Sunday, August 16, 2015

A beautiful drive... but it is HOT!

Another travel day has come and gone. Today was not nearly as trying as yesterday.  We enjoyed our stay at San Lorenzo park, but the weather was a bit too warm for our taste.  We did stroll the grounds in the evening.  It is an interesting place with lots of historical displays, mainly of farm and mining machinery from the area.

We had a leisurely morning before we took care of housekeeping chores and packing.  Once we were ready to go, it was an easy drive to the 101, and traffic was blessedly light. We sailed on down the road through the agricultural marvel that is California.  Even with the drought at hand, the ag business is in full swing.

The weather continued its hot tendency.  The highest we actually registered on Red Ryder’s temperature monitor was 101 degrees.  Then again, when we got to Pismo beach, it was 76.  Jill kept checking the weather for places that were yet to come on the route. Some reports were frightening, especially when she read that Simi Valley, our destination for today, was expected to hit 104. 

Well, there is no one who likes to exaggerate like someone with the ear of the public.  In this case, that was the weather forecaster.  Upon arrival at Oak Park in Simi Valley, we found the temperature a toasty 95, but NOT 104. Thank you, Lord.

The park is a county park and is not stellar.  We have a site with water and electricity, which is fine, but it is far from level and required some engineering with leveling blocks to get close enough to level that I don’t worry (much) about the refrigerator being in jeopardy.  It seems that evaporative refrigerators require being pretty near level, or they can suffer some damage to their internal components.

We are grateful again for the AC unit which keeps our little home comfy in spite of the heat. In fact, I have always read that AC is capable of lowering the temperature about 20 degrees below the ambient.  In our case, the AC has been bringing the temp down 25-30 degrees. We have had to back off on the settings a couple of times to keep it WARM enough inside!  The current temperature outside is 84, so we are confident we can endure the weather.

Again we have no pictures to share.  Jill took one when we were in stop and go traffic coming through Santa Barbara, but if you’ve ever been in a traffic jam, you can imagine what that looked like. 

I expect we will saunter around the park to see what all it has to offer, and then we will probably settle in with a movie. Perhaps, another Boston Blackie mystery!?

Saturday, August 15, 2015

Washboards and white knuckles

“Today," I told my blushing bride, "will be a much easier day than yesterday.  Yesterday was the longest drive of the trip. Today is a good 50 miles shorter, and we don’t have the winding roads of the redwoods to negotiate.” And so began a day that will live in infamy!

We checked out from the Aurora RV Park with some regret. The place is beautiful, and Elena, the “helper” was delightful and wonderfully accommodating. But we have a reservation in King City for a space at the San Lorenzo Regional Park.  We pulled out about 9:00 an headed back to US 101 at Calpella, having learned from Elena that the southern route to Hopland is tortuous and narrow. I quickly remembered last year’s adventure going up and down a “direct route” that had 16% grades!! Yikes. 

When we got on US 101, we were cruising along quite nicely, although I was reminded, once again, of how bad the pavement is from Ukiah south.  We made it as far as Santa Rosa, where the traffic began to back up. I turned on the GPS, which I had programmed before we left, to help guide us through the awful maze that is the San Francisco Bay area.

Well, I don’t know what I told that GPS but she took us way to the east on I580, before depositing us back on I680 headed west to US 101 again. I’m pretty much convinced she did this in order to get me to write a letter to the California DOT about their amazingly terrible freeways. The pavement is buckled and reminiscent of a washboard and there are huge discrepancies between the trajectory of the pavement and the trajectory of the surface of every bridge we crossed. I thought we were going to break Red Ryder’s suspension.

The traffic was pretty much bumper to bumper from north of Oakland all the way to the Cal 156 exit to the Monterey Peninsula. And of course there are the California darters, some of whom missed my front fenders by inches, weaving in and out of the lanes. They were only to be topped by all the care free drivers who wander up the on ramp at 45 mph and only look over their shoulder or in the rear view mirror when they are about to merge with my vehicle, instead of the flow of traffic.

Once we got past the 156, traffic thinned out and the pavement was smoother in most places. So, the weather decided to heat up to 107 degrees! Thank God for a good AC unit in Red Ryder. My recently installed transmission temperature gauge was a comfort.  Even in the heat and stop and go traffic, the tranny never topped 185 degrees, and when we got moving again, the temp fell back to 175.  I do love my transmission cooler.

At long last the “easy day” of driving ended at San Lorenzo Regional Park campground, which is lovely, has many large eucalyptus trees to shade us and best of all, full hookups! For you non RVers, that means we have water (for showers!!), electricity (for Air Conditioning!!!) and a sewer hook up (so we can dump all that shower water, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, knowwhatImean?). 

When the cool of the evening comes (it’s already down to 96), I will go for a stroll and investigate all the interesting things in this park. Until then, I am content to sip a cold drink under the AC…and listen to my lovely wife praise me for adding it (the AC, not the drink), when we bought the camper.

