Any Amazon.com purchase made through this link helps support this site - thanks!
 |
|
|
|
   |
|||
| >> February 22, 2011 >>> Sundial Bridge  After our free continental breakfast at the terrific Mountain Gate RV Park, we packed up and headed down the road to Turtle Bay Exploration Park and the spectacular Sundial Bridge. While its ultra-modern design is somewhat out of place in rustic Redding, it's also really cool and definitely visually striking. It crosses the Sacramento River with a glass walkway for pedestrians, bicycles and dogs - lots of dogs. There's a nature museum at one end (closed today), and extensive botanical gardens at the other. All signs of rain were gone, and blue skies & snow-capped mountains in the distance made for a gorgeous walk over the river. Fly fishermen were wading off one side and a golden lab was swimming on the other. Later we headed back to Shasta Dam and took the free tour, including an elevator that drops 43 stories inside it in under a minute. The dam is an engineering marvel, built between 1937 and 1945. The most interesting thing I learned from our tour guide? The dam's concrete is still curing!Then we hit the road to home again, having completed another fabulous mini roadtrip. Poor Trixie the papillon still won't sleep in a moving car so she's exhausted after dozing with her eyes open for three hours, but the hour plus we were on the tour was the longest she'd been alone in the van so far, and she did great.. hopefully she got a little shut-eye then. >> February 21, 2011 >>> Farther up the river  I stayed home this weekend, technically, but took off late Sunday afternoon on a spur of the moment trip after attending a bridal shower. This time I wanted to do a longer drive - the price of gas be damned - so we headed north up I-5 and after three hours or so of fabulous night-time highway driving, we ended up near Lake Shasta.I'd checked the weather before we left and it said the rain was over for a week or so, but I only checked for home - oops. I'd made a reservation for a late arrival at a highly praised RV park and the drive up was dry, but as soon as we got plugged in and settled, it started to sprinkle. I quickly got the dog out to do her business before bed since she hates rain (and I hate her having wet feet, especially in such a confined space as the van), and then the rain really started. It poured & poured all night, occasionally waking me up.  Luckily it was tapering off by morning, so we set off to Shasta Dam a few miles away in hopes of taking a tour. Well, being a holiday, they weren't doing tours today, but we were allowed to walk out onto the narrow two-lane road that crosses the dam, and it was spectacular. The clouds started giving way to sunshine when we were out there, and it was so bizarre to look out to the lake not far below us on one side, and way, way down to the hydroelectric machinery and the Sacramento River on the other - the same river we camped at last week, but about 170 miles north. And it was really cool to look straight down at the spillway - it's the 9th tallest dam in the US, and that's saying something. We're going to try again tomorrow for a tour before heading home, to find out how it all works.This is a very nice RV park, with a helpful, friendly staff and very clean restrooms. The wifi isn't screaming fast but it's free, and the site pads are terraced so while they aren't on top of each other, they feel more spaced out than they really are. It's also the fullest we've been at so far, with a rig in every third or fourth site. And it's cold up here! There's a lot of patchy snow on the surrounding peaks (much of it probably fell last night) and we saw quite a few slushy roadside remnants today. But we stay warm & snuggly in our little van for the most part, and its heater warms us up in no time when it gets too chilly. I did a monster job Friday & Saturday and have another coming up on Wednesday, so this unplanned trip is just the ticket for some R&R between them.. especially now that it's clear skies above with a zillion stars shining down on us. >> February 12, 2011 >>> River Road  It turns out the loud kerplunky splashes aren't fish at all, but beavers - and busy onesI've driven to Sacramento dozens & dozens of times: it's a straight shot, 90 minutes of freeway from my place. I'd always wanted to take what's called the "River Road" but for some reason never had, until today. Being partway there already and eager for some driving & sightseeing, it seemed a no-brainer, and what a great idea it turned out to be. Highway 160 follows the Sacramento River along levee roads and back & forth across tiny drawbridges, through a few funky little towns with lots of bait shops, big old farmhouses with fields being readied for spring crops, vineyards, a number of campgrounds, and a lot of nothing. It was a fantastic drive - there's just something romantic & relaxing about rivers and river life, and today's perfect weather didn't hurt. Once in Sac, we went to visit a very special friend in her totally cool little house jammed with antiques and knick-knacks, and her husband, and her gigantic chocolate lab, and had terrific conversation and a fantastic dinner, topped off by homemade cheesecake made with a recipe absconded from the famous Brown Derby restaurant. We could have gone back home but decided to stop back here at our riverside RV park with no neighbors again for another night of peaceful rest. All in all, I'd call this one a perfect day - big ups to Carol for being a big part of making it so! >> February 11, 2011 >>> "...in a van down by the river"  Currently parked on the Sacramento Delta, which is a system of waterways & antique levees where the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers meet to dump into San Francisco Bay and the Pacific, and you know what? It's not as bad as Chris Farley made it sound.This is an RV park and marina and while there are lights in only a few of the boats, there are quite a few RV occupants here. Most of them are down below us: being small, our site is on the levee, with no close neighbors, and just off the road. Not that that's a problem: there's only been maybe a half dozen cars go by since we arrived this afternoon. Earlier some guys from the US Geological Survey were pulling their boat out of the water after working on a fish tracking project - USGS are also the guys who track earthquakes and who knows what else.. interesting government work, as government work goes. Outside of boating, fishing and water-skiing in summer, there's nothing to do here except what you brought with. All afternoon and evening we saw and heard a myriad of different birds, large and small, but now that night's fallen, the silence here is complete, broken only by the occasional loud plunk-kerplash of some very big fish jumping. The sunset pic is of Mt. Diablo, site of our first excursion in the van, this time from the other or "back" side of it. Tomorrow we'll head up the ancient River Road to Sacramento to visit one of my most favorite people in the world, then probably back here late tomorrow night. Power inverters, propane, water tanks & pumps, electric hookups are all no problem for me now (yay!), and this time I rolled out the little awning to keep the dew off our "front porch," and hopefully some of the dirt off the floor. I might have internet, GPS, DVD, a microwave, fridge & freezer and a host of other modern conveniences, but in the end it's still camping, and camping can get real dirty, real fast. >> February 7, 2011 >>> To the sea  This weekend we headed west - as far west as you can go from here - to Marin County. That's what the Golden Gate Bridge connects San Francisco to, but we used a different bridge.We stayed at an RV park in Olema and this one wasn't quite what I was expecting, since the majority of it was closed for winter. An RV club was having a get together there and one of them had gotten sick and left early, so we backed into the deserted space surrounded by giant motorhomes and fifth-wheels. We were just a few feet from our neighbors on each side, which was odd, but my black-out windows for daytime and nice heavy curtains for night made it not so bad, or weird. There wasn't a lot to do there but walk around the grounds. Since we got there late Friday evening, I didn't get a Wifi password till Saturday, and by then I was enjoying the break from my computer so I never even used it. I did learn more about my fancy new phone (which didn't have coverage) and about the various Chevy controls options, and I had a great time watching Death Race 2000, a very cheesy '70s movie that was great fun. Saturday we drove out to [Sir Francis] Drake's Beach at the tip of Point Reyes National Seashore and enjoyed our lunch watching the waves crash in. (Click the pic for full size.) I almost felt guilty knowing the Midwest and East Coast are still suffering ice and snow while we didn't even need jackets at the normally brisk & blustery Pacific coast, and although nights dropped to the 30s, the afternoons all weekend hit nearly 80 degrees. After we returned, re-parked and re-plugged in the van, we walked down to the tiny town of Olema for a beer, leaving Trixie the dog alone in the van. Fortunately, she's adapting to it well and likes her perch on the rear sofa next to an open window. Also, I accomplished my learning schedule goal of mastering the water systems and tanks, and while we still drank bottled water, I used my little sink to wash dishes and brush my teeth. It feels great to make progress and now I think I've got all the basics covered of running the van - finally! |
entries latest october/november 2013 ~ brannan island, pinnacles march 2013 ~ capitol reef, arches, moab, donner march 2013 ~ virgin river gorge, zion, bryce, anasazi january 2013 ~ pinnacles, peacocks, omelettes, lassen june 2012 ~ burney falls, death valley, turkeys may 2011 ~ delta, eucalyptus, redwoods march/april 2011 ~ diablo, morgan hill, delta, chabot february 2011 ~ sundial, shasta, river road, delta, olema january 2011 ~ columbia, chabot, diablo, preparations much more to come, hopefully low frills I'm not set up for comments, blogrolls, profiles and the like, but please follow and/or talk to me on Twitter. I'm also on Facebook but it's pretty much focused on my Big Brother site Hamsterwatch, and anyway, I prefer the short attention span aspect of Twitter follow me on Instagram where most of my travel pics show up in a timelier manner than they do here  about me I believe the essence of a person is what counts, and that comes out through words, actions, and creations, not vital stats. Also, since I'll be on my own out there on the open road, I'm not real keen on making myself too visible. Suffice to say I'm a crotchety, intuitive, decrepid old lady who's equally appreciative of life's basics and its complexity. I like unicorns, rainbows and long walks on the beach reality tv, documentaries & unique movies of all types, memorable fiction, being awestruck, and nature's majesty. I do financial transcription work as well as running websites of my own and for a few clients. Serial killers fascinate me. I have an adorable little papillon dog but I only make her wear clothes on special occasions. Or when it's very cold. Use coupon code FreeShip2011 |
||
|
|||
All content Copyright © 2011-13 EverlastingRoadtrip.com