Back in Havasu

We are back at Lake Havasu. We arrived this afternoon about 1:00p after another 3 hour drive. The drive wasn’t bad however, just long. Again the truckers entertained us with their chatter.

We even got to travel a portion of the original Route 66 today.

There are a lot more coaches here than when we left in July. It could have something to do with the fact that today it was in the 80s and in July it was in the 120s. I uncovered our patio furniture, which hopped off the cement pad onto the gravel during one of the monsoons. The furniture survived OK except we lost one pillow. It’s probably floating down the river somewhere. Tomorrow will be cleanup day. I already washed the car this evening but I need to give the motorhome a good washing and clean the dust out of the patio furniture. We have neighbors now and their motorhome is partially blocking our view that we enjoyed last summer. At least it provided shade on our lot so that’s a good thing.

Calico Ghost Town

We are now in a KOA just outside of Calico Ghost Town in Yermo California. We won’t be going into the Ghost town this time though. We were there earlier this year. This is one of the nicer KOAs I have stayed at. It was another one of those long days (2.5 hour drive) but not a bad drive at all. We were entertained by the truckers on the CB the whole way. I sure like the way this motorhome goes. We climbed over the Tehachapi’s today with no strain on the motorhome what so ever. We passed by anything that was going slower than 55, of course they passed us again on the down grades going probably 75. I just kept it between 55 and 60. We will be here one night then it’s over to Lake Havasu. Susan is anxious to get there and just sit for a couple of weeks. I know I will get antsy.

SAL Rally

We left San Antonio Lake today and are now in Bakersfield heading for Lake Havasu City Arizona. We just had the best time at the lake. There were about 20 rigs at the rally this weekend. Most went home Sunday but a few of us stayed until today.

We had lots of good food, good conversation, and just good fun. Some brought their boats and pulled anyone that wanted to attempt to ski.

The wildlife here was glad to see us as the deer and rabbits showed up every night at happy hour and hung around until after dinner. After we all turned in for the night, the raccoons came out to clean up. We even had a tarantula take a cruise through camp one evening. The weather couldn’t be better.

We had cool mornings, sunny warm days and evenings were perfect campfire weather.

San Antonio Lake

We are now at San Antonio Lake which is in the hills just west of Paso Robles. It sure was nice here today but they are calling for a chance of thunderstorms tonight and rain tomorrow. We shall see. The drive here was just great. Coming up here we saw a tarantula crossing the road, Squirrels, Chipmunks, birds, deer, and cows. Here at the lake, the deer just come up to you looking for a handout. They are not too shy. It is soooo quiet up here that my ears are hurting. After staying at the Elks lodges that are mostly right in town and right next to the freeway, this is nice. We are actually here 2 days earley but were so close and couldn’t wait. Some of the Rally goers will be coming in tomorrow and the rest on Friday. This will be a fun weekend.

Nice day

What a nice day. Yesterday we had overcast skies all day and even a little bit of rain. I was getting concerned about the weather this weekend since we are heading for a rally that will be primarily outdoors. But today however, the skies were blue and clear all day and the sun shined bright. We took a run into Paso Robles to do some grocery shopping at the nearest Wal-Mart. After shopping we took a tour around Atascadero to see what’s here and scope out a good Laundromat for tomorrow.

Since we had a little rain I decided to check the condition of the motorhomes wiper blades. They are shot! What’s worst is I can’t seem to find 26” refills. I can find the whole blade assembly but I only need the refills and of course I have to do some modifications to the assembly to make it fit. I think I will go ahead and pick up the assembly because this will give me a chance to get some longer ones. I have always thought mine were a bit short.

Atascadero Sunset

Who says you have to be at the beach to get a killer sunset. Looks like they are predicting a 20% chance of rain later this week. I hope it is nice for the rally.

On the move again

Today we traveled on down the road again since the weekend is booked at Morro Dunes. We are now in Atascadero just 30 minutes from Morro Bay. Last time I traveled from Morro Bay I was undecided if I wanted to take Hwy 41 or Hwy 46. I took Hwy 46 after talking to a few people that said they always go Hwy 46 and never have gone Hwy 41. It is a good road and has one good climb but not too bad. This time I decided, what the heck, and took Hwy 41. Mostly because it is a more direct route from where I was to where I wanted to go. I think this is a much better choice. The climb is less than Hwy 46. It is a bit curvier but nothing at all bad. It was a nice drive. I decided we will stay here in Atascadero for a few days then go directly up to San Antonio Lake. We will most likely get to the lake before any of the other rally goers show up.

Booked for the weekend

We are not happy that we have to leave this place. I have checked numerous times and they are booked up for the weekend and have no cancellations. Morro Dunes is a really nice campground. The place is cleaned everyday, sites are swept every time someone pulls out and everyone is very friendly. At $29 a night it is a real bargain. We will be heading on over the hill to Atascadero only 30 minutes away where we will be for at least the weekend, NASCAR you know.

Attack of the Giant Seagull

We are still waiting to hear if we can stay here thought the weekend. I sure hope so because we sure like it here. The weather has been mixed. We had a day of overcast, which never really burned off, and a day of morning clouds with afternoon sun. Today was mostly sunny. It has gotten a bit cooler though but we are not ready to leave the coast yet. This evening we headed for the Embarcadero for some fish and chowder. Susan had the halibut and I had the fish sandwich and a cup of clam chowder. We sat over looking the bay and kept an eye on this giant seagull while enjoying our meal. Actually it was a normal size seagull but at this angle he looks huge, but you knew that. Tomorrow I will be heading for the office to bug them again about staying. There are a couple of other campgrounds in the area but if we need to move to another campground we will just head on down the road. Toward the end of October, after the rally, we are heading for Lake Havasu. I have been checking the weather there and it is still in the 100s. Hope it cool down before we get there.

On the coast

Well we made our way out to the coast to Morro Bay today, but not until after the NASCAR race was over. We sort of overstayed our welcome at the elks lodge since they like you to pull out by 12:00. We pulled out at 2:00. Since there were other sites open and no one was waiting to get parked I wasn’t worried and no one seemed to care.

