Allspice Westward

 1/31- Joshua Tree CA    We finally departed one of the coolest campsites ever. Just being around these rocks is fun. In case we haven’t had enough rock bouldering we stopped at another campground and walked on the trail amongst more gigantic boulders. One of the problems we had here is it is difficult to sometimes find the trail. People walk all over the place so there are footprints everywhere. You can be following what you think is the path only to have it end at a large rock. When you try to backtrack to find where you went wrong it turns out it could be anywhere. With my excellent navigation skills we eventually found our way back to the rv. ( fortunately we could see it the whole time)     We wanted to spend tonight at another campground in the park but the system to do so is bizarre. National Park campgrounds are reserved through a website called recreation.gov. It is a good website and you put in all your information and it tells you exactly which sites ...

  1/30- Joshua Tree NP       We headed out for a nice 5 mile walk today. We wove in and out of these giant boulders. The boulders are all rounded off and piled high as they make many fantastic shapes and formations. It reminded me of walking amongst the boulder on McGlathery Island in Maine.        The hike took us through desert landscapes and we noted a lot of strange to us flora. It seems there are many kinds of plants that can actually survive here. It is amazing to see these plants growing out of a crack in a rock 30 feet up from the desert floor.       The desert is quite alive with life. We saw lizards and squirrels and rabbits and even a coyote came strolling through the campground.        Later after naps we walked up on this large boulder and watched the sun get parked for the evening. It was all quite stunning.       A lot of the people here say they come here for the night sky...

 1/29-  Joshua Tree National Park        As you may realize I don’t have any internet tonight so I will drop this in the next chance I get but until then …       We started the day driving through some lush farm land. We saw groves upon groves of oranges, almonds, and olives. Lemons were there also but curiously no limes. The rolling hills were just covered with food. The impressive thing to me is the scale of these operations.    This is where the food on my table comes from.        Next on the trip we came up over the hill and what do we see but tons of metal crows all pecking slowly at the ground. I’m talking of course of oil wells. It would be one thing if they put them in a pasture or something but it just looks like raped earth.        Now we are climbing up the mountains and as we look ahead the snow on the tops keeps moving down while we are going up. At the crest we see hundreds of bi...

 1/28- Porterville CA    The drive today was a bit more scenic than yesterday. There were miles of orchards on either side. There were almond, walnut, oranges, and grapes. There was even a tumbleweed plantation along side the road. The highlight though was the raisin trees. This is Sun Maid country and there were miles of the trees. We felt disappointed that we missed the world’s largest raisin box. We might have been able to see it from the road except the semis kept blocking our view.      The highway was still filled with trucks. I saw trucks of every color imaginable. They literally filled the road up. I usually ride in the right hand lane and when the trucks go by me all I can see out my window is sheet metal and spinning tires. The speed limit on the road is 70 but for the semis it is 55 which makes for a lot of interesting situations. Of course the trucks are rarely doing only 55 but they still fill all the lanes. We are sort of a cross between a tru...

 1/27- Merced CA   We finally left Northern California and Chico behind. Hopefully we didn’t wear our welcome out too bad. Our plan was to travel to Merced which is the beginning of one of the roads into Yosemite. Alayne has never been so we thought what the heck we’re right here but it wasn’t meant to be. The road is open but they require you to carry chains in case of snow and ice. Apparently they are quite strict about it but it doesn’t matter as I have no interest in driving this thing in the snow. They did get some snow yesterday so we changed our route once again.     The ride down from Chico was the exact opposite of what you would call scenic. The ride down 99 was filled with industrial and commercial views. Almost the whole way was plants, warehouses, storage yards etc on one side. The other side was one continuous mall. In the 50 miles between Stockton and Merced there over 7 Walmarts. Thats not counting the 3 in Merced alone. If you couldn’t buy it on...

