Author: Dad (Primary Planner & Driver)

The first city bus pickup from our campground to Disneyland was at 6:15am, and the park opened at 8am. Our server at House of Blues at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, a season pass holder, said to get to the park before it opens so that we could get a spot for “Jedi Training” in the Star Wars area. Most of us are not early risers, however.

As usual, I was up first, so I used the time to plan the day a little bit. The night before, I had tried to buy the tickets to the park at the campground’s office so that we could avoid the line in the morning, but their printer was not working, so my first task this morning was to get those tickets purchased online. I noticed that the website said that it could take 24 hours to receive the email with the tickets, so I decided not to risk it. Next, I checked the park’s parking fees: $23/day for oversized vehicles. That was only $3 more than a city bus pass for the day, and a lot less than the $60-$80/day one of the other campground guests said they’d heard from the campground staff. It was an easy choice to pack up our whole rig and drive it over to the park. That would give us an air-conditioned restaurant at our convenience, any time we wanted it. We ended up using it for both lunch and dinner, and, in so doing, were able to stay from just after 9am until the park closed at midnight!

In terms of our park experience, it was overall VERY good. Except for one minor incident in our last hour, when Sean JT, who overreacted and whacked Sean, who overreacted and caught my attention, who overreacted…. but Mom separated us for a few minutes. Once we all understood what happened, we all apologized and headed for our last ride: Peter Pan. While I enjoyed the rides, my stomach wasn’t in love with them. JT wasn’t interested in one of the roller coasters, so I gave him some money and he went off by himself to find an ice cream that I had wanted to treat him to after some good deed in Las Vegas. While we stood in line, he kept in contact with us by text message, and, using my map, I helped direct him to the place. By the time he’d gotten there, waited in line himself, eaten his treat, and returned, we were almost done with the ride. He spent the remaining wait time playing Pokemon Go. Today was his first chance to see what all the hype was about. Apparently, the park is an excellent location to play, with constant opportunities to collect characters and do other things (whatever it is you do in the game). After dinner, while I was waiting for everyone to come out of the gift shop, the fireworks started. I noticed people walking by looking at the cell phones, and could see that Pokemon Go was on their screens. I guess their 4″ screen is more exciting than fireworks. I decided to count the number of people who were playing the game instead of watching fireworks. I counted 62 people! The number of people using their cell phones but doing something else, or who’s screen I couldn’t see was about a half dozen – less than 10, for sure. The number of them who were kids: maybe 3. Amazing. And sad. But it did spark one conversation while waiting in line for one of the rides. So that’s pretty good. Otherwise, I wouldn’t let him play it constantly, and he even put it away on his own a couple of times. I haven’t seen the game come out since. This, to me, means that the real world is still slightly occasionally more interesting than video games, sometimes. Whew!

Accidents do happen. We try to avoid them, but they happen. Particularly when you’re driving something 8.5 feet wide (which is a foot and a half wider than an average sedan) in moderate 4-lane downtown traffic and both ogling and trying to avoid using the Rolls Royce that’s passing you in the right lane as a speed bump. I may have drifted a little to the left? My driver-side mirror made a friend of a a van’s driver-side mirror in the oncoming lane. BLAM! My mirror folded hard into the driver’s door. Still moving, I pushed it back open, expecting to see shattered glass. Instead, the mirror was blowing in the breeze, dangling by the heater wires. I gathered it up with my left hand, still trapped in motion in that left lane. At the next stoplight, I was able to see that there were 4 clips on the back of the mirror, so I snapped it back into the housing to worry about proper adjustment later. The lower, wide angle mirror was still in place and still giving me a good view for now. A few traffic lights later, though, a familiar white van appeared besides us. We stopped and talked a minute. She thought her mirror arm was broken, though she was happy to show me that the glass was in tact and her power mirror operation was still fine. I had to demonstrate to her that the arm is designed to be collapsible by showing her the feature on the passenger side of her van. That satisfied her. We shook hands and were on our way.

