Port Orford OR - Cape Blanco

...Not so yum...I was sick as a dog Sunday night (very unfortunately, I may have a shellfish allergy). After nursing me all night, Tom was raring to hit the road on Memorial Day! (Me, not so much...)

Our rig (DaBeast) and our "toad" at an Oregon rest stop

We had hoped to be able to visit Harris Beach State Park, but because of its popularity, we would have only been able to reserve a one-night stay. Instead, we opted to make the 2 hour drive to Cape Blanco State Park, which is 92 miles north of Crescent City.

Cape Blanco and Lighthouse (Lighthouse #3 on our trip)

Cape Blanco doesn't take reservations, so when we arrived, we took the car for a quick spin around the campground to choose our site. About halfway around the campground loop, we found the very narrow, windy, bumpy, steep road to the beach. No campsites down there!

We were a little disappointed that none of the campsites had a full view of the ocean, but we finally settled on a campsite that had a peek-a-boo view and the coastal trail running right behind it. The site was long, wide, and level; parking was a breeze. An added plus was that all of the sites had water and electrical hook-ups for $22 a day. (I LOVE Oregon State Parks!!!)

First meadow

The story only gets better from here. Each end of the coastal trail at the park plateaus out at a meadow with an ocean vista. The meadows were only a short, easy walk from our campsite, and each had a spectacular view, from about 200' above the ocean.

Second meadow

Even better, the second meadow connected to the road to the Cape Blanco Lighthouse, the second of nine lighthouses as you head north along the coast of Oregon. Cape Blanco is the westernmost point of land on the contiguous United States. The climate at Cape Blanco is very mild with average highs in the 50's and lows in the 40's year round. During winter storms however, winds can gust up to 100 mph.

Crescent City - Village Camper Inn

Village Camper Inn campsite

Finding a place to stay for the Memorial Day weekend was not an easy task. Most parks (National and State) are booked well in advance. Fortunately, we found the Village Camper Inn RV Park in Crescent City. After the shadows of coastal redwoods at Jedediah Smith, the Village Camper Inn had a quaint, garden-like setting and an open feeling. (I think the fact that it was not crowded really helped.) Although the park had permanent and long-term residents, we were situated in a loop that appeared to house those of us who were just passing through.

Out on the Crescent City Bay Jetty

Wendy was happy with the stay. She has this thing about laundry facilities and was especially happy to be able to do some wash before heading into the next (laundry-less) State park phase of our trip. Tom, however, was disappointed that the RV park pickleball courts were not scheduled to be opened until June, and the published, Crescent City open pickleball play never materialized.


Time in Crescent City included a trip to the Battery Point Lighthouse. The lighthouse is located on an outcropping that is accessible by foot during low-tide, but when the tide comes in, it becomes an island. Tours of the lighthouse are offered on some days during low-tide. Unfortunately for us, the tours stopped early the day we were there due to an early high-tide.

Battery Point Lighthouse

Battery Point Lighthouse island

While we were visiting the lighthouse gift shop, the host told us about the other lighthouse in the area, the St. George Reef Lighthouse.

St. George Reef Lighthouse is the speck on the horizon

It is in a particularly treacherous location about 6 miles offshore and was abandoned in 1975 because of the dangers of maintaining it by ship. However, the host noted that efforts to restore the lighthouse were underway and there were plans to begin helicopter tours upon completion. This piqued my curiosity, so during our drive around the town, when we came across the road to the outlook, we had to go "see" it (wish I had brought my binoculars).

The final event for the day was to have the freshly caught and cooked crab we bought at the dock for dinner. Yum...(to be continued)

Crescent City - Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park

On Wednesday May 24th, we head north From Patrick's Point State Park about 60 miles to Crescent City and then about 5 miles east out of town on Hwy 199 to Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park.























The Smith river runs thru the campground and the state park. It is the longest river system in California that runs freely its entire course. As you can see, it has beautiful crystal clear waters. Tank seemed especially eager to go for a quick dip.

We had a nice, quiet, shaded and relatively private feeling campsite. We didn't really notice the people next to us because there was quite a bit of foliage between us and our neighbors. Since this was a California state park and has no electrical hook ups, I'm always looking for sunlight and a place to put up our solar panels to charge our batteries. We do have an on board generator, but I prefer not to use it because it creates noise, burns gas and gives off exhaust. I much prefer our solar panels. Good news - I found a place where I could get at least a couple hours of good sunlight. Bad news - It was on top of the RV (to Wendy's chagrin).




