July 4th, 2014

We will not forget July 4th, 2014. It started out great! We went to George, Washington which is about 10 miles from Quincy to go to their 4th celebration. How perfect to go to George Washington for the 4th of July!

George, Washington 4th of July

They started with the parade which started with presenting the flag and then came all the old tractors! Pretty cool.

John Deere

We meant some of the old timers in town. After the parade they had a vendor fair in the town square. Of course Patty had to get some Kettle Korn. :)

Vendor Fair

They also had a lot of food booths. We thought about eating here, but there were LONG lines at all the booths so we decided to pass. The advertised the "Worlds Largest Cherry Pie", with George himself serving it up. Free slices but if you wanted ice cream on top that was .50 cents.

Big Cherry Pie

Fireworks were not until late so we headed back to Quincy. Unfortunately, that was the end of a good day. We got T-boned by a Honda Civic car going at least 50 mph. The good news is that God was watching over all of us! Patty and I were completely unharmed.

The young man in the Honda was a little dazed and bit his tongue a little but other than that was completely unharmed also! We thank God for everyones safety. This could have been MUCH worse!!!

Here is the young man's car. As you can see the front end is gone. Both his airbags deployed and broke his windshield.

1997 Honda Civic

This is the Huntram. I saw him coming right into my door. Patty remembers hearing me say, "Oh No"!

Huntram

It doesn't look that bad in the above picture, but you can see the creases in the rear panel. The hood was also tweaked. This is because the frame was bent.

Bent Frame

Due to all the damage the adjuster declared the Huntram totalled. Within 7 days we received a very fair check and went and bought Huntram II.

Huntram II

Wenatchee Dodge did not have the truck we wanted. We wanted the High Output Cummins engine with 850 FP Torque and the new Aisin 6 speed Auto Trans. We wanted leather heated and cooled seats, and of course the 1 ton dually per our good friend RV Bill.

They had to get the truck for us out of Kellogg, Idaho. They still sold us the truck at $1000 under invoice and still we got the factory $3000.00 rebates which means in essence $4000.00 under invoice. We wouldn't have chosen this Western Brown color, but it is beautiful. We have had four people stop us in shopping malls to tell us how beautiful the color is.

Western Brown Dually Huntram II

As it turns out it matches up nice with our 5th wheel, and with more horsepower and torque and the MUCH better transmission it really pulls the trailer so much better!

Huntram with the Cameo

The day after the accident I got the call that my brother Bruce who is two years older than me had a major stroke in Pahrump, Nevada. He was now in a hospital in Las Vegas.  I spent two solid days on the phone with the doctors and nurses, my parents and of course I was still working on finding a truck.

After thankfully realizing that my brother would make it, my parents decided to fly to Vegas.This was a difficult time for family and Patty and I decided we really needed to be there. We had a rental car because of the accident so we decided to drive the 1100 miles trading off driving to Vegas. We left Sunday night at 9:00 and got to Vegas Monday at about 4:30 in the afternoon. We picked up my parents at the Airport Tuesday morning.

It was a difficult several days but it was right for all of us to be there. Thankfully Bruce is improving. I know everyone's prayer has really helped and I thank you for that. Time is on our side here!

Mom and Day in Vegas

On Thursday evening we took my parents back to the airport to fly back to California. Our son Matthew and his fiance Jasmine picked them up and drove them back home. We went back to the hotel and got to bed early so we could leave to drive back to Washington at 4:00AM.

Up at 3AM we did leave Vegas right at 4AM. There are fires all through Eastern Washington. When we were almost home we got turned around at a road block because of one of the fires. After 1000 miles we were forced to detour 75 miles out of our way!

Fire Sky

  We finally got home at about 11:30 Friday night.We were exhausted but glad to be back in our beds after the 1200 mile drive. Do not recommend it, but it was necessary.

God Bless you and continue to pray for Bruce.

Love you,

Brian and Patty

Crescent Bar, Washington

Crescent Bar is about 10 miles west of Quincy, Wa right on the Columbia River. Normally it is a big tourist resort area, but the river in this area is very low because they discovered a design fault in one of the dam's down stream from the resort. They are lowering the amount of water coming to the dam so they can fix the problem.

For us from SoCal it still appears that there is a lot of water here, but they are not allowing anyone on or near the water until it is fixed. This is severely hurting the economy here.