Though calm and collected during the ordeal, once it was over, I started to get a little rattled. Pulling away from the curb of the side street we had ducked into, I thought I double-checked, using both my right mirror as well as my backup camera, the location of the small tree so close to the side of the road. I needed to make sure, as I turned left to get onto the street, which causes the tail end of the RV to swing right toward the curb, that I wasn’t going to hit the tree. It looked good, I started moving… still good… I’m keeping an eye on the left mirror and ahead of me for traffic, now, I’m almost fully into the street and starting to speed up, and… SCRAAAPE! What now? It didn’t sound like the low hanging ends of tree branches we’ve heard scrape across the roof a couple of times. Maybe a little louder? Maybe to the side more than on the roof? Oh good grief, did I avoid one disaster only to do something even more stupid immediately after? This time, I wasn’t pulling over. I put it in park right there in the lane of that side street and jumped out and held my breath during the too-long walk around to the rear passenger side. And.. no big smash up! I didn’t hit the tree! That confirms that I was correctly avoiding it. What made that noise, then? Upon closer inspection, I could see evidence of where a pencil-thick tree branch dragged along the last 6 feet of the RV about 8 feet up. No damage, just a clear line where it’s wiped the dust off. Whew. One close call is enough… two is too much! And I was clearly getting too cocky of my more than 3,000 accident/incident free miles. Time to get OUT of the city!

We were off the planned route, anyway. Mom had spent some time with the map in the morning, and realized just how close we were to Santa Monica and Santa Barbara, and really wanted to go through both.  I knew, from my research, if we took any of the major streets in Hollywood straight West, we’d get to Santa Monica, so that’s what I’d been doing. Our original route took us in a more direct Northwesterly route toward the Pismo Beach area, coincidentally right past the mansion filming location of Mom’s favorite TV show: The Bachelor/Bachelorette. She declared she’d rather see the beach. I was also in none too much of a hurry to get onto to the Pacific Coast Highway (Route 1) because I’ve heard it can be slow. As it was, we weren’t scheduled to get to the campground until 8:30pm. But we were leaving Hollywood a couple hours earlier than planned, so maybe it would be a wash.

Mom felt the detour was worth it. She was quite happy to see the coast and the towns. Traffic was quite slow on Route 1, which we learned is generously sprinkled with stoplights in this area. The morning had started just after 7am for me, when I departed the campground in Anaheim with all 3 of my passengers still in bed. (Remember, we were inside Disneyland until after midnight the night before, too). I knew the traffic would be slow around LA, but I was amazed that it took more than 2 hours to get the less than 50 miles from Anaheim to the Paramount Studio lot in LA. We had to skip the planned drive-by viewings of 4 points of interest in Hollywood just to get there at a decent time as it was. We were able to hit them up on the way out of town (Walk of Fame, Chinese Theater) but by mid-afternoon, my eyes were pretty tired. The road’s shoulder in this area is wide enough for parking, so I eventually just pulled over at one point, and crawled in the back and flopped on the bed. I know I slept, but I wasn’t sure how long. Mom said it was only 20 minutes, but I felt like it was a whole new day. We made a couple more photo stops as we continued North, and I even took a little detour through the center of Santa Barbara.

It was kind of neat to have a train following us down the last road to our campground; the tracks paralleled the street which paralleled the beach. Well, it was neat until we made the turn into the campground at the same time the train started blowing it’s whistle for the upcoming crossing. It was quite loud? Would we have to hear that all night? I did hear it one more time, but I was probably tired enough to sleep through any other whistles that may have sounded. So that worked out pretty well. It reminded me of our train experience in Arizona, too. When we pulled into the KOA right off the highway, I looked to see why I couldn’t see any truck/traffic noise, and found that there was a berm for the train tracks which nicely blocked the sound. I was really happy to see that, until about 20 minutes later when 4 different trains had already passed by. I’m pretty sure it did continue like that all night long – a train every few minutes – but it didn’t bother us (me) one bit, and nobody complained the next morning.

