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.

Whaler’s Rest, Newport, OR

 

This is the view out of our windshield at
Whaler's Rest RV Resort in Newport, Oregon.  [In order to be correct, you need to pronounce it "OR-UH-GUN" and never, ever "OR-EE-GONE"!!]

Some interesting facts about Oregon I've just now gleaned from one of the free coastal newspaper periodicals:  There is no sales tax.  Yeah, most people know that and also that Oregon fuel stations are not self-service; they're required by law to have attendants pump their fuel for you.  But did you know that the highest elevation point is Mt. Hood at 11,239 feet?  Crater Lake, in Southern Oregon is the deepest lake in the United States.  There are nine lighthouses and one lightship along the coast.  There are 16 known hot springs and 17 ghost towns.  Hells Canyon, the the NE corner is the deepest river-carved gorge in North America.  At 7900 feet it is deeper than the Grand Canyon.  The hazelnut is the state's official nut and Oregon grows 99% of the US commercial crop.  It's the 10th largest state in size, with a population of 3.4 million. 

We have had a great time in the state:  geocaching, line dance, walks on the beach.  We've had pretty okay weather.  Of course it can be foggy all morning, and rainy sometimes.  But overall we've been able to do pretty much what we've wanted.  And sometimes we didn't want to do anything anyway!  It hasn't always been okay with us, but we did learn fairly early in our travels, that it's okay not to be a tourist.  After all, at your house you don't always have an agenda, sometimes you just kick back.  Us too!

Those who have been to Newport's Ocean Aquarium have driven right by this gal.  She's called Nessie, and looks like somebody's basement creation.  But the plaque on her says "Caught by a Newport Industrial Park night watchman off the South Jetty during a terrible storm at midnight June 2, 1992"  It's a Crown Lizard, latin name Kronosaurius Queenslandicus.  It has the largest skull of any reptile ever found at over 12 feet.  Its teeth also the largest ever discovered at over 9 inches.  Its relatives were certainly found off the Oregon coast 80 million years ago. 

We attended the manager's meeting one Saturday morning, and we 'won' one ticket admission to the Ocean Aquarium.  For Seniors, that was just over $15 clams!  We picked a day when we thought the attendance would be minimal (a Wednesday) and headed out on a pretty nice day weather-wise.  School was still out, so it was pretty busy, but not like a weekend.  One of the truly remarkable attractions is the 360 degree aquarium.  You can see all the way around and under.

Not actually too clear under foot due to scratching of the surface by the gazillions of feet, but still very impressive.

Here's something we learned reading one of the many excellent displays.  During high tides, clams extend a two tube siphon - one tube sucks in water-carrying food particles and oxygen, the second tube spits out waste.  You can learn a lot of useless information sometimes, but I sort of thought that was cool.

This is a spider shrimp.  This guy was in a really colorful tank.  Spectacular if you click on the photo you will see a larger version.  As luck would have it, my camera battery gave out two shots into the aquarium, but happily Eloise's was fully charged.  The thing is, mine has a view finder option, and you can compose a shot better, and know when the light is wrong.  Her's just has the screen, and it's not always a good shot.

Can you see the kid with the CocaCola shirt?  He wouldn't leave, so I finally took the shot...can't blame him for being entranced, this was a cool display..

I'm including this terrible picture of a Japanese Spider Crab because I found it so interesting.  (And, I didn't know it didn't turn out).  This is the world's largest crab, with a leg span of 13 feet.  They live on the Pacific Ocean floor near Japan where they feed on dead animals and shellfish.  They may live to be 100 years old.

  

 

  Are you familiar with the Beatles song about the octopus's garden?  Well, here's another absolutely terrible picture of the octopus, but it's got an interesting life...for an octopus.  Eloise had to shoot this one over the heads of the people in front of her.  He was right up next to the window and everyone wanted to see him.

Eight arms, two eyes and a baggy red body add up to a giant Pacific octopus.  Despite its fearsome reputation, the octopus is quite shy, sleeping by day in a rocky den or crevice to hide from predators.  By night the octopus prowls the ocean floor seeking crabs, shellfish and shrimp.  After collecting an armload he returns to the privacy of his den, eats its fill and piles the empty shells outside in what's called an OCTOPUS'S GARDEN.  Now that I have that song firmly embedded in my mind, I probably won't sleep tonight not being able to get it out of my head!

One of our favorite birds is the crested puffin.  We saw these guys in Alaska when we traveled there in 2008.  He's taking that twig down to a nest in a hole in the rock (actually concrete).