We are in an actual campground for a few days. This campground is real nice. It is clean and our site is very roomy.


We are right across the street from the beach and as I sit under my awning I am looking directly at the famous Morro Rock.

The weather was fantastic today. It was in the high 70s with a slight breeze and the skies were clear. I hope it stays this way all week.

Party in the streets

What a cool night. Tonight we went to the Thursday night street fair and farmers market here in San Luis Obispo. There was a ton of people. Every college student in town must have been there. It was like being invited to one big giant college party. What we didn’t know was this must have been initiation night for the Cal Poly fraternitys. The streets were filled with college students. Some of them were in groups dresses in togas, Mexican ponchos, guys in dresses, and other oddities.

This guy was on his own with his big foam cowboy hat, tie died shirt, and boom box dancing in the streets. He paused long enough for me to snap a photo. It would have been better if the girl hadn’t step between us.

One "must see" in San Luis Obispo is Bubble Gum Alley.

This alley is right in the middle of downtown and the walls are covered in gum. Apparently it is a big hit judging by the crowd in there. I’m wonder how long it took to get to this point.

We ate at Mo’s BBQ tonight. Mo decided he wanted to open the best BBQ place in town so he and a friend set out on a 3500 mile journey to scout out the best BBQ joints and learn from the experts. His walls are covered with best of awards he has earned along with photos of the BBQ joints he visited. While on this journey they picked up an antique chair from each stop for his restaurant. Every chair in the place is different. Pretty good eats but I still like Susan’s.

And all this entertainment for only a $.75 parking fee. What a cool night!

I can’t drive any slower

We moved again. We are now up the coast a bit in San Luis Obispo. No, we are not camped in a cemetery. We are actually at the Elks Lodge, which is surrounded by a large cemetery. Since it was only about 15 miles up the road we took all the back roads. The max speed limit was only 45 mph and still we were here in 30 minutes. We plan to be here for 4 nights. Actually on Saturday we are heading back to Pismo for a day trip in the car. There is a NASCAR store that was closed while we were there and it will open Saturday. Susan has been looking for a NASCAR store for quite a while now and when she finds one it is closed. Another reason we are heading back is because I wanted to get a bowl of clam chowder from Splash. Splash is a small restaurant that has won “best clam chowder” for years. They finally asked then not to enter anymore.
There is plenty to do here in San Luis Obispo also. Tomorrow we are going into town for their street fair.

A day in Pismo Beach

I woke this morning to Raccoon prints on the hood of the car. We thought at first it was a cat but they were very large. The Camp Host said there are raccoons that come through the park at night. Not sure what they wanted on our car.

We took a walk out on the Pismo Pier today. Nice views. As we were leaving the pier, a lady came walking up and just about every pigeons on the pier flocked to here.


Apparently everyday she comes to the pier to feed the pigeons. The old guy that was with here said she calls then her chickens and feeds them everyday.

Tomorrow we will be moving again. There is a group coming in that will occupy all the sites here. This means tomorrow will be a busy morning because everyone here will be leaving and there is only one dump station.

Another long day

Well we took the long 30 minute journey to Oceano/Pismo today. Susan doesn’t understand my reasoning for traveling less than ½ hour a day. It makes perfect sense to me. I get to see different scenery, experience different climates, meet new people, and only have to drive 30 minutes every couple of days. Life is good!

Speed Limit on the beach

Today we took a walk out on one of the few “Drive on” beaches in California. We have never seen so many sand dollars in one place. They were all over the place. People were gathering them like they were real dollars. They had bags full, which I think is wrong. These are living creatures and should be left alone. I walked up to one lady who had a bag full and said, “those are still alive you know.” Her reply was, “Yeah, some of them are.” Apparently some people don’t care. I took some too,

Sand Dollars on the beach
in pictures only. I let them lye as they were.

We will be here for only 2 nights although we wanted to stay longer. They have a big group coming in that will take up the whole RV area so we will be moving on another 20 minutes down the road.

The weather is surprisingly nice for being near the central coast of California. It is usually cooler and foggy around here.

When I looked at the flag to the left to see the forecast it said, “Smoke”. Never seen that one before. There are some fires going on in Southern California that are affecting the air. We woke this morning to the sun shinning through smoky skies.

Another easy drive

Today was another easy drive. We are 45 minutes up the road from our last destination. You think I am crazy? Well I met 2 others here that came from where we are going next only 30 minutes away, and are heading to where we came from only 45 minutes away. We have an excuse for traveling so slow. We still have 3 weeks to travel 120 miles. It was a good thing that we got here early. We got the last hookup site and after I backed into the site another motorhome came pulling in. We got here so early that we actually had to park for a while until someone pulled out. The early bird gets the worm, or in this case, the site with hookups. We actually woke a little earlier than expected this morning since the trash truck decided to come by at 7:00a and empty the dumpsters near us. Why can’t they hit the shopping centers and industrial areas first?

We get free movie channels this weekend on our Direct TV Satellite. This makes Susan happy. Between NASCAR and movies she will be happy all weekend. I, on the other hand, am happy as long as I have my Internet.

Today’s weather was nice. The evenings and mornings are getting to be fireplace weather though. We ran the fireplace for the last couple of mornings to take the chill off. I like cool nights.

California Rocks

We met a couple while here in Buellton that live in the park and have a small business they call California Rocks. They paint rocks! They are very talented and could make a very good living at what they do but they chose to live a modest life. They refuse to go big with their talent and only charge $10 to $40 for each piece. They say they only make enough to pay for food. They say they have been living in the park for about 2 years. When I mentioned I couldn’t stay put that long they said they wanted to move on several times but the park wouldn’t let them. You see, they have also painted all the signs in the park with the same whimsical style and have done murals in the office and clubhouse too. Nice job. If anyone is interested I have their phone number. I’m sure you could send them a photo of your favorite car or RV and they will paint you one.

