Monday, March 30, 2009

It's cold!!

We knew when we decided to come to Washington State that we were going to get some cold weather, but we never thought it would be so cold that we would have snow on our vehicles.



It has rained just about everyday since we have been in Oregon and Washington. We haven't had any wind though. Some of our friends have had to 'seek a safe place to land' in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. There have been some bad storms down there with heavy rains and tornado watches and warnings. The rain here most of the time is no more than a heavy mist.

We have been having a good time with Ed's daughter Sheila and grandson Michael. Sunday was spent watching Sheila's team play softball after being rained out on Saturday. It wasn't raining but it was cold! We brought Michael back to the motorhome to stay with us for a couple of days. He is on spring break and Sheila had to work Monday and Tuesday. She is off for the rest of the week so we hope to get out and see some of the sights around the Tacoma/Seattle area.

Ed and Michael spent this morning fishing here at the lake. Didn't catch anything but seem to be having fun!

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Oregon Coast

We have been here at Whalers Rest RV Park since last Sunday. It's been an uneventful stay. It has rained just about everyday.

We did some laundry, got our hair cut, baked some cookies and finally today, we got to do some sightseeing. We went down to the bay and walked around for a bit. There were a lot of people crabing. They have these metal looking cages that they drop to the bottom. They have to keep pulling them up to see if they caught anything. Didn't see anyone catch anything.



We then toured the old lighthouse. This lighthouse was only used for about 3 years because they decided that it was built in the wrong place and another was built about 2 miles further up the coast. The second picture was taken from the lighthouse looking out to the ocean.


Tomorrow we leave for Tacoma.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Trees of Mystery

Thursday and Friday we spent some time touring the Klamath area. We stopped at "Trees of Mystery". Here are a few pictures of what we saw.



On the left is the 'Family Tree'. Can you see how a new tree seems to grow off the limb of the original tree?

We learned that a redwood tree has no tap root. The roots are all surface roots. Makes you wonder how these trees stand and grow for so long.














After we had finished our tour of the trees, we drove back the coast route to our RV park. This is where the Klamath River enters the Pacific Ocean.



The picture on the right shows what looks like a farm house. Looks can be deceiving. This was actually a radar station during WWII. It was made to look like a farm house on purpose. It would monitor the movements of Japanese Submarines during the war.

We left the redwood forest behind on Saturday and continued north on 101. Before long we enter Oregon and the scenery changed from tall redwoods to coastal pines.

We arrived at our destination around 3:30pm and settled in. We will be here exploring the area for the next few days. The weather is cold and it has been raining off and on today. Hopefully, tomorrow will be better and we can do that exploring!

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Let me get caught up

We've been on the road for the past three days so its been hard to find the time to post. Let me get caught up now. Monday after having our furnace serviced at Camping World in Bakersfield, we finally hit the road around noon and drove up I-5 to a truck stop in Westley. The night we spent there was very noisy so we didn't get much sleep. We left Westley Tuesday morning and headed over I-580 to catch up with highway 101 just above San Francisco.

Tuesday on highway 101 was mostly vinards, and green rolling hills. We stopped a couple of times, once at Walmart but found it wasn't a Super Walmart so we continued on until we found a regular grocery store. We just needed a few things. We stopped for the night at Coyote Valley Casino. It was much quieter. Once we arrived we went in to let the security know we would be spending the night and signed up for players cards. Each card was loaded with $10, so we played the slots. We won enough to pay for us both to play bingo later that evening. Didn't win but had fun for a couple of hours.

This morning we left the casino and continued north on 101. It wasn't long before we were driving through the most beautiful country. We stared climbing through the redwoods. The road would go from a 4 lane highway to 2 lanes.



We stopped at a roadside place that did chain saw carvings out of redwood. Here I am with Smokey!!



It wasn't long after that we came down and around the corner there was the Pacific Ocean.



We arrived here at Kamp Klamath RV Park where we will stay for the next couple of days exploring the Redwood National Park.

It sure has been nice to see all the green hills and tall trees the past few days. As much as we loved being in Arizona for the winter, we were tired of Cactus and rocks!!

