Jim & Ginny Are Rolling!

By Jim.

Today’s drive was another example of the remarkable diversity of California’s geography.  We’ve seen the Pacific Ocean, San Francisco Bay, redwood forests, the waterfalls and granite cliffs of Yosemite, sand dunes at Pismo Beach, vineyards and endless LA freeways.  This morning, we left San Diego’s ocean breezes, heading east on Interstate 8, where things got steadily hotter and dryer.

We didn’t know what to call this – Rocky Hill is a town in Connecticut and the Rocky Mountains are in Colorado, but it’s all rocks and it’s tall.

Soon we were in a total desert landscape.

We saw a massive solar farm just before the start of the irrigated farmland of the Imperial Valley

And then, without warning, politics intruded!  (You didn’t really think I was going to be able to resist broaching that subject in these pages, did you?) We saw a sign that the 45th President of the United States would not be happy about…

We didn’t realize how close to the border we were, until we saw what we think is the wall (not The Wall, but a wall, presumably paid for by America).

And a few miles later, our proximity to Mexico was confirmed..

Instead of taking that exit, we continued a few more miles and entered Arizona.

Then we stopped for the night in Yuma, which greeted us with 106 degrees!  On to Phoenix Monday.

By Jim.

We landed in San Diego late Friday night.  It was a blur of a week, and now we’re back on track after three days in Alabama.  Saturday, we hung with Gwen, working on such generational challenges as setting up an Instagram account…

…before getting into the spirit of the day – Cinco de Mayo – by heading into town to sip some local beer, where we were joined by Gwen’s brilliant and charming friend, Nikki.

Friday’s memorial service for DeWitte in Birmingham was a heart-warming tribute.  It was held in the chapel at Galleria Woods, where he and Mom have lived for almost ten years. They touched many lives there and a number of residents and staff members attended the service.  All members of the immediate family were there, and we especially enjoyed spending time with DeWitte’s son and his wonderful family.

Earlier in the week, before going to Birmingham to honor a life well-lived, we had a blast in Thousand Oaks, CA being Big Jimmie and GiGi to Mia, our adorable granddaughter, who shows us with every smile how much the world has to look forward to.

The highlight was taking Mia to a petting zoo and farm, where she had her first pony ride…

…checked out some birds…

…and loved riding the swings.

The Noel boys soooo love their little girl!

After two-and-a-half weeks in California (including our dogleg to Alabama), we head to Arizona Sunday.  We look back on some great memories we’ve made here, and look forward  to meeting up with friends from Connecticut (Tuesday) and Snoqualmie Ridge (Wednesday) in Scottsdale and Mesa for golf and good company!

By Jim.

Our trip is now paused, in tribute to a wonderful man and a tower of strength and character in our family.

DeWitte Cross, my stepfather and beloved husband of my mother for the past 20 years, passed away over the weekend.  Ginny and I are flying to Alabama Wednesday for a memorial service on Friday.

DeWitte was a Southern Gentleman.

He was unfailingly polite and courtly to everyone. He had a radiant smile, which was the usual expression on his face.  He had a resonant baritone voice and a splendid Southern accent.  His demeanor was warm and dignified.

He was a lifelong student.  Even in his 90s, he researched and made presentations to his fellow residents at Galleria Woods, their assisted living facility, about issues such as identity theft and scammers who prey on the elderly.  A natural leader, he was elected repeatedly by his peers to represent them in matters related to the governance and operation of the facility where they lived.

He had a passion for history (especially the Civil War) and was a wonderful storyteller.  He was a modest man who downplayed his military service in World War II (barely into his 20s, he was a navigation instructor for the Army Air Corps) and Korea.  He dreamed of being a doctor or lawyer, but instead became a successful entrepreneur and businessman in Birmingham and Atlanta.  His two children lived his dream – both became doctors.

