November 8 to 14, 2009 ; San Francisco to Coarsegold, California
Sunday ; Point Reyes National Seashore
Today was, surprisingly, sunny and mild again. I was a bit ill with colitis. We had a lazy morning, taking Bo for a long walk around the campground. This afternoon, with Julie and Judy, we went to Point Reyes National Seashore. We drove about 6 miles west of Samuel P Taylor State Park, entered the national park, then drove about 20 miles through the national park to the cliffs above the Pacific Ocean.
All four of us took a very short hike to a scenic overlook, then Julie, Judy, and Joanne took a long, up and down hike to visit the Point Reyes Lighthouse. I wasn’t feeling well, so I went by myself on a much shorter hike to another scenic viewpoint. While I waited for them to return from the lighthouse visit I napped briefly in the truck.
When we returned to the state park, I built a campfire at Julie’s campground host site while Julie prepared supper for the four of us. I used the remainder of the firewood I bought in Washington, because the California firewood that Julie sells to campers is green and burns poorly. And costs six bucks a little bundle ! After a dinner of salad and turkey chili with cornmeal dumplings, we prepared “s’mores” over the campfire.
Monday ; Samuel P Taylor State Park
Today was sunny and mild again. Judy spent the last 2 nights at Julie’s trailer so that Julie could accompany Judy to a medical appointment today at Stanford University Medical Centre in Palo Alto, an hour or so south of San Francisco, regarding Judy‘s pending liver transplant.
This past summer a neighbour offered me a good condition deep cycle RV battery that he no longer had use for. I brought it along with us as a spare / “backup” battery for the trailer. Good thing ! Julie’s Park Ranger “employer” has allowed us to park in an empty campground host site in the state park to enable us to visit with Julie, but has not allowed us to connect to electricity since she’s not charging us for the use of the site. Fair enough ! But our trailer battery has become drained after three cold nights of use. The furnace is a huge drain on the battery. This morning I connected the auxiliary battery to the trailer’s main battery using booster cables. Hopefully that will get us through another couple of nights. We had been planning to leave today but Julie asked us to stay until Wednesday so that we can have all day tomorrow for visiting.
When Julie and Judy returned from Palo Alto to San Francisco, Julie took a bus to Fairfax, a town near the state park. We drove to Fairfax and picked her up, then drove to San Rafael to refill with diesel, then to San Anselmo to buy groceries at Safeway. Back at the state park we invited Julie over for a Jambalaya dinner and an evening of visiting.
Tuesday ; Samuel P Taylor State Park
We spent the day visiting with Julie. She wandered by this morning while she was walking Triscuit and we were outside doing some chores. We chatted until lunch time then she joined us for lunch in our trailer. In the afternoon we went over to her campground host site. I mounted a new fire extinguisher in her RV for her. Then while she and Joanne chatted I got online using her Wi-Fi access and did e-mail and some other online work. I spent the rest of the afternoon working on processing all the photos I took over the last few days of San Francisco and area. I had not finished working on the photos by supper time.
I built a campfire. We sat around the campfire and visited. Joanne went back to our trailer to walk Bo and prepare cole slaw. Julie prepared a rice dish. I cooked seasoned Basa fillets with onions wrapped in foil on the campfire. Second time I’ve tried that in the last week or so, and second time it turned out pretty good ! We spent the rest of the evening sitting around the campfire visiting.
It was great to visit with Julie again. We realized while chatting that, prior to this visit of the last few days, it has been almost three years since we last visited with her. The last time we saw her was at the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California on New Year’s Day, 2007
Wednesday ; San Francisco to Coarsegold, California
Remembrance Day / Veteran’s Day ; Lest We Forget
This morning we prepared for departure, said goodbye to Julie and Triscuit, and left Samuel P Taylor State Park. We headed 16 miles back to the freeways, and got onto Interstate 580 heading east. We crossed San Francisco Bay over the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge then headed south through Berkeley and Oakland.
