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Friday March 16, 2012

After yesterday, today is a lot more relaxed.  We are on our way to Darwin Falls, a little hike of 1.6 km
First a few more photos of the campground.
  

On our way to the falls.
  

The canyon is getting narrower and narrower.
  

Some tricky crossing!
  

The Darwin Fall.


On our way back.
  

Back at the campground we see this!  He is compressing the garbage.  Odd!


By the way, we found that California is not very recycling friendly like we expected...  Much like the rest of the US.

A very nice hike, but now we are doing some preparation for our trip tomorrow.

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Saturday March 17, 2012

The wind picked up in the middle of the night and this morning, it is still blowing very hard.
     

We are done with Death Valley for now!  We will be back.


We heard later on from other people that in the next valley (Death Valley) the wind was blowing much harder, to the point of breaking poles in tents and people leaving in the middle of the night because of the wind.

We are on our way to Central Valley, California.
  

This is not snow, but Borax.  The weather is a little confused...
  

We are coming down in Central Valley.  This is a very agricultural area.
 

You see all kinds of stuff along the highway.
  

We will spend some time in Tulare to relax.


More photos of the campground tomorrow...

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Sunday March 18, 2012

Once we got to Tulare, we went to the information center to find out what is there to see and do around here?
The answer was surprising!
Nothing!

We found a flea market not too far from here.   Not very good!
But if you need bras, any colours, any sizes, here they are.  Two places have bras.  One of the many Jeans shops.
Got to show the behind...
  

Twenty minutes later, we are back home.

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Monday March 19, 2012

A very quiet campground, even if it is very close to the I 5.
At least the hot tub is working, but the pool is not heated.
  
  

If you remember a few days ago, I had to empty my gray water tank because of a leak?
Now is the time to fix it.  The easy way!
The leak comes from between the clamp and the pipe, and a lot of little pieces of pipes glued together.
  

I cut the bad part and replace it with a rubber adapter.  No leaks now!
  
  

The work of a pro!

A treat is needed for great work!
Pork Ribs!


It turns out the ribs were not that good...  But the fix still holds!

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Tuesday and Wednesday, March 20 and 21, 2012

Tuesday we are off to Walmart and Costco.  What! We can see snow in the mountains???


And on Wednesday we got a TV show like scene, I mean the cops had to show up because of a dispute between the manager on the campground and one of the camper.  The lady actually slammed the door in the faces of the police officers!
WOW!


Other than that, pretty relaxed days.

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Thursday March 22, 2012

If there is one thing that I check regularly, it is the tire pressure on the motorhome.  I don't want a blow out while driving because of a low pressure situation!



In California, the exit have this type of lines painted on the right hand side.
Do you know why?


And for the entrance, this type of lines...


The only reason we could think of was during fog, the driver knows this is an exit and not a curve in the road.   For the second photo, a driver knows there is traffic coming from his right.
What do you think?

Hummm!  Only in the States will you see such a difference in advertising within a kilometer!
  

Many trees are blooming right now.  An aircraft spreading weed control stuff on a field.  Neat to watch fly around.
  

We traveled through Sacramento in no time, not a big city like I expected.


We decided to spend the night in a Walmart. The town of Willows is coming up.
As we get closer to the Walmart, I tried to see if it is big rig friendly, I am looking at traffic and I forgot the concrete separation between the lanes and turned too early, the back wheel of the motorhome went over it, broke two wine glass, and then the car followed.  Dented the lower quarter panel under the driver car door.
Tabarnaque! (French swear word!)


At the end of the day, nobody got hurt, so no worries, but I still feel bad from my missing the divider and driving over it!
My bad.
Tomorrow is another day!

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Friday March 23, 2012

A quiet night at Walmart.
Back on the road towards the north-west and the California coast.

We just like the colours of the tree!

As I mentioned before, the Sacramento Valley is very agricultural.  Lots of fruit trees.
Later on, we learned they were olive trees.
  

With the valley behind us, we now have to cross the Coastal Range.  We can see this white stuff in the distance!!!
  

Up and up we go!  At about 915 meters we see snow close to us!!!
  

Back down on the coast and the sign that warns you about Tsunami.
  

As we drive along the coast, we go up and down to finally get to the Redwood National and State Park.
  

Some big trees and back down again to the coast.
  

Here comes our campground, Kamp Klamath.


Once we are settle in, we take a little walk around and we see 6 or 7 chickens and a Boer Goat.
  

The weather forecast for the next few days?
Rain!
More campground photos later on...

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Saturday March 24, 2012

No hard activities today.  We are going for a 10 km ride .

From the campground, we follow the Klamath river to where it meets the pacific ocean.

Here it is, the Pacific.  You can see where the water from the ocean and the water, full of sediments, from the river mixes.
  

These building look like a farm, but in reality, they are parts of a radar station from the second world war.  Fearing an attack from the Japaneses, the Americans build radar stations all along the coast and disguise them as farms to protect them from attacks.


One of the many point of view along the road.
  

One of the big "Redwood".


Our car ride takes us to the little village of Klamath a few kilometers from the campground.
In the village you have one of the 3 redwood tree you can drive through.  Before we get to the tree, we look at this one, 603 years old, WOW!


It is now against the law to cut a redwood to allow cars to pass through.
This one is 735 years old and is 27 meters to the point where the wind broke it off, but with the branches still growing, it now measures 50 meters.  At eye level, the tree is 4.5 meter in diameter.
  

Because this place is in the shade all the time, moss is growing on everything, even the cement fence.


I love this mailbox...


A nice little car ride.  The rain comes back with a vengeance, so in we go and spend the rest of the day inside.

