Northern California to Yachats

Well, when we woke up after spending several warm, sunny days in Red Bluff, knowing it was time to move on, the vote was for a straight shot to the Oregon Coast - do not pass GO, do not stop at another campground, do not do any sight-seeing.  Write it down for another camping trip, at another time.

We drove straight up Interstate 5, enjoying this scenery on the way past:

Mt. Shasta

Almost the second we drove over the Oregon border, the weather turned cloudy and foggy and cool.   You'd think the weather-maker knew we were on the way home and wanted to be sure we got a dose of true Oregon drizzle.

We did make it home.  Had dinner at our favorite spot on the ocean - The Adobe, completely oblivious to the fact that there had been a tsunami warning earlier in the day.  After almost 9500 miles of retirement cruising, we slept in our own bed.

I've decided to call this Retirement Cruise #1, leaving lots of room for our next trip somewhere in the Phoenix Cruiser.

Red Bluff - Day 2

We enjoyed a very relaxing day here at the Red Bluff RV Park.  We walked about 1/2 mile and ate lunch at an Applebees. Then walked back.  Good exercise!  When we finished eating supper, we sat at our neighbor's picnic table for an evening snack (as we had actually done last night, too).  They were going to the fair grounds to watch their second night of the Western Open Fiddle Championships and invited us to go with them. So we did.  It was a very enjoyable evening.  The picture is of a six year old who competed and was very good.

Red Bluff CA

We arrived in Red Bluff after a relatively short drive, yesterday.  It's a really nice RV park - clean showers, green grass, trees, nice people, sunshine and warm temps during the day. :)

We decided to stay a couple more days here, rather  than rush to the cool rains of Yachats. It's nice to not be driving every day, which we're been doing since the 2 day stay on the Mississippi.  I'll post again when we get on the move.

Nevada and Southern California

This was definitely a driving day. We're getting close enough that our auto-pilot says 'home.'  We left Mesquite, NV (our casino town), drove through LasVegas, oogled at all the tall buildings and flashing lights, and kept driving right out of the Mojave Desert, over the Sierra Nevada Mountains and into the San Joaquin Valley.

Today we had 3G service most of the time for our hot spot, making it possible to research everything of interest to us along the way. It kept Linda busy with Google on her tablet. Did you know that the Tehachapi Pass has more turbine installations than anywhere in California? They have several different generations of power producing turbines- hundreds and hundreds of wind turbines. The internet was a great source of information, making a long driving day more enjoyable.

Tonight's campground location is Coalinga, CA. We stayed here last January. Unfortunately, the fruit and nut stand is no longer right by the campground entrance  :(

A Day of Travel

We had a great day driving west on I70 and south on I15 to get out of Utah and through the north west corner of Arizona and into Nevada.  Our trip is going south to avoid the cold and snow that have shown up further north.  The day will be shown, again, in pictures.

The San Rafael Reef along I70 (in Utah)



This drive along the Virgin River Canyon (river on the right) was
what we saw for lots of the 30 miles that we drove through
the north west corner of Arizona.

We've experienced a first tonight:  We picked from the Trailer Life campground

book a campground that turned out to be on the grounds of and owned by a casino - The Casa Blanca RV Resort. There was extra rigmarole since we registered at the hotel desk, with all the people checking in to the hotel.  Not a bad spot to be, complete with a very nice pool and spa.  Our exercise today was the walk from the RV parking spaces to the restaurant in the casino/hotel for dinner. We're planning on a second round of walking for breakfast, tomorrow.



Our exercise for the day (in Nevada)



Another day in Utah's Beautiful Parks

We spent the day driving through the Dead Horse Point State park and the Canyonlands National Park.  Lots of pictures, lots of view points, even a 1/2 mile hike to see the Mesa Arch, and lots of shorter walks.  We should sleep well tonight.  Below are just a few of the great photos that we got.

The Monitor and the Merrimack in the background.

This was our 1/2 mile loop hike to see the Mesa Arch in the distance.
Arches National Park has more than 2000 identified arches,
but they are in every park around here. This is in Canyonlands.

A Grand View, where the Green River comes into the Colorado

The Colorado River from 2000 ft above

Arches National Park

We drove out of Colorado today and into Utah.  When we arrived in Utah, we did our usual stop at the state's Welcome Center to get a new map and any necessary (and not so necessary) information pamphlets.  We talked with a nice volunteer-type octogenarian who said, "Oh, I lived in Oregon at one time. Where do you live?" Us - "On the coast."  She - "Oh, I never went to the coast." Us - "Where did you live?" She (shyly and certain we had never heard of it) - "Malin."

We continued an interesting conversation and then said goodbye. What an unusual thing to have happen in Utah.

We visited Arches National Park, a beautiful and unique place. The rock formations are fascinating.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Phoenix Cruiser parked at one of the pull-offs




Picture from inside the Visitors' Center

Our road into the park goes up the side of this rock
(view from the Visitors' Center)

Another perspective - that's the Visitor's Center -
look down on the left.  We were coming back, after visiting
several highlighted spots in this part of the park.

Formations from which the park gets its name.

A lot of the rocks have names.
This one's name is Balancing Rock

This one's called Three Gossips

We even got in a little exercise.