Author: sandcastle

Day 1 Pacific Coast

So now we are wandering south along the Pacific Coast. We started this morning at Fort Stevens State Park near Astoria, Oregon, by heading up on the dunes so Dave could get this trip’s pictures of the Peter Iredale, his favorite shipwreck. We park in an area that lets me watch the waves without having to negotiate the sand dunes while Dave wanders around to his heart’s content. That content came a little earlier than usual today since it’s November and the wind is blowing down from the mountains. Still we both got an ocean fix which was nice.

  

Fort Stevens campground has two major recycling areas.  That makes me happy.

We drove south along the coast to Seaside, Oregon, for lunch. This is my favorite coastal town. We’ve been here for several vacations when we stayed in an ocean side studio apartment right on the Prom. We walk more when we are in Seaside than we do anywhere else. Today we walked about a block from where we parked to the Pig N Pancake for lunch. This is one of our “regular” restaurants in Seaside. It’s not fancy and the service is slow but the food is good and the people watching is great. Seaside appears to have been doing some economic recovery since we were last here several years ago. There are some new businesses and things have been tidied up as well. I think I could live here year around but we’ve not spent much winter time here so maybe I couldn’t.

While we were in Seaside, Dave did our grocery shopping at Safeway. Doing grocery shopping the afternoon before Thanksgiving is not high on his list of enjoyable things but he’s out of milk so…

Today’s interesting street name was “Picture Window Lane”. I guess it makes sense that all the houses along the ocean would have picture windows but I wonder what marketing person decided to name the street that?

We also saw “Hug Point”. Do you suppose it’s related to Lovers’ Lane?

We stopped at several overlooks along the highways to take pictures of the ocean. Here’s some for you to enjoy.

  

Now we are in Nehalem Bay State Park. We will be here two nights. I’m hoping the weather will be nice enough tomorrow for us to play with the Segway seats to decide which to keep and which to send back. 

TTYL,

Linda

Shopping & Stuff

As soon as we got back into our RV after the anti-sway stuff was installed we could feel a difference. Hopefully, it will be enough of a difference to justify the time and money we spent getting it done. We think we will still have some sway when walking around but not any more wind rocking us to sleep and far less sway in the wind on the highway.

Dave has decided to buy a digital SLR camera. Apparently, he’s been researching this for awhile because he knows exactly what he wants and that Best Buy sells them. So, I sat in the RV researching state parks along the Oregon coast while he went into Best Buy. The camera he came back with is much bigger and heavier than I anticipated. So, we talked once again about how much weight we’ve been adding to the RV and that getting our solar system and water tank upgrade may put us over maximum weight.  

Dave’s decided he’d rather have the camera than the piano since he’s finding setting up and taking down the piano to be more of a nuisance than he thought it would be. So, we will be selling the piano. There’s a huge RV gathering in Arizona in January; maybe he’ll be able to find a buyer there. If any of you happen to be along the Oregon/California coast and would like to buy it before then, let us know, please.

In the meantime, we headed west along the Columbia River to the Oregon Coast where we’ll turn south until we need to turn inland again at Florence, Oregon, to get our solar system. That brought us back into the snow zone. It better not!

Then we traveled a stretch of road that felt like the Red Wing, Minnesota area: bluff, road, train, river. When we got up on the bluff looking down at the train it looked like it was Z scale.

We passed a street labeled “Scandinavian Cannery Row.”  Do you suppose that’s lutefisk, herring, and sardines?

Then we pulled into Fort Stevens State Park. Our favorite Oregon park. We spent two nights there so I got to have a day hanging out in my pjs while it rained. I like those days. Especially when we have Ritz crackers to munch on.  Mmmm.

TTYL,

Linda

Running North

I have no idea what possessed Dave when he scheduled four days for a four day trip. Doesn’t he know how slow we travel? For the last four days we got up early, hit the road quickly, drove until sunset, and finally reached Tualatin, Oregon, yesterday for our service appointment this morning.  

Interstate freeway riding is boring so I napped a lot. In between here’s some of what I saw and thought.

