Ruth Bascom Riverbank Path System

Eugene and Springfield are built around a river, similar to Portland. Here it's the Willamette River that snakes through downtown and passes the University of Oregon.  The Ruth Bascom Riverbank Path System runs along the river on both the north and south banks. It's named for the feisty first female mayor of Eugene who was in large part responsible for its development.

We parked at the Valley River Center (mall) and biked clockwise, first along the North Bank Path and then returning along the South Bank Path. Most of the ride was lovely, passing through parks and natural areas. The trail is multi-use and mostly rather wide and well paved, so we never felt really crowded.

Talking Stone in the Whilamut Natural Area

Kalapooya language remembered...

At some points the trail parallels major highways, so we were reminded of our old riding days in Los Angeles. Part of the South Bank Path actually runs along a city street by the University of Oregon and is not well signed. One vehicle honked its horn and drove quite close to me, clearly not happy about sharing the road. We had to double back to find the route at one point, and we clearly missed parts and ended up on street more than the route intended.

At one point the path runs along the Owen Rose Garden, so of course we stopped to smell the roses.

Owen Rose Garden

Fragrant Rose

Several ped/bike bridges cross the river, so you can decide how far to ride. We rode to Island Park on the North Bank Path and doubled back to cross to the south on the Knickerbocker Ped/Bike Bridge. At the west end of the South Bank Path we crossed the Greenway Ped/Bike Bridge back to the North Bank Path, right near our truck.

Knickerbocker Ped/Bike Bridge

We sat on the ground overlooking the river to eat our picnic lunch before getting back on the bikes and riding to the Center for Appropriate Transport. From the web we had gotten the idea that they had a museum, but it's a bit of lightheartedness. They have several bikes suspended from the ceiling in what they call their "rideable museum." They do have an amazing collection of used bike parts. They sell used bikes and custom built new ones, with emphasis on cargo bikes and other unusual transportation solutions. They also rent space and tools for do it yourself bike repair.

Center for Appropriate Transport

A million used bike parts!

We stopped at Costco on our way home. It was a good day, and we even got home in time to slip the casserole into the oven for dinner at 6:00 p.m.

Read more!

Forest Trails

We set out today to explore some of the surrounding forest land. We've been seeing trails leading off into the forest. One has a Weyerhaeuser sign, and another has a Willamette Industries sign. We're familiar with Weyerhaeuser but hadn't heard of Willamette Industries before. It turns out that Weyerhaeuser actually bought its rival in 2002, so they just haven't gotten around to changing out all the signs.

It's easy to see why a forestry company would locate in this area. The trees are tall and very straight.

Unfortunately we didn't go very far on either trail. They clearly haven't been used very much. The problem is that in addition to the tall trees, this area grows lots of poison oak. When the trail is overgrown, it can be impossible to avoid running into the plants or stepping on them. We didn't want to take chances, so we turned around when the trail got too narrow and overgrown.

I made a beer can chicken today on the community grill near the pool. The grill is really heavy duty and has four burners, so we lit only two so the chicken could get mostly indirect heat. It came out juicy and flavorful, and the best part is that since I put the chicken on a foil covered cookie sheet, there was very little cleanup. Read more!

Small Success

One of the lambrequins in our rear window came loose the other day. Ken found that one of the two screws holding it to the rear wall had broken. Repair involved first buying a replacement 4" long slender screw.

Then we had to drill a new hole through the narrow side of the approximately 2x4" board, because we wouldn't be able to reuse the existing hole. We didn't figure we could get the broken off screw piece out of the wall. We were having difficulty getting our drill bit to cut through the dense wood when one of our neighbors offered to help. He had a heavier drill and a very long drill bit, just the ticket for our job.

When we had reassembled and reinstalled the lambrequin, we congratulated ourselves on a job well done, with a little help from our friends, of course.

We finally made time to get in the swimming pool today. The high was 90° at 4:00 p.m., which is when we got in the pool. The water was comfortably warm, and we just lazed around mostly hanging on our pool noodles.

Afterwards I defrosted the freezer. It doesn't really take too long, but it's not one of my favorite jobs. On of the bonus benefits is that I get a good idea of what I have lurking in the back corners of the freezer. Read more!

