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Friday, May 29, 2015

California 4

I started writing this thing yesterday and then stopped because I was getting really boring listing in order the places we’ve been. Today we moved north out of the San Francisco area and are now at the Sonoma County Event Center RV Park in Santa Rosa, CA. Event Center is the new name for the county fairgrounds. We stayed in the San Mateo County Event Center (SMCEC) just south of San Francisco for the last 5 days. We stayed an extra day there because we had to fix the front wheel on the camper that was damaged at the toll booth on our way across the bay. I am way ahead of myself because before we even came to the bay area we spent 3 weeks up near Yosemite National Park.  This is what I wrote yesterday.

Yosemite to San Francisco with no flowers in my hair though I thought about stealing some flowers from the Golden Gate park just for a picture. But first I want to talk about Yosemite, the most

beautiful place that we’ve seen so far. We stayed for about 3 weeks at the SKP Park Sierra up near Coarsegold, CA about 40 miles south of the Park. We put a lot of miles on our little car while we were there making several trips into Yosemite; one to Mariposa Grove to see the giant Sequoia’s, another ride from Coulterville through the park returning through the south gate where we stopped at Bridalveil Falls; a trip into the valley to see the famous views of Half Dome, El Capitan and Yosemite Falls from the Valley floor, up to Glacier Point  and a 1.4 mile hike up (and I do mean UP) to Sentinal Dome to see the famous valley from the top, a 4.5 mile hike around the Wawona Meadow and another hike up to Chilnualna Falls. We took a break from Yosemite and spent a day going to Sequoia National Park. It was there that we got the beautiful pictures of the trees with fog and snow.

Our plans were to move to another park when Ken and Lori joined us but when we learned they were renting an RV instead of tent camping, we decided to stay where we were. Then Ken and Lori came with their friends Ed and Reiko with their 2 year old, Alex (AKA Action) for a few days. A bunch more miles while we followed them on a different route to the Park through Mariposa following the Merced River up into Yosemite Valley for some more amazingly beautiful views of the park. We lost track of our fellow travelers that day so we walked around the Valley again and then returned home. There was no way to contact them






as cell service was not available up there. Ed and Reiko took the camper home a day early having decided that was all the camping that Action could handle. On our last day there, we took Ken and Lori back up to Glacier Point in hopes of sharing those views with them. It poured down rain and we were in the clouds so the view was nonexistent though we could hear Nevada and Vernal Falls if we listened carefully. When the snow began to accumulate on the roof of the car, we decided to head down the narrow switchbacks to lower ground. We repeated the hike around Wawona Meadow. I have to say that we had enough winding roads going up and down mountains to last us for a while. I will post some pictures.
 
We stopped at a Harvest Hosts venue, Gnekow Family Winery halfway to San Francisco for a night with Ken and Lori. There was not much going on at the winery as they had no water because of a broken pipe. We were treated to a wine tasting and purchased some bottles of wine. It was a beautiful sunny day so we walked around the winery and a neighboring organic dairy before we set up our Smokey Joe and barbequed some chicken.

So last Saturday, we made our way to San Francisco or more accurately, San Mateo. That is where we encountered the toll booth on the Dumbarton Bridge. Facebook friends have probably already heard about the impossibility of getting this rig through a normal toll booth. We had to learn the hard way. It wasn’t as simple as backing up and going to another booth. We couldn’t back up because we were towing the car. And we couldn’t get out of the camper to unhook the car because we were about 6 inches from a concrete barricade and couldn’t open the door. We couldn’t explain the problem to the toll booth attendant because he did not speak English well enough for us to communicate this to him. Another attendant attempted to give us advice and eventually called the tow truck. The tow truck driver was able to catch me exiting through the window while Don and Kenny held my arms and lowered me the 10 feet to the ground. Then with the tow truck driver’s assistance, I was able to get the car unhooked and get the hitch stowed on the back of the bus. It seemed like a very long time but it was probably about half an hour for the whole thing.  That is why we spent an extra day in the parking lot of SMCEC fixing the wheel on the RV.

Early on in our travels, I informed Don that I was not interested in becoming a diesel mechanic or an RV repair person and would just as soon pay someone to fix our camper. Well that was easy to say. If we decided to take this small repair to a shop we would be waiting for days to get it fixed. We had an appointment that we set up weeks ago to get the Aqua Hot fixed near San Francisco. When we canceled it yesterday because we couldn’t drive until we fixed the wheel they said it would be June 10 before they could get us in. That repair will be a while. We have an appointment set up in Eugene, OR for our hubcap and lug nut covers in a couple of weeks. So now I know how to siphon the oil out of that oil cap thingy, and replace the thingy. That part was available at NAPA Auto Parts. Next project is to rewire the driver’s seat since I swiveled the seat around the wrong way and disconnected the wires. This isn’t the first time this wiring has to be done. The previous owners already made this repair once.