 1/26-Chico CA    We hitched a ride back up to Paradise today to pick up the rv and bring it back down to Chico. We said our goodbyes to A’s mom. She wanted to do all the hugs up in her room. When we got off the elevator to bring her to lunch she just waved at us and motors her walker into the dining room without even looking back. Must have been hungry!     We headed out to another brewery to listen to some live music. This was a band playing jazz and swing music.      Chico has quite the live music scene. In talking to some of these musicians they play in several bands. You can find live music just about any night of the week. There are multiple venues that we have been to here. We went to Secret Trail today and Ramble West yesterday. We have been to Nic’s in Paradise and the Barn here in Chico. There is the Commons and the Lost Dutchman. We have heard some pretty good music and I don’t think we came close to tapping into all the available sites...

 1/25- Chico CA    Yes folks our good friend the Q is back in the lead off spot again. If you remember from last year Blogspot puts the first letter of the title in a big box on the site that I see. I just felt then as I do now that the Q should get some recognition. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the topic of today’s blog.      Today was kind of a lazy day which we spent visiting. We did go to lunch with my nephew at a Mediterranean restaurant which was very good. Later we dropped in at another local brewery and saw some live music. The musician was very good and really seemed to enjoy singing. He had a nice voice and played songs from the 90’s mostly. I did recognize a lot of the songs but they were not favorites of mine. Still he played and sang for over 2 hours straight.      We went to an art show this afternoon about birds. The interesting thing is that last night we had watched a movie about birding. Now I have started to get pos...

 1/24- Chico CA    We went for a hike today in the Bidwell Park area known as the Monkey Face. Supposedly if you look up at the rock formation at the top of the ridge it looks like a monkey’s face. To be honest I’m very skeptical and I wonder what was in that pipe.    Anyway while walking around on the ridge top you can see plenty of volcanic evidence. This whole Sierra Nevada range is all part of the Pacific Rim of Fire. Volcanoes abound here though none are particularly active. Mt St Helens did blow its top about 40 years ago and volcanoes are frequently erupting up in Alaska. The ground here is mostly this hard aggregate that was formed by mud mixing with rocks and drying. Today we saw plenty of hard rock that was once flowing like water.      The fields are littered with rocks ejected from the volcano. I always thought New England fields were rock filled but they have nothing on these pastures. In some you are barely able to take more than two...

 1/23- Chico CA     The yo-yo winds up on the shaft spinning faster and faster. The shaft fills up and it bumps up against the finger of Paradise. . Then with a quick flick of the wrist it starts unwinding as it heads back down towards Chico. We have been yo-yoing back and forth from Chico to Paradise and back and we are now in Chico for the weekend.      We decided to take in another Chico State basketball game tonight. Chico has a record of 14-2 while the opposing team had a record of 14-1 so it promised to be a really good game. Promises promises! About half the Chico State team had some sort of altercation with alcohol and the law last night. All of the starting five were benched which left only 7 players on the team. They held their own though through the first half and were only down by a couple of points. However exhaustion and fouls soon led to a huge deficit.       The weather was superb today with temperatures hitting the upper...

 1/22- Paradise CA    All this time I’m trying to get away from snow what do we do but go to snow. We drove out to Mt Lassen National Park today. It was a very beautiful drive heading up the canyon.  We drove past areas that had been burned in last summers Park fire. One side of the road was all burned trees and on the other were healthy trees. This was the very top of the canyon and the road meandered along the edge giving us some great views.      We eventually made our way past the fire shadow and we dropped into the canyon. We were surrounded by mountains ( literally) of towering Douglas firs and Ponderosa Pines. Redwoods were speckled in between. We met many loaded down logging trucks as they were cleaning up the burned trees. The road twisted and spun as so many roads around here do until we got to the national park.      The snow was just a few patches here and there until we got started up the road. The banks on the side of the r...