DeWitte loved my mother and took care of her in their golden years.  They met in 1996 and married two years later. My mother adored him and he always made it clear that the feeling was mutual.  He was devoted to her.  Barely six months ago, when Mom was hospitalized, he spent all of his waking hours with her, even though it meant him driving (at age 94) several miles to and from her bedside.  As illness overtook him, his focus was still as much on her well-being as it was on his own.

Some would say DeWitte was a Gone With The Wind-like character – someone from a bygone era.  But the core traits he epitomized are timeless and represent the best of humankind – character, dignity, intelligence and genuine love for the people in his life.

I have respected DeWitte Cross almost as much as I have loved him.  He will forever be remembered as a wonderful man who lived life well.

 

By Jim.

“This is, like…pinch me, right?”

That was Ginny’s perfect summary of today’s perfect hike from Yosemite Valley up to Vernal Fall.

It was four hours of granite cliffs, a white-water river (the Merced), waterfalls and assorted breathtaking vistas (at one point, we were over 6,000 feet up), in sunny, 80-degree weather.

We ascended a rock pathway carved out of the side of a cliff.  

The scenery could be distracting, as we frequently looked back down on where we’d just been.

On our way up, we hiked past the bottom of Vernal Fall.  The mist cooled everyone off (and then some) and made the trail slippery at times, but the reward was a full-arc rainbow where the fall hit the river pool!  We decided on the spot that it was time for a new front page photo to this blog.

The climb got even tougher as we approached the top of the fall (no time for photos), and when we made it, Ginny did a victory dance…

…and we savored where we were!

We were able to get right next to the fall and almost feel the power of the water…

…then we could turn around and look upstream to yet another amazing view.

That upstream water was coming from the Nevada Fall, another mile away.  We had hoped to hike up there, too, but we didn’t have time, due to our dogs-in-the-RV curfew.

The hike back down the mountain took us a different route, which involved a lot of climbing towards Nevada Fall before heading down, so we got a good look at it.

Our descent wasn’t as dramatic as the trip up, but we were rewarded with some amazing granite striations…

…and we even went past some of the final  snow of the season.

With one final leg along the Merced River…

…we were back in the valley, then home from an unforgettable day (where Advil awaited our sore muscles).

We say goodbye to Yosemite tomorrow morning and head to the Southern California coast.

By Jim.

Today was mostly a work-and-catch-up-on-things day.  Neither showers nor clean clothes were involved.  Mid-afternoon, we went on a hike in the nearby Stanislaus Forest.  There were some beautiful vistas…

…but it was a tough hike because there wasn’t much of a trail, plus there were lots of burned trees on the ground where we were trying to walk.  Maybe those two factors are related.  We read that the forest was hit with severe fires two years ago.  Anyway, the dogs were troopers and we got ourselves a good hour-long workout from the experience.Then we decided this would be the night to fulfill our promise to our loyal readers to check out the Iron Door Saloon in Groveland (population of somewhere between 601 and 3,100, depending on whether you believe the Census Bureau or the roadside sign at the city limits), a couple of miles from our RV park.

It was SRO when we got there, because Tuesday is Open Mike Night.

The place really does have iron doors…

…and there’s corroboration for its claim to be the oldest saloon in California (however, the translation of the last line on the plaque, “Credo Quia Absurdum”, is “I believe because it is absurd.”).

Historical artifacts abound.

Open Mike Night included performances by the owner of the joint and a guy playing 90s rock songs on a ukulele.  And, at the risk of damning them by faint praise, every one of the brave souls on stage sang better than I can.

But they weren’t the only characters in the place, by far.

We hung at the bar for awhile with Get A Room Couple.  Then we met Chad The Cougar Chaser and his wingman, Chad Squared (who was way more interested in the Warriors game than in Chad’s charms).

We also met Hiker Dad, who explained that he’s trying to figure out how to get enough baby formula for his eight-month-old son to Europe so he can bring him on a 500-mile hike.

Our server, a dynamo who also was the de facto manager while her boss was on-stage singing into the open mike, had bright pink hair plus her husband and two kids (one of whom had blue hair) sitting in one of the booths.  Mom, wife, server and manager = work ethic!

