August 31st

It is hard to believe that just over two weeks ago we were rapping up a great trip to Alaska.  The people on this trip were a lot of fun.  Just think in another 2 weeks we start another trip going down the West Coast.  It will be a lot of fun, we have done a lot of the spots we are going to.  We know a lot of the people that wre traveling with us, so we should have a good group of people on this trip.
Today we got up and had the last 8 inch cinnamon roll that we picked up on our trip to Alaska.  We had frozen a couple of them, because we like to cut them into slices for french toast.  Our grandson wasn't sure at first tell he took his first bite.  I thought he was going to eat the hole thing before Cyndy & I got a peace.  We are enjoying our time with him along with the time we spent with the other two kids.
This late morning we went out Geocaching, Jared really likes doing this.  He is getting better at finding them when we are out.

We found one of the caches near this great view out at the coast here in Gearhart, just north of Seaside.  We did pretty good today with 9 for 9 finds.  We are thinking about heading up to Fort Stevens for some more Geocaching later this week.
Tomorrow I take the truck in for one more thing that needs to be done and that is a front end alignment.  After putting new tires on the front end I like to have it checked out.  Hope there is nothing major.  We are hoping to go with Brain & Rita to Mo's tomorrow for dinner.  I think we are going to head up to Dairy Queen for a after dinner blizzard, that sounds good the hole family is up and out the door before I can say anything else.

August 28th

It was nice last night to hear the rain falling on our roof.  It can put you to sleep real easy, but last night we hadn't heard the rain in a while it made it a little hard getting to sleep.  It was a lot cooler so we both will enjoy that.
Yesterday when we got here to Seaside all we could find was a 30 AMP site, here on the north side of the park.  So this morning when out walking the two little people I spotted a couple leaving early (7:00 AM) checked out the power and it had 50 AMP, so in a little over 12 hours we are moving the short's distance in a while.  After getting all hooked up again, we ate breakfast.  I found one of those big cinnamon roles from Alaska trip ( the one in the 8 inch cake pan) so we cut it up and made french toast out of it.  Our grandson was questioning us, but he went to town on it and said it was great.  Would Nana or Papa  fix you anything but the best.
Next I went to Les  Schwab  to get the two tires on the back of the trailer replaced after the fixing the axle.  While there I talked to them about the Hood to Coast Relay which is this weekend, and this is what they told me that over 15,000 runners and their support teams will be in town. They told me that if you don't have to go out stay home because it’s going to be a madhouse.  So while I was there I called Costco about getting the tires for the truck done also today, so that we will not have to leave the park this weekend if we don't have too.  They said come on down and they will do it at 2:00 PM.  So we went and did our Costco shopping while they changed the tires for us.
So with that done we don't have any thing to do this weekend but go swimming with our grandson and just relaxing around here.  We might even do a little geocaching.  It is suppose to rain pretty good here tomorrow with high winds so it might be a day to stay inside and enjoy some together time maybe even watch a movie.  Who knows what will happen.

August 27th

It has been a while, but I really have to vent about RV DEALERS SERVICE DEPARTMENT.  When we finally got all of our mail we found a letter from the Manufacture of our coach saying there is a possibility that we have faulty studs on our wheel hubs.  So I called Blue Dog Service department (because there is no dealer on the west side of the Cascades), and told them that we received this letter and what do we have to do.  They said they need to look at them and besides you have a appointment for the 27th at the 8:00 AM to fix your slide that is not going all the way out.  So this morning we showed up at 8:00 AM expecting them to fix the slide and take a look at the wheel studs.  So after dropping off the trailer we head out for breakfast and some things we need.  Then we were going to  do a little geocaching.  Wait a minute the phone is ringing and it is Blue Dog saying the trailer is ready for pick-up.  Wow!! They are on top of things and got everything done, nope, they didn't do nothing!!!!!  They said the wheel studs are OK, they couldn't do anything about the slides tell the manufacture gets the pictures and let them know what to do.  Ok, I asked who is paying for the 400 miles of fuel I just spent on coming over here to get this fixed, what do you think they said!!!!------.
OK that is it, I have extended warranty and now it is time to use it and save myself some frustration.
Anyway we left there and headed towards cooler climate like the Oregon Coast.

This is some of the burn area near Roosevelt, Washington.  We were driving up 84 towards Portland and seeing a lot of burn area.  You have to pray that know more people loose there homes.  We had a good drive and made it here to Seaside, Oregon.  This has to be our favorite TTN park, lots of room around each site.  I stopped by and said hi to Nick and Terry and later in the week we will have to get together for a dinner one night.  Tomorrow we need to get a couple of tires on the trailer replaces, after getting the axle fixed.  Tire a lot cheaper here then in Washington, saving a good hunderd buck, yes.

