South Jetty Preserve Near Florence, OR

Thursday, May 31: This area is the northern part of the Oregon Dunes National Monument, an series of sand dunes along the beach stretching some 50 miles long with some of the dunes reaching 500 feet high. We drove about eleven miles north to Sea Lion Cave, a large cave with access to view the sea lions in nature, in the morning then down into Florence for Lunch at Moe's and a little store hiking in the old town harbor area. This is a picture of the old draw bridge crossing the river in Florence.

Traveling up the Coast

Wednesday May 30th: Moving on up toward Florence, Oregon to the Thousand Trails Preserve at "South Jetty". As lunch time came we pulled off at a viewing area on the beach and took the dogs and us for a walk on the beach. Strangely the sand here was rather black. Carolyn took a picture of Danny, Cymy, and I with a piece of driftwood.

North on the Redwood Scenic Highway

Tuesday May 30th: We left the beautiul Russian River area and began driving north on US-101, also called the Redwood Scenic Highway toward Oregon. We plan to drive on up to an RPI campground, Redwood Trails Resort, to spend the night. As we travel north we slowly began seeing the roadside grass and the grass in the fields turn from solid dry brown to a sprinkling of green to solid green the further we travel. The drought conditions in Southern and Central California are really severe and they need a nice long turn to rain for several years to recover.

The Redwood Trails campground was small, but beautifully situated. An old origional red schoolhouse and an old caboose are out front with a large horse corral behind us. A wood carver had set up business next to the campground and had his works throughout the campground and store. Wonderfully done works, but we had nowhere to carry them. As we were setting down to dinner we looked out the window and five big Elk were drifting their way across the campground. Tried to get a picture of them, but it didn't turn out too well, but will put it on here anyway. If you look hard you can see two of them in the center of the picture. One faceing us and the other facing away. The old caboose is just to the left of the Elk and the old schoolhouse is further left, but out of the picture. We saw more Wednesday morning and a gentleman camped near us said that a herd of about forty wandered the area. Shortly after leaving Wednesday morning we saw a large number of them laying in a field a short way from the road.

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.