It is important to me to observe a minute of silence “to remember” at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Today at that time we were in congested traffic on a six lane wide ( in each direction ) freeway with multi-level exit and entrance ramps all around us. All my attention was focused on driving. All Joanne’s attention was focused on navigating. We compromised and postponed the ritual until 11:00 P.M..
I-580 took us south and east through the Silicon Valley area and eventually to I-5. We turned south on I-5 to Los Baños ( strange name for a city … “The Bathrooms” in Spanish ) then east on Hwy. 152 until it ended at Hwy. 99. South on Hwy. 99 to Madera, east on Hwy. 145, then north on Hwy. 41 up into the Sierra Nevada Mountains to SKP Park Of The Sierras near Coarsegold and Yosemite National Park.
Park Of The Sierras is the prettiest of the 19 Escapees parks. It’s spread out over 161 acres of rolling, forested hills in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Sites are far apart from one another, and laid out in random fashion following the natural contours of the land, not lined up in a grid pattern as in most RV parks. When we arrived just a few minutes before their office closed Joanne went in to register and I took Bo for a short walk, ending up at the RV park’s dog park. WOO-HOO … GYPSY ! Bo hadn’t seen Gypsy since two years ago at the Kofa Ko-op dog park in Yuma, Arizona.
We were fortunate enough to be assigned to a gorgeous site, a large lot high up on the hills in the park, with no neighbours close by, and a view overlooking a gulley and the next mountain. We got set up in our site, then watched the sun set behind the mountain, turning the lightly clouded sky a pretty pink.
Thursday ; SKP Park Of The Sierras / Coarsegold / Oakhurst, California
Today was a rainy day of chores and errands. This morning we unhitched the truck from the trailer. I hate doing that kind of outdoor work in cold rain ! We spent the morning in the clubhouse where Joanne did a lot of laundry and I got caught up on online work. The clubhouse is a Wi-Fi hotspot.
This afternoon we headed north on Hwy. 41 towards Yosemite National Park, through the village of Coarsegold to the town of Oakhurst. We shopped for groceries at both Vons and Raley’s, then did some shopping at CVS Pharmacy. I checked out a “lube, oil, & filter” business, then went to Kragen Auto Parts to check out the cost of buying the oil and filter, and changing the oil myself. SKP Park Of The Sierras has quite a large and well equipped service garage / workshop, and I am considering changing the truck’s filter and oil myself.
By the time we left Oakhurst it was dark. On the way back to SKP Park Of The Sierras we stopped in Coarsegold to refill with diesel. Joanne made my favourite spaghetti recipe for supper. In the evening we watched Survivor.
Friday ; Today was sunny and mild, a really nice day. While I was working outside this morning two members of the park’s Hello Committee came by to welcome us to the park, offer information, and answer questions. Nice touch !
I spent all of the morning and part of the afternoon doing maintenance and repair projects. Sometimes it seems as if Joanne finds creative new ways to break things faster than I can keep up with the repairs. I repaired a broken chair. I repaired a broken shoe tray. I repaired a section of stair nosing. I recharged our auxiliary trailer battery. I spent time underneath the truck ensuring that I could access the oil filter and oil drain plug, and that I had all the necessary tools and equipment to do an oil change myself. I worked at our campsite and at the “Pole Barn”, this park’s maintenance garage. Everything I need to do an oil change either I have or can find at the Pole Barn. While at the Pole Barn I sharpened and polished my axe with a variety of grinders. Had an axe to grind … HA HA HA !
On the way to the Pole Barn, I had to stop to allow something to slowly cross the road. HUH ? A large, hairy tarantula ? ! ? I got out of the truck and took some photos.
