Allspice Westward

 1/31- Almond Tree RV Park, Chico CA    After yesterday’s drama we needed a gentle start to today. Since we had time to kill I pulled into a tire store to see about getting our flat fixed. It turns out it was the valve stem had rotted away. The guy replaced the valve stem, checked the inside of the tire for damage, took off the spare,  replaced the tire back on the van and rehung the spare under the van all for free!! I was amazed. That was American Tire by the way. I can’t say enough good things about this experience.     From there we headed into Chico where we visited with Alayne’s mom before heading to the campsite. This campground is inside the city of Chico and is very convenient for us.     Later we went out with Craig and Aldebra to have some supper and some live music. We again have made it all the way across the country and we will be here for a couple of weeks. 

 1/30- Farmhouse Bakery, Yuba City CA    We got off to an early start today as we were bringing the van in for some service work. The Mercedes dealer in Sacramento is one of the few around here that will work on rv’s. It’s really a nice place and they are very friendly but it comes at a cost. It was good to get it done and everything checked out nicely.    On the way out there was some road closure and Siri had us driving down some serious back roads. We were in amongst the flooded rice fields for much of it.    Once we got back on the highway again we were cruising along when the van began to struggle. Turns out we blew a tire and had to pull off the road. Fortunately there was a wide gravel pullout so we weren’t on the highway. Now I had to change the tire. I managed to get the spare out of its hanger but I could not undo the nuts on the wheel. The jack and tire kit looked like it had never been used as it was still in the original packaging. We fina...

 1/29- Skyview Wilderness Park, Napa CA     The van was rocking this morning as apparently Santa Cruz experienced three different earthquakes. We didn’t feel anything but heard it on the news. I wouldn’t have wanted to be on that beach under that cliff in an earthquake.      We took off and despite Siri’s protestations we stuck to Rt 1. She tried her best all day to get us to turn off but finally she got with the program. The trip up the peninsula was more of the same though the road was not as twisty. The views however were as excellent as ever. We stopped several times to stand at the top of some cliff with the waves crashing into the base. The last couple of days the Pacific lived up to her name and was really pretty mellow. The waves were small and the surfers frustrated. Today as we stood on that cliff edge the waves were substantially larger and it was high tide so the waves literally crashed onto the base of the cliffs. There were considerably more s...

 1/29- New Brighton State Beach , Capitola CA    We took a nice walk amongst the redwoods this morning. They really do humble you when you think how old and large they are. We chatted with our neighbors for a while before hitting the road. It was more Rt 1 twisting and turning along with some spectacular scenery. We just had to stop several times to take it all in. The line of cars behind me always appreciated when we turned off. We crossed a bunch of bridges that were iconic. The Bixby bridge is the one you see in all the pictures. It’s hard to get a good view of a bridge as you’re trying to cross it.      We made it onto Santa Cruz where we visited with our nephew Jordan. He took us on a tour of his maker space and  then out for coffee.      The campsite for tonight is another state beach but this one is radically different from the others we have been to. It is a narrow stretch of beach under a nearly vertical 75 foot cliff. Fortunate...

 1/27- Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, Big Sur CA    I walked down to the beach this morning and I was watching the people trying to surf. Either the surfing was bad or the surfers were, it was kinda hard to tell.     It was another gorgeous day out with baby blue skies and azure waters with just a wisp of a breeze. I was jarred out that mirage by the traffic on 101. We took 101 to Morro Bay where we hopped on Rt 1, the Pacific Coast Highway. It had just reopened a couple of weeks ago after suffering much damage in several rock slides.      We just couldn’t help ourselves and we stopped at the Hearst Castle. You couldn’t get near the actual castle without buying a $35 ticket which we declined to do. They bus you up in tour groups to go through the mansion. The visitor center itself was amazingly posh. The parking lot was huge and the visitor center was filled with all kinds of ways to spend your money. Well they didn’t get any of mine this time....