On day one we left before breakfast then stopped along the way and watched some guys trying to learn to surf while we ate.

 

At Thornhill-Broom Beach there were lots of RVs and tents right on the beach. I must remember this for future use. Once we get our solar panels, we’ll be able to park places like that without giving up any of our comforts.

I saw a tanker truck of fruit juice. We are not in Minnesota anymore. Back there this would have been a tanker truck of milk. I wonder if Californians would find that idea odd?

That switchback on our right up the hill from us turned out to be southbound traffic instead. I’m not used to having facing traffic be on the wrong side of us but road engineers build whatever makes sense in the mountains.

At Vista del Lago there is a Water Education Center. I’d like to stop there sometime but we can’t spare the time to do so today.

Near Gorman there is a rest area with fresh water and a dump. We need to start noticing those if we are going to do much boondocking.

We stopped at a Subway inside a TA truck stop but they had no tables. It’s a good thing we bring our own.

The highway signs say Sacramento and San Franciso are a mile apart. Sometimes one is listed first then the other one is. It feels to me like kids arguing. “I’m bigger.” But, I’m more important.” “I get more visitors.” “But, yours are just tourists, mine are politicians.” “You think that’s better?!”

The tour bus that just went by said USASIA on it. Guess we know who their market is.

We just passed a feedlot. Big feedlot. Huge feedlot. Upwind of us. Dad would take a big whiff and say, “Ah, fresh country air.” He thinks that’s funny.

I just saw a bunch of power poles take off cross country. Gone are the days when you could predict what the road ahead would do by checking out the power poles.

When driving the freeway, it becomes more important to get out and walk at rest areas. No museums to do that in on this trip.

We drove behind a hill about 4:30 p.m. and instantly went from needing a visor plus sunglasses to needing to remove both. I wear my tennis type visor inside when the sun gets too low for the vehicle visor to do the job. I’m sure I look funny wearing it sideways but that’s better than sunburning my ear.

We stopped for the night at San Luis RV Resort in Santa Nella, California.

Our attempt to get away early on day two was foiled by a broken shelf support. Dave emptied the big cupboard over the sink, fixed the shelf, and put everything back differently so I can’t find anything anymore. Keeps life interesting.

Alongside the road are aqueducts–really just big canals. Nothing like the Roman aqueducts.

The farm beside the highway is advertising mandarins and lemons. More evidence we are a long way from Minnesota.

California and Oregon both require you have tire chains available when traveling through the mountains at this time of year. So we stopped at Les Schwab Tire in Sacramento and bought some. More weight to carry.

We had lunch at Nick’s Diner on Historic Route 40. Dave says that’s the same road known as the Lincoln Highway back in Illinois. I wonder how much interesting stuff it has along it?

You don’t necessarily need a CB to figure out what the truckers are up to. When all the semis are two lanes left you can bet the two right lanes are going to exit somewhere soon. Or be under construction. Whatever reason they are over there is likely to be a good one so now we move over when they do.

I saw a sign saying, “Sheriff Detention Center”. I guess that’s in case they need to detain the sheriff. I wonder what he did?

We passed a bunch of rice paddies. Are we still in California? I wonder if Viet Nam vets passing here have flashbacks? I don’t think I want to be here when they start seeing everyone as enemy.

There’s a field of fences. Do the grow them here? Maybe they are going to plant grapes on them. Or…?

This night was at Corning RV Park. Good Sam rate of $22 for full hookups.

Today we drove by Richfield, California–shades of the past! Richfield, Minnesota, is where Dave spent his early childhood years along with many other boomers whose parents took advantage of the post war housing boom there. Some of those boomers are moving back now having figured out these small houses are cheaper to heat than McMansions and, with the kids gone, they are plenty big enough. They were big enough before but we were told growing kids need lots of space.

Next to some lush landscaping was a sign saying, “Using reclaimed water.” That says several things about conditions around here.

In Anderson, California, we stopped at the welcome center to get a highway map. Yes, we are just about to leave California but we’ll be coming back in a couple of weeks. This map lists all the parks along the coast highway which should come in handy for our southbound trip next month.

