Napa Valley

Saturday May 26th: Transferred up the the Thousand Trails "Russian River" preserve, just a few miles from the KOA and got set up. After hooking up water and electric we drove over to Napa Valley to view the scenery and taste some wines there. This picture was taken at the Beringer Winery facility, of the "Leaning Tree". Beringer names some of its wines after the tree. The grounds were beautiful and the wines good. We particularly liked their White Zin and bought several bottles. Afterward we drove on down CA128 furthing into the Napa Valley and stopped at the "Sutter Home" winery. They had some sweeter wines, also cheaper. Because of the holiday weekend the traffic was getting really heavy so we drove on back north on CA128 and crossed the mountain range and down into the Sonoma Valley again. Sunday will be a make and mend day for cleaning and relaxing.

Sonoma Valley Wineries

Wednesday May 23rd: We took the day to wander the Dry Gulch Road wineries here in the Sonoma Valley area. Most of the wines are very dry in the French style and we tend to like ours a little more into the semi-sweet area. I made Carolyn do most of the tasting as I was driving so she is becoming an expert on Sonoma wines. We stopped for lunch at the Rosso Bianco winery and discovered that it is owned by the Director/Producer Francis Ford Coppola. He bought the Souvereign winery a year ago and renamed it Rosso Bianco. It it absolutely georgeous. This picture is in a display of Oscar statues that he won for the "Godfather" movies. The picture above the Oscars is of the "Godfather" movie. The food was very Italian and very good as we sat outside at tables under umbrellas and overlooking the vineyards and the mountains in the background.

Golden Gate Bridge

Tuesday May 22nd: We hooked up this morning and drove out to Rt 1 to cross over to US-101 and head north once again. Traffic on US-101 wasn't too bad this morning as we drove up through San Jose and Sunnyvale toward San Francisco. We just stayed with US-101 to the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge as we wanted to cross it. Downtown SF was a little hairy as the road is multi lane, but the lanes are quite narrow. Stayed with it and passed the trolleys, through the park and under the tunnel then came out and entered onto the Golden Gate. I hadn't realized the the "Golden" Gate is painted red. Pretty view from the top with a LOT of people walking or riding bikes across the bridge. It was cold and windy and some of them looked pretty miserable. Drove on up to Cloverdale, CA KOA to see some of the Sonoma Valley wineries. The campground was kind of rough, but we enjoyed watching a little fawn wander out of the woods and stand next to the trailer one morning before wandering off. The next morning a wild turkey wandered into the same place and looked around for awhile.

Santa Cruz

Tuesday May 22nd: Drove on over to Santa Cruz on Sunday the 20th to visit my Aunt for a couple of days. We stayed at a KOA (again) south of Santa Cruz and it was (again) a really good campground. We have had a nice visit to get to know each other after fifteen years. She took us to the Bargetto Winery here, and of course we bought several bottles. Karl, we got you a really good Ruby Port that I think that you will like. I know I liked it and got myself a bottle also, but it may not make it back to the East Coast. Then we went down to the Santa Cruz harbor on Monterey Bay for a wonderful meal overlooking the bay and lighthouse and boats sailing through. It was really good seeing her again and I hope that it won't be another fifteen years.
Wednesday we will go on up into Napa Valley and the Sonoma Valley area and will spend several days driving from winery to winery. The AAA lists over 150 wineries there so we plan to have a good time.

Sequoia National Forest - Grant's Grove

Friday May 18th: After finally getting to the Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park entrance we drove through to a picnic area for lunch and to let the dogs run on the leash for a few minutes. We had just finished eating when three tour buses filled with folks from France pulled up for their noon meal and potty break. Thank God our timing was good and we had finished so we piled back in the truck and drove on down to Grant's Grove where the "General Grant" Sequoia was located. It is reported to be the third largest Sequoia in the world, the first largest being the "General Sherman" at the other end of the NP. This picture is of Carolyn standing at the base of just a normal sized pair of Sequoia trees. I raised the camera and took a picture of the top so that we could get a perspective on the sheer size of these trees. The area was gorgeous.

We drove back by another route (CA180 to CA63) which was a scenic route through the fields of fruit trees. This is another "must see" NP.

Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park

Friday May 18th:
We settled into the Visalia KOA yesterday afternoon. Very nice campground and the people running it are really friendly. The noticed the "Acadia National Park" logo on my hat and told us how they had worked at the Mount Desert Island KOA for a year and how much they liked the area.
Today we plotted a route up to see the Sequoias. The South Entrance specified that the park road in one section at the beginning did not allow vehicles over 22 feet long. Our truck measures out at 18 feet so we just fit under the restriction, but that section was also under construction on weekdays and traffic was only allowed through once each hour so we decided to drive up to the Kings Canyon entrance north of us. I let the Garmin GPS pick the route and it took us across CA-245 which looked like a good diagonal route and the most direct. Very pretty road that wandered through the valley Orange, Tangerine, and Almond groves and had very little traffic, so was a great drive. As we neared the mountains the road went up and up and up and got smaller and smaller and the turns became sharper and more frequent. The last quarter of the drive was done at 15-20 mph just turning through switchback constantly. Very few houses or roads and it looked like the few people that lived on the road stayed away from civilization for long periods. With the curves and speed it took us longer to go the direct route than it would have to gone around, but we saw country that only three other people have seen this decade I think.
We finally arrived at the NP entrance and drove in to a beautiful area.

