Portland!

We arrived in Portland about noon today and got settled into Elsie’s friend’s condo. Thanks Jean! We’re just kicking back a bit and enjoying not being out on the road this afternoon. I think I’m going to take a little hiatus from posting here for the time being also. See ya soon!

Last day of driving...

...for awhile.  We go to Portland today, less than 2 hours away, and we have use of a condo there for a couple of weeks before we have to head back to Michigan.  We drove as far as Eugene, OR yesterday, stopping in northern California to see some more redwoods along the way.  I am amazed by the size of those behemoths every time I see them!

We also happened along an "Elk Feeding Area" where we saw about 12-15 Elk feeding right up next to some cabins.  There were also 8-10 people standing around taking pictures, etc. and the herd of Elk was not the least bit concerned.  Evidently this is a pretty common occurrence there and they have gotten used to people being nearby.  There was only one small bull in the group, which I found odd; he seemed pretty immature to have such a large herd of females.  As we were leaving though, we saw another herd of 20 or so lying in the shade. so I can only assume that there were more bulls there.

So we made it safely this far...only a hundred or so miles to go and we can settle in for a couple of weeks.  I don't know how much I'll be on here, so if you don't see any posts for awhile, don't be concerned.  Bye for now.

I'm Baaacck!

I've been neglecting my blog for a few days here, so it's time to catch up a bit.  We stayed 3 nights in a Days Inn in Novato, CA, about 40 minutes north of San Francisco.  The first morning there, Buddy and I went up to visit Rhonda in Rohnert Park.  We had a nice visit and caught up a bit more with what's been going on in each other's lives.  That evening Elsie and I drove into San Francisco and had a great dinner in Chinatown.  The restaurant was pretty authentic and we were fortunate that the hostess/waitress was fluent in English and helpful in suggesting dishes we might like and describing them to us.  Thanks Tiffany!
We were planning to continue our drive the nest morning but decided instead to extend for one more night and do some wine tasting.  It was a good (but expensive) decision.  We visited 3 wineries and came away with 5 bottles of wine, all of which cost considerably more than what I usually pay at Costco, but you only live once, right?  Any way you look at it, it was a good time and a mind-broadening experience.
Finally leaving Novato, we headed toward Guernville to a state park to see some Redwood trees.  On the way we passed the Korbel winery, which is most known for it's champagne, and decided to stop.  What's breakfast without a little champagne tasting, right?  With 4 bottle in hand, we finally set out again to see the trees.   I had seen them as a kid but going there again was mind boggling to see the massive sizes of the mature ones. I've included the second picture here, with a pickup truck in it, for perspective as to the size of the trees.

From there we headed west to Highway 1 and continued north; this stretch of highway was every bit as twisty-turney as the stretch north of LA and was a challenging drive.  The scenery along the Pacific coast is just spectacular though!  We ended the day in Garberville, CA at a Best Western that is probably the nicest place we've stayed this entire trip.  Upon check in we were greeted with the news that there was a complimentary wine and cheese tasting going on in the breakfast room, and of course we went to partake.  There was a nice spread laid out of wine, cheese, salami, bread, and crackers, and the lady running things there was extremely kind, friendly and generous.  What a great way to begin a stay here!

I don't know what we will find along the route today, but we don't have anything planned other than getting closer to Portland.  We can get into the condo there tomorrow, so tonight will likely be our last night in a hotel until we head back to Michigan.  Bye for now friends!

Pacific Coast Highway

We're working our way north, taking the PCH as much as possible.  It merges with the 101 freeway at spots so it's again a combination drive.  The two lane portions have been pretty cool; some of the towns we've passed through have been pretty awesome...some not so much.   We've seen numerous signs announcing a town's name and population has been less than the elevation.  One in particular listed only 18 people as it's inhabitants.
One of the stops along the route was at an old Spanish mission that has been restored.  Dr. Canas' sketches of some of these mission sites inspired me to make the detour to see it, and I was surprised by the size of it.  I was expecting some tiny little settlement with one or two small buildings but there were several buildings and some of them were well over a hundred feet long.  All were surrounded by thick adobe walls that also contained courtyards, corrals and other outdoor areas, and all the buildings had the overhanging roofs that provided shade and helped keep the adobe buildings cool.  I found the visit very enjoyable.

So we stopped near San Simeon last night, where the Hearst Castle is located.  I'd love to tour it but I don't think it's going to be possible considering the logistics of having Buddy with us.  Unfortunately we can't even drive past it and get any photos of it, but we stopped and got some pics of the coastline yesterday.  It was gray and overcast, so the rocks along the shoreline looked even more foreboding than they otherwise might.

We're going to continue north today, with the plan to get past San Francisco.  We plan to stay in San Rafael for 2 nights and I will take Buddy for a visit with Rhonda tomorrow.  Hopefully we'll have time to go back into the city for a little bit of sightseeing too.  Adios for now friends!