No picture of a halibut turned out.  Taking pictures thru glass just doesn't work often.  But those of you not familiar with halibut -- they are delicious and we like them lots better than salmon or any other kind of fish.  The are kind of weird though.  A newly hatched halibut looks like any other fish, swimming upright, and eye on each side of its head and color on both sides of its body.  Soon, one eye begins to migrate toward the other, and the little fish begins to lean sideways as it swims.  By the time the halibut settles on the bottom, its transformation is complete.  BOTH eyes are on one side of its head and it swims horizontally.  The eyed side is colored to match the surroundings and the blind side is usually fish-belly white or ivory.

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Okay, guys, let your imagination loose.  This is what I saw every day from my chair at the table.  If you're having trouble seeing what I'm talking about, you're very old.

The park had a frisbee golf 9-hole course.  Here's Eloise winding up for a homer.   Eloise's comment: Homer, that sounds more like baseball, don't you know it was frisbee GOLF?

And...here's Eloise looking for her frisbee!  [Whoops, he didn't tell you he looked for his just as much as I did, he just had the camera.] 

 

And now...here's Eloise sinking a putt, with her putter of course.  Lots of disk golfers use several different disks.  We just use a driver (somewhat heavier and thinner) and a putter. The chains on the goal tend to knock the disk down into the bin below for the 'hole'.

 

These guys called themselves Cowboy Gospel.  They were great 3 part harmony.  The Graber, Souter, Rupp Band.  They travel in a pick-up and do gigs all over the west and mid-west.  Happy that Whaler's Rest hired them in.  Nope, no cost to the campers.

 

The beach was just a short walk from the park, but you had to cross Hwy 101 which can be busy.  One day we came across this little guy who just plain loved to dig.  I've never seen a dog dig ceaselessly.  Other dogs like to run after frisbees, jump in the surf...he just wanted to dig!!

 

A short distance away at Seal Beach.  What a lovely place.

 

 

 This is the view from the doorway of the lighthouse.  The interior is furnished in the way it was used in the 1870's.  The lighthouse was manned by a family of nine, and it's really not a very large house in spite of appearances from the outside.

We're leaving you with this shot of a different kind of muscle on the beach...

I've been messing around with WordPress for an alternate to Blogspot.  It doesn't seem much better, at least with the free templates.  Apparently you need to work with html code to get things straight.  Maybe someday, just not right now.  Thanks Ginger, for trying to give me a hand!  For now, I have to stick with not trying to get sort of fancy with mixing pictures alongside text.

Finally, since we post pretty sporadically, if anybody wants to get a 'group' kind of email letting you know when we've posted a new entry, just EMAIL ME.  That'll help some of you who get tired of checking...but still want to keep up with where we are!

Seaside Revisited

From 2d Site at Seaside

This is what we saw from our windshield at Seaside, on the second visit.  This site is on the North side of the resort which is split into the two sections.  This side has the facility that houses the cafe and the indoor swimming pool/spa, tennis courts.  You can't see them from here, this is at the extreme rear of the sector.  

One reason there has been such a lag since our last input is that here at Whaler's Rest near Newport, there is a really weak Verizon connection.  Several days ago we put up an external antenna on a length of plastic pipe vised to the slide out, coupled with a booster that has helped us get a good enough signal to upload our photos.  We had the original antenna ripped off the rig by trees when we were down in the Gold Country in California.  It was on a permanent mount on the passenger side.  Thinking of keeping this one stored away until we need it, like we do here, to keep it from getting torn off.  The disadvantage is that it won't be available to Eloise if we are driving through a weak area for an extended time.  I'm thinking of far West Texas for example, where Verizon hasn't made many inroads.  Still, for us anyway, Verizon is hands down the best all around coverage for phone and internet (MiFi) in the places we travel.   

On our way here from Circle 8 we stayed a couple nights at a Coast To Coast park where we were privileged to meet Frannie and Lionel Brown.

Huge cat of Frannie's

Lionel and Frannie by their Allegro Bus

This was a cute couple that we had lots of fun with in a short time.  They enjoy playing board games, and we introduced them to one called "Aggravation".  I think they had a love/hate relationship with the game, but we provided a contact for them to order their own game.  Did you get it yet, Lionel?

Crab Shell

Did you know that crabs shed their entire shells, including eye sockets making a perfect empty crab shell? 





 Somewhere in my computer are lots of pictures that I have no earthly idea how to connect with!  Some of them dealt with the Japanese submarine attack on Oregon near Ft Stevens June 21, 1942.  Some Americans don't know that the Continental US was actually fired upon during WWII. 
Shells were lobbed onto the mainland, but inflicted little damage.  Ft Stevens had their 6" guns at the ready, but the Fort did not return fire, in fact were actually ordered by the brass not to return fire.  I can't imagine why, and nothing we could find explained why that was.  This is a replica of the guns that were on duty here during the war:  

6" Rifle at Ft Stevens, OR

Here, Gary looks the canon over.  It appears that if it was fired it would take out half the wall, but that's because it is mounted on a "disappearing" mount.  When it is fired, the gun is raised into the air.  Just left of Gary is the sighting and adjustment mechanism.

