On the road again!

Party time! California in our rear-view mirror again! So we headed due North on I-5 into Oregon. It’s been a while since we were last on that stretch of highway and I forgot how steep and mountainous it was-it is almost like doing the Grapevine, several long 6% grades.  Our first stop was the Valley of the Rogue, one of Oregon’s State Parks smack dab on top of the Rogue River. It was a nice park, but sadly lacked a lot of trails for hiking the doggies on. We only stayed a couple of nights there, but were still able to sneak into Ashland and Medford to check out the area. We made it to the Ashland Farmer’s Market at the Nat’l Guard Armory and picked up some artisan bread (AKA: expensive yuppy scum fare) and organic produce. Our daughter now calls us “hippies”, even though that term was of another era before her time. While at the campground, we walked along the Rogue River and I noticed nobody fishing anywhere...assumed the season was not open yet (confirmed by a local a bit later). And, what Springtime adventure would be complete without being awakened in the middle of the night by a HUGE(!) tick crawling on your shoulder. Just try going back to sleep after that little surprise!

Farmer’s Market in Ashland, OR

Visit to the Rogue Creamery for a little cheese sampling. The “Oregonzola” was TASTY!

Next stop was the SKP park in Sutherlin, OR, the Timber Valley Escapee park. This was a very nicely kept SKP park with large neat lots. Sutherlin is kind of a “wide spot in the road”, where the locals go into Roseburg for any shopping needs. We found out Oregon has quite a collection of covered bridges scattered about, as well as scenic waterfalls. We spent a few days on a self-guided tour of those in our area, a very scenic endeavor. The weather was OK for April, a little rain and temperatures 50’s to 70’s. We really wanted to visit Crater Lake Nat’l Park again, but from the north, the north entrance was still closed.

Covered bridge tour…

And another...

And another...

“Oh, look, a covered bridge!”

Wow, have you ever seen a covered bridge?

And, another one...

I lost track of which waterfall was which, we saw so many.  These are but a few...

And the longest walk in on any of these was just about a mile...

Toketee Falls

Watson Falls (272’ long)

Aside from the waterfalls and bridges, we decided to make another run at getting a diesel pushing motorhome. We found several dealers in Eugene, so we ventured in and shopped. You’ll have to wait until the next installment to see what we ultimately decided to do...

Happy Feet starting to well up...

We’re getting closer to blast off time again. It’s been a busy time here in Redding, getting Jeanne’s mom’s house ready for the sale and her set up in an apartment in Chico. On top of all that we had our own equipment issues and still managed to get out and see “stuff”. Our black tank got a stress crack in the top corner near the rinse-out hose which leaked when I dumped tank and turned on the rinse. My brother-in-law Dwayne recommended we take it to Redding RV sales and repair. They ordered the new tank and did the repairs quickly (in at 8:00, done by 4:00) and were friendly, helpful folks. And it truly helped that we have an “Extra Ride” insurance policy that covered this problem (post warranty), tanks are not cheap!

We initially stayed at the Green Acres RV Park on the south side of Redding. It is a small park in the ghetto part of town, surrounded by “no-tell” motels and shares a driveway with a private car sales lot which should be named “Crankster Motors”. You can imagine the quality rides they had for sale there...Nevertheless, Green Acres RV Park is a clean, quiet, well kept park with active owners and camp hosts. However, the camp hosts were a little too active for our preference. The sites were nice, concrete pads with small strips of grass between them and there was a small dog area (non-fenced). Jeanne and I are EXTREMELY conscientious dog owners with a never ending supply of doggy bags. One day we were taking the “kids” on one of their multiple daily walks around the park and the camp host lady decided she needed to tell us that we were not to be letting the dogs walk on or near the small strips of lawn between sites. That struck a sour chord for us, so we relocated to the Redding RV Park, a park we had stayed at previously, for the remainder of our Redding stay. 

It was sad to see the huge number of able-bodied homeless bums that have infested (and ruined) the Redding area. They were EVERYWHERE and were particularly irritating to have to wade through their masses at many of the shopping venues. After 30 years of dealing (firmly, fairly, compassionately) with the homeless of western Sonoma County (CA), I seem to have lost that compassion when I see able-bodied substance abusing bums setting upon the folks who actually work for a living and successfully contribute to society (go ahead, I’ll take all critical remarks now).

Redding does have some nice walk/bike/skate paths, particularly along the Sacramento River. We walked the areas near the Sundial Bridge and Turtle Bay, when the sun cooperated anyway. We also checked out Shasta Dam while we were here, however we ran out of time before we could try to take the free tour of the dam.

Jeanne & the Gladiator feeding pigeons and ducks at Turtle Bay.

Jeanne, daughter Jennifer, and the Princess walking across the Sundial Bridge.

