Category: Traveling the hiways and byways

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Royal Gorge, Canon City, Cripple Creek and Victor Colorado

We left the convergence and drove about 30 miles east to a nice small campground just up the road from the Royal Gorge.  I didn’t know much about it but decided we would visit and know a lot more.

After setting up in our campsite, we drove over to the gorge that afternoon.  It was very hot that day, so we just drove around to see what was there.  It struck me as odd, the bridge over the gorge was this huge suspension bridge and it seemed to go nowhere.   We decided to come back the next morning when it would be a lot cooler.

The next morning we drove back over there and paid to go into the “park”.  Turns out this whole thing is really an amusement park.  The bridge was built over the gorge strictly as a tourist attraction.  On the other side of the bridge, which you can only walk across now, is the amusement park.

We decided to take the gondolas across then walk back over the bridge; but after being in line for it for about 15 minutes, they shut it down due to high winds.  And it was very windy!

There were also two ziplines that originated on the other (uphill) side of the gorge and people were zipping over.  They came in very fast, and there were rubber blocks on the line that slowed them down very quickly.  I was thinking whiplash might be a real possibility.  Those ziplines are over a thousand feet in the air.   Hard to imagine that.

After the gondolas were shut down, we walked down to the beginning of the bridge, then out on it about halfway across.   We were glad we didn’t bring Dusty as it was so windy out there we probably would have needed to carry him or he could blow away!  I could feel the bridge moving and that’s not a comforting feeling.  We snapped a few pics and proceeded back across while watching my footsteps as there were a lot of older boards that didn’t look so sturdy to me anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve crossed a lot of bridges in my life, but I do not remember one that was anywhere near as high off the ground as this one.  It was about 1,000 feet above the Arkansas River below.  Interestingly, I saw a RxR track running alongside the river way down there.

When we left there, we headed toward Canon City, just a few miles east of the gorge.  I had read something about Skyline Drive, so I decided to use that route to get into town.  That was quite a drive, not for the faint of heart.  Narrow one lane (lucky for us, one way also)  that traverses the top of a mountain ridge all the way to town.   There were a few parts that my acrophobia kicked in and it was all I could do to stay in the middle of that road and look at nothing else.  The dash-cam video shows just how small and high it is.   It comes out at the bottom of the hill after a few switchbacks right into a residential neighborhood.

First Half of Skyline Drive

 

Not  far from the base of the end of Skyline Drive was the Colorado Prison Museum.  We drove by and they didn’t allow dogs inside and it was way too hot to leave him in the car.

I did get to see the gas chamber they used there.  Interesting gadget.  The walls were very thick steel, something I would have expected on a diving bell to see the bottom of the Marianas Trench, not something for using at sea level.

The following day we headed up to Cripple Creek, an old mining town in the mountains.  What a beautiful drive with everything green as far as you could see, miles and miles of trees and meadows with some cattle grazing along the way.

We got into town and we decided to drive thru it to see Victor first and then come back to CC.  On the way to Victor, we saw a very tall pile of dirt, I mean really, really tall and wide. It turns out it’s an active gold mine, a big open pit, but there appeared to be no way to see into it.  We drove for a few more miles, the whole time the wall of dirt was just to the left of us.

We arrived in Victor and it’s a really nice little mountain town, lots of old buildings.  We stopped at a small parking area across from the fire station and city hall.  Nice mural right there.   I saw a fireman outside washing his rig, so I went over to talk to him, figuring he knew a lot about this town.  I knew nothing.

He turned out to be a wealth of information, and the best part was he knew a way to see into the big strip mine just up the road.   We wandered around the town for a little bit, then headed out, remembering the directions to the overlook.  They were a bit vague, but we found it anyway.

And it was spectacular!  Even the platform was over the top, made out of the bed of one of the old ore hauling truck beds with a platform and stairs welded into it.  Quite an impressive structure.  And the view from it into the mine was great.   It’s an active mine and we saw trucks moving ore to and fro.

