Too Hot To Scurry

I thought it was hot yesterday, but today was even hotter.  It was 101 in the shade this afternoon! We are camped under some large trees so we were comfortable last night and this morning.  Kathe and I decided to stay inside today in the air conditioning, but Jim had other plans.


He went for a bike ride on the River's Edge Interpretive Trail.  He rode along the Rogue River and stopped to take this picture.  Kathe and I stayed home and worked on her needlepoint. Once and a while we went outside to sniff for ground squirrels.  There are lots of holes everywhere but I think it's even too hot for the squirrels to scurry around like normal.  Personally, I think it's almost too hot for me to scurry around after them.

While I stayed cool at home, Kathe and Jim went out to explore the town of Rogue River.  They ate lunch at a little cottage restaurant and got the car washed. Jim had a hamburger for lunch, and didn't share. Kathe had a quiche, but who cares.  It would have been nice for SOMEONE to share their hamburger with a man's best friend.

This campground is loaded with blackberry shrubs.  The last time we were here we picked buckets full of berries.  It's too early in the season but the shrubs are covered with flowers and small green berries.  Here's a picture of what they look like now.  I really wish we were coming back later in the season to pick them when they are ripe.

Jim is setting up the barbecue and that can mean only one thing, STEAK TONIGHT!.  I'll go out and give him my extra special cute look, it works every time!

Into the Trees

Up and out at the crack of dawn, my eye!  More like the crack of ten or eleven! I did my best to get things started this morning, I woke Kathe up at 5 AM and again at 6 but do you think she would stay up?  No, she went right back to sleep. And Jim? he didn't even open his eyes!  By the time the two of them got up this morning it was time for my first nap.

We rolled out of Red Bluff at half past ten to begin the drive to the Valley of the Rouge State Park. We traveled from farmlands into the pine forests, then into a desert landscape before we were finally back into the trees in Oregon.

On the way, we past Lake Shasta where despite the low water
we spotted a few house boats.  Next came the view of a snow covered Mount Shasta in the clouds. We had a pretty nice rain storm last night, so maybe that's why there was so much snow on the mountain this morning.


We arrived here at the State Park mid afternoon and backed into our spot (several times!).  Seems that guy across the way from us didn't think Kathe was doing a good enough job of guiding Jim into the
spot, so he took over.  Nice guy, but we were kinda into the trees and you know Jim can't have that. We thanked him for his help, then Kathe took over.  Jim moved about three feet to the left and we were all set.  Jim did trim a a tiny little bit off one of the cedar trees before he was happy with the site.

You can see the river from our site if you stand on your tip toes in the sticker patch behind our rig.

I'm going out later when to look for squirrels, Looks very promising!

Digging Durango

Tonight we are in Red Bluff, California after another long day of driving up the Interstate.  We drove another 245 miles today and we were all ready for a rest when we arrived at the Durango RV Resort late this afternoon.  The resort is right on the Sacramento River and it's really beautiful. Took this picture from one of the sites that overlooks the river.  Wish we were staying here longer.

Today we really understood the phrase, "food grows where water flows".  Wherever we saw the aqueduct flowing, we saw apricots, pistachios, almonds, corn, sunflowers, olives, and rice growing. Miles and miles of farmland.  Taking a picture at 55 miles per hour is difficult, but here is a picture of some of the hundreds of rice paddies we past just outside of Corning, California.  I bet they grow more rice here than in China.



No mishaps today!  Whatever Jim did with that screwdriver yesterday did the trick, no dead battery on the tow car and the wine cooler is back on the wall where it's supposed to be.


There are over 100 Tiffin motor coaches here tonight.  Everyone is on their way up to Canyonville for the big rally next Monday.  We were driving around the park and saw our friends the Carsons and Molly the Westie puppy camped two rows away from us.

Margaritas and dog biscuits for all!

On The Road Again

It's been so long since I have been on an adventure, I almost forgot how much fun it is.  I also almost forgot how to blog too!  I sure hope I can remember how this works... so here it goes.

After Kathe and Jim packed about 500 pounds of food, clothing and essentials, and we all went to the groomer, we left Burbank and started on our trip.  We're going to Oregon, Washington, Canada, Idaho and Nevada this summer and it's really going to be great!

Today we drove about 260 miles up the bumpy  I-5.  We saw the golden hills of Santa Clarita, passed about million big rigs cruising down the Grapevine, and passed huge nut and fruit orchards and vineyards along the freeway. Did I mention the stinky part--Harris Ranch--we could smell those cows for miles too!

We stopped at a fuel stop and Jim took this picture, that's how exciting our trip was today. We will take better pictures tomorrow.