Mount Pisgah Arboretum Revisited

We went back to the Mount Pisgah Arboretum today to hike some of the trails inside the arboretum that we missed last Thursday. On that visit we hiked to the summit of Mount Pisgah, but we didn't have time to take any of the arboretum trails.

We walked along the riverside trail and enjoyed the sound of the water bubbling its way over rocks in the stream.

When we got back to the parking lot, we picked up our cooler to have lunch at a picnic table down the hill where we ate last week. We sat facing the trees and greenery, looking away from the hill and parking lot. During the meal, we heard a car alarm going off. We had our usual reaction: annoyance at the noise, but after a bit, the alarm stopped.

When we carried our picnic basket back up the hill, we saw that the car parked next to our truck had a smashed driver's door window. The alarm had actually been legitimate, and if we had dashed back to the parking lot, we might have scared the thief off. Just then the occupants of the car returned from their hike. A purse, a wallet, and two cell phones were gone. That's when we recalled that some of the reviews of the arboretum had mentioned security problems in the parking lot.

After lunch we walked back to find the water garden. The paths into it are not marked, so we had missed them the first time around. What we found was a struggling  group of lily pads, with little water to support them.

Interesting tree

We spotted this sign on the way into the park. Of course I Googled it and found that the event was held over the weekend. It's an annual music and arts festival and gathering of people interested in faerie lore.

We went to Trader Joe's and Albertson's before heading home, just in time to put the food away and start on dinner. It was a good day.

Read more!

Catching Up

We have a place to stay in Seattle. Finally. It’s titled rather whimsically “Roots @ the Center of the Universe” It should work well for us because it’s right on a bus line to downtown.

There is one bright side to not having our DirecTV working. We're catching up a bit on our backlog of things to watch. We had started some time back watching a 5-DVD set of the BBC's Planet Earth. The scenery is spectacular, of course, and we learn all kinds of fascinating things. Over the last few days we’ve been watching the rest of the episodes.

The final two episodes are bonus tracks from the Natural World, on Desert Lions and Snow Leopards. We are always impressed by the dedication, patience, and persistence of wildlife photographers. They do things like trek for five months looking for a snow leopard and philosophically chalk it up to experience when they end up photographing marmots with nary a snow leopard in sight.

As usual, the wifi was unreliable today, so we didn’t make any progress on our projects requiring good internet.

We’re planning an outing tomorrow, so we may actually get some photos. Read more!

Out of Touch

It's the weekend, and as usual in campgrounds, more people have arrived. Evidently they are all trying to use the internet. We haven't been able to get a connection most of the day. This is especially problematic since there's also no Verizon signal.

Somehow Ken's phone was able to display that he had some voice mails. We decided to drive out to where we had a reliable Verizon signal--over eight miles. It turned out that Hawaiian Airlines was trying to reach us to change part of our itinerary. Because of schedule changes, we had only about 50 minutes to make our connection in Honolulu. We thought that would be plenty, but the airline wants an hour and a half. Guess they know best, so they re-booked us on an earlier flight out of Lihue.

Meanwhile, we're still trying to make a reservation via Airbnb for a place in Seattle for a couple of nights while we visit with Blake and Terri and Molly. Two places have declined our request, saying the dates we wanted are already booked. Guess they don't update their availability calendar on Airbnb. Now we have another request out. We really wanted to get out to where we could get our email to check if we had a reply from the host. After waiting all day for a reply, we're feeling discouraged.

This evening we were able to get on wifi again. We are acutely aware of how important having an Internet connection is to us, especially with no phone signal. It's a trade-off, of course, and we do enjoy rustic campgrounds so .... Read more!

Making Plans

We didn't do much again today. Somehow it seems that the time slips away. We did take our walks. The weather was perfect. We went over to the hot tub for a soak. Tomorrow maybe we'll be brave enough to get in the pool. It's supposed to be warmer.

We've been checking AirBnB for a place to stay in Seattle. Our first choice unfortunately decided that the dates we wanted weren't available, so now we've sent another request. The problem is finding something that will accommodate all four of us and be near enough to downtown via public transit.