The Iron Door exudes camaraderie, companionship  and good cheer.  It provided us with a delightful evening.

“It is by far the grandest of all the special temples of Nature I was ever permitted to enter.”  John Muir

By Jim.

Our drive from Bodega Bay to San Jose Friday afternoon started with a smile-inducing milestone – it was warm enough for us to dress in short-sleeves (Ginny went totally crazy and opted for sleeveless)!

We traveled on US 101 and Interstates 580, 80 and 280, which equated to Memory Lane for me.  I insisted on crossing the Bay Bridge so I could use the new eastern span that was completed recently.

That caused the mini-stressfest of the day.  The bridge may be a 21st century marvel, but it seems to have preserved the original 1930s-vintage toll booths.  If the Iz was a foot wider, we wouldn’t have made it through.  As it was, I tiptoed along at a few mph, with Ginny in the Jeep behind me coaching me up (“A little to the left; a little more left; no, too much, go right!”) and probably with a lot of people dog-cussing me in cars behind us during this impromptu soap opera.

We arrived at Jim and Eileen Beckley’s house at the universally-acceptable hour to open the first bottle of wine of the evening (from Jim’s mighty impressive cellar) in their wonderful backyard garden, followed by a delicious steak dinner.

While all this was going on, Roxy got some revenge for being stuck in the Iz and missing the party.

Mercifully for the womenfolk, Jim and I didn’t spend the whole evening telling stories and semi-truths about good ole Woodside HS.

Jim arranged for us to play golf Saturday morning in the Livermore Valley, in the southern portion of the East Bay.  It was another milestone morning as we got dressed – shorts!  After driving past the Concannon and Wente Brothers wineries, we arrived at Poppy Ridge GC.  As for the golf, the only number in the 70s was the temperature – it was about as perfect a weather day as anyone could hope for, which a couple of pasty-skinned Northwesterners savored!

After golf, we had a four-hour drive to Yosemite.  We scaled the New Priest Grade (probably so named because it involves a few turns that would prompt a lot of people to appeal to a higher power to be their co-pilot),

past Lake Don Pedro and through some old Gold Rush towns (including the politically-incorrect Chinese Camp and Groveland, home of the self-proclaimed World’s Oldest Saloon – stay tuned for a full investigative report in a future post).

When we arrived, we had our first RV park disappointment – the place we booked was not nearly as nice as its Google reviews.  We stayed there Saturday night, and were able to switch to a great Thousand Trails park Sunday morning, where we’ll be until Thursday.

Today is a chill-out day.

Tomorrow we go exploring Yosemite – Bridal Veil Falls is first on our list.

By Jim.

Sorry, we’ve been out of touch in the past few days, so this will be a long one.

We had a quiet weekend in Eugene.  One highlight was getting together with my old Sig-Ep bro, Channon Payne, for a beer Sunday night.

Monday, we had successful elective surgery.  We replaced the couch, captain’s chairs and dinette seats in the Iz with stuff that’s way more comfortable than the original equipment.  We had the job done in Junction City, Oregon (near Eugene), because the lead-time for ordering the stuff coincided with the timing of our trip from Bend to the Oregon Coast (and allowing us to save 10% on the cost – no sales tax in Oregon!).  When The Stair Caper started last week, the company was nice enough to push back our install appointment for a few days.

Countryside Interiors in Junction City is the sort of place where you like to do business.  It’s a small-town family business, and the owner, Steve, doesn’t just own…he gets his hands dirty.  The install took all day Monday, so we spent another night in Eugene.  Sting approves of the finished product.

Tuesday was our much-anticipated appointment with Quality Coach Services in Eugene to get the stairs fixed and do a couple of other tweaks.

It’s the same sort of place as Countryside, a good old-fashioned family business.  Amber runs the office and infuses the place with warmth and enthusiasm.  Her husband, Robert, runs the show.  Our tech was Jeremiah, a buttoned-up pro.  We left the Iz with them at 8:00am, along with the replacement parts for the stairs that we’d ordered from Fleetwood.  They thought they’d have everything wrapped up by Noon.