We are now passing through the Shasta Mountains. The leaves on the trees here now look like early October in Minnesota.

We stopped at Vista Point to take pictures of Mount Shasta. I’m glad we don’t have to cross it. Dave says it’s 14,000 feet and we only have to go to 4,000.

We stopped in Yreka at KFC for lunch. Yes, that’s the way they spell Eureka here.

We got up high enough to be driving through the clouds. In spite of the way that sounds, it is NOT fun. Visibility is low enough to be scary.

We finally drove across the border into Oregon on a–surprise–cloudy day.

We spent the night at Joe Creek Waterfalls RV Resort in Grant’s Pass. If you ever stop here, be sure to read the funny story on the back of their brochure.

We woke up this morning to discover we had slept in the clouds last night. Whoever decided to advertise mattresses as like sleeping on a cloud had never done it. They are cold and wet.

I took another one of those water saving early morning showers today. Is it OK that I am getting used to cold showers?

My Coffee Rich was not completely thawed this morning. Crunchy milk on my cereal is not my favorite.

About 9:15 this morning the sun finally came over the mountain and it was like someone turned on the overhead light. From dark to bright instantly.

A place selling ranch fencing had a sign saying, “vinyl is final.” I guess if you are trying to keep stock corralled biodegradable fencing is not so good.

Coyote Jack’s Rawhide Dancehall make me wonder what type of dancing they do that makes their hides raw?

The next sign said:

State Police

DMV – Camping

I guess that would be a really safe place to camp as long as you and your vehicle are in compliance with all current laws.

A billboard asked, “Would your house survive a wildfire?” To which I confidently replied. “Yes, because we would drive ours out of there.”

Last night we stayed at the RV Park of Portland, in Tualatin, Oregon. For a good giggle, check out Freddy Flintlock on their website at http://www.rvparkofportland.com/.

So now we are at Upscale Auto, aka the Sprinter Store, in Tualatin getting an anti-sway bar and adjustable shocks installed. We got up at 6:20 a.m. since the shop opens at 7:00 a.m. It’s now not quite 10:30 and they say we’ll be done in about a half hour. So maybe all that food I loaded into my bag before we came in won’t be necessary.

TTYL,

Linda

Day 36 Route 66

As you’ve probably noticed, we’ve had some problems with timing our stops. Today’s third stop was for lunch so I didn’t want to get on the road too soon after breakfast because I knew Dave wouldn’t stop too early for lunch. So I talked him into installing the new Segway seat. Of course the battery has been discharging while sitting back there on it’s hitch mount, so now it needed to be plugged in awhile before I could test the seat. By then we were both antsy to get on the road so the seat didn’t get much of a test. We’ll have to do that sometime when we are parked for a day or two. Now, at 11:40 a.m. we need to get back on Route 66 and see how long today’s events take.

On the way to our first stop I saw a Stanley Steemer truck advertising air duct cleaning. Back in Minneapolis, Stanley Steemer was our carpet cleaning company. Maybe here, where there’s not all that winter muck to clean up, they need something else to do.

In Monrovia, California, we stopped at the Aztec Hotel. Interesting decor, huh?  It’s called pre-Columbian and it was built in 1925.

Then we tried to stop in Arcadia, California, for pictures of the Santa Anita Racetrack’s 1930s architecture but there are few places it is possible to stop and none of them are good ones so you have to settle for these pictures until you can go see it for yourselves.

 

Then we drove down Colorado Boulevard singing the few words we could remember of “Little Old Lady from Pasadena.”

In South Pasadena, we ate lunch at the Fair Oaks Pharmacy. This old fashioned drug store still has a “classic” soda fountain and what I’ve always known as “ice cream tables and chairs.” The food was good but the staff was very disorganized. A one hour parking limit should be enough for lunch, right? It wasn’t but we didn’t get a ticket. Also, note that they still sell the item in the second sign. I haven’t seen such a thing since I was a young bride back in the 1960s.

 

Here’s LA’s version of a muffler man type statue:  chicken boy.

