END OF THE JOURNEY

Tonight is our last night on the road with the Taylors. Tomorrow morning, we will split up and set out for home.  It’s been an incredible journey. The whole summer spent on the road traveling together and exploring Canada and Alaska. Incredible sights and interesting places like nowhere we have ever been before. Luckily, I have recorded everything here in my blog and we can look back and remember each day of our wonderful journey.

Celebration tonight with a dinner at Harris Ranch and reminiscing about our amazing summer.

FLAG CITY WINERY

It’s really a hot one today, Jim had the air conditioning on at breakfast which is a first for us. Going outside for my walks is a real chore for Kathe and me. The heat is really unbearable for one thing and instead of grass around our sites there are rough lava stones that are so lumpy I can hardly walk on them. Kathe has been picking me up and carrying me various places to save my paws, but the concrete and asphalt are also too hot to walk on.  I’m pretty miserable and I want to be home. Only two more sleeps!

The humans spent the early morning on chores and a quick trip to the hardware store and Costco. Warren and Jim are fixing small projects and making lists of things that need to be replaced or repaired when we get back home. 

They did manage to find a winery and bistro less than a mile away. They had a delicious lunch and did some wine tasting at the Micheal David Winery. The wines must have been good as they brought home seven bottles between the two couples. The property was beautiful, and they would have tasted wine outside in the garden if it hadn’t been so hot today. 

Tonight, the cocktail is a Paloma. Tomorrow, we leave for Coalinga, our last stop before we split up and head for home.

GOLDEN STATE

I made a mistake last night. We only stayed in Redding one night. It’s today we when we are in Lodi that we are staying two nights. We’re at Flag City RV Resort and 200 or so miles closer to home. Not much different than last night, still hot as tamales. It’s 104 here and they have all three air conditioners on. I was so hot last night that I slept on the tile floor, guess it will be the same tonight.

Most of the drive today was nice. Lots of oak trees and golden grass along both sides of the road. Then we started to see more agricultural activity, fruit and nut trees predominantly. As we got closer to the Sacramento Valley we started seeing large rice fields. And just then the roads started getting bumpy and rough just like we remembered.  And we said we wouldn’t complain about the Interstate 5 ever again, but here we are thinking about the roads in Canada.

It’s so hot no one is outside and I’m napping until it cools off tonight. Too bad dogs aren’t allowed in the pool.

CALIFORNIA

Getting closer to home every day. Tonight, and tomorrow, we are in Redding, California. Remember when I was complaining about the cold and rainy weather? Well now I’m complaining about how hot and dry it is here in Redding. It’s 103 degrees and it’s time to blast on the air conditioning. Here’s a picture of Mt. Shasta with some snow on top, the most interesting sight on our drive today.

Very easy driving again today on Interstate 5. Only a little over 160 miles, on a smooth highway with a lot of curves and ups and downs. Our ears were popping with all the steep grades.

Not much to say today, we are just relaxing and thinking about home, it’s been a great trip, but we have been away now for 96 days. The longest vacation ever! Only 3 more days to go.

SMOKE AND FIRE

There are so many fires here in Oregon that we have been seeing and smelling smoke for the last couple of days. Today as we were traveling through Canyonville, we drove past yet another fire. There are so many active fires that the smoke is everywhere. Our air purifier is on full blast!

We settled down for tonight at the Valley of the Rogue State Park. Our last stop before entering California.  We have been at this park several times. It’s not too smoky, but it’s really hot. It’s 103 degrees and everything is dry and dusty.  Kathe is pretty upset with me for getting pine sap on all four paws within the first hour. The only thing to get pine sap out of your fur is mayonnaise or peanut butter. Hopefully tonight it will be peanut butter.

No problems with the drive today, everyone is breathing a sigh of relief. Not to say that we don’t have other mechanical issues. There is always something to fix, and today it’s the passenger step cover that’s not working. Both Warren and Jim spent some time trying to fix it but it’s too hot and it will have to wait for another day.

We have been eating dinner outside the past few nights, what a change from the rain and cold weather in Alaska and Canada. No mosquitoes only yellow jackets here. Warren is cooking dinner and Kathy T is making peach daiquiris with the peaches we bought in Eugene.

ALL GOOD

Jim and Kathe woke me up this morning at 5 AM. Now that’s a switch. It’s so noisy here that neither one of them could sleep. There was a period between 2 and 5 AM when there weren’t quite as many big rigs flying by on the interstate. They had to get up at 5:30 anyway to take the coach in for a 7 o’clock appointment at Freightliner. They were going to run a diagnostic procedure to see what was needed to fix or replace the DEF sensor. We three spent all morning waiting to hear the verdict. I spent the morning waiting on the floor of the driver’s lounge.

Meanwhile before we knew what was going to happen, the humans were working on all sorts of plans in case the coach wasn’t drivable. One plan had Kathe flying home without me, another plan had them leaving the coach here in Eugene and driving back home, a third plan was just to drive it as long as we could until the engine failed and then we would deal with the problem later. 

