Mt St Helens and Windy Ridge

On July 11, 2015May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn dave, Me, outdoors, photography, travelLeave a comment

We decided to head out for a day of exploration around the backside of our favorite local volcano – Mt St Helens.

Mt St Helens sits on the horizon where we live. It is something we see every day (along with Mt Hood and Mt Adams), and everyone took it for granted until 1980 when it started huffing out clouds of smoke and eventually exploded in an eruption that gave us all a very graphic example of what the word ‘devastation’ really means. Ridge after ridge around the mountain was cleared down to bare rock or covered in ash. Some of the ash even rained down over our homes. When we went to see it a few years after the eruption, it was like a desert where once a beautiful forest had stood. Now when we look at the mountain it’s flat top reminds us at a glance that we have a real live volcano in our backyard.

For many years we took an annual trip from Yakima up to Windy Ridge, often with our Miata friends, and admired the view looking down into the crater. We have also come in on the West side to the observatory. It’s an amazing place to visit, from either direction. This time we decided to wind up the backroads to Windy Ridge and see how it was doing. So we packed a picnic lunch, grabbed the camera, and headed out for a day of adventure.

Driving around the backside of Mt St Helens takes you through woods that were pretty much untouched by the blast, except for creeks and rivers that were flooded by the sudden glacier melts that occurred, causing mud flows to tear down the canyons and valleys. Everything is recovering so well though, that it is hard to see the damage anymore, even at overlooks that were established for people to stop and admire the changes in the landscape.

Then you come to the Muddy River at Lava Canyon

Can you see Dave on the rocks looking over the canyon?

We added a rock to a cairn we passed on our way along a trail that took us to another vantage point of the muddy river. Too bad the clouds were hiding the mountain at the other end of the canyon. We should have realized then that this just wasn’t going to be our day for viewing the mountain itself.

On to Lava Canyon, where water has carved a steep channel through lava rock.

Very cool place, with lots of signs warning you that if you fall in that water, you will die and they will never find your body, or something to that effect. That was the take-away, anyway. That water was fast and furious as it disappeared into the bulbous lava forms sticking up out of the forest.

We backtracked out of the Ape Canyon / Lava Canyon area, and continued heading East towards Windy Ridge. We stopped along the road at this still wiped out canyon and ate our lunch while enjoying the complete peacefulness of the forest. I don’t think a single car drove by while we were enjoying our lunch. It was just us and the birds in the trees.

Further up the road we stopped at a wide spot to enjoy this overlook of what I think was the Clearwater Creek drainage. What an amazing view!

Our sturdy Flex made the ride nice and smooth over the terrible forest service roads, which had a lot of broken pavement. It was the right choice for this trip! The Miata would have been beat to death.

Finally we arrived at Windy Ridge, with it’s amazing view of…clouds. Lots and lots of clouds.

Beautiful view of Spirit Lake though. We had a lovely panorama of the devastated area.

The devastated area has recovered considerably. There was a time when this was all just covered in brown ash. The effects of the eruption are still clearly visible in the three zones. Zone 1 – the ridges were blown clean down to bedrock. They are still bare of trees, but starting to show a cover of green.

Then there is the zone farther out where the trees were all knocked down, and still lay pointing away from the source of the blast. More baby trees are popping up in this area.

In the third zone the trees were killed by the heat of the eruption, but remain standing. This area is recovering even better. It’s amazing to see how one ridge is in the blowdown zone, and the next the trees were left standing.

That is Mt St Helens for you – such a beautiful, amazing place. We stopped at another overlook on the way back from Windy Ridge and enjoyed the peacefulness of the scene, the little pops of color from wildflowers appearing on the hillside. We waited a little bit, but the mountain remained hidden in the clouds. It was just one of those days.

But we had a great time anyway, as we always do when out adventuring together.

Lazy Saturday around the house

On June 20, 2015May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn dave, navi1 Comment

Dave walked around the corner to get a glass of water, and when he came back the top piece of bread on one half of his sandwich was gone! How could such a thing happen? Navi says it was aliens.

Miata Show!

