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| Golden Gate Bridge |
After
we left Washington state and the Olympic Peninsula, we headed to California, the
last leg of our 2016 RV Adventure. We
were planning on combining a few stops at places we had missed in our 25 years
of living in CA, along with spending time with good friends we had not seen for
quite a while.
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| Huge waves hit CA Coast |
We
were initially headed to the Redwoods National Park, just over the border from
Oregon. We were going to be camping
along the Klamath River on the coast.
Unfortunately, the bad weather we had lived with for weeks in Washington
continued to follow us. A big northwestern storm was predicted to hit the whole
northwest; the Redwoods National Park area was predicted to have 75 mph winds,
10-12 inches of rain with heavy flooding, and 25-30 foot waves. Going to our campground would be like driving
into a hurricane…and not a good idea.
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| Pat Cullen and Bob at Poor Reds |
Instead,
we headed to the Placerville area earlier than planned and spent a few extra
days with our friends Pat and Pam Cullen, and kids Kelly and Krista, who have
both grown up to be delightful young women. Placerville had been our ranch home
for about 7 years, and it was nice to see the area again and interestingly, not
much had changed since we left in 2002. Poor Red’s, a local favorite and the home of
the Golden Cadillac, has been nicely remodeled and was open again. It
was fun to visit our favorite wineries and taste the spicy old vine zinfandels
we love from the area; Apple Hill
provided a tasty day trip for Linda and Pam.
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| Wine Tasting in Sonoma Valley |
From
Placerville, we spent a few days tasting wines in the Napa and Sonoma Valleys,
but were surprised at how expensive it has gotten to just taste wine…. $20 to
$40 per taste was not unusual. Linda
spent some time researching wineries on-line, and found enough wineries that
did not charge, or waived the tasting charge with a wine purchase…. a much
better deal. It made us appreciate the Amador
and El Dorado wineries all the better.
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| Golden Gate from Lands End |
We
spent a week in the San Francisco area.
We parked the RV in Pacifica, right along the cliffs. The RV park had lost some of its land and RV
parking spots to cliff collapse the year before, so we kept an eye on the small
swath of land between us and the ocean…. the big waves from the large NW storms
were still attacking the cliffs. We enjoyed
visiting places we had previously missed on our many visits to SF, including
hiking the Marin Headlands and Land’s End right in SF.
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| Fishermans Wharf Boats |
We
really had fun learning a lot at the SF Maritime Historic Museum and visiting
the historic boats on their two docks. But
we also spent some time just walking around and enjoying all the SF has to
offer: dinner in Chinatown, shopping in
Ghirardelli square, sampling seafood on fisherman’s wharf, watching the seals
at pier 39, and just people watching. We
were there on Halloween, and almost EVERYONE wore costumes… the kids were cute
but many of the “adults” were a bit much.
The day after Halloween, Christmas decorations were already going
up! Friends of ours that live in SF
suggested dinner on a “locals” alley, Belcher Place, with outdoor cafes and
lots of excellent food.
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| SF Maritime Museum |
While in SF, we had an opportunity
to spend time with Bob’s Navy buddy Tom Hart and Linda’s former co-worker,
Larry Reynolds and his wife, Susan. It
was great seeing them again…everyone is looking good and enjoying retirement.
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| Rt 1 Coastline Vista |
From San Francisco, we drove the
most beautiful road in the country, Rt 1 along the Pacific Coast between Half
Moon Bay and Morro Bay. We have driven
this route several times, but this was the first time in an RV. The narrow, winding roads, with sharp up and
downs and switchbacks, were “interesting” in a 36 foot RV. To make it easier on the RV and driver, Linda
drove the Jeep Cherokee so we did not have to tow. Linda was free to stop any time for photos,
but Bob managed to pull off the road once to get a closer look at “seal beach”
where huge numbers of elephant seals, along with other sea lions and other
seals, were sunning on the beach in huge numbers.
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| Seal Beach, Rt 1, CA |
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| Rt 1 in Early Morning Mist |
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| Big Sur Lighthouse Sunset |
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| McWay Falls, Big Sur |
We spent several days in Big
Sur. The huge fires that engulfed
hundreds of square miles had only been out for 2-3 weeks, and all the trails
east of Rt 1 were closed due to the danger of landslides with all vegetation
burnt off. We did some great hikes along
the coast including the Old Post Road before Rt 1 was finished, and Julia
Pfeiffer Burns State Park and McWay Falls.
