Monday, February 29, 2016




Not much to write about today.  We had a relaxing rest day.  Gary played golf for the first time since we left home and he did pretty well for being out of practice.  I walked Baby, did some paperwork, some laundry, some emailing and texting and read a little.  I also took these pictures so you could see how pretty our RV Park is.  We went for a Frappuccino after golf and ate dinner at the restaurant attached to the golf club. 
We will be here one more day.


Sunday, February 28, 2016

 We had a difficult night with Baby last night.  She seemed to have a belly ache and we sat up with her all night.  I think we managed about 3 hours of sleep between picking her up, putting her down and taking her outside for walks every hour.  She seemed to get over it this morning and we are hoping for a better night tonight.

We went from an RV park in Santa Rosa that was really a gravel parking lot to a gorgeous, manicured park today in Chowchilla.  We really lucked out in The Lakes RV Resort and Golf Club.  Not only is it beautiful, it is attached to a golf course, Pheasant Ridge, and the greens fees are included in the RV space rental.  Gary will play tomorrow morning at 10:30 and is very excited. We plan to stay here three nights.

On the way here we got an accidental tour of downtown Oakland when our RV exceeded the weight limit for highway I- 580.  You can't use it if you weigh more than 4 1/2 tons so we had to get off.  I cannot imagine an interstate highway that can't be used by trucks or recreational vehicles.  Someone did not plan well.  We lost about an hour in that fiasco.

The picture below is the main street of Chowchilla, CA.  The palm trees are amazingly tall and skinny.

Below is some local metal art we saw on a quick tour of the area.  Someone set many of these sculptures in the outer yard of a business.  Fun to see. 


I never knew that in this part of the world you could buy orange, lemon or lime trees in the local Costco, but you can.  Too bad they wouldn't make it in Oregon!

Saturday, February 27, 2016

I HATE ROOSTERS!!  I should say that I actually only hate one rooster.  It is the one living in the neighborhood by the Sonoma Fairgrounds RV Park that doesn't know that daylight appeared many hours ago and now his job is done for the day.  He thinks that he needs to announce it all day long!! Maybe he is blind!! AARRRGGGH!

OK, now that I have that off my chest, we woke again to fog but it quickly cleared.  It became a beautiful, sunny day so nice that Gary actually put on shorts.  He fit right in with the local population.  One of the first people we saw was a teen walking his dog by riding next to it on a skate board.  Both of them seemed to be having a great time.

The city of Santa Rosa has lots of art displayed in public just like Lake Oswego does.  We saw this sculpture of a hand outside a mall here.
 The obelisk below was made entirely of auto parts.  It was amazing to see.  We enjoyed seeing all of these cool objects.

Dinner was at Kettles Vietnamese Bistro and was one of the best meals we have had on this trip.  Tomorrow we leave for a few days in Chowchilla. 

Friday, February 26, 2016

Today we traveled down US 101 for about 4 hours.  It is very curvy and a little scary in a 38 foot RV and towing a car.  There were many more areas under repair and we followed at least two more pilot cars when there was only one lane open.  I say "at least" because there may have been others when I nodded off, which I am prone to doing.

We didn't make any stops and ended up in Santa Rosa at the Sonoma Fairground and RV Park.  It is really just a large, gravel covered parking lot with RV hook ups, but lots of space.  The fairground has a golf course in the center of the race course, so I'm hoping Gary will play tomorrow.  We are going to spend two nights here, taking a little break and getting some laundry done.

Tonight we had dinner at Willie Bird's Restaurant which was featured on Drive Ins, Diners and Dives.  It specializes in turkey and prepares it in more ways than you can imagine.  Of course, neither of us chose turkey, but it was fun to go there.  It was rated the best restaurant in town by Yelp.  We had plenty left over for lunch tomorrow.

Thursday, February 25, 2016

 Welcome to California!  We left Oregon this morning and crossed the border 4 miles later.  We went through the usual checkpoint to make sure we weren't carrying any fruits or vegetables, but there were a couple of surprises.  They asked if we were carrying firewood and then searched the exterior of the BaysBus for gypsy moths.  These nasty little critters had raised their ugly heads in Clackamas county where we live, so we had to be inspected.  Luckily, nothing was found.

We saw a herd of elk just before entering the Redwood Highway, part of 101 in Northern California.  We didn't see the largest of the redwood trees, but even the middle sized ones are spectacular.  There were many places where we were slowed down by highway construction.  We followed several pilot cars like the line above because many sections of the highway were falling down cliffs toward the sea. 

Have any of you ever experienced the "singing" lines on the highways?  These look like paint but create an audible tone when tires ride on them.  They aren't the bumpy lines that make you feel as though you are riding on Braille, but some sort of white or yellow flat material that alerts you to the fact that you are drifting out of your lane.  A little spooky, actually.