Saturday night we had dinner with Don’s cousin Susan at her house with her friend Bill. After dinner, they came over to the camper while Don and Susan continued to reminisce about growing up in Montana. Susan moved to this area in 1969 as a computer programmer  for IBM and continues to work in the industry though she left IBM and programming many years ago. Her career has spanned the technological revolution. Her mother (Don’s mother’s sister) still lives in Montana. We will stop to see her when we are there.
On Sunday, Don and I set out to explore San Francisco. Fortunately we wore sweatshirts and windbreakers as it was cold. An article in the paper said that fishing boats at Fisherman’s Wharf would do boat tours to the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz. We decided to use mass transit


and took the train into the city and the bus to the Wharf. Sure enough a young man was selling a boat tour and we joined in. It was a chilly overcast day but riding on the front of the boat with the theme song to Gilligan’s Island and If You Come to San Fancisco blaring from the speakers just seemed right though I did wonder about whatever happened to that “new generation”.  Our tour guide was entertaining and he is the one who took the picture of us with the bridge in the background. We walked around the wharf and stopped to sit on a bench where we met a Canadian couple who said they are interested in reading my blog. Here is a hello to you if you are reading this. We found our way to the Victorian Houses by Alamo Park (the painted ladies). Picture included. I think most of the pictures I’ve taken this week are the same as you see in tourist brochures. But that is the way it is.
On Monday afternoon, we drove into San Francisco and walked across the Golden Gate Bridge, had dinner on Fisherman’s Wharf and then drove over to see the crookedest road in the world (Lombard Street). More iconic pictures.

So yesterday we moved out of our camp site at SMCEC and saw the oil leaking out of the wheel that Don thought he repaired. That is why we spent the day there and this morning found our way out of the area and properly used the toll booth on the Richmond Bridge. Now we are in wine country and not far from the Pacific Coast.

Something that bothers me is this. Don’s cousin Susan informed me that from here on north in California people do not refer to the highways as “the 101” or “the 5”. They are more like normal people and just use the highway name as in “Take 101 north to….”  So I guess that is what I will do.




Friday, May 15, 2015

California 3


Half way through May and we are still here at SKP Park Sierra up near Yosemite National Park. We’ve been here since May 5th and will stay until the end of next week. I haven’t written about our stay at Pismo Beach. Readers need to know about that beautiful place for sure. Holiday RV Park where we stayed at was not so beautiful. It is just a big parking lot with campers lined up with just enough room to walk around and hook up to water and electricity. But across the road and behind the other RV park is the Pacific Ocean in all it’s splendor. We spent many hours walking and exploring around there listening to the waves crash, watching surfers, feeling the wind and spray, and even standing back and out of the way witnessing a wedding on the beach. I will post pictures.

I’ve been reading a book by John Muir, My First Summer In The Sierra. All he had was a gift for describing in words what he saw and felt, along with a sketch pad. If he would have had a smart phone would he have just posted pictures instead of vividly describing what he saw and experienced and deprived us of sharing his experience so vividly? I will post pictures

Our first day there, after we set up the camper, we drove south down the 1 and discovered the Oceano Dunes Natural Preserve.  As we drove down the road leading to the ocean we had no idea what we would see. The road narrowed and in places the sand was drifting across the road. We came upon a front loader clearing sand off the road. There were huge hills of sand and we finally came in view of a parking lot and then saw the ocean. There were warnings about the dangerous surf. The wind was blowing up off the ocean and the waves were crashing onto the beach. There were a couple of people standing in the shallow water throwing out fishing lines. Other than that we were the only ones there. We talked to a park ranger for a while and learned that it is a very popular fishing spot and on weekends there are many people from the big cities that come to fish. We spent some time just walking over the sand dune down to the ocean and then along the beach. Don was particularly interested in the sand mining operation which has existed for a 100 years and they never run out of sand. I will post pictures.

The following days we checked out the beaches nearer to where we were staying. These were safer beaches for swimming and surfing and were much busier. We enjoyed long walks in Pismo Beach and then to the north around Avila Beach San Luis Obispo Bay. We drove through a development of very lavish homes and came to a parking area near a trail head. We walked about a half a mile over a hill and came to a parking lot overlooking a beach and some caves at the bottom of a steep hill. We went partway down to a a natural arch overlooking the ocean. There we talked to some folks who told us about another beach a little farther north and that is where we went for an ice cream cone and were able to observe the wedding. While we watched the wedding preparations from a discreet distance, we talked to some folks from Scotland who had exchanged their home with a local family for the week. After that they were going up to Oregon for another exchange. Many ways to enjoy traveling.


Ken and Lori will be joining us here next Monday so we will stay for another week. Since we have been here for a while, we’ve had some time to explore. We’ve seen big trees and snow in the mountains, hiked a steep trail to the top of a mountain for some amazing views of Yosemite Valley. I’ve been trying to learn the names of some of the trees and have met some different birds. We have met the Western Scrub Jay and Acorn Woodpecker here in the RV park. I think I can identify the Silver Fir, Sugar Pine and The Giant Sequoia. Later, I will post pictures.