 1/27- Pismo Beach State Park Oceano,Gordon Beach CA   The scenery around Bakersfield was improved immensely this morning with the layer of fog that obscured everything off of the highway. By the time the fog cleared enough to see something we were cruising through miles of orange groves. Only about half these fields had been harvested and we passed field after field filled with trees heavily laden with oranges. Here I am paying $2 for an orange And they are just lying all over the ground.     We passed a small oil field with lots of crowd pumping oil and then we went up and over the next ridge. This was filled with all these rounded treeless hills all covered in bright green grass. We are seeing lots of flowers and the green of everything is the green of spring.      We kept climbing and weaving through these canyons and hills thinking over the next rise we will see the ocean. These roads will tease you as keep saying it’s right over this one onl...

 1/26- River Run RV Park, Bakersfield CA    Today was not terribly exciting. The ride from Joshua Tree quickly climbed up to the high desert. We motored through this large wide flat valley filled with creosote bushes and the occasional Joshua tree. A lot of this is BLM land and we saw plenty of campers parked out in the desert.       It didn’t get any more scenic and we commented that there was a lot more trash on the side of the road. We convinced Siri to take us the long way and that she did. We turned in blocks of  5-15 miles. Left one time then right the next all the while cruising through desert ringed in the distance by big mountains. We essentially circled around LA until we hooked up to Rt58.     This was actually the most scenic part of the trip winding through rolling hills that were green still with grass. It was still an interstate but traffic was light. Everyone must have been watching the football game. We tooled into ...

 1/24- Joshua Tree RV Park, Joshua Tree CA   Siri wanted to lead us on a much more boring path this morning so we had to trick her into going our way. We headed out into the Anza Borrego State Forest. It was a spectacularly beautiful drive. We stopped every couple of miles in awe. The desert was green and lots of things were blooming. We saw several yucca plants in full bloom and tons of lupine growing along the sides of hills. The vistas were incredible.    The next road we scaled the side of a mountain. I mean it was twisty curvy no guardrails with a 1000 foot drop over the edge of the pavement kind of road. We crawled along at 20 mph having to pull over just to let cars by until we came to the high plain at the top. It was all very amazing scenery especially being only 100 miles from LA.    We passed through the Santa Rosa mountains and finally plunged down into Palm Springs. It went from being 50 degrees to 20 miles later being 75 out. The road down was...

 1/23- Imperial Valley Desert Museum, Octilla CA   The desert was playing with us today. On the way to Yuma suddenly the desert turned green. What had been brown before was now a pale green between the creosote bushes. There was some kind of ground cover that was blooming and it spread out all over the ground. I don’t know if it was spring or if the little rain we got last night sparked it.     After Yuma we saw rows and rows of planted bushes which we discovered were jojoba plants that were planted in these orderly rows after WWII.     Then on to California where we entered the Imperial Sand Dune area. There were huge towering sand dunes on either side of the road as far as you could see. People were running dune buggies all over the place. The dunes must have been 20 feet over the road. There was a purple flower that spread in large patches over the sand.     After this it was mostly cultivated fields growing broccoli and lettuce....

 1/22- Sonoran Desert RV Park, Gila Bend AZ   We met up with a bunch of the campers that were staying last night and chatted for a while. We then hopped on Rt10 which again was truck central. We were looking for something along the way to stop and take a walk and we saw this Colossal Cave. It was only a little ways off the road so we thought it might be interesting. We had talked about going to Karchners caverns which is supposed to be impressive but the tours were all filled.      The drive to this place was impressive by itself as it wound up the side of the Ricon Mountains. There were suddenly saguaro cacti every where. Big cacti towering over you with outstretched arms forming macabre shapes. We finally reached the parking lot which was perched on the side of this mountain and were rewarded with this incredible 270 degree view of the surrounding area which included Tucson. The cave entrance is in a building that is almost carved out of the mountain. The tour...

 1/22- Torrito Farms, Willcox AZ    We got a late start this morning as we had to thaw out a bit from last night. Our hose froze again but fortunately nothing inside the rv was damaged.     We never did get to see the Elephant Bluff but that’s fine as some question whether it even looks like an elephant. Down highway 25 we went which is one of the roughest roads we have been on. It was interesting though that as we lowered a bit in elevation all the creosote bushes were quickly replaced with yucca plants and grass. We got stopped for almost an hour due to construction but it was right at lunch time so we had lunch while waiting.     Then it was on the Rt 10. This is a major truck route and its speed limit is 75 while we only do 65 so we had many of them blow by us.     The Harvest Host site tonight was a brewery winery called Tirrito Farms. This is a really nice place with a large parking lot which was good as there were 5 othe...

