Coastal North and Central CA

 

First, a note of apology:  I had to go back and re-edit the last post.  If you logged in, you saw that about a quarter of the right side had become hidden behind the template.  I used ‘Live Writer’ to copy paste the text from one to the other.  The advantage of Live Writer is that you can do your work entirely off-line, then upload to drafts or publish directly.  I’m still disturbed that the font and size revert to default after each additional picture, or break in text.  I’m getting around that now by including an extra period, and pushing that forward.  Doesn’t always work, but even sometimes is better than never!

I’m aware that the title is for CA,
but, before we got here, we spent some more time in Oregon.  Specifically, at the Thousand Trails South Jetty, OR Resort. Located in Florence, lots of visitors make it to MO’s seafood restaurant, a small chain on the coast.  That’s MO’s across the river.  The RV park is not so high on my list of places to return to.  The area was pretty great, but the park charges $5 a nite extra for 50A service that we didn’t especially need, and that is for sites without sewer.  We paid the money, but not because of the 50A, it was one of the only ones in the park that had a clear view of the Southern sky so we could receive satellite TV!  We had been without for several weeks prior to that.
(For you non-RVers, 50Amp service means an upgrade to the amount of electricity available to the RV.  Not too long ago, 30Amp was pretty standard, but over time parks have been rewiring to allow for RVs to be able to run A/C and other appliances simultaneously without blowing a circuit, instead of using one major thing at a time.) 


This was located just at the entrance to Old Town.  Carved seats from a tree trunk. 


This was a dune at South Jetty.  A geocache nearby required us to email a picture with our GPS in front of this dune.  We were also required to estimate the height of the dune…it was in excess of 100’ although it doesn’t appear so high in the picture.



Moving along to Klamath, CA.  A lot of the bridges along the coast were originally built with these bears at each end of the bridge.  This one has been placed in a close by area, after the bridge was rebuilt.

We were only one nite at Klamath, but if we are there again, we’ll take one of these jet boats up the river.  Looks like great fun!

Heading on south, we stopped a few nights at the Thousand Trails Russian River Resort.  Now, the term resort is a bit of a stretch.  Sites are crammed helter skelter, there are zero full-hook up sites, and the roads are extremely tight and steep.  Eloise had to rig up some boards and used leveling blocks outside our door,just to be able to get out of our rig.  I’m trying to think of a saving grace for the place, but still at a loss.  Think we’ll erase this from any future stops. 
Of course there is geocaching there.  We were looking for a cache that was an elusive little devil.  We drew the attention of a mechanic in the Fire House, who came over to find out what we were up to.  We explained what the sport was, and he invited us into the station to see what the guys were restoring.  Turned out to be a 1925 Chevrolet.  Isn’t it great?? 
 1440.8 miles on it…12 on the trip meter.

Next stop was at the Coast Guard Training Center in Petaluma, CA
Now here is a really nice camp.  It only has six sites, no sewers but they had 50amp service and all were level, with large outside areas.  We stayed 5 nights, but after being there I wouldn’t mind being there lots longer.  The dump station was about a half mile down the road.

This little pond was adjacent to the park, and was pretty over-run with algae.  This nifty little gizmo came in while we were there, it traveled around and scooped up the algae into a bin, and unloaded onto the shore.  I didn’t find out what they did with the stuff, but it might make pretty good mulch.

Another pretty neat thing about this place is it is the Culinary School for the Coast Guard.  Good eats in the dining facility!!  Really healthy meals with a great salad bar. 

There was a perimeter road that circled the entire Coast Guard complex.  This was a killer hill, maybe you can tell from the expression on Eloise’s face!  It was a great hike though, once you got to the top.


From Petaluma we went to a Navy installation in Monterey.  It was located in a golf course, run by the Navy but open to the public.  Of course you had to be military to use the campground, but anybody was welcome to golf.  There was a special going on right then, $139 for a month of unlimited access.  We don’t golf, but based on what we hear our friends say, that is a pretty fair deal!  The campground was nice, and had all hook-ups.  Some of the sites were pretty small, but ours was very large and actually the best in the whole group.  No complaints, and Monterey is a fascinating place with lots to do.


Can you make out the huge liner in the background in Monterey harbor?  There’s a little fog that day. 


This was an area that made a circle around the point, and the light house.  There is a walking path, next to a paved biking path.  Here Gary takes a little breather from biking to enjoy the view.  Few places can compare with the area around Monterey for pure beauty! 

These are not eating kind of grapes, but I’m in favor of their next form in a bottle!

