Oregon

Oregon has become our favorite place out west.  We retraced our previous steps, this time from south to north.  Our first stop was a great little state park on the Rogue River, appropriately named Valley of the Rogue State Park.  Laurie found an open site on a weekend, huge luck for us which must have been because of a last minute cancellation.  The park is right off I-5 and our campsite overlooked the river.  We spent a couple nights there then moved on to McMinville, northwest of the state capitol in Salem.  The main attraction there, other than it just being beautiful and cool, is the Evergreen Air and Space Museum, home of Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose.  The flying boat from the '40s is still the largest aircraft to take flight.  They moved it from Long Beach, CA to central Oregon back in the 90's using barges.  It's just huge, you have to see it.  And though it's mostly birch and not spruce, it is virtually all laminated wood.  Our first night in the McMinville area, we tried a new form of camping.  We stayed at a winery up in the hills, as part of our new membership in Harvest Hosts.  We were treated like family and had a wonderful evening with the Kramer family at Kramer Vineyards.  The next 3 nights were at a conventional campground, really nice, next to the museum.  One of the highlights of this stay was getting to see an old military buddy from an assignment in Japan 15 years ago, Chris Molin.  After our stay in McMinville, we moved on to the Columbia River Gorge, just east of Portland.  This are is also phenomenal and we'll just have to come back.  We didn't even scratch the surface.  One of these summers we're going to spend the whole season in Oregon.  Here are some pictures:

A common view in Oregon, vineyards and mountains.

The Applegate Valley, near Medford, OR.

Laurie taking in the view on a perfect Saturday afternoon.

Intrepid travelers suffering through another dismal day of retirement.

The view from our windshield at Kramer Vineyards.

Cheers!  (Photo by Shantel, thanks!)

Chris Molin and I worked together at Misawa Air Base in Japan earlier in the century.

Hard to get it all in.  Enlarge this panorama I took and you can see the Spruce Goose and how large it is compared to all the other planes and objects in the museum.

Your's truly enjoying a beautiful calm day in the Columbia River Gorge.

This is Horsetail Falls.  Like I'm always saying, the pictures don't do it justice.  It's around 175 feet high, but you can't really get a sense of the beauty from a photo.  You just have to see this stuff.  The most popular waterfalls in the gorge were packed.  There's one over 600 feet, but we couldn't get a parking spot near it.  That's what you get for being anywhere popular on a weekend.

Mount Hood.  If you drive south up and out of the gorge, you see these Cascade Mountain giants.

San Francisco

After Santa Cruz, we had another interesting drive through another major metropolitan area to get past.  I hate driving in big cities.  Everybody's in such a big hurry, traffic often backs up long before your exit and makes you have to cram in at the last minute, stop and go, people on their cell phones.  Yuck.  Boo hoo for me, right?  We skirted the San Francisco area as much as possible, going east through Oakland before crossing back over to I-5 in Sausalito.  Once we got back on I-5, everything was gravy.  We stayed just north of the bay area in Novato, CA.  It's a cool little town with all the comforts of home, but none of the mayhem of LA or San Francisco.  During our usual 3 day stay, we took the ferry from Sausalito over to the San Francisco waterfront.  We had intended to ride a cable car, but on a sunny Sunday afternoon, it was more like the line for Space Mountain at Disney.  We saw a cable car at least, but didn't ride one.  The waterfront area by Fisherman's Wharf was packed with activity, music, food, craziness.  There was a "pride" event in town as well, so that's how it goes.  Overall, it was windy, cold, loud, crowded and expensive.  Only a couple pictures...

Alcatraz from the ferry

Santa Cruz

In the summer of 2013, we stayed a week in Monterrey at the Naval Post Graduate School's campground.  It was a beautiful town, and we wanted to see the town at the other end of Monterrey Bay, so this time we stayed in Santa Cruz in a cool little RV park at the harbor.  We were looking out our windshield at the boat slips.  While we were there, we drove over the coast mountain road, 117, into San Jose for the day.  What a drive, like a racetrack.  We toured the Winchester House on one day, then checked out the sights around Santa Cruz the next.  With only three nights, we didn't get to see a whole lot, but it was very nice.

There's an old school boardwalk and pier in Santa Cruz.  A little touristy, but fun for a walk.

The sea lions were out in force.  They were laying all over the sub structure of the pier, and here's a big group just resting in the water.

Hard to tell, but these are sea otters.  We saw them for the first time this trip.

The Winchester House.  This is the one the lady kept building on willy nilly until she died.  It was sold and turned into a private museum right after her death and they've been doing tours ever since.

The front of Winchester House.  This door and view is probably the least crazy area of the house.

