Northern California & Oregon April 6 - 19

Leaving Watsonville we headed back to the coastal route, we stopped just north of Santa Cruz and watched some elephant seals sunning themselves on the beach. Boy those guys are ugly! They look pretty awkward out of the water but the literature says they are fast, we definitely didn't get close enough to find out. A little further along we saw some hardy souls surfing, or trying to, they spend a lot of time in the frigid water waiting for the right wave. Next stop at Pigeon Point lighthouse, the tallest on the west coast. The lighthouse is closed because  it's unsafe, the lightkeepers housing has been turned into a hostel. We continued on to Pacifica, just south of San Francisco, one of our most expensive spots. We were camped on the edge of the bank with no services but the place was full. We didn't want to waste any time so we drove a few miles to the Colma Bart Station (Bay Area Rapid Transit) and took the train downtown where we bought a pass for all the types of transit in San Francisco. With our pass we took a trolley to Pier 39 and wandered around the touristy shops, Denis got a couple postcards but resisted the Alcatraz t-shirt. We strolled our way to Fisherman's Wharf. Our plan was to ride the cable car to Lombard Street but the line was so long we decided to try again in the morning. Since it was a chilly day we stopped for a bread bowl of chowder before heading back to the trailer. Back again the next day and we did get our cable car ride, with only a 45 minute wait, judging by that we would have waited over 2 hours the previous evening. We decided not to get off at Lombard St because it was very windy as in the wind was blowing gale force not windy as sinuous. We took a trolley to the Ferry Building, great little shops. We found some wine to taste and a muffaletta sandwich but didn't compare to the one in New Orleans. We took a bus to the Palace of Fine Arts, a very impressive structure that was originally built for the 1915 Exposition and was not intended to be permanent. It's undergone several restorations in the last 100 years and is a Greek/Roman looking structure in a beautiful park setting with a lagoon. From there we walked along the marina and had a closer view of the Golden Gate Bridge. We took the bus back to it's closest point to Lombard & Hyde Street, about 3 blocks away, UPHILL, but we made it. Then we walked down Lombard Street and decided we needed to take the cable car back to the BART station, so we walked back up. I can't imagine who would want to live on that street. The next morning we headed through the city with trailer in tow and drove across the Golden Gate Bridge. We stopped at the viewpoint and said good bye to San Francisco.

Denis & friend

Nice street music
 

Ready to go!

Golden Gate after we crossed

We continued on the coastal highway, very winding roads uphill and then down. Stopped at Bodega Bay and bought oysters, they have picnic tables & BBQ's set up so you can feast right on the spot. We continued on and camped in Ocean Cove on the edge of the ocean and enjoyed half our oysters that evening.  Continuing on the scenery has been incredible, we drove through Mendocino, lots of interesting shops but no place to park. Camped just up from the beach again, very windy but beautiful. We are now in redwood country, visited the Chandelier drive-thru tree at Leggett, couldn't drive through, even just the truck was too big. We drove the Avenue of Giants and on to Fortuna. We continued making our way north along the coast when possible, spending our night in California in Crescent City.


Ocean front property, for a night anyway

Just a bit too big!

You could hollow this out and have a cabin

We kept to the coast, scenery is beautiful, we've had heavy rain and the waves are tremendous. We've been stopping at fish markets and are really enjoying the huge oysters.
Made our way up to Tillamook and stopped at both cheese places but we bought wine at Blue Heron. Leaving Tillamook we drove by the blimp hangar that is now an air museum, headed away from the coast now, Denis has a must stop in McMinnville. He visited the Evergreen Aviation Museum home of the Spruce Goose, prototype aircraft, I'll leave it to you to check out the details.



Denis has decided on his next career

Hey Kelly & Quinn, I think there's riptides here

We are still in Oregon but within shouting distance of Vancouver, Washington. We've come to roost in Portland for a couple days, the campground is on Hayden Island. It's a large nice and convenient place to stay but just west of the airport, east of the train bridge and beside the shipping channels, it's very noisy to say the least. We wandered around the downtown and had lunch in old town. There was a block of booths set up along the sidewalk selling all manner of food, we were pretty boring and had lamb gyros but tried different vendors. We shopped Trader Joe's, I had been told I had to go to a Trader Joe's and we have seen a few but this was our first opportunity to stop. We also shopped for oysters, the price seemed not bad until we saw the size, they were 1/4 the size of the ones we bought a couple days ago. Yesterday we went back downtown to the Saturday Market, it's huge. We wound our way through most of the booths and then went to the Farmer's Market, which is also in the downtown area. After our strenuous morning of shopping we drove up to the Pittock Mansion and took the tour.  Today is a catch up day - laundry, etc. and tomorrow we are on the road again for our last week in the US and then the Okanagan, it's the spring wine festival!