Turns out they produce more than half a billion dollars of gold per year.  Not chump change!   I didn’t know we had much gold mining in the US.

The pit is Huge, yes, with a capital H, huge.

After spending time to take it all in, we headed back to Cripple Creek and along the way stopped at an old shaft gold mine that is now a tourist attraction.  There is a mine elevator that takes you down 1,000 feet and then you can explore the tunnels.  No dogs allowed and it was still very hot, so I just took a picture of the double-decker elevator that had just a single cable hauling it up and down.  Looked like a single point of failure to my eyes.

We drove the few miles into Cripple Creek, and the first thing you notice in the small town are the 500-foot-high cranes you see when they build skyscrapers, and they appear to be building some right in downtown.  I wasn’t really impressed by the town.  It appeared to only be a casino town.  Lots and lots of casinos.  Nothing much else there.

We wanted to get lunch, and there was nowhere that allowed pets and almost all were actually part of a casino.   We couldn’t even find a takeout place.  Sad.  We did find a nice pavilion on a slight hill with picnic tables in the shade to eat some snacks we brought for the drive.   It was odd, there wasn’t even a Subway to get  a sandwich in the town.  And they seem to be everywhere you look.

We noticed big, dark clouds in the west (the direction we had to go back) and I called the local police station asking about this other road I could see on the map that went almost directly south toward our campground, 50 miles away or so.    The dispatcher said it’s not a road for the faint hearted nor is it ever maintained as it goes along the river on a ledge for miles.  So no go.

We drove toward the storm.   But missed it, only skirting the edges and got a few sprinkles.   But when we got back to the coach, the wind was blowing hard and it started raining buckets of water.  I was glad I wasn’t driving a mountain road in that.

The next morning I drove down to the prison museum by myself and took the tour.  Pretty underwhelming.  Old and musty place.  It was worth the $3 to get in, but just barely.

The next morning we were off to Colorado Springs.

 

July 10th thru the 13th.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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South Fork, Colorado

I was hoping to find a place near Pagosa Springs, but there was nothing available that we could fit into; so I kept looking further and further and found a place with a spot for us in South Fork.

The drive there was interesting. Once we got to the grade for Wolf Creek Pass, it got steeper than any of the grades we had done since starting this adventure in 2017.   I was literally in second gear going up that hill.  That had never happened before.  I was talking to a buddy that grew up in Colorado, and he asked me if I had ever heard the song about Wolf Creek Pass.  I hadn’t and then found it on Spotify and listened in.  It was by that trucker guy,  CW McCall, from way back.   It was a long, steep climb to the top.  Seemed to take forever.

There was an interesting structure along the highway.  We only got a picture of it from inside it, but I found a Gmaps Street View.  It was a cover of concrete angled at about 25 degrees to allow the rock slides to go over the road instead of on to it.  Never seen one of these before.  Seems like a great idea and could be used in many other places.

We made it to South Fork and of course Larry wasn’t anywhere to be found.  It was a very small town, with a grocery store and hardware store above the grocery!  Not sure I had seen that before.

The campground was called Grand View Cabins and RV Resort.  (Way too many places use the “Resort” moniker in their name, and they do not in any way resemble a resort)   It was a nice place to get hailed on though.  That seems to be a Colorado staple… hail.  And thunderstorms every afternoon.

While checking out the place, 98% of all license plates in the park were from Texas.   I asked my neighbor if there was a direct freeway from Texas to here.  He laughed and said no, but it sure looks like there must be one.

The weather there was nice and cool being at a high elevation.  Most of the folks here were staying all summer.   Since Haviland Lake was electric only, we used this place to refill the water tank.   Our next stop was just outside of Salida where we would dump and refill again so we could dry camp for 8 nights with the Xscapers group rally.

June 29th thru July 1st

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Haviland Lake, San Juan National Forest

The drive from Silverton to here was beautiful, no worries during the ride on the MDH to here at all.

When we arrived at the campground, it was very interesting.   There was a small earthen dam we had to drive over, one very narrow lane with an angled curve halfway across.  As I got to that, I wished I had unhooked the car, but it was too late to do that at the time.

