Welcome to Rich Hudgins N5ALE Web Page

July 1 Cody through Yellow Stone park to Beaver Creek Camp site on the west side of Yellow Stone
I left Cody about 07:00 and Arrived at the enterence to Yellowstone about an hour later.



I highly recommend the Senior pass as that got me into Yellow Stone [also perhaps military retired] for free.  Once in Yellow Stone I meet one of the native traffic directors on the side of the road.





Hot Springs are all over the place.




On the way out of the West Gate to Yellow Stone one of the traffic directors was checking out the road and casused a ten mile backup on the only road out a two lane twisty road, but once I got out of the Park the land seemed to ease up some and the road was clear



I was headed for Mosula Montana but came across this great little camp ground and decided to stay for a few days.




I liked it so much that I stayed for three days and as I write this am still here. [4th of July is not a good day to travel thats my excuse and I am sticking to it]



The temperature this morning was 30 degrees F.  nice and cool, the other mornings it has been in the 40's with day time temps in the high 70's  nice.  I took a walk this morning down an old campground loop that had been abandoned about 15 years ago and then




Nap time



The lake here is named Earthquake lake as it was formed in 1959 by and earth quake and land slide that covered the old camp site and buried 19 people who are still down there some place.

5 July trip from Beaver Creek campground to Spokean Washington.  
Western Montana is windy and mostly flat to rolling hills which made the driving pretty easy.



Spokan was pretty ratty just as I remembered it from the last time I came down from Canada on my way back from Alaska but it was a good stoping point.  I checked at the local Air Force base Family Camp which was full, but they did give me a good pointer to a close by and inexpensive RV park. 

July 6 onward and upward to The cascades.  There are lots of really neat locations in Washington state.  Below I am just getting into the foot hills of the Cascades.



On the way I passed thru many very small towns but this one is one of the biggest and is still very  small.



Winthrop was a small big town and over a hundred miles from where I was headed.  And now some of the best pictures so far of the American Alps, as they are called localy.



Yes that is snow up there and I was soon to drive thru it. 



The road is good but very twisty and very up and down as might be guessed.   This next one is just some cool sky shots.



Once you are thru the mountains, the forest closes  in and is  rich in ferns and under growth.  In fact you might just see Big Foot looking out of one of these pictures if you look close enough.



As I write this its clouding up and the thunder is starting up so we may have some rain this evening but here is my aprs tracks for the last few days of driving.





July 9 I left Alpine RV park and instead of going to the national park and dry camping for a couple of days I headed for Chilliwack [dont you love that name] in Canada where I intended to get my oil and filter changed [not me the truck].  Every thing is more expensive in Canada on the surface as the exchange rate is not one to one but when you put it on a card it comes out ok.  By the way they dont like Discover or American express cards here as the charges are higher than visa and mastercard. 
aprs track for july 9



Boy I don't know what that dog leg is that shows me beaming up and back down in Utah but I didn't do that so just disregard.



Here I am in line to cross the border on Hiway 9 which is not the major crossing in the area but a smaller on on a side road.  The young lady at the window was very nice and even smiled at me [ don't tell anyone I am sure they are trained to always frown].

July 10 Chilliwhack to Christinas Lake BC

aprs


looks like I crossed the border at least once but not so.  I did come within a mile of it several times.


I started off in fog and light rain as you can see which was very cool and damp for a change.



Later I broke out into the sun and came out in a very nice temperate valley where they grow grapes and make wine as well as almost any kind of fruit and vegetable you can imagine.



I am  now at the Totam Motel and RV camp just about 100 yards from the lake and I fully intend to go tomorrow and at least wade into the lake for a while.  More on that later.  Well I did get to the lake early in the morning after dodging some of the early morning preditory life forms common in that part of Canada.
you have to be carfull about leaving out any letttus or other veggies.



Lake side and you can see from the ripples that I was at least a little ways in the water.



Since I left Christina lake I have been out of contact almost completely from the internet, so no real updates until I can get back on the net.

There is some very pretty spots in British Columbia  like below and then as soon as  I got to Alberta the flat land farm land began.




Alberta and Saskatchewan both are similar.




