The Foothills of the Sierra Nevada

Hi friends, welcome back to the story. Our last episode concluded on Thursday, July 18^th, when we left the tiny village of Mineral, California and drove to the Red Bluff Elks Lodge RV park. This after a week-long celebration with Peggy and Vernon Bullock and a dozen of our closest friends in honor of the Bullock's 50^th Anniversary. After our early afternoon arrival in Red Bluff we did a quick grocery run and found one geocache to keep our streak alive. After that we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in the coach, trying to stay cool in the triple digit temperatures.

Friday, July 19^th, the weekend heatwave was supposed to start today. They were forecasting temperatures over 100 degrees in most of the upper Sacramento River valley, which is the area we are in. We left the Red Bluff Elks about 10:30 and started south towards Paradise, California, a little town of about 20,000 just southeast of the City of Chico. We have never been to either of these places, but chose Paradise because it is a smaller town and is in the foothills of the Sierra's, about 2,000 feet elevation, which should make it a couple of degrees cooler than Chico. We arrived at the Paradise Elks Lodge around noon and got set up in their RV park behind the lodge.

We are a little concerned because the electric here is only 30 amp, which means we can only run one air conditioner at a time. The weekend is supposed to be extremely hot, even at the slightly higher elevation of Paradise. It is supposed to be 99 today here and 101 tomorrow. We went to the lodge and registered, paying for our five night stay. Oddly, the bar here at the Paradise Elks is only open during the day on weekdays. It is seems strange for a bar to close at 5:00, but that's their hours here. We did get a lodge pin for our banner, our first “new” lodge pin in many months.

After getting setup and having lunch we went out for a geocache and to do a little touring of Paradise. We have never been in this part of California before. We found one easy geocache just across the street from the Elks, thus keeping our consecutive caching days streak going at 26 days. Yea! We then set out to explore Paradise. Paradise was founded in the late 1890's during the California gold rush, which was taking place in the Sierra Nevada mountains to the east. By the early 1900's the gold had petered out and the town's economy turned to farming and ranching support. The area has a lot of olive and nut groves as well as dairy and cattle ranching.

I ended up driving south on the wrong road and we found ourselves driving back down the hill towards Chico. Since we were there anyway, we decided to make a quick visit to the Chico Elks Lodge. Chico has a very large lodge building with a nice bar and a huge ballroom, which they rent out for functions. There is also a nice RV park at this lodge. Unlike Paradise, they have no sewers at the sites, but they do have a few 50 amp sites. We had a cocktail at the lodge and visited with a couple of members. We also got a lodge pin for our banner, making two new lodges in one day.

After visiting the lodge we went back up the hill to Paradise. It is only about 11 miles from Chico, but there is only one road that leads directly from central Chico into Paradise, appropriately the road is called Skyway. Once we got back up into town we went back to the coach and tried to stay cool. So far the one A/C is keeping the coach reasonably comfortable, although I can't spend much time in the back in my office because is is too hot back there and we can't run the air. We spent the rest of the evening in the coach watching TV.

Saturday, July 20^th, today is supposed to be the hottest day of the year so far, about 101 even in Paradise. Yesterday afternoon we got a call from Peggy Bullock that she and Vernon were planning on coming down to Chico today for the big Farmer's Market, which is in downtown Chico on Saturdays. She said they have a lot of nice produce. I think they just miss us. They told us the market was only open from 7:30 to 1:00, so she said they would meet us there at 10:00. We would shop and then go to lunch somewhere. We left the coach at 9:30 and headed back down the hill to Chico. We were lucky to find parking right away right next to the market area. Peggy and Vernon arrived later and we spent about 90 minutes walking around the market together. It was mostly produce from local farms, but there were a couple of farmers there selling meats and cheeses as well. There were a handful of craft booths, but it was mostly food. We ended up buying some fruit and Jackie bought some ground lamb from one of the farmers. She loves lamb, I don't care for it. With the ground lamb she can have a lamb burger sometime when we BBQ and I can have beef.

After shopping the marketplace we met Peggy and Vernon at a restaurant which was part of the local Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. Sierra Nevada is a big local brand of beer in the Northern California area and their headquarters is here in Chico. They have a very nice restaurant with a nice menu. I had fish and chips, which were very good. Jackie and Peggy both had a curry dish that they said was delicious. Vernon had some kind of flatbread dish that was basically a steak kabob with a salad. He said it was very good too. After lunch we said our goodbyes to the Bullock's again and headed back up the hill to Paradise. Although it was very hot, we stopped and picked up one geocache just to keep our streak alive. We then stopped at one of the big antique stores in town. There are a lot of antique stores in Paradise and we like going through them. We hope to spend a little more time looking around in them on Monday.

We finally got back to the coach about 2:00 or so and I noticed that the air conditioning was making an odd sound, like it was straining. I checked the voltage coming into the coach and found it was about 104 volts instead of the 120 it should be. That is about the threshold where our surge protector will cut power to the coach to avoid damaging appliances. Things like air conditioners and microwaves do not like low voltage. I thought it might be a temporary thing, so I turned on the generator. With or generator running we could run both A/Cs, which was nice since we were able to cool the coach down and be comfortable. After a couple hours I shut down the generator and checked the voltage, expecting it to be back to normal. It was actually worse, getting down to as low as 96 volts. Our protection device kept shutting off power to the coach. After trying a couple different things, including changing power pedestals outside, I decided that the Lodge's wiring was just not sufficient to handle the high load caused by the extreme heat. We made the decision that we had to leave the park and find somewhere with better power.

We did a quick packing up of the coach, which was really rough in the high heat, and I went into the lodge and explained our problem. They were nice about it, saying they didn't know what the problem was, but that it has happened before. They did refund our money for the four nights we wouldn't be there. About 5:30 we were on the road again, about the latest we have been out in a long time. Of course, the sun doesn't set until about 8:00 this time of year, so we had plenty of light. We drove to the Chico Elks Lodge, which was only about a 16 mile trip, and tried to park in a spot there.

Unfortunately, they only had two 50 amp spots and both were taken. I tried parking in a 30 amp spot, but was not happy with the results. The spot was very short, leaving me out in the driveway an uncomfortable distance. The satellite dish on the roof was blocked by trees, and worst of all, their voltage at the pedestal was only 106 volts, almost as bad as Paradise. I did a little quick internet search and found a regular commercial RV park in Chico, only five miles from the lodge. By this time it was after 6:00 and the office was closed, so we couldn't verify that they had a spot for us. Since it was fairly close Jackie went out on a scouting mission to check the park. She called me after she got there and said they had plenty of empty spots and to come on over. I hadn't done any setup at the Chico Elks except to plug into the power, so I undid that and left the Elks to drive over to the Almond Tree RV Park. It was a quick drive and we got into our spot, a nice 50 amp, full hookup place. The power was great, 120 volts and a full 50 amps. By 7:00 we were hooked up, setup and cooling down with a nice cocktail.

Although this place is twice the cost of the Elks Lodges, at least we don't have to worry about the power being bad. In this heat that is the more important issue. We are just going to stay here for the remaining four days of our stay in the area. It was a busy day, with a nice start in the morning and early afternoon, and very hectic and stressful in the late afternoon, but it is all over now and we are happy to be here.

Sunday, July 21^st, another blistering hot day predicted for Chico. It seems that we picked the wrong summer to visit this area. The weather gurus are saying that the temps this summer are about ten degrees above the normal seasonal averages. We decided that today was a good day to go to the movies, the air conditioned movie theater. We left the coach after lunch and headed for the theater in Chico. We got into a 2:00 showing of the movie “The Heat” which stars Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy. The film was a fairly standard copy “buddy” movie with Bullock as an uptight, unpopular FBI agent forced to work with an McCarthy, an uncouth, wild Boston PD undercover officer. Both Jackie and I are big fans of McCarthy, the plus size star of Mike and Molly, Bridesmaids, and the most recent movie we saw, Identity Thief. Although the plot was formula, the writing was perfect for McCarthy and the movie was hilarious. I am sure this kind of mindless, slapstick comedy is not for everyone, but it is just the kind of escapist comic film that we like. I give it four large popcorns.

After the film we worked to get a geocache for the day to keep our streak of consecutive caching days alive. We struck out on the first one we tried, had to post a DNF, but we persevered and found the second one we looked for. It was way too hot, and too close to cocktail hour, to continue caching, so we headed back to the coach where we stayed the rest of the evening.

Tuesday, July 22^nd, my daughter Tracie's birthday. Happy Birthday Tracie! Another hot day predicted, although a couple of degrees cooler than yesterday. We left the park about 11:30 and went out for lunch at local Mexican restaurant. Casa Ramos had good reviews for both their locations in Chico and Peggy Bullock had mentioned that they had been there and found it good also. The restaurant was pretty typical Mexican inside, lots of color and kitsch. The menu was not typical in that there were few of the normal combination plates and no ala carte menu. They also had a couple of things I had not seen in a Mexican restaurant before, including a lamb shank, which is what Jackie had. It was presented in a chili sauce and Jackie said it was very good. I had the red chili plate, which had very tender and tasty beef chunks, although it was a little milder than I would have liked. There was lots of food and we both enjoyed the meal.