The lake was beautiful with all the trees and a few folks fishing from the banks.  We drove a ways into the park and found the camp host who told us how to get to our site.   We arrived unscathed, dodging the tree branches as best I could, and our site was very nice and turned out to be a double-wide site, even two electrical pedestals.  This was dry camping, no water or sewer here.  And lots of room to park the car!

This had to be the most peaceful park we’ve been in.  Cool breezes and just a bit of background tree rustling noise from that.  Otherwise extremely quiet.

I was talking to a friend while there and he mentioned a great Mexican place down in Durango, about a 20-minute drive from where we were, so I added that to our to-do list for one of the days coming up.

The next morning our coffee pot died on us, so I got the brand new one, still in the box, out from under the bed storage and set it up.  Low and behold a part was missing.  And of course it was the part required to use the K Cups we use while traveling.   I had bought it at Walmart while in SLC as that coffee maker was exhibiting some unreliability when we were there.  Having a backup seemed like a good idea.  I bought a cheap Farberware model for about $40.

Now that I found it was missing a critical part, I started searching for the receipt to bring it back to a store in Durango.   It was not to be found anywhere.  Apparently it had been put in the trash.   So I called the support number on the instruction booklet and Walmart answered the phone.  A sinking feeling was observed right then.  But I told the person on the phone what the problem was and about the missing receipt.  She said she could help!  That was a bit shocking.  She said she needed the date of the purchase, the store zip code, and the last 4 digits of the card I used.

I looked up the zip code on Google, logged into my CC Card website and retrieved the date, and then gave her the digits, date and zip code.  She then said she found it  (Really, they keep all that?)  and asked for my email address so she could send me the receipt.  Wow, it worked!  I returned the one with the missing part and bought another one, and checked it first to make sure all the parts were in it this time.

The best part of all this is this is the best K Cup coffee maker we have used!  And it was less than half the price of the broken Keurig maker.  It immediately starts brewing and is done before any other of the prior coffee makers even started pouring into the cup.  A lot earlier!  It also has a water tank, so there was less work to do for each cup.   And as a bonus, it holds taller cups than any prior models we have owned in the last 5 years.   (Travel Mugs!)  We don’t use the  K cups when home, but I will never buy another Keurig again after using this Farberware model.

Here is a link to the old model:  Keurig K Cup.

Here is a link to our new one so you can see it.  Farberware K Cup Brewer.

I called the Mexican place to see if we could bring Dusty and they said sure.  We drove down and saw a small outdoor covered patio.  I went inside to let them know we were here and that we had our pup with us.  There was no issue.  It wasn’t till after we ordered lunch that I noticed that there was a sign on a tree just outside the patio saying No Dogs on Patio. ??   After a while longer two more small groups of diners came in there with their dogs.  The food was excellent!  It’s difficult to get decent Mexican food outside of SoCal, but this was an exception.

On the way back we decided to stop at a hot water vent right on the side of the road I had seen on the way down.   It was very interesting, not something you see on the side of the road often, and in my case, never before.   Pretty cool.  (or actually warm)

The next day we were off to traverse Wolf Creek Pass and onward to South Fork, Colorado.  (No, not the one where JR lived.)

Just outside this campground was another group campground.

June 27th thru 29th

 

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Million Dollar Highway drive to Silverton.

I had read about the Million Dollar Highway for many years and knew I wanted to see it.  This was the year!  We were spending a lot of time in Colorado to keep in the higher elevations, hoping it would be cooler up there for the summer.  That turned out to be a quite right assumption.

I verified the highway is a Truck Route using the Rand McNally Truck Route Map Book.   We left Ridgeway Park in the early morning to make sure we avoided the afternoon thunderstorms while driving the MDH.   We were camping in Silverton that night.