This day was planned for Mom, so she could have “at least one day to relax on the beach at the Pacific Ocean.” I had picked a beach closer to Hollywood, but the online reviews warned of occasional/frequent oil spills from the off-shore drilling rigs. As a result, I had looked at Google Earth and found some beaches North of them, which landed us in the Grover/Prismo Beach area. It turned out to be a really nice choice. Albeit cold and cloudy in the morning, Mom, Sean, and JT made the 300-yard trek first thing (though not early). JT came back immediately… bored. He was, however, accommodating in making a couple of trips back and forth with forgotten items. I stayed at the RV to take advantage of the power and internet connections to catch up on a few client, employee, and hockey Treasurer emails. The problem there, of course, was that every time I finished one thing, I discovered 2 more to be done. I allowed myself to succumb to the multiple text message requests from Mom to come down. I wasn’t so interested in the beach and water as I was in maybe doing some jogging.

When Mom and Sean first got to the beach, the fog prevented much of a view. Sean sat down and started digging a hole/fort in the sand, to which I added my own efforts later. As we made the hole bigger and deeper, the weather improved, so we dug for quite a while. When Sean was finally satisfied, we covered the hole with a blanket and he crawled inside with a couple of bags of potato chips. I headed out for my jog, with the Pismo Beach pier in sight, at least a mile down the beach. It was a nice, easy barefoot run down and back… enough to really tire me out, though. I also got hot enough to jump into the water, and since JT had finally joined us at the beach, too, by that point, they followed me in as well. (Mom had gone in earlier in the day.) The water was QUITE cold, but battling the waves and undertow keeps your mind of the temperature. Since my legs were worthless, I didn’t last long in the water. I was totally refreshed, though, and I think we were all glad to have experienced a little of the Pacific Ocean – I even got a good long body surf on one of the waves!

Oh, I should mention that we watched, for at least a 45 minutes, an enormous flock of birds following a bait ball of fish down and then back up the coast. Thousands of birds, at least; maybe tens of thousands. If you were in a boat in the middle of it, you’d probably be wishing you were in the Alfred Hitchcock movie, instead – there were that many birds. We were watching in hopes of seeing whales going after the same fish, but even though one of the lifeguards said he does often see whales, we weren’t as lucky ourselves.

After a long day of enjoying the beach, water, and mild temperatures, we returned to the RV where I cooked some steaks on the grill. Later, for the first time on the whole trip, we watched a movie instead of going straight to bed – microwave popcorn and everything. Mom wasn’t enjoying the movie, so she turned in early.

Yet another great vacation day.

We were behind schedule all day. The day before, I wasn’t going to bother with the $10 deposit for the bathroom key at the campground, but the key was also needed to access the laundry room, and Mom was keen to do another load. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until close to the office’s closing time of 4:30pm that I realized we’d want to return the key that evening in order to get our $10 back without having to wait until the office opened again in the morning. By the time Mom retrieved the dry laundry and made it to the office, they had closed. They didn’t open again until 9am, and I had wanted to leave at 8:30am. Everyone got a little extra sleep, and we began the day behind schedule to begin with.

After a nice drive on Rt. 1, we arrived at the Hearst Castle National Historic Landmark. The castle itself is a 15 minute bus ride away from the parking lot and visitor center. Access is only by guided/scheduled tours, and all options take an hour or more. The next available tour was at 11:50, which didn’t agree with my original plan for leaving there at noon. We wanted to do the tour, though, so we made ourselves busy. I engaged myself with the exhibits at the visitor center while everyone else went back to the RV to have an early lunch.

Side note: not only is the main swimming pool at the castle empty because of the long-standing drought in that part of California, but the rest rooms at the visitor center are even closed! The only options are the chemical toilets out front (port-a-potties).

Anyway, as I suspected, the ultra-rich William Randolph Hearst’s expansive complex filled with exotic animals and precious artis amazing, and well worth our visit. Besides: I figured arriving at the Golden Gate Bridge closer to sunset instead of around 6pm might actually be a nice effect, anyway.