The one item that neither I nor the Pole Barn had was a “cap style” oil filter wrench. My friend Mischa had one. Lynn and Mischa invited us to the dog park at 4 PM, the time each day when many dog owners congregate at the dog park for dog and people socializing. At 4 PM we went to the dog park with Bo and his K9 Agility components. We packed about half of Bo’s agility course with us on this trip, the items that were easy to store ; big tunnel, little tunnel, a hurdle, and weave poles. Bo had an excellent time demonstrating K9 Agility for all his new ( and one old ) California dog friends. A few of them tried some of the agility components. Bo’s friend from 2 years ago, Gypsy, the only “larger” dog in the dog park today was … terrified after I tried to convince her to go through “big tunnel”. She spent the rest of the afternoon in the dog park hiding behind Lynn. It seemed as if the smaller the dog, the more brave and bold they were about trying the agility components.
Around 5 PM as it began to get dark, all the dogs and their owners left the dog park. We went to the clubhouse briefly so that I could retrieve and send e-mail.
Saturday ; Today was a lovely, sunny, mild day. This morning we went to the clubhouse for a park fund raising “biscuits & gravy” breakfast. Hmmm … never had “biscuits and gravy” breakfast before. Kind of interesting ! Pretty popular down here. Probably explains my ability to identify at a glance whether a woman is American or Canadian. HA HA HA ! After breakfast I used Wi-Fi briefly then went to the library to exchange some books.
Back at our trailer we took Bo and Sully outside for a walk to enjoy the fine weather. Well, Bo walked. Sully just sort of meandered around our large campsite / yard. He’s not much of a “walker”. I took photos of Sully, my first photos of Sully outdoors.
Every day between 3:30 and 5 PM there is a “dog party” in the dog park. We now attend on a daily basis. Bo romps and plays with many other dogs, and we do some “agility”. When we arrived back at our site after the dog party, just at dusk, there were … WHOA … MANY MANY DEER ! WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF ! A herd of six deer were grazing in our site, beside our trailer. You would think that an hour and a half of playing in the dog park would leave Bo too tired to get so excited about some deer that he’s bouncing off the windshield, but NOOOOO !
DSK
Sunday ; Point Reyes National Seashore
Today was, surprisingly, sunny and mild again. I was a bit ill with colitis. We had a lazy morning, taking Bo for a long walk around the campground. This afternoon, with Julie and Judy, we went to Point Reyes National Seashore. We drove about 6 miles west of Samuel P Taylor State Park, entered the national park, then drove about 20 miles through the national park to the cliffs above the Pacific Ocean.
All four of us took a very short hike to a scenic overlook, then Julie, Judy, and Joanne took a long, up and down hike to visit the Point Reyes Lighthouse. I wasn’t feeling well, so I went by myself on a much shorter hike to another scenic viewpoint. While I waited for them to return from the lighthouse visit I napped briefly in the truck.
When we returned to the state park, I built a campfire at Julie’s campground host site while Julie prepared supper for the four of us. I used the remainder of the firewood I bought in Washington, because the California firewood that Julie sells to campers is green and burns poorly. And costs six bucks a little bundle ! After a dinner of salad and turkey chili with cornmeal dumplings, we prepared “s’mores” over the campfire.
Monday ; Samuel P Taylor State Park
Today was sunny and mild again. Judy spent the last 2 nights at Julie’s trailer so that Julie could accompany Judy to a medical appointment today at Stanford University Medical Centre in Palo Alto, an hour or so south of San Francisco, regarding Judy‘s pending liver transplant.
This past summer a neighbour offered me a good condition deep cycle RV battery that he no longer had use for. I brought it along with us as a spare / “backup” battery for the trailer. Good thing ! Julie’s Park Ranger “employer” has allowed us to park in an empty campground host site in the state park to enable us to visit with Julie, but has not allowed us to connect to electricity since she’s not charging us for the use of the site. Fair enough ! But our trailer battery has become drained after three cold nights of use. The furnace is a huge drain on the battery. This morning I connected the auxiliary battery to the trailer’s main battery using booster cables. Hopefully that will get us through another couple of nights. We had been planning to leave today but Julie asked us to stay until Wednesday so that we can have all day tomorrow for visiting.