Onward Again

Thursday May 17th:
Well, we packed up the trailer again and headed the truck north toward Visalia, CA. Visalia is a few miles south of Fresno on CA-99 and have named themselves as the Gateway to the Sequoia National Park. We basically connected up with I-5 along the coast and into the maze of roads the comprises the greater Los Angeles area, which seems to stretch from San Clemente up to San Fernando/Simi Valley. Even though we were traveling on a Thursday mid-day while schools were still in session, the traffic was VERY heavy. Carolyn wondered why all of these people were not at work somewhere instead of driving. I have already mentioned the driving habits here so I won't go into our trip in this section. Carolyn did get the hiccups again though. North of LA we started up the Tehachapi Mountains on I-5. Long long uphill road, then over the top and down what they call the Grapevine, which is the downhill side. Truck speed was limited to 35 mph because of the grade, and there were a LOT of trucks. They basically took the two right lanes. I generally stayed in the third lane and held 55-60 mph. The engine brake that Chevrolet has really comes in handy out here. It held our speed, even with the trailer with not too much help from wheel brakes. We had experienced the same thing coming down out of Flagstaff, AZ at 6000 ft to Phoenix so I had confidence in it already.
Coming into the Central Valley we began seeing the California agriculture, of course it was also accompanied by a lot of signs "Food Grows Where Water Flows" along the canals and irrigation pipes. Finally arrived at the KOA in Visalia and relaxed for the evening.

Leaving the Country

May 15th: Well, here we are no longer in the USA. We gathered our new passports and drove down to San Ysidro, CA which is just on the US side of the border. Parked the truck and caught the "Mexicoach" bus into Tijuana. Crossing into Mexico was a cinch - the bus parked at the Mexican border and the driver got off to let the guards know that we were coming through and how many were on the bus. The guard came aboard and walked down the isle counting noses then we went on our way. I was really glad that we had decided not to drive the pickup down there because it was like a bumper car contest and I was quite happy to be in the biggest bus on the street, especially with someone else paying the insurance. Somehow we came through unscathed, I have no idea how, but my respect for the driver is unbounded. Walking down the Ave Revelucion, kind of the tourist main street in Tijuana, we were accosted at each door,all of which had some little shop selling something. It was still morning so they did look sleepy, but each one ran out to the sidewalk and invited us into their cubbyhole shops. "Come, Come, beautiful real silver necklace, weighs 10 ounces, just $1.00" was the frequent call. They pleaded, begged, cajoled, and demanded that we buy their wares. Best price in town. We went down into a small restaurant for lunch and ordered a beer and enchalada for Carolyn and I had two tacos anda beer. The waiter brought out two beers each, said that they were two for one today only then brought out a couple of tequila shots (double for me) "on the house". Believe me, that old saying "one tequila, two tequila, three tequila, four tequila, FLOOR" is true. I could really feel the effects of ONE beer and that double shot. Meal was good though and reasonable enough. We found Tijuana interesting, but were glad to get back on the bus. This time we had to leave the bus at the border and walk into the US Customs building the show our ID one at a time. Back to the campground.

Polar Bear at San Diego Zoo

While walking through the zoo and enjoying the animals, birds, etc we came upon their "Polar Bear Plunge" exhibit. This was one of the bears laying on a pile of "snow" and just having a ball. Literally as he (I guess)had a red ball on the ice with him and was just pushing it around, bouncing it and having a great time.

Monday May 14th:

We had taken the weekend off to relay and to avoid the expected heavy crowds at the places that we had wanted to see so put the off until today and Tuesday. Today we drove up to Balboa Park in San Diego and stopped in to tour the world famous zoo. It lived up to all of its billing. There were animals there from all over the world. I didn't know which to show here, but settled on the Giant Panda from China. This was a good shot of one walking toward us. We spent all day there and were thoroughly tired when we came back, but still had to go walk the dogs for their exercise period. If anyone gets out here I do recommend the zoo. There is a Wild Animal Park that you drive through about 35 miles north, but we'll probably miss that.

San Juan Capistrano

After driving from John and Patti's house we went over to San Juan Capistrano and parked near the historic mission. I know that I had already described our visit there, but just wanted to fit in a picture of the historic mission also. Carolyn went through the mission while I stayed outside of the walls with the two dogs. I enjoyed walking around the perimeter and sitting in the shade trees while waiting. Danny, Cymy, and I got mixed up with a bus load of school children and had to back out as they were overwhelming the two dogs. Children all love dogs its seems.