On June 11, 2015May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn cars, miata1 Comment

I don’t do this very often, but our local Miata club was holding their first show at the Mazda dealership in Beaverton, so I decided to give The Squirt a bath, put on our snazzy red hard boot, and head on over there.

There were about 40 Miatas there, from mild to wild.

I drooled over some fancy interiors!

And an actual ’93 LE, which is what my Miata wants to be when it grows up!

There was even a car with teddy bear wheels!!!

I won a raffle bag, got a sunburn, and a great time was had by all! It was so much fun to be surrounded by other people who love these fun little cars!

Trout Lake 2015

On June 5, 2015 By stefrobrtsIn airstream, barclay, dave, Me, navi, outdoors, photography, scenic1 Comment

Time again for the annual trip to Trout Lake to hang out with my Airstream friends. We packed up the trailer, the dogs, and it seemed like more miscellaneous ‘stuff’ than ever before. Maybe it just felt that way because the Flex is so small and the Van was so big! We headed off after work on Thursday so we could get in an extra day.

We rolled into town to find a thunderstorm hiding the mountain top and obscuring the sunset.

We got settled in, said hello to everyone, and soon after crashed for the night. As I lay in bed in the complete darkness, I thought my eyes were playing tricks as I saw flashes, but the thunder told us it was the lightening storm. Kind of cool.

The next day the Airstreams kept rolling in. All our usual friends, and a few we had missed last year. A sad trip for our friends Carolyn and Loren, as they had just lost their beautiful German Shepherd Cosmo. Cosmo had been a fixture at the rally for 7 years, where he would hang out by the campfire with them, but if Mom and Dad weren’t together, he would patrol the camp going back and forth between them, checking on them. Such a good boy. It was so sad to hear of his passing.

Soon there were enough people to stir up a card game, which Dave got in on.

Puzzles came out too …

and guitars. Camping is the life!

The dogs hung out in their dog-yard. I had started prepping the trailer a couple weeks before we left, and was happy to find everything worked. We used the fridge all weekend, and only needed to run the furnace a couple nights because the weather was so mild. With the LED lights, we didn’t even come close to running out of power.

Our friend Chris showed up with his Caravel, and his new/old Bronco.

Cory, Carolyn, Jerry, Patsy, Karen, Dave and Loren entertain themselves. I think this was shortly before they decided to ‘make it interesting’ and start playing for pennies!

Barclay can watch the activities from bed!

When we have the dogs we usually fold the dinette down into a bed all day.

Both dogs like laying in the ‘doghouse’ under the bed. Navi decided it was hers and growled furiously if Barclay tried to invade it. Which he occasionally did, just to annoy her.

Airstreams of all shapes and sizes – vintage, Interstate, and Argosy!

Greg got the fire all stirred up

Sunset over the creek behind the campground

So many friends, good food, jamming around the campfire at night (I even brought my guitar this time) – wears you out. I’ve never slept so well in my life!

The next morning we headed over to the county park to partake of their showers. You can shower in the Caravel, but why make a mess in there, when you can make a mess in someone else’s shower instead? Seemed like a good deal to me! Then we went to the Ranger Station and got a map and directions for the local attractions.

We wandered off into the woods to find the Big Lava Bed. Turns out it is indeed big, but hard to access, and I didn’t even really get any pictures of it!

Back to camp, this is the view at the porta-john – one of the prettiest in camp!

Flags were flying in the wind. All that wind blowing through the trees around camp made for a fabulous afternoon nap while Dave went and played cards.

Peanut butter kongs keep the dogs occupied.

In the evening I play guitar until my fingers were too sore to play anymore, so I packed it in, and grabbed my camera. The wind had blown away the clouds. I finally had a chance (and the equipment and know-how, to do this:

Cozy little trailer.

The next morning we headed up to see Langfield Falls. Along the way we stopped for views of Mt Adams and Beargrass.

Thanks to the dry winter, the falls was only running down one side, instead of covering the whole rock.

We saw a sign to Mosquito Lake, and decided we HAD to check that out. A whole lake of mosquitoes, how fun! (sarcasm) But alas, there were no mosquitoes. It was actually very nice. Must have hit it at just the right time of year. It made us wish we had a kayak!