We spent one day hiking and exploring. We took Howland Hill road, which is a ten mile stretch of mostly unpaved road that goes from the state park to Crescent City. We stopped several places along the way and did some hiking along the trails at Stout Grove (first picture at top, left and below) and the Boy Scout tree trail.

Taken just moments after Wendy knocked this tree down by mistake... Oops!

We learned that the coast redwoods found here (Sequoia sempervirens) are the tallest trees on earth. They are slightly taller - but not as massive as their cousin, the Giant Sequoias (Sequoiadendron giganteum), which are found in the western Sierra Nevada range. These trees may live over 2000 years, and fossil records show Coastal Redwoods were around during the late cretaceous - about the time of the last dinosaurs!

Trinidad CA - Patrick's Point State Park

On May 18th we said goodbye to the Sacramento valley for a good long while and made a slow, winding drive thru the Pacific Coast Range from Redding to Arcata and then north on 101 up the coast to Trinidad CA. and Patrick's Point state park.

It is a beautiful 640 acre park located in the heart of California's coast redwood country. Most of the park itself is located well above the water allowing for some dramatic views of the ocean. There are also lots of nice trails winding thru the park, leading to places like: Agate beach, Mussel Rock, Wedding Rock, Patrick's Point and Ceremonial Rock.

Directly across from our campsite was a bluff overlooking a cove with Mussel Rock to our left and Agate Beach to our right. We probably spent hours at the bluff. We would usually see at least one whale every day that seemed to spend most of his time in the cove feeding.

Wendy - Involved in one of her favorite pastimes, whale watching

Probably a Grey, we named him Augustus

We enjoyed the area so much that we extended our stay and ended up there for almost a week.

We spent one day in Trinidad, a small town just south of the park where we went out for dinner and did a little sight seeing. One of the places I thought was gorgeous was a place called Houda Cove. It is on a windy, bumpy, narrow road called Scenic Drive (which it was), a couple of miles south of town. Check it out if you ever get a chance.

Redding CA - Premier RV Resorts

Time to leave the Sacramento area and resume our northward journey. We head north up I-5 about 180 miles to Redding CA and stayed at Premier RV Resorts. We don't have much to say about it. It was a perfectly fine little RV resort, lots of trees, a little creek running thru it, nicely cared for.

We stayed there for a couple of reasons:

• It was roughly at the halfway point to our next big destination - Patrick's Point State Park, Trinidad CA.
• It was just off of Hwy 299, so it would be easy to get on the road the next day to head to the coast.
• It was highly rated, well kept, and had full hookups, so we could dump our tanks and take on fresh water.

Next stop Patrick's Point...

Orangevale CA - El Rancho de La Familia

Tue May 9th, we head back down the hill from Lake Tahoe to the greater Sacramento area, A.K.A. our old stomping grounds... where it all began... the scene of the crime... where the 'kin' folk live...

We had the gumption (that's what some 'kin' folk have) of inviting ourselves over to Tom's sister Vicki and brother-in-law Brad's spread (El Rancho de La Familia), and they had the bad judgement to 'lau it' (another kin folk thing).

"El Rancho" is a great piece of property in Orangevale, which sits at the end of a narrow road, and a tight 90 degree turn. Getting the beast in without taking out the neighbors mailbox or the iron gate took eight pairs of eyes, lots of waving of hands and arms, occasional yelling, a couple of quick prayers, and some ever so slight 'trimming' of a few branches. When all was said and done, the beast was on the inside looking out, and we all could have used a Valium or a stiff drink... maybe both.

Vicki and Brad were wonderful hosts. We had multiple meals together, did a few chores to earn our keep, and spent more than a little time under the shade making small talk. We had a great time with them.

We used the time in Sacramento visit other members of family (more on that later), made some minor repairs to the RV and the 'Toad' (the Subaru that is towed behind the RV), buy additional supplies, go to our storage unit and pick up some things, and get some laundry done.

Taking time to see family, we had a chance to have a very fun dinner out at a great little Thai restaurant with Tom's other sister Cathy and her boyfriend Dave. Wendy was also able make it down to Stockton to have dinner with her mother.

Last but not least, we had several chances to visit with our son Andrew, who went all out and made a wonderful home cooked meal of gyoza on Mother's Day. That same evening, he was also magnanimous enough to set up his dad with a fishing rod and enough tackle to fish the Bering Sea for several years. It was certainly gracious for Andrew to set up his dear old dad, but truth be told, it didn't make a dent in his 'inventory'... the kid has more fishing poles than Bass Pro Shop!