Sorry, no pictures today. It is hard to click the shutter with white knuckles. Perhaps, tomorrow. Do come back.

Friday, August 14, 2015

Another trip to San Diego?

Yesterday, we departed Dallas (Dallas, OR; not that other burg in TX) for our annual trip to San Diego for the celebration of our two grandsons' birthdays. They were born 4 years and 4 days apart, hence their birthdays fall within a week of each other. This is very helpful to grandparents. Thank you Tim and Laura for spacing them thusly.

Because it is August, we decided to take the coast route and avoid both the heat and the raging forest fires along the inland routes.  We ambled down US 99 to Veneta and then took US 126 to Florence. From there we toured the breathtaking southern coast of Oregon along US 101 as far as Gold Beach, where we checked in at the Turtle Rock RV Park.

 This, of course, is Turtle Rock

This little park sits on the bank of Hunter Creek, just where it flows into the Pacific Ocean. The park itself is a bit run down, but the staff are wonderful, and the location is exquisite.  We set up housekeeping in space 27. Thank goodness they moved us from #92, which I had chosen because it was the nearest space available to the path to the beach. Unfortunately, it is also surrounded by some very sappy trees.

We had a long stroll on the beach, minus the dogs who are home taking care of number one daughter, Tara. There are tons of agates (or at least some translucent white stones), but not much sea life was in evidence. As we reached our outward limit and decided to turn around, I spotted something a few yards beyond us.  I walked over and picked up a perfect, intact, beautiful sand dollar! It is, so far, our only souvenir of the trip.


It's hard to see the cormorants sitting atop this rock, just off shore. 

We went back to Topper and enjoyed a cold drink on the "veranda," followed by a lovely dinner of grilled steak, baked potato and sauteed veggies. During the night we were treated to cool temperatures, just right for a restful snooze, and to the sound of rain on the roof, something we haven't heard for a LONG time. Curse the drought anyway!

She said I nailed it!

This morning, the world smelled wonderful...of earth and rain and the sea!  The little rain we had in the night freshened everything, including our spirits. Our jaunt for today was a long one. To add to the challenge, we had to make an unscheduled stop, because Jill's phone died. Ah, well, vacation is vacation and it beats the best day at work, any time...Oh, wait, I don't go to work any more. Well, you know what I mean.

We departed Turtle Rock just before 8 AM. The rain, more of a mist, in point of fact, continued intermittently as we drove to Brookings, where we planned to fill up Red Ryder's gas tank. It continued off and on well into California. Don't get the idea, however, that the drought is by any means abating in the Golden State.

Our route took us through the breathtaking California Redwoods.  The road is winding and narrow, and some of the trees are practically in the road. The speed limit is between 30 and 40 mph: not good for making distance, but good for the soul... to slow down and enjoy the incredible grandeur of God's creation. 

Our unscheduled stop was in Arcata, a quaint and friendly little college town just north of Eureka.  Thanks be to God and to "Simply MacIntosh" for resurrection of Jill's iPhone. It turns out the battery was simply so run down that our little wall charger couldn't get it back up.  "Simply MacIntosh's" Kirsten plugged into a "professional" charger and in 20 minutes had brought the battery up to 20%! This was the second lift of the day for Jill's spirits. She was convinced she would need a new phone.

We walked around town a little, waiting for the battery to charge. Arcata was a fun, serendipitous discovery.  It is the home of Humboldt State University, and the businesses that we saw around the Zokolo (town square, for those of you who have never visited a Mexican town) were more or less aimed at students. In the center of the square, stands a statue of William McKinley. We didn't discover his significance to Arcata, but it was a nice likeness...I guess...I have no idea what McKinley looked like.

At last we stopped for coffee and apple fritters at Don's Donut Shop. It's just off 9th Avenue on H Street.  Don't go there. There are bad things there. They make good people (like us) make bad choices...like indescribably delicious and rather large apple fritters. You have been warned.

Having recovered the phone, we hit the road and rolled along without incident.  More redwoods. More little towns. More trees, more hills, more amazing ocean views. After a while, we arrived in Willits a small town that is one of our favorites.  I say small, but Willits has grown a bunch over the years. The traffic is astonishing, and it appears there is a highway bypass under construction.  All in all, I would say Willits is thriving.

Continuing down the coast, we turned off at Calpella on Hwy 20 and headed for Nice (yes, just like in France...in fact it was named after the French town). The attraction at Nice is the Aurora RV Park.  Here is the reason:

 Topper and Red Ryder on the shore of Clear Lake.

 The park barbecue, complete with grape arbor and ripe Concord grapes, free for the picking!

 Another view of waterfront. 

There is more park across the road, but why stay there, when you could be where we are?

Once we were settled in, Jill's comment was, "You nailed it this time!" I think we may stop here on our way home!

After dinner, I sat outside Topper drinking in the view:


 Click on the one above and open it up for full enjoyment.

 If you open this one, you can see a little village on the lower left part of the hill.