We're also looking at getting a guidebook and making plans for our visit to Kauai in September. Read more!

Mount Pisgah

Our adventure for today was an outing to the Mount Pisgah Arboretum and the adjacent Buford Recreation Area. The plan was to take a hike to the summit of Mount Pisgah and then to visit the arboretum and walk through some of its trails to see features like the water garden and the riverside.

We stopped by the arboretum office and spoke with a helpful man who gave us maps and some tips on his favorite way to hike to the summit. Following his directions, we set out to take Trail #3 which makes a more leisurely approach and joins Trail #1 nearer the summit. Trail #1 is the direct trail, but it's quite steep and is a gravel fire road, so not much to see along the way (except that all the trails offer views of the Willamette Valley on the way up).

The trailhead for Trail #3 turned out to be farther up the road than we expected, about .6 mile. As we began our ascent, the first part of the trail traverses an open field.

The trail soon enters a densely wooded area with lots of ferns. All along the trail we had to watch out for poison ivy.

Trail #3 intersects with Trail #1. Some of the trail intersections are well marked. Others are not, and we had to ask other hikers for information. Trail #1 made a steep ascent to the summit, where we saw a bronze memorial sculpture. A fellow hiker explained that it is a memorial to Ken Keysey's son, Jed, who was killed in a van accident. The summit also offers great views of the valley below. We could see the Coast Fork of the Willamette winding its way to the west of us. The middle form lies to the west, but we couldn't make it out.

The top is a relief map of local landmarks. The sides show more than 300 plant and animal fossil images - including the tooth of a mastodon - dating 200 million years into Oregon's past; the images line up horizontally with a time line to show when each lived. Two slots capture the sun's path on the summer and winter solstices; at sunrise and sunset on those days, stand with the pedestal between you and the horizon to see the rising or setting sun.(http://www.thefreelibrary.com/WHICH+HILL+IS+KING%3F-a0119874840)

We headed down the hill. As usual, it was much easier to descend than to ascend. By this time we realized we didn't have time for the arboretum trails, so we'll come back another day. We stopped to do some grocery shopping on the way home, where we arrived just in time for a late supper.

While we were in town we took advantage of the Verizon signal to make a couple of phone calls and do some banking. Read more!

Another Quiet, Rainy Day

We didn't do much today. We were getting cabin fever, so we went over and soaked in the hot tub for a while. It's indoors, but it has lots of windows and great views of the trees. Oregon sure grows tall trees!

We did get outdoors for a walk after the showers quit this afternoon. Fortunately it's not muddy on the streets and trails, but our shoes had to be brushed off. They picked up wet leaf litter and such. This evening we went over to the clubhouse to use the exercise equipment. Ken used a treadmill again. I chose the elliptical trainer. Even on level 1, I got a real workout.

Of course we read while exercising. The light bulbs in the area were burned out, but we are both screen readers. Fortunately, Ken's tablet and my iPhone are both backlit. Read more!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Many of the places we have visited this year have been experiencing severe drought. That doesn’t seem to be the case in Oregon, where everything seems pretty lush and green. Today again the “slight chance of showers” morphed into a drizzly, overcast day with occasional showers, just right for the flowers that lend their bright colors to the many landscaped sites in the park—but a little too chilly and wet for us. The sun did peek out a couple of times, so we did one of our walks outdoors.

For our second half hour we located a couple of treadmills in the clubhouse, stationed so that we could watch the PBS Newshour on the big screen TV while we exercised. That worked out pretty well, but it was a bit of a surprise to realize that if you don’t have a DVR, you can’t pause live TV. We’ve been spoiled by having first a TIVO and now a DirecTV HD-DVR. We’re used to being in charge of what we watch when and to being able to pause, rewind, and fast forward with the touch of a button on the remote.

I cleaned out three of the pantry drawers today, put new liners in, and reorganized the contents. Definite signs of cabin fever! Now I can find more of my spices easily. We've been watching episodes of the BBC's Planet Earth on DVD. They are narrated by David Attenborough. The visuals are stunning, and we enjoy the narrator's voice.
Read more!