The road tightens up probably 1,000 feet just south of Ouray.   It gets very narrow and very windy with sheer cliff within a few inches of the white line.  No distractions, please!   Kathy was gripping the hand rail by her seat with a death grip as I rounded the corners, so close to the edge I couldn’t look that way or bad things might happen.   Lucky for us that part was only about 10 minutes of the drive, but it did seem like a few hours at the time.   And it’s only a 24-mile drive from Ouray to Silverton.  Stunning views once I was able to look at them again when we got away from the cliff edges.

The rest of the drive was uneventful.  There was a nice overlook not much past the twistys.  We stopped there just to make sure nothing had fallen off and down the cliff, and also to allow blood to flow back into our hands after the death grips we experienced.  There is an 11,000+ pass you must ascend and descend about 1/2 way between the two towns.   I don’t know how anyone goes down those big grades without an engine braking system. (Jake or Pac Brake)

June 25th

 

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Telluride Colorado

The day after we went to Ouray, we drove over to Telluride for a day trip.  We got there fairly early and were able to find a parking space quickly.   We walked over to the gondola and looked for a gondola with paw prints on the side, which indicated we could bring Dusty on it.   Then we were off, climbing to 10k feet, where the car stopped and then proceeded to head downward to Mountain Village.   While it was stopped for a few seconds, we saw a great poster on the wall of 5 Labrador Retrievers in a gondola with goggles and headgear on.  Very cute!  Kathy didn’t buy the coffee mug of this picture while on top, so she had to find the studio in town to get it when she changed her mind!!

We arrived at the village a few minutes later.   By this time we were looking for breakfast or lunch and settled for brunch in a very nice outdoor restaurant.  Afterward we wandered around the village for a little while and then boarded another pawed gondola for the ride back down to Telluride.   Once there we walked over to a farmers market that was taking up a side street going up the hill.  The farmers markets in Colorado do have some veggies along with the other stuff.

Overall Telluride was a nice small town, Mountain Village was more of an upscale destination with the requisite prices to go along with that.  I personally liked Ouray more, and would skip Telluride, unless you want to take the lifts up for mountain biking.  (or skiing in the winter) .

June 24th

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Grand Junction and on to Montrose Colorado, Black Canyon of the Gunnison

We left Green River the next morning after the park attempted to flood the RV.  I liked it there, but the fire hose situation was maddening.   We drove east on I-70 all the way past Grand Junction to the small town of Paradise, Colorado, for fuel.  I found a place that was $5.39 a gallon, about 25 cents lower than anything nearby.   It took a long time to fuel up here too as the clerk could only put in $299.99, nothing higher; so I had to go back in for them to restart the pump two more times to fill up.

After we filled up, we headed to Olathe, Colorado, where we stayed at a very nice park called Uncompahgre River RV Park.   It was in a residential area and lots of shade trees.  Once I saw the huge trees lining the long wide driveway, I new I had probably made the right choice to stay for 5 nights so we could explore the area.

The next morning we headed out early to check out the Black Canyon of the Gunnison before it got too crowded.  It was a good choice, even early in the morning there were only a few parking spots left at many of the overlooks.  The canyon had very steep black cliffs, so it was named appropriately.  We were in the south section of the park and there were trails out to some overlooks that were farther away from the road, but the terrain made me think there weren’t many real hiking trails, unless they were only for big horn sheep.

We were out of the park before noon and there was quite a long line at the entrance kiosk to the park by then.  We were very happy we got an unusually early start.   We were also happy to use our National Park Senior pass again.  That was $10 well spent on our first trip back in 2017 at Montezuma’s Castle.    Unfortunately I did not keep track after we saved about $300 that first year on national park admissions.  But again,  best $10 ever spent.

That night we wanted Mexican food and there were 3 places within around    10 miles, 2 very close and one out in the middle of nowhere.   Turns out the one way out there was the best rated, but it closed at 2 pm every day.  One afternoon on the way back from somewhere, we found the spot it was supposed to be, a small clearing at the corner of a couple small roads.  We saw a couple picnic tables under the trees back off the road, but no restaurant that I could see.  Turns out it’s a food truck, and apparently they drive it home around 2 pm.

