At the Pacific Ocean

Crescent City, CA  67 degrees at 9:30 am
   We drove some 247 miles yesterday; 120 miles of it through mountain range that involved a lot of climbing, going down, turning, turning and turning some more.

Were stopped several times for road construction and once because of a car on fire.  Motorcyclists tried to squeeze between a trailer and a car ahead of us and one, with both prosthetic legs, fell over.  He got back on, after a bit, and went on up the road.

Spotting the Pacific.

First chance I had to stop we walked over to the beach.  Had driven several hours by this time and welcomed the walk and stretching.

I did find a big piece of drift wood to sit on a minute.

Friday we spent the morning in Redding, CA at the Sacramento River at Turtle Bay.  Center point is the Sundial Bridge with gardens on one side of the river and a variety of displays on the south side of the river.

The floor of this walking bridge is primarily glass and were told it was pretty at night because lights are below the entire floor.  The huge cables were vibrating, especially the longest one.

This whole layout is at the site of the beginning of The Shasta Dam conveyor belt – the longest in the world.  It was over 9 miles long and took crushed rock from this site to the north where the Shasta Dam was built.  Shasta_Dam

After a quick lunch at a bakery & bistro in Redding, we headed to Lassen Volcanic National Park

where, at 8500 feet altitude it was only 74 degrees.  It had been 101 degrees when we left Redding and when we later returned to Red Bluffs where our trailer was, it was 111 degrees.  What a difference elevation makes!

For some reason I can't get this to upload more pictures.  Will continue this later.  We are heading out to go south a bit to the Red Wood National Park and return to this area for some seafood.

Later, Lynn

Delightful day in Red Bluff, California

 Several posts ago I had photos of the narrow space at the RV Park north of San Francisco.  Here in Red Bluff we are in a nice park, lots of room, trees for shade, etc.

Today we never started the Ford.  Spent the day relaxing and planning out the next few segments of our journey.  Will head over to the Pacific Ocean just before we go into Oregon for some time on the coast.

 Got the BBQ grill out and fixed pork chops on it this afternoon.

 Cooked cabbage from Paradise, onions from Texas with zucchini from Paradise, and string beans from Sacramento Farmers Market went with the pork.

 After supper Phyllis worked on her crocheting. while I continued working on our route for the next week or so.

Yesterday it rained most of the day.  We drove to Redding to Michaels for some yarn and on the way back the rain had let up a little and we drove west of Cottonwood to cousin Brian's place.  

The rain finally stopped and he showed us around his place on the hill.  He fixed a great steak supper for us.

Tomorrow he is coming in to our RV Park for a visit and lunch at the trailer.

Weather is to get a little warmer in next few days.  Click the "Weather where we are" button at the top of this blog.

More later, Lynn

Muir Woods

Woke to rain on the roof during the night.  This is the first real rain we have been in on this trip.  Guess it was a little dampish in Wichita, but not really a steady rain.

 On the afternoon of the day we arrived north of the Golden Gate Bridge we went for a drive and ended up at Muir Woods.   We had been there before, but is always interesting and refreshing to get away from the hectic highway traffic and back into the quietness of the woods.  There were quite a few people walking the paths, but they were hushed, by the surroundings.

Note the tags on the rings of this tree that fell in 1930 note the rings that grew the years from 909 and dates of events:  1100 when Mesa Verda cliff dwellings were built; 1492 when Columbus sailed to America; 1607 when Jamestown, VA was settled; 1776 when US Declaration of Independence was signed;  1849 California Gold rush; and 1908 when Muir Woods National Monument was established.

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It was so cool in the woods.  That day it was a bit warm in the direct sunshine.  Of course, as I write this it is 63 degrees and raining so is cool now.  We have found that the sun can be so intense in California.

We drove from Muir Woods National Monument south to near the Golden Gate Bridge and down to where we could view it.  Wind was blowing off the water and it was cool there, also.  Note I got out my Navaho pull-over that I got back in New Mexico but the short pants still left breeze on the legs.

Click the "Weather where we are" at top of blog

More later, Lynn

In Red Bluff, CA

Above is photo of lettering on the back of a 5th wheel we were following just north of San Francisco.

Finally ran in some rain today -- first time we had rain on us since January 3rd when we ere in the Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas.

Sunday we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge.  We could only see a little bit of it.

Saturday we had driven to where we could view the bridge in great sunshine, but it was a little cool near the water.

