On the road

Our only trick-or-treater was Dan. He came over for a visit to escape trick-or-treaters at his house.

After numerous stops along the beautiful Oregon coast, we roll across the border into California. We find an RV park to stay for a night in Crescent City, CA. and to go shopping for a camera battery. No luck.

October 22, 2007
Sun is shinin’, sea lions are playin’, seagulls are walkin’, the Clampitts are goin’ south. Through funky, old hippy towns we arrive in Trinidad, CA to stay at Sounds of the Sea RV park. Situated in another beautiful area next to the sea, we hiked through Patricks Point State Park to a cliff over the Pacific ocean for a sunset picnic dinner.

October 23, 2007
The Clampitts are still movin’ south, stopping in Eureka, CA to shop, again, for a camera battery. Eureka is a an artsy, hippy town with Victorian buildings, and it’s coastal. And eureka! We found a battery!

It’s time to nest for a day or two. We camp at the Riverwalk RV Park in Fortuna, CA. Got some work accomplished, had the bus washed, I cleaned inside, took a trip down the Avenue of the Giants, had a hike, AND met a Buddist named Virginia!

October 25, 2007
Shiny and clean, inside and out, we make our way to Calistoga, CA with a smile on the face of our bus, and on our faces too. The vineyards are in the fall color stage: rich shades of red, purple, yellow and orange. The sun is shining and the temperature is perfecto. Napa Valley Fairgrounds RV Park is a great location within Calistoga that could accommodate our big “Clampitt” rig. ‘Twas good digs for 4 nights.

The next 8 days was a whirlwind of wineries, wine, and wine country. A most wonderful gift was the arrival on Friday of Becky & Pat, who stayed in Calistoga for 4 days, and my sister Diane arriving on Saturday eve. Good friends Dan Sykes and Kathi Lentzsch have a “piece of heaven” 2nd home in the hills of Cloverdale, just north of Healdsburg. They invited us to spend Saturday afternoon with them for a cook-out.

The house has a spectacular view of the valley of vineyards and hills. They offer their home for nightly or weekly rental when they are not planning to be there. It can sleep 6 comfortably. If there is interest in renting the property you can email Dan: dsykes@n1ear.com

Diane meets the man of her dreams!

October 29, 2007-Birthday in San Fran
Had to sadly say goodbye to Beck & Pat on Monday. They returned to Tulsa as Jim, Diane and I left for San Francisco.

Diane stayed at the Chancellor Hotel in downtown SF and we stayed at Candlestick RV Park, adjacent to the 49ers Monster Park. We arrived a day after a game, and that place was trashed! The RV park was decent, but pricey. Highest nightly rate so far at $69.

Diane, Jim & I shared a bottle of champagne with Dan & Kathi at their Marina townhome, then walked to a popular restaurant, Bistro Aix. It was a very nice way to spend the day of my birth. Thanks to all that made it happen!

Diane and I spent one day walking, wandering, and exploring San Francisco. We ended up in the Haight-Ashbury area and meandered into a very cool bar that has been there since 1941. Zam Zam has a Morrocan decor that is straight from the ’40’s. It’s old, but has a comfortable classiness.

Tuesday, October 30 San Francisco had an earthquake that was 5.6 on the richter scale. We were having dinner in Sausalito and didn’t feel a thing. Dang! That would have been fun!

Saw a flamenco show with Carola Zertuche at a Bolivian restaurant. The performances were intense and stellar, the food above average.

To my Mother, Dorothy Jean Pruner, 05/22/22 - 10/20/2004. On the anniversary of Mother’s death, I want to acknowledge one of the many gifts that she inspired in me… the wanderlust of traveling. Her Mother, Mildred, inspired the same in her. So, as a tribute to Dorothy and Mildred, and a deep felt thankfulness for their spirit of travel and new experiences, I want to continue the family tradition…in loving memory and gratitude, daughter Linda.

October 14-20, 2007
Got into Portland after dark and we found a Walmart parking lot to spend the night. Had our own little tail-gaiting party. We pulled out the chairs, table and wine goblets and grilled ourselves some chicken. Had a lovely dinner in that parking lot along with a few truckers and a broken down C-class motorhome.