I dont know what those small yellow flowering plants are but there are about 500 miles so far of those and some small blue flowering plants.  The real cash crop in Both Alberta and Saskatchiwan are those wind generators in the back ground.

July 14 Saturday

 The wind never stops and some times like today it blows really hard.  I had to fight it on the nose several times and it was like trying to pull a parachute.  But I finally stopped for a couple of nights [Sat night and Sunday night] at a little village called Summerset in Manitoba a really nice little village where I found that French is at least the language that is used during Mass at the little Catholic Church  here, a very pretty mass it was.   I took a few pictures but most look so much like Alberta that I did not post any.

The little community RV/sports park at Summerset.




July 15 Sunday in Somerset Manitoba Canada As you can see its pretty quiet here a truly beautiful way to spend the day resting.  I went to Mass at the Catholic Church and was treated to my first ever mass in French.  Almost everyone in this area is  French Canadian.   It was  very nice .

 





July 16 Somerset to the Northwest Angle
  Started off this morning and took my time but at one point I had to take a gravel road for about 20 kilometers  or so not so bad it was graded pretty well.  I got to the turnoff and back to gravel road for 20 miles this time.   I am here now in the parking lot overflow because there was not room in the INN, but its not bad as the parking lot is full of boat trailers and trucks.  Most of these will clear out by dark I think AND MY CELL PHONE WORKS NOW THAT I AM ON US SOIL.......    Well it will until tomorrow when I go back onto Canadian soil.  I want to stay at Moose Lake just south of here in canada for a couple of days if there is room for me and then cross back into the U.S.  The odd thing is how you cross the border, you just drive across and when you get some 18 miles into the Angle [as its called here] There is a cross roads where there is a telephone that connects you to either the us border patrol or the canadianborder service and you give them your truck  license plate number and name and phone number and thats it.. We will see how the Canadians work it tomorrow.




July 17  THE ANGLE TO Moose Lake

Moose lake is a very nice inland lake that is used as a local recreational lake.  This was the view out my door and window from my trailer.




This how ever is the way I really liked to see it.



And this is some of the insect population making more insects.  And since we are talking about insects let me mention the new fly that I was able to study up close and personal for two days.    The  temperatures are very high for here it gets into the nineties  which is unheard of, so It must be my fault.  but back to the flys.    They arent horse flies not large enough, they arent deer flies not the right size, but the do bite the dickens out of you right through your socks and they will crawl up your pants legs if you dont watch them.  Little bitty and blood thirsty they must be [ drum roll please ]  MOOSE FLIES.......  get it Moose lake Moose flies Owell I wore out one fly swatter and started on the last one I had but I did leave a small pile around my chair in the front of the trailer.  The screened hammock worked very well to keep them off but I could not spend all my time in it besides after a couple of rum and cokes I was on a mission from GOD to kill as many as I could.










Thursday July 19  Moose lake to Thief river falls Minnesota

Not a very long drive today and a nice place to stay at the Stop and Play RV park/amusement center.  They have a very nice RV park and also bumper cars and video games a pool and snack shop.   They gave me a coupon for a free lunch at the 7 clan native American Casino about 8 miles out of town so I went and had a very nice late lunch then of course I had to visit the souvenir shop and the casino as I had parked at the front door and left most of a twenty dolar bill in one of the very odd machines I did win 70 cents so it wasnt a complete waste.... [LOL]

and this is good old USA [NOW MY CHEAP ASS VERIZON CELL PHONE WILL WORK]




Here I am going to put the aprs files for the last week or two that comprise most of my Canada travels to current.











More later
Well its later and there is more to follow.
July 20 Thief River Falls to Cadotte lake camp ground. 
I first went to Two Harbors city campground but it was full and the lady suggested that I go back inland to something there, so I backtracked to Cadotte Lake campground that I had seen coming in to the coast. 



I did stop in one of the citys on the way that had a Walmart and get the best thing I could have....  a popup screen tent that I spent a lot of time in while here.  There were no flies to speak of but the mosquitoes were pretty insistent.  As you can see the foliage is pretty heavy .
 This is one of the trails that goes to the lake shore.


July 23 Monday on the way to Two Harbors and Lake Superior.

Aprs trail for that morning



This is a view of the shore side park and Lake Superior from my Trailer



I also went to visit the Split rock Light house about twenty miles north of Two Harbors.



