Concerts in the Park

In the summer, Dave and I like to attend outdoor concerts. Our favorite summer orchestra is the Portland Festival Symphony. This summer marks the 32nd year that this orchestra has presented concerts in Portland's public parks.  This season's opening concert, which we attended on Saturday evening, was held at Cathedral Park in the St. John's area of Portland.  Did I mention that these concerts are presented free of charge? 

The orchestra opened with the always popular, Stars and Stripes Forever, conducted by Sean, an entertaining layman from the Oregonian newspaper, a concert sponsor.

Guest conductor, Michael Allen Harrison, conducted Dave's favorite piece of music, Victory at Sea by Richard Rodgers.

The rest of the program was conducted by Portland Festival Symphony founder and music director, Lajos Balogh.

We heard Rossini's La Gazza Ladra Overture, Beethoven's Symphony #3 (Eroica)--movements 2 and 3, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture (minus the cannons!), America the Beautiful with the audience invited to sing along, and Haydn's Toy Symphony with children participating--a Portland Festival Orchestra tradition.

The weather was beautiful and the park's natural grassy amphitheater is a good place to gather to listen to a concert.

A small part of the crowd on Saturday night.

St. John's Bridge runs over the park, but the traffic didn't interfere with the musical performance.

Portland Festival Symphony will present five more free outdoor concerts this summer.  The programs vary at each concert, but all include fine classical music. 

Home!

We are always relieved when we arrive home from a trip and discover that the house is in the same shape as we left it.   That was the case yesterday when we arrived back home in Vancouver, Washington, after our 3 1/2 week trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota.

When we see the Columbia Gorge, we know that we are getting close to home.

And when we see the east side of Mount Hood, we are even closer to home.

The views of the mighty Columbia River are great along I-84, but hard to capture in a picture.

Ah, evergreen trees are one of my favorite sights in the Pacific Northwest.

We got home to cloudy skies and temperatures in the mid-70s.  The temps today were in the low 80s, with humidity arriving in the late afternoon.  Right now, I'm hearing a lot of thunder and seeing lightning, which is somewhat unusual for this part of the country.  Now it just started raining.

We got back in the swing of things at home with Dave playing golf with one of his usual foursomes, and I having lunch with my friend, Sandy.

Arrival in Pendleton, Oregon

As Dave said in his blog, today's drive seemed to go by quickly.  I was starting to fall asleep in the passenger seat when Dave suggested that we listen to my iPod.  I put on a podcast of the Dave Ramsey Show and the time sped by as we listened to four of his daily shows.  Dave Ramsey gives financial advice and we have listened to him ever since 2001, so we can usually predict what advice he will give to the people that call in.

I didn't take any pictures along I-84 in Idaho.  We were pleased to see that the Boise road work is finally done--until they begin again, of course.  We traveled this same route in 2011 and in 2010 and there was road work both trips. 

Soon we were back in Oregon and back into Pacific Time.  Yay, we gained back the hour that we lost when we entered Montana in June.

The Snake River that we saw in Glenns Ferry was very visible along I-84 west of Ontario, Oregon.

The Blue Mountains in eastern Oregon made us think we were back in the Black Hills of South Dakota. 

Soon after we drove through the mountains, the fields outside of Pendleton began to appear.

We are staying at our usual place in Pendleton, the Wildhorse Casino RV Park.

They've finished the new hotel addition at the casino.  The RV park looked the same except that they no longer give free vouchers for a continental breakfast.  We paid $27 for one of the full-hookup 50 amp sites with excellent wifi and good satellite signal.  We are right on the edge of being able to pick up our local satellite stations. 

Site #70.  Yes!  We are back on a paved site...finally!

As Dave mentioned, we had hoped to stay another night at this park so that we could go on the famous Pendleton Underground tour and take a walk along the River Walk.  But it's hot and humid here and even a thunderstorm this afternoon didn't cool things off, so we'll head for home tomorrow as we originally planned. 

Tomorrow's destination is Vancouver, Washington--home!

Traveling from Evanston, Wyoming, to Glenns Ferry, Idaho

Dave and I left Phillips RV Park at 8:30 am as planned.  We pulled out of our site and then found out that a car blocking the road.  We honked our horn several times.  No one appeared.  Dave got out to see if the keys were in the car.  Nope.  Dave called the RV Park office and they didn't seem to know what to do.  Dave suggested that the car should be towed.  The park owner didn't even come out to investigate.  There was no other way to go to get out, so finally Dave backed up a few feet (not an easy task with the car hitched up behind us) and was able to very carefully go through one of the empty sites.  There wasn't much room, and now our motorhome has a big scratch on the passenger side because it hit the hookups in that site.

I have to say that I would not recommend Phillips RV Park in Evanston, Wyoming, unless one has a very small RV with no slides.  Big rigs don't fit here!  For one thing, the park had many low branches that could potentially damage the roof of the RV, and the sites are very small with trees on both side.  And then there are those rocks that I wrote about in yesterday's blog.