The Sundial Bridge from afar...

"Oh yeah, I'm baaaaaaaad!"

Shasta Dam

Jeanne and her Mom crossing the Sacramento River.

The namesakes for Turtle Bay...

While in Redding we also needed to find a solution to our ever changing wireless situation. We were paying for anywhere from 6 GB to 14 GB of data, through Verizon, on monthly basis, frequently “upping our data” at $10 per GB on an as-needed situation when we got close to hitting our ceiling. We fluctuated on our usage depending on the amount of photos taken/downloaded, videos watched, Facetime usage, etc. Jeanne found out about Millenicom, a private outfit tied into Verizon, where a flat fee of $69.99 gets us 20 GB data per month. So far, we have not gotten close to that ceiling and the fee is way better than our old one of some $120 per month just for data. If you are tired of paying overages or constantly upping your data limits, try checking out Millenicom. One blogger we found likens the company to Priceline.com where Millenicom buys blocks of data from Verizon and offers them at the cheapest rates.

Our days are nearing an end here in Redding. We are going to get Jeanne’s mom moved into Chico, then check out my mom’s new digs in Sacto, where she moved to from Santa Rosa, CA. And a visit with my cousin Darla and husband Ed should just about round out our time back here in California. Our plans keep changing nearly on a daily basis, but we are pretty set on heading to Yellowstone Nat’l Park from here.  You never know, life on the road…

Yuck, back in California!

OK, it’s been a while. We made it back to northern California for the holidays. Everything caved in on us all at once it seemed like. Divorce in the family (no, not my lovely bride and I), Jeanne’s mother had a massive heart attack on top of ongoing health issues, and our “money pit” of a dog, Madison the Cocker Spaniel, had continuing health issues and numerous runs to the Veterinarian, stacking up those great Vet bills. I am no devout religious person, but Someone up there is definitely sending us a message.

The Gladiator checking out XMAS houses in Rohnert Park.

Gladiator, or Cowboy?

Whilst back in the old home territory, we crammed in a lot of routine “stuff” since we had access to all of our old providers. We got dog groomed at the old groomers, treated at the old Vet’s office, both of our teeth work taken care of at the old dentist office, both of our eyes taken care of at the old Optometrist office. I also had to make time to get another epidural steroid injection for a disc in my neck. And we had some minor repairs that needed to be done to the 5th wheel trailer, so we went back to Reed’s Trailers in Petaluma. Don and the boys in service are very accomodating and helpful, prompt on the work, and will not try to fang you with work that is unnecessary. I highly recommend Reed’s to any RVers in the area who may need work done on their rig. 

Sadly, with all the drama, we could not get in much visitation time with old friends, and if you are one of them we are truly and deeply sorry. The bulk of our time here in Sonoma County we stayed at the Petaluma KOA so that our 2 year old grandson Max could have fun with the petting zoo and on the playground. We had fun even though it is waaaayyyyy overpriced at this park. And since we paid their month-to-month rates, they put us in their preferred section for month-to-monthers. Unfortunately, that was in a thick stand of redwood trees. In the winter time. Not good. My white rubber roof got covered with redwood “blood” stains which took me 3 days to clean the best I could. We cut our stay here short and relocated to the RV park at the Sonoma County fairgrounds. You might say we were crazy doing that if you are familiar with the area. We drove by to look at it again and decided to chance a night or two. The grounds were gravel, full hook-ups, with sites fairly level. I was pleasantly surprised to see the camp hosts active in the park (it basically looks like a large gravel parking lot), and out of 3 weeks staying there we heard sirens 1 night only. For you who are not familiar with the area, this RV lot is smack dab in the middle of our little “war zone” we call South Park. Historically lots of gang and drug activity. But I would go as far to suggest this RV park to anyone for a short term stay. They accept members of Good Sam, Escapees, Happy Camper, and Passport America, and offer different discounts depending on which affiliation you claim. They do have a 14 day limit on stays, but as in my case they accept requests for extensions if you have a good reason. While here we also got the opportunity to order new Lazyboy chairs and a small couch for the trailer. We got leather recliners and small leather couch with both ends able to recline like the chairs. We got to reduce some of the trailer weight with the swap out and the new furniture is very nice. We’ll see how the leather holds when we get back to the humidity…

Our 2 new "Wall Away" recliners, very comfy!

And our new couch with both ends being "Wall Away" recliners.

End of January we picked up and headed north to Redding for a month or three. Jeanne’s got family there and her mother lives there. We took the opportunity to tend to her mother and since her mother wanted to sell her house, we helped out with that too. The weather was great for the first couple of weeks, but the badly needed rain came after that and we got soaked yet again. 

Feeding the ducks at Turtle Bay in Redding.