Moving On

Today started out rather propitiously. We were hitched up, ready to pull out, by 10:00 a.m. We planned to stop along the way and bike a Rails to Trails Oregon bikeway near Cottage Grove, OR, less than an hour north of Sutherlin. All was well.

Then our TPMS alarmed to tell us that the driver side outside dually had only 9 PSI. Yikes! It’s supposed to have 60 PSI. Ken checked with the manual tire pressure monitor, which indicated no pressure at all. What to do? We looked for a nearby Discount Tire Store, since that’s where we bought the tires, but the nearest was in Eugene.

Next we considered calling Coach-Net, our roadside assistance folks, but that would entail a delay while they located and sent out a tow truck, and all they would do was put the spare tire on. So we looked for a tire store in Sutherlin. Les Schwab Tires was nearby, so we unhitched, plugged back in so the refrigerator would have power, and stopped by the office to explain that we would be delayed a bit in leaving.

At the tire shop we were told to expect a half hour wait. The shop was clearly busy. I thought that meant I’d have time to walk back to the thrift shop, just half a mile away. When I got to the shop, I was disappointed to find that it is closed on Mondays. So I walked back to the Sutherlin Public Library: also closed on Mondays. Back to the tire shop to wait. Along the way I took some photos of "Old 100," a historic train engine that is the highlight of the city park.

And of this memorial plaque in the same park:

After some delay, the service people pulled the F450 in and discovered that the culprit was a nail, so the tire was repairable. They were nice enough to fix and remount the tire, smile at us, and tell us it was a free service.

By now it was after noon, so we drove back to the park, hitched up, and pulled out of our space, but only up to park by the office to eat lunch before heading north. The weather was not looking very good for a bike ride. The “slight chance of showers” seemed to be turning into an overcast, drizzly day. So we passed up Cottage Grove and drove to our destination park outside of Springfield.

Getting into our space took longer than usual. We couldn’t make the tight turns around trees, so we had to approach our site from the wrong direction and maneuver around to get facing the right was to back in. Of course we had help from the neighbors, all of whom were quite impressed by the Majestic. People are always surprised to learn that it is only 38’ long, since it looks like a behemoth.

When we put the Big Foot levelers down, we lifted the rig off the ground so we could check the driver side brakes. We'd heard some suspicious rubbing sounds. Sure enough, the middle tire scraped loudly when I turned it. Darn! That's one we've never had a problem with. Besides, we thought that our brake problems were over. Think again. Now we're planning to find a brake repair place in Portland, so we'll be able to stay with Chris and Anara while the work is being done.

We’re at a lovely park in the woods which is surrounded by Weyerhaeuser forest land, so it’s quiet and peaceful. However, it has no Verizon service at all, and the lovely trees block our DirecTV satellite, and there’s no broadcast television. The result is that we’ll be catching up on some of the programs we have recorded. We’ll also be using their public wi-fi, which isn’t the strongest ever, but we’ll probably survive.








Read more!

Trip to Roseburg

Not much doing today. We drove to Roseburg, about 10 miles south of Sutherlin, to go shopping. We stocked up on perishables at Albertson's and Costco. While we were at Costco, of course other merchandise caught our eye. We bought an Arctic Zone Ultra 50 Can High Performance TableTop™ Cooler. It folds flat and has a removable liner that is guaranteed to be leak proof. We're always looking for space saving designs. Ken also picked up a pair of black brushed cotton pants.

We stopped on the way home to fill up with diesel in preparation for our move tomorrow. After dinner we did the laundry and walked. See, I told you there wasn't much of note happening today, but some days we do have to take care of errands and chores. The full-timing life is not just a long vacation! Read more!

Crater Lake

We visited Crater Lake National Park on our previous visit two years ago. It was early June, and the east side of the Rim Drive was still closed. On the west side the snow was still piled up along the road and the edges of the caldera, and the clouds overhead made it difficult to see the blue of the lake.

We got up early and set out on the two and a half hour drive to the park, mostly along Hwy 138, part of the Rogue-Umpqua Scenic Byway. It traces the route of the North Umpqua River. The road winds about as it ascends from Roseburg on I-5 into the Cascades and goes to Diamond Lake and the north entrance road to Crater Lake National Park. We got to the north entrance around 10:30 a.m., with plans to eat lunch at the lodge and go on a 2:00 p.m. ranger led hike up to Garfield Peak.