 1/21- Paradise CA    We went down and visited Betty this morning.  Alayne hung there most of the day while Saryn and I went back to the golf course with Craig. We only played nine holes today. I had thought that I might play better this time. I mean it’s the second time in 3 years that I have played golf so you’d think I would be better. Unfortunately I spent more time trimming trees today than golfing. Anywhere a tree was in sight I managed to hit it. And the trees did me no favors always throwing my ball aside or backwards even. Usually water is my nemesis but on this day the one really good shot I hit glanced off the tree and headed straight into the water.      This course had deer so close I think they stole my ball at one point. And of course there was the fairway that was covered with geese. We must have hit 4 balls into a herd (gaggle) of geese so thick you couldn’t see the grass and amazingly we did not hit a single one. I’m not saying we tri...

 1/20- Paradise CA   Saryn and Alayne went antiquing today while I stayed back. I thought this would be a good time to talk a bit about Paradise. We took a drive around the other day and it was interesting in that when pointing out places it was this one survived and that was a rebuild or that was burned. There are much fewer people here now and services have been slow to come back. What was once a lush forest of Ponderosa pines and Douglas firs is now an open area littered with stumps of fallen trees. Houses that you couldn’t see before due to the trees are now laid bare in the red dirt. People are still fighting back eight years after the fire.     I mention this as I see photos of the LA fires. It takes a long time to get something like this back to normal. I wish all those people affected by these fires the best in trying to get their lives in order.     By the way, happy MLK day. 

 1/19- Paradise CA    We went over to Lime Saddle park this morning for a hike. This is a nice quiet state park and campground. It runs along and above the shore of Lake Oroville. We have a long history with hiking here. Way back when the lake had water in it we had hiked around and even went swimming in it. We have been here when the lake was so low it was a 1/4 mile hike to the water from the end of the boat launch ramp. Then again we drove under the dam when it had filled up so much the dam was in danger of bursting. They had even evacuated some of the town of Oroville which is right underneath it. Today it was somewhere in between. The house boats were all congregated near the marina but at least the ramp was in the water.      Later that afternoon Saryn and I drove down to Sacramento to attend a pro basketball game. The Sacramento Kings played the Washington Wizards. I am not a big fan of the NBA but Saryn had never been to a game before. They have a ...

 1/18- Paradise CA    We drove down to Chico this morning to pay a visit to grandma. We spent some time with her as Saryn had yet to spend some time with her. We checked out the farmers market in town. It amazed me the amount of fruit and vegetables that were available here in the third week of January. Everyone here is complaining about how cold it is. It was 55 degrees today.     Next we went for a round of shopping in downtown. S and A made some purchases while I waited patiently outside. After exhausting the money separating options we took off back up the canyon  for some well earned naps.      Back to Chico again we go this evening. Chico is about a half hour drive down the skyway. It is a very pretty ride down the edge of the canyon. This time we found ourselves at Sierra Nevada brewery again. We had a nice dinner and a couple of beers and back up the hill we went.  That pretty much concluded our day and what a fine day it wa...

 1/17- Paradise CA    The girls all headed out into the predawn mist to ride up to Mount Shasta. Mt Shasta is a 14000 ft mountain that is a volcano. It just sticks right up out of the surrounding foothills. The ski area is located on the southeast slope and is a small but not too small area. It has 4 lifts and 25 trails. Saryn was the only one skiing while A and A went snowshoeing. They came back with many photos and big smiles.      Meanwhile I went into town to have a soirée with Betty, A’s mom. We chatted and went to lunch and had a nice stroll around the inn. After heading back up the skyway we boys just hung out until we all met up at a local pub for dinner. Then back home to rest up for another day.     It was another in a wonderful string of bluebird days. The forecast shows nothing little yellow balls for at least a week. The first week we came here it rained every day and now we haven’t hardly seen a cloud in a week. 