On the beach in the Ft Stevens State Park is this old shipwreck.  It's name is lost with my pictures !!

Gary goes after another couple of caches.  We made a dent, but there's still plenty more caches we didn't have time to get to.  Right now we have found a total of just less than 2400.  That isn't many compared to others, some of whom have many, many thousands.  When we started in 2009 there were 3/4 million world wide.  Now there are more than 2 million!!

Since a lot of photos in this area are among the missing, this will be a short update.  I'll leave you with a couple shots taken down the coast from the Seaside vicinity.

Circle 8 A-1 Square Dance Week Jul 21-25

The view from our site at the Circle 8 Campground near Roslyn, WA

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What a terrific time!  Mike Sikorsky's 1-week crash course of Advanced-1 Square Dance level at Cle Elum, WA.  There were 5 couples attending...and we all graduated!  Even though we had been taught all of the moves in the winter in Mesa, it was still a tough learning experience.  My opinion is that Mike exposed us to more positions than we had had previously.  All the couples in the class had had at one time full or partial instruction in A-1 which made the class go rapidly.  All the moves were finished by Wednesday noon, and we could perform as if at an A-1 dance that evening and Thursday.   

July 2013 Class of Sikorsky's A-1 Week

 This is the crew.  Everyone got along splendidly, and we were all in the same boat, trying to learn something when we're old!  I'll introduce them in a little bit.

Mike Sikorsky - Caller/Teacher

This full-hookup park was really nice.  There was a small lake here.  Eloise and I climbed into a canoe at lakes edge and paddled around it a couple times.  In addition to the canoe there was a row-boat (currently upside down a little way out--still don't know if that was vandals or a prank by some kids), and some floats that were all free for the use of the campers.  Eloise picked a pan of wild black raspberries (the blackberries aren't ripe yet), and we've been spooning them into our oatmeal at breakfast. Yummy! She got pretty beat up from the vines, but seemed pleased with her haul.  We pulled into the park on Sunday afternoon and our first class was that evening. 

This is Byron and Lorraine from Billings, MT.  They are also round dancers.

     This is Mark and Irene Morgan from Chico, CA
They had some trouble with their refrigerator and had to extend their stay here.  We have had a report that it is fixed, and their LP leak also repaired. 

  This is Monique and Harmon van Bergen.  They are from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Monique is or was a caller.  She hasn't been doing much calling lately. 

This is Ron and Nancy.  We are not clear now (over 24 hours!) exactly their location.  We danced with them in Mesa, AZ but she had been talking about living in Eugene, OR. 








     It was a terrific experience.  We have discussed coming back next year for the A-2 class, but as yet undecided for several reasons.

While there we had time to visit the surrounding area.  A trip to Roslyn was mandatory!  We loved the short-lived show called Northern Exposure that was filmed partly here in Roslyn.  Remember the opening set-up where a moose walks down the street.  Well, that was right here.  Anyone else remember the show?

 

 This is the famous Roslyn Cafe

And...This is the 'not so famous Roslyn Brewing Company.  This picture included for our good friends Jim and Peg who love micro-brews!  Us, not so much, but enjoy going with them for their company.

Roslyn has a coal mining history.  The above photo is an actual electric horse that pulled trams up out of the mine.  There is a geocache hidden around this area.  We also trudged up a huge pile of slag that was outside town to another cache.  We had a really great time while working hard at the Circle 8. 

Chehalis Thousand Trails

Before we arrived at the square dance hall, we spent a few days at Chehalis, WA., at a Thousand Trails park.

This sturdy little church was built in 1856 with hand-forged nails and lumber sawed in a water wheel powered mill doubled as the Claquato Academy.  The bronze bell in the belfry came around Cape Horn from Boston, MA in 1857.  When the railroad bypassed Claquato, most of the town moved 3 miles east to Chehalis.

Claquato City Marker

Chehalis is an interesting town, built along the Old Oregon Trail.

 Here's a rare picture of Mt. Ranier without the clouds surrounding the top!

   And...another.  We had a difference of opinion about which one to upload, and I decided to post them both.  So which do you prefer?  (This one's better, yes?)



 We enjoyed biking on the "rails to trails" system, there were lots of caches along the way, and the weather was kind.  One of the caches was on a very, very long bridge that is actually closed.  It had no  deck, just the ties.  It was called "Psycho Vertigo training center", it lived up to its name.  The ties were rotting so care was needed.  And the cache was over the water.  Gary found it and was afraid he was going to drop the container into the river so he was very careful.   Lots of places to explore and bunches of geocaches to find.  Until next time, keep dancin'