Saturday, July 13, 2013

Winery day

A beautiful day in the northwest-sun, blue skies, and 70s. What more could we ask for?

Started out the morning by going for a stroll in a park along the water in Kirkland, just north of Bellevue. Beautiful scenery and beautiful flowers.
From there we took a drive around Lake Sammamish which is pretty long. No pictures, we didn't stop, but beautiful scenery.

Then we headed up to the Woodinville wine country for some wine tasting. Started out at Chateau St Michelle. Taking the short tour then wine tasting - we were impressed. Tasted quite a few wines and ended up purchasing 6 bottles being shipped home.
I was quite surprised by their quality, hospitality and beautiful location.

We went onto several other tastings, but nothing else measured up.

Columbia was our last winery which wasn't that good.
Then we headed back to the hotel. Probably walk to John Howie steakhouse for dinner tonight. Then we head out tomorrow a.m. Flight at 9:55. So that means leaving for the airport at 7 a.m.

It has been quite enjoyable experiencing the cool weather!

Friday, July 12, 2013

Still Cooling

Today we started with a tour of the Boeing facilities. Sorry no pictures as they don't allow cameras, purses,cell phones, etc. Enjoyed the 90 minute tour. Very informative to see the production lines of the 747, 777 & the 787. They assemble the big planes at that location.

Since we were north of Seattle at Everett we decided to do a little site seeing and headed towards Whidbey  Island. Ended up in a small waterfront town of Coupeville for lunch.
Had a bowl of clam chowder (seeing a trend here?) and a order of fish & chips on the outside deck on the wharf.
On the way to the ferry to get back to the mainland we ran across a winery so had to stop for some tasting. Wine was ok, not great.
Then we hit it perfect time to catch the ferry. Only waited about 5 minutes before loading. It was a short ferry trip of only 20 minutes.
Arrived on the mainland and headed back to the hotel. Of course ran into traffic before our turnoff, but not too bad. Found a restaurant close to the hotel for another salmon dinner for me and steak for Jim.

OK Greg, now you're caught up.

Cooling off in Seattle

Arrived in Seattle Wed at 4:45 just at rush hour traffic. Took us an hour to go 12 miles to our hotel in Bellevue. After checking in we hit the street to find food. Had a wonderful Alaskan salmon dinner at McKormick & Schlick.

Thursday morning took the bus over to Seattle downtown area (the bus was a whole lot easier than driving). First stop was the infamous Public Market


Of course we had to see the show at Pike Fish Market.


From the market we walked to the old section, didn't find much there so headed down to the waterfront where we stopped for a bowl of clam chowder.

Down a ways further we had to take a ride on the Ferris wheel.
Views from the ride.
From there we walked down the waterfront then up (and I mean up) to the space needle center. Across from the space needle were The Ducks Tour, so we hopped on board for a trip thru Seattle.
Here is our fearless driver.
The duck vehicle went into the water also, so had a tour of Lake Union.
We checked in for dinner at the top of the space needle at 5. What shall we have for dinner?
Let the meal begin!
We had a wonderful experience. The food was great, the service was excellent. And especially, the view was fabulous. Notice our jackets on all pictures.
Took the bus back to the hotel. It was a long (walked many miles) day, but a extremely enjoyable one. Will post what we did today later.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Happy 4th of July

Even though are plans were to stay at Bayfield until today, we decided to leave yesterday because of the electrical issue. Management came to our door and told us we were unable to run our generator anymore since they were getting complaints. So how do you operate a total electrical coach on no electricity - so we left and came to Albuquerque. The electricity works just great at this park - American RV Park. So the problem was totally at the last park.

We got into Albuquerque at 12:30 (AZ time), so went over to Camping World to buy a couple of items we needed. We are finding that more and more parks don't allow charcoal grills, so purchased a little gas grill to use, plus a few other items. Then we headed to the Sandia Peak Tramway.