Only a couple of mishaps today.  First, when we made a fast turn going into a rest stop and the wine cooler flew off the wall with a terrible crash!  Luckily there wasn't any wine in it and the cooler still works.  Kathe and Jim were able to refasten it to the wall with a minimum of swear words.

Then, at the next rest stop they discovered that the battery on the tow car was dead AGAIN!  More swear words. Jim made a quick call to Scott, the service tech at Neils Motorhomes, and he gave us a couple of tips on how to fix the problem.  It started up this evening, but keep your paws crossed that it works tomorrow.

Here is a picture of the campground we are staying at tonight.  KOA in Santa Nella, and believe me there aren't many RV parks along the I-5 to choose from, so it's not too bad.  Only here for one night before we head to Red Bluff tomorrow.

Last Day, Lasting Memories

Today was the last day of this vacation, it's been really fun for all three of us.  I got Kathe up this morning at 5:45 so that she could see the fog roll in from the ocean.  The fog is one of the things that makes Paso Robles such a great wine region. This park has a gate that opens right into a vineyard and we went for a walk down the rows of almost ready to harvest grapes.  We went back to sleep after our walk and stayed in bed until almost 9:30.
It was a lazy start to a lazy day.

Somewhere around 11:00 they decided to go wine tasting and to pick up some wine to take back home. First, they stopped at J.Lohr and needed a hand truck to load up all the wine that's been waiting for pickup, and then it was on to Le Vigne for six more bottles.  The final stop was to a new winery called Daou Winery and that was really a wonderful surprise.  It's a beautiful setting, the highest winery in Paso Robles at over 2,000 feet in elevation.  The 360 degree view was breathtaking and the wines were outstanding.  They liked it so much they even joined the wine club!  After tasting the wines they enjoyed a gourmet lunch with a glass of wine outside in the sunshine.

We've had a great seven weeks on the road, but we are all looking forward to going home tomorrow.  I can't wait to sleep in my own doggie bed again and bark at the neighbor's golden retriever until my throat gets sore.  I know it won't be long before Kathe and Jim get the traveling bug again and we'll be off on another adventure.
Until then....

Annie

Peppers and Pots

Kathe and Jim had a very interesting day here in Paso Robles visiting Jim's cousin Charlie and his wife Marion.  The two cousins haven't seen each other in about 40 years and just recently connected after a death in the family.  Charlie is the older brother of Gary, the cousin they visited in Plymouth, California earlier on this trip. Charlie has been living here in Paso for many years since graduating form Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

The cousins spent the day reminiscing about their childhood and the many visits to their grandparents home in Glendale back in the 1950's.  As you can imagine, they had quite a lot of catching up to do.

Charlie worked as an architect for many years after finishing school and now works for the city of San Luis Obispo as a senior plan checker.  He loves his job so much he's planning on working there for seven more years. I could tell they didn't have a dog, but the have four cats.  I love cats, and when they came to visit our house later in the day I had to check them out for cat scent! They smelled really good!

Charlie has a thing for hot peppers! He grows several of the most unusual and hottest varieties in his back yard. He pickles them and has jars of the many varieties that he takes to work for his lunch.  He also collects hot sauces from all over the world and has a huge display of them in his house.
Here is a picture of some bottles that he has collected.

He is also a very serious collector of pottery.  He has some very beautiful pots dating from 400 AD to present day artists.  It was really an incredible and beautiful display of art.  Kathe took a picture but the pots were so much more beautiful than this picture shows.

It was a great day and we plan to come back again and promised to stay in touch.

Sorry, but I Was Having Fun

I haven't posted since we left the redwoods and the Benbow RV Resort, I just been having so much fun that I haven't had the time.

We have been in Santa Rosa visiting with family for three nights  We celebrated three birthdays with lots of delicious food and a big ice cream cake.  I sat under the table enjoyed some tasty treats which happened to fall my way.  We stayed out late every night so I was too tired to work on my blog.

One of the best things about staying in Santa Rosa (besides the family) is the path along Brush Creek.  It's a short walk from Kathe's brothers house and it's always an exciting adventure for me.  You meet all kinds of dogs and their people and there is something new every time we go there.  Once we saw otters in the creek and we always see lots of nesting ducks.  This time there were white egrets every morning on our sunrise walk.

On the first morning we saw a mother and two chicks, but of course Kathe didn't have her camera.  The second day she had a camera, but just when she was about to take the picture I saw another dog and jerked the leash and camera out of her hand.  The noise made the egret fly up into the tree. This morning she finally got a shot of the bird but the sun was already up so you can hardly see it in the picture.  Where's waldo?

I know now that we are really on the way home as the drive today was almost 200 miles and that means lots of time in the crate for me.  We're staying in Paso Robles for the next three nights.  I'm going to try to have as much fun as possible.  I'll rest when I get home.