 1/16- Paradise CA    We made the move up to Paradise today dropping the car off and motoring up the hill. It’s a bit cooler up here and so we have our furnace on for the first time in a while. Saryn flew in today so we got relegated to our regular beds in the rv. We hung out and got caught up and then went for a short walk at a park at the edge of the canyon. The view here is visually stunning and the hillside is covered with some fresh blooming bay leave trees. Part of this park was spared from the fire but you can still see some of the burn scars across the canyon.      I feel it would be remiss of me not to mention that the city of Chico is known as the city of trees. There are a surplus of tree varieties here. There are live oaks, valley oaks, tulip trees, flowing amber trees, sycamores and tons more that I have no idea even existed. Of course right now most have no leaves and so it is not quite as spectacular. Spring is in the air even at this elevati...

 1/15- Chico CA   While A went over to do some nursing with her mom I decided to go for a bike ride. Chico is supposedly known for being a bike friendly city. I took off by myself this time hoping I wouldn’t get too lost. I see snippets of bike trails all over the place but when I ask around nobody knows anything about a unified bike path.      After crossing the interstate it turns out there is a bike way that mostly follows the interstate. I took that for a while until I found another bike path heading in another direction. I rode on this until it turned into a large development. There must be something in the covenant that these large developments must have to put bike paths in. This one was nice and pretty new. It curved along with houses on one side and a wildlife refuge on the other. This is just a large grassy plain with no trees.      I cut off after a while and was following a bike trail in the midst of the houses. The streets are feeder ...

 1/14- Chico CA    Today I talk about money. This state is incredibly expensive to live in. Eggs are $8 a dozen, gas is $4.50 gal, and we paid $7 a gal for diesel in one spot. One state park we went by charged $50 a night to park in their parking lot. Granted it was on the beach but it didn’t even have a bathroom. It’s really no wonder there are so many homeless people here.     There is nothing cheap about rving but food is pricey here. You would think with all the fruit and nuts that are growing right outside of town that it would be cheaper. Hah! The only saving grace ( besides the weather) is that beer is still affordable. Sierra Nevada at the brewery was surprisingly affordable.      We were lucky enough to have a car here in Chico. That has made it nice to get around and to make it over to the Inn. Thanks to A’s sister. It’s interesting that with gas prices hovering around $5 gal that there are still cars everywhere you turn. I’m not su...

 1/13- Chico CA   I have to write fast here as my phone is quickly running out of electricity. We did more or less the same things as yesterday. We got up and hung around doing little rv chores and then A ran some errands while I went for another bike ride. This time we managed to find our way back without any drama.     It was a nice ride mostly sticking to streets in the city but we did ride through a nice neighborhood of fancy houses. It was interesting that places where there have been homeless encampments have been cleared. Of course they just move somewhere else until they clear that spot and then they just play the game. It’s a tough issue.      I need to finish this up pronto as the phon

 1/12- Chico CA    We are stuck in this loop where we aren’t doing enough to really write about. It’s not that we aren’t doing things but are they things that anybody except me would care about. Today is a prime example. We got up and hung around the rv before going over to the home. Then we went for a walk and then to a bar to listen to some music. We got back made supper watched a movie and then went to bed. Don’t get me wrong I’m not bored with this it’s just that it doesn’t lead to entertaining writing. Even the weather is staying the same. Hard to argue with Sunny and seventy though.     Sorry to burden you with my first world problems. We are here in Chico for another couple of weeks so hopefully I’ll find something interesting to fill up some blog space. Stay tuned …..

 1/11- Chico CA    There is not much to report on today. We lazed around a while and then went over to visit with A’s mom. We had lunch there and I had a very nice salad. I get to see all the latest styles in walkers. There are some pretty jazzy ones even if you don’t count the electric ones. After hanging there for a while we left so as not to intrude on nap time.      We did a tour of the local thrift shops. We are not really looking for anything but how do you find that thing you didn’t know you needed until you look. There are a bunch of thrift shops in town and that doesn’t include Goodwill which was closed. We spent some time clawing through piles of clothes and shoes. I think we managed to spend a whole dollar on something.      After that it was nap time for us but I had forgotten all about football. I still have a hard time with the time zones until I realized the east coast night late game was on in the afternoon here. So now I had ...

