Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Wine Country! from Cloverdale, CA - September 28 - September 30, 2015

Eureka Elks was a good stopping place. The town of Eureka is pretty big. We took it easy here. Picked up groceries and did laundry. The big supermoon eclipse was a little disappointing. When it appeared over the trees here, the shadow was over half way accross and the moon itself was pretty small. I was expecting a great big ole moon. Oh well, we did see it.

We stopped at the Costco gas pumps on the way out Monday. California gas prices are higher than the other states around us, but Costco had regular for $2.65 a gallon. Many other stations in town are $2.99.

We headed south on the Redwood Highway (Highway 101) and the weather was perfect for traveling. The Redwood trees are awesome, but the roads , at times, were narrow, twisty, and very close to the big old trees.



Some trees had chunks out about 12 feet up. Ohhh Nooo.


We weren't in a hurry, so didn't mind going slowly through this beautiful, forested area.


It was a 181 mile day. Our destination was the Russian River Thousand Trails in Cloverdale, CA. We arrived around 1 PM. The place wasn't very busy. We chose a site that we could get Sat TV through the trees.






Gnome time!





Bunny was watching us.







Deer too.



And neat trails.


Tomorrow, we explore!

Sunday, September 27, 2015

Down The Redwood Highway from Eureka, CA - September 25 - September 27, 2015

After 2 nights at the Whalers Rest Thousand Trails, we were on the road by 10 AM. Onward down Highway 101. The day startd out a little rainy, but as we pulled out, it cleared up and it was blue skys all the rest of the day.

I had planned to stop at the Mill Casino in North Bend, OR, but they are now charging $15.00 a night to boondock in their parking lot. And, via Facebook, we saw that our friends Nancy & Steve were just a dozen miles down the road at a nice looking Elks Lodge just outside of Coquille.

That sounds better than paying for boondocking in a parking lot. With the extra miles, it turned out to be a really nice place. 30 Amp & water with a nice view of the golf course. And we really surprised our friends!









While there I helped Steve fix his toilet. He had to replace his flapper valve. And not only that, is was his birthday too!

We had a nice meal in the Elks lodge, and spent the day in Myrtle Point at the Harvest Festival. Lots of cool cars, music, vendors, & food. Played games and had birthday cake later that evening.





We headed out Sunday and moved on down the road.

Our next destination was the Elks Lodge in Eureka, CA. This was a 222 mile day along the most beautiful coastal highway. Always love the ocean views.

Here is some cool photo ops we took along the way.





The Redwood trees along the road were awesome too. The road was a bit narrow with ginormous trees along the side, but it was a great drive.

We arrived at the Elks Lodge in Eureka around 2 PM.

Eureka is a pretty good sized town, about 29,000 people. The lodge has 50 Amp, water, sewer, and cable TV. It is $25.00 a night and we even got 2 free drink coupons too!

Here is some pictures of this place.









Good shot of my solar panels.



Now that we are in California, we are going to slow our pace down a bit. We have a month before we want to be in Visalia, CA.

From the road.......

Thursday, September 24, 2015

On The Road Again from South Beach, OR - September 21 - September 24, 2015

Monday was moving day. We said our good-bys the night before to our neighbors, Karen & Cliff, and Wayne & Sharon.

And we were on the road by 8:30 AM.

It was a longer than normal travel day. We decided to pass through Pasco and say our good-byes to Kim. After 105 miles, we stopped in the Walmart parking lot and Kim came to see us off. After we left, I realized I didn't take any pictures ...Drat!

The we cruised into Oregon and followed the Columbia Gorge on I-84 to Portland and into Vancouver. The weather was perfect. We stopped to fuel up in The Dalles at Fred Meyer. Gas was $2.34 a gallon. Nice to see it dropping like that.

Blue sky and blue water.




We arrived at the Elks Lodge in Vancouver around 3 PM, a 319 mile day.


A little too long for us, but we were itching to get on the road and the weather was so nice, it went by quickly.

Candy & Mike came over and we had dinner and watched a movie, "God's Not Dead". Good movie!
The next day, we went shopping with Candy. We went to Best Buy where she bought a new notebook and Microsoft Office 2016 for us both. The we went to the Goodwill store and rummaged around. Donna and Candy found lots of goodies.

Wednesday, we headed out and I realized again, I forgot to take pictures...drat!

We headed south on I-5 to Coburg and Paul Evert's RV Country. They had called and said they found some paperwork in our old Bighorn that we may want. We told them we would stop by on our way South. Well, nobody in the office knew anything about that, so we wasted our time stopping there. If they do find it, they said they would mail it to us. Oh well, is was another beautiful travel day anyway.

We headed west to Florence and jumped on Highway 101 North. The ocean views were gorgeous and the roads were quite twisty. Just like I remembered. After a 229 mile day, we pulled into Whalers Rest. This is a Thousand Trails park in South Beach just south of Newport.

We found a great spot. It even has a little deck & table just outside our door (real close actually). I even managed to get Sat TV. Lots of trees.





Here is my morning walk to the beach. There is a little trail that leads across Highway 101 and on to the ocean.






Feels good to be moving again. Just me and my best friend.....and the cats!