The California Surf Museum.  Really nice views of the coast from up here, not so much information on surfing.

We had lunch at a dog friendly cafe.  This friendly dog became my new best friend.  Don't mind Laurie's finger in the foreground.

I took this panoramic view of Santa Cruz Harbor from the roof of the motorhome.  Very nice view for a few days.  The houses on the hill overlooking the same view cost millions.

Another view of Santa Cruz Harbor from the railroad bridge.

Oceanside, CA

Wow, what a difference a day's drive can make.  It was a hair raising (and I only have 3 hairs on top) drive through the outskirts of LA down to our beachfront reservation on Camp Pendleton, just north of Oceanside.  We had stayed here in summer of 2013 before heading back east.  It's beautiful.  There's just a ton of traffic no matter what you do, but we got down there with no drama.  Besides hanging out on the beach, strumming guitar by the campfire and such, we got to visit with old friends Mike and Jama.  They moved to Oceanside since we visited in 2013.  We go way back, and haven't seen them since our visit to Mountain City, TN back in 2012.  We forgot to take any pictures with them, unbelievable.  In addition to grilling burgers with us on the beach, they hosted us at their house in the hills for steaks on grill.  I had been nursing a slow leak in one of the tires on the Equinox we tow, and I took it to Discount Tires and they found a screw and repaired it for free.  Hard to beat that.  All in all, it was another great week on the beach in SOCAL.  Here are some pictures:

The obligatory windshield view.  There's just something totally cool looking at the ocean while you're sitting on your couch having your morning coffee.  A view like this would be several million dollars in this neck of the woods.  I'll take it for $40 a night, thank you.

Mike and Jama took us to neighboring Carlsbad, CA for a walk along the beach on their fitness trail.  It goes on for a long way, overlooking the usual southern California beach scene of surfers, volleyball courts and families just enjoying the day.

I was beginning to wonder if the Marines would put on one of their parades.  The morning we were heading out, they didn't disappoint.  Here they are in their amphibious armored personnel carriers, heading past the campground and out to the exercise area.  Pendleton is enormous, and they practice doing all kinds of Marine Corps stuff out there.  I'm just glad they carved out a piece of beach for recreation.

Jama took Laurie out for a girl's day, and Laurie snapped this perfect rose picture.  It seems plants grow like crazy out here if you only water them.  That's the rub though, not a lot of water to go around.

Ehrenberg, AZ

When you're making miles on the interstate, you often pass little towns with nothing much to notice but a truck stop and a greasy spoon.  Laurie and I have found many times that if you stop and check it out, these little towns often have hidden treasures.  Ehrenberg was like that for us.  We stayed 4 nights over Memorial Day weekend and it was great.  We toured Joshua Tree National Park, hung out by the pool, went out for pizza and music, and of course relaxed in the high desert coolness.  I never paid attention until Laurie got a telescope for Christmas last year, but the planets are really visible in the evening sky lately.  We stargazed at Mars on the night of its closest approach, as well as Jupiter and checking out the rings of Saturn.  It's really clear and dark in the middle of nowhere!  Here are some pictures:

Some restaurants collect dollar bills written on them and stapled all over the place to commemorate your visit.  I've seen others that do the same thing with bras.  At the River Run Cafe in Ehrenberg, it's flip flops.  This looks like an upside down view of the floor, but it's the ceiling over my head.

The Mighty Endeavor viewed from poolside at the Arizona Oasis RV Resort.  Hard to believe we've owned her for 5 years now, called her home for 4.  In the background, you can see the trees lining the Colorado River.  That's the big draw here on a long weekend.  The motor sports fans were zooming up and down the river all weekend, as well as putting around in their dune buggies.  Not quiet, but interesting and it's good to see working folks enjoying themselves.

Intrepid travelers at the Cottonwood entrance off I-10.  It doesn't look like much from the interstate, but it was really pretty (in a desert sort of way) once we climbed up into the mountains.  We went in the Chevy.  Touring national parks in the motorhome just isn't as much fun.

Cholla cactus

Another view of all the cactus

A Joshua Tree, found only in the Mojave Desert.  The trunk looks like an oak or something, but the top looks like a cactus.  It's actually a type of yucca, only pollinated by the yucca moth.

Panaramic view of a Joshua Tree "forest"

The view of Palm Springs and the Salton Sea from high up in JTNP.  The smog is courtesy of LA traffic.  It funnels through a pass into this valley.

The Colorado River was flowing strong when we were at the Arizona Oasis.  I took this picture Monday, after most of the boaters had gone home.

We went out for pizza at the River Run Cafe, and they had a great guitarist/singer doing all kinds of country and classic rock.  Here's a guitar solo from the 80's.  Some will love it, to others it will be NOISE