Starling Travel

HeraldNet.com reports that the Forest Service is looking at adding trails and campgrounds to the Mount St. Helens National Monument.

The Forest Service is studying the possibility of adding one or two campgrounds and two trails at Mount St. Helens, including a new climbing route on the north side of the volcano. Plans call for starting the environmental review this summer on a trail that departs from Loowit trail No. 216 and climbs to the Sugar Bowl, a rim at about 6,800-feet elevation on the northeast side of Mount St. Helens. Although the trail would not go to the summit, “you’d be able to look right into the crater,” said Gary Walker, lead climbing and trails ranger, for the monument. Climbing on Mount St. Helens has been done only from the south side since the summit reopened in 1982. The number of climbers is limited during summer. A northern route high on the mountain would need to become part of the permit system.

The second trail would begin near the Ape Cave on the south side of the peak and use a former logging road to climb about a mile to a viewpoint of Mount St. Helens. “There’s no view of Mount St. Helens from the Ape Cave,” Romano said. “This would give a fuller experience.”

Locations are being analyzed for two proposed campgrounds near the Science and Learning Center at Coldwater, the new name for the former Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center. The Forest Service wants an overnight facility near the Science and Learning Center as a means for visitors to extend their stays and for research and education groups participating in multi-day programs. Romano said the terrain does not make locating campground sites easy. “There’s not a whole lot of flat ground out there,” she said. “We’ve identified a few places where a small campground might fit.” The sites would be small, with no electricity, toilets without running water and no campfires. Both campgrounds would be within easy walking distance of the center. “We’re still working on the feasibility study,” Romano said. “We’ll know more in a few months.”

Right now, the closest camping to Mount St. Helens is the Beaver Bay Campground, 11 miles (25 minute drive) away. That site is hosted by Pacificorp and is not a state or federal campground, but it has water, showers and a swimming beach. It’s not that far of a drive from Beaver Bay to Mount St. Helens, but I can understand why the Forest Service might want to keep visitors at their site instead of watching them leave the mountain every day.

Via:

• Beaver Bay Campground – Photo Gallery – LewisRiver.com
• RV Life Magazine – New Mount St. Helens Campgrounds | RV Life Magazine

I found this unique little hotel room here:

• A Caravan Hotel Room at Huettenpalast Berlin | decor8

Instead of your standard hotel room, Huettenpalast Hotel recycles camper trailers and refurbishes and fits them to an indoor space for 40-60 Euros a night!

The room looks adorable!

I love how they have “trees” in the room to give it an outdoorsy feel.

I would love to stay at a hotel with this kind of theme, but travel to Germany isn’t in my near future. I guess I’ll just have to hope someone does something like this in the States.

When we went to visit Craters of the Moon a couple of weekends ago, we stayed at the Craters of the Moon KOA in Arco, ID. Arco was the first city in the world to be powered by atomic power and the nuclear plant that powered it is still there to this day (with MANY improvements, I’m sure). The city was so blissful that we were reluctant to leave. (Continue Reading…)

From the satellite view of the park, Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho looks like a scorched blotch on the earth.

And it is… (Continue Reading…)

I want to go to Disney World. I’ve never been there and I really want to experience all Disney World has to offer. We live in Salt Lake City, Utah, however, so every time I bring it up, everyone in the family says that we should just go to Disneyland instead. It’s almost the same and it’s so much closer.

In order to convince them, I have to do RESEARCH. How inexpensively can we do this trip? Today, I did that research for a trip in February and what I found, surprised me. (Continue Reading…)

I love these photos of Las Vegas back in 1955.

You can almost imagine going into the Sands Hotel to see Rosemary Clooney (George Clooney’s mother) perform.

I just want to rat my hair in a beehive, put on some spiky heels and artificial eyelashes and jump right into those photos. See more after the break: (Continue Reading…)

Mobiltec visited Pleasant Valley Campground in California. His favorite campground, Horton Creek, was closed, so he had to camp in Pleasant Valley. He filmed a quiet little video of it. He showed the river, his campground and then went gold prospecting.

He talks about people from Hawaii coming to Taft, California to vacation:

Some of the people who came up here flew in from Florida and some of them even flew in from Hawaii, and it cracks me up that people who live in Hawaii, when they wanna go on vacation, they come to places like Taft, California to enjoy themselves. Well what are ya gonna do when you leave paradise? Where else can you go? You wanna do somethin’ different, right? It always kinda blows me away when that happens… ’cause I really have never liked this place.

I found that interesting as well. When Mike and I visited Hawaii, all the people there were obsessed with Las Vegas. That tiny glittering bit of neon in the desert was their preferred vacation spot. I guess even paradise gets boring sometimes.

Here is part two of his journey where he investigates old gold mines:

It’s amazing how quickly the earth overtakes what we’ve built upon it. There used to be ore rail tracks, but now there are only a few bare bones sticking out of the ground while wild Mustangs wander.

Here is part three when he goes to Fish Lake Hot Springs and Cave Springs:

For more information:

• Pleasant Valley Campground on Google Maps
• Horton Creek Campground on Google Maps

This boot is the most interesting thing in a radius of 200 miles.

This boot is actually more witty than I thought it was at first. (Continue Reading…)

The beauty of leaving our travel schedule open was that Mike and I could drive as far as we wanted and when we were tired we could find a campsite to stop at and sleep. The irresponsibility of leaving our travel schedule open was that we were driving home during Memorial Day weekend. After visiting The Laura Ingalls Wilder House and Osceola Cheese, we planned on camping at Lake Jacomo near Kansas City, Missouri.

When we arrived there, however, it was packed full and the camp host assured us that the other two campgrounds near the lake were also full for the weekend. Mike and I took one look at the rowdy campground full of people excited for their long weekend and decided to move on.

Mike pulled up the Allstays App [iTunes link] and found Beacon RV Park in St. Joseph, Missouri, about an hour away from the lake. They had room for us and their prices were very affordable. Their office closing time was in thirty minutes, however. The owner told us to head over and he would stay long enough for us to get there. We did our best to get through the Kansas City traffic up north to St. Joseph.

I had a bad feeling about the RV Park when we drove down the Belt Highway. How good could an RV Park be when it’s situated between a used car lot and a Chinese restaurant? I envisioned a night of noise from the big road and an unsecured location. Instead, we found a haven, sunk below the traffic noise. (Continue Reading…)

Mike and I saw the sign at the same time. I said,

“Share the road? With what? The Amish?”

We laughed and Mike pulled out his iPad to do some research.

“Umm… yeah.”

“Yeah, what?”

“We need to share the road with the Amish.”

I suddenly felt like I was in a strange land. There was a possibility that I could actually see Amish people driving horse-drawn buggies, just like the movies. And I did! I finally understood how all those tourists who come to Utah to see the Mormons felt. They’re just people. They might wear funny clothes (or underwear), but in the end, they’re people just like us.

I had no idea that with the Amish comes really good cheese. We kept seeing billboards for the Osceola Cheese Company. The giant mouse on the billboards enticed Mike, so we stopped there. I’m so glad we did. (Continue Reading…)