We had been enjoying Rt. 1 coming along the coast so far, but we didn’t realize that none of it would compare to what we were about to experience. For me, it was 70+ miles on a narrow, no-shoulder road, constantly sawing the steering wheel back and forth around cliff-hugging hairpin turns (walls or edges). We averaged about 20mph when we were actually moving, which was difficult: we wanted to stop at every turnout and take pictures, which was every 4 or 5 turns or so. Even though we managed to keeps the stops to a reasonable number and duration, it was obviously hard to chew through too many miles. Also… any place the road opened up enough to provide shoulders, we had to slow down for parked tourists who were locked out of the State parks on account of the nearby forest fires. Or… the fire service was using the shoulders to park their empty flatbed tractor trailers, which, undoubtedly, had brought fire fighting equipment to the area. So it was a busy road, and a real chore for me to avoid having my mirrors, or any other part of the RV, make any more friends. I saw more double yellow lines out the windshield and left rear mirror, and more single white lines out the passenger mirror, than I saw scenery. Nonetheless, what I did see was amazing and I know Mom and the boys really enjoyed the views. Even though some of the views were encumbered by fog, the fog, in places, actually enhanced the experience. We even saw a few houses between the road and the water, and wondered how they lived there… or WHY they lived there, so far from fresh water, a grocery store, etc. (if it was so often impossible to see out their window).

So it was a really enjoyable ride. Only twice, I think, did I ask for total silence in the RV while I negotiated stretches of steep downgrades + particularly encroaching cliff walls + tight turns. Even the sections that took us through inland farmlands were interesting, and, for some reason, the traffic jams that were in those areas didn’t bother us, either. It was just fun to be passing fields of “exotic” groceries like artichokes and kiwis.

Then, suddenly, we were on the other side of the seaside hills, and driving through lush forest… only to burst out just as suddenly into suburban and urban San Francisco. We were excited to be arriving at another iconic destination and see… with our own eyes… live and in person… the Golden Gate Bridge. We followed signs, obeyed stoplights, fought traffic, and, because of the increasing fog and decreasing visibility, watched the GPS bring the bridge closer.  Almost there, we went through a tunnel and expected to see the bridge soon after emerging. However, the fog remained thick. I started to chuckle to myself, and then out loud. When asked what I was laughing about, I told everyone that it was going to be funny, but… I suspected we weren’t actually go to be able to see the bridge! I was right. I could see the shoulder and edge of the road disappear and become the low curb of a bridge – a red bridge. I felt the bump as we dropped off the normal pavement and onto bridge decking. I couldn’t help laughing as I called out “and now we’re on the bridge!”

We saw about 50 feet of the bridge at a time. We didn’t see the bay, and we definitely didn’t see the towers. I almost didn’t even stop at the viewing station at the other side, but I pulled in at the last second just so we could all have a last laugh. I don’t know how we all did it, but, as disappointed as we were, none of us threw any temper tantrums. I guess the Golden Gate Bridge will just have to go on our “next time” list.

By this time, we were probably more than 3 hours behind schedule, projecting to arrive at Cousin Aaron’s after 9pm. He, however, wasn’t going to be home from a client meeting until after 9pm himself, so it worked out just fine. It took me about 10 minutes, and the help of 2 spotters, to get through the tight… and sloped… S turn that is his driveway. I scraped the tail of the RV on the first attempt, and had to back out and adjust the approach angle, or I’d have been stuck there until a tow truck could be called. In the dark, I somehow managed to put first the right side into the bushes without crashing into the stone pillar and keeping the front left corner off the trees… then immediately doing the same with the left side at the next turn without crashing into the stone wall on the front right. I don’t know how I did it, but I will tell you: I absolutely lost sleep the next night playing videos in my mind about how I’d back out through the same path. As if a tight S turn wasn’t enough to worry about… making sure to do it at the exact angle so that different slope angles of the hill curve wouldn’t leave me like an ornamental bridge spanning the low spot in his driveway. I don’t think he… or his two neighbors that share that part of his driveway… would have appreciated that! But I’ll let you in on the secret now: I got out on only the 2^nd try, which was all it took to get in, as well: 2 tries.

