No TV!

So for the first time on the trip I have no access to TV. It's pretty pathetic that I really felt the need for TV, but I think it's turning out to be a good thing. It's giving me some time to think and to drink a little too much. I am at an RV park just out side of Lassen Volcanic National Park. I arrived today in the early afternoon.

The drive over here from Fortuna was quite interesting. Crossing the coastal range in a 32 ft RV towing a car made for a slow trip. There were many 6, 7 and 8% grades over the mountains. When I reached the Trinity river things smoothed out, but the road remained very twisty! It was nice too get away from the ocean, since the cold fog went away and I was greeted with the Sun for the first time in 4 days!

I am now officially heading east! Guess that means that my trip is at least half over! Good bye West Coast, I'll miss you. Tomorrow I plan on hitting Lassen Volcanic National Park; not sure what I'll do the next day. After that I head through Nevada to Idaho. I hear there is good Mountain Biking there!

Well time to get back to drinking!

Aimee bails out!

Yesterday morning I dropped Aimee off at the Oakland Airport so she could fly back home. She missed her friends and family. It’s just Barley and me for the next 3 weeks or so. Since we left Bryce, we have visited Las Vegas for just one night – a quick stop over to break up the long leg between Bryce and Malibu; Malibu for 4 nights, which included a Warner Brothers Studio tour, a lunch on Rodeo drive, a drive up to Santa Barbara, and a walk along Venice Beach; Yosemite for 4 nights, two nights in Santa Cruz; and one night in San Francisco at Candlestick RV Park, which sucked and was the most expensive RV Park of the trip, $69 a night!

I really have enjoyed most of California. Staying at the beach at Malibu park was really cool, in both senses of the word. We didn’t spot any stars, but did see a few dolphins swimming in the ocean. It never seems to get warm when you are close to the Ocean in California. Glacier Point in Yosemite has been the most beautiful spot on the trip. From this vantage point you can see the entire Yosemite Valley, Half Dome, Nevada Falls, Yosemite Falls, and others I can’t remember the names of. I did get a good 4 hour hike one day while at Yosemite. I hiked to the top of Yosemite Falls and then continued to Yosemite Point for lunch and a cell phone call to my parents.

The RV Park we stayed at just outside of Santa Cruz in the town of Felton was situated amongst tall California Redwoods. Felton and Santa Cruz have a very strong hippie feel to it. Our last morning in Felton I got a quick mountain bike ride in on the University of CA at Santa Cruz property. It was a real nice ride amongst the redwoods. When I got to the top I came to a sign that warned that this was Mountain Lion territory and to remain very aware. This freaked me out some and I thought of turning back, but a rider came along so I nonchalantly asked him if there were some good trails around, he said all over the place. I followed him for a while on the fire road, when he realized I was right on his rear wheel he picked up the pace. I wasn’t surprised, since most guys do this when they didn’t realize you were right there.

I got bored riding the fire road, so when I saw single track I cut off the fire road and headed out into the woods. I noticed a group of riders hanging out on the trail to the right of me as I took the split to the left. I kind of figured that the trail made a big loop and returned to the starting point. After riding for a while I came upon a group of riders riding in the opposite direction, so I figured this was the same group hanging out at the split and that this confirmed my intuition. Eventually I came to a point in the trail where I thought I was back at my starting point, but then I saw a car going by on a paved road that I didn’t notice was there when I started I got back on the trail and continued. However, I kept noticing that road to the left of me as I continued on the trail. Crap! This trail isn’t looping as I thought, so I decided to bail out and hit the road, figuring it would go back to Route 9 where I started the ride. My time was running out since I had to be back by 10:30 am to clean up and check out of the RV Park.

