South To the California Mexico Border

Before leaving for Oregon I applied for Global Entry passes for Dale and I. When we travel for work I usually carry lots of equipment and it is always a worry when I get stuck in security and my equipment goes on down the line. We also hate the lines in security.

We’d hoped to go thru the interview process in San Francisco or Portland but there were no interview openings until July and August. We got our Conditional Approval while we were at the South Beach. I looked again for interview openings but when there was nothing in Northern CA, I secured interview appointments down in El Centro for Wed afternoon.

Our plan was to go to El Centro via Anza Borrego on Tues, then drive to El Centro for the night. On Wed, we would go to our interview then return home thru Joshua Tree. We’ve been wanting to go thru these 2 parks for several years so this would be a good excuse.

We arrived home from Northern Cali on Monday, repacked and left again on Tues morning. We’d planned to take our RV but then last minute decided to leave the RV at home and hotel it.

The drive down to Anza Borrego was beautiful. We were surprised and wished we were in a sports car instead of our truck. We could imagine driving on the 2 lane roads winding thru the hills, flying low! Someday.

We were so surprised in Anza Borrego. There were so many flowers, so much green. http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=638 I had Dale to stop several times for photos.

We made it down to El Centro and after checking into the hotel got a recommendation to eat at D’poly. As it turns out there are 2 restaurants, one a taqueria. We went to the taqueria, as recommended. A little place but great food.

We made our interview and it was as others had posted, simple and quick. We were out in about 15 minutes. Now we had to wait for our passports to be linked.

We started for home but had to have another meal at D’poly, this time, the restaurant. Again the restaurant was hardly larger than the taqueria and food so good. Dale was the only non-Hispanic in the place.

We drove home via Joshua Tree. https://www.nps.gov/jotr/index.htm.

  We were under pressure to get home but stopped at several pull outs in the park. The cactus were beautiful and unusual. At the last pull out I stopped to shoot photos of some rocks. As I was shooting I realized there were Big Horn sheep running around the rocks. I’d read that it is unusual to see them. 

Nearly too late I remembered my telephoto lens, I ran back to get the lens but then only got one photo of the sheep. This was a sad lesson on why I need to carry all this stuff, even when it is across a road.

We will return to both Anza Borrego and Joshua Tree, hopefully, next spring. Next time we will camp in the RV for several days at each place.

Now for our next trip.

More Family Time in Fort Bidwell

When our granddaughter Christabel first decided to open a café, in their new hometown of Fort Bidwell, I told her that we’d give her a weekend of work. That we’d wash dishes, cook or do what was needed. That would not include tickets to Europe with cooking lessons, or other travel.

For those who don’t know, Bel has opened her own Café, although Nate, Bekki, and Elias also provide help. She is open on Sat-Sun from 6am-noon. They bake various items and offer a breakfast special. The café is located in the Ft. Bidwell Hotel. The hotel has a commercial kitchen with a dining room that has 6 tables. There is a parlor which can be used for a catered meal.

We drove to Fort Bidwell on Tuesday. What should have been a 6-hour drive turned into an 8+ hour drive. We’d been concerned about ice on the road as a storm was hitting. I checked the road conditions several times. In the morning the Cedar Pass, Hwy-299 was snowed over, but by afternoon, the road webcam showed the road as clear. We drove on our merry way.

We reached the 299 and sent a text to Nate & Bekki that we were on our way over the pass as there would be no service for most of the remainder of the drive. The pass was clear and we were sailing along until we went over the summit. The highway on the other side of the summit, where there was no webcam, was ice, completely iced over. The RV started sliding, yikes! Dale and I about dropped our stomachs. Dale was driving and slowed down to a crawl, maybe 5MPH. We inched down the mountain and made it to Nate’s, lots later than planned.

Fort Bidwell in the morning

The old Bank Vault on the left and store on the right

We had Wed, Thurs and Fri to help kids, cook, shop for food and babysit. Bel had a dinner she was catering on Sat evening, her 1^st catering job. We did what we could to help prep for that.

Elias and I walked on Friday, Sat and Sun mornings early. I shot photos and we talked. He showed me his favorite places for views. We drove up to the cemetery on morning and shot photos there as well. We did a little research on-line and found info on the early Fort. Then we walked trying to find the location of sites.