This is our campsite #54 at the Thousand Trails Crescent Bar campground.

Crescent Bar Thousand Trails

The next day we went to the Gingko Petrified Forest. We had been to the Petrified Forest in New Mexico, but had no idea there was also a petrified forest up here in Washington! 

Gingko Petrified Forest

Neat the visitor center there were some petroglyph rocks. These were real petroglyphs, but had been moved from their original site because they would have been underwater from the damming up the river.

Indian Petroglyphs

We went to the petrified trail. You start up the hill from the building you see below.

Hiking the trail

This is an Interpretive Trail. You take a brochure and follow the trail. There are many types of petrified woods here.

Interpretive Trail

We got to the top of the mountain and it started to rain. Who would have thought, rain in Washington!! Problem is we didn't have jackets or coats with us! We carefully started back down the hill because the gravel trail started getting slick.

Top of trail

We got down safely although a little bit wet. We did stay cool thought!

Bad Hair Day! :)

On Monday we decided to go to the Grand Coulee Dam. At 10:00 PM they have a lazer light show on the dam face, so we did not go early. On the way we stopped at Dry Falls.

Dry Falls is a dormant falls that was the largest falls in the world when it was active.

Dry Falls

At five times the width of Niagara Falls it is or was huge! 400 feet tall and 3.5 miles wide.

Dry Falls

We continued on to the Grand Coulee. This is a major piece of engineering. Here the water is not yet spilling over.

Grand Coulee Dam

We took the tour of the hydropower plant. Because they are doing some fixes right now it was not a complete tour. At least it was free. :)

Water Turbines

Usually about half an hour before the laser show they start spilling water over the top. Right now the water is only about four feet from the top, so to prevent flooding they starting letting water out about 4 hours early.

Water Flowing

The white of the water works as a screen for the laser show. Right at 10:00PM the show started. It is about a 45 minute animated laser show. Talks abut the history of the dam and the impacts good and bad. Pretty impressive.

Laser Show - Eagle Soaring

We really like Crescent Bar. Probably the only thing that surprises us is that we were not aware that the eastern part of Washington is a desert. Not at all green like we remember it on the western part that we have seen before. Yet there is still so much water here, even in the eastern part of the state!

Well that is it for now.

Next we will talk about July 4th and the accident that totalled our Huntram truck. 

Also continue to pray for my brother Bruce...

Love you,

Brian and Patty

Cheney, Washington

We are staying in an RPI campground in Cheney called Ponderosa Falls. It is part of the KM Resorts network. With RPI we can stay for $10.00 a night. We pulled off I-90 and headed into a residential neighborhood following the Garmin GPS. How could this be "Ponderosa Falls"? All of a sudden it turned into a forest! We asked for a satellite friendly site. At first they gave us a back-in that backed into the local housing track. There was a huge tree over us and there was no way satellite was going to work here. We drove around looking for a better site and found some pull throughs in the middle with good satellite views. I called the office and they said they were reserved for members of KM Resorts. I understand that. They suggested a site on the hill that would work. It was raining and without the 4x4 truck it could have been a problem getting to. I stuck the HuntRam into 4x4 and headed up the hill with no problems. We found our site and were very happy with it. Much better then the pull throughs in the middle. Room on both sides, and no one behind us! Just a nice view of the park.

Ponderosa Falls

Because we are trying to catch up with the blog, we will make this week brief and just show what we think were the highlights!

We found this cool walking bridge over the river at friends park.

Spokane River Bridge

The next day we headed to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. As we headed through Post Falls we found the falls, and of course we can't resist good falls! 

Post Falls

We Googled places to eat in Coeur d'Alene and surprisingly the number one place was this sandwich trailer called "Best Sandwich Shack". Their specialties were Philly Cheese Steaks! Yum!

Best Sandwich Shack

Patty got a chicken cheese and I got a steak cheese. They put 1/2 lb. of meat on them. We also got the fries, but we just couldn't finish everything! They were truly as good as they are messy!

Philly Cheese Steak

After we ate we went to enjoy the lake! 

Lake Coeur d'Alene

We decided we needed to take a hike to get rid of some of the sandwich poundage!. Right next to the lake is a hiking trail called Tubbs Hill. (Fitting)!

Tubbs Hill Trail

We started up the trail. We didn't walk the entire trail because we didn't bring our water bottles and it started warming up on us. We did walk about 2 miles.