 1/10- Chico CA   We spent several hours today trying to navigate the web site and app of our new health insurance. It was plainly frustrating. At one point we called and the guy told Alayne “ I’ve never seen that before “. When trying to use a web site on a phone they always want you to get the app instead. The app required a 6 digit code which you could only get from the web page. The web page meanwhile says to get the 6 digit code you have to go to the app. I was getting dizzy at this point.      Then you have to have a user name and password for the main site and another for the benefits site. Don’t get me started on this as to wipe your ass you need a username and password that is 12 characters long and uses every permutation of the keyboard you can think of.      That took until after lunch. By then of course it was nap time. Needless to say we didn’t accomplish a great deal today but that’s fine. We are retired and I think (?) we can access...

 1/9- Chico CA   Wow what a day!! It started out with my first ever yoga class. Craig had a class this morning and I decided to enhance my adventure by attending a yoga class. Fortunately for me the class was called gentle yoga. Even then I was struck by how much actual exercise you can get by sitting in one spot for an hour. I left stretched out and a little beat.     We went from there straight to the golf course where we picked up another couple of players and hit the links. I borrowed a set of clubs but I still managed to sneak in a couple of pars. That doesn’t mean I scored under a 100 when in fact I lost count somewhere around the seventh hole. We did play the whole 18 walking for close to 5 hours. This is a fun course as not only do you have to deal with trees and sand traps but the deer wander all over the course. Also there are several bike and walking paths that wander through the course making hitting pedestrians a one stroke penalty.    We ...

 1/8- Chico CA    This is another in a string of beautiful days. It gets into the 40’s at dawn but tomorrow it might make 70. We are still parked in the same place doing the same things. Alayne had to go to her mom’s to deal with a minor cataclysm. I took a walk up the street to spend some more money.      There is a funny spot just down the road here that is called Philadelphia Square. It is a rambling office complex filled with medical and other professionals. The thing about it is the buildings are all recreations of historic buildings in Philadelphia. They even have some fake cobble stone streets. The buildings all have signs out front detailing there connection to the history of Philadelphia.     Another neat thing about Chico is the amount of food trucks. It’s rare to go a block without seeing a taco truck and they all have lines out front. They mostly seem to be Mexican as the Spanish influence is strong here.     There are p...

 1/7- Chico CA    As not much else happened today I thought I would try and compare yachting to Rving.     I have always found yachting to be more elitist. It’s not about the money so much as rv’s cost about what boats cost. And if you think these two hobbies are expensive don’t try flying! Just saying’. Yachting has its yacht clubs which are definitely more blue blooded. Rv’s are kind of more blue collar.      Marinas tend to be more in the center of towns while rv parks are more outside of town kind of places. Marinas just by where they are tend to be more scenic. I mean they are right on the water. Rv parks are a lot of times just fields or parking lots.     While cruising in a boat you are generally restricted to a few miles from shore as it’s harder to carry a car on your boat. The rv opens up many new places and adventures. When you step out the door of your rv you can take a stroll or sit around a campfire. Try stepping ...

 1/6- Chico CA    Now this is some nice weather. It was chilly first thing this morning but once the sun found its way over the mountains it warmed up quickly. Alayne was off helping out her mom so my bro in law and I decided to do a bike ride. We left on what was supposed to be a nice 10 mile ride but we got a little twisted amongst all the almond orchards. It turned into a twenty mile ride with a bit of mud bog riding instead. I haven’t ridden much so I was glad to see the old camper roll up into view.      In case you haven’t seen how almonds grow they grow on trees. Duh! They are like the bud in the middle of the flower. Unlike walnuts or pecans that have a shell outside of the shell these just dangle from the branches. To harvest them they just shake the tree. The nuts are then dried or milked. I used to take almonds for granted as they seem to be everywhere but many of them come from right here.     Sunshine should prevail for the rest ...