Tomorrow we will be heading up the road again. We actually wanted to stay longer but don’t want to pay the weekend rates. I asked if they would convert us to their weekly rate if we stayed and they said no. So instead of making a few more bucks on us they get nothing. What kind of business is that?

Did I say R&R

Yeah right! Today I spent the day cleaning, washing, wiping, and polishing. I got to admit, the motorhome and car look pretty good now. If only it would last. Hopefully I can relax the rest of the week. I dodged a bullet last night. Our Convection oven mad a weird noise then would not heat up to over 150. You can’t cook much at 150 degrees. I did a little troubleshooting and found the convection fan was not working. I was able to reach up in there with a shish kabob skewer and nudge it free. I didn’t even have to turn a screw or remove anything. Seems if the fan isn’t working, the heating element gets real hot and a sensor shuts it down. I’m sure glad someone thought to add the sensor and save me a lot of money replacing burned out elements. It’s been in the low 80s today and tomorrow is supposed to be the same. After that it will cool down a bit, but not much.

A little R&R

We took a long journey today. We are 20 minutes down the road from our last stop. It was a nice casual, no freeway drive. Along the way we even spotted a field full of deer. We decided to forgo the Elks Lodges for a while and spend a few nights at Flying Flags Campground. Susan needed to do some laundry and we know from experience that they have sites right across from their laundry. This makes it a little more enjoyable to get the laundry done (as enjoyable as it can be). We cringed at paying $40 a night so we planned to stay only 2 nights. We lucked out and got a pretty good site so I went to the office and paid for 3 more nights. 5 days of cleaning and R and R.

We had to leave

We had to move on today. All the sites are called for at the Santa Barbara Elks Lodge until Monday. We have moved on down the road to Lompoc. It was a fairly easy 1 hour drive. When in this area we usually stay at the Flying Flags Campground in Buellton, however we decided that they were too pricey for the cramped sites that they have so we are down the road in Lompoc. We did decide to head on over to Flying Flags for Sunday through Tuesday though. It’s laundry time and we always get a site right across from the laundry at Flying Flags. Beats sitting in a Laundromat. Also while at Flying Flags we will have breakfast at our favorite place in Solvang. When we got here it looked as though it had rained. Everything was wet. I think it was just the morning fog. It defiantly is much cooler here which is nice.

It's much cooler here

Well, we headed for the beach today. We checked out a couple of campgrounds along the Ventura coast and found two right on the beach with hookups. One didn’t have any available but we were there early and possible someone just hadn’t pulled out yet. The other had 2 or 3 available. After staying at the Elks Lodges for $10 to $15 a night, I just couldn’t bring myself to pay the $40 a night they wanted. We left and headed for the Santa Barbara Elks Lodge. Last time we tried staying at the SB Elks it was full. This time..we got the last site and only for 1 night. We thought maybe we will stay at the Elks tonight and head back to the beach tomorrow. After thinking a while, we should have grabbed one of the beach sites because tomorrow is Friday and they will go fast. We may be able to stay here at the Elks because someone hasn’t showed up yet and they said if they don’t show we can stay longer. We are only about a mile from the beach so the weather here is cool. After all, that’s what we were looking for.

It’s hot here too

We are now in Simi Valley and it’s 100 degrees. It was supposed to only take 1 hour to get here but it took almost 2 due to traffic. I kept looking at the traffic report online, waiting for it to clear before we hit the road but it never did so we packed up and got in line on the freeway with the rest of them. This was at 10:30a on a Tuesday. Don’t these people work? Well we are here and will stay put for 2 days, got to kill some time ya know, and then we will head for the coast. It should be much cooler there. I am hopping to find a spot on the beach where we can stay put for a while.

While here we may visit the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. It’s just 20 minutes down the road from here.

Whew!

We are done with the race. It was over 100 degrees everyday. It was just too hot to do anything. We wanted to spend more time in the midway and visit the pits but we ended up sitting inside the motorhome with the generator running and the air on.

Start of race at sunset

Roof top view

At least the races were at night and it cooled very comfortably every evening so we could view the race from the roof of the motorhome. We had to get up early every morning to get in and didn’t get out any earlier than midnight everyday. We didn’t take our motorhome into the infield since our daughter had hers there. We setup at the local Elks Lodge and drove the car in everyday. This worked out well since we had electricity and could run the air all night at the lodge. Also the parties don’t end until the wee hours of the morning at the track so we got a good nights sleep at the lodge. We were going to get back on the road today but decided to rest a day and leave tomorrow. The race was great though. Susan’s driver didn’t do so good. He lost his points lead in the standings but not by much. One good win and he will gain it back.

Race Anticipation

Well we took a ride over to the Fontana Elks Lodge to see if we wanted to move. It is about 10 minutes to the track from there as opposed to 25 from here. We decided to stay put since we don’t want any custom paint jobs (graffiti) done on the motorhome while we are at the racetrack. Elks Lodges are not always in the best part of town. We feel pretty safe here since this is a pretty active lodge and there is always something going on here. We still have a couple of days before the race so we will be getting a few household things done until then.

We still haven’t come up with anything to do between the race and the rally. I checked with some of the campgrounds along the coast and they are still full even after Labor Day until the first of October. We can always do the Elks Lodges but since we’ve got about 5 weeks to kill I would like to stay put on the beach somewhere for at least a week at a time.
If anyone has any suggestions (or a nice beach house with an RV spot :) Leave a comment or Email us.

Back in the heat

We left Havasu because it was over 100 degrees. Now we are in Ontario where it says 104 on my thermometer. We don’t know yet if we are going to stay here or move to the Fontana elks or perhaps the Riverside Elks. It’s going to be HOT no matter where we go. As you know if you have read some past posts we are here for the NASCAR race at the California Speedway in Fontana. It is not for a couple of days but we wanted to get a jump on the other fans since the Elks are First come First Served (another good thing about being a fulltimer). Besides we have a few things such as laundry and a little shopping to do. When the race days come we are not going to have time for anything else.

We have a rally to go to in the first weekend of October. What we are going to do between the race and then, I have no idea. We’ve got a week to come up with something. I am thinking it will be something along the coast. Hopefully it will cool off by October because we are planning to head back to Havasu after the rally until our Camp Host jobs.