I forgot my camera, so all these pictures were taken with my iPhone so they are not up to par, but I think you will get the idea anyways. This tram is the longest passenger tramway in the US, it used to be the longest in the world, but there is now another tramway longer in another country. The ride is about 15 minutes each way at a speed of 13.6 mph.
The tramway was manufactured by Bell Engineering of Lucerne, Switzerland and constructed between 1964-1966 at a cost of 2 million dollars.
You go from an elevation of 6,559 at the lower terminal to Sandia Peak elevation of 10,378.
The main power unit is a 600 hp DC electric motor.
The span from tower 2 to the top is 1 1/2 miles or 7,720 feet. This is one of the longest spans in the world.
Here is some scenery on the way down.


This tramway ride was well worth it for the scenery.

Today going to do some site seeing, possibly hit some wineries or whatever we might find. Probably will head back to Tucson tomorrow unless we discover something else we want to do.

But stay tuned next week, as we leave for Seattle on Wed for 5 days (we are flying, not driving). Will try to post from my iPad from there.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Bayfield Experience

Sunday 7am we took off from Show Low to Bayfield CO (18 miles east of Durango). The trip was uneventful even though we did hit rain for about 10 minutes (just long enough to get the coach & Lincoln filthy) and took us only 5.5 hours. We arrived at Bayfield Riverside RV Park to find out that the person I spoke with to make the reservation (actually she had called me to say they had a cancellation and that they could fit us in) didn't put it down in their system, so there was no reservation. Luckily they just got a cancellation, so we got that spot. So all worked out. We are surrounded by trees with a little pond behind us with a creek running through the park. It's nice, but rustic.

Later on in the evening, the electric power went off in our coach. No one else in the park was having a problem, just us. Then the power came back on after about 1/2 hour or so. It kept doing this, but couldn't figure out what was happening. So just let it go until we could call Newell to figure this out.

Monday, we had reservations for the Durango/Silverton Train. Had to be at the train station at 8:15 am (7:15 am AZ time) to board. We purchased tickets for a parlor car (for 21 years & older) which happened to be the last car of the train. I won't bore you with all the pictures I took (185), but just give you a sample so you can hopefully get the idea of the beauty of this country.

Our parlor car only sat 24, which a couple of table were empty. Only problem with this car was trying to take pictures through the small windows.
A view of our train as we rounded the cliffs.
 We followed the Animas River pretty much the whole route to Silverton.
The scenery was spectacular.
The trip up to Silverton takes 3 1/2 hours to go 45 miles. The train is all original steam engine on a narrow track, which means there's a lot of movement back and forth. It could lull you to sleep.
We went to Handlebars for lunch in Silverton. This was the most popular and best restaurant which we later found out. Our food was excellent after only about a 15 minute wait. The place was just packed.
View of one the main street in Silverton. We had just beautiful weather, it was in the low 70s at 9300 feet elevation. The trip back on the train as we got to lower elevation got much warmer, in fact a little too warm on the train.
This is heading back after 2 hours in Silverton. The trip back to Durango also takes 3.5 hours. It just makes for a long day. We were exhausted when we got back even though we just sat for the past 10 hours.
Jim enjoying the view from the rear of the parlor car.

We got into Durango at 6pm and headed back to the RV. Hung out for a while then went to bed.

Tues. a.m. we called Newell to ask about our electrical power issue. They indicated that when your power source has a high fluctuation of amperage the surge/trans. box will shut off. He told us to run off the generator or we would burn up the box which costs $800. So the generator is running. We informed the park of the issue and they claim that their power source could not be the problem. How do you argue the issue? So we will just see at the next park if we have the same issue, then it's probably us.

We washed the RV and Lincoln this morning because you couldn't even see out the windows they were so dirty. Then we just took a drive around the area and ended up at 3 wineries, all were good and came back with new wines for our collection.

Don't know if we will leave a day early (tomorrow) for Albuquerque because of our power issue or wait till our planned day of departure on Thurs. Will see how it goes.