Well, we are still here in Redding for the time being. I am chomping at the bit to get the heck out of California {AGAIN(!)}. Sorry about the scant few pictures this time around, hopefully I’ll have more next writing (it might be a while, again).

Westbound and Down

Our quest is taking us back west to visit family during the holiday season and for the Gladiator’s 2nd birthday. One of our few “one nighters” took us to Fairview-Riverside State Park in Lew-zee-anna, north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. This was a nice, scenic small little park on the river. And it is here that we finally took notice of our lovely government scams when it comes to fees for park usage.  Here, they advertised $18 nightly fees, but even though we did not reserve anything on line (we just popped in) they still charged us an additional $6 for “administration fees”. 

Home sweet home in Fairview-Riverside St Pk.

Swamp trees growing out of the river at Fairview.

One of the neighboring "hovels" at Fairview. Somebody mentioned it may belong to a Country Western music husband and wife team.

The next morning we headed into Natchez State Park in Mississippi for a few nights. The sites here were OK, the park had its own fishing lake, and we were only about 10 miles from Natchez. We tried to drive about a 60 mile stretch of the Natchez Trace (over 440-some miles of historical scenery from Natchez to Tennessee), but thanks to our pals Barrack, Harry, and John some of the sites on the Trace were closed/barracaded due to our elected officials not performing their required duties in Washington. We did make it into Natchez and took in the sights at some of the magnificent antebellum homes still standing. We took the tour of the Stanton Hall (www.stantonhall.com) and ate at the Carriage House restaurant there. Good southern fried chicken with an awesome side of lima beans.

The Stanton House in Natchez.

On the lake at Natchez State Park. Look, no oars in these hands...(Lazy bum)

But, look at the oars in these hands...

The "Sunken Trace" feature at Natchez Trace, formed by heavy foot traffic in the wild wild west days.

Livingston, TX was our next stop for a stay at the Rainbow’s End SKP HQ. To get there from Natchez was interesting. We rely (good or bad) heavily on Agnes (the lady who is not my wife but yells at me inside my truck - GPS voice from navigation system) to get us on the right roads. For this trip out of Natchez she had us ultimately on LA Hwy. 8 near the Texas border. With the truck on auto-pilot we barreled down the 2 lane highway and luckily I was paying attention. I caught a caution sign as we passed it warning of a 12 foot-something clearance bridge one mile ahead. My estimated clearance for the 5er is a little over 13’, so my quick, calculus trained mind did the math and guestimated that my clearance was not small enough to match the bridge’s clearance. And yet again, luckily I was paying attention in calculus class way back when...The only problem was it was a VERY rural 2 lane highway with nothing but driveways to houses off of it. Thankfully we found a dirt driveway that I could pull in far enough to be able to back out of again onto the road and head in the opposite direction. I really did not want to be the only owner of a convertible fifth wheel trailer in the annals of RV history. We made it into Livingston with only about a half hour detour delay. The SKP headquarters contains the Care facility for RV-ers needing assisted care (they park their RV on sites designated for the Care Center) and the very large mail processing center for Escapee members. They are so large that this center has its own zip code. As far as Escapee/Rainbow parks go, I was not wowed by this one, but the Care facility and mail centers are impressive. 

We wanted to check out some more state parks, especially here in Texas, so we started with Tyler State Park in, you guessed it, Tyler Texas. The problem with Texas state parks is you have to deal with more of those government scams. Texas charges their normal camping fees for sites, but all parks also impose a DAILY entrance fee, even on campers, and no matter if you leave the park daily or not at all during your stay. These fees they charge are per person and looks to range from about $2/day/person to at least $5/day/person. So, we stayed 4 days at Tyler State Park. They charged about $23 for the site, plus $5/person/day for a total of $10 for Jeanne and I. Total fee was $33/day. Now Texas also pushes to sell their State Parks yearly passes. For $70 it allows a years entry into all parks as many times as you wish, and also includes 4 “coupons” that for 2+ nights you would get 1/2 off of the last nights fees. Additionally, the pass grants you 10% off purchases in the store and equipment rentals.  Seeing that we planned to hit a few parks, we bought the pass. These government scams, they just gripe my patooty! (That just means they fluster me to no end...).One GOOD thing about Texas parks is you can fish without a license on the waterways, as long as you are standing on State Park land. Some water is “public”, so if you change to boat, you still need Texas fishing license. We tried that one out at Tyler State Park and of course, Jeanne had to be the only one to catch a fish, a small bass.  She also managed to catch a turtle, the lake was full of them. All, caught and released...The lovely weather patterns continued to follow us, our last night here we got hit with a NASTY thunder/lightning/wind storm that killed the power to the park all night and into the morning. We are about sick of the rain...