Traveling on a weekend…Bad idea

Last night we stayed at the Santa Maria Elks Lodge. What a nice lodge. This place was neat, clean, and huge. There was tons of parking around the lodge but only 12 RV sites. Three of those were non hookup sites. We got there at around 11:00 and there were only 2 non hookup sites left. We backed into one and the guy next door came out of his rig and offered to let us T off his water hookup and plug into the 20 amp receptacle of his power box. That’s all we need. We were set. They had a BIG dance last night and you could hear the DJs music thumping half the night. I did manage to get a good night sleep though.

Today we were heading for the Santa Barbara Elks Lodge. When we got there it was full. No chance until Monday. Back on the road again, we headed for the Ventura Elks. As we were approaching the turnoff some lady was driving so badly ahead of me that I missed my turnoff trying to keep an eye on her. So it was on to Oxnard.

We got here at the Oxnard Elks and got lucky, there was 1 hookup site left. As I was checking in they told me that they are having a big party tonight and it might be a bit noisy. Well it won’t be the first time. This works out OK because tomorrow we will just head on into Fontana and be there a day earlier.

No more creak

Today was a fixit day. I am pretty sure I fixed the creak in the motorhome wall. Turns out it wasn’t a broken weld. It was the expandable foam insulation they spray in the walls. It came loose and was rubbing on one of the steel superstructures inside the wall, kind of like one of those Styrofoam ice chests, and you know how annoying that can be. We will see tomorrow when we get back on the road if that was really it.

This park, San Lorenzo County Park, is pretty nice, except for the smell from the onion fields next door. It is under trees, lots of green grass, and there is an Agricultural & Rural Life Museum right in the park. The museum features LOTS of antique tractors and farm equipment, a restores 1887 School House, 1898 home, 1898 train depot, and more. The park also features a playground, modem station, laundry, Koi pond, large picnic area, clubhouse, and more.

King City

After a stop over in Gilroy to do some shopping at the Super Wal-Mart we made it to King City. This was 4 hours after our departure from Santa Clara. Only 2 hours of the 4 was driving so it wasn’t bad. While Susan was in shopping I was tearing into the side of the motorhome trying to find the creak I mentioned in the last post. I found it and of course, it has to be very difficult to fix. Looks like a weld broke in the sidewall next to the dashboard. To fix it properly the dash will have to come out (and how many more problems will that create). I will fix the creak, however the broken weld will have to remain broken. It isn’t going to cause any problems so I am not going to worry about it.

We are set up in a nice County Park here in King City. We will be here for 2 nights and while here I will see about de-creaking the motorhome. My nose tells me that there are onions planted in the fields next to the park.

Sometimes you just have a bad day

Actually it’s not all that bad. We made it through San Francisco with no problems. Cost me $10 to cross the Golden Gate Bridge. There is only a toll going into San Francisco but no toll going out. They say they figure they already got your money while you were there so they don’t charge you to go out.

The problems came as we approached out destination. Suddenly the motorhome developed a creak. Man I hate squeaks, creaks, and rattles. Haven’t been able to locate it yet so I will have to put up with it for a while. Upon pulling into the Santa Clara Elks lodge, I ran over a guy’s Sewer Solution hose as he was pumping out his tanks. I thought it was an ordinary green garden hose, flattened it pretty good. He was rather upset until I offered to pay for it, then his anger turned toward his wife who was supposed to make sure no one ran over his hose. I guess I defused that situation by being a nice guy and didn’t have to pay the guy, although it really wasn’t my fault. Good thing too because they aint cheap. While backing into the spot, I got my front license plate shagged in the bushes and ripped it right off the front of the motorhome. That was an easy fix. Then while hooking up the water, the cheapo plastic latch that holds the storage door open broke. A trip to Wal-Mart will fix that. Next came the sucker truck to pump out the grease trap from the sausage factory across the street. What a stink that made. Fortunately it only lasted about 20 minutes. Well we are going to head out to dinner tonight so hopefully we will have a good time and all will be well. Tomorrow it’s back on the road and we will be staying in a real campground (County Park) so that should be good.

On the plus side however, I set my satellite dish on the tripod and went inside to get the settings and it was already downloading the information from the satellite. No adjustments necessary. Sometimes I just get lucky. Also, I am back in Broadband country so my Internet is fast again.

From Redwoods to Grapes

Today we are back in Petaluma. We left the California Redwood Country and are now back in Wine Country. We were going to stay here 2 days and do some more Wine Country exploring, however we decided to stay an extra night in Ukiah last night so we are staying only one night here to make up for it. Right after we left Wine Country the last time, a good friend emailed me with some fun things to do. We were going to do then on the way back through this time but since we are only here for 1 night I guess we will save it for another time.

Tomorrow is the drive through San Francisco. If it’s anything like the drive through San Francisco on the way up, it’s a piece of cake. I was expecting a lot worse. We will hit The City between 10:00a and 11:00a so the traffic should not be a problem. I guess it doesn’t matter what time you pass through Santa Rosa the traffic is terrible. We were lucky to do 15 mph at times. I thought it was one of those freak things when we went through last time but it was the same this time.

I guess all the work I did yesterday cleaning up the motorhome paid off because someone asked me today if it was new. I like that.

Another Bonus

Today we were treated to a car show here at the Elks Lodge. What more can you ask for, a nice place to stay and a car show right out your front window all for $12 a night. I’m likening this Elks thing.

Well, while here I got a chance to get a few things done since there is not much going on in Ukiah. I got the oil changed in the motorhome and gave it a good cleaning from the roof all the way down. And it really needed it.

Tomorrow morning we will be heading on down the road again. We were going to head out today, however the Nascar race started early today so we had to stay put so Susan could get here fix.

I sure can’t wait until I get back in Broadband territory. Up here in the redwoods there is no Broadband so my Internet has been real slow. I guess I am just spoiled.