I ended up getting takeout from Carniceria El Bajio on Main Street.  Talk about a hole-in-the-wall place.  It’s nothing to look at when you walk in, and you might want to walk out once inside.  Not the cleanest place I have ever been in, but the tacos were some of the best I have ever had.

The next day we headed into Montrose about 10 miles south of Olathe and we wandered around the old section of town.  It was the Juneteenth holiday and lots (most) of the shops were closed for the holiday.  It seemed odd as a lot of them were small places that tourists would probably love to check out.  Even the small brewery on the main street was closed.  Seems the folks in Colorado take their brand new National Holidays very seriously! The town had some awesome large bronze statues along its wide boulevard.   Here are some pics.

Later we picked up some lunch and drove over to the Montrose Water Sports Park and what a wonderful place it was.   The city modified the river’s path to include some rapids for surfers to ride and some square stones to make it easier to get into and out of the water.  Lots of small kayaks and even tubes were traversing the waterway.  We wandered around there for an hour or so just watching and admiring the park that they had built and so many folks there enjoying it.

IMG_8277_1655671021000 IMG_8275_1655670859000

We were heading toward Ridgeway State Park next and from there would check out the towns of Ouray and Telluride.   After that we would traverse the infamous Million Dollar Highway.

June 17th thru 22nd.

 

 

 

 

 

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Green River State Park, Oasis in the middle of a very brown desert

We left SLC in the morning and headed over the mountain to Green River, UT.  It was an uneventful and quiet drive all the way there.  No manifold leak!   As we got down the other side of the mountain and closer to the I-70 freeway, the landscape got more and more brown and barren of any vegetation.   Once on the freeway, it was just a few miles to the exit.  Off in the distance we could see what appeared to be a large green area.  Apparently the Green River supplies the whole area with water and they really know how to use it.

We find the State Park and check in.  They made it a point to mention the sprinklers go on in the morning and we wouldn’t want to leave anything outside to get wet.

 

What they forgot to mention is the sprinklers are more like fire hoses than any sprinkler I have ever seen and that most folks move out of their campsites prior to them going on in the morning.  They went on around 10 am the next morning and we were very lucky we closed the roof vents as the fire hoses are only directed at the campsites.  One consistently watered our roof.  Another one of the fire hoses sprayed its hard stream on the side of the coach under the slide, in an attempt to get water inside the bus.  There was another head on the driver’s side and it hosed the whole left side of the bus off, doing its best to get past the window seals.   Any water that didn’t directly hit the bus just showered the road.

In one of the pictures you can see I placed one of my chairs in front of the sprinkler head to see if I could divert it a bit.  I did the same thing to the head on the other side.  It helped a bit, but the pressure was so high it kept moving the chairs out of the way and I had to keep moving them back in the way.  I asked one of the rangers about adjusting them and it wasn’t his job.

This picture might be all you need to know about Utah:  That and maybe reading the book or watching the recent series called Under the Banner of Heaven.

 

I would stay here again as it was a beautiful park, but I would not be there on Monday or Thursday mornings when the sprinklers were to be run.   Oh, and of course the water was probably the hardest available, and the calcium spots required vinegar to get them off.   The campground was right on the Green River, which surprisingly was a very large river and moving along pretty quickly.

June 15th thru 17th.

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The warm slog to a very small rally in Nephi Utah.

We had planned events at home in May (the wonderful wedding of our son and our new daughter-in-law!), and those, plus finishing up the bus, we got a late start on this year’s summer trip.  It was quite a bit warmer than last year’s April shove-off.  Most of the way north is really a desert of various elevations.  Some places were a lot warmer than others.  Barstow for the night was pretty warm, but the next day we got to Vegas for the weekend and it was hot.

Lucky for us we were leaving because it was supposed to get even hotter the day we left for the rest of that week there.   We ordered Amazon Fresh groceries delivery while at the Oasis Resort, and they delivered them right to the coach’s front door.