On the way up there we had to stop to let a small group of Elk stroll across the road. Of course I didn’t get a picture of THAT!

On the way back, we stopped by the Big Tire. Seriously, it’s on the MAP.

Yup, that’s big alright.

Coming back we had a peek at Sleeping Beauty from a different angle. Not quite as face-like from over here.

We went back through town and headed out past the campground in the other direction looking for the biggest Ponderosa Pine in WA – known as The Big Tree.

I suppose it’s kinda big.

Pretty, delicate little flowers in this area.

Back to Trout Lake, to stop for lunch at the Café/Gas Station/Espresso/Ice Cream Shop

As you might guess, the only place in town. But actually kind of awesome.

Back to the trailer for lunch..

And Siesta. I cleaned out a drawer in the trailer and found a bunch of paperbacks. Dave started reading a Star Wars book he had tried to read on previous trips, and I found an old X Files novel. What a great way to geek out during afternoon downtime!

I take this picture every year!

I never get tired of looking at the mountain!

At sunset I took the dogs for a walk, looked up, and saw the setting sun had somehow created a rainbow in the clouds, right over Sleeping Beauty’s face! I ran the dogs all the way back to the trailer to get my camera and get a shot before the phenomenon disappeared!

I love it! And I love Sleeping Beauty.

One more night of singing around the fire, followed by a peaceful night’s sleep, and in the morning, it was time to go.

Trout Lake is always over too soon! We love visiting with our friends, catching up, singing songs, watching the campfire, sharing potlucks, playing games, taking naps, and playing music. We will get together again before summer is over, but Trout Lake is an awesome start to the season. Many thanks to our friends Janet and Gary for pulling us all together for another year.

Modern lights for a vintage trailer

On May 3, 2015 By stefrobrtsIn airstream, travel1 Comment

After our amazing trip to Yosemite, I immediately came home and started planning another trip to Yosemite in the fall. Since the campgrounds in the valley are ‘dry camping’ – no electric or water, I started researching how long my battery would last. When the battery runs out, my lights and furnace stops working, and the Airstream becomes an aluminum tent! So I decided it was time to bite the bullet and invest in LED lighting for the trailer.

I had looked into this two years ago, but wasn’t ready to spend the cash. I contacted Dan at LED4RV.com because he was highly recommended on Airforums.com. People reported back that he helped them pick out the right bulbs, and if there were any problems he made it right. I only want to do this once, so that sounded good to me! We discussed it via email, and finally over the phone to work out the details on which bulbs would fit my vintage cone lamps, and a week later it was in my hands!

The square ceiling fixtures were the only tricky part – he sells a kit of mixed color LED strips that are adhesive backed, so they need to be stuck into place. But that only took about 15 minutes per fixture. The rest of the bulbs all just plugged in exactly like the 12v bulbs had.

The finished product has just the right color of light to give it the same cozy feeling inside it has always had, and the quality of the light itself feels even brighter.

So that’s the tour – all 17 feet of it! While I was in there I de-winterized, cleaned the screen on the ceiling vent, tested the water heater and the furnace, pulled out the broken shower hose that needs replacing, and tidy-ed up a bit. Now we just need the annual trip to the tire guys to have the running gear checked out for the season, and we will be ready for our 12th year of camping in our little 1968 Airstream Caravel.

CA Adventure Part 5–San Francisco

On May 1, 2015 By stefrobrtsIn dave, Me, scenic, travelLeave a comment

We headed out of Yosemite into the endless flat farmland of the central valley. Not much to say about that. We ended up in:

Modesto!

We stayed at a hotel right in town. ON the way in I had looked up a place for dinner, and Yelp recommended a pizza place attached to a motorcycle shop. When we checked in we mentioned it to the guy at the front desk to get a local’s opinion – ‘oh, that place, no, that’s a dive. Besides, it’s too full of kids and families. I’ll tell you where to go…’ He gave us the name of another place. When I looked it up on Yelp, people pretty much said it was a dank dive bar. We went with the pizza place, and it was good!

Not much to say about Modesto, but in the morning we had a walk around and saw this historic mansion right behind our hotel. Kind of cool. Unfortunately, not open on Mondays.