We all piled in the Jeep and went for a nice vegan breakfast (hey, it’s Eugene), then I dropped Ginny at a hairdresser.  My chore after that was to take the dogs to a Pet Smart about a mile or so away (remember that metric) to get their nails trimmed and buy some food.

One running joke we’ve had during the trip is that Ginny keeps misplacing her keys.  When you can’t find a set of RV keys, it means nine keys (the engine has its own key, the cargo bays have their own key…) are MIA.  It’s been a source of sparkling commentary along the way.

Now we had a new key-related twist.  I got to PetSmart, turned off the car motor, tried to lock the doors …and realized I didn’t have a key to the Jeep, which has keyless fobs.  My fob was attached to my rig keys, which were at the service place and Ginny’s was with her at the salon. Sting, Roxy and I turned my bad self-esteem moment into a nice hour-long urban hike. We walked downtown, grabbed Ginny’s key from the salon, then walked back, fetched the car, and got back to the salon right as Ginny was done. 

The Stair Caper persisted, however.  When we got to Quality Coach mid-day, they still were wrestling with the wiring problem that caused the stairs to go haywire. It wasn’t until 5:00 that we bid a fond farewell to everyone at Quality…

…and finally left Eugene with working stairs  (hopefully, this is the last time you have to read the word “stairs” on this blog).

We drove to the Coast and spent the night in the little town of Winchester, where the only pizza place closed at 8:00pm (which I discovered at 8:15).

We had a lazy Wednesday morning and hit the road at 11:00.  We drove down the southern Oregon Coast (it was painful to drive past Bandon Dunes without stopping and teeing it up!).  We had a new issue to deal with on the drive – SUN!  As in, where are the sunglasses?!   We paused along the way for our first beach walk of the trip.

Late afternoon, we drove through the northernmost redwood forest.  It’s a magnificent experience.

If Scott Pruitt and Ryan Zinke ever try to allow these trees (most are in national forests) to be logged, it might be the Fort Sumter moment for California to secede from the union. Many of them are 1,000 years old. Their size (both height and girth) is imposing.

We spent Wednesday night at the Ancient Redwoods RV Park, which is exactly what you’d expect – a meadow full of RVs amidst a grove of redwoods.  In some ways, it felt like the first real day of the trip – discovering new places and admiring new-found scenery (and getting into and out of the rig without jeopardizing anyone’s ACLs).

And it wouldn’t be a road trip without some tourist kitsch!

We didn’t arrive until almost dark, so we couldn’t fully enjoy the park.  It had been a long day’s drive, but it left us only 200 miles from Bodega Bay, our Thursday destination, so we thought the extra driving on Wednesday was worthwhile, to give us an easy drive Thursday.

Not.  Quite.

Most of our route Thursday was on California Route 1, which tracks the coastline.  According to the map, it didn’t look like a tough drive.

We should have done some more research.

The numbers don’t lie – it took us over nine hours to drive 200 miles.  Neither Google nor Rand McNally showed the hairpin curves or the steep uphill and downhill grades.   We won’t dwell on the sharp turns on the edges of cliffs with, uh, minimal guardrails.

The coastline scenery was spectacular.  However, we didn’t take pics of many vistas because we had our hands full with driving.  At one point, the Iz had to downshift itself into first gear to make it up a grade after an ess curve.  After a while, it started seeming like good news when we got to a curve with a warning sign that we only had to slow down to 25 mph.

We had a mid-afternoon respite in the historic little town of Mendocino, which we nicknamed Litchfield-By-The-Sea.

We finally arrived at our campsite on the beach at Doran Park in Bodega Bay (if you’re a Hitchcock fan, that will ring a bell – it’s where The Birds was filmed) just before sunset.  The dinnertime bottle of wine never tasted better!

Friday should be an easy drive.  Really. It’s only 100 miles to San Jose to visit with our dear friends, Jim and Eileen Beckley.  No hairpin turns will be involved.  And the day has already started with a long walk on a sunny beach!