We left early to beat the heat and get fuel in a truck stop just north of St. George, Utah.  This truck stop was the worst I ever experienced anywhere.  It was an unattended Sinclair truck fueling station, with a single pump for cars & gas.   The craziest thing with these pumps is they stopped at 17 gallons.  Not some even dollar amount.  Each time the dollars were $95.38 and exactly 17 gallons.  The pump took about 60 seconds to pump in 15 gallons, then it slowed to less than a crawl and took 5 minutes to hit 17 gallons.  Needless to say, I had to restart the pump 6 times to get a full tank.   It was excruciating at best to get a full tank.

We ended up in Beaver, UT, for the night, cool weather, such a nice break from the heat.  I wanted to stop in Beaver as I thought we had an exhaust leak and I had used a diesel mechanic shop there on our way to Alaska a few years back.  I was impressed by them at the time.   The next morning I drove the coach over and the owner crawled under the engine and after a bit popped out and told me it wasn’t an exhaust leak, but a manifold leak.   He said they were very understaffed and barely could keep up with their mobile service, so they couldn’t do the work.   (I wished it was an exhaust leak!)

So that morning we headed off to Juab County Fairgrounds for the rally in Nephi.   It was a Good Sam rally.   Prior to finding it online last winter, I didn’t even know there was such a thing.   We arrived, set up, and then I got on the phone with places to have the exhaust manifold looked at.

I called a few local shops and they all said they could do it; but I decided it might be smarter to have a mainline shop in Salt Lake City do the work, so I called the Freightliner shop and they said to bring it in ASAP as they had time the next day.  We left without ever attending anything at the rally, although we did get to experience someone testing the loudspeaker mic @ 6am,  insistently tapping for about 10 minutes.  He must have been deaf, as it was extremely loud and seemed to go on forever.  Lucky for us,  we were already awake; others weren’t as fortunate.

June 2nd, thru June 9th

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Heading south towards Portland and then on to Red Bluff CA.

We headed south on the 5 freeway toward Portland and our campground in Wilsonville a few miles south of there.   The Pheasant Ridge RV Resort was our place for a couple of days.   I wondered about it as soon as we drove in.  The first set of speed bumps were at a 45-degree angle to the driveway,  so we got to do the wally wobble.   You just need to drive a large and tall RV to understand that’s not a good thing to experience.   Careful opening cabinets and the fridge as stuff will be falling out!

The second thing that made me wonder what was going on here was the clerk said I should detach our toad in front of the office.   I said, I thought we had a pull-thru?  She said, of course, but the roads are too narrow to navigate with the toad attached.  Wow,  sort of defeats the purpose of paying for a pull-thru if you cannot pull thru with your car attached.   Oh, well.

And when we pulled into the site, I noticed a steel fence post at the end of the site on the right side with a piece of PVC pipe over it,  strategically placed exactly where it would drag along the side of the RV if you weren’t super careful getting out onto that narrow roadway.   I bet those folks with the half million dollar coaches will just love causing a few thousand dollars of damage to their rigs so you don’t put a wheel on their grass.

This town had a Camping World and I needed to pick up a few things now that we are back in civilization, so I drove over there.   To my surprise they had some new couches that I believe will work for us to replace the euro recliners we bought back in the spring of 2017 that are just the most uncomfortable chairs.   I checked them out and I think they will fit in the spot the recliners are in now.    I picked up the couple things that I drove there for and headed back to the bus.

We read about a good Mexican takeout place a few miles away that had a San Diego burrito, so I drove over to pick up dinner one night.   I ordered the San Diego burrito, and a few minutes later the owner asked if I like the fries, and I said yes, just not in a burrito and that my son loves California burritos with french fries.   That’s when he mentioned the San Diego burrito is really a California burrito,  and that his friend from San Diego told him about it, so he added it to the menu but called it a San Diego burrito because that’s where his friend was from.