What a difference a month can make! By mid-July nearly all the snow had melted, with only a few patches remaining here and there. The day was clear, and the lake spectacular. We drove south clockwise around the east side of the lake, since we had driven the west side in 2012. We stopped at several of the overlooks, and each offered a bit of a different perspective.

We got to the Crater Lake Lodge in Rim City just in time to eat lunch, some really tasty fish and chips. At 2:00 p.m. we met Ranger Sarah and gathered for the hike. There were only four of us, so we were able to stop along the way for some information about the geology and history of this amazing lake.

Ranger Sarah led the hike.

On Garfield Peak

A view of Crater Lake from the trail

By the time we got back to the lodge, it was too late to go to the Steel Visitor Center to see the award-winning orientation film, so we decided to return along the east Rim Drive so we could go see the Pinnacles, really unusual formations.

Roadside waterfall

The Pinnacles

We stopped at a "picnic area" called out on the map. It turned out to have one picnic table, where we could sit and eat our packed supper with at least some view of the lake through the trees. Our drive home was mostly in the dark. We had a great day, but a tiring one, and we were glad to be home. Read more!

Blueberries!

Today we drove out to Larry's Berries for U-Pick blueberries. We started out planning to pick five pounds, but when we took our berries back for weighing we found we actually had eight pounds. Ken says you can never have too many blueberries. The farm plants four varieties; the ones we picked are Nelson. They were easy to pick and are delicious.

When we had our berries weighed, we saw this lovely chicken and a few more running around underfoot. The chicken is a Cochin, originally from China, and apparently good as pets.

Afterwards we went to Cooper Reservoir to walk.

This cute little frog was in the restroom when rescued by a lady who took it outside. She had to go back to work, so I carried the beautiful little creature down to the lake shore.

Back at home, one of our neighbors stopped by to invite us to a 3:00 p.m. happy hour. It turned out that one of the attendees was celebrating a birthday, so we sang Happy Birthday and had some red velvet cake and ice cream.

Read more!

Sutherlin Visitor Center

We biked into town today to go to the Visitor Center, which is near I-5 on Central Avenue. We wanted information on things to do in the area, especially hiking and waterfall viewing. The nice lady at the center admitted that she was new in the area, but she pointed to the part of the literature racks where we found brochures about the Rogue and Umpqua Rivers.

We biked back to the Post Office to see if our mail had arrived (it hadn't) and then checked out the "New to You" furniture and home decor store across from St. Vinnie's. I actually found a small metal shoe horn, something I've been looking for. My hiking shoes are nearly impossible to put on without a shoe horn.

Tonight we did our laundry and then spent some time checking out things to do at Crater Lake National Park. We're planning to go over there on Friday. Read more!

Welcome Wagon

Our neighbor is evidently a sort of "Welcome Wagon" lady for the park. She came by today with her basket of goodies, including maps of Sutherlin and Roseburg and our choice of crafty small gifts. I chose the finger pin cushion, and Ken chose an Escapees key chain/tape measure.

She talked about visiting this park and getting on the waiting list and after a couple of years, being accepted. She and her husband go to Yuma for the winter and here for the summer. Her husband also has a son in Portland.

We didn't do much today. Our big outing was to the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Shop in town. We biked; it's less than a mile away. I found a few things, including a pair of warm gloves that looked like new. Ken picked up a warm long sleeve shirt. I guess we're preparing for cold weather, but we certainly haven't experienced any lately! Read more!

On to Sutherlin

On our walk this morning Ken got a photo of Black Butte, to the south of us

We had a fairly long drive today, and we needed to do some grocery shopping and get some propane along the way, so it was 4:30 p.m. before we pulled into Timber Valley. We had planned to stop at Costco in Roseburg, but we needed to get to the park before the office closed at 5:00 p.m., so we left that to another day.

We're in site #17. All the sites are large and well kept, and we had little trouble backing into the site. However, it was very hot, and that always adds some stress to the setup, so we were very glad to get inside, turn on the a/c, and relax for a few minutes before fixing supper.