When Julie and Judy returned from Palo Alto to San Francisco, Julie took a bus to Fairfax, a town near the state park. We drove to Fairfax and picked her up, then drove to San Rafael to refill with diesel, then to San Anselmo to buy groceries at Safeway. Back at the state park we invited Julie over for a Jambalaya dinner and an evening of visiting.
Tuesday ; Samuel P Taylor State Park
We spent the day visiting with Julie. She wandered by this morning while she was walking Triscuit and we were outside doing some chores. We chatted until lunch time then she joined us for lunch in our trailer. In the afternoon we went over to her campground host site. I mounted a new fire extinguisher in her RV for her. Then while she and Joanne chatted I got online using her Wi-Fi access and did e-mail and some other online work. I spent the rest of the afternoon working on processing all the photos I took over the last few days of San Francisco and area. I had not finished working on the photos by supper time.
I built a campfire. We sat around the campfire and visited. Joanne went back to our trailer to walk Bo and prepare cole slaw. Julie prepared a rice dish. I cooked seasoned Basa fillets with onions wrapped in foil on the campfire. Second time I’ve tried that in the last week or so, and second time it turned out pretty good ! We spent the rest of the evening sitting around the campfire visiting.
It was great to visit with Julie again. We realized while chatting that, prior to this visit of the last few days, it has been almost three years since we last visited with her. The last time we saw her was at the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California on New Year’s Day, 2007
Wednesday ; San Francisco to Coarsegold, California
Remembrance Day / Veteran’s Day ; Lest We Forget
This morning we prepared for departure, said goodbye to Julie and Triscuit, and left Samuel P Taylor State Park. We headed 16 miles back to the freeways, and got onto Interstate 580 heading east. We crossed San Francisco Bay over the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge then headed south through Berkeley and Oakland.
It is important to me to observe a minute of silence “to remember” at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Today at that time we were in congested traffic on a six lane wide ( in each direction ) freeway with multi-level exit and entrance ramps all around us. All my attention was focused on driving. All Joanne’s attention was focused on navigating. We compromised and postponed the ritual until 11:00 P.M..
I-580 took us south and east through the Silicon Valley area and eventually to I-5. We turned south on I-5 to Los Baños ( strange name for a city … “The Bathrooms” in Spanish ) then east on Hwy. 152 until it ended at Hwy. 99. South on Hwy. 99 to Madera, east on Hwy. 145, then north on Hwy. 41 up into the Sierra Nevada Mountains to SKP Park Of The Sierras near Coarsegold and Yosemite National Park.
Park Of The Sierras is the prettiest of the 19 Escapees parks. It’s spread out over 161 acres of rolling, forested hills in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Sites are far apart from one another, and laid out in random fashion following the natural contours of the land, not lined up in a grid pattern as in most RV parks. When we arrived just a few minutes before their office closed Joanne went in to register and I took Bo for a short walk, ending up at the RV park’s dog park. WOO-HOO … GYPSY ! Bo hadn’t seen Gypsy since two years ago at the Kofa Ko-op dog park in Yuma, Arizona.
We were fortunate enough to be assigned to a gorgeous site, a large lot high up on the hills in the park, with no neighbours close by, and a view overlooking a gulley and the next mountain. We got set up in our site, then watched the sun set behind the mountain, turning the lightly clouded sky a pretty pink.
Thursday ; SKP Park Of The Sierras / Coarsegold / Oakhurst, California
Today was a rainy day of chores and errands. This morning we unhitched the truck from the trailer. I hate doing that kind of outdoor work in cold rain ! We spent the morning in the clubhouse where Joanne did a lot of laundry and I got caught up on online work. The clubhouse is a Wi-Fi hotspot.