After lunch we went out to do some shopping. Our first stop was a Supercuts so Jackie could get her hair trimmed. After that we went to Costco. We are a little disappointed with Costco in that they seem to have discontinued several items which we have come to rely on over the last few years. They no longer carry the big barrels of sourdough pretzels that I love, nor do they carry their Kirkland brand Court Classic tennis shoes. That has been the only brand of tennis shoe I have worn for about 15 years. We have now been to a half dozen different Costco's and none have these items. I even wrote an email complaining to them about it and got a generic form response about only offering items that sell well. Poop on them. If they didn't have cheap booze and good meat I would stop going there. We also took the time to try and get a geocache for the day. Like yesterday we struck out with the first one we looked for, but scored the second, thus keeping our streak alive. After that we headed back to the coach and watched TV the rest of the night.

Tuesday, July 23^rd, we left the coach after lunch to go do our laundry. There was a laundry at the RV park, but it only had two washers and we had two weeks worth of clothes and linens. We found a nice new laundromat not too far from the park and got all our clothes done at one time. After a couple hours we were done and went out to do some caching. It was still hot, but about five degrees cooler than the weekend. We cached for about ninety minutes and got six new finds, including our number 5,500, another milestone. Yea! We also had one cache we couldn't find and had to DNF. Once we were done caching we headed home for the rest of the night.

Wednesday was another travel day. We packed up and were on the road at 10:00, headed south towards Carmichael, California, a suburb of Sacramento. The trip was about 100 miles, so we got into the Carmichael Elks Lodge a little after noon. We have stayed here at the Carmichael Lodge a number of times. They have good 50 amp electric and water, no sewers at the site, but they do have a dump on the grounds. The important thing was the good power so we could fight off the heat. They don't take reservations, but there were a number of open sites and we got settled in for a five day stay pretty quickly.

Later in the afternoon we went out to look for a geocache for the day and to go to Walmart for a few supplies. We finished our shopping and picked up one geocache on the way home. We are now up to 31 consecutive days of having at least one cache. Yea! We then went home and relaxed the rest of the night. We did get a late afternoon visit from our friends Sharon and Curt Minard. You may recall that they were with us in Mineral at the Bullock's anniversary party. They live in Carmichael and are members of the Elks. They knew we were coming into town and stopped by just to say hi and to introduce us to Curt's mother, who is 94 years old and spending some time with them. They also had one of Curt's grandsons with them. They didn't stay long, but we did make plans to meet them at the Lodge for dinner tomorrow.

Thursday, July 25^th, Jackie's brother Dennis' birthday. Happy Birthday Dennis. We left the coach after lunch to do some geocaching. We first made a quick stop at a nearby jewelry store to get Jackie's wedding ring fixed. Some of the prongs holding the stone had apparently got snagged and bent. She had the same ring fixed for the same problem back in May, so we went back to the same jeweler. He said he would have it fixed by tomorrow and that she must have gotten it hooked on something because the prongs were definitely damaged.

After the quick stop we did some caching for about hour or so, getting four new finds. We then decided it was getting a little too hot, so we went back to the coach to relax for a while. When we pulled into the lot we noticed that some friends of ours from Indio had their coach parked in the back row of the lot. Bob and Gloria Baron were members of the Indio Elks Drifters RV club back when we still had the house and were active in the Indio Lodge. They still live in the same country club where we had our house and are still members of the Drifters. We have not seen Bob and Gloria for a couple years, although Jackie keeps in contact with Gloria through Facebook and emails. Gloria had emailed her this morning asking if there was room at the Carmichael Lodge because they were leaving the Lake Almanor area and heading south. We hadn't expected to see them at the lodge already.

After a little rest and time to clean up, we walked over to the Baron's coach and visited with them for a while. It was nice to catch up and talk about our mutual friends back in the Coachella Valley. We asked them if they wanted to go to the Lodge for dinner, corn beef and cabbage, and told them that our other friends the Minard's were going to be there also. They thought that was a good idea. We went back to our coach for a little while and about 6:30 or so Sharon and Curt Minard arrived, with Curt's mother Millie. A few minutes later Bob and Gloria walked over and we introduced everyone. We talked for a few minutes and then the seven of us walked over to the Elks for dinner.

We got a nice table in the corner and had a cocktail and enjoyed our dinner. This was a meal cooked and served by volunteers, much the same as Jackie and I used to do back in Indio at the Elks. The corn beef and cabbage was very tasty, just not enough for my appetite, but we had served some cheese and crackers at the coach before we came over, so that took the edge off a little. After dinner Curt and Sharon went home and the Baron's went back to their coach. We just watched TV the rest of the night.

Friday, July 26^th, we left the coach about 10:30 and took Benji the cat to a local Petco to get his claws trimmed and get his little plastic “soft paws” glued on the nails. The plastic covers really help to keep him from digging up the carpet and other fabrics in the house. He is generally good about using only his scratching post, but like all cats he sometimes forgets and starts to dig something else, usually the carpet under the table. After his appointment we took him back to the coach and had lunch, then went out for some shopping.

We stopped and picked up Jackie's ring and then drove to one of the large shopping malls in Sacramento. We really didn't need anything, we just wanted to kill time and get a little walking done in an air conditioned space. We spent a couple of hours walking the mall, window shopping and generally wandering around. We didn't buy a thing. After our shopping tour we did a little bit of geocaching. We couldn't find the first two we looked for, but we finally struck pay dirt and found one not too far from the coach.

We went back to the coach and I started to make up a big pot of chili for dinner. Jackie had invited her friend Kathy and her husband Bill, who live in Citrus Heights, the next town north, for dinner. They arrived about 6:00 and we had a nice time catching up. We last saw them in May when we came through Sacramento. However, they hadn't seen our new changes to the interior of our coach, so we had a good time showing off. We had a very nice dinner, the chili turned out great, and had a fun time talking and reminiscing. They left to go home about 8:30 and we just chilled the rest of the evening.

Saturday we decided to have a little down time, so we stayed around the coach for most of the day. We did leave for a half hour or so after lunch to go out and get one geocache to keep our caching streak alive. About 6:30 we left the coach and drove to a nearby Mexican restaurant, Urbano's, to meet Kathy and Bill for dinner. They recommended this restaurant and said they eat there often. The place was in a strip mall and parking was difficult, but we finally found a spot. We ended up in a booth in a side room in which a large party was having a pre-wedding dinner. They were fairly well behaved, so it didn't impact our dining much. The food was OK, not the best, but they certainly gave you a lot of it. Both Jackie and I ended up taking some home for lunch. After dinner we went back to the coach for the rest of the night.

Sunday, July 28^th, we went out after lunch and took a drive to Sam's Club to try and get a couple of the things that we used to be able to get at Costco, but which they stopped carrying. We did manage to find the big bag of broccoli and the shrimp scampi we use, but no tennis shoes or sourdough pretzels. I had looked online and found that Cost Plus World Market carried the Utz sourdough pretzels I like, and there was one nearby, so we went there after Sam's. Yea, they had the big barrel of pretzels. On the way home from shopping we stopped and picked up a geocache so we would have one for the day.

About 4:00 we left the coach and drove to Curt and Sharon Minard's house for dinner. They live about a mile from the Elks Lodge, just outside the Carmichael city limits. They have a very nice, older tract home that they have extensively remodeled. They have a nice pool and even room to park their motorhome, which is the same size as ours, in the side yard. We had cocktails and chatted for a while before Sharon started dinner. At dinner the other night at the Elks Lodge the Jackie and Sharon had a conversation about abalone and the fact that the Minard's were going on an RV outing with one of their RV clubs in a few weeks and they would be on the coast of Northern California diving for abalone. I have never had abalone but Jackie said she used to have it all the time, before it became endangered, and used to love it. Sharon said they go abalone fishing every year and that they had some in the freezer and that's what she would make for dinner on Sunday.

For those who don't know abalone is a very large mollusk, a sea snail, which used to be very prevalent along the Pacific coast. A few decades ago abalone became endangered from overfishing and environmental issues, so commercial taking and sales were banned. California allows sport fishing of certain varieties of abalone, but there are very strict limits and regulations and it is unlawful to sell abalone under any circumstances. One of the things about abalone is the meat of the snail is very tough and needs to be sliced and then pounded to tenderize it. Sharon spent a half hour pounding the daylights out of the abalone she was making. She breaded and pan fried the abalone and served it with some pasta and vegetable dishes and some garlic bread.

We had a great dinner with good friends and really enjoyed the evening. For me the abalone was a bit of a let down. I had expected great flavor, but it really didn't have much. It wasn't bad, but it didn't really taste or feel any different to me than a calamari steak. The squid has the same look and texture. Nonetheless, Jackie was delighted to be able to eat abalone again after a couple decades. We chatted for a while after dinner and finally left to go home about 9:00.

Monday, July 29^th, another travel day. We had the coach packed up and ready to travel about 9:30. We had to stop for fuel but then headed to our next destination, Nevada City, California, about 60 miles northeast of Sacramento on I-80. We are going to a private resort called Harmony Ridge, which is one of our membership parks under the Resorts of Distinction group. We have never been here before, in fact we have never been to that area before. The drive was uneventful and we arrived at the resort before noon.

The resort is very rustic, looking more like a forest service campground than a resort. We did get a full hookup site, however, with 50 amp, water and sewer. By maneuvering around in the spot I was able to get the rooftop satellite to come in, albeit without High Def, but at least we have TV. We have no telephone or Verizon internet because we are in the middle of the woods, but the resort has WiFi, so we should be OK.