On our walk this evening we encountered some of the local deer, who are quite blase about humans. They looked at us and then went back to browsing.

Read more!

Weed?

Yup, Weed, California. That's where we're spending the night. It's not as bad as it sounds. We have a view of Mount Shasta (at least when the truck next to us moves). We walked along the road into town and came to this welcome sign,

We're parked in a truck and RV lot next to a McDonald's for the night.

Have to admit it's not an unobstructed view.

To the south is an imposing group of peaks called Black Butte, which Wikipedia describes this way.

Black Butte is a cluster of overlapping dacite lava domes in a butte,^[2] a parasitic satellite cone of Mount Shasta.^[5] It is located directly adjacent to Interstate 5 at milepost 742 between the city of Mount Shasta and Weed, California. The highway crosses a 3,912 ft (1,192 m) pass, Black Butte Summit, at the western base of the lava domes. The lava domes were extruded at the foot of the cone of Shastina following the period of its major eruptions about 9,000–10,000 years ago.[2]

Tomorrow we'll be moving on to Sutherlin, OR, stopping to shop along the way.

Read more!

Showing Off

We're moving tomorrow, so Ken was outside working on some things. Some of our neighbors took advantage of the opportunity to admire the Majestic, and of course Ken invited them in. We always like to show off our home and share the excitement of RVing with people. It's fun to hear their stories too. One of the couples we talked with has had nine RVs, everything from bumper pulls to fifth wheels and a truck camper. They are definitely outdoors people with lots of toys (ATVs, Waverunners). Their youngest is 18 now, and they're looking ahead to traveling full time in a few years.

We were out walking around the lake again today and just had to stop to admire and take a photo of this majestic tree.  It's an oak of some kind and even more impressive in person than the photo can convey, the kind of tree that makes me stop and say, "Wow! What a tree!"

The lake is still beautiful, and the weather still pretty much perfect.

We'll be heading on north tomorrow, planning to arrive at the Escapees Timber Valley Park in Sutherlin on Monday, if they have room for us. It's first come, first served, but we're hopeful.



Read more!

Blue Skies

As usual, as the weekend approaches, we're getting more neighbors.

The weather has been pretty near perfect, with blue skies and calm water.

This evening on our walk we looked out and saw the V-shaped wakes created by some ducks paddling towards us. Read more!

Exploring

We didn't go too far afield today: just took a walk around the park lake. We love to be near water, even if it's just a creek or small lake. As we walked along, turtles plopped into the water from the logs and sticks they'd been sunning on. The family of ducks resting in the shade near the shore paid little attention to us. I think they're used to people 8-)

One less than positive part was the smell of dead fish at one point, yuck, though we couldn't see it.

We walked through the very large storage area too, and came upon an "open house." A small motor home was being advertized for sale, with the open door inviting the curious (like us) to come in. It was only 30 feet long and had no slides, but impressed us with its clever design. The L-shaped sofa made a large seating area, and behind it was a breakfast bar--actually the only eating area--with two chairs, a very economical use of space.

We watched an episode of The Sixties tonight on the impact of television. Lots of good memories of the shows of our youth, like I Spy and Twilight Zone and the Smothers Brothers and Rowan and Martin's Laugh In, and reminders of how important television was in the Kennedy Nixon debate and the coverage of Kennedy's assassination and the war in Vietnam. Read more!

Lovely Day

When we got up this morning, it was actually in the 70s and very comfortable for walking. Guess it helps to move north a bit.

Ken worked on the tire pressure monitoring system again, and we are hoping it is now working (or will be soon--one of the sensors is reporting low, but it did this before and then corrected itself). We made some phone calls to change reservations and checked on prescription orders, all frustrating since the Verizon signal here is not very strong/reliable. Darn! My iPad has been misbehaving for some time now, but I need a good reliable signal to get on live chat with Apple techs...

We watched an American Experience show we had recorded on Marvin Hamlisch tonight. He was remarkable not only as a composer and musician but also as a person. He had such energy and verve that the room felt empty when the show ended, sadly with his premature death in 2012.