We continued the long, boring drive back to civilization.

One of the things on my to-do list was to drive over the Marin Headlands and get a picture of the bridge from up high. There were a surprising number of people doing the same thing, and the pull-offs were actually packed full! I was really happy with this shot though.

We continued up to this old battery Rathbone – McIndoe.

Back around to the bridge, we took another loop up to see if we could stop at any of the other overlooks, but they were packed. Though we had some nice views of the beaches.

There’s something about seeing that iconic bridge that is breathtaking every time. It’s so amazing to be looking at it in person!

We finally headed across it to spend some time in the city before heading to San Jose for our flight.

The Palace of Fine Arts. We walked all around the outside. They were between exhibits, so they only had a tiny inside area open to the public.

Dave found a Weeping Angel. Well, maybe not, but a bit creepy, all the same.

Down to Fisherman’s Warf…We wandered around and stopped for an In & Out burger then went and found a bench to eat at while watching the bay. We actually planned this lunch specifically to have one of those before we left CA, because we kept hearing how great they were – it was the most bland burgers we’ve had! Now I have to question the taste of anyone who tells me they thing those are awesome. They were the same quality I would expect out of your basic cafeteria – nothing to write home about.

With lunch out of the way we went and drove that steep windy road, because we hadn’t done it before, and it seems like everyone should do it at least once! Then we went and checked out the tower on the hill. But time was running out, we had to head back to San Jose.

This is how the San Jose Airport greets you. Is it just me, or are the disembodied hands kind of creepy? It’s not just me, right? Up close it was kind of a cool artwork. It was mesh panels with round white pieces – think of large pop bottle caps stuck into a chain link fence –that were the pixels to make up the image. Creative!

The airport had this crazy piece of security art. It had cameras and screens showing what it’s cameras saw, and the insect-like body rotated around as it took in everybody in the area. It was pretty fascinating.

And that was it. Well, almost. Dave missed a quarter in his pocket, causing him to get singled out for the rubber glove treatment. Once they discovered the quarter, it seemed a bit punitive to continue feeling him up, but hey, TSA’s got to do what they got to do. Soon as they were done with that, we were back on a plane identical to the one that had started our adventure, and a short time later were back on the tarmac at PDX. Picked up the dogs from Scott & Sherry, and went back to our regular lives.

It’s so hard to go back to work and sit in a cubicle after having an adventure like this. Hopefully we will squeeze a few more in before summer is over.

CA Adventure Pt 4 – Yosemite

On April 26, 2015 By stefrobrtsIn dave, Me, scenic, travel, yosemite1 Comment

The next morning we got up bright and early, packed up and piled into the rental, and headed off to spend our day at Yosemite. Because we had had a big dinner, neither of us was interested in breakfast yet, so we headed straight for the park.

First thing you see as you come into the park is this cool granite tunnel. Would an Airstream even FIT through there?!

Initially I was frustrated because I knew there was a great view of the valley, and as we followed the road in, I understood where that view was, I just couldn’t see it from our side of the loop road. It is from an overlook that you only see on the road on the way OUT of the valley! So we drove in and stopped at the sights along the way as we wound our way back there.

The first sight once you get to the main loop is El Capitan across the meadow on the other side of the river..

And Bridalveil Falls on the road side. We didn’t walk back to it, we’ll save that for when we have more time.

Lesson 1: Everything at Yosemite is bigger than you ever imagined! It’s breathtakingly HUGE, and around every corner is another jaw dropping, amazing mountain of rock rising up impossibly high. It’s just stunning.

We continued along the loop and as soon as there was a place to turn around we went back towards El Capitan Meadow, stopping there for a few minutes to look around. Now we could see Cathedral Rocks and Spires, which we couldn’t see from the other side of the loop when we were at their base! Again, they are impossibly huge and imposing.

Dave snapped a picture of me searching the walls around El Capitan for rock climbers.

Bridalveil again, but from the other side of the river…

We continued down the road and missed the turnout, had to park and walk back to it – we finally found Valley View. THAT’S what I was waiting for!

I could have looked at this all day.