 1/20- Elephant Butte State Park, South Monticello, Truth or Consequences NM   Whew that was a mouthful! How would you like to be from a town called Truth or Consequences? I’m sure there must be some story about the name. Maybe we’ll find out tomorrow.     After driving through endless flat prairie today we drove up into the mountains. We were over 7000 feet for a while before coming down to 4500 ft. The drive brought us through big long canyons with the sloping sides covered with junipers and grass. We did drive this road last year and so we stopped and paid our respects to Smokey Bear. As we came down out of the hills we crossed the only lava flow in the continental US. It’s looks like this black river that is filled with cracks and crevices.     Up we went to cross another mountain range and when we came down it was in a large valley. We passed by the Stallion gate of the White Sands Missle Base. This is where the public can enter the range and...

 1/19- Bottomless Lake State Park, Roswell NM    First the lakes aren’t really bottomless. They formed when an underground cavern collapsed and filled up with water. They do look crystal clear and might be inviting on a day that got above 35 degrees. The campsite is nice and it’s in a big hole in the butte which houses the lakes and has a beautiful view out to the west. Apparently  in heavy rains it floods and when the water dries up it leaves a fine white powder all over the ground which makes this look like salt flats. Seeing that didn’t make me want to drink it either. It can also flood when the oil companies are fracking over in Texas which causes the aquifer to slosh a bit and it pops up here       The ride over from Slaton was almost a straight line the whole way. Interesting about the Twin Pines Campground is that there were no trees near this place. In fact trees over 3 feet tall were a premium on this route. We drove by miles and miles of cott...

 1/18- Twin Pines RV Park, Slaton TX    Since crossing the Mississippi River we have going steadily upwards. Today we reached 3000 feet above sea level.     Today started out chilly as our water hose froze solid last night. It took a bit to get it disconnected but eventually we got under way. There was no damage to the hose as I had disconnected from the hydrant last night. It was still tough to coil this morning.     We headed across west Texas slowly gaining altitude. The cottonwoods and pines slowly gave way to the mesquite junipers and creosote bushes. There was nary a tall tree in sight except for the wind turbines that popped up in big groves. It was cool seeing the oil crows bobbing in the same field as the wind turbines. With the cotton fields filling in I’d say that was using the land to the full extent.    From the crests of some of the hills you could see almost to the end of the known universe. Actually you can probably ...

 1/17- Fort Richardson State park     Today dawned not hardly at all. Recently we have had nothing but blue skies but this morning was overcast and cold. The sun struggled to make its presence known. There was even radar images of snow just north of us.     We had planned on a bike ride on this long trail in the park but Alayne decided it was too cold for that. I, however, thought sure why not. Well it took me about 3 miles before I wasn’t sure I could peel my hands off the handlebars. Thankfully it was downwind on the way back and I wasn’t a popsicle when I got back.     In the afternoon we headed over to tour the fort. This is not your normal fort it was a frontier fort. There was no stockade or walls but they had several well preserved buildings that were interesting. The main purpose of this fort was to protect settlers against Indian attack. The fort itself was abandoned after ten years as the frontier had moved considerably westwar...

 1/16- Fort Richardson State Park, Jacksboro TX   We hung around a bit this morning to try out the glass bathrooms in the main square. It was quite interesting sitting on a toilet in the middle of a town square. Why they even have these things is kind of curious.     The ride today was about avoiding Dallas. We went pretty far out of our way just to not have to drive in the city. Actually roads we took were very nice and not very crowded. We passed through lots of ranches and pastures. We are in cow country and we saw a herd of Texas longhorns. Those things just plain look dangerous. Once we got far enough north of Dallas the country side became more rolling hills. It seems every ranch has to have this big elaborate gate at the entrance. Most lead to matching houses but there were a few with grand entrances to a trailer homes. There were some grand vistas from the tops of the hills. You could see almost to forever from the crest of the hill.      ...