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Sunday, March 25, 2012

The weatherman says "100% chance of rain today".
So the sun is out!!!
We decide to drive the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway.  It passes through the hearth of old-growth redwood forest.

Lots of others trees are covered with moss.  With the sun shining behind them, it is beautiful.
  

One of our stop is at Big Tree State Park.  Here you can find one of the tallest and biggest redwood tree in this park.


Here it is, I cannot take a photo of it all.
  

Pretty bird, I think it is a Steller's Jay.


One of the trail we hiked.
  
 
  

We saw a few road signs warning us of elk in the area.  We saw 2 or 3 of them on the side of the road and then in one field, a whole herd of them.
  

The sunset is at 7:15 pm.
Off we go to the mouth of the Klamath river by the ocean to watch it.
What a beautiful sunset we got!
  

It is just incredible to walk in a forest with trees so big.
The photos do not even come close to show you how tall they are.
Just plain beautiful.

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Monday, March 26, 2012

We still have unsettle weather.  Rain?  Wind? Sunshine?
The rain stops for a while, the wind is still strong, but the sun stays behind the clouds.
Off we go to the mouth of the Klamath river for a walk on the sandspit.

To get there we walk by a native ceremonial ground.  Sweat lodge and other building are in this area.


The sandspit stretch for about 1 kilometer to the mouth of the river.
Lots of natural debris here, but also some man-made...


On the west coast, they have rock formation coming out of the ground and they call them "Sea Stacks".


Our destination?  Where the river meets the ocean by the hill in the distance.
I have to touch the pacific ocean.
  

Ahhhh!  Just like that poster!
Prints in the sand, and the wave that erase them...
  

Near the mouth of the river Klamath, you have this rock formation and it looks like an old woman carrying a burden.
The first people that lived here, the Yurocks, have a legend for this old lady.  She was placed by the gods to protect the men when they were out fishing.  She also protects the fish so they remain plentiful.


Right where the water from the river enters the ocean, quite a few seals are feeding.  They are very curious and they have to observe us, just like we do.
  


The rain is back, again.  We still had time for our walk on the beach.  It was very neat to watch the seals, but I think they were more curious than us!

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Tuesday March 27, 2012

The weather forecasters are predicting 110 % rain today, OK 100 %, and they are right this time.
So we stay home, it is a TV and internet day...
  

This is the second time the owner brings us fresh eggs.  Boy are they tasty!  Not like store bought...


A boring day and the humidity is slowly building up inside.  Take a long time to dry stuff.

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Wednesday March 28, 2012

We are on the move today.  Continuing our travel further north on the north-west coast of California and moving into the Oregon coast.

Once done emptying the gray and black water tanks, we are ready to move.


A last look at the chicken coop and the office that burnt down in this past year.
  

Nice and quite campground, but if you want stores or even a village with more than a corner store, not the right place.
On the other hand, if you like nature, scenery and big trees, this is it.

So humid here that moss grows on everything, even the roads...


Some of the scenery's we saw on our way north between Klamath and Coos Bay.
  
  

Warning signs we are not used to!


Like these ones!
  

At some point in our travel, we got fog, rain, enough rain to damage the roads.  This is not the first time we see this...
  

Our campground, Midway RV, in Coos Bay.


After we are set up, time to clean the car.  When we tow and it is raining, the car gets so dirty, unbelievable!


This part of highway 101 is very beautiful, I can only imagine if it was summer.
Twisty, but nice roads.

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Thursday March 29, 2012

Another day with high winds and rain...


The wind is blowing so hard that our satellite dish moved a few times during the day!


A little car ride to Cap Arago.  At times, we can see the waves from the car.


Hummm!  Can I see seals?


Sheltered from the waves, the seals are on the beach resting themselves. The lumps you see on the sand are the seals.
  

Once in Cap Arago, we got out of the car for a look/see, the wind is so strong we are a little worry we may lose our footing and fly off.  Honest, we have never experience such a strong wind.

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Friday March 30,

Weather forecast?
Rain all day, again!

Off to the movies.
On our way to the movies, we come across these two signs.  A stop and one below that tells you not to worry about it if you turn right!!!  Never saw that before.


A girly movie and me with the snacks.
The movie is not too expensive, only $12 for two of us, but the coke and popcorn ends up costing the same!
  

Mirror Mirror is a nice movie.  Lots of the special effects were done in Montreal, Québec, Canada.

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Saturday March 31, 2012

Woke up to rain.  Got ready in the rain.  Nice site, but the water has nowhere to go.  I walk around 2 inches of water.
  

On our way to Newport for a few days.


We had to stop at Sea Lion Caves.
The cave is a little to the right and below the building.


With the family of sea lions.
  

63 meters below ground, at sea level, we exit the elevator and enter the cave.
There are a lot of seals in the cave.  We stay for almost an hour watching them.
A special place.  A little warning before you go there, the smell!   I sure has a fishy smell down there in the cave.
  


A very interesting place to see.

Back on the road towards Newport.  Our first tunnel on the west coast.


We are in South Beach, close to Newport, Oregon.
We made reservation at Whalers Rest Resort.  They are members of the "Encore RV Resort and Thousand Trails" clubs.
Our first impression was not very good.  The person doing the registration was not the sharpest tool in the shed.  He even had the nerve to ask me if I was lying about my being a member of the Passport America club!  Unbelievable the lack of competence.
I even had to spell my name 3 times before he got it right.
Our first experience with the "Encore" club was not very pleasant.


Photos of the campground tomorrow.

Until next time.

Life is good...