 1/5- Chico CA   I hate to be the one to tell you this but since nobody else is writing this blog here goes. Not much happened today. We got up and drove around the hill we climbed yesterday and then jumped on the freeway and blasted our way north. 505 to 5 to 99. It was a Beautiful day and being Sunday there was not a lot of traffic.     We did see a ton of snow geese hanging out in the rice paddies. At one point we watched what must have been a thousand birds all take off at once. There is a wildlife refuge near Calousa that we have been to before which has thousands of these white geese hanging out.     We stopped at a Walmart to pick up some supplies and then headed to the rv park in Chico. There were a few bad reviews of this place but so far I think it’s a really nice park. The bathrooms are interesting as (at least the men’s room) has a whole floor to ceiling mirror on one wall. Every time I go in there I feel like someone else is in there ...

 1/4- Napa CA    We put on our hiking shoes today. Alayne picked this campground because it had hiking right from the campground. I have been driving past all these grass covered hills that were speckled with trees and I always wondered what it would be like to climb one. Today I got my chance.      Well the damn things are steeper than they look. We huffed and puffed our way up the first little one and then walked a ways on a ridge top. The trail is all loose rocks interspersed with mud. The ground around here doesn’t soak up water real fast so everything was wet and muddy. We did see a bunch of wildlife but nothing we couldn’t have seen in my front yard at home. The view from the top was worth it though. We could see all the way down (or up) the Napa Valley and in the other direction we could have seen San Francisco if it hadn’t been mired in fog.      On our way down I was noticing that a lot of the trees are getting into spring mode. Some...

 1/3- Napa CA   It rained hard last night and it wasn’t ready to quit with what was reported as sunrise. We drove down the Pacific Coast Highway today or CA 1.  The road for the most part hugs the coast and we saw plenty of signs for access to the coast. Every time we stopped at one it would rain harder. Eventually the sun made an effort but even with the sun shining when we stopped it would rain.     The coast here is a very forbidding coast as the mountains come right down to the sea. In fact the ocean is taking the mountains apart piece by piece and so there are soaring cliffs and deep gorges and rocks just under the water. The beaches at least in this section are few and not large. The exception is when there is a fairly large river emptying into the sea. The delta leaves large sand deposits. The beaches are usually black or dark brown. Some have rocks strewn about but almost none have shells of any kind.     The road is a continuation of...

 1/2- Fort Bragg CA    The sun decided to make a cameo appearance this morning. It didn’t last long but we did manage to find a fourth B. Bikes. We have dragged these bikes for 4000 miles and this was the first time we used them. The weather mostly held and we had a very nice bike ride.     The town of Fort Bragg is situated on a plateau that the ocean has been slowly chipping away at for centuries. Apparently this is sort of a big flat rock. The bike path goes along the edge of the ocean which is 75 to 80 feet below the bike path. It is a cliff and the waves have carved all sorts of interesting features. There were big arches and caves hollowed out of the rocks. It was all very impressive. At one point the path led over an old wooden train trestle which was pretty high up. There was also a glass beach. Apparently back in the day people used to throw their trash over the cliff and the waves have pulverized the glass. From above it looked like a white pebble...

 1/1- Fort Bragg CA    It was raining when we arose and it didn’t care much to stop for most of the day. We were backtracking a bit as we decided to head south. The weather forecast promised less rain in that direction. So back through some more redwood forests. Here’s the first B , Bigfoot. This is Bigfoot country and I’m pretty sure we saw him sneaking around the campsite last night. We for sure saw him at this tourist trap that was buried in one of the redwood groves.      The second B is for bridges. Man are there a ton of bridges on this road as it meanders along side and over this river. There are simple bridges and curved bridges and some mighty high bridges. They sure had plenty of practice building these things.       When we got to the town, and I use this term loosely, of Leggat we turned off onto highway one. This is the Pacific Coast highway. This is the definition of twisty windy and any other adjective you can find. For ab...