Dave snapping a picture of El Capitan

We finally got going back on the loop towards the visitors center, and stopped to pull off at the Swinging Bridge with a view of Yosemite Falls and Sentinel Dome.

Grabbed a friendly stranger and had them snap a pic of Dave and I

Continuing past the visitor’s center we finally got a great view of Half Dome on the right, and Royal Arches and North Dome on the left.

Again, just so so big. So big. I don’t even have words for how impressive all this is. If I had time I would have liked to just pull out a chair and sit there all day watching the light and shadows change on the rocks as the sun moved across the sky. But this trip was just going to be a quickie.

We headed back to the visitor’s center, talked to a helpful person at the desk and decided to take the Mirror Lake trail after lunch, as a way to get off the main road and see a bit more before the day was out. We went in the visitor’s center and watched a short movie about the history of Yosemite. After watching it I felt so grateful and touched that people so long ago had worked to preserve it for us to visit today!

And here’s the other thing. I know it was partly because we were there in the off season, but it felt like we almost had the place to ourselves. There were a lot of people there, but it didn’t really feel that way at any of the stops. It wasn’t annoyingly crowded anyway. Lots of foreigners, which was interesting, it seemed like every person we heard talking was speaking a different language. But still, when we wanted to stop and just stare in wonder at something, we could do it and didn’t feel pushed to hurry up and move on.

After resting at the movie, we tried to swing by the deli and pick up lunch, but everyone had the same idea at the same time, and the place was slammed! There was a little store there and so instead we picked up some pre-packaged snacks – jerky, a muffin, chips, some drinks, etc, and jumped on the bus to get to the trailhead for Mirror Lake.

The path to Mirror Lake was beautiful. It wound through tall trees, and giant boulders. It was an easy walk, reminded me of the trails at BG Lake.

Mirror Lake was really just a wide spot in the river. There was a big stone out there, and the lake reflected the granite walls of the valley.

The river went over a little natural dam and down some rocks, and we sat on a boulder at the bottom of that and ate our lunch and watched people carefully pick their way across the log jam, waiting to see them fall in!

This was one of my favorite shots of the trip. They made it!

We headed on back, and I took a picture of Dave on the trail

Right before a giant rock fell on him – ha ha

Nah, just goofin’ around! Here I had him pause on the trail to give some scale to the boulders on either side. I couldn’t believe we were just walking through this amazing rock fall.

Along the way we stopped and watched as this couple decided to wade across the river.

Back through the tall trees on the way back.

Unfortunately, this was all the time we had, we needed to get started back towards San Jose before it got too late. We rode the shuttle back to our car and headed out, stopping at Valley View one last time for another picture now that the sun was lighting up this side of the cliffs. It’s so magnificent, it’s just amazing.

We headed out of the valley, up a long hill, and along the way we saw a couple pull offs. We stopped at the last one before it looked like we would be over the hill and gone. We looked back towards the valley and what did we see? A breathtaking view of El Capitan, Half Dome, and Cathedral just over the ridges.

The pull out had a marker with a 3D Half Dome to compare to the real thing.

And that was our last glimpse of beautiful Yosemite Valley. But we’ll be back again. I definitely did NOT see enough of Yosemite.

CA Adventure Part 3 – Fresno, and beyond

On April 7, 2015 By stefrobrtsIn travel1 Comment

We woke up Saturday morning somewhere outside of Fresno, conveniently near a Casino which took some of Dave’s money the night before.

We headed for our next stop – exciting Fresno!

Lots of flat open farmland, not much to see but the weather was beautiful, and heating up a bit!

Once in Fresno we found a place called the Fresno Breakfast House, and it had this adorable outdoor courtyard! I loved it, and the cool fountain Smile So Dave snapped a picture of me. Check out the cool long hair I’m sporting now.

After breakfast we went to the destination that had brought us all the way here – the Forestiere Underground Gardens. Head to their website to check out the details, but basically Mr Forestiere back in the early 1900’s started carving out his amazing home, eventually expanding it to cover many acres, all underground where life was cool and breezy. It’s really an astonishing place, and so ‘green’, it’s actually seems like he was years ahead of his time. Recycling his water for plants, capturing rain, staying out of the sun and using the natural flow of air to cool. It’s just amazing!

