May 9, 2012

Hi all our friends and family,

Susan and I are still at the Zion National Park. We are staying at a wonderful RV park near the south entrance to the park.  It is hard to describe how different the landscape and terrain is compared to our lush northwest forests. Here the absolute stark beauty of the flat top buttes in their beautiful red ochre colors are.  It is truly a majestic park area that everyone needs to see at least once in their lifetime.  Sweet SuzziB and I took a 50 mile ride up to the Kalob Resevoir.  The elevation of the reservoir is at 9000 feet above sea level.  That is 4500 feet higher than the Summit of Stevens Pass and 2000 feet higher than the top of 7th Heaven at the Pass.  We rode up the twisty mountain road in awe at the sight of the canyons and rock mountains.  The cactus were in bloom, small black eyed Susans, many purple and white fields of flowers, and a lot of bright yellow and neon red blooms in the higher elevation meadows. We are off to Page, Arizona on Saturday morning.  Page is close to Lake Powell. We will be staying at the Wahweap  RV park there.  I am including in todays post some shots from this area and some from the RV park.

More Later,

PS: I have to wait for a faster connection in order to upload some of the pictures.  The connection keeps timing out

April 29, 2012
We are in Hagerman, Idaho staying at a nice RV spot that has lots of grass and trees. Susan and I took a great ride on the Road King this morning into Bliss, Idaho. The weather is fantastic with a clear blue sky and warm temperatures.  Idaho is a no helmet state, however, we opted for brain buckets and leathers. The little town of Bliss is having a fund raising weekend to benefit a little gal with cancer. They had a Harley ride on Saturday with an auction today. We decided that we would have to be gone from friends and family for 3 months to see all the things we want to see on this journey. The conclusion of our discussion is to make a list of absolute must see for this journey saving other spots for later trips. The Winnebago is a very nice way to travel. The rv parks are quite reasonable with most offering free Wi-Fi along with other amenities.  Our first stay was in a little county fairground park south of The Dalles off the junction of Hwy  We were the only ones in the park other than 3 construction guys who are in the process of building 40 new pads complete with all the amenities.  It was nice to let Cody and Dexter run without leashes in the park.

We move on to Utah and the great Zion National Park from here.

Helicopter over the Great Barrier Reef

The weather was perfect yesterday for a great heli ride over the Whitsunday Island group and the Great Barrier Reef.  Susan and I spent a great two hours with our pilot as he gave us a private tour of these places.  There is not much in my vocabulary to describe the beauty.  You will have to see for yourselves in these few pictures on the net and the ones we bring home.  Also shown are a few pictures of Qualia from the air.  The super white beach is known as Whitehaven and is the most photographed beach in the world.  From the air, we say schools of rays, turtles and one big shark. Enjoy the photos, we will see all of you in a few days.  We are sad our trip is coming to an end, but are thrilled to be able to see our home and friends.  See you in Seattle or at Silver Star!

Good Morning Whitsundays

I just could not resist taking a few shots of the glorious sunrise this morning.  This shot is taken from our front balcony and is looking at the hillock on the east end of the island.  It is really quite striking and fills one with a real sense of wonder at the beauty of the world.

The Whitsundays are located off the east coast of Australia.  If you want to find us on a map, go to Google Maps, find Mackay on the east coast (north of Brisbane) and zoom into the island group until you find us.  Most of the big reefs are named.  The Whitsundays are the most sought after destinations for Aussies to sail to.

Qualia Resort

Today is our first full day at Hamilton Island.  We are kicking back and enjoying the amenities of our windward pavilion room.  Our stay here is all inclusive and includes the use of an electric golf cart to carouse around the resort and in fact all over the island.  Everyone here uses the electric carts to travel into town and to head into the national forest areas.  The resorts here occupy a small percentage of the island.  The balance is in a national forest reserve.  We were rudely awakened last night by screaming wild cockatoos and parrots fighting each other for roosting space.  Enjoy the pictures of our lovely room, there will be more for you to see when we come home at the end of this week.  I will post another blog toward the end of the week so you can see the beautiful scenery from our morning walks through the national preserve and beaches.  See you soon!

Pictures of Port Douglas and Daintree

A few more shots of Port Douglas, the Daintree Forest and a couple of new Aussies!

Port Douglas and Beyond

We arrived north of Brisbane at the Cairns Airport.  Enter Dick & Susan into the hot, steamy tropical town of Cairns.  We stayed a bit further north at Port Douglas, a sleepy little town that is the center of all the rainforest and great barrier reef activity in the area. It is a quaint area filled with palm trees, white sand beaches, azure water and the (and I mean the) biggest fruit bats you have ever seen.  These bats (for Andrea Nelson's sake) are over 16 inches long when hanging from their little feet's!  They are nocturnal, so when dawn comes, they are found by the thousands hanging from certain trees.  Night time comes and off they go to eat fruit and bugs.  When they fly, it appears as if thousands of eagles are flying off into the dusk.  They are quite harmless and only eat fruit of which there is a ready supply.  We did not experience any lack of fruit but did notice a significant lack of mosquitoes.  The Peninsula hotel was right on the beach where we were able to enjoy the walk down 4 mile beach.  The pictures with this post show the beach, the rain forest and  the view from our rear balcony.  You will notice the "stinger" net surrounding the water that is open to swimming.  The first of December is the start of the stinger jelly fish season.  The Box Jelly Fish can send you to two places if you get stung.  One is the hospital and the other is the grave!  The local officials have to cruise the stinger net at the end of the season in March.  They are required to have two consecutive weeks of daily checking that shows absolutely no sign of the jelly fish before they will open the beach for total swimming  this usually happens in March.  We did not have any problems in the net nor did I have any encounters when I took a dive boat to the reef for a day of underwater fun.  I was required to wear a "rashie"suit just in case.  For those of you who know Susan's temperature standards for getting into the water will then know how warm the water was in Port Douglas.  Kristie and Ted will know for sure!  The rain forest is so very hard to describe so I will let our pictures do the talking when we return.  Ditto for the reef and the diving adventure.  We are now on Hamilton Island at the Qualia Resort.  It is beyond description but I will try in a future blog.  Right now it is time to wrap this up.  I will give another post or two while we are on Hamilton and then wrap it all up at the end of the week when we head for Sydney and the final leg back to all our friends and loved ones in Seattle.  So much more later!