Tubbs Hill Trail View

This is a popular walking trail, we met a lot of people on the trail. It did gain some elevation, but at about half way we turned around.

Tubbs Hill Elevation

When we got back we were met by Midgy the Moose. There are a bunch of Midgy's around town.

Midgy the Moose

The next day we headed to Spokane Riverfront Park. This is where the 1974 World's Fair was held. We parked across the Spokane River and walked across a pedestrian suspension bridge.

Walking Suspension Bridge

We had to take one of our world famous selfie pictures on the pedestrian bridge! Lol! Notice the falls behind us!

Selfie of the Spokane River

We rode the Tour Train around the park. The guide explained the history of the worlds fair here in Spokane. It was a few bucks and a worth the time.

Tour Train

After the train we took the SkyRide. It is a gondola ride that takes you over the falls and under the bridge and back.

SkyRide

These are the falls taken from inside the Gondola.

Spokane Falls

On Saturday we went to Medical Lake. They were having their Founders Day Celebration. They had some food and vendor booths, a 3 on 3 hoop fest basketball tournament and of course classic cars!

Classic Cars

Later in the day we went to Avista Stadium in Spokane to the Spokane Indians minor league baseball game. The Indians were playing the Boise Hawks. The Indians are in first place in their league. Although this is a minor league team, they regularly sell 5000 seats! Wow!

Spokane Indians

The Indians win again! It also was fireworks night, so they had a great display of fireworks after the game. It doesn't get dark up here until about 10:00pm, so it was just dusk when the show started.

Indian Fireworks

That's it for today, and Cheney and Spokane. Next blog I will talk about Crescent Bar. I will get a little more involved about the truck and my brother's health issues. 

Again please continue to pray for his spiritual and physical healing!

God Bless you,

Brian and Patty

Garrison, Montana & Osburn, Idaho

We left Idaho Falls and headed into Montana.We are staying 2 nights in Garrison, Montana which is just about 10 miles from Dear Lodge, Montana. We stayed at the Riverfront RV Park and had a great view of snow covered mountains.

Riverfront Park

This is our view out the back window of the RV. In the morning we saw an eagle sitting in little tree you see in the left of the picture. We also saw elk grazing on the mountain to the left. We were told that rams would graze on the mountain to the right, but the only Ram we saw was pulling our 5th wheel!

Out the Back Window

Somehow we keep getting drawn to old State Prisons! This one was in Deer Lodge. Unlike the Wyoming State Prison this one was a self guided tour. You were given a tour book that you would follow through the prison.

Montana State Prison

We did the tour on Fathers day. I stopped a couple times to take calls from my children. It was great to hear from Crystal and Matthew! Later in the day I called my father Flay and wished him a Happy Fathers Day!

Here is one of the cell blocks. I can not imagine doing time here! This was truly HARD TIME!

Montana Cell Block

After paying to see the prison museum you also were able to see the Auto Museum. At first we thought it was going to be a small museum because the rooms were fairly small.

Deer Lodge Auto Museum

But then you would take a corner and more cars would appear! They even had some boats and RV's. We considered trading up to this classic tent trailer, but decided against it.

Tent Trailer

This must be the FIRST Jet-Ski! It is a 1958 Water Scooter. We had no idea they were making PWC's back in the 50's.

1958 Water Scooter

This is the large room at the museum. Overall they had over 140 cars and trucks! Quite impressive for such a small town.

Large Room

Before we went to the museums we went to a small Assembly of God Church in Deer Lodge. After services the Pastor and his wife asked us were we were from. It turns out that the Pastor's wife had worked with our old Pastor Gary Archer at Vanguard University and they all know each other. 

Pastor Archer dedicated both Crystal and Matthew to the Lord! I Facebooked Messaged Gary later in the day and let him know that Pastors Dave and Jana Baker said hello. He responded to tell them hello back!

Small world! 

We spent one night in Osborn, Idaho at the Blue Anchor RV Park. Osborn is in the Panhandle of Idaho. Because it is in the economic environment of Spokane, Washington it observes Pacific Daylight time instead of Mountain Time. Really didn't do anything in Osborn but rest up for the next days journey to Cheney, Wa.

Osborn, Idaho

Cheney, Wa is about 10 miles west of Spokane. We will be staying in Cheney for 7 nights.

Thats it for now,

Please continue to pray for my brother Bruce!

God Bless,

Brian and Patty