Bekki took me one afternoon to the other side of the valley where I shot photos of the late afternoon views.

Dale did give Bel lots of kitchen time, his specialty is cooking bacon just perfectly. Bel was more than happy for him to cook the bacon. I figured out how to work their espresso maker and trained Elias to be a barista.

Baked breakfast goods

Sunday afternoon arrived and it was time for us to leave. We’d cooked and cleaned and babysat. We were ready to move on down the road.

Sunset Beach at Sunset

After all of the keeping up with kids, Dale and I were happy to have a couple of days to ourselves.

We left the South Beach campground on Sunday and drove south on Hwy 101. This is the coast highway in Oregon. We needed to work our way to Fort Bidwell, but pulling our RV we were a little concerned about road conditions. We were not wanting to pull the RV over a snowy or icy pass. We decided to take a more southern route across.

On our way down we found a small seafood market open. Until then, all had been closed. We stopped immediately and I ran in. They had fresh caught wild salmon and fresh oysters. We were ready for a feast!

As we looked at campgrounds that would be in the area of our route we found the Sunset Beach Campground. There were a couple of others around the Sunset Beach but after driving thru those we just kept going. We drove into Sunset Beach and found a space that was perfect. The site was in the corner and there were no neighbors. http://oregonstateparks.org/index.cfm?do=parkPage.dsp_parkPage&parkId=182

Afternoon tea with gluten free cookies

Rain let up before we arrived so the ground was soaked

. About sunset, the clouds parted and we walked to the beach across the street. I took the camera and started shooting photos. It was so beautiful.

For dinner, we set up our Downton candelabra, silver flatware and ate our salmon Downton RV style.

That was a perfect ending to our alone time. Ever onward, we were off to Ft Bidwell in the northeast corner of California and then down to the southern border.

A Cold Pre-Easter Day

It was cold and cloudy on Saturday morning but kids work up early and started playing outside as if it were a warm summer day. We had 5 young grandkids camping: 3 boys – 3, 6 and 8; and 2 girls: 4 & 5.

The 5-year-old quickly started taking the 4-year-old around the campground, sometimes carrying her. The 4-year-old seemed to be happy for the attention of a little girl, instead of dealing with her 2 brothers. The girls walked, holdings hands, talking and talking and talking.

Meanwhile, the boys found a sand hill behind the campground. All 3 were happy to dig and play in the sand.

Mid-morning we all walked down to the beach but not together. Christine and I left a bit later than the rest and we ended up north of everyone. But a walk down the beach and there were kids running in the freezing water, boys with their shoes on even. They didn’t last long and were soon huddling by a log shivering. Fortunately, we’d told Justin to bring clothes for them so he arrived with clothes and immediately took them back for warm showers.

As Sunday was Easter, Jen had suggested that we have an egg hunt on Saturday, as we’d all be leaving on Sunday. And Jen being Jen had made an Easter basket for each kid.

Jen and Zoey had stuffed plastic eggs, some with chocolates and some with other things. As it turned out, Christine had done the same thing so we had double the eggs for kids. While kids ran amuck Jen hid the eggs.

This was Cassie’s first Easter, she and Christine only arrived from China last year. Cassie wasn’t sure about the Easter basket but as soon as the other kids started showing her the treats Cassie was fitting right in.

Kids had their egg hunt. Before hiding the eggs again, they made sure to eat all of the candy. They shared the next egg hunt but not the treats!

Kids did not ask to go to the water again, they instead had fun riding bikes and scooters around the campground, where it was warmer. And adults and kids played Frisbee on the large grassy area.

It was an early to bed for kids giving the adults a nice wine time. We don’t know when we will all be together again and Dale and I treasure these times.

On To the South Coast of Oregon

On Friday, after the park, we returned to our RV, packed it up and headed for the South Coast State Park. http://southcoastoregon.com/ Clayton/Jen and kids, Justin/Christine and kids and Dale and I all had reservations for campsites. The campsites were scattered around the park, as we reserved them late.