If you have ever head the song [the wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald ]Its about a very bad storm on Lake Superior that sank the ore carrier Edmond Fitzgerald.  The lake storms  are some of the worst on any body of water with the exception of a Cat Three Hurricane.  The Picture below is of what is left from a hoist house that was installed to build the light house in 1905 and was completely destroyed in 1915 by a storm that was exceptional.  Keep in mind that house was built on a cement slab 100 feet above the normal water line on granite cliffs.   The wind was about 65 mph  the waves  30  feet and with blinding snow, all in November.




July 25 Wednesday On to Wisconsin
Left Two Harbors about 07:00 and took the scenic route [the old road] to Duluth then across the bridge to Superior Wisconsin.  The traffic was not bad at all for a week day.   Maybe they have a texas driver early warning system in place so they can all get off the road when a crazy Texan comes thru.  Got across and started taking all the little back roads and ran across This really nice little town Drummond with a city campground. 

Some of the back roads in Wisconsin


When I got situated in the camp ground I went to the Library/ welcome center across the street and talked to the Librarian for a while and she suggested a good place for lunch might be the Delta Dinner  in the huge village of Delta Wisconsin.  You are looking at the village of Delta Wisconsin in the picture below.
Really good food and as you can see its popular with the folks from all over the area.


 partial APRS track for the 25th




July 26 Thursday Cheese sampling at Benoit Wisconsin and on to Salor Lake camp ground
  I never knew that there were that many types of cheese.  Some of its really good, some not so much. I guess its an acquired taste.  I did get a map of most of the producers that have a viewing window so you can see some of what it takes to make cheese so it was a good stop besides I did get some tasty cheese to take with me.  Who knew you can age cheese just like wine and it gets better the older it is.



Salor lake  is three miles off the little road that runs thur the national forest.  There were 26 sites and just myself and later one other camper were there.   Very quiet except for the drone of the Mosquitoes which did respond to the mosquito coils I lit and put outside of my door.  It rained off and on most of the night and that was wonderful to listen to inside the camper.

July 27 Salor lake to Escanaba Michigan
In my travels I have discovered a closely guarded secret  I  am not sure if  I should  release it because  it might expose  the northern U.S. to invasion from Canada [grin] but here goes.  Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan goes camping on the week end,  not just some of the people but every one empties out of the cities and towns and goes to the woods to camp.   Fortunaltly there are a lot of woods to camp in so its not bad unless you want to camp as well and if you do you should arrive where you want to me before noon and get your camp ground for the whole weekend then you are set.

I would like to introduce my traveling partner BOB THE BOBBLE HEAD BEAR I picked him up at the splitrock light house gift shop and he has been a wealth of information and advice so far.  I am going to have to be careful with him as I am pretty sure he has been hitting the 12 year old rum from time to time.
Here you can see he is telling me that he likes these small back country roads as much as I do.




and lastly the trip APRS map for the last couple of days




Weekend in Escanaba

July 28 Pioneer park in Escanaba  very nice place with power water and a dump station  not so crowded as the two harbors rvpark but lots of trees. 



Spent a great weekend and meet some very nice people from Green Bay [GO PACKERS] sorry could not help that I guess its being in the upper latitudes.  Barbra, Shaun, Payton who invited me into their camp and shared most of Friday and Saturday with me. 

July 30  Esconaba  to Fox river campground
I meet a new friend  in  Munising Mi.  Take a look as he gets ready to sprint across the street to get to the hamburger stand...



Fox river camp site from the fishing pier on the little lake there.



As you can see this is a trail that goes from my campsite [thats my screen tent something that eveyone should have]  and the fishing pier on the littl lake on the fox river.  This used to be a trout  hatchery and the camp ground used to be the grounds of the keepers house and car garage.  The  garage is built into the hill I suppose to keep the car or truck from freezing during the winter.



As you can see its boarded up now as people kept throwing trash into it.

You may have noticed that my updates are erratic and infrequient.  That is because Verison does not cover any where out of the city,s in this area very well so if I stay in a nice camp in the woods I cant update my  page until I get to a place with good coverage.   I think I will switch back to AT&T when I get home.

Jump now to August