 1/15- Back Story Brewery, Sulfur Springs TX   We hung around the park for a bit taking a nice walk. We didn’t want to get to the next stop too early. It was another long relatively uninteresting drive. At one point though Siri went a little rogue and took us on an unscheduled detour. There was a detour for some construction around Shreveport and I think she got mixed up with that and took us a bit out of our way. Anyway she got it together and we finally got to Sulfur Springs.      This is a Harvest Host site and the brewery is located just off the downtown area of the town. We had a good time talking to the bar tender and a couple of locals who were hanging out. One thing they all said we had to see in town are the glass bathrooms. Apparently these are bathrooms in the middle of the main square which are lined with one way mirrors. You can see out while you are doing your business but no one can see in!!?? It sounds like something we will check out in the morn...

 1/14- Lincoln Parish Park, Ruston LA    It was a straight and uneventful ride over today. There was not a whole lot of interesting scenery passing by the windows today. The first half of the trip though Mississippi was straight but up and down these small hills. There was lots of big truck traffic. One was a wide load that had two semi trailers strapped together. It wasn’t too bad until he came to some construction and had to fit that thing into one lane. He scraped some rubber off the sidewalks of those tires.     I have crossed the Mississippi River numerous times but I always seem to be driving so once we got to Vicksburg we pulled off at the rest area. This sat on top of a large bluff overlooking the river and bridges. I finally got an impressive view of the river.      As I’m sure most of you are aware that Verizon had a nationwide outage today. We discovered it when Siri finally shut the hell up. She has guided us to many places but th...

 1/13- Roosevelt State Park, Morton MS   I looked it up the postal service abbreviation for Mississippi is MS. There are too many M states to keep track of.     Today’s drive was on Rt 80 almost the entire way. This is designated as a scenic route and it is a nice 4 lane highway that has minimal traffic. It does go through some town like Selma but for the most part it just meanders through the countryside. It passes through huge tracts of pine forests. These I believe are mostly Southern pine or Lobloly pines. We saw logging truck after truck filled with these heading I assume to some pulp mill. They clear cut large sections of the forest and then replant so they can do it all over again in 30 years or so.    We went through this town that was called The Rock. I thought maybe it’s the home town of Dwayne Johnson but nope. It’s called that after some large rock that was used as a postal drop off point. The town had a post office that said it was The Roc...

 1/12- Praire Creek Campground , Lowndesboro, AL    We gained an hour this morning or at least it sorta felt like it. We crossed into Alabama and with that we entered Central Standard Time.      It was a pretty nice drive today passing through some more of Georgia’s lovely countryside. We have noticed that we pass by almost as many churches as Dollar General’s. Some are plain unassuming buildings but others are just huge. Must be some money in religion.     We have also noticed something that seems strange to us but apparently is not so strange here. There are these odd little cemetery’s sometimes just along side the road or in someone’s side yard and they could have a half dozen plots or 100 graves. They almost seem like an afterthought or as Alayne thinks they are just old family grave sites from back in the day. The one thing that I have found odd about them is there is rarely a fence  around them. I’m just kind of used to seeing ceme...

 1/11- Nu-sunshine farm,Griffin GA    It was a little chillier this morning than the last several days and it promised to get chillier. But the sun was shining brightly so off we went.      This ride was mostly on back roads or at least secondary roads. It was a nice drive through rolling hills past large open fields and pretty plantation style houses. We went by a large sod farm which had grass growing almost as far as you could see. There was one stretch of highway that was where all the French curves went to. In almost 30 miles I don’t think there was a half mile that went straight. Of course once we turned off of that road the engineer found his straight edge. The road went straight but it went up and down like a roller coaster.      The place we are staying tonight is a Harvest Host site and is a small farm. They have chickens and goats which they raise for the milk. There are about nine or ten goats of which I guess four or five are pre...

 1/10- Plumbranch Campground, Plumbranch SC    We had plenty of time today so we took a hike at the campground. It was a nice walk through the woods. The woods bordered what can only be called a swamp. At least over the wettest parts there was a boardwalk. We were kind of surprised that even deep into this quagmire we saw no critters, hardly any birds even. We did however find this patch of super fine white sand. Coming up on it I thought it was snow which was crazy because it was 80 degrees out. It was just a big patch of super white sand. We also saw a couple of these artesian wells that were spouting water and have been since sometime in the 1930’s.     The drive started out on Rt 20 which was filled with trucks and traffic. Thankfully we turned off and had a fairly peaceful drive the rest of the way.     We ended up at Plumbranch campground which is located near Lake Thurmond. This is a large lake stretching along the border with Georgia....

