If It’s Friday, This Must Be California

Where did the week go!  All of a sudden, it’s Friday, and we’re in another state.  But, to catch up with the events of the week…

First, Mr. BoJangles, our 9 year old, black, miniature schnauzer had an appointment to have his teeth cleaned on Tuesday.  He had a bad “slab fracture” on one of his back molars, and that had to come out.  The vet said it was a difficult extraction, so we had to keep a close eye on him for a couple of days.  He had to be fed only soft food, and had a couple of medications to take.  Thankfully, he seems to be back to his old self, eating his regular food and doing fine!

Also on Tuesday, while Mr. BJ was at the vet, we took Jasmine and went to the beach for a walk:

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While we were at the beach, I did a little Geocaching.  This is a fun activity to do with a hand-held GPS unit.  If you’re not familiar with the sport, you can learn about it at the linked website.  Below, Jasmine is keeping a close eye on what I’ve found in the cache (just in case there’s anything there she would like):

  Later on, when we had both dogs back home, we had a campfire and sat outside to watch the sunset:

Wednesday morning we went to North Bend so Jim could go to Walmart while I was at the Weight Watchers meeting.  After our errands, we went back home and started preparing for travel.

The decision was made to leave on Thursday morning, so at 7:00 – yes, that’s A.M. – we pulled out of Winchester Bay RV Resort for our journey.

We took Oregon 38 and 138 from Reedsport over to I-5 and saw some beautiful fall colors along the way:

But wait a minute!  What the heck -

Yes, that is snow – just near the top of Siskiyou Summit, 4,013’ – we drove through a snow storm.  Thankfully, it didn’t last long because we were going downhill in a hurry:

And soon, we came to a welcome sign:

And the snow was where it belongs, up on a mountain.  The clouds let us have this quick glimpse of Mount Shasta before it was covered up again:

We made it to Redding, CA, by around 3:00 and got settled in to our site at JGW RV Park on the south end of town.  This is a great overnight stop.  It was just a little more expensive than we like to spend for an overnight, but it was well worth it when we found out we could wash the rig there.  It sure needed it after a month and a half on the Oregon coast, and the trip through the snow storm!  Our travel day was 328 miles in 7 and a half hours, and we averaged 8 mpg. 

This morning, after we got the Castle and Saturn all cleaned and shining, we left Redding a little after 10.  Our travel day today was easy – 160 miles south on I-5, 9.9 mpg and about 3 hours to the Cal Expo RV Park in Sacramento.  Our thanks to Laurie and Odel, (Semi-True Tales) for their review of this park.  It’s easy to get to, relatively inexpensive, considering that it’s in a California city, and will work just fine for our time here.  I have my regular blood test to have done, and we have several nieces here to visit with, we’ll be here for a week before continuing our southbound journey.

I’ve been asked about my camera, so here are some notes about our cameras, since both Jim and I provide the pictures for this blog.  I just replaced my Canon Rebel Xti with a Canon Rebel Xsi, 12.2 megapixels, and an 18-200 mm wide angle lens.  Jim has a Canon 50D 15 megapixels, with a 28–135 mm lens.  We take a lot of pictures to get a few that are really good, but we love to use these cameras.

And one more note about our lives on the road.  When we first started out (almost 3 years ago), we used paper maps and the Microsoft Streets & Trips without a GPS to find our way around.  I remember every time we’d get to a new town, I’d be nervous and uncertain.  Then we got the GPS version of MS Streets & Trips, and started using Google Earth with the street-level view feature to plan our routes and find places.  I can’t begin to tell you how much easier it is for us now that we use these tools.  I can look ahead at rv parks, truck stops, routes and city streets to make it easier for us to get around and feel more comfortable about our travel days.  Life is good!