 Spring has sprung in Northern Cali, as shown by this picture of cherry blossoms and a blooming pear tree.  These trees were already starting to lose their flowers, so they must have been in bloom for a while.  The photo below is a tree full of mistletoe in the campground, Benbow KOA in Garberville, CA, a beautiful and carefully designed family campground.  It is one of the nicest KOAs we have seen.

We had dinner at a very strange cross between an Italian restaurant and a deli.  It is called Calico Cafe.  We had pasta that was made on site and it was very good.  They also served hamburgers, specialty coffee drinks, taco salad. desserts and deli items.  The strangest part of this restaurant was the music.  There was a lone violinist with a bushy beard which was partly dreadlocks, dressed in camouflage and playing everything from The Marine Hymn to Jesus Loves Me to old standards my grandmother loved.  The sound of one violinist alone was a little depressing but maybe it was the song choices.

We were thinking of staying here two nights so Gary could play golf at the campground's course but it is supposed to rain tomorrow so we will probably move on.  We are probably going to stay on 101 rather than crossing over to I-5 right now.  We haven't done it before, so who knows what we may see.

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Hello from Brookings, OR.  We woke up this morning in North Bend to beautiful weather and a gorgeous view of the bay.  There were ducks everywhere, much to Baby's delight.  Yesterday she herded five of them into a pond and tried to follow.

We ate breakfast in the casino and then got the RV ready to leave.  We had only a two and a half hour drive today, very relaxing.  Along the way we passed a man who we also saw on the road yesterday.  He is riding down the west coast on a unicycle to support some cause or other.  His sign was too small to read and I couldn't figure it out.  Anyway, he had rigged up his unicycle with handlebars and was texting while riding down US 101, a major highway.  So scary!!  I don't understand how he even balanced, much less texted!

Because of the many storms we have had recently, the ocean is absolutely wild.  The water comes right up to the bottom of the cliffs and is full of large logs and other dangerous flotsam.  There is no beach visible in most places and there are more storms forecast.  The scenery is so beautiful, it is hard to look away.  We have had a couple of really lucky days of lovely weather.  I'm not sure how many more we can count on so we will leave tomorrow for Fortuna, CA.

Tonight's campground is called Driftwood RV Park.  It is well-located and had a great rating but is pretty basic.  It is also gravel based and we really prefer pavement.  Less dirt in the RV and easier to level.  For one night though, it is fine.

We had a great dinner in town at a pub called Oxenfre.  It was unexpectedly sophisticated for this town and very reasonable.  Gary had a spicy tomato bisque with shrimp and andouille sausage with a grilled cheese sandwich and I had a butter lettuce salad with a fried egg on top, lardon and avocado.  Other things on the menu were equally inventive.  Sort of wish we could go again.

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Night number 2

This morning we woke up completely fogged in at Premier RV Park in Eugene, OR but it didn't matter because they have this cute little food cart called Ducky Diner (Ducky for the U. of O. ducks, of course) which delivered breakfast right to the RV.  We also got a morning newspaper.  How good is that?

On the trip to Eugene we had a couple of minor problems, so when we left the campground we went right across the highway to the Holiday Rambler repair facility.  They fixed the two problems within an hour and we were on our way.

Even with the late start, we reached North Bend, OR by 2:15 and parked at the RV campground at The Mill Casino and RV Park.  It is right on a beautiful bay and walking distance to the casino and restaurants.  We walked over for coffee and Gary's unerring radar for such things homed in on chocolate eclairs as soon as we got through the door.

We joined the casino's Players Club because you get discounts with the card and we each got $5 of free play on the slot machines.  Being the big gamblers that we are, we sat down at the penny machines.  At one point, I was up $22 but, consistent with my normal gambling history, I put all of that back into the machine and ended up with $.37.  Gary ended up with about $.82.  It was fun, though.  We ate dinner at the casino buffet, which was only fair.  Tomorrow we will head for Brookings, OR.

Monday, February 22, 2016

We finally got underway today after delaying for two days.  It was more relaxing to be leaving today rather than rushing.  Also, the highway department was calling for the carrying of chains in the southern Oregon mountain passes and we were hoping for a better weather forecast.  No such luck!  We only drove to Eugene today and tomorrow will cross the Coast Range and go down the coast.

We are staying at Premier RV Park, a place we have stayed and enjoyed before.  They have a little food cart serving breakfast and lunch and will deliver to the RV.  We drove into Eugene for a shrimp dinner and to find some superglue for a minor repair.  We took a nap.  Are you sleeping, yet?