We’ve heard that the Pacific Coast Highway is one of the best drives in the country, and we agree!

Since we specifically came to see Alcatraz, and did so well at being on time, I probably should have brought the tickets with me to Pier 33! I suppose part of the reason I do all this pre-planning, reservation making, and advanced ticket purchasing is because I’m so bad, in the moment, about remembering things. When I was in high school, I went to march in a parade with the school band without my instrument. I’m still like that today. I’m pretty much on par with my 3^rd and 4^th grade lacrosse players this spring. As the head coach, I tried to make sure to bring a spare everything to each game… and at different times, I think all of it got used. Oh well. At least Mom helps me remember things. But today we made the 30-minute (more?) Uber ride into town from the suburbs, and I had left our tickets in the magical blue folder. Ugh! How relieved was I that they were able to find the record of my purchase and make reprints. That left us enough time to walk along the piers and revel at our 2^nd chance to not see the Golden Gate Bridge. There were several other non-red bridges that Mom kept pointing to and asking me if they were the Golden Gate Bridge. Maybe she would have been just as excited if I had said “Yes” as if she’d seen the real thing. But I didn’t dare. Sean chose the book Al Capone Does My Shirts as his required summer reading book this year, and I’d been reading it, too. It was really cool to compare the author’s depiction of Alcatraz to the real thing – and everything was quite accurate. As a result, the volume of birds (and bird poop) on the island didn’t surprise me. Other features, I knew to look for (staff housing). The 12 minute ferry ride, short informational movie, and the self-guided audio tour (all included in the base price) are excellent. This would not be the first time that I was impressed with the high quality presentation by the California State Parks.

I knew to expect that the island would be damp and chilly, with the constant breeze coming off the water. I was surprised how small the cell house itself was, and how much more like a 3-high stack of cages it is, then what I thought it would look like. I was also surprised to clearly see that all the behind-the-walls plumbing sections that you see in the famous Clint Eastwood movie are so clearly visible to the guards! Most impactful to me, though, was how drafty the cell block is. I know it’s deteriorated over the year, but even if it was half as drafty back when prisoners were there, it must have been a VERY miserable place, indeed. The few tiny little steam radiators couldn’t possibly have been sufficient. Though none of the literature mentioned anything about it, so maybe they were enough? There were more escape attempts than I’d heard about, too.

When the audio tour was done, we went back to the dock area, found a place to sit, and ate the peanut butter sandwiches, chips, and fruit we had brought. I don’t think everyone was any too excited to be packing a lunch, but when you’re on the road for this long, unemployed at that, you can’t always eat the over-priced tourist fare. I think it gave us a chance to really take in the place, though, before we boarded the ferry for the short ride back to shore, where it was already slightly warmer. Once there, we walked around the Fishermen’s Wharf area to see the shops. We found a set of docks where Sea Lions were lounging. We’d seen some near Hearst Castle the day before, but weren’t thinking we’d see any more. With plenty of time available to us, Mom and I even dragged the kids into a pub, fed them something off the appetizer menu, and each enjoyed a beer (more accurately, we each had 3 small beers as a part of a “sampler” option – she chose the IPAs, and I chose the dark beers). Then, we took Uber back to Cousin Aaron’s. Caught in traffic… at 2X “Surge Pricing”… it was an expensive ride. But, I had expected it, so I just made use of the time and took a nap.

We got back in time to meet the 8-month old twins, briefly, and then join Cousin Aaron, Tiffany, and a couple of their very nice friends for dinner at a restaurant called “Terrapin Crossing,” owned by Grateful Dead bassist, Phil Lesh. It was some very good food, and we were happy for the socializing. The boys’ behavior during dinner was fantastic, too. They participated in the conversations at times, or kept to themselves at other times. So we adults were able to enjoy the time!