Heading South

We are back in Leggett for the night. We are stuffed in the trees into a campground that only accepts a max vehicle length of 30 feet. Of course we are 36 foot so it is a bit of a squeeze. How did we get past the max vehicle length? Well it pays to know someone. Not only that but we are the only ones in the park that have water and electricity hookups.

We will only be here one night then we will continue our trek south.

Nice place

Eureka and its neighboring towns are a blast from the past. While here we visited Ferndale, an old Victorian town. All the residents of Ferndale take pride in their town and do a good gob of keeping their Victorian houses in good shape. You can see many painters touching up these beauties.

Arcata is just north of Eureka and is home of the Humboldt State University. Being this is a small college town there is a young presents here. There are a lot of casual eating places and book stores. In the town square you will fine a variety of characters. Reminds me of my old Hippy days.

Eureka also has its share of Victorian homes. We did the Old Town walking tour and the driving tour. A lot of the homes are restored, however there are a lot that are in various stages of disrepair. Susan said it would be fun to buy one of them and restore it into a Bad and Breakfast. That’s too much work for me right now.

Tomorrow we will be heading back south. I really liked my stay here. We will be pretty much retracing our steps, however we will be trying some new places to stay along the way. That should make it interesting again.

A step back in time

Today was as if we woke up 100 years ago. We started the day by heading for Ferndale today. This is a Victorian Village that dates back over 100 years. It has survived 2 disasters, one a series of earthquakes that lasted for days and the other a flood when the Eel River overflowed. The town had been restored to what it was over 100 years ago. When you enter the stores you will find items from the past that are still for sale such as toys, rock candy, and lye soap. The inside of the stores look as they did 100 years ago including the old creaky wood floors. The storeowners still live upstairs as they did many years ago. We took our time walking around town checking out the Victorian homes, buildings, and churches. We had no worries wandering about since the crime stats in this town are very near none.

The other thing we did today was go to the Samoa Cookhouse here in Eureka. This is the last cookhouse used by the lumberjacks’ years ago. They seat you at a long table with others and serve you what they are cooking for the day. It is served family style in bowls and platters and is all you care to eat. The meal is one set price and includes soup, salad, bread, 2 meats, potato, vegetable, beverage and desert. The food was so good that we plan to go back for lunch before we leave here.

We woke this morning to a cool overcast drizzly morning. Something we haven’t seen for a while. We even fired up the fireplace. It burned off by noon and was nice the rest of the day. I guess it’s expected since we are only about a mile from the Humboldt Bay right on the northern California coast.

Eureka California

We are in Eureka, California. Our last stop in Garberville we had no cell phone. Here in Eureka we have full cell, however my Internet connection is unbearable slow. There may be no updates this week.

We went from the 80s in Garberville to the 60s here in Eureka. When we pulled up I looked a little out of place when I jumped out of the motorhome with shorts and flip flops when everyone was in jackets. One of the ladies said, “I want to go where you came from.”

We will be going into the old Victorian town of Ferndale one day and check out Old Town Eureka another. We may get into Arcata also. I will update if possible.

Great Britain Visitors

Last night I watched as another Rexhall motorhome pulled into the site next to us. I couldn’t help but notice the woman that was guiding the gentleman in has a British accent. Curious, I looked at the license plate. This motorhome had GB plates on it. I couldn’t resist so when they got settled in I went over and inquired. Sure enough they are from Great Britain. They had the motorhome shipped over in December to spend a year touring the USA. Since Rexhall also makes our motorhome I was interested in the differences. They run on 240 volts in GB as opposed to 120 volts in the USA so their dealer had added a converter to step down their 240 volts to run all the 120 volt appliances and such in the motorhome. He said this made it easy to run in the USA because he simply had to bypass the converter in the USA. Also they had the engine modified to run on either gasoline or propane since propane is ½ the cost of gasoline in GB. It is a simple matter to switch back and forth so they can run on what ever is cheap and available. He also had to get a special license to drive a large vehicle in GB. He said his motorhome is suppose to be different than the ones sold in the USA because they do not allow vehicles over 100 inches wide, although he suspects Rexhall simply stated it was 100 inches when in fact it is 102 as they are in the USA. I asked him about the left hand drive whereas they drive on the left hand side of the road in GB. He says you get used to it, however his wife has more trouble with that then he because she is on the traffic side and not in control. She calls it the suicide seat.

Today we spent the day in the Avenue of the Giants. This is a 31 mile drive through an old section of US-101 that runs right through the redwood forest. Very nice drive. I am glad we did this in the car and not the motorhome because it is narrow and the giant redwoods are right on the roads edge. You can actually see scars in some of them where they have been hit. We did all the touristy things like drive through a tree, walk inside a couple of trees that, even though they are still alive and doing well, their trunk is hollowed out by fire and you can walk inside. We saw a tree that is over 300 feet tall. Although it is not the widest tree in the forest it is really really tall. It’s hard to get a perspective because you can’t see the whole length through the branches even though the first branch doesn’t start until the 190 foot mark. We did all the tourist things on the northward drive then turned around and did it all again, except on the way back we just took our time and enjoyed the drive. On the way back we stopped in Garberville where we actually had Verizon cell service and Susan made all her daily phone calls. It’s like in the old days when you had to go look for a pay phone.

Sorry, Can’t upload photos again.

Sometimes you just can win

We decided since we didn’t have satellite TV and Sewer hookups that we would head up the road to Benbow RV Resort. It was only a 30 minute drive. 3 miles of it was through Richardson’s Grove, which is not advised for large vehicles. Man was that tight, but the only way to get here. The redwood trees are RIGHT on the edge of the road. I just had to pay attention to where I was on the road, especially when other RVs and trucks where coming the other way. Well we got here in one piece and got setup in our site with not much problems. I got the satellite TV setup and all hooked up to sewer and all. The problem is when Susan tried to make a call on our cell phone. The cell reception here is little to nun. My Internet connection is very marginal also. We may be moving again soon.

