Little Maggie trying to climb onboard with all her might!
9/19/19 – After taking Andreas (Bliss Mobil) to the Bozeman airport for his flight back to The Netherlands and then saying our farewells to the Acela team, we fueled up, weighed the truck on an official scale close the Acela and then headed off to Washington state.
Now that we are newbie truckers, we have to learn the ‘ropes’ at the truck stops. Firstly, the maximum Dollar amount of fuel cut off is usually $500 (yeah.. no more annoying cut offs at $100) and we can fill tanks on both sides simultaneously using what Paul calls the ‘Master and Slave’ pumps. Also the rate at which the pumps dispense the fuel is more akin to a fire hose than the standard filling station which makes filling our large tanks much faster. There is even a set of mobile stairs that you can wheel in front of your truck so you can climb up and wash your windscreen. Truck stops typically offer restaurants, showers and shopping facilities for all sorts of goods that you might imagine truckers need spending so much of their lives on the road.
After camping one night along the way in a pretty forest campsite found on i-Overlander, we headed towards Washington state to explore the Wenatchee National Forest and to take care of some business in the area. Every mile of Hwy 2 is so picturesque and all Maggie had handy was her cell phone on which to capture this beautiful scenery. Low clouds, misty rain added to this mystique region.
Wenatchee National Forrest
We discovered the beautiful village of Leavenworth and its German/Alpine theme. How pretty this must be at Christmas time!
Maggie loves Pho noodle soup; she looks for one in every new places that we visited. She insisted that we take in a nice hot bowl before leaving Wenatchee.
After having taken care of our business in Washington, we made tracks for Idaho, where Maggie grew up.
9/22/19 – We arrived in Caldwell, ID around 1 p.m, where Maggie grew up. The town has changed so much since I left in the early 80’s for college. I can’t recognize any landmark downtown until I saw the park and golf course on Kimball avenue. The house where we used to live when we first immigrated to the USA is no longer there. A big condo has taken over that lot. I walked around the park tracing my steps from the old paper route when I was twelve, recounting the days living in Idaho. My heart sank with these memories. I took some pictures of the old house, the street, the park, the golf course, the swimming pool, our family’s playground…
Lake Lowell – where my parents used to go fishing for carp. Pretty lake but again, I don’t recognize any landmark since it’s been almost 40 years when I was last here. Also found out that Clint Eastwood made a movie here: “Bronco Billy,” never knew that when we used to live there.
That afternoon, we headed to Stanley, ID. Camped at Hot Springs campground in Garden Valley, ID.
We lived in Idaho for over ten years and never knew the wonders of this state… so beautiful and breathtaking along the way to Stanley.
We explored Stanley Lake on our UBCO 2×2 bikes. It was fun and Maggie’s first time riding a ‘motorcycle.’ Interestingly on the return trip to our camp site in the forest, BAT had merged into its surroundings so well that Maggie rode on past our camp spot not seeing it. I had to ride after her to turn her around from her new found 2 wheel freedom… come to think of it… I wonder whether she was really just trying to escape?
After Stanley we started to head south but on the way we realized that we were going to pass through Twin Falls ID so we made a short detour to take a look. Wow, were we surprised at just how dramatic the falls really are. The Shoshone Falls is also referred to as “The Niagara of the West,” an attraction not to be missed if you’re in the area.
The journey south lead us through some beautiful spots. Of course we had to stop to take some pictures and relax from the journey.
After visiting Twin Falls we headed back to the interstate and set the navigation to Salt Lake City. Paul wanted to pick up some equipment for the truck at Equipt 4×4 in Salt Lake. The closer we got to home in California, the temperatures started to rise. We had to camp in the St George area and decided upon this spot.
The petroglyphs in this area are quite interesting as so we check them out before returning to BAT to cool down in his air conditioned cab. Now we must make tracks through Las Vegas and home to California.
The last fill up with much cheaper fuel in Nevada before we hit the California desert.
Home at last, now we have to unpack and begin all those little jobs on the list before the next expedition begins….
Endless Trail Expeditions 