Monday Mar 18 - Just a short note to report our whereabouts. We're now in Fort Bragg at an r.v. park we stayed in three years ago. Last night we stayed in a neat camp in a valley near Mendocino, one of the neatest towns along the coast. Full of artists, with an excellent artist's center, featuring a very good collection of works by local specialists. There is also a very good waterfront, with lots of crashing waves and an arch that captures the incoming waves and flings them high and wide.

Today we only had to drive 5 miles before checking in to our next r.v. park. We decided to have a relaxing day, and a catch-up day as well, so moved from Mendocino to here. There's a very fine Botanical Garden only a half-mile down the road, so we spent a good part of the day there today. The drive along the coast is a little more manageable, not quite so twisty-turny, so a little more relaxing.

Next on the agenda is a tour along the Highway of the Giants, so we'll get a great chance to look at the huge redwoods and sequoias in the next day or two. We're on schedule to reach Vancouver Island by the end of the month, so no need to hurry.

Some pics follow.
First, an old Irish curse worth keeping in mind. Then a lass of Scottish descent paying tribute to her Irish neighbours. Next, a few shots from the beach at Mendocina, followed by three photos from the local Botanical Garden.
That's it for now. Stay tuned. More later.

Saturday, March 16 - Today is Gail's birthday, so I'll be sure to attach a couple of nice photos. There have been a lot of very nice messages forwarded to Gail to help her celebrate, so she's had a very nice day. I did a brunch breakfast for her (nothing fancy, but it was okay), and we did a very nice hike, a mile over to the beach, and then a long walk along a great waterfront. Back for some reading time in the sun, and then to a Mexican restaurant next to our park for dinner. A good day for Gail!

We have to go back to yesterday, and our drive from Half Moon Bay to Bodega Bay, where we checked in yesterday, and have stayed on today. Some folks say the drive north on Highway 1 from San Fran is not a good idea in an r.v. We can see why, having done it. It would be a great drive in a little red sports car. Twisting, turning, up and down, very tight corners, up above the sea, down along the shore, for 60 miles. It was a little tense, but we did it, and all in all, I'm glad we did, as the scenery was great along the coast, and very nice along the interior sections. There were a number of  small villages along the way, artsy places with appealing restaurants and shops, the types of places city people love to visit. Quite a drive, a fun adventure.

Getting through San Fran was no problem, although we did run into a traffic snarl caused by road work. Going over the Golden Gate bridge is always exciting, but with the traffic, not much time to take in the bay below and the adjacent waterfront. We had decided not to stop in the city this time, as we've been there several times, and this trip is focussed on smaller places. Good decision, although it's such a neat city, it was a little hard to pass up.

A couple of points of interest. When we were camped at Half Moon Bay, at around 9:30 p.m. there was suddenly a fire truck racing right past our door. It wheeled around the corner to the site just opposite us, and screeched to a stop. Then a police car came in, lights flashing. Next thing, there were 4 ambulance attendants working over a shirtless and immobile guy lying on the ground. Three cops stood by to ensure... what... order, I guess, having a nice chat while the ambulance people worded fast and furious over the guy. Very efficient and professional. They finalized their preps and lifted the guy into their ambulance and off they went.

We'd seen the guy earlier, a big guy, wandering the camp shirtless in party mode, but he and his buddy weren't causing any problems. I spoke to buddy the next morning (they run a roofing business), who matter-of-factly said his friend had overdone it a bit and taken a fall. Must have been quite a fall, as he was clearly out cold when the ambulance got there. Anyway, all was okay next morning, I was told, as I helped buddy hitch their tent trailer to their truck. Out-cold guy wasn't there to do his duty that morning. Just a little excitement in the old r.v. park.

Today at the beach, we met a couple of men, got chatting, and found that the older fellow had lived on Toronto Island for several years. A long-retired teacher, he mentioned a former student named Brenda Burford, who he thought lived down our way. We have Burfords. Is she one of them? He knew she was somewhere in the Kingston area. Could be the County. We've talked to a number of Americans who have clear Canadian family connections. Some have dual citizenship, and seem to value their link to Canada. Can't blame them, can we?