Gnarly old cedar…

Okay, I don’t know what caused this to be such funny color, but it was pretty.  If you click on the photo you might be able to see the seals on the rocks. 



Our next stop on the road was at Camp Roberts, Paso Robles, CA.  A California Army National Guard station.  I can't think of any other installation that is named after an enlisted person.  Named for an Army Corporal Harold W. Roberts, the 2nd tank crewman to be awarded the Medal Of Honor.  Corporal Roberts sacrificed his life for his crewmate during the Argonne Offensive of WW1.  He is buried in the American Cemetery in Northern France, near where he died at age 22.  All of this information is available in the camp historical museum, that is really worth a visit.  The public is welcome.  It boasts that it is the largest Army museum in the West!  
This is a pretty primitive place.  Clearly no real upgrades have been made here for some time!  The campground was a dust bowl, but it had full hook-ups.  I actually kind of liked it there.  We were able to eat at the dining hall, which served us on paper plates and plastic forks and knives!  If there was ever an example of living frugally, Camp Roberts is it!  It was build in 1942 in 9 months time.  Pretty remarkable huh?  Of course it was only built to last long enough to win the war, then be decommissioned.  It’s still going, now over 7 decades later it is a California National Guard facility. 

While here, we were able to visit with Eloise’s Niece and her husband, Lorraine and Larry, and even got to see their daughter Maria and her husband ‘E’.  Larry and Lorraine had an unfortunate disaster in their home..an upstairs water leak while they were away.  Ruined all ceilings, walls and books and just imagine!!!  We’re sure sorry guys, but you’ve got the worst of the repair done.




Above was the Camp Exchange.  Below, current and previous barracks.



There is an ongoing program to demolish many of the old barracks like these.  The old buildings had asbestos and lead paint so the removal was very controlled.  They started out hauling it to a disposal location, that was a very expensive process so they built their own disposal facility and have really removed a lot of buildings.  So this is what it looks like in those areas:


Once we left Camp Roberts we had to stop for fuel for the rig.  This is what it cost us to put 97 gallons in; $410.  If we’d been on empty it would have taken 150 gallons!  We’re getting about 8mpg, the main reason we try to do most of our running around in the Honda CR-V!



We leave tomorrow from Camp San Luis Obispo, another California Army National Guard facility, where we’ve been for 4 days.  Here we were able to visit Eloise’s nephew Bob and his wife Billie Jo.  They have a lovely newly remodeled home in Cayucos, which is really close to Morrow Bay.  We went out to Chinese dinner, and Larry and Lorraine were able to again join us.  I assume Cayucos must not have much to choose from since they decided to drive to San Luis Obispo for dinner.  

Here are nephew Bob Stimmel (tongue in cheek), nephew-in-law Larry and niece Lorraine Jordan, Bob's wife Billie Jo, and Eloise.  I think the reds played havoc with the camera.

Eloise and Gary at dinner too!

The campground is nice, with full hook-ups  and 50A.  A nervy squirrel munched on some plants we had put on the picnic table.  But we didn’t notice until the last day.  E brought them inside then.  The squirrel was chomping down just like a cow eating grass.  We had deer nearby when we got home from the square dance on Sunday afternoon.  It was a great dance held at one of the churches in San Luis Obispo. The caller was Phil Farmer.  Club name was the Hoedowners.  Many very friendly people and we had a terrific time.



No, we didn’t have to go thru this gate in the motor home.  There’s a gate to the right for trucks and RVs.  All military facilities have a gauntlet to run, to prevent a vehicle from storming thru the gates.





On the way back from getting a cache near Morro Bay.





Okay, maybe you’ve seen lots of this type aloe vera, but we never had.  This stuff was huge!  They have kept a tunnel cut through between them, behind Eloise.




Pretty unusual to prohibit kite flying on the beach!  It’s because it disturbs the Snowy Plovers.  They think kites are raptors.  It scares them off their nests and if they leave too many times the eggs don’t hatch.   Dogs are not allowed either.



Well, maybe Eloise could have been posed better.  Or the photographer could have moved to one side.   We were walking on the beach and came across this sea weed.  I paced it off, it turned out to be over 25’ long!




This is not a national cemetery, it’s new grape vines that cover the entire hillsides!  There is controversy about the water in the area.  Some people want a moratorium on more vineyards, and the vintners say they aren’t taking too much.  Hmmm…if you run out of water, who wins?

That’ll be it for now.  Remember, if you want to be in on the group notice of when we do a new posting, send us an email.  You won’t have to keep checking.