I’d gotten up early to conquer the tricky driveway at Cousin Aaron’s San Francisco suburb and still leave on time, despite the late outing the night before. Our main destinations were 2 Napa Valley wineries whose websites reported they were kid-friendly. As it turned out, the boys were tired and just as happy to chill/nap in the RV while we visited and tasted at both wineries. As long as the boys behaved, we were happy to leave them, as we knew they’d be bored watching us taste wine, anyway – we were just standing at counter tops talking to the hosts. So we had quiet leisurely visits, and really enjoyed ourselves. We tasted whites and reds ranging in price from $18 to $150 per bottle. With the prices generally above our normal wine budget (remember my free bottle from the first shopping day?) plus the 6-bottle minimums plus the shipping charges, we elected not to buy anything. We just enjoyed the locations and the experience, instead. The owner of the first place had taken great pains to build a replica of a medieval castle, which we toured, and the second place was a nice estate with a scenic walk around the pond. After both visits, there were no broken bones in the RV, and we got to our campground right on the edge of Clear Lake at a decent time to have a leisurely dinner and do a load of laundry. We declared the day a success.

After a wine tasting, it’s easy to imagine yourself as a member of the Olympic bobsled or downhill ski team as you slalom the hairpin turns on Rt. 1. Unfortunately, driving that way makes everyone else in the coach want to vomit.

Actually, this 3^rd winery visit in 2 days was impromptu. It was 4:30pm, and we were passing a place that was about 300 yards down the open hillside between the road and the cliff over the Pacific. It was so scenic, we couldn’t help but take advantage of their last half hour before closing time. I checked the rear camera, hit the brakes, came to a stop just beyond the driveway, and then backed up and pulled in. All 5 of their wines were very nice, but for Mom, it was the best winery of the day just on it’s setting alone. She repeated that declaration several times the next day, too.

When we walked up, unbeknownst to Mom, I had spotted a sign indicating that the winery’s guest cottage was available that night. I took a quick walk out back to see what it was like, and it certainly was ideal. The cottage’s one room was configured with a bed in front of sliding glass doors that overlooked a deck with a hot tub, a patio fireplace, and the ocean. It was PERFECT for Mom. I resolved to inquire. I was ready to let our campground reservations go unused. Unfortunately, before I could even rejoin Mom, I overheard another couple completing their arrangements for the lodging. Oh well. Instead, one of the winery owners set our expectations for the last remaining hour on Rt. 1: it would take us an hour and a half, we’d navigate 487 switchbacks, and we might see elk. We did see the elk, but we elected not to count the turns.

Much of that hour and a half was right through some amazing redwood forests. As impressive as the trees are, something magical actually happens when you touch one. Mom took the “tree hugger” term literally, but, for me, just touching something so massive and so old (nearly 2,000 years) is simply inexplicable. Also, in the thick redwood stands, the light is subdued, the temperatures are lower, and sounds are muffled. It’s quite amazing. Even after we left that area and joined Rt. 101, we still took the detour on the Avenue of the Giants to see even more of the incredible trees.

Keep in mind: this all happened at the end of the day. At Mom’s request, we’d started that morning late, which was fine because I as having second thoughts about stopping to see the model train at the “Skunk Train” station, anyway, so I figured we’d strike that from the itinerary. Also, there as slack built in at our other destinations. However, on our way to the Mendocino Headlands State Park, I spotted an inviting lagoon when crossing over a bridge. When I saw the visitor parking lot at the other side of the bridge, I doubled back and pushed everyone out of the RV (none of them had seen it, because it just appeared at a time when nobody was paying attention – taking a break from 22 miles of winding forest road exactly like the winding coastline road from days prior). Well, the soft sand and cliff-walled secluded beach were so inviting, we had trouble pulling Sean away. JT, sadly, was having stomach troubles, so didn’t stay at the beach for more than a few minutes. He missed the next stop, too, but once he got up in the afternoon and had a little something to eat and drink, he felt much better. It happens. No worries. We were just glad he wasn’t coming down with something – that would have really made the rest of the trip pretty miserable.