All in all, it was a great time back in Sacramento. My only regret was that I didn't have time to look up some of my old golf or pickelball buddies and get in a little playing time.

After about a week, it was time to leave Sacramento and continue on our journey north.

Nevada Beach Campground - Lake Tahoe

On Sunday May 7th, we woke up to a couple of inches of snow and the realization that it was time to move on. We left Silver Lake Resort and headed for Lake Tahoe. We stayed at Nevada Beach Campground, which is located on the Nevada side of the lake two miles east of the stateline.  It seems to have this "dual citizenship" thing happening, in that it is physically located in Nevada, but it has an address of either Zephyr Cove or South Lake Tahoe, (depending on where you look) California... but I digress...
Serendipity was with us, and Nevada Beach Campground happened to open two weeks earlier than scheduled. This meant there were only a handful of other campers in this beautiful campground, and we could almost choose any spot we wanted.

Look carefully and you can see Heavenly Ski Resort is in the background

We got a great, spacious spot just steps from the lake and a stream that ran thru the campground.
It was hard to believe our luck; here we were, the weather was perfect, and we had a Lake Tahoe beach front view almost completely to ourselves.

South shore in the background

You may notice that both animals in this picture are a little wet; that's because the two-legged one was doing a better job RETRIEVING than four-legged fur ball.
I think the mutt looked at me and thought, "Look buster, the free food and the drive is nice and all, but if you throw that thing into the COLD water one more time, I'm not gonna get it!"

Two of our boys are grown and out of the home, but we still got this willful teenager with us. Labrador - yes... but RETRIEVER my "[EXPLETIVE DELETED]!"

June Lake Loop - Silver Lake Resort

The June Lake loop and the associated lakes are around 7500' in elevation, so you have cool, crisp air and COLD, crystal clear lakes. Its a beautiful area. Just a few miles north of Oh! Ridge on the June Lake Loop is the Silver Lake Resort. It sits across the road from Silver Lake, a popular fishing spot. The resort is a fisherman's campground and the camping sites reflect this. The sites are not luxurious (although they are very clean and do have full hook-ups) or very private (i.e., gravel lot without any greenery separating the sites), but they do have a fish cleaning station.

Still, we spent 4 days there and enjoyed our stay. It was early in the season, so other campers were sparse, and the resort offered me a country store and restaurant and Tom a stream, aspen trees and waterfalls. All in all a relaxing stay.


We did attempt to get a closer view of the waterfalls. There's a hiking trail at the back of the resort that heads up the mountain, and we thought there was a look out at the falls. I gave up after a short climb, when the trail did not appear to have a switchback towards the falls. Tom continued on to meet up with a snowbank, a great view of the lake, and some deer.

Then as a farewell, there was a light dusting of snow the day we left.

June Lake - Oh! Ridge Campgrounds

After our visit to Manzanar, we stopped at the June Lake Loop for the night. We had intended to stay at the Pine Cliff Resort, but they weren't answering their phone, and when we arrived (sans reservations), there was not a soul to be found. Unbeknownst to us, this would be a very fortuitous event.

It was getting late, so what to do? Luckily for us, Tom had done his research (again!), and knew that the Oh! Ridge Campgrounds was just across the road. We took a list of the open campsites and went on a search for our home for the evening. After bypassing some great sites, site 36 was it!

The view from the back of our campsite

It was still very early in the season, so the campgrounds were not packed. We also had a wonderful view of June Lake, a crystal clear swimming lake.

Tank was only able to enjoy the lake for one day before we headed off to our next home.

 

Manzanar

The original auditorium, now the site of the museum

About 15 miles north of Alabama Hills is Manzanar, one of ten detention/relocation/ concentration camps in the United States, where US citizens of Japanese ancestry and Japanese resident aliens were incarcerated during WW II. It is a designated National Historic Site. The only original buildings that remain are the auditorium (now the museum) and a guard tower. Several buildings, including barracks and latrines, have been since been recreated to give the visitor a feel for the depressing living conditions.


It gives a heartrending glimpse into the lives these US citizens (including little children, pregnant women, and the elderly) who were forced, without just cause, into a barbed-wire enclosed prison and who persevered with dignity and grace.

Upon our arrival, it was hard to imagine the dry, desolate conditions that greeted the internees when I was surrounded by the grandeur of the snow capped Sierras. Wandering through the museum, there is a hushed reverence, and the solitude gives dimension to the stories of those who lived here. The sadness of the injustice done here permeates the air, and although it is not in my family's history, it was a visit worth making.

Multiple families lived in this single barracks