Our other gripe with this park is that when we arrived, there was no one at the office.  Another motorhome had arrived before we did, and they were waiting, too.  With both of us waiting, we pretty much blocked the entrance to the park.  Finally after about 20 minutes of waiting, a teenager came and unlocked the office and registered us.  We suggested to him that when the office is closed, they need some system, a white board for example, that instructs customers about which sites are available.   He didn't seem too concerned, so I doubt he passed on the message to his parents, the owners.

The other thing that happened today was that a bird flew into our motorhome as we were driving.  The only damage seems to be that our radio antenna is bent.  We were lucky that the air conditioner wasn't damaged.  The bird, of course, is history. 

Despite the morning problems, we had an enjoyable drive to Glenns Ferry, Idaho.  We left Wyoming and entered Utah.  We weren't in Utah for too long, but wow, that state has some great scenery.  We hadn't been on this leg of I-84 before.

We saw a long train that was carrying army supply vehicles.  We guessed that they were headed for shipment overseas.

My welcome to Idaho sign got clipped.  I really am not good at taking pictures of welcome signs as we barrel down the road!

After Utah, the Idaho scenery was humdrum.  We had some excitement, though, when we drove under a large rain cloud.  These bugs on the windshield were gone by the time we drove out from under the rain!

We are all tucked into site #7 at Trails End RV Park in Glenns Ferry, Idaho.  It's kind of a funky little park, but it'll do for our one-night stay.  The price is right at $23.76.  The wifi works well, but we can't get satellite from this site. 

The end of the trail for this wagon?

Still gravel, but at least we have a bit of grass here.

We are too tired today to unhook the car and go exploring, so for information on Glenns Ferry, click on my blog entry from May, 2010.

Tomorrow, it's on to Pendleton, Oregon!

Evanston, Wyoming

As we left Rawlins, WY, we continued to drive west on I-80.  We hit a stretch of road construction right after leaving the KOA.  Today--and probably every day on this interstate--was truck day!

One thing we noticed was many miles of snow fences.  We had seen them in Montana, but not as many as we have seen in Wyoming.  Presumably, the snow fences help to keep the drifting snow off the interstate.

We also say several pumping/heating stations for the underground petroleum.  We also saw several flares where they were burning off the natural gas from the petroleum.  There were no farms or towns to take pictures of, so the pumping stations caught my attention.

We crossed the continental divide.

Then, west of Rock Springs, the scenery started getting interesting.

We are spending the night at Phillips RV Park in Evanston.  These sites are close together!  There was a big rock marking our site that ended up being right outside our door.  Somehow we managed not to trip over it.  The tree on the left was so close that we couldn't put out our awning.  The good news about Evanston was that the temperature was not hot.  Highs were in the 70s, which was a welcome relief.

Site 17 

Dave unhitched the car and we went to explore the town.  We walked up and down Main Street where everything was closed except for Domino's Pizza.  That was okay, we were just window shopping anyway. 

Building built in 1887: 

Evanston began as a railroad town.  Here's a view of the restored depot and part of Historic Depot Square.  There was a huge  train roundhouse at the end of town, so big that I couldn't take a picture of it!

You know that I like to take pictures of churches.  This is is St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church.

This garden memorial on the church property caught my eye.

As we finished up our walk, the church's carillon began playing some music.  This small city seems like a very nice place to live. 

Rawlins, Wyoming

Dave and I left the Cheyenne KOA at 9 am on Saturday and got to our next destination, the Rawlins KOA around 12:30 pm.  The elevation at this campground is over 7000 feet, and Dave could tell that he had to do the hookups a little bit slower than usual.  High elevations still bother him. 

At the advice of a fellow blogger, Sandie Dixon, we headed to the deli/bakery in the back of Discount Grocery to have lunch.  We were surprised that the grocery part of the store was empty.  The deli was still there, but it had a sign that they are closing on July 21.  Rawlins seems to be another town that has been hit hard by the recession.

Despite that, Rawlins was having a Summerfest this afternoon.  Main Street was blocked off for a few blocks, so it was a good chance for me to walk around the downtown area without worrying about cars.  By the time I got to the festival, it was winding down.

I drove around town and saw Old Pen, Wyoming's oldest state penitentiary. I opted not to take the tour.  I understand that the conditions inside are quite gruesome, and this prison was closed in the late 1980s when they built a new, modern prison on the south side of Rawlins. 

It looks like a castle, but it was really a prison.

I took a picture of Saint Joseph Catholic Church.  A wedding was being held there this afternoon.

The Ten Commandments were displayed outside the church.

One of the Rawlin's old Victorian houses is now the Ferris Mansion Bed & Breakfast.

Fluffy afternoon clouds over Rawlins.  A thunderstorm is supposed to blow in tonight.

This KOA isn't anything special, but we're happy that we have good water pressure here.  As in Cheyenne, this KOA is located near I-80.  It will do for our one night stay.  Friendly hosts checked us in at both of the KOAs.

Site 15

One of the few trees at this KOA.  I thought it was pretty.

Tomorrow's destination is Evanston, Wyoming.