After we got setup we went out to explore Nevada City, which is about three miles south of the resort. Nevada City, population about 3,000 is a quaint little town built in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The town was founded in 1849 during the gold rush and was one of the most important cities in the area during the mining era. It now relies on tourism for it's economic support. There isn't a flat spot in the town, it is all built on rolling hills, including the very interesting looking downtown. We spent about 90 minutes driving around the town, including the residential areas. There are some very nice, very large houses, as well as the more typical mountain cabins. Clearly the area has some wealthy residents.

We did find the Elks Lodge, but it was not open until 4:00. We did manage to get in and pick up a bulletin from the lodge because there were some people working inside. We will visit again sometime during our stay. We also did a little bit of geocaching in town, finding three and getting one new DNF for our efforts. This now extends our consecutive days of caching to 36 days. Yea us! After our caching we headed back to the coach.

When we got back to the coach I found that the electricity was cutting out. We had left the air conditioning running when we were out and the voltage had dropped to where it couldn't run the A/C properly and was cutting in and out. The voltage was down to just over 100 volts. This is the third time in a week that we have run into low voltage out in the boonies of California. I don't think PG&E, the electric company around here, is doing a very good job. Fortunately, it is cool enough up here at 3,400 feet that we shouldn't need to run the A/C, so I am hoping we can get by on the low voltage when it drops in the afternoon. We didn't go anywhere else for the rest of the evening.

Tuesday, July 30^th, we went out after lunch and drove to the town of Grass Valley to do some exploring. Grass Valley is the larger neighbor of Nevada City, with a population of nearly 13,000. Only three miles separate the two towns and both were first settled in 1849 during the California gold rush. As with Nevada City the town is built on a series of rolling hills and valleys with little flat ground. The downtown is similar in appearance to Nevada City, with most of the old, turn of the century buildings still being used, but is much larger. Our first stop was at the DeMartini RV dealership, located on top of a hill at the north end of town. DeMartini is a major player in the RV market and a few years back, before the RV economy tanked, had built this huge, very pretty dealership in Grass Valley. Because of all the problems we have had lately with poor power in RV parks, I wanted to stop in and check their RV parts store to see if they, by chance had, a power boosting device called an Autoformer.

They are made by a company called Hughes, and are very well known amongst the RV crowd. Basically it's a large, heavy transformer that can boost the voltage ten percent when necessary. So if you have only 100 volts at the power pedestal, the device will boost that to 110 volt, which is about what you need to run appliances like air conditioners. I had looked online this morning and knew that they cost just under $400, but after all the problems we have had I was willing to think about spending that much. I really didn't expect a small parts place like a dealership to have one, I figured we would have to look at someplace like Camping World, but DeMartini's was there so we stopped in.

I'll be darned if there on the shelf, alongside the more standard surge suppressor and other electrical parts, was a 30 amp model of a Hughes Autoformer. There was no box, no price tag, either on the device or on the shelf, and no other papers or documents. I looked at the unit and it appeared to be slightly used, only because it had a couple scratches and the plugs showed some signs that they had been used. However, it did not appear to be very old. I got one of the guys at the parts counter to come over and I asked him how much the unit was. He wasn't even sure what it was, but he took it into another guy in a nearby office, and came out a second later and said, “he said $500, but I am thinking $50. Does that work for you?” I had no idea if he was joking about the other guy saying $500, but I suspect he was. I don't think either of them had any idea what the unit was or did. I told him “wrap it up” and we bought it. The gal at the checkout desk even put the actual selling price at $45 so that the total, with tax, was just a buck over the $50 the counterman quoted. What a deal!

After this great find we drove around for a half hour or so and then parked downtown and spent about two hours walking around, looking in some of the many shops and antique stores. We also picked up one geocache that was right downtown so that we would have one for the day and continue our consecutive days streak. The temperature was in the mid 80's and most of the sidewalks were shaded, so it was very comfortable walking around. About 4:00 we finished our shopping and we decided to stop by the Nevada City Elks Lodge, which opened at 4:00. Grass Valley also has an Elks Lodge, which is right downtown, however they didn't open until 5:00. We will have to hit that one another day.

We got into the Nevada City Lodge and had a couple of cocktails at the bar. There were only four guys in the bar, three of them past exalted rulers, and we had a very nice time talking to them. One of them had lived in the area all his life and the others were long time, 20 years plus, residents. We bought one drink and the lodge bought us a second. We got our lodge pin for the banner and left after about an hour. We headed home and I set up our new voltage booster on the power pedestal. It worked great and we were able to run one air conditioner with no problems whatsoever. I am really happy with that great find. We had dinner and watched TV the rest of the evening.

Wednesday, July 31^st, another great day in the woods. We went out after lunch to the local Safeway to do some shopping. When we finished that we spent a little time doing some geocaching on the way back to the coach. We ended up with four new finds for the day, which has extended our caching streak now to 38 straight days. Now that we are used to going out for at least one cache each day we will be ready for the challenge posed by Geocaching.com, the “headquarters” for the sport, which is to get at least one cache each day of August.

We got back to the coach and put away the groceries and then relaxed around the coach until about 5:00 when we drove back down to Nevada City for their Hot Summer Nights street festival. These festivals have been an annual thing for the city for a number of years. This year they held three, each on a Wednesday night in July. We were fortunate to find a parking place very near downtown, mostly because we went early. The street fair really didn't start until 6:00 and we were there before 5:30. They close off the entire old downtown area and set up street vendor booths. In addition, most of the stores and restaurants are open in downtown. We had a great time walking around the booths, and looking in some of the shops. This is a very “hippy” sort of area with a lot of old, unrepentant hippies walking around. I guess that is fairly common in some of these Northern California small mountain towns, just like it is in parts of Oregon.

About 6:30 we stopped for dinner in a place called Matteo's Public, which was a nice little pub in an old building, right across the street from the place where the Nevada City Elks Lodge had it's first lodge hall at the turn of the century. It was a cute little place with a fairly typical pub menu. The service was very good and the food was excellent. My burger was one of the best I have had in a while. Jackie had fish tacos, which she said were very good as well. After dinner we walked around some more, enjoying the festival and enjoying the people watching as well. We finally left about 8:30 and headed home for the rest of the evening.

Thursday, August 1^st, a new month begins. We left the coach around 3:00 and drove into Grass Valley to do a little geocaching and then go to the street fair there which starts around 5:00. We found three caches before we decided to go and find a place to park for the street fair. Like yesterday, we lucked out and got an open space very close to the area of town they closed off. We spent a couple of hours walking around the street fair and visiting some of the shops in the old downtown area. One of Jackie's sandals broke while we were caching and she went into a consignment store and found a great pair of designer sandals, in her size, for $12. Problem solved!

We had dinner by snacking on stuff from some of the booths at the street fair. We had some fried calamari and fries and then later a nice slice of pizza. In our wanderings we stopped in at the Grass Valley Elks Lodge, which is right downtown and just outside of the area that had been closed off for the festival. We had read the lodge's bulletin online and it said they opened at 5:00. We were hoping for a cocktail and a new lodge pin. Instead, we found the lodge open, but it was bingo night and they are not allowed to sell liquor when they are open to the public for bingo. Rats! I guess we will have to stop in another evening.

After the street fair we headed back to the coach, arriving back around 7:00. We walked into the coach and found that there was no power to any of the outlets in the coach. Our coach is wired such that all the 120 volt receptacles in the coach have to pass through the inverter, which has a circuit breaker on it. We have had minor issues in the past with this breaker popping at odd times. I checked the inverter and sure enough the breaker was out. Unfortunately, this time when I pushed it back in to reset the inverter started making really loud buzzing noises and the breaker popped back out again. I continued to do trouble shooting for a half hour and determined that the one output circuit on the inverter that supplies the outlets was not working. The charger part of the device was still working, charging the coach batteries that supply the 12 volt DC current for all the lights and fans and such. The inverter circuit that supplies power to the microwave was also still working. It was just the one for the outlets inside that was not working right.

Since it was too late to contact anyone for advice, I just left the inverter alone and ran a couple of extension cords into the coach and plugged them into the 120 volt receptacle on the power pedestal. I then plugged all our TV stuff into one and all the computer stuff into another. This will give us 120 volt power for the time being and give me time to contact the Magnum people, who made the inverter, tomorrow and see if they can help. After an hour of frustration I finally had things taken care of, jury rigged a temporary fix, and relaxed with a cocktail and watched TV the rest of the evening.

Friday, August 2^nd, after my morning coffee I started doing a little more checking on the electrical problem, mostly with the intent of having as much information as possible when I tried to call Magnum Energy's customer service line. Just for the Hell of it I went out and pushed the open breaker back in and damned if it didn't stay in. No noise, no circuit breaker popping back out. I went inside and checked the outlets and found that we had good power at all the outlets. The inverter was working again.

Nonetheless, I got in the car and went to the top of the hill to call Magnum Energy. We don't have good phone service down in the canyon we are camped in, so we have to get out of the hole to make or receive calls. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get through to the customer service people. I was on hold, or waiting for a call back for nearly an hour and finally decided to give up trying to call. Since the situation was not a dire as it had been last night I decided that an email to Magnum Energy would probably work to try and come up with an answer. I went back to the coach and put together a comprehensive description of the problem and sent it off to them. I then went about disconnecting all my jury rigged wiring and extension cords and plugged everything back into where they were supposed to be. My final bit of troubleshooting was to switch the output leads on the inverter. Now the outlets were on the one the microwave used to be on and vice versa. I figured that if the other breaker now started to pop it would indicate that the problem may not be with the inverter at all, but something in the coach wiring or something plugged into one of the outlets.

