The Preparations

  An extended RV trip is not like a cruise where you unpack your bags & start to play. It is a bit more like moving into a new home, only for us we have been here before so we get better at recomissioning each time.

3/29: First stop after picking up our truck at Easton's small airport, was a run to the trailer to bring it out of its six month rest. No creatures had taken up residence in our absence due to the collection of drier sheets &ample mothballs scattered about inside. First jobs was pick up the mothballs scattered around inside, open some windows, connect the battery, turn the fridge on, get the trailer off supporting blocks then off to a hotel for the night.

Winter home & one of our empty 30# propane bottles

3/30  Next day, bright & early, it is off to the races. Off to Dover, DE to pick up a new laptop, camera & put new batterys in the truck. Next is back to the chicken farm, where the trailer is stored, connect up & head for the supermarket. Two trips around. One for the dry goods. The second for the chill. Load from cart right into trailer. Next stop, our second home, Severn Marine on Tilghman Island. The boatyard is one busy place this year. Our usual prime waterside location is occupied so we are in a hole surrounded by boats. We should complain to management but wait...oh yeah...accomodation is free, so we had better shut up.

 

  Carolyn hates grocery shopping in Bermuda but a highlight of supplying ourselves is a trip to the Amish Farmers Market in Easton. We load up with almost a couple months supply of meats one time. The Bermuda value is a scary thought.

  4/1: Friday is a maintenance day. I get started on a short list of repairs. Carolyn gets her hair done.

4/2  Saturday it is off to Cambridge to the Maryland Boatbuilders show. Small but interesting then a late lunch with Carl, Tony & friends. Crabcake sandwiches of course.

4/3  So far no outside work has been done. It has been freezing. Don't think the temp has made it over 50 yet! This is a very busy time of year for the boatyard so we are much appreciative of being squeezed in somewhere. Most of the boats passing through the yard are working boats used for crabbing on the Bay though around back a Sabre had taken up winter residence.



Jammed in

4/4: Finally get sort of a break with the weather & tackle the odds & ends of outside work plus do some refinishing work in the workshop. Last year nail polish remover was splattered all over the chest of drawers while on the road & ate right through the finish so the whole thing had to be redone.

4/5: More sanding & refinishing, reassembling then head out to nearby Martinac State Park for first official night on the road & a much needed dump of holding tanks along with a first time refill using our only big dollar upgrade this year, a water softening filter which works like a champ.

The Onion Cart Travels: 2011

2011: Spring into Summer. Back to Alaska 

March 23nd: Six days to go

  There is something about The North that draws you back so here we are headed back to Alaska. It has only been three years since the first trip but we are looking forward to it as much as the first time.

  This time we go with lessons learned from the first time like go a little later. Seasons change fast in the north so this time we are traveling just a little later. Basically only a week.

  This year we head west by a more southerly route so we won't get snowed in in Minnesota like in 2008. This time we cross Missouri & S Nebraska right at the height of thunderstorm & tornado season. Hmmmmm.... We still stand a good chance of getting snowed on up north but that risk is worth it to see the mountains still covered with snow. They make for much more spectacular pics that way.

  No emails this time with great huge photo files to clog up your hard drives just a notification via our gmail account that something new has been added to the blog. As before additions to the blog will be subject primarily to Internet availability. State Park campgrounds, National Park campgrounds & Provincial Park campgrounds, which are all our preference do not have WIFI. Typically once a week is laundry day & that is when we search out a commercial campground with WIFI.

  New this time will be a pay as you go Blackberry type phone so if we have cell service, in the US anyway, we can text to our hearts content. Will post the number when we get the phone sometime next week.

  Current US Tracfone # is 860 539 2924. It does not work in Canada. Bermuda Digicel phone does not work much of anywhere except in major cities so it is turned off most of the time. We can be found on Skype by searching onioncart or Doug Shirley. We will be getting a new laptop so a new Skype address might be created.

Here is the overall map & sections of it to give a little more detail. Note that the numbered spots are not all stops. Many are waypoints to make the mapping program plot the desired route rather than the shortest route.

Click on the maps to enlarge.
  

