My last posting of pictures was the Rogue River Jet Boat trip.  As you remember, I got a new camera and I have been having issues getting used to it's quirks.  The booklet that came with the camera was useless and it has taken me 3 days to retrieve the photos taken with it and reformat them with the proper "pixels" to post to the blog.  A really nice fellow named Ryan at the Radio Shack in Arcata helped us to figure out how to get the computer to recognize that a camera was attached to it. Many thanks to Ryan for his expertise and patience in working with a couple of non-techies.

Several days back we started down the southern Oregon coast and were met by HCCA members, Howard and Karen Shelley, from Grants Pass, OR who had driven to the coast to see us.  They arrived in their bright red new Ford Mustang and it made quite a contrast with our old and quite travel dirty E-M-F.

Karen, Joe and I with their red Mustang and our E-M-F.  We enjoyed having lunch with them and getting to know them both.


Our travels took us along the California coast on Rt 101 and the Redwoods of northern CA - truly a spectacular area of natural beauty.  Joe is 6' and these redwoods were enormous! 



 Think how long these have been rooted in this same soil. I find just staying in one place a few days can be too long.  They have no choice but to just stay where they are and deal with it.  People are lucky to generally have some choice in where they sink their roots.

  
I have been trying to get a picture of an elk for weeks as we traveled through several states.  Finally!  I got a shot of this one in a meadow in northern CA in the Redwoods.
I have spotted wild turkies and my first covey of quail since I lived in Arizona!

There are several big redwoods that you can drive your car through and this was quite the experience.  Getting the car up the hill to the tree was the trick.  The tree was located up a short, steep hill with a sharp turn on a narrow road with cars going up and down the road in both directions.  With an old car you need a running start up the hill with no other cars in your way.  Cars had to back down the hill and move out of all the lanes to give us running room.  The drive up was uneventful after that and driving through the tree was the easy part.

  
Just one of many spectacular beach scenes along Rt 1.

We passed this Reggae (Jamaican) Music Fest in Piercy, CA. that typically sees over 10,000 people in attendance. Traffic was a little tricky for a while but we understood the problem when we spotted what was going on down in the flats by the river.  We were just glad to leave all the people there to enjoy their music weekend while we kept on traveling down the road!

We stopped for a break and met a young couple by the name of Tamara and Tommy Lubbers from Pittsboro, NC on a road trip to Portland.  She and I were talking and she mentioned she was from NC and I asked where.  She asked if I knew where Chapel Hill was.  I said that I did and then told her I had a friend in Sanford.  I love Cole Pottery from Sanford and she was familiar with that pottery.  It really is a small world.

  

As we traveled down the coast we came to a harbor seal nursery along a section of beach.  Moms leave their offspring on the sand to sleep while they go out for a swim to fish.  It was amazing to see so many seals all in one place.  The pelicans were around in the event any stray fish were available.

 Talk about a small world - Joe and I stopped for lunch today at a small Mexican restaurant and met these 2 gentlemen on a motorcycle road trip.  The one on the left is Gabriel Farraye from Quito, Ecuador and the other fellow is Arcangela Dimella from Porta la Cruz, Venezuela.  They have been traveling on their cycles all over South American and up to the US on their way to Alaska.  We thought our trip was big, but it is "small potatoes" compared to their trip.  Best wishes for a safe and enjoyable ride to both of you.  Boa Viagem!!

THE STEERING COLUMN

Driving along the coast the last 4 days has been a breeze - not much traffic and pretty much idiot-free.  It sure has been a big difference from driving in northern Oregon.  At Leggett, CA we got onto Rt 1 west over the mountain - narrow winding roads, beautiful scenery, no car issues.  We stopped twice on downgrades to let the brakes cool.  We are spending the night at Fort Bragg, and after studying the map, see that we need to pick up the pace in order to get to AACA's Glidden Tour in Oklahoma City by August 27th.  We expect to be in Sebastopol, CA tomorrow evening.  Kim Simone promised me a hot shower.  I have been looking forward to it for over 2 months!

.........AND THAT'S ALL PART OF MOTORING........

Joe and I will be spending the night in Fort Bragg, CA.

After buying a new camera, we switched the old chip into the new camera and magically the pictures from the Jet Boat trip down the Rogue River from yesterday appeared!  Now you get to see what we did.

Jet Boat headed down the Rogue River.

The Rogue River was beautiful, lazy in some areas, a little white water in others, big rocks in the water, sand/rock bars.  Really a fun ride.

Little mink playing on the ledge by the water right in the middle of the picture.

White heron up in a tree along the river.  We saw many of them keeping an eye out for fish.

Spotted this mother deer and two fawns along the edge of the water.

This little pile of rocks seems pretty insignificant, but we have seen piles like this all over Canada, Alaska and different places in the northern US.  They are called Inuksuk which can denote good luck, show directions or have other meanings.  It is considered bad luck to move such a pile.  We have seen them in northern Ontario that are four or five feet high and very complex.  I am fascinated by them.

   
Remember I said that "wet" was the look yesterday.  I really wasn't kidding.  If you get this wet and then the boat starts flying down the river at 35 miles per hour and your hair flies every which way, you have a really bad hair day!

Bald eagle up in the tree waiting for some other bird to catch a fish and then he will swoop down to intimidate the bird into dropping the fish.

Another view of the Rogue River.  If you get the opportunity, take this trip!!