Tuesday, May 12, 2015

We are in Bellingham, Washington, visiting Diana and Greg.  And here is the

view from their deck:

The last time I wrote we were in northern California, waiting to explore Redwood

National Park.  The park is a unique mix of state and federal lands and the sign

shows that:

The drive to the park was cloudy and overcast. 

This is not the sunny southern California coast.  But it is this weather that

supports the growth of the redwoods.  The mist and clouds supplement the

rainfall to supply the moisture needed.  We’ve noticed that the streams and rivers

this far north frequently have water in them, although none of them seem at their

normal level.

We took a park road up to an overlook to have lunch.  As we climbed, the sun

broke through and it looked like it was a gorgeous day!  We reached the overlook

and a gorgeous view:

The bank of clouds blocks the view of the ocean, which would have been

spectacular. 

We spread the picnic cloth on the grass and enjoyed our lunch.  Obi used this

time to enjoy the sunshine and fresh air. 

He’s enjoying grass underfoot.  He didn’t particularly care for the sand, gravel or

dirt in the southwest. 

We then explored the Lady Bird Johnson Grove, dedicated to her to honor her

work to beautify America.  It’s a nice redwood grove with an easy loop trail

through it.

It’s really hard to photograph redwoods, as they are so tall, but here are a few

shots we took.

This tree was probably hit by lightening, but still survives.

I couldn’t help but think how much fun I would have had as a child playing in this

cozy den:

And there were lots of wild flowers blooming.  We found spring again!

The next day we headed north on our way to Bellingham, Washington.  We took

a scenic drive through Redwood National Park.  These pictures help to show the

scale of the redwoods:

We were in the land of green again and when we crossed over streams, they

seemed to have some water in them.  We headed into Oregon, where Steve had

found us a Corps of Engineers campground.  The Army Corps of Engineers built

most of the dams on rivers in this country, for hydropower, flood control and

recreation.  They also frequently built a campground nearby.  We’ve stayed in

several and really enjoy them.  This particular one, Schwarz Park, had no

hookups, meaning we relied on what we had in the trailer for power and water. 

But it had a really nice view.

That’s the Row River in the picture.  I was really sad we were only going to spend

one night here.  There were only two other campers in this part of the park and

they were both near the restrooms, so we had plenty of solitude.

Except for the two families of geese that apparently lived near by.  We saw them

in the evening and again the next morning, as we got ready to leave.  There were

5 goslings, I think, and the adults kept an eye on us to make sure we weren’t

getting too close.

There were also 3 ducks, 2 with dark heads and one with a red head, that

seemed to be hanging together, although I couldn’t get them in one shot.

We’ve seen a few deer and an elk in the last couple of days, but never where

there are signs warning of deer.  In fact, in all our travels, we’ve never seen the

animals depicted on the road signs anywhere near the road signs.

The farther north we go, the more normal rivers and streams look. And the

greener the landscape.  Greg and Diana say that eastern Washington is pretty

dry.  It will be interesting to see how things are in Alaska, as they didn’t get much

snow this winter.

I’ll be here another week; Steve has flown east to Dayton for an amateur radio

convention and Diana and Greg have been gracious enough to put up with Obi

and me.  Then we’ll head north to Hazleton, British Columbia, to meet up with our

RV caravan into Alaska.

Deb

Friday, May 1, 2015

We are at Sounds of the Sea RV Park, in Trinidad, California.  I’m sitting at my 
desk watching waves crash over some rocks just off shore.  I can hear the ocean 
and the occasional seal.  This is my view:

It’s hard to tell from the photo, but you can see the ocean through the trees.  We 
are so lucky to be able to do this.

As many of you know by now, my posts hadn’t been automatically emailed to 
people since the middle of March.  I tweaked something and all of those posts 
seemed to have been mailed yesterday.  Which made me notice that I didn’t get 
the old Easter family picture in, just two copies of the latest one.  So here’s the 
family Easter picture from 1992:

And to make it easy for comparison, here is this years:

It’s a good looking crew!

We left New Bern on Tuesday after helping Dad sort through Mom’s things.  My 
nieces got to pick out things that meant something to them and we sent a bunch 
of stuff to Goodwill.  She had some nice clothes, including some things she had 
made.  Someone will be glad to get it.

We flew back through Charlotte, NC and Phoenix, AZ.  I was glad to see the 
mountains in Phoenix, but I realized it was partly because I had spent most of the 
previous week inside.  But landing in San Jose and getting into the truck almost 
felt like getting home.  Even more so when we got to the trailer.

We had been parked at Morgan Hill for over a month, although we were gone for 
most of it.  But we knew where the grocery and hardware stores were and how to 
avoid some of the traffic around town.  We also got to see Wes and help him a bit 
with his project and he helped Steve with one of his.  San Jose has this tech 
place where Wes has a membership that has all sorts of tools available.  And 
while they have the “normal” tools, (hammers, screwdrivers, etc.) they also have 
table saws, band saws, sewing machines, sergers, quilting machines, 3d 
printers, vacuum molding machines, sand blasting rooms, auto repair shop, just 
about anything you can think of.  You buy a membership and have to pass 
training on the equipment you want to use and then you get to create!  It is so 
cool!  Wes took us on a tour and then he and Steve went back in the afternoon to 
work on a few things while I hung out with Obi.

But it was finally time to pack up and head north.  We would have loved to have 
spent more time on Highway 1 along the coast north of San Francisco, but it’s 
not trailer friendly and we had lost some time.  So we’ll catch that part of the 
coast on another trip.