This afternoon we headed north on Hwy. 41 towards Yosemite National Park, through the village of Coarsegold to the town of Oakhurst. We shopped for groceries at both Vons and Raley’s, then did some shopping at CVS Pharmacy. I checked out a “lube, oil, & filter” business, then went to Kragen Auto Parts to check out the cost of buying the oil and filter, and changing the oil myself. SKP Park Of The Sierras has quite a large and well equipped service garage / workshop, and I am considering changing the truck’s filter and oil myself.
By the time we left Oakhurst it was dark. On the way back to SKP Park Of The Sierras we stopped in Coarsegold to refill with diesel. Joanne made my favourite spaghetti recipe for supper. In the evening we watched Survivor.
Friday ; Today was sunny and mild, a really nice day. While I was working outside this morning two members of the park’s Hello Committee came by to welcome us to the park, offer information, and answer questions. Nice touch !
I spent all of the morning and part of the afternoon doing maintenance and repair projects. Sometimes it seems as if Joanne finds creative new ways to break things faster than I can keep up with the repairs. I repaired a broken chair. I repaired a broken shoe tray. I repaired a section of stair nosing. I recharged our auxiliary trailer battery. I spent time underneath the truck ensuring that I could access the oil filter and oil drain plug, and that I had all the necessary tools and equipment to do an oil change myself. I worked at our campsite and at the “Pole Barn”, this park’s maintenance garage. Everything I need to do an oil change either I have or can find at the Pole Barn. While at the Pole Barn I sharpened and polished my axe with a variety of grinders. Had an axe to grind … HA HA HA !
On the way to the Pole Barn, I had to stop to allow something to slowly cross the road. HUH ? A large, hairy tarantula ? ! ? I got out of the truck and took some photos.
The one item that neither I nor the Pole Barn had was a “cap style” oil filter wrench. My friend Mischa had one. Lynn and Mischa invited us to the dog park at 4 PM, the time each day when many dog owners congregate at the dog park for dog and people socializing. At 4 PM we went to the dog park with Bo and his K9 Agility components. We packed about half of Bo’s agility course with us on this trip, the items that were easy to store ; big tunnel, little tunnel, a hurdle, and weave poles. Bo had an excellent time demonstrating K9 Agility for all his new ( and one old ) California dog friends. A few of them tried some of the agility components. Bo’s friend from 2 years ago, Gypsy, the only “larger” dog in the dog park today was … terrified after I tried to convince her to go through “big tunnel”. She spent the rest of the afternoon in the dog park hiding behind Lynn. It seemed as if the smaller the dog, the more brave and bold they were about trying the agility components.
Around 5 PM as it began to get dark, all the dogs and their owners left the dog park. We went to the clubhouse briefly so that I could retrieve and send e-mail.
Saturday ; Today was a lovely, sunny, mild day. This morning we went to the clubhouse for a park fund raising “biscuits & gravy” breakfast. Hmmm … never had “biscuits and gravy” breakfast before. Kind of interesting ! Pretty popular down here. Probably explains my ability to identify at a glance whether a woman is American or Canadian. HA HA HA ! After breakfast I used Wi-Fi briefly then went to the library to exchange some books.
Back at our trailer we took Bo and Sully outside for a walk to enjoy the fine weather. Well, Bo walked. Sully just sort of meandered around our large campsite / yard. He’s not much of a “walker”. I took photos of Sully, my first photos of Sully outdoors.
Every day between 3:30 and 5 PM there is a “dog party” in the dog park. We now attend on a daily basis. Bo romps and plays with many other dogs, and we do some “agility”. When we arrived back at our site after the dog party, just at dusk, there were … WHOA … MANY MANY DEER ! WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF ! A herd of six deer were grazing in our site, beside our trailer. You would think that an hour and a half of playing in the dog park would leave Bo too tired to get so excited about some deer that he’s bouncing off the windshield, but NOOOOO !
DSK
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