Street in Frisco

for some reason the steep hill pic did not go thru on the last post-so now you have two??!!

Wednesday the 28th, south of San Francisco

Been on some crazy roads, looked like a snake had zig-zagged up the mountain sides, and the  road makers had followed it.  Some of the switch backs were scary, most times Neil was driving about 20 miles/hr, and lots of times down to 15.   No where to pull off if you needed, no guard rails, so you were looking down into trees 500ft below you!

  This is what you can do with those huge tree stumps, pretty neat.  Lower half was living area, and top a bedroom.

Then it was crossing over the Golden Gate Bridge, as you can see it wasn’t too ‘golden’!!  Very foggy and traffic terrible.  We were hoping to stop at the Bridge Welcome center, but never saw it, so just kept driving.  Streets were so rough, I thought we would break every dish in the camper.  If you look at one of the pics you can see one of the steep hills San Francisco is famous for!   We were looking forward to heading for the coast now and enjoying some beach weather, don’t think that’s going to happen, as we are to have heavy rains and T storms.  So we’ll see what happens when we keep trucking south

xpecting big rain with TStorms.  Part of th3 happen

More from Saturday

Forgot to mention in the previous post, we saw a large herd of elk in the yard of a campground, seems they like nice green grass.  One man was out with a rake, defending his grass

California, Saturday the 25th.

Into California yesterday, first big stop was the Redwoods national park.  We thought we had seen big trees in the cathedral grove on Vancouver Island.  But they were miniatures in comparison to these.  First stopped at the ‘drive thru tree’.  Oops, Ralph did not fit!!  But we did watch others in small cars drive thru. Then we did a lovely long walk thru those giants.  It was spritual!!  Can’t think of any other way to describe it.  One more off the bucket list!   Tomorrow we are heading down the famous, or should I say infamous #1 highway along the coast.

Monday the 19th in Port Oxford Oregon Coast

Beautiful weather, sunny, but chilly wind .  Stopped on the beach for a walk and lunch.  There is no beach overnite parking on the beach or at any spots along the way.  You have to go to an rv park.  Neil is checking out the ‘snakes’ on the beach.  These are called bull kelp.  Huge things, very strong, you can stand on them without even flattening them.  The end has a 3” ball, that is eveidently full of carbon dioxide, we were told enough to kill a dog.  Better check that info out!! The beaches are just unbelievable, you can walk for miles.  We could watch the waves forever.  Some this lovely green col

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More for Friday the 16th

Forgot to mention in the last post-if you look closely at one of the pics-there’s a lighthouse in the distance-nicknamed Terrible Tilli.  This lighthouse at Tillamook was decommissioned in around 1990, and has been used lately as a place to put urns!!  Rather crazy.  Now the birds have taken it over.  Today after getting out of the sand pit, we stopped st the Tillamook Cheese factory-boy was that impressive spent a couple of hours there watching the workers, making and packaging the cheese.  Then we drove to Cape Neares, along the coast.  Saw the Octopus tree.

As you see from the pic it was pretty foggy, in fact when were were at the Cape Meares lighthouse we met a white wall!!  Could hear the ocean but sure couldn’t see it. Hope you can read the info on the tree

Oregon coast November the 16th

Wow, beautiful views, along the twisty highway.  Stopped yesterday at Ecola state Park . Astonishing views!!  Pics just don’t show it!!  Hiked what was to be a mile 1/4 trail to beach-after walking over hills, muddy areas, tree roots, for 3/4 hour, and saw the the next hill rising ahead of us, we gave up, and hiked back.

 We spent the nite in a gravel pit along the way-oh, I should say sand pit!!  Had a bit of trouble getting out this morning!  Oops

Washington state-Tuesday morning! , stopping

Crossed the ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles, Washington.  Lovely trip, about 1 1/2 hrs long.  Even saw a whale spouting and breaching-got a pic, but only I can see the little black speck!!  Travelled thru Olympic mountain state park, stopping at Marymere falls for a hike.  Neil is walking thru the giants on the way up.  The falls weren’t that spectacular, but the walk was good.  Then down along the coast, in the brilliant sunshine stopping to enjoy the views.  This is our campsite last nite!  In a bird viewing area.  Very quiet

Big tree near Victoria

Stopped at a visitor centre and museum.  This stump of a huge tree was mounted on a wall-Sorry it’s so hard to see-lighting was poor.  The tree was cut down in 1979, then in 1989, they went back and cut the stump flat and transported it to the museum-in pieces.  The tree was 14ft across, the earliest center ring was dated 1509.  Truly amazing

Saturday the 10th, in Langford still on the island

Had a great visit with our very good friends Pete and Fern Martin.  They fed us, we walked to the ocean then walked all around Beacon Hill Park, which we thought was almost as nice as Bouchard gardens.  (PS. That should have been 8 maids a milking—not 7). Yesterday we headed north to Duncan thru the Malahat Pass, Neil and Ralph are enjoying the view.  Headed west across a very winding road to Port Renfrew, then east along the coast enjoying the views of Juan de Fuca Strait.  Tomorrow if all goes as plans we will cross to Washington State on the ferry.

Thursday the 8th in Sydney-back on the big island

Got off the main roads of Salt Spring Island to see the sites, driving along the east coast, walking the trails in Ruckle park, and visiting the salt Spring Island cheese factory—tasting some great cheeses.  I even got in a quick visit to a well known weaving studio.

Then yesterday we crossed back over to Sydney

Of course, one can’t come to Victoria without a visit to Bouchard gardens-very impressive, seeing that it was once a quarry!   But it was a bit disappointing as there was very little colour.  We were expecting beautiful fall moms everywhere, but there was zippo!!  They were busy decorating with fresh cedar garlands , and little lights in some of the trees, they must be doing the 12 days of Christmas as we saw the ‘7 maids a milking’

Monday the 5th, now at Gange on Salt Spring Island

Heading south, spent the nite at Chemainus, what a really great town, full of fabulous murals everywhere you looked.  We walked all over, even getting our flu shot at the drug store!,   This morning we drove south to Duncan, to see the totem poles, very interesting, as each had a description of the carver and the story.  Lastly we had to go see the largest hockey stick in the world.  Over to Salt Spring Island on the ferry.  Drove north a bit then back south along the east coast to Gange, staying here overnight.