Tag: volunteering

2025 Spring Road Trip – Mount Rainier National Park

Tuesday, May 27, 2025

On Wednesday, May 21st we left the Fred Meyer parking lot at 6:20am looking forward to exploring Mount Rainier National Park.  The drive out of town into the mountains was beautiful.  There were many mountain streams and beautiful trees. The roads became steeper and curvier as we drove.  We drove through White Pass at 4,500 feet.  Very pretty.  The day before, Google said that the shortest way into Mount Rainier was closed.  However, when we checked this morning it said that the shortest way was open.  How great was that!  We thought this was going to save us an hour’s drive.  But – it didn’t.

After turning around and driving back out and around for another hour, we finally reached the Visitor’s Center.  We of course got our National Park Passport stamped and talked to the ranger about some hikes.  We began with a short hike near the visitor’s center to get our first view of the mountain.  It was clouded in, but we could see a little of it.  Then we hiked the Carter Falls trail.  This was a more challenging hour and forty-five-minute hike.  The falls were worth the hike.  Great payoff.

There were many more hikes available, but it was time for us to be moving on and we headed to Olympic National Park in Port Angeles, Washington (far north).  We stopped at Gig Harbor in route to have our Wednesday night Bible Study.  Since we were in Washington our normal 7:00pm Bible study was at 5:00pm.  This is a real adjustment for us especially when it doesn’t get dark until 9:00pm.  After the Bible study, we proceeded to Port Angeles.

2025 Spring Road Trip – MT to ID to WA

Monday, May 26, 2025

We were pretty exhausted when we arrived in Big Timber Sunday night.  It was not yet dark, but it was after 8:30pm, so about a twelve-hour day.  On Monday, May 19th we awoke from a great night’s sleep, to a beautiful sunny day even though it required our furnace to warm up BB.  It wasn’t until we opened the blinds and drove a few blocks to the Big Timber Bakery that we realized just how beautiful the day really was.  It had snowed on the mountain tops overnight and it was a post card morning.  Stunning.

Someone online had recommended the Big Timber Bakery, and we are so glad we decided to follow their suggestion.  It was a locally owned bakery, the kind where the men in in town gather every morning to solve the problems of the world.  We had their classic breakfast and left with a few pastries as well. Everything was cooked just the way we liked it.  Highly recommend.  Everyone we met in Big Timber was so nice.  Our drive through downtown gave us a great impression of the town – so clean and nice murals on many of the walls.  It was obvious there had been a lot of effort put into the downtown area.

We departed Big Timber wishing we could spend more time there.  It might be someplace where we could spend some summers.  However, we had other targets for this trip.  It’s a road trip, not a settle down trip so on we went.  We continued to drive I-90 across the wide open western states.  From Big Timber, Montana to our first “new” state, Idaho  We enjoyed this drive but we only stopped to feed BB some gas and rest areas to get our steps, and a stop in St Regis, MT for huckleberry milk shakes.  Best we have ever had.  We spent the night in the Post Falls Cabela’s parking lot – with permission, of course. Thanks, Cabela’s.

On May 20th we left Cabela’s, first stopping at Camping World in Spokane to refill our propane tank (we are having some mornings down in the upper 30’s) and empty our black and gray tanks. Unfortunately, CW did not have a fresh water fill.  We drove on to Yakima, Washington (2nd new state) and stopped at the rest area outside of town, to fill our fresh tank.  We thank the state of Washington for having nice, clean, facilities at their rest areas for RVers to use.  In Yakima we stopped at Fred Myers. We first learned of Fred Myers on our first Alaska trip.  Great store that we wish would come to the SE.  We resupplied because our next stop was Mount Ranier and other more remote locations for a few days.  After the shopping we settled down in Fred Myers parking lot for the night.  Yes, it’s permitted there.  We love that we can just stop anywhere in our nimble BB.

2025 Spring Road Trip – An Unplanned Side Trip

Sunday, May 25, 2025

Sunday, May 18 was an important and somewhat sad day.  Sunday morning Max and Anne buttoned up BB to move on from Custer.  Sadly, Randy and Debra would not be traveling with us.  They would begin their trek back across the country with various fun stops along the way to return to SC.  We have had such a fun trip and feel so very, very blessed to have had this time with them. Thank you, God!!!  We pray traveling mercies on them and for the two of us as we travel further west alone.  Thank you to all of you who have continued to pray for Randy.  We cherish your prayers. 

As we left Custer and Randy and Debra behind, we had very few fixed plans.  We knew generally the direction and some of the places we wanted to visit.  We did not have reservations or fixed stops. We drove from South Dakota into Wyoming and noticed a “brown sign” (park service sign) mentioning Devils Tower.  A few miles further was the turn and since we had not had time to stop at Devils Tower when we were returning from Alaska, we decided this should be the day. We remembered hearing some news about some storms in the area but no details.  Wow!  There was a lot of damage.  The ranger said they had an EF-3 tornado and straight-line winds up to 150mph last year.  There were over 300 mature trees damaged.  But Devils Tower still stands! And we enjoyed our quick hike around the bottom.

We are glad we made the detour, but it added about an hour driving time and two hours at the Tower and fifty miles to our travel day. We traveled on from Devils Tower determined to make our intended destination in Big Timber, Montana.  Unfortunately, it rained – hard!  But we made it to the Exxon Station in Big Timber just before dark and the sweet lady there told us to “just park out front and spend the night here.”  So we did. 

2025 Spring Road Trip – Custer, SD

Saturday, May 24, 2025

After a stormy night of sleep on Wednesday night, Thursday night May 15th we all slept well and awoke ready to move on down the road to Custer, SD.  Our campground, Big Pine, was just a short distance away from Custer State Park.  After we got both RVs set up, we went to a recommended Mexican Restaurant in town, for a late lunch, early dinner.  By then the sun had finally come out and it was a beautiful afternoon so we decided to do a trip around the Custer wildlife loop before dark.  Max and Anne had been looking forward to this park since the visit in 2014 was so good.  We began this trip by seeing lots of prairie dogs that we had not been able to see at Roosevelt due to the rain.  Custer just does not disappoint.  If you are ever anywhere in the area it is definitely worth your time.  The badger we saw this trip was just icing on the cake.

Saturday we first went to breakfast at a local diner and bakery.  We had eaten their sticky buns in 2014 and knew we had to visit them again.  Next, we had to do some of the mundane stuff you do when you travel in an RV.  Anne and Debra did laundry while Max and Randy looked for some parts needed for a repair on Lizzy, Randy and Debra’s travel trailer. Now for more fun, we went to Mt Rushmore to take in the sculptures on the mountain and do some hiking around the park. Mt Rushmore was still on shoulder season schedule so there were no Rangers to give talks or share their knowledge of the park.  We had to walk around and read the various informational boards. That’s one of the drawbacks of the shoulder season but the advantage is that we didn’t have near the crowds that will be there after Memorial Day. We all made a trip back to Rapid City to get the last needed part for Lizzy later in the day. It was a good visit to the Custer area.