Friday, June 30, 2017

Marina, bridges and a lighthouse

OH my.
That huge seal is actually alive and did move
just enough to verify LOL.
Brookings Marina....
 Love working boats.
They have such lovely character.





 A monument to those lost at sea.

 Bullard beach lighthouse.
We stayed at this lovely camp a couple of nights.

 And the driftwood on Bullard's beach
was huge and as far as the eye could see.

Sunset at about 9 p.m.
It's weird how light it is out at that time of night.
 And a visitor at camp - through our
dirty RV windows - Didn't want to startle him.
Meet a Stellars Jay.
Obviously loves fruit.

Thursday, June 29, 2017

Crater Lake is absolutely beautiful

And stunning!
It's an OMGEE Oh My Stars beauty.
Should be on everyone's bucket list for sure.

It's been awhile my friends.
It appears I've used all my hi-speed data for the month
so I'm on a data diet unless we find places
that have wifi. 
And out here they are far and few between.

The day was sunny and bright and the water calm.
Not.a.ripple.
No trick photography and not a lot of tweaking.
Basically this is it.







 Some excitement here.
These are skiers on this mountain - the one walking
had already skied down which we missed.
They decided on another run and we watched climb that mountain.
 To the top that took them about 20 minutes.
And we waited and waited and waited.
But they never came down.
Not that I blame them - a rest was necessary after that hike.
Will try to do better guys but internet (is not great out here either)
and wifi that doesn't rock.
We are currently at the Mercedes dealer getting an itty bitty
problem fixed with the RV.

On a scrappy note I did a bunch of pages.
Did I photograph them?
No. 😐
My bad.

Thursday, June 22, 2017

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride over hill and dale

And it was a wild ride.
It started innocently enough and we woke up after
boondocking at the Grizzly Creek Park
to the haze on the mountains.
 And a bridge.
 And then we entered Humboldt Redwood Park.
OMGEE...the trees are huge, beautiful and the entire forest
is magical.
 There also was a bit of nip in the air.
They are very very tall and normally I'd lay
on the ground to get the immenseness of them.
 But I decided to get the dimenision using our rig 
that looks like a mini car next to the trees.
 And a burl. 
They are sooooo coool.
 So the roads in the park are ugly. Really ugly.
Alot of twisty, turny curves that with big rig or towing 
caused problems, along with losse gravel and of course rude drivers
that made everything crazy because rigs just couldn't
maneuver that fast and really tried to get
out of the way but rude drivers made it worse.
 And didn't that take the enjoyment out of the ride.
Also, we decided to check out a lighthouse so we took this
road that was even worse than the park.
Ruts so big I thought we were headed to the center of the earth.
The inside of our rig looked like it was ransacked
by random thieves on that road.
It also was a loose gravel, big ruts, on a road that pretended
to be two lanes that had nail biting dropoffs
because the road was washed out in certain places.
And we FINALLY AFTER HOURS get to the road with the lighthouse
and the sign says MOTORHOMES NOT RECOMMENDED
on this road.
Seriously?????

So we had to cross this bridge with wooden slats in order
to get out of that area and it took a few more
hours of the same road to wind up right back where
we started in the redwood forest.
Whew!
 So evidently this redwood fell across the road and had to 
be whacked in order to clear the road.
 This one is as big as our rig.
So glad to be back on dry land after that ride.
We nestled in at the Emerald Forest campground and
did mundane things like laundry
and putting everything back where it belonged.

Headed for the Redwood National Park today where the trees
are even bigger. I can't imagine.
However, if the roads suck - that may be a game changer.
It was a tense road day yesterday that I really don't want to repeat.

Monday, June 19, 2017

Made it to California

And we're staying at the North Shore Campground.
In the meantime we headed to Lassen Volcanic National Park.
And what a pretty ride in it was.

 And then you come around the corner....
 It appears that they had some snowfall...
and they are clearing the roads so we could only
go as far as the sulphur pots.
It's gonna take them 2 weeks to clear it all out.
And here's Tom tossing a snowball at me.
Quite the action shot.
 Artistic license because I thought it looked cool.
 Run off from the snow melting on the mountains.
 Trying to catch the vapor rising in the background there.

 And a steamy, bubbling, boiling mudpot.
And didn't it not smell good.
 Additional runoff.
 Artistic license again with the bent tree.
Who doesn't love a bent tree.


So there are four volcanoes out there and so far
none of them are active.
They were spewing and brewing in the mid 1900's
and then went dark.
And that's a good thing.
However, because volcanoes are not the most
stable things geologists are keeping tabs on it 
which I find comforting.
At&t just informed me I have used 75% of my high speed data.
We're not even 3 weeks into this trip.
I'm in big trouble.

Sunday, June 18, 2017

Shoshone Falls Idaho

Are wild and beautiful and taller than Niagara Falls.
 There were multitudes of falls running into each other.

 Caught a rainbow below.
I had to look down.
 The power plant below in a cool looking building.

It was a lovely walk to and fro to the falls
the weather was gorgeous.

I even did a video of the falls that I can't find on my iphone.
Shocking I know.