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Family Day

Today we spent the day with family. Our granddaughter Ciera turned 15 last Thursday, so we had a party for her today.

Son Terry and his wife Sarah came up from LA for the day.



Everyone had a fun day riding dirt bikes. Grandson Ramey.



Son Terry



Happy Birthday Ciera.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Time to move on

Our time here at Lake Elizabeth Rv and Golf Resort has come to an end. Tommorow we are moving on to Bakersfield. We have been without cell phone coverage up here on the mountain but our internet has worked thanks to our Wilson Antenna.

Sunday we went into Santa Clarita to see friends Sharon and Terry. They own Karaoke Unlimited and we needed to purchase a new machine. We had a room that we used for karaoke singing in our sticks & bricks house. When we moved into the motorhome, we took our machines with us, but it was such a hassel to set them up that we very rarely did. So when the CDG player stopped working, we decided to look for a unit that was all in one. Sharon recommended the VocalPro Duet 2. Sunday we came home with the new machine. Wednesday they invited us down for dinner. It was a fun evening with friends.

Thursday was spent doing laundry and because they didn't have a laundry here at the campground, we had to make the trip into Lancaster. When we got home, Ed set the karaoke machine up and we did some singing. It was fun to go over some of the songs we always used to do. Of course it took us some time to remember them but think we did good.

I know we will enjoy this new machine a lot. Just hope our neighbors forgive us!!

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Northern Bound

We are on our way. We left Needles this morning and are now staying in Lake Elizabeth. We are at an RV park right next to a golf course. Ed is in heaven and will play either Wednesday or Thursday.

We will leave here on Saturday to drive the short distance to Bakersfield to spend the weekend.
Ciera will be 15 on March 12th so we will see her on Sunday to celebrate.

Our plans are to drive up the coast and arrive in Tacoma Washington by March 30th. Michael's spring break is that week and we can spend some time with him. We will stay a few days in Northern California near the Redwoods and a couple of days in Oregon by the coast. It's been nice in Arizona these past couple of months, but Ed and I are really looking forward to seeing some trees and grass!

We know we will have to get out our warm clothes again though. We are just hoping we can avoid snow!

Will be posting pictures along the way.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

What time is it???

We are staying at a CRA park .. Northshore RV Park. The park is actually in Needles, California but the park operates on Arizona time. Why? They don't have any explaination other than "That's the way it's always been."

Today was supposed to be our day of rest, we were planning on enjoying the day watching a movie on pay-per-view and having a nice spagetti dinner. Oh, how easy that chalk blows away!! Ed got up this morning and turned on the coffee pot and 20 minutes later..NO COFFEE!!

So, there went our day. We started out in search of another coffee maker.

We started out at 9:00am this morning, first went into Needles to pick up our mail. Arrived there at about 9:20am. They weren't open yet, but they were supposed to open at 9:00! Why weren't they open? It's that time thing again. Going into Needles..Pacific time..it was really only 8:20!! So we went to Denny's for breakfast. I needed some coffee!!

After breakfast, everything seemed to go smoother. We found the coffee maker we needed. Not really so simple since we needed a Black and Decker space saver. But we located one and Ed is pulling his hair out trying to install it now.

I have the spagetti started but the movie will have to wait till another time. Maybe tomorrow!!

Oh yeah, and that time thing..after Sunday it won't matter. Arizona doesn't go on Daylight Savings Time!!

Monday, March 2, 2009

Back in Needles

We left Lake Havasu on Saturday and arrived in Needles. Sure seems good to be back in Verizon Territory. Weather here has been wonderful..in the 80's the last couple of days, however, we are expecting it to get cooler later in the week. Ed is planning to play golf tomorrow.

Northshore RV park is another in our Colorado River Adventures group. The park is sure more crowded than it was in November when we were here last. We are scheduled to leave here on Saturday.

We are going to go up to Tacoma, Washington to see Ed's daughters who live up there. We don't know which route we are going to take yet. We have a couple of weeks to get there so we can really go slow and enjoy the ride. We are growing tired of dirt, gravel and cactus. While picturesque in there own way, we are parcel to grass and trees.

More later on our route...