 1/9- Lee State Natural Area, Bishopville SC   We left relatively early and were driving down some back road that Siri thought was a good idea when we came upon a National Park. This is Moores Creek National Battlefield. Now I know you’re all thinking civil war but this is a Revolutionary War battlefield. I had never heard of this battle but it turns out it was quite crucial in deciding the war. A small band of patriots as they were called back then defeated a much larger British force.     The numbers of people involved in this battle was quite small. In the end only 30 or so people died but it showed the colonists that they could hold their own against the British. I am amazed at how the actions of only a couple of people could have such a great effect on the course of  history.      The park itself is very beautiful and they do a great job showing the lead up and the actual battle ground. The earthen works are still there and you can actua...

 1/8- Cedar Point Campground     We woke up this morning to the sound of thunder in the distance. Then it started getting closer and closer but never really got here. Turns out it was artillery practice at Camp LeJeune which is just down the road. I hope they hit what they were aiming at! We had jets flashing overhead all day long also.      We walked down to this trail which was called a saltwater tidal trail. It is supposed to be the only one like it in the US. It was a nice walk with a lot of it on boardwalks over a large estuary. We didn’t see many critters but we did see a number of snowy egrets. The best time to walk here is when the tide is out as there is a lot more to see which was the case for us this morning.     After lunch we broke out the bikes and went to ride down to the beach. Once we got out of the campground the traffic got very intense. Turns out the route I thought to get to shore was a private gated community. We ju...

 1/7- Cedar Point campground, Croatian National Forest, Swansboro NC     Happy Birthday to my granddaughter Fay.     Last night was interesting. We parked in an almost empty lot but by 9pm the place was filled with semis. Of course most of them were idling away to keep the heat on. The one next to us turned the reefer on so he could keep the whole load of Perdue chickens from melting. It literally vibrated the rv it was so loud. Fortunately that only lasted an hour.     In the morning the trucks were slowly peeling of to deliver their goods. Meanwhile we went land yachting across Chesapeake Bay. The wind was fairly light so it was a nice ride across on the bridge.     Once clear of Virginia Beach we headed south where we came across the Dismal Swamp canal. We stopped and walked along remembering when we drove our boat down through here. Those were not such great memories as we bumped bottom a bunch of times and trimmed some tre...

 1/6- Kiptopeke VA    We blasted down the Eastern shore of Maryland today to get our rental car back in time. We stopped along the way and picked up Ms Allspice. She had been sitting in our friends Joe and Nancy’s yard for the past month or so. I was a little worried about her starting and I was hoping for no mouse invasions. She started right up like she was raring to go and so far we haven’t seen or found any sign of mouse habitation.      We did solve the great mystery of the disappearing mouth guard. Alayne had not been able to find her brand new very expensive retainer when we were here in the fall. We tore the camper apart and just couldn’t find it. It was truly a mystery. Turns out it was in a shower bag she had hung on a hook in the bathroom. While we searched the bathroom repeatedly we never thought to look in that bag. Mystery solved!!     We then stopped at Walmart to fill up the larder. We need to get every system fired up again. Some ...

 12/4- Centreville MD    We finally headed out of the great white north and not a moment too soon. Winter has been a pain in my butt this year. It snowed almost every day that we spent in Vermont and it was the coldest December in many years. I have had enough of winter!!     We left from MA this morning and drove through one of the highest population corridors in the country. Thankfully everyone was still hung over from Christmas vacation and there weren’t too many folks on the roadways. We cruised down through NYC getting out of there as fast as we could and down the Jersey Turnpike. We once again crossed the Delaware River and arrived at our good friends Pat and John who welcomed us to Maryland.      Tomorrow we head down to get reunited with Ms Allspice and get her back into traveling shape.  We are driving a rental Jeep now. It’s a 4WD monstrosity that only gets 15 mpg. This was the smallest vehicle that they had available to rent. Why w...