After 20 years of travel in our motor home, we've realized our ability to continue this lifestyle is becoming more difficult as we get older. We've settled in beautiful Oro Valley, just north of Tucson - so here's the story of our final summer of travel:
Our summer travels of 2025
began on the Oregon Coast, where we spent the previous summer
volunteering for US Fish & Wildlife at Harris Beach
State Park. After finishing our annual medical
appointments we left to spend a few days in Spokane where we celebrated Brenda’s birthday
with good friends Ed and Dianna. They
are two of the many friends we made while volunteering at Farragut
State Park across the border in Idaho.
On our first summer their RV was parked
across from ours, and each day I noticed a beautiful blond staring lovingly at
me through their bedroom window. My blond
admirer turned out to be one of two beautiful standard poodles that Ed and
Dianne owned, a slight blow to my ego. During
our three summers at Farragut, we were the park’s “program hosts”. We led school hikes, put on evening programs, and
conducted Junior Ranger classes on the weekends. Three nights a week we entertained campers at
the park amphitheater with nature films, interactive programs, and everyone’s
favorite, “Bill Nye the Science Guy” videos.
We left Farragut with many fond memories of the staff, fellow
volunteers, and the children that participated in our programs.
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Farragut Volunteers
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| Learn About the Moose....Be the Moose! |
From Spokane, we made the short trip along I-90 to
the Silver Dollar Saloon and it’s free RV spots to meet and have dinner with
Rob and Syd, who were volunteering for the Forest Service. We met them while volunteering in Oregon at Humbug
Mountain State
Park. There,
we were Junior Ranger instructors and also taught campers about Seals and Sea
Lions. Teaching the kids was a true joy
and we made many friends and explored the beautiful coast while in the area.
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| Learning About and Making Their Own Salamander |
Then it was on to Missoula to celebrate Brenda’s 80th birthday
with our daughter Kim, our friends that we met at Lee Metcalf National Wildlife
Refuge 20 years ago, and friends Don and Betty who traveled from their summer
home in Wyoming. Kim had obtained a nice VRBO in the
University District of Missoula, one of our favorite towns.
We were joined at a local steakhouse by friends
Deb and Bill, and Jim and Heidi, who we first met volunteering here, and had a
memorable night celebrating both Brenda and Kim’s birthdays. Kim put together a poster showing Brenda
through the years, a great memento that hangs on our wall today.
It was a great celebration – we laughed, we
told stories of our times together and once again made lifelong memories.
Had we not been lucky
enough to have Lee Metcalf as our first volunteer location, it’s doubtful we
would have continued to volunteer for the next 19 years. The staff was welcoming, patient, and taught
us to be “birders” and wildlife enthusiasts.
We staffed the visitor center, led tours into the closed portion of the refuge,
helped maintain the grounds, and I built displays and furniture. Our time here gave us the inspiration to learn,
explore, and share our knowledge of wildlife.
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Lee Metcalf NWR in the Spring
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Over the years, no trip
through the area was complete without a stop in Missoula.
Our favorite event was “out to lunch” Wednesday, when venders and bands
were set up along the river walk. It was
after one that we while walking back to our car we managed to make the front
page of the Missoula Newspaper:
Saying goodbye, we traveled south down the Bitteroot Valley and into the Salmon River Valley. Stay tuned for part 2 of our last summer on the road!