That's about all for now. I'll try to post a couple of pics. The first is easy. Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. The second is quite a story, tucked into a little park behind our r.v. site. The bells commemorate the death of a 7 year old from Bodega Bay who was killed by robbers in Italy when travelling with his family. His parents donated his organs to 7 recipients, making the boy an organ donation poster child. The Italian people were so impressed, they created bells to recognize his contribution, the largest forged by a company that has been crafting bells for the papacy for 1,000 years. The bells were blessed by the Pope, sent here and placed in this memorial, which was created by an artist in San Francisco. Quite a story, and quite moving.
The other two photos are of the birthday girl on the beach. Looking great!
More later. Stay tuned.

Thursday Mar 14 - Managed to get the computer to behave. The first image is the amazing light that powered the Pigeon Point Light Station for 100 years. Second, along the route on highway 1 south of Carmel. Third, a find elephant seal on the beach north of Hearst Castle. Fourth, Hearst Castle from below. Fifth, a gaggle of coots at our site in Pismo Beach. Sixth, Gail overlooking the Pacific. Seventh, the lighthouse at Pigeon Point.
That's enough for one posting. More later. Stay tuned.

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Thursday, Mar 14 - Two days on route 1, the coast-hugging highway that provides some of the most amazing driving in North America. We started out from Pismo Beach, had a stop at Morrow Bay, another at the reception center of the Hearst Castle. And then we hit the ups and downs of the road, narrow, switchbacks, tough climbs, sharp descents, and all along the way, the urge to pull over to a viewpoint for yet another photo. It is truly breathtaking, and if you haven't done it, we hope you get the chance.

We finished the day at Carmel, sad that Clint wasn't available to have us for tea. We drove into town, but had to dodge trees to avoid ripping the aircon off, and found the town packed with cars and people. Not sure why it was so busy, but it was packed. We couldn't find a place to park, so left to find our rv park in a little valley 6 miles north of town. We were there three years ago, and until we got there, I had no recollection of the place. Old age and fading memories.

Today, we had in mind to get through San Fran on route 1, determined as I am to continue our trek on the shoreline highway. But we didn't get to SF, let alone through it. Here we are at Half Moon Bay, in a shore front park right beside the highway. We poked along, with stops at a couple of interesting places, one a sheltered beach backed by high cliffs, and secondly at the old Pigeon Point Light Station (we would say light house). Built in 1872, it has saved many a ship during its lifetime, but is now in disrepair, and in need of funding to be restored. The original light, probably 10 feet tall, made of more than 1,000 pieces of finely honed glass, is on display, and is a marvel of mathematical and physical ingenuity. It was powered by candlelight which the glass panels refracted to push light out over 5 miles to sea. Fed by kerosene, it had a wick which had to be trimmed by the keeper, who became known as the 'wicker'.

As the afternoon was progressing, we decided to find a place south of SF, rather than facing rush-hour traffic. So here we are, at a rather unusual place that provides wifi, t.v.,, sewage, but no washrooms. All for 65 bucks. But it's right on the shore, and has a bike path adjacent to it, so it enabled us to do a ride out to Pilllar Point, and then rewarded us with a stop at the Half Moon Brewhouse. All in all, a pretty decent day.

Can't get the photo option to work, so will have to close for now. More later. Stay tuned.

Tuesday, March 12 - Yesterday I started my post with reference to keys. "Tires and keys. Desert and seas." I covered three of the four items, but forgot about the keys part. So here goes.

At Carpenteria, Gail and I did a long walk in very nice weather. Warm enough that I took off my hoodie and carried it along, forgetting that, most unusually, my car keys were in the front pocket of the hoodie. Got back to the r.v., went to find my keys, and they weren't there. We had walked a long distance on the beach, so guess how I/we spent the rest of our day. Walking the beach, retracing steps, forward and back. No luck. Fortunately, Gail has the extra set, so it wasn't a tragedy. But damned frustrating. First time in my life I've lost keys, that I can remember.

Anyway, we've managed to get copies made of all but one, the side door key, so now have two of the main keys back in hand. Now to continue the tire saga. The rv service guy across the road couldn't deal with my tire, but they referred me to a little dealer in the next town. So after breakfast (I was up early to see this service guy), we drove over to Oceano, and lucked out. These guys knew what they were doing, and hopefully my tire problem is no longer an issue.

We walked into town, a reasonably charming tourist town, as it turns out. Not gawdy, but definitely a popular tourist spot, as most shops cater to the beach crowd. A nice long pier, so we walked out into the wind, strong, and watched a guy surf. Mick Chalmer's son would have aced the waves here...good six to seven footers. Wandered the town looking for a barber shop, as neither of us has had a haircut since we left. Gail is dedicated to the growth, but I'm getting  a little tired of the long locks. Then changed my mind. Let it grow.