We were so far behind schedule, now, we almost didn’t proceed to Mendocino Headlands State Park. We were sure glad we did, though. The coastline there was similar to what we’d already seen, but the little town of Mendocino really caught our interest. We walked the wooden sidewalk (like the ones you see in the old western movies) and visited the beautiful 1800’s Inn. Sean joined us while JT finished that nap, and he had a nice time too. He wanted to descend to the beach where the hippies had made makeshift huts out of driftwood, but we knew it would be impossible to wrench him away if we actually let him down there.

So, between the lagoon and the winery, it was an incredibly long day. We didn’t pull into our campground until nearly midnight – and still had to eat dinner! There were no complaints from anyone, though. We were on vacation and enjoying ourselves. That’s what was important.

The end was nigh. We were all a little bit road weary, and there was a bit of a mini-mutiny when everyone saw looked ahead at this day’s agenda: a visit to Oregon Caves in the middle of a 5 hour drive. Everyone voted against the caves. Me too, actually. So I guess it wasn’t really a mutiny. I’d heard that they are fantastic, but we’ve been in 2 caves already this trip, so we figured we could forgive ourselves if we skipped it in favor of all getting a little extra sleep after the extended day it took to finish the last of the coastline.

We didn’t pull out until 10am, which used up only half of our spelunking time and set us up for a leisurely evening arrival in Northern Oregon around a comfortable 6pm. As I was packing up, a white and orange cat with a collar came to visit me. He let me pet him and went on his way, safely back into his owner’s RV, which was also pulling out this morning. It reminded us that our own cat would not be waiting for us when we got home; he’d fail to return from one of his nightly jaunts about a week after we left. Such are the dangers for creatures his size in the woods behind our house. Awe.

Sad as we were, it wasn’t hampering our vacation, though. We were relaxed and we were on our 26^th day in a row of near-perfect weather. It was mild and clear, and the next 350 miles were to be straightforward. Mom was asking to stop and cook lunch somewhere, but I was pushing for another in-motion meal to maximize the evening time instead. We ended up enjoying the last California miles so much that when we spotted a rest area just before a tunnel, we decided to pull in. Mom put the awning out, and I set up the grill right there in the parking lot. I cooked some hamburgers and hot dogs, and we put our feet up for a few minutes, quite satisfied with ourselves.

The “North Fork Smith River” had put us in a great mood. Follow it through the mountain canyon, the turns weren’t as severe, and the view of the river and quiet pass through the mountains was, of course, quite beautiful. The river ran so calm and clear across the rounded rocks 30-40 feet below the level of the road that, at one point early in our trip, it looked too inviting to keep driving past. I found a bigger turnout that I could use to reverse direction without blocking the travel lanes for too long, and made my way back to one turnout which looked like we could climb down the ledge. I put my bathing suit on and scrambled down right away, Sean right behind me. Mom followed a little more tentatively, but JT was quite hesitant. It was steep enough, and far enough, that he worried about being able to get back up. The ledge was covered in cement, though, holding the road bed in place, which made for a pretty “grippy” surface. I promised him I’d carry him back up if it became necessary, but I really felt like he ought to come down and at least touch the crystal clear and so fresh water. He agreed, but insisted he wasn’t going in or getting his hair wet. I was determined to go in, myself, though, and it couldn’t have been more fantastic. As I suspected, the river bottom, even though it looked to be about a foot deep, was more like 5 feet deep. If you’d dropped a newspaper to the bottom of the river, you could have read every word without getting wet.

The water was so inviting, not one of us could resist. The boys, especially, didn’t even want to leave. In fact, between that swim and the picnic, it was about 2pm before we were welcomed into Oregon, instead of 10:30 – 11am like we’d thought when we left the campground.

There was one important stop we needed to make before we got too much farther into the rainier Northwest: a stop at an RV/camping store outside of Eugene. With the tight squeeze among the bushes & trees at cousin Aaron’s, a branch had caught one of our open roof vents and cracked the thin plastic. Highway speeds had torn it apart, and now we’d be exposed if it rained. I plugged the address into the GPS and found that we’d arrive about 45 minutes before closing time. In no time, we had the part and had climbed on the roof and swapped the two screws necessary to get it replaced. In the mean time, Mom had found a replacement latch that would stop the hydraulic levels from periodically flipping open the television to the shelving behind. That was a minor annoyance we’d been dealing with or a while. At least many RV parts are pretty standard, apparently.