A master fisherman...

Our home at Tyler State Park.

A shot of the lake at Tyler State Park.

Cedar Hill State Park was next in line, outside of Dallas. Even though it rained mostly, we took time to visit the 6th Floor Museum (www.jfk.org). This was interesting, they have an audio tour you can take of the old Dallas School Book Depository. The only distraction in this is that during the audio tour, there are frequent references to watch a nearby monitor for various points/events/period pieces. It got old putting the headphones on for the audio tour, then taking them off now and then for the monitors. But the tour was well worth it historically. I was struck by the short distance between Oswald and the motorcade at the time of the assassination, I was under the impression it occurred from a longer distance. We really wanted to check out the Bush 43 Presidential Library here at the campus of SMU, but again we were thwarted by our good friends Barrack, Harry, and John, all of whom worked tirelessly to force our government shut down. We are in desperate need of ALL NEW representatives in our federal government, President to Congress to Senate. We have way too many career politicians. Lets have term limits of 4 years for ALL of them, serve 4 and out, ne’er to return. Yeah, that’s the ticket...

The old Dallas School Book Depository, today. The 6th floor window, far right side, as it looks today.

The JFK memorial.

Looking at the Depository from the point of the fatal shot.

OK, what visit to Dallas would be complete without a stop off at the Southfork Ranch, location for the TV soap "Dallas".

Since we were downtown Dallas, we just HAD to check out the Galleria shopping mall. It was very large (4 stories) but sorry, for me they all look alike any more.

Inside the Galleria in Dallas, TX.

My father was born and/or raised in Sherman Texas, so I wanted to go see the town, possibly see the old family digs. Eisenhower State Park was our next stop, between Denison and Sherman. A run into Sherman and we found the town kind of half modern and half “Back-to-the Future”-esque. We found the visitor’s center inside the old Antique store. I did not have any information about my family history or residences, and one of the gents there gave us a copy of the 1947 city directory which listed my paternal grandparents address, as well as my grandfather’s employer. Unfortunately we found the family home replaced by a city recreational park with sports fields. The bright spot was the building that my grandfather worked in was still standing. 

One of my dad's neighbors off Ross Rd. in Sherman, TX.

Dear ol' Grandad's place of business in the 1940's, as it looks today.

Beautiful, bustling, downtown Sherman TX!?!?

My dad's old high school building still stands today.

On we went, to Lake Arrowhead State Park in Witchita Falls, TX. This area is having a rough go as far as drought conditions, the lake is terrible low, boat ramp docks piled up in the parking area, fishing pier good for fishing for dirt clods (no water under it). We ducked into Witchita Falls to check it out, the big attraction being the Falls at Lucy Park. We were unimpressed, hard to believe this big ol’ city is namesaked after these small waterfalls that aren’t even in their natural state (they were originally about 4 feet tall, but got a facelift with the help of a lot of concrete to be what they are today. I’ll tell you now, so far as what we have seen Tennessee has the absolute BEST waterfalls. 

Prairie Dog Town at Lake Arrowhead St. Pk.

We had a whole flock of walking sticks covering the trailer at Lake Arrowhead. They really liked the rubber tires.

Witchita Falls.

While in town, Jeanne has been on a quest to find a GOOD Mexican restaurant in Texas, she was told by someone that she JUST HAD to try one. We were aimed to Alfredo’s Mexican Cafe by the visitor center clerk. We went. We ate. I am now convinced. The absolute only good, authentic, Mexican food is served within the boundaries of the state of California, unless of course you travel south of the border. Any attempt to seek out a good Mexican restaurant anywhere but California is a wasted effort.

Caprock Canyons State Park is located in scenic Quitaque, TX, (facetiousness intended). The park is a very nice park for equestrian endeavors, mountain biking, and hiking, it sort of reminded us of a mini Grand Canyon. Don’t expect a lot from the town though, lots of places abandoned/closed down. One litty bitty grocery store too...There were no lack of critters here. The park is home to the official Texas state herd of buffalo. We hiked several of the lengthy trails here (take plenty of water with you) but did not cross paths with critters until we would walk on the asphalt roadways. We also found a Natural Bridge off one of the trails, very cool...

Panorama of Caprock Canyons St. Pk.

Scenery along one of the hiking trails.

Jeanne the Spelunking Queen under the Natural Bridge.

There is a large herd of these critters inside the park.

This guy would look good on my BBQ.

This has got to be the worlds only 6 legged tarantula, some critter higher up the food chain must have snacked on the missing limbs...

Yikes! Centipede! He was about 8" long and FAST!

And as the sun sets on Caprock Canyons State Park, we all sing, "Happy Trails to You!"

Well, it came time to head out of Texas, the weather cooling off quickly, so “Westward Ho!”