After lunch we went out to get a couple of geocaches, wanting to keep our own personal challenge of extending our consecutive caching days streak alive, as well as the Geocaching.com challenge for the month of August, at least one cache a day. We also wanted to visit the Scotts Flat Lake campground, which was located on Scotts Flat Lake just a few miles from the RV park. One of the people we met at the street fair the other night had mentioned that they had a great RV campground down there. We headed down towards the lake, which is south of Highway 20 on a pretty narrow, curvy road, picking up a couple of geocaches along the way. We finally found the campground, which is operated by the Nevada Irrigation District. It was a big campground, right on a very nice lake, but the sites were very rustic with no hookups at all. Even if we wanted to dry camp there we didn't see any sites that would fit our coach, and the prices were very high. They wanted $30 a night for a campsite on the lake with no hookups. We did a ten minute drive through and then left. This would not be a camping destination for us.

One of the other caches we found was alongside Highway 20 and was the grave of a two year old boy that had died back in 1853 while on a wagon train heading for California.  The route of the highway roughly follows one of the primary emigrant trails from the mid-1800's.  Local residents have adopted the grave and now there is a nice granite monument, a fence around the grave, and a monument put up by the State historical society.  There are all kinds of toys and stuffed animals around the grave left by passersby.  This is the kind of thing about which I always tell people caching does.  The sport takes you to places you ordinarily wouldn't find or know about.  Driving by at 60 mph you might never see this little turnout and the history it provides.

 

After our little exploration of the area we went back to the coach for the rest of the day. We had a nice pot roast cooking in the crock pot and we had great dinner and just stayed in the coach. As far as the electric goes, we did have an outage on the outlets again early in the evening. This time it was the other breaker, the one I now had the outlets running through. This time, however, the breaker reset the first time, the power came back on and we had no further problems during the evening. This would indicate to me that I need to start exploring possibilities outside the inverter as the source of the problem. A big challenge considering the miles of wiring inside a modern motor home.

Although we are going to be here in the woods for another five days before heading back down to Carmichael, it has been about two weeks since we published the blog, so I will close this chapter here and get it put online. Until the next time stay happy and enjoy life. Bye.

Back in California to Party With Friends

Hello again, welcome back to our story. Our last chapter ended on Saturday, July 6^th, when we moved from near Grants Pass, Oregon, south to Redding, California. When we got to Redding it was over 100 degrees, so we did little outside work and after getting the coach set up pretty much stayed inside in the air conditioning. We did make one quick run to find a nearby geocache, just so we could keep our consecutive days streak going.

Sunday, July 7^th, was predicted to be another hot day, close to 102 degrees. After lunch we left the RV park and went out to do some shopping. We stopped and picked up one geocache on the way to Costco, but it was too hot to do any more. We had to return to Costco because now that we are back in California, we can buy our vodka at Costco instead of very expensive State liquor store, as is the law in Oregon.

After our Costco run we also made a stop at Walmart and then a local Raley's store. Walmart for general supplies and Raley's because they had pork ribs on sale. Later in the week we are traveling to Mineral, California, in the mountains east of Redding, to attend the Bullock's 50^th Anniversary party. We are going to be up there for a week with a lot of our friends, and there are no stores around. One of the nights is going to be a “rib fest” so we needed a couple racks of ribs to contribute. Once we were done with our shopping we went back to the coach and stayed inside the rest of the day and evening.

Monday, July 8^th, another hundred plus day predicted for Redding. After lunch Matt Bullock came over to the coach to replace the faucet on our kitchen sink. Matt is the son of our friends Peggy and Vernon Bullock, and Matt owns and operates a plumbing business here in Redding. Our kitchen faucet was badly worn out but if I bought one at an RV place it was close to $300 and even home improvement store charged more than $200, and then I would have to put it in. It is not the most accessible location and it sounded like way too much work. Matt came out and installed a nice, top of the line brushed chrome Price-Pfister faucet for $205, and he did it in an hour instead of the two or three it would have taken me. Not to mention no leaks with a professional.

Just as Matt was leaving our friends Ray and Suzie Babcock pulled into the Elks park. When we left Harrisburg last week for the Rogue River State Park Ray and Suzie went south too, but not as far. They stopped at the Seven Feathers Casino in Canyonville. They had planned on staying there until Wednesday when we all go into Mineral for the week of fun surrounding the Bullock's 50^th Anniversary party. I guess they weren't having much luck because the called us the last night and checked to see if there was room in the Elks for them. We said there were always a couple of spots open during the early afternoon, so they said they were coming.

We let them get moved in and set up and then the four of us went out to do our laundry. After laundry we stopped to try and get one geocache to keep our streak going. We had trouble with the first two caches we went to and didn't find them, but the third time was the charm and we had our find for the day. We stopped at the Dollar Store for a couple of things and then went back to the coach.

About 5:30 we got together with the Babcocks and had cocktails. The four of us then went out for dinner a local Chinese restaurant that had a pretty good reputation. Lim's was not too far from the Elks and it wasn't very busy. We ended up getting the dinner for four people, which was a lot of food. Chow mein, soup, egg rolls, sweet and sour pork, fried rice, and fried shrimp. The quality of the food was so-so. It tasted OK, it was just a little bland. The pork chow mein had very little meat and most of it actually looked more like deli ham than pork. Not a place I would recommend for Chinese. After dinner we went back to the coach and watched TV until bed.

Tuesday, July 9^th, I was up and out of the coach by a little before 8:00 a.m. and took the Jeep down to the local dealer for an oil change. The Jeep dealer in Redding was only a mile or so from the Elks, so I got there pretty quickly. They were done with the oil change by 9:30 and I drove to the Post Office to mail some packages and stopped to pick up one nearby geocache. I was back at the coach by a little after 10:00.

Around noon Peggy Bullock came to the coach and picked up Jackie and Suzie Babcock and the three of them went off to lunch. I stayed around the coach and got a few little chores done. The women got back about 3:30 and Peggy left to go back up home. We went over to the Babcock's about 5:00 for cocktails and then Ray served up a great meal of seafood curry. He is a good cook and the food was excellent. Way better Asian food than we had the night before. We finally went back to our coach about 8:30 and watched TV until bedtime.

Wednesday, July 10^th was another moving day. We left the Elks, with the Babcock's right behind us, about 10:00 a.m. and started the 75 mile drive from Redding to the little mountain town of Mineral, about 40 miles east of Red Bluff, California. Mineral is the town where Peggy and Vernon have their cabin and where their 50^th Anniversary celebration is being held. The first 25 miles were mostly freeway, from Redding south to Red Bluff. After Red Bluff we went east on State Route 36. The first 20 miles of that route were OK, mostly straight road with rolling hills. The road was two lane, but not too narrow. The last 20 miles were up into the mountains of the Sierra Nevada and the trip got intense. The road narrowed and we were in a lot of curves and steep hills. Some of the areas were 20 and 25 mph sections. The worst part was going up over 3,000 feet in elevation in about 15 miles. We were pulling our Jeep, which is very heavy, and the steep grades were causing the coach to overheat. The outside temperature was in the 90's and I actually had to stop at one point and let the coach cool down. I never got any warning lights, but the gauge was showing the engine temp in the red. I didn't want it to get hot enough to set off the warning light, because then it might be too late.

We finally arrived in the town of Mineral, population 123, about noon. We and the Babcock's checked into the Lassen Mineral Lodge and RV park, the only RV park in town, and got our sites. They have full hook up sites, water, sewer and electric, but the power is only 30 amp. If it doesn't get really hot that should be fine. The sites are small, and back in, and are set amongst the trees. Once we got into the site we had plenty of room to put out the slides though, so we are snugged in among the pines. We are parked right next to our other friends, Gary and Ramona Wilson. The Babcock's are on the other side of the Wilson's.

Our roof satellite dish wouldn't work with all the trees, but I got our portable dish out and had TV working pretty quickly. It is not the HD we have gotten used to, but it will do for a week. I tried to help Ray get his portable dish setup, but he was having some issues I couldn't solve. We are going to try again with his tomorrow.

About 4:30 we went to Peggy and Vernon's house for the evening meal, the first of our week long celebration. The Bullock's actual anniversary was a couple weeks ago, but they chose this date as a convenience for friends and to try to ensure they would have nice weather. The “official” party is on Saturday, but because they know that many of their friends were coming up on Wednesday and staying for week, they just planned out a week long series of parties. Yea! We also got our first look at the Bullock's house. They bought this piece of property many years ago and it just had a 20 by 40 cabin, built in 1937, on the lot. They now have an almost 3,000 square foot house, multilevel and fully modern. The house is gorgeous and the lot is beautiful. Not everyone that is coming to the party has arrived yet, but there were still a couple dozen people at the house, most of whom we know. We had cocktails for a couple hours and then a pot luck dinner that was great. It was wonderful to be around friends, new and old, and we had a great time. We finally helped cleanup and left about 8:30 or so and went back to the coach for the rest of the night.