We stayed 3 nights in a park about 10 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge.  Was handy in that we came in from the north and left to the north--less traffic on the roads.  But, you might notice the narrow place that we parked.  And these 90 degree parking spots were facing a very narrow street.  Quite tricky getting in and out of the spot.

 Tonight we are in a normal, grassy spacious RV park in Red Bluff.  Half the price and 10 times the space, but we are in a little town of 15,000 instead of the skads of people like in San Francisco.

Today we stopped in Paradise, CA which is it about 2,000 feet altitude (compared to the 200 something here only 50 miles away) and visited a classmate of mine - Carol Dennis and her husband Jerry.


Enjoyed our visit over lunch at Black Bear Diner and then got a chance to see Jerry's huge garden.

 We will be in this area for several days while some mail from Clarinda catches up with us.  Bonnie gathered together some of the accumulation from the last few weeks and mailed it this morning to my cousin Brian Miles' place near Cottonwood, CA and we will be seeing what he is up to up at his hide-out.

I put up an album on Picasa at San Francisco that has photos going into San Francisco from Sacramento, our time on walk near our park, our time on the Ferry between Larkspur and Port of San Francisco and back, and our time at church, at lunch and at 8th grade graduation party with Phyllis' cousin Janice; as well as our drive from San Francisco today, our visit with Carol, and leaving Paradise to drive down into the valley where we are now.  If you want to browse the photos just click the link.

Also, you can check our weather by clicking the link at the top of the blog.

Later, Lynn

Some Figures

We have been on the road 74 days.
Have driven 7,344 miles -- 2,708 of them without the trailer hooked up, and 4,636 miles with it hooked up.

Have run 621 gallon of diesel fuel through the Ford Excursion.

We have set up the trailer 29 times (twice boon-docking).

Have taken 7,938 photos since we left Kenwood, between the two of us.

Not sure we are half-way through our trip.  May be a bit late before we get back to Clarinda, IA.

Might just be in time to head back to Rio Grande Valley in Texas!

Lynn

San Francisco!

Arrived in San Francisco yesterday (Friday) just after noon.  I haven't posted for some time, so will say a little, and include photos, of our visit to Sacramento.  At left is the California State capital from a distance.  

    Here is the capital as we neared it.  The day we arrived in Sacramento we got to the capital a little late and though we looked around a little, there was a guided tour and we decided to do it a later day.

This is the Golden Bridge just west of the capital on West Capital Street.  We were told, when on the the Sacramento River Boat Cruise later, that the bridge cost a half million dollars when built in the 1930's.  It is a vertical lift bridge.  It repainted to the gold color in 2002 and cost of one million dollars was quoted for that repainting.

 
This photo, taken from a web site, shows the bridge raised for river traffic.

We went down to Old Sacramento, just west of the capital a few blocks, and on the east side of the Sacramento River and spent time going through the stores, museums, etc.

At right are three views of the Pony Express Statue
which is at the edge of Old Sacramento.

  Spent couple hours in the California State Railroad Museum 

I have put an album up on Touring Sacramento , one of my Picasa Albums which include more photos than on this blog today.

 We took an hour boat cruise on the Sacramento River, going about 7 miles up river and a mile down river from where we started.   At right -- I am relaxing viewing the countryside.  We had a very small crown on our particular trip.  The greeter to the boat mentioned that the day before they had had a whole boat full of school kids.  Glad we missed that one!

Going by the Sacramento Water Department water intake off the river.

They closed off a block of the 4-lane boulevard not too far from our trailer for an afternoon farmers market.  Phyllis got some fresh stuff.

After driving some 15 miles or so to the northeast and looking around one evening we stopped at a Japanese Sushi bar.  Didn't have the sushi, but got really big helpings of supper.  We ate another meal off them the next afternoon at the trailer and still have one more helping to eat.  Traveling with with your own refrigerator has its advantages.

We went on a guided tour of the capital Friday morning.  The guide here is standing by bronze bear donated by Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was Governor.  Asked if the bear had a name, she reluctantly said "Yes, Bacteria Bear" because all the school kids run their hands all over it.  If you read the article at Governor donates bronze bear you will see that the bear originally did not have any shiny bronze on it.

 We saw both chambers of the legislature.  California remains "in session" year around though they are not usually in session on Fridays.

We are located in a very cramped RV Park (though we have usual amount of space inside our trailer) just a few miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge.  I will write another blog on the San Francisco area.

Lynn