Wednesday May 9th:

Took a drive up to see San Diego Old Town. We enjoyed the stroll around the town area, stopping in small stores and museums, and the lunch which was great. We will be coming back into town on another day to visit Balboa Park and the San Diego Zoo.

Even this early, I must mention that the world wide reputation of "California drivers" has a very real basis in fact. They seem to my inexperienced eye to be rather impulsive in their habits. Sudden lane changes, three or four lanes simultaneously, is almost normal as it thier ability, which I envy, to shoot between two cars with only inches to spare at 75 mph, then realize that their exit ramp in right there and shoot over four lanes, barely missing bumpers, in three seconds and make their scheduled turn. Everyone else seems to take all of this "bumper car" mentality as quite unremarkable, but Carolyn and I both have a bad case of nervous hiccups when we finally turn the engine off at the campground. Sigh.

Thursday May 10th:
Drove up to "Valley Center", CA to visit with John and Patti Marlatt at their home. We immediately came downwith home envy as they have a big beautiful home on a hill overlooking the 18th hole of a golf course. John is in love with it as he loves to golf and thinks that he has gone to heaven. We stayed the night and really appreciate their hospitality as they cooked steaks on the grill and made home made potato salad for dinner. Wonderful, warm friends.

Thoughts Back on Twentynine Palms

Saturday May 12th:
Just a moment to step back and mention a couple of things that we observed in the Twentynine Palms/Joshua Tree NP area. This area is, of course a desert region, comprising the Mojave desert and the Colorado Desert areas. As we drove around we noticed that the older houses, usually only 3-4 rooms in size had a rather large water tank braced and mounted on top of the pitch of the roofs. I first thought that it was to catch rainwater, but one of the park rangers explained that the houses had shallow wells and that the water was pumped, sometimes by hand, from the well up to the tank on the roof to provide a reserve as well as provide running water inside the house. Also even the modern day houses had a LARGE air conditioning unit mounted up on the roof of the house. We almost never saw one down on the ground like at home. I guess that this got the A/C up so that the sand/dirt would not block the vents. All of the yards were surrounded by either a low wall or a mesh fence to keep out rolling brush or trash. The yards themselves were invariably only sand with Joshua trees or more usually, cactus planted for decoration. No grass that we could see exept on the Golf Courses.

On to San Diego Area

Tuesday May 8th:
We drove on down from Twentynine Palms, CA to the Thousand Trails Resort south of San Diego and arrived about 1:30 p.m. Pretty area here near Otay Lakes and only 10-15 miles from Mexico. The first thing that we saw was a U.S. Border Patrol jeep just leaving the resort after doing its rounds. Cell Phone reception here is virtually non-existant as we are surrounded by hills. The area is VERY dry and in drought conditions, but this is an area in the "Coastal Desert" region. We will be here through May 16th then move on up to Sequoya NP in central California.

Rock Climbing

Saturday May 5th:

Took the dogs and drove back into the NP for a picnic lunch at one of the several campground areas there. The first two were full with weekend campers who were there to hike the trails and climb the hugh rock formations. We got lucky at the third and stopped for a lunch and enjoy the scenery.

A Garden of Cacti

Saturday May 5th:

We took a drive around the outskirts of the Joshua Tree NP today, along a scenic route that truly was, then up into the park from the south to the north as we hadn't gone that way previously. Again the scenery was varied as we come up through the Pinto Basin, which was an old old bed for a slow moving river that an ancient people had lived alongside. The river has long dried up and the people moved on, but the basin remains. Along the way there was a "Cholla" (pronounced "CHOI-YA") "garden". The cactus had taken hold over an extended area and was the most prevelant plant there. See the picture on the right.

Joshua Tree National Park

Wednesday, May 2nd:

We took a drive up into the Joshua Tree NP today. This odd lookinng thing is a Joshua tree. It is not a tree, but a member of the Lilly and Yucca families. Notice the white flowers and green buds on top of the branches. They are primarily a the higher altitudes in the park and we didn't see them until we passed about 3000 feet and the higher we went the more prolific they were.

On to California

Tuesday May 1st:
On the road again leaving the Verde Valley near Sedona, AZ and on down I-17 toward Phoenix. It was down hill most of the way and as we came down we began seeing the Arizona State plant, the Saguarro Cactus. You know the one that we always see in the old cowboy movies. It is tall with two or more arms reaching up to the sky and at this time of the year they were crowned with a beautiful big flower on to of the main trunk. Bypassed Phoenix and caught I-10 west across the desert. This section of I-10 isn't the broken up type that you experience across Florida and Louisiana so the driving was easy. More desert, this time laced with large water canals to feed the towns and cities. Crossing into California we encountered a hugh dry lake bed that has true whiteish sand and very little vegitation. This lasted until we came to the mountains that include the Joshua Tree National Park. Went past Palm Springs, CA and north up US-62 to Twentynine Palms. Stopped at the Twentynine Palms RV&Golf Resort to set up for the next week.