Thursday, July 11^th, we woke to beautiful blue skies and perfect weather. Although it was hot during the day, the evenings cool off nicely and the sleeping was great. We hung around the coach until after lunch when we went out to try and find at least one geocache to keep our streak going. We first stopped at Peggy and Vernon's house to drop off some stuff for the party tonight. Unfortunately, we had a rough caching day. We couldn't find the first three caches we went after. The first one we just couldn't find, even though it had been found just a couple weeks ago. The next one was one that Peggy and Vernon, who live up here, have looked for twice and not been able to find. It is somewhere in a pile of huge rocks, which this afternoon were hot from the sun and I was not dressed to spend a lot of time crawling around on hot rocks. The third was in the woods and had not been found in over a year. We didn't hold out too much hope for that one, and we were proved true. Couldn't find it. Finally on the fourth search we found our cache for the day.

About 3:00 we went over to the Bullock's because I needed to get the karaoke & music stuff set up for the party. We just stayed there after everything was set up since we were having an early dinner. About 4:30 the rest of the crowd arrived. There were all the same people that were there last night, as well as a dozen more. Our friends Curt and Sharon Minard had arrived at the RV park with their coach this afternoon. They live in Carmichael, near Sacramento and have known the Bullock's for years. We met them through Peggy and Vernon and have camped with them several times. They have a Monaco Knight with the same floor plan as ours, but a year newer. Sharon is the gal who used to sing with a country band and loves when we do karaoke.

Peggy's son Larry cooked up a huge mess of pork ribs for dinner and then the rest of the meal was pot luck. The ribs were great, as was all the other food. About 6:00 or so I started doing karaoke and there were only about four people who regularly sang, but there were a few, including some of the little kids, who tried various songs and everyone really seemed to enjoy the entertainment. We finally quit about 8:00 when it started getting cool and people starting leaving for home. We are just going to leave the equipment there so we can do music any night over the rest of the week we are going to be here. We helped clean up and were back at our coach about 8:30 and stayed in the rest of the night.

Friday, July 12^th, we left the coach after lunch and took a drive into Chester, a small town about 30 miles from Mineral, on the shore of Lake Almanor. It is the closest town to Mineral with any gas stations or a regular grocery store. Lake Almanor is a reservoir created in the mid-20's by damming the Feather River. The lake holds about 1.3 million acre feet of water and is a major recreation area year round. Chester is an unincorporated town of a little over 2,100 people that was founded in the late 1890's. Originally a lumber town, the town now relies primarily on tourism for its economy. We spent a little time driving around town and taking a look at the lake, but there isn't a lot of stuff there other than restaurants, gas stations and shops. We only saw one antique store and it wasn't open. We had picked up two geocaches on the way from Mineral to Chester, and a got another two caches in town, for a total of four for the day. We stopped for fuel and to get some supplies at the market before starting on the trip back to Mineral.

When we got back to the coach we rested for a half hour or so before heading back over to Peggy and Vernon's for the night's activities. Most of the same crowd as the last three nights, with a few new arrivals. Everyone sat around and talked during happy hour and about 6:00 they started cooking hamburgers and hot dogs for everyone. We had a great meal and I started up karaoke again about 8:00. We only went for about ninety minutes tonight with mostly the same singers as last night each doing a couple tunes. We did have one new singer, Pat, who was quite good with some of the old country songs. About 9:00 we packed up and headed back to the coach where we watched and little TV and then went to bed.

Saturday, July 13^th, we were actually up, dressed and out of the coach before 9:00 a.m. for breakfast at Peggy and Vernon's. Today is the day of the actual 50^th Anniversary party and they planned breakfast as well as dinner. Their real anniversary date was about a month ago, but the weather in this part of the country can be pretty iffy then, so that's why they chose this time of summer for their big party. Peggy's son Matt cooked breakfast, bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches that were very tasty. Almost everyone who had been at the house last night showed up for breakfast. There were only a couple of sissies who couldn't get up in time.

After breakfast we visited for a while and left the Bullock's house to go out and grab one quick geocache. We wanted to keep our streak going, plus today was “get outdoors and geocache day,” at least according to the geocaching web site. We did find the first cache we looked for, just a couple miles from the campground. Once we had our cache we went back to the coach and we spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon just relaxing. It has been a hectic couple of days with all the partying, so we decided we needed a few hours of down time.

About 4:00 we were back at the Bullock's house for the festivities. The kids had decorated the house with gold balloons, table clothes, little gifts on the table, and everything. Very cute. Peggy's daughter Katie is a chef at a restaurant in Redding and she is doing the entire dinner tonight. She put out a great spread of hors de'vours, including meatballs and some great little chicken drumettes. These were basically drumsticks with the ends cut off so you just have the meaty part of the drumstick.

Before dinner we presented Peggy and Vernon with a couple of silly gifts. They had specified No Gifts in the invitation, but we decided to do a couple of things anyway. Jackie picked up a photo frame at the Goodwill store last week in Redding, one of the type with matting for eight smaller pictures. I went through our old photo files and found some pictures of us, the Bullock's, the Babcock's and the Wilson's geocaching. I added some graphics and wording that “Geocaching Friends our Special” and we put together a nice memory of our geocaching together. We also gave them a gag gift that we put together. We found some small glass candlesticks and glued two plastic Monaco Coach drink glasses on them to make “fancy redneck” glassware. They also own a Monaco Coach, so it was appropriate. Then Suzie presented Peggy with “The Flower”, an odd looking flower made with colored beads, that has been circulating among the women in our little group for a couple of years now. Suzie was presented with it back in Ohio last summer at one of the rallies, and now she is passing it on to Peggy. Everyone enjoyed that little story and joke too.

About 6:00 dinner was served. Katie had made up big pans of wonderful lasagna, a salad and huge pieces of garlic bread. Everything was outstanding and dinner was a big success. We didn't have any music or karaoke tonight since this was Peggy and Vernon's night. They brought out Peggy's wedding dress and put it on display. Katie had, unbeknownst to Peggy, saved the little dolls and other decorations from their wedding cake and they were on the top of the anniversary cake. Matt also put together a big video slide show of pictures of Peggy and Vernon all the way back to their dating days. All in all a very nice celebration of 50 years. Most people hung around after dinner and talked until about 8:30 when people started drifting away. We left about that time and went back to the coach and crashed until bedtime.

Sunday, July 14^th, we went out after lunch to do some geocaching. We took Dave and Karen Van Egdon with us. Dave and Karen are long time friends of Peggy and Vernon who live in the Sacramento area. We met them a few years ago when we camped with their camping group in Quartzsite, Arizona. They are geocachers, but are not as avid as we are. They generally only cache when they are with other people who are cachers. We had asked them if they wanted to go out for a couple hours to cache and they said yes.

We drove west on Highway 36 back towards Red Bluff, the road we came in on, picking up caches along the way. In a little under two hours we had six new finds with no DNF's. There was one cache that we were very close to calling a DNF when Karen looked for the third or fourth time in a particular location and finally saw the tiny little cache. The reason we only got six in two hours was that they were several miles apart and all required a little bit of hiking and bushwhacking. Nothing serious, but time consuming. After getting six we decided it was a little too hot, low 80's, and the sun was really hot, so we headed back to the coach.

About 5:00 we went back over to Peggy and Vernon's place for one more night of celebration. Tonight was actually “eat up the leftovers” night. We only had about half as many people as we had on previous nights, mostly the group that is staying in RVs up in the RV park. We talked and drank and ate leftovers and had a good time. Tonight the group broke up a little earlier because everyone was pretty much celebrated out. Also, about half the group was leaving the park tomorrow. We and the Babcock's and Wilson's are staying another couple days. We got back to the coach and watched TV the rest of the evening.

Monday, July 15^th, another glorious summer day in Mineral. This morning most of the people who had been staying at the RV park for Peggy and Vernon's celebration pulled out heading for home. The only hold outs are us, the Wilsons and the Babcocks. We decided that since we had been at the Bullock's for the last five nights, that Jackie would cook a meal for everyone that was left here and serve it here at the RV park. Since she knew she would be busy most of the afternoon we only went out right after lunch to find one quick geocache to keep our caching streak alive. We found one about five miles up the road, although it required a little hike up a low hill that had Jackie huffing and puffing for a while. After that we picked up a couple things that we had left at Peggy's, then went back to the coach. Off and on we cleaned house, relaxed, and Jackie cooked.

About 4:00 we put out cheese and crackers, using a lot of the fancy cheeses we bought when we were in Tillamook. Peggy and Vernon came over shortly after and we had a nice cocktail hour with just the eight of us. This is familiar territory as it has often been the eight of us at RV parks around the country for the last three years. About 6:30 Jackie brought out dinner, a Mexican Fiesta with both her chili rellano casserole and her taquito casserole, as well as some rice and beans. Everyone ate their fill, and then some, and then we sat around and talked until about 8:00 when the mosquito started to come out in force. We packed up dinner and everyone headed for their own places.

Ray and Suzie are pulling out tomorrow and Gary and Ramona are staying until Wednesday morning. We were going to leave Wednesday also, but decided after talking to Peggy and Vernon to stay one more day and leave Thursday. That will give us one day with just us and them.

Tuesday, July 16^th, our friends the Babcocks pulled out about 10:00 this morning. We probably won't see them again until late in the year in the Coachella Valley. We left the coach about noon and drove over to Peggy and Vernon's house to pick them up for a day of exploring. They also had their eight year old granddaughter Trinity with them. She decided to stay with them for the rest of the week after the party. With the five of us in our car we went out and did a little geocaching first. We stopped at two caches that we had not been able to find a couple of days ago. One of the two was a cache that even Peggy and Vernon had looked for several times without success. Both of them had been found yesterday by the Wilson's and the Babcock's and they gave us a little bit of a hint. It took a little looking but we finally found both of them and got them logged as found. We like fixing DNFs.