After half a day spent sitting in the driver's lounge, they finally told us what we expected, that the DEF sensor head had to be replaced. Only problem with that idea was the that the part we need is out of stock and not available until sometime in October. As it happens Warren and Kathy had purchased a DEF sensor two years ago and stored it in case they needed it someday. It wasn’t exactly the right part, as the one we needed was an improved version. after another call to Tiffin to find out if we could use the older version, Freightliner agreed to install it. There’s no guarantee that it won’t fail too, but hopefully not until the new part is available. So, thanks to Warren and Kathy we are back on track and will leave tomorrow for the Valley of the Rogue State Park

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STILL ON THE MOVE

Out of Washington today and into Oregon. A straight shot on Interstate 5 with hardly a slowdown. We are checked into the Eugene Premier Resort. We have a very nice site overlooking the manmade lake, but boy is it noisy. We’re about 100 yards off the Interstate and hoping things will quiet down later. Of course, it doesn’t bother me because I can’t hear a single thing. Except maybe the refrigerator door being opened.

Unfortunately, most of the day was spent calling repair places and trying to find out more information about our check engine light. We finally have an appointment tomorrow at Northwest Freightliner here in Coburg. They will run a diagnostic program tomorrow morning, but they weren’t very optimistic about being able to service our power glide chassis. Kathe and Jim are still trying to find the solution. No one is very happy tonight as we try to figure out the next step on our journey home.

The weather is warm but there’s a lot of smoke in the air. 

TRAFFIC

Another day of traffic. We are so not used to this. Traveling through Washington on Interstate 5 was hard enough yesterday, but going through Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia was really scary after being on two lane highways for so long. Jim and Warren both said that they really had to concentrate today.

Jim is feeling much better today after a night's rest. Now we have a new problem to deal with. There is an engine light showing that something about the DEF sensor isn’t working correctly. He spent time this morning talking to the Cummins people, but they were not able to give us much useful information. Basically, we just keeping going until the sensor shuts the engine down. Hopefully we will make it back home before that happens.

We are in Centralia Washington tonight at the Midway RV Resort. It’s nice but they have a stupid rule about no dogs allowed on the grass. There are two postage stamp sized dog areas for us which none of us like one bit. There are big pine trees in the middle of each 8x8 plot of weeds and pinecones. I have sap on all four paws! Kathe says when it gets dark, we’re going to break the rules. She’s not carrying me the 50 Feet to the dog area tonight. 

Tomorrow, we drive with our paws crossed and hope to make it to the next stop, Eugene, Oregon.

BACK IN THE USA

Tonight, we are in Bellingham, Washington. It was one heck of a journey. We drove the TransCanada Highway 1. When we started out this morning the scenery was the dry desert. The first part of the 200 miles was on the twisty winding roads up and down through the mountains. Then we finally hit the four-lane portion of the highway and ran into horrible Labor Day Traffic and fog.

To make matters worse, after we stopped for lunch, Jim was feeling lightheaded and didn’t feel well enough to continue driving. Kathy and Warren decided to have Kathy T take the wheel of our coach and Warren would follow in their coach. So, my Kathe was the navigator, and we headed for the border.  Kathy T was great, she loved finally getting to drive Jim’s coach. Unfortunately, at that point the traffic was so bad that there was a 30-minute wait at the border crossing that we planned to take, so we drove to a different crossing with no wait. It was a little harder drive with all the roundabouts, but we saved some time.

Border crossing was a non-event. No questions, no food or doggie issues like we’ve been reading about. Smooth sailing back into the USA.

It’s cool here in Bellingham with the fog rolling in tonight. We were going to celebrate our arrival, but everyone is so tired after eight hours on the road, it’s spaghetti for dinner. We are all ready to relax.

WHO KNEW !

My humans found tacos here in Cache Creek, Canada. We haven’t seen any Mexican food in Alaska or Canada since we left the United States in June. Of course they had to stop there for lunch. A small kitchen where the customers ordered food to go and lots of patio and outdoor seating. There were so many people there that it was amazing. Lots of cars and bikers too! A limited menu, but great food.

Just when you were thinking there wasn’t anything else to do here, there was also a very large Farmers Market in town with all kinds of produce and prepared goods for sale. Since we are crossing the border tomorrow the produce buying was limited to some fresh corn and a peach pie for dinner tonight. That didn’t stop them from buying a giant frozen chicken pot pie and several jars of jam. The Taylors stocked up on homemade sausages. It’s all about food with this group.

If that wasn’t enough excitement for you, it was time for a little history lesson. Not too far from where we are camped is the Historic Hat Creek Ranch.  Located on the historic “Cariboo” Wagon Road is the ranch with over 300 acres of farmyards, fields and range land. There are twenty historic wooden buildings dating back to 1861. The original Roadhouse interior was recreated with furniture and fixtures as it might have been when it was used as a transportation hub from 1863 to 1913. They even had an original Edison Victrola with the wax recording rolls. The docent played a waltz and helped transport us back in time.