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| Sunset, Morro Rock |
We spent the night in Morro Bay
State Park to have dinner with near-by friends Yvonne and Bob Huggins, and breakfast
with Bob’s cousin’s husband, Jim Pauly.
The waterfront in Morro Bay has not changed much either; many of the places
we enjoyed in the past are still there.
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| Oval Office, Regan Library |
We continued down the coast to stop
in Simi Valley; we wanted to spend a day at the Regan Presidential
Library. It is excellent. In addition to the usual historical
perspective about the president’s life and his years as president, Regan’s Air
Force One plane is there available to see.
Regan certainly lived in “interesting times”; and in our opinion, he
improved the US stance in the world (in disarray after Carter), won the Cold
War with Russia and oversaw the “collapse” of the Soviet Union. “Peace through Strength” was his motto. Many of the same challenges face the US today
after the Obama administration; Trump should take lessons from Regan’s
successful first 100 days.
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| Our "Home" overlooking Crystal Cove |
We finally headed to Laguna Beach,
our last home while in CA. We were able
to get reservations at Crystal Cove State Park, right on the beach. From there we spent all our time visiting old
friends. We spent one night with our
sailing and church buddies Pam Polzin, Peter Colgrossi, and Ann and Bill Odlum
watching the presidential election returns.
We drove down to La Jolla to visit friends Mike and Lonna (Williams)
Stolper for dinner, and then finished up with a dinner party adding friends
Phil and Laurie Owens to our Laguna Beach group. We drove by our former home in Laguna; it was
identical down to the furniture, drapes and outdoor potted plants (why change a
good thing); even the same gardener was there working and we said hi to him.
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| Sunset over Catalina Island, Crystal Cove |
We even managed enough time to have
lunch in Dana Point Marina with our long time sailing friends Jim and Janet
Prideaux. We even happened upon the owner of the boat that Linda used to crew
on for Wednesday races – a fun reunion.
We heard that the boat that Bob crewed on is still racing. We viewed our former 30-ft Newport sailboat –
still in the same slip and our additions are still looking good.
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| Joshua Trees, Joshua Tree Ntl Park |
We finished up with a visit to
Joshua Tree National Park, near Palm Springs.
We spent a day driving around the park, and taking a couple of short
hikes. Our La Jolla friends Cindy and
Del Foit joined us for our visit to the park.
We loved visiting the Living Desert, a desert garden and zoo in Palm
Desert. We got to see the animals we
didn’t see on our hikes…. and an incredible array of desert plants from deserts
all over the world.
We left Palm Springs, but made an unplanned
overnight stop in Phoenix (thanks to the Elks Lodge). Linda’s great nephew, Sammy Puma, had just
been diagnosed with brain cancer; he was recovering from his surgery but had
not yet started chemotherapy at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. We spent a little time comforting Sammy, and
providing some emotional support to Kristen, Linda’s niece, and her husband
Charles. They are going to have a very
difficult time over the next 5-6 months; Sammy will essentially be living in
the hospital through his treatment. WE
ASK THAT YOU PRAY FOR SAMMY AND HIS FAMILY, for a successful treatment, and
comfort while going through treatment, and for his family to have the strength
to help him though this difficult time.
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| Waterfront, Night of Lights, St Augustine |
We bolted across Interstate 10 to
arrive home in St Augustine in 4 days.
It is great to be “home” again.
St Augustine just feels right to us as our home. It was great to be back to see our friends
and family, who we missed greatly during the 8 months we were gone this year. We
will be here until March 31, 2017, when we will depart on the final leg of our
3 year adventure.
It has been an awesome year and we
have been blessed with a safe and almost trouble-free trip. We Thank God for His many Blessings!
We have listed some of the
statistics from this year’s trip below, for those who are interested in more
information.
Feel free to pass the blog link on
to anyone who might be interested.
Best,
Linda and Bob
STATISTICS This
Year Cumulative 2 Years
Months
on Road 8 13
RV
miles (point to point)
11,000 21,000
Car
miles (touring each area) 16,500 26,500
US
National Parks 17 22
US
National Seashore/Lakeshores 1 8
Ntl
Historic Sites/Landmarks 32 37
Canadian
National Parks 9 15