We then stopped and helped Peggy and Vernon hide one of their own caches that they had to relocate and then looked for another cache right down the same dirt road. This one was kind of odd in that Peggy and Vernon had found it a couple of years ago and remembered roughly where it was. We got to the location and I was able to find the container after a few minutes of searching. The problem was, the cache was no longer active, so we wouldn't get any credit for it. Usually when a cacher deactivates, or archives a cache, they remove the container. This one didn't.

We then started on the road up to Lassen Volcanic National Park, which is located only about ten miles north of Mineral. Peggy and Vernon, having lived in the area for decades, have been there many times, but they always like going back, and they wanted to take Trinity. We had visited the park back in 2005 on our first trip with the new motor home, but we didn't remember too much about the place. On the way up we stopped and got one more cache, making a total of three “official” finds for the day.

We reached the entrance to the park and stopped at the visitor's center, which is right inside the entrance. Lassen Volcanic National Park was established in 1907 as a National Monument and became a National Park in 1916. It encompasses about 165 square miles. Until the mid 90's there was a ski area and extensive chalet near the current visitor's center, however, that was closed and all structures were removed and the area returned to it's natural state by the early 2000's. Peggy and Vernon remembered the ski area well and Peggy actually did summer work there at one time. Lassen Peak, which is one of four different volcanoes in the park, is still atop an active geothermal area and it has been less than a hundred years since the last major eruption of the mountain. That period of activity was from 1914 to 1921. There are still frequent earthquakes in the area as well a a number of geothermal springs and mud pots.

After the visitor's center we spent a couple of hours driving through the park and enjoying the scenery. The road climbs to an 8,700 foot elevation summit alongside Lassen Peak, which rises to nearly 10,500 feet. There are a number of trails for hiking all the way to the summit. None of which we took I might add. It is a very pretty park, which is closed in the winter due to the heavy snow fall in the area. Unless you hike, however, there isn't too much to do besides sightseeing and photos. After driving about halfway through the park we turned around and headed out. The road does continue out the northwest end of the park, but it was way out of our way to go that way.

We dropped off Peggy, Vernon and Trinity at their house and we went back to the coach for about an hour to rest. About 5:30 we went over to Peggy and Vernon's again for a BBQ. We brought some nice steaks and potatoes for dinner. The only other people there were Gary and Ramona Wilson, who don't leave until tomorrow. The six of us, plus Trinity, had a very nice time talking and relaxing. The steaks were great and we finally left about 8:30 and headed back to the coach. Trinity and Jackie were getting along very well and Trinity wanted to spend the night with us. Peggy said OK, so she came back to the coach with us and she and Jackie talked and played on the computer. She likes cats and wanted to spend some more time with Benji and Smokey too. We finally all went to bed about 11:00 after a very fun day.

Wednesday, July 17^th, our friends Gary and Ramona Wilson were packed up and out of the campground not too long after I got out of bed. They are early starters. They were on the road by 8:30 which left Jackie and I as the only remaining party-goers in the RV park. Trinity watched cartoons while Jackie and I did our morning routines. About 10:30 we drove over to the Bullock's and picked up Peggy and Vernon for an afternoon in the little town of Chester. We stopped along the way to town and picked up one geocache, and then headed for a restaurant that Peggy and Vernon liked for a nice lunch. The place was called The Boat House and was on the south shore of Lake Almanor, outside of Chester, and right on the water. It was a beautiful, clear day and we sat out on the patio for lunch, enjoying the great views and the nice company. We had a good lunch, Vernon and I had prime rib sandwiches, Jackie had a burger,Peggy had fish tacos and Trinity had a quesadilla. There was lots of food and it was pretty tasty too.

After our lunch we drove into Chester and did some geocaching, mostly looking for caches that neither the Bullock's nor us had found before. We managed to get ten new finds, along with one DNF, a pretty decent afternoon of caching fun. Trinity really enjoyed caching. We have found that young kids really get into the search and get excited when the find is made. She told Jackie she was going to try and get her mother to learn about caching so they could go out together. After our caching we headed back to Mineral where we dropped the Bullock's off at their house. We went back to the coach briefly to check on the cats, then went back over to Peggy and Vernon's for dinner. We had modified leftovers from the party again, which were still great, and some cocktails. After dinner we chatted until about 8:30 when we said our goodbyes and went back to the coach to watch TV until bedtime.

Thursday, June 18^th, another travel day. Today was a short trip, we were only going about 40 miles, down the hill into Red Bluff to stay at the Elks Lodge. Since it was a short run, and almost all down a fairly steep slope, we didn't hook up the car. No sense having 5,600 pounds of car pushing me down the hill. Jackie drove behind me and, ironically, so did Peggy. She was taking Trinity back home to Redding and were going down the hill at the same time as we were.

The trip only took about an hour and we were settled into the Red Bluff Elks Lodge RV park before around noon. We are only going to stay here one night before moving on to Paradise, California, so we decided to make it a stay at home afternoon. We did go out and find one geocache and made a quick stop at Walmart and Raley's for some supplies. Peggy stopped by to say hello on here way back up to Mineral from Redding.

The finish of our week of celebration in Mineral and our arrival in Red Bluff mark a good spot to close this chapter. It has been a great two weeks with a lot of good friends. We will be wandering around central California for the next month and a half or so, so we will publish again in a couple weeks just to keep things current. Until the next time remember that challenges are what make life interesting, overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. See ya!

Another Couple Weeks in Oregon

Welcome back friends. Our last chapter concluded on Sunday, June 23^rd, when we left the Oregon coastal town of Wheeler and drove 27 miles south to Tillamook, home of the world famous Tillamook Cheese factory. We actually drove five miles south of the town to the Tillamook Elks Lodge's RV park, which is out in a meadow about a half mile off of Highway 101. The actual lodge is located right in downtown, however they own this 20 acre park south of town and have turned it into a first class RV park. Full hookup, 50 amps sites, gazebo for group activities, and located in a picturesque meadow full of wildflowers. Very nice.

We drove here from Wheeler in the rain, got settled into our site and set up in the rain, and after lunch drove back into Tillamook to do some shopping, in the rain. As desert rats, we are both getting a little weary of the rain. After we got back from the store we just watched TV the rest of the night.

Monday, June 24^th, the weather still called for rain, but what we were getting was very spotty. It would rain, fairly hard, for five minutes, then clear up for a couple hours, and then a light sprinkle. Nothing serious at all. After lunch we decided we needed to get out and do some caching during the non-rain periods and we actually went for almost three hours with no rain. We managed to get ten new finds with no DNF's. In addition, one of the finds was number 5,400, a new milestone. Yea! After caching we headed back to the RV park and relaxed in the coach the rest of the evening.

Tuesday the weather looked like it was going to be more of the same. Off and on light rain. When we were here in Tillamook in 2005, on our first trip through Oregon, we visited the Tillamook Cheese Factory and had a great time. We decided to go see it again, so we drove to the factory, which is just across the bridge on the north side of town. They have a free self guided tour, which is actually just a large balcony with windows that overlook various areas of the factory. You can see the vats where they turn the milk into cheese, and on the other side you can see the packing line where the cheese is cut into blocks and wrapped.

They also have a couple of gift shops, one with mostly cheeses and cheese related gifts, and another with a little bit of everything you might find in a beach gift shop. We ended up being in the factory for a little over an hour and we did buy several small blocks of cheese as well as a couple of souvenirs. One of them was a key chain with a depiction of one of their “Baby Loaf” VW buses. The company has a number of old 70's model VW buses that they have cut down in length to about the same wheelbase as a regular VW bug. They are painted bright yellow and have Tillamook Cheese logos all over them. They call them Baby Loafs and take them to parades, fairs and such around the area. We are going to use the key chain as a travel bug to put out in geocaches.

We found a geocache that was hidden in the parking lot of the factory and then moved a little south towards town and stopped at the Blue Heron French Cheese and Wine store. This is just a store and tourist attraction, with a petting zoo and some old farming equipment on the grounds. They don't have a factory here, just a gift shop and wine and cheese store. We spent a while in the store, sampling cheeses and ended up buying a bunch of cheese and other fancy foods there too.

After that store we found a geocache that was hidden in their parking lot and then went out to do some more caching in the area. The rains had stopped for a while and, although there were still a lot of clouds, it actually cleared a little. We did a couple of caches in town and then took a drive out towards Cape Meares, which is one of the three capes, or ocean peninsulas, that jut out from the coast in this area. Tillamook is actually about ten miles inland from the ocean, on a large bay that is formed by the Tillamook River just before it goes into the ocean. You can't see the ocean from Tillamook. We drove all the way out to the cape and watched the ocean for a while. The waves were pretty stormy and it was very pretty, overcast with the waves and all the driftwood on the beach. We also did some caching on the way out, and back and ended up with a total of five new finds for the day.

One of the caches was hidden inside of a small cave in a bay side cliff face. I had to use a flashlight to go into this cave, about six feet into the mountain. In a small hole in the wall, near the floor of the cave was a large, rubber rat. It looked very real except the rat's eyes didn't glow and he didn't move. The cache was hidden inside of the rat's body. Very cleaver hide. After our caching we headed back to the coach for cocktails, dinner and some TV.