There was an rv dealer across the road. We thought we'd go over for fun. Looked at a nice Mercedes Winibago, 24 feet. Over a hundred grand Canadian. Very nice, but wow, that's a lot of moola. We'll stick with old Regal for now, although we are contemplating looking into a newer model of similar size and class, if one can be found.

So there you are. Tomorrow we will head up the most scenic part of Highway one, along the coast, thankful it's open again after two years of closure due to mud slides. Hope we don't get swept away in a sudden downpour. We'll be in Carmel tomorrow night, hoping former mayor Clint invites us over for a drink or two.

That's it for now. Stay tuned. More later, and a pic to show. Only one, as el computer won't  process any more. Sunset on Pismo Beach. Life is good.

Monday, March 12 - Tires and keys. Desert and seas. These are the themes for this report.

First the tires. We continue to have issues with tires on the r.v. We have so far replaced the two front tires, in Lake Charles, and the left rear tire, in Tuscon. And still we have issues, this time with the right rear tire. As any of you who have done extensive travel will agree, having good rubber under you is critical to one's feeling of confidence. Now we have a slow leak in the right rear tire probably because of a leaky valve. This has to be repaired, and hopefully we will get it done tomorrow. No more driving with this worry. We are in a good r.v. park in Pismo Beach, which has an r.v. service as part of its business, so we will try to get in tomorrow to get the tires properly set up.

As for other tire issues, yesterday Gail and I went for a bike ride, and made the error of going off pavement down a dirt path. Result: yours truly got a flat tire. Thankfully, the tire was repaired by a local bike shop guy this morning. Story: down the main street of the town came jogging,  pulling a little cart behind him, a bald young guy in excellent shape. I had seen him a little earlier, and as luck would have it, as I  was crossing the street from the bike shop, along came this guy. I stopped him and asked where he was aiming for. "Patagonia" he replied, as calmly as if he had said two blocks down the street. "Which Patagonia do you mean?" I asked, thinking there was maybe such a place in California. "The tip of South America," he replied. "How much do you do each day?", next question.  "Oh, between 25 and 40 miles, but I take time off some days." I wished him well, and shook his hand. Shook my head!

When I returned to the bike shop, I relayed the story to the owner, a guy in his late 30s with a bit of an accent. "Patagonia," he said. "That's where I'm from. Used to live there, in Chile. He probably started out in Alaska," was the matter-of-fact comment, as though it's no big deal to jog from one end of the two continents plus Central America to the other end. Another coincidence. A guy is jogging to Patagonia, and the guy fixing my tire is from there.

Going back! We had some fine times in Joshua Tree National Park, doing several hikes of merit. It's a fine park with fascinating scenery, rocks of all shapes and sizes in amazing configurations, and the symbol of the park, the Joshua Trees, all over the place. They aren't really trees, but are of the yucca family, but they have the stature of trees, so are well named. The nicest hike was a 3 mile jaunt over a ridge (300 foot elevation) down into a canyon that contained about 30 large palm trees, similar to ones we'd seen in Palm Springs. I'll try to attach a photo.

We left the park and headed up to the north, through the Sonoran Desert for miles and miles. Empty, but for low growth plants and Joshua Trees. Nothing else! A few people actually try to live there, but what they do to make a living is beyond me. We ended up at a Lancaster Fairgrounds RV site that had promised a place for us, only to arrive at twilight to find no space available. So we set up for a night of dry camping, and fortunately a kind manageress allowed us to stay for no charge.

We had thought to go north from there, up the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada to Death Valley, but checking the weather made for a change of plans, as the night-time temps were predicted to be in the low 20s. So we opted to head for the coast and do the scenic route again. Good decision, as it's been much nicer weather-wise. The drive is beautiful, and we've managed to get sites on the beach both last night, at Carpenteria, and tonight at Pizmo Beach. Walked the beach, enjoyed the sunsets.

Crossing the mountain and down to the shore again today, we drove through an amazing agricultural area, centered around Guadalupe. Talk about massive large scale farm operations. As far as we could tell,, most of it was to produce berries, but there seemed to be a lot of other produce being grown as well. But on a massive scale. No wonder California is the source of so much of the produce we enjoy at home.

Tomorrow hopefully we get the tire problem looked after. Then we can be more relaxed as we head further north. We may stay here another couple of days, as we're in a nice park with a restaurant and store, right on the beach. What the Hell! Friend MacKay keeps sending us pictures of the snow banks, incentive enough to delay our journey north. Still plan to hit Vancouver by the end of the month.

