Can you smell the Eucalyptus??

Here we are nestled in among the eucalyptus trees in the Anthony Chabot Regional Park. It's 6 miles North of Castro Valley and 10 miles East of Oakland.

At the moment, there is only 1 other RV in the area but that will change this evening when the rest arrive. It will still be nice as there is plenty of space between the sites.

We will try to see Kelly Burns (if she can get back from Rhode Island), Marty Burns and Jon, Kirsten & Amalia while in the area the next 2 days before we head further South. We also hope to get connected with our mail which we had forwarded to Marty:)

The weather is absolutely beautiful. Sunny, 70's and a nice breeze (could "breeze" up to 40 MPH this evening) which is very fragrant with the smell of the eucalyptus trees. We had a very nice time at the Rancho Seco Reg. Park and visited Angels Camp and Columbia. We stopped by and saw what was a "recreation" of Mark Twains cabin where he wrote about the jumping frogs of Calaveras County. Didn't see any frogs, however.

I'll try to update any success of meeting up with the relatives tomorrow. For now, it's relax time.

Know the way to San Jose??

We're not there yet. We are now at the Rancho Seco Recreation Area nestled nicely by a beautiful lake and 2 monstrous cooling towers from a deactivated nuclear power plant. Quite a skyline here in the mostly flat cattle country near Ione, CA.

Last night we stayed at the Indian Grinding Stone State Park not too far from here at Volcano, CA. Very interesting place. There is a very large granite stone with lots of indentations where the Miwok indians ground the acorns and other nuts they gathered. Lots of history in the Gold rush area.

Today we took a drive up to Placerville, one of the first gold rush towns. Unfortunately, it's turning into a yuppie tourist haven like many of the other gold rush towns. We'll visit Angels Camp tomorrow and take a ride up toward the Sierra Mountains unless it snows:)

We'll be here 1 more night then head down to the San Jose area to see more family. I'll update again tomorrow after our jaunt to Angels Camp.

AH!! In Vino, Veritas

We had a great time yesterday visiting some (many?) wineries in the rolling hills of the local wine country. Tasted some very fine wines and munchies plus a few wines that were not exactly stellar at least to our individual pallets. We could get used to this part of Central California but certainly NOT the traffic! There appears to be an over abundance of people, all of whom are driving their car in singular mode.

We'll spend the next couple of days here enjoying the company of our parking hosts and doing some more touring of the area. There is much to see here with the history of the gold rush and railroad days. We won't see all of it on this trip. Maybe on the next one:)

Sunshine and Wines

A beautiful day in Roseville, CA. Yesterday, we traveled from Bidwell Canyon near Lake Oroville to Roseville, via Marysville, to visit with Lou's cousin. The camp sites at Bidwell are "Yellowstone Level" as Adam and Aaron may remember from our trip there this past summer. We almost had enough leveling blocks to level the rig but were able to sleep without sliding out of the bed.

We are currently parked in front of their house (WAHOO, Free Camp Spot). Today, we will enjoy the sunshine (low 70's) and visit the wine country. Many think that all of California is wine country but our trip yesterday proved that wrong. We passed through walnut, pistachio and olive orchards plus many other crops like strawberries and unknown veggies. The route took us down a number of connecting farm roads, narrow and unmarked but our GPS got us here with no problems. At least 1 more night here in Roseville before we continue our journey toward the Gold Rush country of Angels camp.. or thereabouts.

Did I mention the wines? We had a glass of Double Dog Dare, Cab Sauvignon last nite. For $1.67 / bottle, it was really good. Not Rosemount or Arbor Crest, for sure, but a good table wine. May even get a couple of bottles for the trip to enjoy down the road.

Still here in Whiskeytown

Whiskeytown Lake looking West




Remnant of Town of Whiskeytown


The rains have quit for now so construction on the arks has slowed. Today was a really exciting day. We did laundry at a laundromat! Interesting experience indeed.


Weather very pleasant today, cool but pleasant. On our way back from town we noticed the mountain directly behind us had a significant accumulation of the "white stuff" on it. Time to move on southward.


A couple of pictures attached to show the area when it isn't raining. The lake and surrounding area is really pretty. The General Store picture shows all that is left of the town of Whiskeytown.

Tomorrow, we'll move on and head toward Roseville, just NE of Sacramento. We'll spend the night somewhere between here and there. Thursday, Fri & Sat nights we'll be parked in front of relatives house. After that, who knows just where we'll land. We'll worry about that on Saturday or Sunday.

Welcome to Whiskeytown

A couple days of R&R in beautiful downtown Whiskeytown. Actually, we are outside of Redding , CA at the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area on Whiskeytown Lake. Whiskeytown was an actual town during the gold rush days until the dam was built forming the lake. Since the town was inundated with water, they named the lake Whiskeytown. It's a really pretty area, just a little damp with the rains from the Pacific storms. We'll probably just be here 1 more night before heading down towards Sacramento. At $3.50 per nite the price isn't too bad at all:)

The new tranny is performing as expected, nice and smooth. We discovered a small leak around the kitchen window that I'll work on when we hit a dry spell. Not sure yet just where the water is getting in.

While the stew is cooking in the slow cooker, we'll take a drive over to Weaverville (a little West of here) and look around. I've still got to get used to being a "tourist". Too many years living in Orlando, I guess. Enough for now, I'm going to read my book and listen to the pitter patter of rain drops on the roof for a while.

Our best to all!

On the Road..... Again

After contributing mightly to the local economy of Bend, OR we are once more on our way south. The transmission was indeed quite ill. We lucked out with a really good (best in town, possibly state) transmission repair shop, Scott's Performance. He happened to have a new tranny in stock that he had been saving for his own RV. The options were to get the new one and be out the same day or have our old one rebuilt and be on our way in 4 days. The cost was equivalent so we now have a brand new transmission with which to continue our journey. We are quite a bit poorer but in good spirits just the same.

After spending the night in a repair shops parking lot at no charge, we are now in Redding, CA where it is raining with vigor. In fact, it has been raining pretty much all day so we passed on going to Crater Lake as we wouldn't have been able to see much and we may have encountered some of that white stuff. We are not prepared for that white stuff!

Tomorrow we are expecting more rain from the Pacific storm that is working it's way across the state but will head south anyway as it may be a little warmer rain:) We'll work out where and how to get there this evening but it will be around Angels Camp or Sacramento or ??????

Our best to all who are trying to follow this ramble.

Paul & Lou