Dale and I arrived 1^st at the park. We couldn’t remember our site number so stopped at the ranger kiosk to look up our site #. As we were looking at a map, a ranger drove up and asked if she could help. She recognized our last name and said that they’d tried to call as our site had a broken water outlet. We advised her that we had 3 separate sites, all scattered. The ranger then told us that we could camp in a closed area and have 3 sites together.

As it turned out the sites the ranger assigned to us were larger than the open sites, had a large grassy area behind and they were away from the crowded open area. Got lucky that time.

We set up our RV and then set up the tent for Justin. They would arrive late so we wanted everything to be ready for them.

After dinner and kids were asleep, we sat around the table outside, drinking some beer and wine. We waited for Justin and Christine to arrive so we could then party on.

And It's Off to Oregon

We’ve been to the Oregon Coast before, but it was years ago, when we took Dale’s parents to a family reunion in Coos bay. We haven’t been back even though it was quite beautiful.

Our daughter-in-law, Jen decided that they would camp at South Coast for a weekend. She invited our other 2 boys and Dale and I and we decided to make a trip of it.

We thought that we’d go to Jen and Clayton’s on Wed, then help them with chores, kids and cooking. Then, on Friday, we’d go on to the coast where we’d camp with the kids. On Sunday,

we’d leave the campground and head on over to Ft Bidwell to help out Christabel with her café.

First, we had a long, really long, day’s drive. We made it to a campground near Oregon City by 9pm where we camped overnight. Then off to Clayton/Jen’s by 7am Wed morning.

For the next 2 days, we babysat, did chores and cooked. We also had to go to the barn to watch our granddaughter ride her pony. We don't know much about riding horses but she did look good! 

On Friday, to get the kids out of the house so Jen could pack their RV, we took the 2 kids to a park we’d not been to, the Mary S. Young State Park.

http://oregonstateparks.org/index.cfm?do=parkPage.dsp_parkPage&parkId=101

The park has a playing field, a dog park and trails to hike. Dogs are welcome on the trails too. The trails are mostly dirt, but there is a paved walkway as well.

We took snacks and stopped along a spot where we could see the river. Kids ran, Twinkle ran, and we did our best to keep up. This was a great way to spend a couple of hours.

One Last Trip to Death Valley

The plan was to return to Death Valley, with our daughter-in-law and grandkids in tow, look at wildflowers and then tow our RV back home.

We finally picked up our truck and returned to Death Valley on Tuesday. It was dark, kids ran amuck while we made dinner. The kids found a dark place to view the sky and we walked out, unaided by flashlights, to star gaze.

I woke up early, wanting to have clearer skies. The sun was just coming up and the sky was a brilliant red. We woke up kids and drove out to the wildflowers. It had only been 2 days but already there were less flowers.

Sunrise in Death Valley

Kids ran all over, finding flowers and rocks while we cooked breakfast. This time, breakfast was a bit more challenging as we’d forgotten our camp stove. We remembered that we had our smaller bbq in the back of the truck so hauled it out and into the field of flowers. We did find that we could make breakfast over the bbq, but then my dad used the BBQ when we went camping. Of course, we had to have a little Champagne with OJ.

Cooking breakfast on the BBQ

Breakfast in the flowers

From breakfast, we drove down to the Artist Drive. We wanted for kids and Christine to see the beautiful colors. We stopped at several places where kids could run and we could all hike.

Artist Canyon

Artist Palate

We had toyed with the idea of stopping at the Visitor Center so kids could earn their Jr. Ranger badges. As we got closer to Furnace Creek the water temp on the truck went sky high. We were so over this!

Fortunately, we coasted into the Furnace Creek area with a gas station and a mechanic was on duty. Dale stayed with the truck while Christine (our daughter-in-law) and 3 grandkids went off to the Visitor’s Center. 

We picked up the Jr. Ranger booklets and visited the Visitor Center, learning about people who lived in the area and how they lived. We then sat down and completed the booklets. Each kid earned their Jr. Ranger badge took their oath and proudly wore their badge.

In the meantime, the mechanic found that a little ring had been left off, or it fell off when our cracked water hose was changed. Fortunately, the mechanic replaced the piece and we were on our way.

      We had an action packed 2 days and were off back home.