Sorry no Sat TV

We moved again today…Well actually we moved 4 sites down to the Camp Host site where we can get some hookups. The only problem is the trees are so thick around here that we cannot get Satellite TV. Believe me I tried for close to an hour. Being the Nascar Freak that Susan is she was pretty bummed so we decided to move on down the road to another campground for the weekend. Actually it was my decision also because we will be closer to the Avenue of the Giants and won’t have to drive so far to get there. It is so thick with trees that when Susan got out of bed at 8:00 this morning I thought she was getting up in the wee hours of the morning because it was still dark. The trees sure make nice shade though. I didn’t realize it was 80 degrees until I hiked down to the river and got out from under the trees.

What does this look like to you? It’s poison oak and it’s everywhere. I don’t feel comfortable walking around here. As a kid I was immune to poison oak since I romped the canyons with my cousin who got it but I didn’t, but I am not taking any chances.

California Redwoods

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We are now in Leggett California. Over the weekend they had a Reggae festival here. Most have gone but there are still a few left. I think they are just to stoned to find their way out of here. We are stuffed into a nice State Park in the redwoods. I say stuffed because it is limited to a max 30 foot length and we are 36. I had Susan spotting me with the 2 way radio as I slid into a spot for the night. Tomorrow we will me moving to a Host Camper site where we will have a little more room and electricity and water. We are real close to the Giant Drive through Redwood Tree and the Avenue of the Giants so we will be checking those out, in the car of course. We are visiting our good friend Melissa who was one of the Park Aids when we hosted at San Elijo and now is a Park Here. It sure is nice to see her again.

Last night in Ukiah

We did absolutely nothing while here in Ukiah but had a good time. We did do some grocerie shopping but that was about it.

If you are a Traveling Elk and are in the area, stop by the Ukiah Elks Lodge, stay a while and say hi to Jim, the RV Host and his dog Ms. Dazy.

Jim is a Really Nice guy. Tonight he cooked up a few steaks, Susan and I provided the salad and potato and we grabbed a picnic table in their park and had a nice dinner.

Tomorrow we are back on the road again. We will be heading north and should start seeing some redwoods soon.

Joining the Elks

I tell you what, joining the Elks is one of the best things us Fulltimers can do. We just parked ‘er at the Ukiah Elks Lodge in Ukiah California and what a nice place. Just water and 30 amps electricity with dump station but $36 for 3 nights as opposed to $50 for 1 night is very nice. Not much going on this weekend so we will just relax and watch NASCAR all weekend.

Earthquake

WOW! Just went through a pretty good earthquake. I thought the motorhome was falling off its levelers. We are in earthquake country just about 40 miles north of San Francisco. Not sure where it’s center was.

Problem adding photos

I have tried to add photos to the last couple of posts, however the site seems to be having problems with this. Hopefully they will get it fixed soon.

Wine Country

Today we took the car through Wine Country. We headed over to Napa and from there up to Calistoga. There sure a lot of wineries out there. So many to choose from. Susan and I don’t drink, so wine tasting was out of the question. We just wanted to enjoy the grounds and peruse the gift shops. Too expensive for our budget.

In Calistoga we stopped by the Old Faithful Geyser. Oh yes, there is an Old Faithful Geyser in Calistoga. It is 1 of the 3 in the world that is predictable. Now we can say we have seen 2 of the 3 since last year we visited the one in Yellowstone. This one is not in a national park like Yellowstone. It is on private property and they charge $8 per person to see it. After paying your fee and passing through the door, it’s like stepping out someone’s back door into their back yard, nothing fancy. The geyser was pretty impressive though.

There were also a couple of pens with goats and llamas to view and feed. Some of the goats are Tennessee Fainting Goats. These goats “faint” when frightened. Actually they have a rare malfunction that causes their mussels to freeze up when frightened and sometimes they fall over. The sheepherders used to use them in the flocks. When a wolf or coyote would chase the flock, the goat would “faint” and the predator would take it and leave the rest of the flock alone. These goats almost became extinct, go figure.

Jelly Belly

We toured the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield today. It was a nice drive to Fairfield past several Wineries. The tour of the factory was also pretty cool. There sure were a bunch of kids there. Guess it’s still summer so all the kids are out of school. The tour was about 40 minutes and they took you through the whole process of making the candy. They don’t let you take pictures inside the factory though. There are tons of jellybeans in that place and it sure smells good in there. I wonder how many of the workers snag jellybeans along the way. Some of the process is done by robots, which were interesting to watch. At the end of the process the beans go through screen that sort out the ones that are too large or too small. These are bagged and sold in their gift shop as Belly Flops. Nothing is wasted, the ones that fall on the floor are scooped up and sent off to pig farms as feed. They have so many different flavors and a recipe book on how to mix flavors to create others. They even had flavors such as Rotten Egg, Sardines, Boogers, Vomit, Roasted Garlic, and more. No Kidding! At the end of the tour you can spend some time in their gift shop where you can get clothes items, novelties, and yes, Jelly Bellies. Then you can go over to their café and get a hamburger in the shape of a jellybean. It was a fun day.

Petaluma California

Not much going on the last couple of days. We took a drive into downtown Petaluma. There is a lot of history here. We did the Victorian Home Walking Tour and was a little disappointed. They did have some nice homes but a lot of them were overgrown with weed and in disrepair. After downtown we took a drive out in the country. I found this to be more enjoyable driving past a few wineries, miniature horse farms, and a pasture with some BIG old bulls. The roads were so bad though, that I spent a lot of time dodging the potholes.


Today I took a walk along the Petaluma River and Bird Preserve. Interesting sights along the river.

Curb feelers

I didn’t realize it until today that my motorhome has curb feelers.

Going over the Golden Gate Bridge today, motorhomes, busses, and trucks are restricted to the right lane. These lanes are tight! As I was traveling along I heard a scrape. Looking out my right mirror I noticed I was REAL close to the bridge rail. I figured, now I got a nice racing stripe down the side of the motorhome. After stopping I found nothing. Then I remember a similar incident in Myrtle Beach where I scraped my exhaust pipe on a construction barrel. Cool! Built in curb feelers!