The next day we then drove further south to the 7 Feathers Resort I’d heard of from a few friends over the years.  It lived up to its praises.  Just a very nice place in the middle of nowhere on Interstate 5 about 200 miles south of Portland.   We were walking around the campground and met another couple from San Diego and they mentioned a Mexican restaurant in town and said it was very good.  Later that evening we took the campground shuttle over there and had a couple of great Shrimp Fajitas and  more Cadillac Margaritas!   Very good meal.   I called for the shuttle to pick us up and we took it over to the casino.  I wanted to pick up a players card as it would give us another 10% off our campsite cost, over and above the Good Sam discount.   When we got there, they also explained they gave you $10 on the card to play any of their slots.

It only took a few minutes and we were off to find a machine that Kathy wanted to play.  We eventually found one and sat down to figure out how to play it.   We must have picked the most complicated one to work as it killed our new card in minutes.  It started reporting it as an invalid card.  I had to go back to the cashier and get a new one.  Unfortunately for us, we went back to that same machine and it killed that one too, again telling us it was an invalid card.   I pushed the help button and a woman apparently in a big hurry came over and said the card was fine, but we needed to insert it a few times to get it to read correctly.  What?   Anyway, she was right.  But we still couldn’t seem to get a bet in.

Now, I am old school.  The last time I played slots, you put coins in and pulled a handle.   This machine seems to have required multiple button presses, and all we could figure out was how to bet 88 cents each time.  That took a while to use up the ten bucks.   The whole experience was not fun and we left to find another shuttle back to the campground.   I had them drop me off back at the office and they took another $22 off the bill after giving them the card, which was very nice.  🙂

While in town earlier that day, we looked around for diesel fuel locally but found it was B20 (20% Biodiesel) at the local Mobile station.   So I opened Gas Guru and looked further south and found a reasonable priced place near Medford, OR, just a few miles before the California border, that was reasonably priced and easy to get in and out in our 62+ foot rig.   In California the diesel fuel is $1 more per gallon now that they jacked up the taxes on it,  so  before we reach California,  I wanted to fill up and this place had B2 fuel.  2% biodiesel instead of 20%.  B20 Biodiesel has 10% less energy than real diesel, so the mileage is at least 10% less, but it’s not usually 10% less cost, so I try to never buy biodiesel.

After filling up in Medford, we headed south for Red Bluff, CA.   Along the route Mt Shasta was in all its glory.   No smoke from the top so it didn’t appear ready to pop anytime soon.

We spent a couple of nights at the Durango Resort where it was really warm and windy, Santa Ana’s blowing pretty good both days we were there.    We left there to head to Doran Beach Campground on Bodega Bay for a couple of nights of drycamping and visiting with my Sis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Ferrying over to Friday Harbor

Late Friday morning we headed over to Friday Harbor.   It seemed appropriate to do that on a Friday!  It was to be one of the few days that it was supposed to be sunny most of the day.    We walked onto the ferry for the 90-minute ride over thru the San Juan Islands.  Along the way we went past Orcas Island and many others.  Most of them have houses we could see from the ferry.   Lopez Island had lots of houses that could be seen from the ferry.

It was a quick 90 minutes and we seemed to get there really fast, probably because it was a “non- stop” ferry.   When we arrived, it was overcast and just  after lunchtime so we headed out looking for a place to get something on a patio where Dusty could stay with us.

Fairly quickly we found a small Mexican restaurant just about 100 feet up the hill from the landing.  They had a small patio sans a cover, so we lucked out and it didn’t rain on us even though it looked like it was going to do that any minute.   It was pretty good food, a lot better than expected being so far from the border.

It’s a nice little town and didn’t really seem like the tourist trap I expected.  There were a few gift shops, where I expected everything to be one of those. but it was very low key.  We were only staying for a few hours and wandered the streets for a bit while Kathy perused the shops there were there.  She did find a nice metal sign that may end up in the living room of the RV.

Dusty and I spent a lot of time on park benches while she shopped and he had a lot of folks coming over to pet him and hear how cute he is.   It wasn’t long ’till we saw our ferry approaching the island and we headed over to get in line to board for the ride back to Fidalgo Island.

Along the way we did see a pod of Dall’s Porpoise swimming beside us.  They look like baby orcas with their black and white colors.