 2008!

Now to catch up with our posts for the past two months.....

You may have noticed that we haven't posted much. No excuses, we just could not keep up the pace of earlier in the year. We are sorry and will try to do better in the future. However, we currently only have a dial up connection, so the pictures will be few and far between.

Last you heard of us (on the blog), we were back in the US and headed for home, via I-90 (Montana, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois).

We did make it; we did lots of sightseeing and have visited lots of family since then. We are settled in back at the Eufaula National Wildlife Refuge. Some things have changed here (one ranger has moved on to a job in the Smokies and the assistant manager is in Iraq for a year, the goats are gone). Other things are the same (lots of work for us to do, lots of birds, a great place to stay).

Places we saw and stayed:

• The Black Hills of SD, Wall Drug
• The Mitchell Corn Palace (SD)
• DeSmet, SD where Laura Ingalls Wilder lived as a girl and teenager and where most of her books were set
• The Wisconsin Dells where we visited with Tom's brother Roy and family (including 6 month old Peyten - a sweet little girl)
• The Jolly Green Giant - in Minnesota
• Peoria - to visit with Sally's sister Suzi and see her fancy new sheep barn

Pictures will be posted some day soon when we have faster internet access. Dial up just isn't fast enough!

Back in the Lower 48

Last time you heard from us, we were in BC having just visited Hyder, Alaska. We have traveled a long way since then...currently we are parked in Rapid City, South Dakota, visiting the Black Hills and Badlands.

Hyder Sign

Our last view of Alaska was this sign just as we crossed the border back into Canada. You can see where Hyder's dirt road turns into pavement and you can see the Canadian Customs office (the US doesn't have one at this border crossing).

And so south through BC to Vancouver.

Old Totems at Kitwangak - located at the end of the Cassiar Highway.

That was the beginning of a gradual return to civilization. We stayed at Smithers, BC, in a Safeway parking lot. Then in Prince George and in Hope before driving into Vancouver, where we spent about an hour in a traffic jam on a 4 lane highway. That's almost as stressful as driving an hour on frost heaves but much less interesting.

Double vision? This Starbucks is across the street from

this Starbucks...

We stayed at a park in West Vancouver, across the Lion's Gate Bridge from Stanley Park. Karin & Glenn got to do a lot of sightseeing. We all ate well - returned to a couple of our haunts from when I worked in Vancouver. Rodney's Oyster House, Jester's, Komi's (for sushi). We also went to the Sun-Yat Sen Gardens and ate a great dinner afterwards in Chinatown.

The next day we headed south across the border. This was our longest border crossing - we waited in line for at least 45 minutes. At least the crossing itself was uneventful.

We stayed in Tacoma two nights and visited family and friends. Darlene and Tony are packing up to move. We ate with them on the night they heard that their house sale was final - a celebratory meal at Warthog's Barbecue. Very good ribs. We also ate dinner with a work friend of Sally's from Seattle.

One goal in the area had been to get the RV fixed - we have several nagging minor problems. We didn't have any luck with the RV, but while we were driving down I5 we spotted Mt Rainier and I managed to get a picture from a Camping World parking lot. Not as scenic as our Denali pictures, but we did get to see the mountain.

Rainer from Camping World in Tacoma

The past three days we spent driving across Washington, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. It's beautiful country - lots of mountain passes, ranch and grassland and now the Black Hills.

We stopped at what was one of the largest ranches in Montana in the first half of the 20th century - Grant-Kohr's National Historic Site. And we also visited Prairie Town State Park (it's a little pull off beside the highway where a prairie dog colony live).

Grant-Kohr's Ranch House

Prairie Dog

The weather has been fine so we cooked out in rest areas and just enjoyed ourselves. We plan to spend the next few days here in South Dakota visting Mt Rushmore, the Badlands, DeSmet (where Laura Ingalls Wilder lived as a girl and teenager and married Almanzo).

It won't be long till we are back down south, hopefully it will cool off and fall will arrive with us.

See you soon!