Wednesday, June 26^th, we again left the coach after lunch under cloudy skies, however, as with yesterday, they did not appear to threaten any appreciable rain. Today we went to the Tillamook Airport, also known as a part of the Port of Tillamook and under the jurisdiction of the city's Port Authority. We went to the airport to visit the Tillamook Air Museum, which is housed inside of one of the largest aircraft hangers in the world. Although located about a mile east of Highway 101, the giant hanger, with equally giant letters spelling out “Air Museum,” is easy to see.

The airport and the surrounding grounds are what used to be Naval Air Station Tillamook, or NAST in the ubiquitous jargon of the U.S. Navy. NAST had a short-lived history as a military base being commissioned in 1942 and decommissioned in 1948. The base was one of 10 lighter than air aircraft bases commissioned and built in the early 1940's as a result of concerns about German and Japanese submarines operating off the coasts of the United States. The air ships used for submarine patrol during WW-II were true “blimps” in that they were helium filled fabric envelopes, very different from the older and usually much larger rigid dirigables. Blimps made ideal anti-submarine platforms because they were slow, usually flying less than 50 mph, and could stay out on patrol for 48 hours or longer.

At the end of work in 1942 there were two huge, wooden framed hangers, A and B, on the site. The hangers, which were identical, were 1,072 feet long, 296 feet wide, and 192 feet high at the center. The floor encompassed over seven acres and they were designed to comfortably hold nine fully inflated K-Class blimps, which were themselves nearly 300 feet long. By comparison, the Goodyear Blimp is less than 200 feet long. The sliding doors at either end of the hanger were made up of six 40 ton wood and steel panels, each of which were 120 feet tall and 50 feet wide. The hangers were made entirely of wood with the exception of steel sheathing on the roof. It took over 2 million board feet of lumber for each of the two hangers. The first hanger took about six months to build as it was designed “on the fly” however the second hanger was finished in just 27 days.

After the end of WW-II the need for blimp submarine patrols ended and all of the blimp squadrons were decommissioned and those bases that were built only for the blimp squadrons were closed. Of the 17 gigantic blimp hangers built, Hanger B at Tillamook is one of seven that remain standing. There are two in New Jersey, two in Santa Ana, California and two in Sunnyvale, California just south of San Francisco. Hanger A at the former NAST was destroyed by fire in 1992 when hay being stored inside ignited. The four huge concrete door supports that mark the four corners of the old hanger are still visible not far from the remaining hanger. There are still a couple of other buildings from the NAST days on the site, including the headquarters building, however, none are preserved except for the hanger, which is a designated National Landmark.

The Tillamook Air Museum currently leases space inside of Hanger B and takes up about two thirds of the floor space. They have a couple dozen aircraft, mostly WW-II era military, most of which they say are flyable. Except for two planes, all of the displays are inside of the huge hanger. Unfortunately, the lighting inside the hanger is not the best, so we found it hard to really appreciate the beauty of the old warbirds. We spent about 90 minutes walking around, looking at the aircraft, as well as some of the very nice historical displays they had set up. One exception to the mostly WW-II theme was a nicely restored F-14 Tomcat jet. It was a nice air museum, not the best, but pretty good. At least most everything they had was in great condition.

After our visit to the air museum we drove into town and got fuel for the Jeep and did some shopping. Along the way we also did two geocaches on the grounds of the airport. We also got one new DNF. After shopping we headed back to the coach and stayed in the rest of the evening.

Thursday, June 27^th, we left the RV park a little after 1:00 pm. and drove to the Tillamook Hospital for Jackie's followup appointment with the doctor. As we sort of expected, the doctor repeated what he told us last Wednesday, that the colonoscopy was, for the most part, clean and he found no issues that would explain Jackie's abdominal pain. He did say that the lab found that the two small pollups he snipped out were per-cancerous, which is not an immediate problem, those pollups are gone. However, it does mean she will have to go in for another colonoscopy in about four years instead of the usual ten years they give you if they don't find anything.

He gave her another physical exam and we talked for a while, but the bottom line is he does not know what is causing the pain. He is able to exclude almost everything based on the various tests and symptoms, but what she DOES have remains a mystery. He again suggested we consult with a specialist when we get to a bigger city. We got copies of the various reports for our files and left.

After the doctor's visit we stopped at the laundry in town and washed clothes. We had exactly two weeks worth of dirty clothes. By the time we finished laundry it was about 3:30 so we did a few geocaches in town and one on the way back to the RV park. We ended up with five new finds for the day. We got back to the coach in time for cocktails and stayed in the rest of the evening.

Friday, June 28^th, about 10:30 or so some friends of our arrived at the RV park with their coach. Steve and Gail Schmidt are friends of ours from our time before full timing when we still had the house in Indio. Steve and Gail were members of the Indio Elks Lodge, our home lodge at the time, and were also members of the lodge's RV club, the Desert Drifters. We used to travel with the Drifters on four or five outings a year, sometimes more, and I was even the President of the club for a few years. When we went full time we made a couple of outings with the club the first couple years, but for the last five or six years we just haven't been able to align our schedule with theirs, so we have dropped out of the club and haven't done any outings. We last saw Steve and Gail in person probably about five or six years ago. We are in occasional contact through email and facebook, however, and it was through those connections that we learned that our travel plans were finally going to put us in close proximity, at least for a few days. They were spending time in Pacific City, Oregon, which is on the coast only about 30 miles or so south of Tillamook.

When Jackie and Gail figured this out a week or so ago, they changed their plans slightly and said they would come join us at the Tillamook Elks for a couple of days. They are retired and still own a house in Sun City Palm Desert, but they travel during the warm months, about five or six months out of the year. They have a 37 foot diesel pusher coach.

After they got parked they went out to do some exploring in the area, so after our lunch we went out to do a couple of geocaches. We are trying to improve on our current caching record regarding the number of consecutive days finding a geocache. Although we have been caching for over eight years, and have over 5,400 finds, our records show our longest “streak” for consecutive days is six! I guess that does demonstrate that, while we really enjoy caching, we don't let it completely rule our lives, but I think we can do better than six days. We ended up finding six new caches in less than an hour, which was good for the day.

When we got back to the coach Steve and Gail were back home, so we went over to their coach and spent some time with them talking and catching up. Steve is an avid cyclist and rides his bike everywhere they go. He is looking forward to doing some riding here in this area. About 4:30 or so we went back to our coach to get ready for dinner. We left the park at 5:30, with Steve and Gail in our car, and drove into town to the Elks for their Friday night dinner. They had a pretty good menu, prime rib, steak, chicken and fish. Jackie and I both had the prime rib. It was good, not the best ever, but not too bad. Steve had the steak, which he thought was very good, and Gail said her chicken was so-so. All in all it was a nice meal, a couple of cocktails and some nice conversation with old friends. We also gamed a little on the slot machines, but we all lost. After dinner we drove back to the park, dropped off Steve and Gail and spent the rest of the night with the telly.

Saturday, June 29^th, we loaded Steve and Gail into our car after lunch to go out and do some geocaching. Steve had already gone for a 50 mile bike ride in the morning, but was still ready to go out and do some caching. This morning they had to move from the full hookup spot they were in over to the dry camping area. The park was expecting a big group, which had reservations, and since the Schmidt's didn't have reservations they had to give up their spot.

Because they were unsure how good their batteries were, we knew we couldn't stay out too long, but Gail was really curious about the sport and wanted to go out for a little while. She is on Facebook with Jackie, so she knows how much we enjoy the activity, so she was really interested in trying it. We were only out for less than two hours, but we got a dozen new finds. Most of them were simple guard rail caches that were easy to find, so they didn't see a big variety, but they did get a feel for the sport. Gail still seemed interested so we suggested they do some reading online to learn more and see if it would be anything they might want to do.

After our caching we went back to the coach and relaxed for a while in the afternoon. Around 5:30 Steve and Gail came over to our coach for cocktails and dinner. Gail had made a crock pot full of chicken chili and it was excellent. We sat and talked after dinner for a while before they went back to their coach and we spent the rest of the night with the TV.

Sunday, June 30^th, yet another moving day. We left the Tillamook Elks RV park right around 10:00 and started our 126 mile drive back southeast towards Harrisburg, Oregon. Before we left we went out and grabbed one quick geocache which was just across the highway from the RV park. We wanted to make sure we tried to keep our new streak going. The first half of the drive was on the secondary roads that run from the coastal part of the state to the freeway. These roads are two lane, generally twisty with a lot of hills and are not especially wide either. They are passable, but you really need to pay attention when you are driving a big motorhome on them. They also seem to not believe in shoulders in Oregon either. Most of the roads have a couple feet of gravel and then drop off into a ditch or a forest. Very few places to go if you have a problem on the roadway. Another reason to pay attention.

We did have one hiccup that could have been serious. About 20 miles west of Salem, still on the secondary road, but out of the mountains, we came up on an intersection where it was clear there had just been an accident. Someone on the main road had hit someone pulling out onto the highway from a side road, or turning onto the side road. There was a little car sitting in the middle of the intersection, front end crushed with a guy lying on the road behind the car. He was moving around and being attended to by passers by, so he wasn't too bad off. There were no visible serious injuries. There were no police or medical people on scene yet and traffic hadn't even backed up too far, so it was very recent.