I think the main north-south highway in California is I5, in the middle of the state.  
We chose US 101, which parallels Highway 1, and eventually becomes the 
coastal highway.  This apparently is not a common choice for RVs and semi’s, as 
we saw very few and most of the RVs we saw were rentals (i.e., other novices).  
But the traffic was ok, even through the metropolitan area and thinned out more 
as we headed north.

The farther north we got, the more trees we saw.  But even though there was still 
a lot of grassland, there were almost no cows.  We saw more cows around San 
Jose than north of the bay.

By the time we got to our Thursday night’s stop, we were in a lovely wooded 
valley that seems to be quite a vacation spot.  We stayed at a KOA in Willit, CA, 
that would be perfect for a family with kids.  

Friday, we headed north again.  At this point, Highway 101 is known as the 
Redwood Highway and actually cuts through some redwood groves.

It’s pretty awesome to drive through these groves.  As you can see, we weren’t 
encountering a lot of traffic.

Highway 101 goes from 2 lane to 4 lane to divided freeway and back along this 
part of the state, sometimes without discernable reason.  There are lots of small 
towns, but also lots of seemingly uninhabited space.

As we approached Eureka, CA, Highway 1 joins US 101 on the coast and we are 
again driving by the ocean.  We head for Trinidad, CA and Patrick’s Point State 
Park.  Our RV park is very close to the state park and also Redwood National 
Park.  I’m not sure which we’ll explore tomorrow.

Deb

Thursday, April 30, 2015

My blog postings have not been being emailed since 3/18.  This is a test post to see if I've corrected that.

Deb

Thursday, April 30, 2015

This is a test post.  Apparently email is not being sent when I post.

Working on it.

Deb

Sunday, April 26, 2015

We are in New Bern, North Carolina, at my dad’s.  We said our final goodbyes to my mother yesterday.  Three of her siblings were able to come with their spouses, and her children and grandchildren were here.  It was nice to be able to gather all together.

We left our trailer in San Jose at 6:30 in the morning last Thursday and arrived at Dad’s about midnight.  It was rather interesting flying across the country from dawn to dusk.  The clouds that had been gathering west of the coastal range on Monday had crept over the hills during the night and blanketed the valley.  There hasn’t been any rain lately so the hills are turning from green to gold.  The drought is real.

We flew first to LA, where the US Air terminal is a real mess.  Then we headed east.  I dozed and read and looked out the window, watching the parched desert pass below.  I missed seeing the Grand Canyon, but caught part of the Painted Desert landscape that reminded me of Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah.  You can see the valleys carved by ancient and not so ancient rivers.  In the desert, straight lines are roads, squiggly lines are streams.  If there are trees, they line the streams and the eastern slopes of hills.  As we fly further east, there are circles in the desert, evidence of irrigation, but they still look dry and unplanted.  The farther east we go, I begin to see some of the circles are green and then more and more green and fewer brown.  Soon there are no brown circles and then we have green fields that apparently need no irrigation.

Then the ground was obscured by a bank of clouds that extended as far as I could see.   I missed seeing the Mississippi, but spotted some of the Tennessee Valley lakes as the daylight began to fade and night approached.  Lights came on and the landscape twinkled with lights, much like the starry skies we’ve seen out west. 

It’s been a busy weekend and we have a busy day to go before we head back to California on Tuesday.  But it will be nice to get back to our travels.

Deb

Monday, April 20, 2015

Shortly after I finished this post, we got word that my mother had passed away in her sleep.  She had been in a nursing home since October.  We’ll be flying to New Bern for her funeral.

We are back in Morgan Hill, south of San Jose, California.  We had a great two weeks back in Indiana, seeing friends and doctors and celebrating Easter with our local family.  This year we got to see a second generation of kids hunt Easter eggs in our yard.  Here’s the crew from 23 years ago:

The youngest in that picture, Jeremy, got to hide the eggs this year for the new generation.

And here’s the crew from this year:

Good food, good friends, good fun.

We got back to Morgan Hill on Tuesday.  Obi was happy to see us and the trailer was as we left it. 

But the best news of that day was from Natasha.  She was sworn in as a US Citizen!

We are so proud of her!  Mike was able to go with her to the ceremony; I wish we could have been there, but we can’t do everything.

Originally, we were going to see Wes on Saturday and leave on Sunday, but then we got started on a project that kind of kept expanding. 

We had been told to take measures to darken our bedroom for Alaska, as we will have 20 hours of daylight when we are there.  I had bought some blackout liner to make drapes, but then we had a thought.  Nightstands are lacking in most trailers and we had rigged up something in the windows on either side of the bed to hold Kleenex, books, etc. and mounted cup holders for drinks.  We had tossed around changing that, along with the drapes and valances.  We also weren’t terribly fond of the head board.  Here’s a picture of what we were dealing with:

And here’s what we have now:

The panels over the windows are removable, but since we haven’t used them in the year and a half we’ve had the trailer, they won’t be removed often.

We still need to attach cup holders and organizers, but it will be much nicer than before.  Staying here in Morgan Hill meant we were close to Home Depot and Ace Hardware for the supplies we needed.  The wood is actually prefinished end panels and cabinet fillers from an oak cabinet line Home Depot has.  The finish is close to what is already in the trailer.

As soon as we finish this project, we need to head north.  We want to be in Bellingham by May 5^th or 6^th and then it will be on to Alaska!

Deb