This morning we left Pacifica. I was concerned about the drive through San Francisco and over the Golden Gate Bridge but it was a piece of cake.

We left at around 10:30a so traffic was not an issue. Today we are in Petaluma. From here we will visit the Napa Wine Country and the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield. We may take a cruise out to the coast. Petaluma is loaded with neat stuff to see also.

San Francisco

We had a good time today in San Francisco. We were going to take a 6 hour tour but decided on the 3 hour tour instead. I am glad we did. 3 hours is enough.

The tour went across the Golden Gate Bridge to the viewpoint then came back into the city and drove through The Golden Gate Park. This is one BIG park. After that we headed up to Twin Peaks.

This is the highest point in The City (600 feet) and what a view. Then it was off through Gay Town, rainbow flags everywhere. 12% of The Cities population is gay, 2/3 of them being men. The tour bus dropped us off at Pier 39, which is probably one of the touristiest parts of San Francisco. We spent about 3 hours there, had lunch and spent some money. On pier 39 you can get a good view of The Bridge and Alcatraz.
Did you know there are no sharks in the bay? They just told the inmates that to keep them from attempting to swim to The City. Also they only had hot showers on the island so the inmates would not take cold showers to get used to the cold water in the bay. We walked from Pier 39 back past Fisherman’s Warf to Ghirardelli Square. The Chocolate Factory is no longer there, just a bunch of shops that sell the chocolate for 3 times more than you can buy it at Wal-Mart. We left at 9:00a this morning and arrived back at the motorhome at 5:00p. Long Day..

On the way to San Francisco

Since it was only an hour to Pacifica, where we are now, we held out as long as we could in San Jose today. We were chomping at the bit to get going so we hit the road a little after 10:30a. This turned out to be too soon. We pulled into the park and they turned us away. They told us to come back after 12:30p. This has only happened to us in California. We ended up in the Safeway store parking lot. Turns out it worked out OK because the laundry needed to be done and there was a Laundromat in the shopping center.

This park is tight. It is pretty much a parking lot with full hookups but it is about the only game in town. The park is clean and the staff is friendly. We are 1 row back from the ocean so it’s not too bad. I don’t like to make reservations but it’s a good thing I did here. When we pulled in I noticed the No Vacancy sign.

It was in the 70s here today, much better than over 100 like it was in San Jose. There has been a light fog all day but the visibility is still good over the ocean.

Winchester Mystery House

I got the car worked on today. I let the Service Advisor talk me out of a Fuel Filter change and into a Throttle Body/Fuel Injector cleaning. He says the Fuel Filter is a 90,000 mile maintenance item and has never seen one need changing sooner but on the other hand the Throttle Body and Fuel Injectors are a 30,000 mile maintenance item. I have 45,000 miles on the Saturn. He seems to think this was the problem after reaching under the hood and manually opening the Throttle Body. He said it felt sticky. I didn’t check it but took his word for it. It has been running fine and hasn’t lost power since that one time. Time will see if this did the trick. I have seen my mileage go steadily from 30 to 21 in the last few months. I need to go fill it up and check the mileage now. If it is back up to 30 I will feel better about the $150 spent. What the heck, it was $25 cheaper than the filter change. While I was there I got a look at their Sky. The Sky is their new 2 seater convertible roadster. Nice car. I asked if I could tow it behind the motorhome and he said not 4 down, has to be on a trailer. That shoots that down.

After the car service we headed over to the Winchester Mystery House. If you have never heard of this, it is a house owned by the widow of the Winchester rifle builder. After his death she went to a psychic that told her to move to California and build a house and never stop. She had carpenters working on the house for 38 years 24 hours a day until her death. All her construction plans came to her during her nightly séances with the spirits so the house is total chaos with stairways leading no were, windows in the floors, and door that open to a blank wall. All this and I left the camera back at the motorhome.

Later today I restrung 2 more of our Day/Night shades. They say these motorhomes are for recreation only and not recommended for fulltime living. Everything seems to be holding up quite well except the shades. I think I have fixed all of them at least once so far. They must have installed the cheapest ones they could find. I am going to have to pick up a bundle of string and eyelets for these things.

The temperature is still over a hundred here and we are looking forward to heading for the coast again. The Elks Lodge that we are at has a nice big swimming pool. I might take advantage of it tomorrow.

I was surprised to find out yesterday that I could still get the Local San Diego Channels on my Direct TV Satellite dish; well we woke this morning to nothing. I had to call Direct TV and have them switch me over to the West Coast feed out of Los Angeles. This I can get all over the country. Every time I do this the people at Direct TV can’t figure out how to do this since I live in an RV. I am always on the phone with them for at least 30 minutes. This time I asked the guy if it is possible to add a note on my account as to how to do this for the next guy, next time. He says he will.

A change of scenery

We moved up the road to San Jose today. Now instead of looking out my front window at a golf course, I am looking at a Highway. Not only that, it’s under construction so it’s not very pretty. We stopped in Gilroy to take advantage of the few Super Wal-Marts in California. Susan loaded up the motorhome with another 2 weeks of supplies. Gilroy is the Garlic capitol of the world and it sure smells that way. I remember while in Hershey Pennsylvania, the town smelled like chocolate. I like chocolate better. Susan, who loves garlic, couldn’t even handle it. It was an easy drive today, ½ hour to Wal-Mart and ½ hour to San Jose. It got over 100 degrees here in San Jose today and in the height of the heat the power went out to most of the city. I plugged our fan into the inverter to keep us a bit cool. I could have fired up the generator but I though it would come back on soon. It was off for near an hour. When the power came back on I turned both airs on full and cooled this place down pretty quick. I did a little search to see what’s around here. If it has anything to do with computers, it’s here.
I just added the Big Sur photos to my photo site. Click on the California Hwy 1 thumbnail in the left column.