3:30 p.m. appears to be the wrong time of day for sightseeing in LA. Traffic is thick and slow. But, maybe there is no right time of day here?

We drove by the Formosa Cafe but there was no place to stop except blocking driveways or red curbs and we’ve already been waved on by one traffic control officer today. Their sign was backlit by the sun so it wouldn’t photograph well anyway. I’d like to have gone inside to see some of the photos of famous people but it really was getting late so we kept heading towards the beach.

Dave stuck his head out the side window along the way to get this picture of the Hollywood sign. We’ll have to came back someday to get a better one.

We skipped the Peterson Automotive Museum.  If we’re lucky they’ll still be showing “From Autocamps to Airstreams: The Early Road to Vacationland” next time we are in town.  It would be a perfect ending to a Route 66 tour, don’t you think?

The ocean turned out to be a lot further down Santa Monica Boulevard than I expected and with all that traffic the sun set just before we got there so this pictue through the car window was the best I could do today. Palisades Park and the Santa Monica Pier will also have to wait for another day. They aren’t officially part of Route 66, they just seemed like a perfect place to end this trip.

It was full dark by the time we pulled into Malibu Beach RV Park so we said a mountain view instead of an ocean view would be fine. It’s not like we could see either one anyway. Tomorrow is another day but for now we are done traveling Route 66. I hope you enjoyed our trip.

The end.

TTYL,

Linda

Day 35 Route 66

Wow! I went into the library here to exchange books and found a huge collection. I didn’t have time to look at many of them so I just grabbed a bunch and hope they are good ones.

I just saw a local bus. It was turquoise with pink trim. We are NOT in Minnesota anymore.

The Summit Inn Cafe was our first stop this morning. Based on its name I expected something like the lodges in the Glacier National Park. Nope  It’s fine for what it is; it just isn’t what I was expecting.

 

Cajon Summit is the oddest summit I’ve ever seen. First, you start from the Mojave Plateau so you don’t climb much to reach it. Then you start going down 12 miles without going over the mountains you see in front of you. In fact you never go over those mountains; you go between them. So you don’t ever feel like you reached the summit.

At the bottom you turn onto Foothill Boulevard and drive forever. It is hard for me to write foothill as singular as if there’s only one but that’s the name of the road. Here’s a view from the boulevard.

Our first stop on Foothill Boulevard was Bono’s Historic Orange. I’m sure that’s not what it was called back in the day when someone spent the day inside this thing selling orange juice. I’m not sure why they don’t still do that, though. 

Our next stop was REI, where we picked up a month’s worth of freeze dried dinners/deserts. That was one BIG box. Fortunately, a clerk offered to carry it out to the RV for me. He was impressed with our little house.

Our next stop was the post office where we picked up our regular mail plus another new Segway seat. There was a really helpful clerk there who opened the General Delivery pickup window just for us. He was funny too. He made me swear that box was really for me.

While looking for the next Route 66 museum we stumbled on another beverage container recycling center so Dave got rid of our bag of cans and got a receipt that could be cashed in the store for $2.99. We are not used to being paid to recycle. We needed to buy a few things so Dave went in and collected.

We never did find that museum. There is now a winery/BBQ place at that address.

We did find the Sycamore Inn which has been there since 1848. The trees made it hard to get a good picture but you can see it looks more like the lodge I expected the Summit Inn Cafe to be.

We had planned to eat at the Buffalo Inn where I could have another Buffalo Burger but we never found it. We found a sign for what I think was their overflow parking but not the restaurant.

Then we stopped at what we think was the Claremont Griswold Center. It didn’t exactly match the address we had but it was at the right intersection and it did meet the description of an old school. I suspect this was one of the places where white men tried to “civilize” American Indians. It is now a business center that is being renovated.

  

Then we went looking for the Fairplex RV Park. Again the address we had wasn’t right. The GPS said we passed it so we took the next right and found the entrance to the fair grounds. A guy there gave us correct directions so here we are, safely tucked in elbow to elbow with lots of other RVs with time to do laundry and unpack that big box of food.

TTYL,

Linda