I did my nails tonight. They've been splitting and breaking and just about everything else bad that nails could do. I'm going to have to go back to using gloves to wash dishes and use lotion more often. I'm hoping that moving out of the dry desert climate may help too. Read more!

Stressed

Whenever we pack up and set out to move to someplace new, there's some stress involved, but today took stress to a new level. We knew it was going to be tricky to get our Majestic down the hill and around the sharp bend required to get out of our current space.

It turned out to be even more difficult than we thought. Ken was driving, and I was spotting him from outside. It took us over half an hour to get a few hundred feet while missing tree branches, avoiding running our rear skirt into the ground, and keeping from falling over the edge or hitting rebar jutting out of the ground along the edge of the roadway.

The drive north on Hwy 99 was okay, although congested. We stopped in Lodi at a Costco and then went on to a Safeway a few miles west. Whoever maintains the roads in Lodi would do well to get lots of tree trimming done. Trees threatened our rig from the side of the road, from the median, and overhead. When we got to our campground, we found that the site we'd been assigned was currently occupied by a truck and some earth moving equipment. Also, the site was clearly a back-in, though the person at the desk had said we should just pull straight in, and the sewer outlet was on the curbside at the rear of the site. We would never have enough sewer hose to reach it.

It's difficult to see, but the truck on the left is flanked by a bulldozer, and both are in our assigned spot.
 
So, back to the office, where we were assigned another site. This one is a pull-through with just water and electric. When we had threaded our way to the site, we found a large party in full swing, with some golf carts parked along the side of our site. Also a pickup was parked jutting out into the approach road. Once those vehicles were moved, we finally were able to park and set up, with our partying neighbors cheering us on. By the time we were level and had the slides out, it was 7:00 p.m., way later than we like to arrive, and we were totally frazzled. It was still in the upper 90s, adding to the difficulty.

We decided to walk over to the part restaurant only to find that it had closed at 7:00 p.m. So back to the rig for a quick supper. We had an Indian red kidney bean curry I had picked up to try, served over some leftover linguini, and a spinach salad, followed by some strawberry tofu pie with fresh strawberries. After the dishes were done, we could finally sit down and call it a day. Read more!

Last Day at Park Sierra

Today's our last day at Park Sierra. On our walk this morning we headed down to the creek. Actually right now it's a dry creek bed, so not much to see. Fortunately it was overcast today, so the heat wasn't as much of a problem for our walks. It tried to rain a couple of times, but only managed to spatter us with a few drops. This area could use a good solid rain.

We did our laundry and took the recycles over to the clubhouse. The park has rather limited recycling, but every bit helps. After lunch Ken worked on airing up the truck tires, which were all low. I spent some frustrating hours talking to insurance companies, but did make some progress.

Lynn Cross stopped by this evening to say goodbye and wish us safe travels. I did some cleaning to prepare for the move. I don't like to pull the slides in when there might be grit on the floors, especially since we have tile in the living room. Not a very exciting day, but we still consider ourselves very lucky to be able to travel. Read more!

Sunday at the Park

We set out walking this morning with a copy of the park map. We wanted to orient ourselves a bit, which is difficult given the hilly terrain here. We passed one man out walking who said "I've been walking here for ten years, and I still couldn't draw you a map of the place." That's about what we were thinking!

Carol sent a photo of one of their roses in bloom. Tyler is known for its roses, and this is a lovely example.



Here's a thought for today (from Gratefulness.org):

You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope.  Thomas Merton

Merton is one of my favorites. The idea that we don't need to know exactly where life is going is good, because I often find myself a bit befuddled by the "blooming, buzzing confusion" of the world. Just watching one evening news broadcast is enough to make me aware of my own littleness in a vast and complex world.



Read more!

Quiet Day

We had a quiet day today. I returned Aunt Iris's call. She sounded good. She and Beth were getting ready to leave for a farmers' market and looking forward to some good food. I got an email from Peggy saying that Aunt Helene is doing well and is now at a rehab facility. Her surgeon said the hip surgery went very well.