His first love was orchards, and he bought the land intending to grow fruit, but the land was too rocky. Above ground there are these wonderful fruit trees. As a NW Native, it blows my mind to travel a few hours south and see Oranges, Grapefruit, and Lemons growing on trees in March!

This lovely pergola covered the waiting area to enter his home.

Just a few shots of the amazing underground home, and the open courtyards and trees growing in the sunshine. It was like some transplanted bit of Mediterranean paradise. And it was much cooler underground, so much that it was instantly noticeable when you came back up. This guy really knew what he was doing. I’m so glad his family was able to preserve some of his home so we could enjoy it.

After Fresno we headed up to visit another Casino Dave wanted to try out. As we were driving up to it we were seeing something coming up on the horizon, then I realized this town we were driving up to seemed to sit at the very base of a HUGE dam, with the spillway aimed right at Main Street! As we got closer the highway turned away from the dam, so it only looked like it emptied out on the highway.

That was Friant Dam, and behind it was Millerton Lake. We drove to the edge of the parking lot, but as you can see, the edge of the lake was nowhere near. There were boat launches that were high and dry, and the actual shore was WAY, WAY out there. You would have to drive quite a ways on what should have been lakebed to get to where you could put in. All that green stuff should have been covered in water.

After losing some money at the casino we headed back to Fresno, ate lunch at a Boston Market, which is one of our favorite places, but we don’t have them in our area anymore, and then headed for Yosemite.

Lots of this purple bush blooming along the roadside.

There was a section of road wiped out, and we had to sit at a stoplight for a long time while we waited for the one-lane temporary road to clear for our turn to go. We pondered all the other folks who had been in the same predicament, and spent their time decorating this sign.

We finally laid eyes on the Merced River, but it was getting awfully late. We stopped and checked in at our hotel, the Cedar Lodge. It looked clean and neat.

We turned right around and drove on into Yosemite, just to get a feel for the place. By the time we got to the lodge, it was dark. We walked around a bit, but it was very confusing, and things were farther apart than the maps on the signs made it look like. Finally we retreated to our car and drove out, and on the way past El Capitan I could see the twinkle of lights high up on the wall. Were climbers really up there after dark?!

We got back to El Portal and the grill was about to close, so we hurried over, to find a line of about 30 other late eaters waiting to put in an order! Luckily the kitchen stayed open until everyone was served. We secured some chicken strips and fries and headed back to our room, where we stuffed ourselves and watched a Tom Cruise movie on the TV. We were out of cell phone range, and Wi-Fi was expensive, so we couldn’t research for our trip the next day, we had to just chill out and relax, and see what would happen.

CA Adventure Part 2 – Pinnacles National Park

On March 31, 2015 By stefrobrtsIn travel1 Comment

We drove through the flat farmlands, with just the gentle rolling hills on the East side of us, wondering where these ‘pinnacles’ could possibly be, and how big could they be? But if it’s a National Park, there must be a reason, so we drove up into the hills in search of it. As we drove along the narrow, winding, one-way road, we started getting peeks at a rough, rocky area sticking up above the soft curves of the hills, something clearly out of place.

Finally we rolled up to the ranger station at the park entrance and the parking lot was pretty much empty.

We went in and paid our fees and the ranger said she had a short video we could watch on the history of the park, and it was only about ten minutes, so that seemed like a good deal, since we had never even heard of the place before that morning. It’s nice to have a little context while we walk around it. Pinnacles National Park. It turns out there is hiking, rock climbing, and caving to do in the park, plus there’s a chance to see California Condors!

She pointed us up to Chaparral trailhead, which it turns out is where all the cars were. Not that it was exactly busy, but there were a few folks there hiking around. We decided to head off to the Balconies Cave Trail, which was supposed to be .6 miles from the parking lot. We figured that would be pretty easy and give us a closer peek at some of this park.

On the way up the trail we kept seeing these little lizards hanging out on the fence rails. Lizards! There’s something you don’t see at home!