We got up to the intersection about the time the police arrived and we were able to get around the wreck and continue down the road. I had just gotten up to speed, about 50 mph or so, going downhill, when an ambulance appeared coming from the other direction, probably going to the accident scene. There were two cars in front of me and the one in the lead pulled off the road, completely on the shoulder, which was fairly wide at this spot because we were on a main road, but it was still just two lanes. The guy between me and the first car pulled over, but only part way. There was no way I could get past him without going into the oncoming lane, and the ambulance was nearly on us, so I had to jump on the brakes really hard to avoid running into the car. Had he gotten completely off the road I could have slowed down for the emergency vehicle without having to slam on my brakes because I could have gotten by the stopped cars without being in the way.

Unfortunately, Jackie had just gotten up and gone to the back of the coach to turn on the A/C because it was getting very hot now that we were away from the coast, and she was caught by surprise. She ended up flying down the length of the coach, finally going down to the floor just behind the front seats. Fortunately, she was only bumped and bruised a little, but it could have been serious.

After that little adventure the rest of the trip was routine and we pulled into the River Bend RV park in Harrisburg about 2:00. It was not our original plan to come back to Harrisburg, which is where Elite Repair and Remodel, the company that did our remodel work is located. However, during our three weeks on the coast we had a lot of rain and we had a couple of leaks into the coach, one of which we thought that Elite was supposed to have already fixed. For that reason we had called them and told them we would be in on Monday for one day so they could try to fix the leaks.

When we got to the park we were parked in a space right next to our friends Ray and Suzie Babcock. Ray was the one that had told us about Elite in the first place, and they had stopped here on their way back from the FMCA rally series in Wyoming to have some minor repairs done as well. We last saw Ray and Suzie in Yuma back in April. They, along with most of the rest of our coaching friends, had gone to the Wyoming events. We got the coach set up and then got together with Ray and Suzie for cocktails. Later in the evening Ray fixed his Firehouse Taco Salad for dinner and we all enjoyed a great meal and some more chatting. We finally went back to our coach about 8:30 and rested the remainder of the night.

Monday, July 1^st, the “official” middle of the year. We were up early and had the coach packed up and over to Elite's shop, which is only a half mile away, by a little after 9:00. We talked to the guys there, explained what we needed to have done, and set the cats up in the bedroom for the day. They have their food, water and litter box back there and none of the work that needs to be done involves anything in the back. The A/C was on and they were good to go. We drove back over to the RV park and then Jackie and I rode with Ray and Suzie and we went out on an all-day shopping excursion. We started with a stop in nearby Coburg, Oregon at the Monaco Customer Service facility there so I could buy some parts I needed. The cabinet hinges they used on our coach are very odd and can only be purchased through Monaco. They break after time, so I needed to buy some to keep on hand for replacements.

After the Monaco stop we went down towards Eugene and stopped at Northwest RV supply. You may remember from a couple months ago I wrote about this place being a huge warehouse full of RV parts, many of which were bought at auction when the original Monaco went bankrupt back in 2009. We wandered around for a while, but didn't buy anything there. Then we drove to their other location in downtown Eugene. Ray bought a few things, but we came out empty handed again. By this time it was almost 1:00 so we stopped for lunch.

We had lunch at a BJ's Brewhouse restaurant near the Eugene Mall. The place had only been open a week, so there were a few hiccups. The service was a little off and some of the food came cold. They are still in the growing stages, training staff and such, so it is understandable. The manager came to the table, apologized and picked up half the tab, so that took the sting out of the experience. We also picked up one geocache in the parking lot of the mall. Still trying to keep a new consecutive caching days streak alive. On the way back to the RV park we stopped at a home improvement store so Ray could get a couple things and then went back to the RV park.

When we got back to the park we saw that some other friends of ours, Jerry and Bev King, had arrived at the park and were in a site just one down from us. Bev and Jerry were also there for a quick visit with the Elite guys and were also on their way home to California from the Wyoming rallies. Small world. Jackie and I drove over to the shop and found that they were pretty much done with the coach. They have supposedly now fixed both leaks, and the only thing left is a cabinet repair that they will do in the morning as we are leaving. Erik still has to build the bigger flip up extension that Jackie wanted, but he promised to finish it tonight so he could install it in the morning. We drove the coach back over to the RV park and got it hooked up again.

Not too long after the six of us drove into Junction City, just a few miles down the road, for dinner. We went to a place called the Rodeo Steakhouse. Food was so-so, as was the service. Ray had a steak that was the size of a hamburger pattie pretty poor for a place that calls itself a steakhouse. We still had an enjoyable dinner though, chatting with friends and hearing their stories from the rallies. After dinner we went back to the coach and watched TV the rest of the night.

I do need to relate some extremely sad news we received late this afternoon. Our dear friend Colleen Cohen passed away in Indio today. My friend Barry called and said that they had made a decision to transfer her from home to the hospice facility as a result of her inability to fight off the widespread cancer and within minutes after their arrival at the facility Colleen died. Barry and her children were there with her at the time. Sadly, she survived only nine weeks from the time she was diagnosed to the time of her passing, despite aggressive treatment. Rest in peace Colleen, you will be missed.

Tuesday, July 2^nd, we again had the coach packed up and were out of the park by 9:00. We made a stop at the Elite shop where Erik installed the new counter extension, which made Jackie very happy, and then we hooked up the car and started down the road to our next destination. We are headed back to the Valley of Rogue State Park, between Medford and Grants Pass. This is one of our favorite places in Oregon to stay and we were there a couple months ago on our way up this way. We were supposed to have been there yesterday, but our repair detour forced us to delay one day. I did call them to ensure we wouldn't lose our reservation, especially since it is a holiday week with the 4^th of July in a couple of days. The trip was mostly freeway and other than a stop for fuel and lunch was a steady, easy drive. We arrived at the park by 2:30 and got setup in our reserved spot very quickly. The temperature was over 100 degrees, so we just stayed in the coach in the air conditioning for the rest of the day, except for a quick ten minute dash for a nearby geocache, still holding our streak, no at nine days. Yea!

Wednesday we left the coach after lunch on another hot day and headed for nearby Medford. Our first stop was a Supercuts so Jackie could get a haircut. We then made a stop at the craft store in the same strip mall so Jackie could get some supplies. When we were done there we did some geocaching, finding three new caches, as well as getting another DNF. Since it was 99 degrees, we decided to take a break from caching and go to Costco. We hadn't been to a Costco in a while and needed quite a bit of stuff to refill our freezer. Even though we will be at another Costco in Redding, California in about a week, we decided to do as much as we could here in Oregon because there is no sales tax. The down side is they don't sell liquor in grocery stores here in Oregon, hence the reason we know we will be at the first Costco we find in California.

As it turns out, they also don't sell the sourdough pretzels I like, nor the tennis shoes, so there are a few other things we will need in California as well. After we finished at Costco we did three more quick geocaches in the area, bringing our total for the day to six and our consecutive days streak to ten days. Once we got everything done we drove back to the campground and settled in for the rest of the night.

Thursday, July 4^th, Happy independence Day! Checked the skies, no alien space invaders today, so that's good. We had thought that we would spend the day in Ashland, watching the parade and enjoying the street fair as we have twice before. However, when we checked the web site we found that the parade started at 10:15, which meant we would have had to leave the RV park by 8:00 to get to Ashland, which is 25 miles south, find parking and get to the Elks Lodge to watch the parade. We decided we really didn't want to start that early. It seems to us that it wasn't that early in past years. Grants Pass wasn't having any celebrations other than evening fireworks, so we decided to just make it a stay in day.

Both Jackie and I got a few minor things done around the coach, and we did go out for ten minutes to capture one nearby geocache to keep our consecutive caching days streak going. Other than that we just enjoyed the slightly cooler weather and had a relaxing day.

Friday, July 5^th, we went out after lunch to do some geocaching in Grants Pass. After a couple of hours we had eleven new finds under our belt, as well as one DNF. After caching we stopped at Walmart for a few things, one of which was ice, and then headed home. Our ice maker in the coach refrigerator has a tendency to go on “vacation” from time to time. It will stop working for a few days or weeks, and then just spontaneously start back up and work fine for months. Must be a loose wire or something, I haven't been able to figure it out. Once we got back to the coach we relaxed for the rest of the night with the TV.

Saturday was another travel day. We had the coach packed up and the slides in by 10:30 and were on the road headed south on I-5. Tod

ay we are returning to California, Redding, California to be precise. It was a fairly long trip, about 170 miles, and went pretty well. Although it was hot, there wasn't much wind and the coach didn't do too bad on the long grade up to the top of the Siskiyou Pass, the mountain range that is near the border of Oregon and California. We stopped once to top off the fuel and propane, and once for a quick lunch, but we got into the Redding Elks Lodge RV park about 2:30. It was over 100 degrees when we got to the lodge, so we set up the coach with minimal work outside. We did venture out for a brief foray to find a nearby geocache to keep our consecutive days streak working. We found the one cache, near a local Chinese restaurant, then returned to the coach to stay out of the heat.

We normally wouldn't be back to California this early in the summer, but we are coming back to Northern California to attend the 50^th Anniversary party for our good friends, Peggy and Vernon Bullock. They live in Mineral, a small mountain town not too far from Redding, and we, along with a lot of our other motorhoming friends are planning to attend. There is one RV park in Mineral, and we will be filling it up.

This marks an excellent place to close out this chapter. We will be here in Redding for a few days before moving on to Mineral for a week of fun with friends. Until the next time, remember to love, live and laugh as often and as hard as possible. See ya next time.