I talked to Carol briefly. The house was full of grandchildren for the 4th of July, but they had gone to an event in Whitehouse where the kids could run through sprinklers and run off some steam. Meanwhile Carol was glad of a rest. She was part of a patriotic music concert at the First United Presbyterian Church yesterday featuring the Tyler Civic Chorale and various church choirs. Wish I could have been there. They had a guest organist playing the church's large pipe organ. We watched the Capital Fourth on TV yesterday, but there's nothing like a live concert.

We spent more time today sorting through the various mailings we've gotten about the new medigap and prescription drug insurance we'll be starting with on August 1. We still have questions that need to be sorted out.

Read more!

Independence Day

On our walk this morning, we were surprised to see another New Horizons Majestic. Ken thought he recognized the truck license plate, and we checked the member photos on the bulletin board in the clubhouse. The owners were Dave and Lynn Cross, whom we had met in September 2012 at Camp Horizons and also at the Escapade in Sedalia that month. They picked up their new Majestic in May 2012, not long after we picked up ours.

We went to a 4th of July celebration at the clubhouse this afternoon. As usual, there was plenty of good food and a variety of salads. We made a zucchini onion salad with feta cheese and a berry vinaigrette dressing. We enjoyed chatting with our table mates, and we spotted Dave and Lynn at the next table. We'll be getting together while we're here to swap stories.

Tonight we watched A Capital Fourth, an extravaganza held on the West Lawn of the capitol, with a variety of great entertainers, including Frankie Vallee and the Four Seasons. The fireworks were over the top! I especially enjoyed the appearance of Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggie. Read more!

Recovery

We were very tired after our adventurous day yesterday, so we slept in this morning and didn't do much all day. We went to the post office in Coarsegold to pick up our General Delivery mail and to the grocery store and gas station in Oakhurst.

We waited until 8:00 p.m. to take our one-hour walk for the day. Although it was still in the 90s, the evening makes for more comfortable walking. Read more!

Yosemite Valley!

We were here at Park Sierra last in April 2009, and that is when we last went to Yosemite. Google Maps suggests that it is about 60 miles to Yosemite Village from Park Sierra, a drive that should take an hour and forty minutes. Boy is that algorithm wrong! We left here at 8:00 a.m. and parked in Yosemite Valley at 10:30 a.m. Driving home in the dark took even longer. Much of the route is up and down mountains and around tight curves next to extreme dropoffs, not a comfortable route for us to be trying to beat any speed records.

But spending the day in Yosemite Valley was definitely worth the time and stress. As usual, we were awed by the majesty and grandeur of Half Dome and El Capitan and the Sentinel and the sheer wonder of Yosemite Falls, even with the low flow of a summer in drought conditions. Unfortunately, it was really too hot to get in much hiking. We started up the trail to Vernal Falls but turned around part way, partly because we hadn't brought enough water but mainly because of the heat. We did make the short hike to Lower Yosemite Falls.

We attended an interesting ranger program in the afternoon. There were only two couples actually brave or crazy enough to go for an hour and a half walk in the meadow, even though Christine promised to keep us in the shade. The topic was "Inspiring Generations," and Christine's take on it was focused on the role of art and artists in promoting the protection of Yosemite.

In the evening we went to the Visitor Center Theater for a performance by Lee Stetson called "Conversation with a Tramp: An Evening with John Muir" Stetson is the voice of John Muir in Ken Burns' documentaries on the National Parks. The performance was riveting. Stetson certainly brings Muir to life on stage and communicates Muir's passion for Hetch Hetchy and for all the natural world. The one-man presentation is a moving, educational, and entertaining experience, one not to be missed.

[photos later] Read more!

Truck Saver

Fancy new truck accessories? Nope, just our efforts to deter rodents from moving in and destroying wiring. We've been told that people have found themselves with hundreds of dollars in damage from destructive wildlife.

We mostly stayed inside to avoid the heat today, so it was a good day to do laundry. Park Sierra's laundry is one of the best we've ever encountered, and folks there are always friendly, so so it's always a pleasure to use it. (Not something I'd say about many laundromats!)

We signed up for the Fourth of July celebration. No fireworks involved, except the bar-be-que. The park is providing barbecued chicken and hot dogs and apple pie. Everyone is invited to bring a salad to share. Should be fun.

Tomorrow we're getting up early and heading to Yosemite. Read more!