The End of the (Mother) Road

After 17 days of traveling, including a few we took off, we made it to the end of the Mother Road today.  The End Route 66 sign was right next to Mel's Diner in Santa Monica, so we got out to take our pics and went in to have a celebratory drink.  Buddy was waiting in the car, so we shared a Mel's Route 66 White Ale and went out to take a few pics with him too, then hit the road to start driving north on the Pacific Coast Highway.

One of the coolest bridges we saw along the whole drive was just a few miles from the end, in Rancho Cucamonga.  One side was embellished with old cars and the other paid homage to the eight states that are part of Route 66.  I decided I had to turn around to get pics of both sides, and it turns out that a portion of the original road was saved as part of the park next to the bridge.  I thought that was a pretty cool thing for the city of Rancho to do.

We drove alongside the ocean for a couple of hours and made it as far as Oxnard, CA before pulling off for the night.  We plan to take our time heading north, as we can't get into the condo in Portland until July 1, so the plan is to continue taking our time and maybe checking out a couple of wineries along the way.

The 2 days we spent visiting family here in the LA area were a great time.  Chris and Frances were great hosts and Evelyn was THE most charming almost-5 year old you can imagine.  I had never met 1 year old Jack, except on Skype, so I didn't have high expectations of him wanting anything to do with me, but he was surprisingly friendly.  He's got the biggest, darkest eyes you can imagine and a happy go lucky personality.  I had a ball with them all and only wish we could have spent more time with them all.

I'll post more about our adventures as they occur.  Bye.

Into California

I was lazy this morning and didn't post about yesterday's travels.  We had stayed in Williams, AZ and set out fairly early (at least for us) and our first stop was Seligman, AZ.  Along the way we encountered numerous series of Burma Shave signs.  I have vague memories of seeing some of these on vacations with my parents and the signs were old then, but these have been installed new to add to the ambiance of the 66 drive in that area.  Here's an example:

After we got through Kingman, AZ we hit the oldest still drivable stretch of original 66 that we've seen so far. We wound up going through the mountains on a twisty, turny, two lane road with big dropoffs.  Many times there was a posted speed limit of 30 mph and a lot of the switchbacks had caution signs warning drivers to keep their speed down to 15 mph, sometimes even 10!  As gorgeous as the scenery was, I couldn't take my eyes off the road to enjoy it for very long.  I did pull of to take a few pics though!

Shortly past the summit we drove into the town of Oatman,AZ.  The claim to fame there is all the wild donkeys that congregate there. We didn't see anyone feeding them anything but someone must be.  It was kind of a clustered mess of souvenir shops and donkeys roaming the streets and tourists gawking at the whole scene.  Following that we just drove through the desert, where the outside temps got as high as 118 degrees!  I was paying very close attention to the gauges in the Camaro making sure I didn't overheat anything!  

I probably won't be posting much for the next couple of days.  We're staying close to Chris and Frances' home and I plan to catch up with them and their kids.  I haven't even met Jack yet and tomorrow is his party for his first birthday!  See ya soon.

Petrified Forest and Painted Desert

Yesterday we doubled back about 20 miles to hit the Petrified Forest National Park.  There's a 28 miles loop road through the park with numerous turnouts and stopping points and the trip was well worth the 4 hours or so that we spent traversing it.  I shot lots of pics and it even has me thinking about trying my hand at painting when we get back to Michigan.  I've always admired people who can create art, and I've watched Bob Ross enough times...he makes it look so easy, right?
I've also rediscovered my love of Southwestern architecture.  The stuccoed buildings with rounded corners and matching privacy walls in place of fences are pretty cool.  The weird thing is seeing immaculately kept places right next door to other places that are on the verge of falling down and whose properties are covered with years worth of accumulated junk.  Evidently there are no blight laws here or they aren't enforced very uniformly.
We stopped for a photo op in Winslow, AZ, where a girl in a flatbed Ford slowed down to take a look at me...evidently they don't do eye tests here for driver's licenses either!  Seriously, the town from the Eagles song made a big deal of this, and it draws a lot of people in.  Check out the mural on the building, including the couple in the window and the bird on the window ledge-both nice touches to add to the "reflection" of the truck in the window.   If only 10-20% of the tourists who stop like we did spend money there, it's got to be a huge windfall for the town.  Obviously not every town gets mentioned in a hit song, but these folks really figured out how to capitalize on it!

It's likely that we'll hit the California border today, but a lot of our route is going to be 2 lane roads again, so we'll see how it goes.  And there's always photo ops and other attractions to stop and check out, so this whole unplanned, stop wherever we feel like it means of travel is working out pretty well.  I'm not missing the goal oriented road warrior mentality at all!  I hope you like the pics,