Chian part 3

We are back!  What a great time we had.  We took over 1200 pictures and I promise to not post all of them. I'm not sure how I'm going to structure this but I see a series of posts on various parts of our trip.  These will take some time as we need to edit the pics first. 

We did have a great time.  The first part of the tour was with a tour company and we had 8 other folks with us.  Our guide was amazing in many ways.  The next part we spent 4 days in Shanghai on our own then we flew to Shenyang to meet up with the Beatty family and participate in the wedding.

An odd thing about the international date line.  We left Beijing at 4 in the afternoon and arrived in Seattle at 1 in the afternoon of the same day.  So we arrived before we left!  Awesome!

I'll post China info as pictures become available.

Going to China Part 2

After a few minor delays we got our passports and visa for China.  They came by FedEx while we were in Dayton, Oregon.  Yesterday, June 5, we got our travel documents from Alexander and Roberts, the tour company we are booked with.  We are now in Kent, Washington about 30 minutes from the airport.  So at this point we have all our documents and our airline tickets. 

We are parked in an RV park and will leave both the RV and the Jeep here while we are gone.  We will have electricity to the RV so we don't have to clear out the refrigerator and shut everything down.  Even better the cost of the RV park per day is actually less than if we parked the car at the airport even in lots off property.This is working out so well it is scary.

Looks like China is a GO!

Home cooked turkey

We had never cooked a meal while driving.  So on the drive from Dayton, Oregon to the Kent, Washington (near Seattle) we decided to try it.  After we had been on the road awhile we found a rest stop.  We had prepped an 8 pound turkey breast earlier so all we needed to do was turned on the generator, fired up the convection microwave and pop it in!  The convection microwave creates a lot of heat so we also had to run the AC to keep the place cool.  This is actually great for the generator to get that kind of a workout.  And it does not really consume much gasoline.  By the time we got to our destination and settled the turkey was done to perfection. We had a great dinner with lots of planned overs(leftovers we planned on).  Can't believe we had not done this before and we will definitely be doing this again.

Silver Falls State Park

We had a few days to kill before we needed to be in Seattle for our China trip.  We were not sure what to do with the days when Diana picked up the AAA tour book for Oregon.  She found what AAA called a gem.  So we tried to get into Silver Falls State park for a week.  No dice, but we could get in starting Memorial Day but we had to be out by Friday.  We took it.  What a great park!

The main attraction is there are 10 waterfalls that can be viewed on an 8 mile hike.  We took 2 days to see the falls.  Day one we hiked about 6 miles and saw 7 falls.  Each one beautiful but different from the others.  On day 2 we had to double back some but finished off the last 3 falls in about 4 miles.  Also beautiful.

A bonus was that there were wild flowers and bushes in bloom everywhere.  So there were times it was difficult to decide if you wanted to look at the flowers, the falls or just the general beauty of the park.  If you ever get to Oregon, try o spend a day or two hiking in Silver Falls State Park.

From behind the falls

 You are correct if you counted only 9 pics.  Twin Falls was not visible due to some downed trees.  But, shoot, 9 out of 10 falls in 2 days...not bad.  By the way, Silver Falls SP is about 25 east of Salem in the heart of wine country and Christmas tree farms.

Going to China Part 1

We have a nephew, Ben, who lives and teaches in Shenyang, China.  He has been there several years now.  While there he met a woman, fell in love and is getting married on June 27th.  She is Chinese and her name is Fanny.  We met her in Midlothian when she came with Ben for Christmas in 2013.  She is wonderful and she and Ben are great together.  I've never figured out how Beatty men seem to find beautiful women who are way out of our class, myself included.  We are going to the wedding, but not taking the RV!  Imagine that.

Now the original plan for the summer of '15 was to take a ferry from Bellingham, Washington to Wittier, Alaska, spent 3 months touring Alaska then drive back to the lower 48 thru British Columbia and Alberta Canada.  A great plan that we are happy to postpone.  Rather than take time out of the Alaska trip we have decided to take a tour of China, then go to the wedding, then hang out with my (Bob's) brother and his family.  'll be gone about just under 4 weeks.

There are some logistic items that need to be addressed for anyone going to China.  First you need a Visa.  But before you can get a visa you need an invitation to go to China and a detail itinerary including cities, hotels, and airline info.  This took some work.  The invitation was easy as Ben emailed us one.  Diana worked long and hard to determine what tour, if any, we wanted.  There were spread sheets, emails and phone calls among several possibilities.  She work hard on this while I sat back and just agreed to do whatever she decided.

Once that was figured out came time for the visa application.  Based on our mailing address in South Dakota, we were expected to appear in person at the Chinese embassy in Washington D.C.  What, What!?  But we found thru our tour company that they use a company that will do this for us.  Nice!  One issue is that once we filled out the forms we had to mail our passports and all the documents to this company.  Once they get the visas, they FedEx it all back to us.  Even though we have a mail service in SD it takes a long time for us to get mail.  The current arrangement is that when the documents are ready to ship the company will call us and we will give them an address so it can be shipped directly to us.  No problem except we are not sure when the documents will be ready or where we will be at that time.  Fun stuff.

Now another item that needs to be addressed is different than for most people traveling.  When most folks go on a trip they leave their house and then come back to it.  We have to figure out what to do with our home, the RV.  It would also be convenient if the RV were in the same city we fly from and back to.  Huh!  We are flying from Seattle for a variety of reasons.  After some work, (not as much as Diana's work) I found a place near the Seattle airport for a great price.  We will be able to leave the RV at the campground and plugged into electrical power.  This means we don't have to empty the refrigerator and shut the RV down completely.  A big help.  Additionally we can leave the Jeep with the RV and take a cab to and from the airport.  This saves a boat load of $ on parking fees.  Happy time!

We'll try to keep you updated  with addition posts as needed.

Snow day

We got back from Yosemite on Wednesday evening after a great day.  The weather indicated that there was a good chance of snow beginning Thursday afternoon and in to Friday.  Lee Vining was expected to get 1 - 2 inches.  This was no problem as we had plenty of food and we had full hookups, so no worries.  Thursday afternoon it started snowing...hard.

By the time it was done we got 15.5 inches!  There were lots of broken tree branches, some across our RV.  But luckily they were small and we had no damage.

We had a fun day getting snow off the RV and just enjoying the beauty.  By the next day we were on the road again with no issues.

Yosemite NP revisited

The fall of 2014 we spent about  week in Yosemite National Park.  It was beautiful but being late in the season we saw no water coming over the many falls.  So we figured if we went back in the spring the snow melt would allow us to see actual water!  But once again there was very little snow and while there was water, locals said it was very little.  We still thought it was great.

We stayed in Lee Vining which is a small town on the eastern side of the park.  Rout 120 goes thru the park and is closed during the winter.  We arrive in Lee Vining on May 6th, a Monday, and 120 had just opened that day.  We spent Monday and Tuesday getting settled and catching up on laundry, bills and cleaning.  Wednesday was beautiful and we drove into the park.  From Lee Vining it is about an hour and 45 minutes along 120, a beautiful drive.

 Ice still on the lakes.  And frost on the information signs.

Bridal Veil falls was very interesting because the wind was blowing the stream of water back and forth.

Yosemite Falls was cool.  Last time we were there there was a stream of water about the size of a pencil.  A little more this time.

Upper Yosemite Falls.















Lower Yosemite Falls

One of our first selfies!!  We are so cool.










Not sure if we will ever get back to Yosemite but it sure is grand!