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.