August 23

We have been back in the Spanaway area for 8 days and have got a lot done before we head out on our next tour.  Lets get you up to speed.
When we were on the Alaska trip I started hearing a funny noise from the rear end of the truck.  You know that noise that you no what it is but really don't want to say anything about it.  Well it held together tell we got back to Spanaway and on tuesday I took it to Riverside Ford and had them rebuild the rear end.  Now that is done and the noise is gone, YAH!!!!
Next is I noticed the back tires on the trailer are wearing a little bit funny so we have a appointment at Kimball's on Monday to get the Axle straighten or at least put the way it is suppose to be.  After that is done two new tires on the trailer, don't like to have tires the are worn on one side.
When we get to Oregon it will be time to buy some new tires for the truck.  The fronts have over 54,000 miles not bad and the backs have just at 35,000 miles.  With the weight we haul I figure that is pretty good.  We usually go through at least 2 sets of back tires to one on the front.  It is part of maintenance on the truck and trailer.  Like a house every once in a while you have to put in a little money to get it moving again.
Wednesdays we leave for Pasco to get some Warranty work done on the trailer.  Not much, we found after a week on the trip we found out the the slide on the drivers side was not going out all the way.  It needs to go our about another inch.  Also we have a safety recall on the studs on the wheels, something about them breaking!!!!  So after all that we will be in Seaside Oregon relaxing before we head off on our next trip.  It feels good to have a little bit of time to write a little on the blog about what is happening to the Gypsy Olsen's.  More to come as we head to Eastern Washington, we are hopping that we don't run into any fires.

Post of our Trip to Stewart/Hyder Alaska

When we arrived in Stewart we were greeted  with a little rain, or should I say a lot of rain.  After everyone got in we took them down to the bear viewing area.  So here are a few of the pictures I took when we visiting the Bear viewing area.

 There were a lot of Dog Salmon in the stream, but not any bears.

 We were all waiting around for the bears to show up.  The park ranger says their has only been one bear showing up lately.  I hope we get to see it.  After about and hour or more we decided to go and get some dinner than come back.  After dinner we head back and we got lucky and seen one male grizzly bear.

 He did a lot of fishing for a while.

 After fish it must be time for some dessert, berry's sound good.

 OK to much dessert time for more fish.

 Hay, you guys don't all need to run, I just want one of you for now.

 Which one do I want.

 Not up on my birds but this one was different then the regular gulls eating on the fish.

We also seen this beaver in the pond down from the bear viewing area.  We were lucky because the next day we never seen another bear.  One is better than none.  We had a great trip and looking forward to our next trip.

Post of our trip to Skagway on our Alaska Trip

I am going to show more pictures then type.

 Cyndy did a great job on this picture with the reflection  of the mountain in the lake.

 From this distance the rig looks pretty clean.

 Our two co-pilot's watching over us as we are heading down into Skagway,

 We are getting close to Carcross and the 11 miles down grade of 11% into Skagway.

 Here we are heading over to Juneau by way of water.  

 It was a little cloudy and some rain wich made it hard seeing all of the Glaciers

 We took a bus out to Mendhall Glacier near Juneau.

 One of these days I am going to walk over to these falls, but we only have an hour here and my little legs don 't walk that fast.

 On our way back to Skagway we did see a few humpbacks.

 We got to see a little tail on this one.

 But this one really showed off its tail.

 That was great.

 We found some seals!!!!

We had a great time in Skagway and our day to Juneau did turn out a little sunny.  Tomorrow I will post some pictures on our trip to Stewart/Hyder for bear watching.

August 16th

We are back in Spanaway, Washington.  Sorry for not posting much the last month but being the Wagon Master and internet SUCKED in Canada.  We made it back here late Friday night after saying our good-byes Friday morning.  The drive back was OK, we have done it 4 times in the pass.
Saturday we didn't do much but just relaxed and play with the grand kids.  It was nice to see our son and his wife along with his two girls.  They are growing so fast, MJ starts Kindergarten this year. We had a great day.  Sunday was a day to finish up all of the paperwork so that we can mail everything off tomorrow.  We have doctor appointments starting tomorrow so that is about it for now.  Will try and get some of the last pictures out on the web tomorrow.

July 31st Alaska day 45

What a great day we had, we left this morning at 10:00 AM for a great Prince William Sound plus Meares Glacier, Whale & Wildlife Boat Ctuise.  I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as we enjoyed the sights.

 This is in Prince Williams Sound that the end of the pipe line is loacated at.

Some great hanging Glaciers.

 We found a raft of Sea Otters.

Great Waterfalls.

Our National Bird and they were every where.

 This is all the closer we could get to the Columbia Glacier

These are a few of the caves floating by us.

Harbor Seals resting on the ice, we seen a lot of them as we were getting closer to the Mearies Glacier.  THe skipper said that they like this area because the Killer Whales stay out of this are because of all the ice chunks.

 We got to see a lot of caving of the glaciers today and this is the area that most of it happened.  This is the before and after shots.

And this is what happened in between everything.

This was just amazing what we seen, I took over 200 pictures and these are just a few of them, hope you enjoyed them as much as we did.

Getting some rest before the next big fish!!!!

 We got to see a few hundred Stellar Seals also.

We even seen these Killer Whales, we felt very lucky today.  On to Skagway with a stop in Tok and then Destruction Bay, YT.  More fun to come.