Kit and Carol on the Road

Here are Wayne and Alice in their new "home" enjoying a well deserved rest. No RV trip is planned until June. 

It's been fun but now we are home and a lot of work is waiting for us. Pulled in last night on the 5pm ferry. It was a long drive from Sweet Home. We left there before 7am but stopped for breakfast, lunch, fueling, tank emptying, etc. Our neighbors were here to greet us. The lawn looks great but the ferns and other plants are really dry. I can see many days of weeding in my future. We spent several days in Sweet Home with my mom. Planted some flowers in pots for her--but the deer got some of them the first night so Kit had to create wire cages. Those pesky deer are everywhere. Hopefully this evening I will post a photo of Alice in her new "house". Then I will sign off for awhile as this is only a travel blog. We are going to Oaxaca at the end of April so will post some photos, etc after we return.

It is 75 degrees in Eugene today--this is the nicest weather we have had on our trip so are enjoying just sitting here in the sun. I went walking at Pisgah today and a few flowers are already blooming. The turtle was out swimming and I also saw a beaver/muskrat, or some furry animal. Yesterday we went bicycling in Junction City along the daffodil route. I was going to post a photo but haven't looked at it yet. Also had to go to Guarantee to look at Motorhomes. Today we went to REI and Trader Joe's. Tomorrow I hit VRC, have a bike ride along the river and meet some friends for lunch. To all you Guemiams--- it looks like we may be home Saturday evening. High tides seem to be in the evening this week. Going on stray adventures would complicate life.

As soon as we get the rig pointed north, Kit hits the pedal straight for home. We are now in Roseburg and will be in Eugene tomorrow. Looks like we've finally found the warm sunny weather. We should be in Oregon maybe a week. I'd like to detour the Olympic Peninsula but the pull of home is strong--so we will see.

We did not go south. We did go north but we did not stop at Laguna Seca. Burned out on rain and heading for home. Intended to go as far as Sacramento but stopped for lunch in San Juan Bautista and ended up spending two hours. Besides the mission, there is also a state historical park here. Lots of school kids. The town itself is quite cute: lots of antique shops and restaurants but not many real stores that I could see. Anyway—on down the road, we looked at the RV park at La Casa de Fruita (too corny) and ended up a quiet state park at the San Luis Reservoir. The evening was quite nice but the rain came in the night..
Friday we drove through the rain and here we are in the sun again—in Red Bluff. Heading for Oregon.

It seems to be our fate that wherever we are, the warm fine weather is not. We are now in Pasa Robles and the sun has actually come out. It looks to be a pleasant late afternoon/ evening--but alas rain is on the way tomorrow. A fate worse than weather is being here in wine heaven with our "tasters" totally out of whack. The sinus problems that began in Death Valley are still with us. (so much for the desert pollen theory) Everything tastes yuck. So no wine touring for us. We did,of course, go out to Bonny Doon, where we couldn't resist a little tasting, including a fine ambrosia which was not for sale. Anyway, the sad news at Bonny Doon is that the tasting room/ gift shop burned down last December and now they are operating out of a mobile. We had a good visit there anyway, chatting wines with a dealer from Wisconsin. We're leaving here tomorrow--either south to Lompoc or North to Laguna Seca. Either way we won't have internet access for awhile. You'll know we're approaching home when the rains come.

This season is so far the WETTEST on record in Death Valley. The ranger says that if we come again we should not expect to see a huge lake at Badwater, green hills, and wildflowers everywhere. We were two weeks ahead of the peak bloom but there were flowers a plenty. I had no idea there were some many wildflower photographers roaming the world. Both Kit and I were under the weather during our 3 days in the valley so didn’t get out too much but went on a wildflower walk with a ranger, and one on our own. Death Valley is so huge you have to drive hours to get to the flowers. We aren’t sure but I think all the pollen contributed to sinus problems. It was a hard 8 hour drive into DV from Indio and another nearly 8 hours out to Bakersfield. Now we are on our way to Pasa Robles which will be a shorter drive

Wandering through the Desert Gold in Death Valley