That's it for now. More later. Stay tuned.
The pictures. First, the flower of the Joshua Tree, signalling the start of a new branch. Second, Larry trying to move what looked like a precarious boulder with one finger. Didn't work. Third, a complex of branches on an old Joshua Tree. They only grow about an inch a year, so you can only imagine how old this baby is. Next, our elephant rock. If you look closely, you can see the shape of the elephant in the rockface. Many images come to mind as you wander through these rocky pathways. Finally, Gail delivering a lecture from behind a large stone dais. I listened!

Wednesday, March 6 - This may be the last posting for awhile, as we think we'll head into the interior of California, and may not have much access to the internet. Today being the 6th of March, we have three and a half weeks to get to B.C., so are trying to plan around the weather in the north, in order to avoid freezing temps at night. And we are also looking at doing a route that takes us to new places, rather than the coastal route we did three years ago. So today is a planning day, and since it's quite warm, some time at the pool and hot tub will be in order.

A word about our park, West Winds. It has over 1,000 sites, many full-time prefab homes, but also a large number of spots for people like us. But if you figure two people to every site, there are close to 2,000 people here during high season. It's like a small town, with a grid of streets that totalled nearly 10 kms when I rode them all on my bike. They have everything here one could ask for, if looking for a community that provides a variety of activities: shuffleboard courts, bacchi courts, pickle ball, 9 hole par 3 golf course, library, ceramics room, 10 pool tables, a crafts room, restaurant and bar, swimming pool, and the largest hot tub we've ever seen...you can swim in it.

Yuma has to be the r.v. capital of the west, as there are literally 20 or 30 large r.v. parks in the area around and in the city. So guess what the main industry here is!! Keeping the tourists happy and collecting their dollars. Lots of Canadians are here from Alberta and B.C., and from the northern states. A few from Ontario as well. This is a nice change from some of the more basic parks we've been in, but not something we would want for too long.

So we'll depart tomorrow, now that we have our grand-daughter safely away to San Diego. We hated to see her go yesterday, as we've really enjoyed having her with us for these past three weeks. She was so easy to be with and we had a lot of fun with her. But she's off on her adventure, which seems to have started well, from reports received so far.

We enjoyed our three days in Ajo, as we like this small town stuck out in the southern desert. We took in the Saturday market, did some walking about, but nothing too strenuous. I did a good bike ride out into the desert, and we enjoyed looking at the murals local artists have produced, as well as a pretty good photography display of desert photos.

Yesterday after getting Anna on her bus, Gail and I rode the bike trail along the Colorado, about 12 kms of okay riding. Shopping, planning, hot tubbing, having a beer by the pool...that's about it. A couple of interesting encounters. As we were boarding Anna on her bus, a little old guy carrying an oxygen tank and a big backpack had just descended, and asked if we could call him a taxi. He was quite desperately in need of getting to a medical appointment, having just come from Las Vegas. Long story short, we ended up driving him to his appointment. Preacher John is his name, and he'd just come back from a conference of the CMA. Christian Motorcycle Association. He's had three strokes in the past three months, and was due to get medical opinions as to what treatment was next.

At the pool last night, Gail spotted a man wearing a t-shirt that said "Clan Fraser...je suis prest". Gail is reading the first of the Outlander books by Diana Gabaldon, about Scotland in the 18th Century.  The hero is named Jamie Fraser. The fellow in the t-shirt turned out to be a Fraser, Kevin Fraser, a close friend of Diana Gabaldon. He is the prototype of the main character in the book, tall, red-bearded, large of stature, whom she had met at a book signing. Someone had come up to him and asked him to sign the book, as he looked so much like the main character of the novel. As a result he got to meet Ms Gabaldon, and they became fast friends, travelling often to Scotland together to do research. He also coordinates Scottish festivals, which are very big in the U.S. Quite a coincidence that we would meet this man who is so close to the writer of the book Gail is now reading.

Finally, an image from the market in Ajo. Two groups are working to provide water stations for migrants who make it across the border into the desert or Arizona. Since 1999, more than 2,000 people have died in the desert because of lack of water. Rather shocking!! Both groups had maps of southern Arizona covered with red dots, each signifying a place where people had died. As volunteer groups, they are trying to set up dozens of water sites in the south to help prevent such tragedies.

All for now. Who knows when we shall post again. Meantime, stay well, stay tuned, more later.