Slight change of plans

We were going to hang here until Saturday and take a drive to Santa Cruz but things have changed. Today I set out to get the fuel filter replaced in the Saturn however when I got to the (Chevy) dealer they turned me away because they were too busy. Huh? That’s not what they told me yesterday. They said bring it in and they would fit me in. Well, they said the Midas shop could do it. Sure they can… at $230. No! I just want a fuel filter, not a full fuel system. There is no Saturn dealer here in Salinas but there is in San Jose (our next stop) so we are leaving a day earlier than planned. It looks like the San Jose Elks is very nice so we will stay there a few days and visit the Winchester Mystery House and get the car done. The Mystery house and the Saturn dealer are very close by so that makes it easy.



The golf course right out our front window has been real entertaining. I guess you can’t get away from traffic, even on the course. I though I had seen everything until I saw a golf bag on wheels cruise up all by itself. What? How’s that possible? It steered itself up to the T and stopped all by itself. Seconds later the golfer came walking up with a remote in his hands. OK, I’m out on the golf course getting exercise, but you don’t expect me to push my clubs around too do you?

Monterey-Carmel-Big Sur

Yesterday we spent the day in Monterey. We were going to do the Aquarium but decided that we would put the $44 to use somewhere else, like buying goodies for the grandkids. We did spend a lot of time on Cannery Row and had lunch on the Wharf. We also took the trolley for a round trip to see some of the city. Monterey is a nice town but is mainly a touristy thing. We did have a good time though.


Today we took a drive, using the car, down Highway 1 through Carmel to Big Sur. We stopped at Point Lobos State Reserve. Our Volunteer work for the California State Parks System got us in free. Normally they would charge $9 a car, which is well worth it. The views here were fantastic. You had better watch out for the poison oak though, it’s ALL OVER the place. After Point Lobos we continued our journey down the coast to Big Sur. I was told NOT to do this part of Highway 1 in a motorhome but felt that it is very doable. I don’t know about the stretch south of Big Sur though since that is as far as we went. I think I must have stopped at every turnout along the way. We stopped in Big Sur and had lunch at the Big Sur River Inn Country Dining. Good food and best of all, good atmosphere. It sits right on the Big Sur River and the bird in the trees serenades you the whole time. The drive back was quicker because we didn’t need to stop along the way.

Just as we got close to camp however, the car lost power and started to surge. I am going to take it in for a fuel filter change tomorrow. I sure hope that’s all it is because we still want to drive to Santa Cruz while we are here. The next stop will be San Francisco and we will need the car there too.

Living on a generator

We are spoiled. We found that living on a generator is not fun anymore. Well let me elaborate. Our site at Morro Bay State Beach was a No Hookup site. We had to run a generator for power. Now if Generator hours were more in reason instead of 10:00a to 8:00p it wouldn’t be so bad. And if our onboard generator was mounted properly so it didn’t vibrate the whole coach it wouldn’t be so bad. We ran mostly off our generette (Honda EU200), which only provides about 15 amps of power. Fortunately I asked and was upgraded to a hookup site last night. This made us real happy.

This morning we packed up and headed for the dump station only to encounter a person that was totally oblivious to anything around him. He was there when we got there and still we had to wait about ½ hour for him to finish dumping. After dumping he pulled ahead and parked taking up the spot where I was going to hook up the car. I had to pull up beside him and parallel park behind him to get out of the way of the line that was now backing up behind me. This guy still didn’t have a clue as to the chaos he was causing. Well we finally got out of there and had a pretty good drive up to Salinas, where we are now at the Elks Lodge. There is a lot going on in Monterey this week and most parks are full so we are just outside Monterey. It is an easy drive into town from here. We have a pretty good spot here at the Elks

Our site faces a golf course and it is a pretty view. One of the Ts is directly in front of the motorhome so I get to see (and hear) the frustration when the shot doesn’t go well (Lots of laughs).

Tomorrow we are heading into Monterey to see what kind of touristy things they have to offer.

Fog again today

Well the fog didn’t lift much today either. I wanted to get a good picture of Mono Bay Rock but it was covered in fog every time I tried to get a picture. Maybe tomorrow. We took a drive into town and along the Embarcadero today. It’s a tourist trap of course but the scenery is nice. Tomorrow we will go the other direction to see what we can find. Had a good time talking with Tony (Firedude) today. Got to swap some storied of Camp Hosting and being on the road. He Hosts a lot more than I will ever want to.

Morro Bay

We are now in Morro Bay State Park. I contacted “Firedude” from the RV.net and told him we were passing through and wanted to stop by and say Hi. He was kind enough to find a spot on this busy summer weekend for us. This is the first time in a while that we have had to survive with no hookups at all. I filled the water tank at the last stop and we had to stop at a gas station to get some fuel for our Honda EU2000 portable gererator. This generator is much quieter than the big ol Generac in the motorhome. I am running the biggie though just because it needs the excessive. The problem is, generator hours in the California State Parks is from 10:00a to 8:00p. Now we like to have coffee at around 8:00a and watch TV until 10:00p. Seem just the opposite of what they want us to do.

The weather here is a far cry from what we have experienced in the last few months. It has been cooler here with fog most of the day. This is the closest we have been to the ocean for quite a while though.

Tomorrow we are going to take the car out and do some exploring. We might even get up the coast to San Simion to see if there are any Elephant seals laying on the beach.

A little breathing room

I don’t know if it’s something I said but everyone around us left today. We got a view and a little bit of breathing room. This morning we headed into Solvang to Paula’s Pancake House for breakfast. It was just as good as the last few times we ate there. They have the coolest store in Solvang. It is called As Seen On TV. It contains everything you have ever seen in the TV commercials.


I saw the strangest thing today while in Solvang. A Kindergarten chain gang. They had these kids all tied together. If you click on the photo to enlarge it you will see the rope tying them all together. The guy in red is planning an escape. Apparently this was a school outing and this is how they kept them all together. After that we took a drive to Lompoc to find the Wal-Mart and to check out the Elks Lodge’s RV facilities for future reference. If I am going to camp 5 feet from the guys on ether side of me, I would rather pay $15 than the $41 we did here. I didn’t realize Lompoc was that big. I was told it is because of the Vandenberg Air Force Base located nearby. We will be back on the road again tomorrow.