Titan Missile Museum

We went to the Titan Missile museum near Tucson, AZ.  This is where some of the nuclear missiles were housed during the cold war.  Only one missile remains and all war head material has been removed.  As we walk thru the silos and the rest of the grounds we were reminded of some frightening times while also being grateful that these weapons were never used.

Christams on Maui

We planned to go see Daniel for Christmas.  We managed to trade enough time share weeks that we could stay from mid-December until mid-January.  Very nice.  Since we were going to spend the rest of the winter in Mesa, AZ we were trying to time our arrival so we'd have about a week before flying to Maui.  We also needed to get the RV prepared for 1 month of storage.  We had picked up a flyer for a free week at a campground just a few miles from where we were going to store the RV so that all worked out nicely.  Now that I write it it does not seem that complicated but it took some work.  We also planned to leave our car with out nephew, Ken.  Ken lives in Tempe and so he was not to far.  While we were gone Diana's sister and her husband would be visiting in the area and were going to use our car rather than rent one.  Remarkably all the pieces of this puzzle fell together nicely.  Not sure if it was good planning or good luck...maybe both.

Maui was great! Duh!! It's Maui how could it not be great.  The best part was seeing Daniel and spending time with him.  Because we were able to stay so long we had plenty of time for Daniel to spend with us yet not take time off work.  Also, we got to meet his lady friend, Mona.  She is really nice.

Channel Island NP

 We saw a Blue whale on the ferry ride to the island.

 An island fox looking for lunch

Umpqua National Forest and Crater Lake National Park

We did some boon-docking in Umpqua National Forest.  Boon-docking has no hook ups so you are totally self contained.  We have done this before and enjoy it.  It means some changes in how you use your resources but not really any sacrifices in terms of quality of living.  One of the reasons we like it is the camp sites tend to be larger, generally more natural and they put you in the park you want to see.  We have found that all campers are friendly but tent campers and those boon-docking are especially nice.

From Umpqua NF we drove about 30 minutes to Crater Lake NP.

Yes the water is really that blue!

prescribed burn

While in Kings Canyon NP they were conducting a prescribed burn.  They used to be called controlled burns but a few got out of control so they changed the name.  Unlike the out of control fire we saw in Yosemite NP this fire was very planned and detailed.  While it did create a lot of smoke that affected our pictures it was cool to see.  The burn was in a very small (10 acres) area with lots of firefighters.

These burns are conducted under very strict guidelines and it will take about 20 years to conduct burns in Kings Canyon NP.  There are lots of reasons for the burns including that fire causes the sequoia seeds to dry, drop and hopefully sprout.

Kings Canyon and Sequoia NP

Kings Canyon National Park and Sequoia National Park are basically one park.  While they are separate parks by name they geographically connect.  There was no where available in the parks for the RV so we parked it at an Elks lodge in Fresno.  Yes I am an Elk.  We got a hotel at the south end of Sequoia NP and planned to use it as a base.
Day 1 we saw and hiked Kings Canyon.  It was our first viewing of sequoia trees.

Day 2 we spent time  Sequoia NP and did more hiking and saw more trees.

This is a seed cone from the Giant Sequoia

This is the GPS in map view of the road we drove each day in and out of the parks.

Bears

We went into Southern California from Arizona in April of 2014.  Mostly we followed the coast north with a few excursions inland.  As we got away from the cities we began seeing signs about bears.  "Speed Kills Bears", "Don't Feed the Bears".  We even saw cute road signs depicting a mama bear and 2 cubs with the phrase "Bear Crossing".  It made sense that there would be lots of bears as California is the Bear Republic.  These signs continued all thru Oregon and Washington.  (by the way, they don't call it Washington state out here,  they just call it Washington and refer to Washington D.C. as "the other Washington".)  As we turned south from Washington to head back toward AZ we were more inland and stayed in or visited several National Parks.  Bear warnings were everywhere.

While in the National Parks there were multiple warnings about bears.  The National Parks even provide food containers (Bear Boxes) that you are supposed to put all food in before you go on a hike.  If you are tent camping even your tooth brush and tooth paste are to be stored.  Anything with an odor is to go in the Bear Box.  They tell you they are not responsible for any damage to your car if you leave food in it and a bear damages the car trying to get to the food.

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So we were warned and taking all the proper precautions.  We figured we'd see lots of bears.  We spent April thru mid-November in the 3 states.  In that time we saw 1 bear!

Yup!  That is it.  What a thrill to see a bear so far away you can't even get a good picture!

I think the bear warnings and bear boxes are simply a marketing tool used by each state to try to increase tourism.  Much like Northern Minnesota and Canada do with moose signage!