WOW! Yellowstone, Grand Tetons & Jackson Hole

Well, we made it to Yellowstone, what a park! We saw some really big buffalo, elk and deer but no bears. One buffalo got so close to our truck Mom could have pet it. We saw "old Faithful" do her thing. The park has so many geysers, including the mud volcano. Some of the geysers have a strong sulphur odor. Yellowstone will be a return trip for us in the future. Its an awesome park! We then toured the Grand Teton National Park. After seeing Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons were okay. The peaks are beautiful but we did not see any wildlife. We also did some shopping and sightseeing in Jackson Hole, WY. It is quite a resort town but with the old West flair.



But, best of all is that I made friends with 2 wonderful kids, Thayne and Rena, from Manitoba, Canada. They were so much fun to play with. They left to go home on Monday so I was left to play with Mom and Dad and Buddy, the RV park owner's dog. We are now spending the night in Utah as we travel to Gunnison, CO where Wyatt Earp once lived. I hope everyone has a nice Labor Day holiday.

Winding Down Our Washington Visit

We are winding down our visit to The Evergreen State of Washington. Tomorrow we start our trek to Boise, Idaho and then on to Yellowstone, The Grand Tetons and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. While here, we did visit British Columbia. Mom and Dad bought me a new toy, my own RCMP Mountie Bear. One day, Mom and Dad triked over to the Bavarian community of Leavenworth, Washington. It was too hot for me to ride with them so they had me stay home and guard the homefront. When they got back, they posted the sign they bought "CAUTION KILLER CHIHUAHUA ON DUTY". They liked Leavenworth but still prefer the Alpine village of Helen, Georgia. On Sunday, Mom and Dad triked to Seattle. They were amazed at how active the downtown and waterfront areas were for a Sunday. They found that Seattle is real proud of their parking lots as they charge $7.50 for the first 30 minutes. In keeping with their hobby of locating grave sites, they found the grave sites of "Green Hornet" star Bruce Lee and his son, Brandon Lee. Of course being near Seattle, we have seen quite a bit of rain the past couple of days.

"I Pooped In Paradise"

"I pooped in Paradise" is what's printed on doggie T-shirts being sold in the store here at the Paradise RV Resort in Silver Creek, Washington. We arrived here Saturday to a packed park. Washington is the 38th state we have visited since starting our life as fulltime RVers. Sunday we headed out to visit the famous volcano, Mount St Helens. On the way, we met up with Bigfoot. We had to be real nice to him. Mount St Helens is quite a view. A lot of the forests have regrown but there are still remnants of the eruption. Today we went to Mount Rainier, the highest point in Washington. It was real cool, literally, seeing the glaciers. The clouds were pretty low so we couldn't see the peak of the mountain, but it still was awesome. Wednesday we head North to tour the Seattle area and visit British Columbia. Take care my friends!!!!

Our last California stop was in the Redwood National Forest at Klamath. What a neat area, Pacific Ocean beaches on one side of the road and giant redwood trees on the other side. I have now seen the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. I wasn’t real excited about the ocean as the crashing waves scared me. The redwoods are big beautiful trees. “Next to Redwoods, everything else is a weed”. As you can see from the picture, we drove through the redwoods, literally. From California, we are now in Oregon. This morning we stopped to see Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the US, 1,943 feet deep. It was created 7,700 years ago when Mount Mazama erupted then collapsed into itself. We are now enjoying Oregon from the East side of the snowcapped Cascade Mountains.

San Francisco....Been There, Done That

We are currently in the California Delta area where we are enjoying the cool mornings. Saturday morning we rode the trike to San Francisco to do the tourist thing. We wanted to go to Alcatraz but when Dad went to buy the tickets for the boat ride out there, he found that they were sold out until Friday, August 1st. Can you believe that? Why do so many people want to tour an old prison on a rock in San Francisco Bay? We then decided to take a trike riding tour of the city where we saw Chinatown, Fishermans Wharf and the famed cable cars, among other things. We rode down Lombard St, the crookedest street in the country. In keeping with their hobby of finding historic grave sites, Mom and Dad took me to Colma, CA, home of all of San Francisco's cemeteries. They say there are more people below ground than above ground in Colma. We found the graves of Marshall Wyatt Earp and Baseball Hall of Famer Joe Dimaggio. We left San Francisco by riding the trike over the Golden Gate Bridge.

This morning, one of Dad's old co-worker buddies, Claude Taybi, came by and had coffee with Mom and Dad. Dad and Claude spent alot of time talking about the good old days. After that, Mom and Dad rode to Fairfield, CA and toured the Jelly Belly Factory. I wasn't allowed to go but I did get a Jelly Belly toy. This is the only "Jelly Belly" jelly bean factory in the world. They make over 145 million jelly beans every day and it takes up to 6 days to complete each jelly bean. Jelly Bellys have only been around since 1976 but the company has been making candy corn since 1900.

From news reports, we see where we left the Yosemite area just in time. There is a large fire between Mariposa, CA and Yosemite National Park. This is real close to where we had been staying.

In a couple of days, we will be heading North to the Redwoods National Park in Klamath, CA. Stay tuned.

BUSY AT BASS LAKE

Boy have we been busy since we arrived at Bass Lake. This is a beautiful area with all of the ponderosa pines. Saturday, Mom and Dad went to the Yosemite Mountain-Sugar Pine Narrow Gauge Railroad where they were treated to a steak dinner, a ride on a logging train and then entertained at a hootenanny by a campfire. They really enjoyed the evening. Sunday, we took a 71/2 hour ride on the trike on the Sierra National Scenic Byway through the

Sierra National Forest. We made a lot of stops to view the spectacular scenery. Mom even made a picnic lunch for us. Yesterday we left the RV park at 7:00 am to tour Yosemite National Park. Our first stop was to see the giant sequoias. Man are those big trees. As you can see in the picture, I am tiny compared to the trunk of one of those trees. It would take me a month to leave my scent around the trunk of one tree. Mom bought me a stuffed park ranger toy to go with my collection of stuffed toys from our travels. After touring Yosemite and all its splendor, we rode through Tioga Pass to visit Bodie, a California Gold Rush ghost town. When the mines were depleted, the citizens walked away from the town, leaving everything behind. California created a historic park to preserve the town as it was when the citizens left. It is an authentic ghost town. We are now resting up for our the next leg of our California excursion Thursday when were are off to Isleton. While there we will be touring San Francisco, Alcatraz and riding the Golden Gate Bridge. Until then......

More From California

We enjoyed our visit to Soledad Canyon. It was the first RV park on our Western swing where they actually had green grass growing. I got to lounge on the cool green grass and enjoyed every minute of it. While we were at Soledad, Mom and Dad toured the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. They found it very interesting. They also saw Reagan's grave and toured retired Air Force One, which was used by Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush.

We are now at Bass Lake, nestled in among the Ponderosa Pines. Since we are halfway through our California excursion, we thought it would be appropriate to take my picture at the exact geographic center of California. We are enjoying this beautiful area. We will be visiting Yosemite National Park and riding the Sierra Vista National Scenic Byway. I will be posting more pictures and updates as we go along, so please stay tuned.