Grand Sights - Natural & Manmade

 From Lake Havasu we took the road to Topock and picked up the 'Historic Route 66'. We wanted to make a stop in Oatman, lots of unique old buildings. The highway winds through this small town, crowded with tourists, but it was not possible to find a spot to park our 38' rig, more a Miata or motorcycle town.  We continued on to Kingman and then Williams, camped for 2 days. It was a little strange to see snow on the higher mountains and we needed some heat at night, big change from the 100+ temps in Havasu. In the morning we headed for the 'Grand Canyon', we took a 'flight seeing' tour. Denis got to be the co-pilot and he didn't even have to fight any Asian tourists for the privilege. After our flight we drove to Grand Canyon village and walked a mile or so along the rim, what a sight, a stupendous obstacle for the pioneers. We drove east to Desert View Watchtower, built by the Santa Fe railway in the 1930s for the tourists to view the canyon. Very busy at all stops but I guess that's to be expected with one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. We continued our circle drive to Cameron, Flagstaff and back to Williams.

 

A couple of old fogeys among the rocks

View from the tower

We headed towards Sedona via the scenic route, very beautiful drive but not the best road for truck and trailer, steep grades and hairpin bends. Denis and 'the beast' did very well, the trailer and I just rode along. When we arrived in Sedona, again no place to park so we continued on to Cottonwood. Beautiful little town, historic old places - hotel where John Wayne & other famous actors stayed. We found some wine to taste, there are several wineries but no vineyards, the grapes are imported from California. We went back to Sedona without the trailer and toured and wandered around, very busy place kind of like Banff. We didn't experience any of the 'metaphysical vortexes' which the city is known for but it is a beautiful place to visit. We did go to the Chapel of the Holy Cross, very impressive structure. Also went to Tlaquepaque Village which is a arts/crafts shopping area built to resemble a Mexican village. I wasn't that eager to go there but it was a very peaceful place after the chaos of downtown.

We moved to Camp Verde, east from Cottonwood. We visited Montezuma's Castle, cliff dwellings 15 stories high, Montezuma was never this far north but the name stuck. On the road again, headed west. We stopped in Jerome, lucked out and found a place to park truck and trailer. It was a copper mining town and is built on a mountain, actually called Cleopatra Hill with an elevation of 5,000'. In the 1920's the population was 10,000 and today the permanent population is less than 500, in the 1950's it was considered a ghost town. Now there are a lot of artists, artisans, antiques and collectibles in interesting buildings. But alas we had to leave, headed down Mingus mountain another scenic byway, I saw it referred to as a great motorcycle drive. Denis does love those Miata roads, but this rig is a bit more unwieldy. Well we are trying to avoid interstates and take the road less travelled!

We camped in Ash Fork and then picked up 'historic route 66 again. We stopped in Seligman and wandered through many original businesses from the heyday of route 66. Between there and Peach Springs, we went to the Grand Canyon Caverns. They are 40 miles from the canyon but we were told that if they set off coloured smoke bombs down there, 2 weeks later it can be seen in the canyon. 

A couple icons in Seligman

We spent one night in Kingman where Denis visited the railway museum; and stayed one night in Bullhead City, across the river from the casino lights of Laughlin. Then it was on to Boulder City for a week! While there we visited the Hoover Dam site, an engineering marvel of the 20th century and the new bridge which bypasses the dam, a 21st century marvel. We went into Las Vegas, first visit for both of us. Mind boggling is an apt description of the strip and it's attractions. We experienced the 'Fremont Street Experience' and it's wild and zany characters but didn't gamble, it's too high tech, where did the one-armed bandits go? We took a drive along Lake Mead and through the Valley of Fire, rocks as red as in Sedona or on PEI. We visited the Mormon Fort, who knew, Las Vegas was originally a small settlement of Mormons who built an adobe fort at the springs? Temperatures have been over 100 and Denis is very brown.



In the Valley of Fire

And now we start our journey home - headed into California, we spent a night in Bakersfield
(home of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard) we drove by Buck Owens Crystal Palace. We took another road less travelled from Bakersfield to McKittrick to Santa Margarita and onto San Luis Obispo where we experienced more parking issues so we went to the beach. Spent the afternoon parked by Avilla Beach, listened to the surf and watched the people and dogs frolicking in the waves. When we were in Cottonwood a couple from Santa Barbara chatted with Denis about the trailer then to our surprise, at Avilla Beach they spotted our rig and stopped for a chat again.


Along the coastal highway near Big Sur

We've been having problems finding a place to camp, everything is full so we've headed away from the coast a bit. We are in Watsonville for a few days and will do day trips to explore a bit in this area.