It’s a good thing that it rained, and rained, and rained for 7 days while we were in the Portland area. We were able to catch-up, hunker down and work. Blah. The rain was off and on mostly. Downtown Portland is a vibrant place. We drove around aimlessly for an hour or so one night, getting lost then getting un-lost. We like to do things like that. Aren’t we exciting? What was really exciting was the pack of fox crossing the highway, they were everywhere, running back and forth and padding along the guardrails! Freaky.

A highlight for me was a flamenco class that I picked up on Wednesday night. A class of approximately 30 young, old, in between, male and female students with tons of tatoos and body piercings. Had an Asian instructor and a middle-aged Americano guitarist, teaching a bulerias.

and rained.

One big eye-opener for us was a law in Oregon that prohibits pumping your own gasoline. They have attendants at all stations. The only other state that has this law is New Jersey (according to a Safeway gas attendant).

We had a new camera for awhile…a Panasonic Lumix with a Leica lens. Our Casio Exelim is so beat up and the battery is at the end of it’s life. We have not been able to find a replacement battery, so after hours…days…weeks of shopping for a new camera, we made a decision!!! This is while we are getting new brakes on the Jeep. We end up returning the new camera because it does not have infinity focus and our pictures were not sharp. Strange…we could not get a sharp image with auto-focus.

Last day in Portland we took a rainy, scenic drive along the Columbia River Gorge. We saw several magnificent waterfalls, including the Horsetail falls, which is a 178′ high, 15′ wide waterfall that plunges down a cliff in the shape of a giant, white horsetail.

…and poured rain.
We sure have seen a lot of rainbows!!!

October 20, 2007.
Breaking away from the rain to reach our Calistoga, CA destination deadline of Oct. 25th, heading South on 101 we make it as far as Coos Bay, OR. Jim liked the name of the city and needed a break from driving. We found a parking place on the side of the highway in the main part of town and boondocked overnight.

October 21, 2007
Making our way South on 101 we stop in the seaside town of Bandon? for lunch and find yet another quaint place to vacation. There are many seaside houses for rent and has a small town feel. At this point, I am especially giddy about being in the sun and next to the ocean. The southern Oregon coast was spectacular, and not at all over-developed.

September 27, 2007 Westward to Grand Coulee, WA. Very small town with a famous dam on the mighty Columbia River. They do a narrated laser light show every night on the wall of the dam about the mighty Columbia River. Very kitchy.

It rained

September 29, 2007 We overnighted on a downtown street in Everett, WA near the shipyards. Then headed north to Ferndale, WA.

and rained.

September 30 through October 2, 2007 Ferndale was our homebase. Took a day drip into Vancouver, BC on Oct. 1st.

and rained.

Left Ferndale for Tacoma, WA for brake service. We spent one night in BJ’s Bingo parking lot near the Port of Tacoma, then visited Peterbuilt the next morning to find out that they needed to order parts so we headed for the Olympic Peninsula for October 3-9, 2007. We stayed at a small and lovely RV park in Sequim, WA (pronouced “squim”).

One of the many highlights of this particular segment of our trip was a ferry ride to Seattle. We visited the Space Needle and the Experience Music Project, a Frank Ghery designed piece of architecture that is absolutely mind blowing, which is what it’s supposed to be because it is a showcase for artists such as Jimmy Hendrix, Nirvana and Soundgarden.

The next day we were hiking through snow in the Olympic National Park on Hurricane Ridge. We could see Victoria, BC when we reached the top of the mountain. The lack of any sounds was astounding. Pure quiet. Ahhhhhhhh!

On our last day in the area we tried to hop on a ferry to Vancouver, BC but they were full so we ended up having a great drive out to the most Northwest point of mainland USA. Had to hike to the end of the land. It was spectacular. Jim was especially overcome by the experience. The name of the area was Cape Flattery, after all.

and rained

After one overnight in the Peterbuilt Truck bay while they worked on our rig, we had to spend the next night at a stinky Clarion in Tacoma. Our holding tanks were full, so we had to evacuate! We couldn’t drive the beast because they broke off the studs from the differential to the torsion bar arm.

So, thousands of dollars in repairs and a day later, we hit the road for Centralia, WA.

and rained.

October 11 through 14, 2007 we resided at the Midway RV Park in Centralia, WA. Small town charms, such as the taco stand made from a converted MCI bus, that still had the pull cords inside.

And a funky artist’s yard art.

We visited Mt. Rainier for a short hike.

October 14, 2007 Departed Centralia WA for Portland, OR, with an afternoon spent at Mt. St. Helens. Learned some fun facts about volcanos.