The view from the parking lot was jaw dropping all by itself. It’s hard to express how big this wall of rock is! It reminded me of the Garden of the Gods in Colorado. It was really amazing!

Around every bend were more amazing sights!

All these rock walls were like mountains. And in fact they said they were the remains of a mountain that had been torn apart and crumbled.

This rock wall probably was a hundred feet high, at least.

Giant boulders were everywhere, having fallen off the crumbling walls.

The trail wound through scrubby treed areas, and back into clearings with more fantastic views.

Sometimes we got to walk under the boulders! You didn’t even have to watch your head in this tunnel (well, I didn’t anyway).

Wildlife spotted #2 – a cleverly camouflaged squirrel. He was hanging out in a dry creekbed munching on something. Sadly, because of the drought all the creekbeds were dry. I think this place would have been even more beautiful if they had water in them!

We finally got to the entrance to Balconies Cave, and peeked at it, but decided we were not equipped for any serious caving. A nice European couple had just come all the way through it, and said it was a fun hike. They were resting on the rocks before heading back.

The views on our walk back were just as amazing. Huge rock spires jutting up out of the green woods.

The clouds looked like they were threatening rain, but no such luck. This place was pretty dry and it stayed dry during our visit.

More wildlife – a turkey! She (I think) trotted along the road ahead of us, occasionally looking back to see if we were still following her – though we stayed quite a ways back.

She finally headed up the hill above the trail to get away from us.

We were quickly back to our rental – a red Ford Edge. When offered an upgrade at the rental counter, they offered a bunch of high end cars, but I thought we should take the Edge. Since it was basically the same as our Ford Flex, I thought it would seem familiar and comfortable, and I was worried if we drove a Volvo around for four days we’d come home with Volvo Fever!

So that was the end of our little side trip. I could definitely come back here again and explore more. It was beautiful and spectacular and really different from any place I’d been. And we only saw a tiny bit of it. This was an unexpected treat on our journey!

Our grand trip to Fresno! Part 1

On March 30, 2015 By stefrobrtsIn travel1 Comment

A few months ago we decided to take along weekend in March. My work requires us to use up our vacation time from the previous year by the end of March, and I get a Birthday day-off in March as well, so I put those together and made a 4 day weekend on my birthday. The only thing we had to figure out was where to go. We had done a really fun trip several years ago to San Francisco, and drove down to Hearst Castle, so we were thinking maybe after all our trailer travels, it was time for another Fly n’ Drive adventure. Dave set it all up – a spectacular weekend in Fresno, California!

Although I enjoyed watching everyone’s reactions went I told them we were taking a vacation in Fresno, where it sounds like most people would only stay at by force, we had a good reason: It was a short plane flight away, surrounded by interesting possible destinations, and in the center of Fresno is a little attraction Dave has had on his to-do list since he saw it on one of those Extreme Home shows many years ago – an underground home that’s open for tours! I’ll admit I was a little more excited about it’s proximity to Yosemite.

So we headed to PDX at o’dark thirty in the morning, and caught a plane to San Jose. And for the first time ever, I got to walk out on the tarmac to board!

As an airplane geek, that was actually really cool!

Well, it’s dark, and quiet, nothing but the drone of the engines, might as well catch some sleep.

Somewhere over southern Oregon…

It looks like the clouds are on fire.

Then I look out the window and what do I see way off in the distance? No way…

Well, Golden Gate, we’ll be seeing you again later…

First stop: Monterey Bay Aquarium

The Aquarium was awesome, but expensive. And pretty crowded for a weekday. It had a lot of really great exhibits though.

I could watch the jellies all day.

On to the BIG tank.

There was a big round tank with a school of these little guys, Sardines maybe? Just going around and around.

These penguins were hanging out in the viewing area, which I thought would make a nice picture…

Until they started ‘getting it on’!

Aww, they look happy.

Cuttlefish!

The hidden Octopus.

Well, that was fun, but it was time to move on, so we headed towards the valley of Central California, where we saw lots and lots of this:

While studying a map over breakfast I had seen Pinnacles National Park. That sounded promising, so we headed for that as our next destination. The landscape sure didn’t look like someplace where you would find anything called Pinnacles though. We were in for a treat.