We rolled into the RV park around 8pm. Just as we pulled in, a couple spotted our Alaska license plate (because the RV is registered jointly with my mother) and asked where exactly we were from. It turns out the man grew up in Chugiak, but he doesn’t know Cousin Brad. He lives in Wyoming, now; not sure when he left. Anyway, they were a nice couple, and they shared some of their black raspberries with us. They grow wild and as plentiful as weeds in that area, apparently, and this was their third full bucket of the day. We’d seen them in California, too. These were delicious.

When it got dark, the two rows of trees flanking the one road of vintage trailers on the East side of the park lit up with Christmas-like white lights. It was apparent that the trailers are permanently parked there, each with a pair of bicycles and a gas grill out front. Seeing them at night like that, Mom wondered if she’d seen the campground on a TV show at some point in time. Since there was some confusion about my bill, the owner called me after we’d left the next day, and I asked her if the park was ever on a TV show, and she said it had been on several. Cool!

It took several rounds of the Uno card game to keep me awake all the way back to Seattle on the 27^the travel day. We’d traded the planned 7:30am departure time for something more like 9am, and agreed to skip the Portland Japanese Gardens. I’m sure they would have been beautiful. Back in Las Vegas, we’d seen an art gallery displaying giant photo prints of beautiful natural wonders – pictures of the Portland Japanese Gardens among them. Other pictures included some sights we had actually seen, though! We were all a little bit anxious, though, so we needed the extra time. I was anxious about figuring out what to do with the RV and where we’d be sleeping that night (hotel or RV). Mom and the boys were anxious both to finally see some of the Seattle sights as well as board the plane for home.

Before we pulled out, I’d done some research on the computer and resolved to call an RV consignment place that I’d talked to, briefly, before the trip. I also came up with a list of RV parks near the consignment place. Pulling out of the campground, Mom and I agreed to have the consignment place assess our rig later in the day, sleep in it that night, and turn it in the next day. The other option under consideration was to try to turn it in that day, get a hotel for the night, and try to visit downtown Seattle the net day. We both knew it would be too much to think that we could quickly vacate our home of 5 weeks… and we still had enough food left for a few meals, too. So we headed to Multnomah Falls, where we took a short sightseeing walk and had a picnic. The RV consignment place was accomodating, and the campground I’d selected as available, so we had a plan that looked like it was going to work well.

Multnomah Falls was a late addition to my itinerary, but it looked so inviting, I had added it to the trip, which created that early 7:30am departure time from the campground. An easy thing to visit (a two minute walk from a highway rest area) and beautiful sight, it was worth it. Returning to our RV, we found ourselves parked in among 5 or 6 tour buses from the same company. I had seen their guides on the trail and even asked one lady her tour’s route. She named some towns/cities I’d never heard of. I don’t know if their tour was by bus or cruise ship. But one funny thing… one of the old ladies returning from the walk came right up to our door and asked Mom if this was bus #3. “No, it’s our private RV” she said. “Oh!” the lady replied “Yes, I was confused because I didn’t remember the bus looking so nice!” I told Mom she should have tried to sell the RV to the woman. Ha!

Anyway, Multnomah Falls is a very pretty two-stage drop of over 600 feet (over 500 feet on them main drop). There’s a nice visitor center there (which we bypassed) and a nice paved walkway up to a bridge which crosses over the top of the lower 60- or 70-foot drop. As usual, the boys put up a little bit of a protest about being dragged out, but they did think the falls were pretty cool.

Seattle traffic was a nightmare, which didn’t surprise me because went through at rush hour and because I’d experienced the same three and a half weeks earlier. We took care of business at the RV place and headed to the campground where the staff was super helpful in giving us instructions for how to visit Seattle the next day, if we wanted.