Looks huge inna?  Check Edmonton WP 54 is only halfway to Homer, AK, WP 75

Northwest bound is by the southern route

A somewhat different scale

This gives a better idea of how big the Canadian Narthwest is compared to Alaska which is itself bigger than Texas

 

Missouri to Tilghman Island

I don't know how so many people do these 300, 400 sometimes 500 mile days. If we were not on a  deadline to meet this would not be happening. We drive, switching drivers every couple hours. Getting to the west side of the Appalachians is like almost being on the home stretch even though the Chesapeake Eastern Shore is a solid days drive away. Denver to Tilghman Island, Monday morning to Friday afternoon.

There is always something interesting sitting

in the yard at Severn Marine

Dead Horse State Park to mid Missouri #6

The run home. We had a a deadline to meet. Be home for Jennys 25th birthday, or else.

The race east part 1

Well... the first part was not so much of a race. First stop after Dead Horse was just east of Grand Junction, CO where we sort of holed up for the 4th July weekend. We almost never make reservations, let alone make them far in advance, but we have learned that for big holidays like July 4th you had better have reservations or there is no getting a spot. Just like Paradise Lake & Cup Match.

Island Acres State Recreation Area WP#2 on map

Island Acres

Island Acres

BOOM

From a little east of Grand Junction we get into very familiar territory especially past the Copper Mountain ski area & the Eisenhour tunnel on I70 where we run into the worst traffic jam of the trip caused by people headed back to the Denver area after the holiday. Lesson learned. Stay an extra day & avoid the homeward rush.

Back to the Boulder area for an optomotrist visit & contacts pickup then down to Chatfield State Park just south of Denver for an Irish Music Festival. Chatfield is one huge park the size of at least three of Bermudas parishes & a reservoir near the size of the Great Sound in the middle.

Chatfield SP looking SW WP#4 on map

Bagpipe band competition @ Irish Festival

A band from Nova Scotia

The Festival was a two day event starting mid day & going on to 11 or so.

Nature saved one of the most spectacular sunsets for right near the end of the trip. This is the back end of a thunderstorm that fortunately slid by ten or fifteen miles to the north of us. Fortunate because it dumped sizable hail ontop of N Denver.

Monday morning, after the rush, the race was on headed east. Lovely weather till near Colby, Kansas. Out on the plains is like being on the ocean. You can see for miles. We got lucky & dodged another thunderstorm that produced damaging hail in Colby less than half an hour after we passed through town. Thanks to the VHF ham radio in the truck we were able to talk to hams in Colby with radar access telling us where & which way the storm was headed. No tornadoes produced by this one.

Sequoia/Kings Canyon NP, Las Vegas to Dead Horse State Park, CO

There are no pics of our long days trip from Sequoia to Las Vegas. Lets just say it was extremely hot. The temp got up to 106 at times in low areas. Almost all of the trip was over 100. Most of the time it was around 104. We saw lots of veicles broken down beside the highway. More time was spent watching engine guages & trying to be easy on the truck than watching speed. We stopped from time to time to check tires. Never felt them so hot. A couple of seconds was all you could touch them for. That hot! Very stressful driving. Worse than any mountain, city or snow driving I've ever done. Didn't tell Carolyn at the time.

Dead Horse sunset

Dead Horse Sunset

Second time for us here. It is a special place high on a mesa

far from any other human habitation.

Colorado river passing through Dead Horse SP



 

Fremont Street: downtown Vegas

   

Freemont Street

Yosemite National Park & Sequoia Redwoods National Park

From San Francisco it was a days drive south in California's central valley then east up to Yosemite. Yosemite is the Disney World of the National Parks. More people visit this one than any other. Glad we did not try to stay inside the park. The CGs in the valley are not set up for RVs our size at all. We found a CG in Mariposa. We did 2 days in the area. First day we parked the truck & used our bikes on the very extensive paved bike trail system. The trails were very quiet compared to the very busy shuttle buses running between the sights. The second day we drove out to the end of Glacier Point road to get the views over the valley.

Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite. Must be 2nd to Niagara

as most photographed in the world

Mirror Lake

Half Dome from valley floor

Half Dome from Glacier Point high above the valley

Enlarge to look for vehicles on roads below

Winter snowmelt. rivers running very full.

Too bad there is no sound for this one.

Plenty of snow in June

Half Dome

Enlarge & look very carefully. There are about 50

people ONTOP of Half Dome. Little specks.

Yosemite Village below

Novato to Sequoia Kings Canyon

National Park

Sequoia Redwood National Park

A fallen giant

High in Kings Canyon National Park

Another very full very dangerous rapids

Road into Kings Canyon

Roadside wild flowers

It is why they are called redwoods

Redwood grove