After riding the road for a while, I thought it best, to just retrace my path back to the beginning. All was going well, I kept noticing landmarks that I had passed on my way out. Boy were there a lot of turn offs on the trail! I kept questioning if I was going the right way, but then I would notice a landmark and would feel more confident. Then I cam to a point in the trail where I wasn’t sure where to go, luckily there were two riders stopped at a turn off point. I told them that I had gotten a little turned around up here and asked if they could tell me how to get back to Route 9. They told me I had several options, the coolest of which would be to head down the trail and take the second left, which would bring me down a wicked down hill directly to Route 9. That was excellent since I only had 40 minutes left to get back and I had been out for 1 hour and 20 minutes. They were right, the downhill was pretty wicked, actually it was a little too much for the new timid me, but I got down it without crashing or dismounting the bike. It turned out to be a huge short cut, because I got back at 10:05.

After Santa Cruz, we headed up to Candlestick RV Park, arriving at just after 1:00. It was cold and foggy, just like Malibu. I didn’t want to sit around all afternoon so I convinced Aimee to go for a drive into downtown San Francisco. She warned me as we were driving in that traffic might suck and we would have a hard time fining parking, since we had the bikes on top of the car and couldn’t use a parking garage. She was right! After driving around for 1.5 hours we decided to head back to the RV Park and find a place near the park for a bite and a drink. We got off the interstate near the park and started to drive through the neighborhood. It’s not the sort of neighborhood you want to drive around! I think we saw a gang hanging out near a liquor store completely covered in graffiti. We decided to high tail it back to the RV Park. Back at the RV park I asked the check in guy, was there any place good nearby to get gas and food. He said go down the street to Bay Shore Dr. and there are places with food and gas. I asked him if it was safe and he said during the day it’s fine. We decided that we would order Pizza Delivery and that I would go to the nearest place and get gas. While I got gas, I decided we made the right decision.

After dropping Aimee off at the Airport, I went back to the RV park, took down our site and drove north to Fortuna, CA to see the famous California Redwoods. This morning Barley and I got up and drove south to visit the Avenue of Giants, which is the old stretch of US 101 that goes right trough groves of immense redwoods. On the way back I decided to take a detour that would bring me along the coast, back up to Fortuna. It was a really cool road! It wound its way up a very narrow road, barely two lanes wide, trough redwoods and up many switch backs up and down several hillsides. I kept expecting to see the ocean, when I noticed I was low on gas! I could head back or keep going, I decided to keep going. I really didn’t expect the detour to be as long as it was! I kept going up and down hillsides until I came to a Y in the road, an actual Y! I don’t know if I have ever seen a sign indicating a Y in the road. Luckily there was a sign that pointed me in the right direction, but it was 30 miles to the next town and I wasn’t even sure it would have gas. The road eventually came upon the ocean; it was a sight to behold! Waves crashing on rocks to the left and grassy hillsides with cattle grazing to the right and not a building in sight! This was terrific! But, I had the sinking feeling that I would come upon a road close sign and would have to turn back! This wasn’t an unreasonable fear since it had happened along the Avenue of Giants earlier.

The road eventually turned away from the coast and began to do it’s switchback thing up the hillsides and the road to much rougher. I couldn’t get the sinking feeling out of my mind that I would run out of gas and would get stuck out there! I figured I could take my bike off the roof and ride to the nearest town, but that would mean leaving Barley in the Car. I finally came to the town I was expecting and a sign that showed I only had 5 miles back to Fortuna! Yippee, I was saved! A little melodramatic, I know, but it was good to back!

Bryce Canyon

We’re about to leave Bryce Canyon, actually Cannonville, Utah, which is a bustling community of 150 souls. It has a little store and a motel. The post office is a little room inside the tiny Town Hall. Aimee said it is reminiscent of the Andy Griffith show.

Prior to coming to Bryce Canyon we spent 4 nights in Moab, Utah. I got to ride the famous Slick Rock mountain bike trail! It’s supposed to be the most technically challenging and physically demanding trail in this mountain bike mecca. It was definitely physically challenging, all the short steep down hills followed by the very step short up hills sapped my energy. I got a really early start; I was on the trail a little after 7 am and was only 1 of 3 out on the trail. I started with the practice loop, because the sign at the trailhead warned of the technical difficulty and suggested that newbies try the practice loop first before hitting the main trail. After completing the practice loop and discovering that it was within my technical abilities, I hit the main trail. I soon came upon two other guys on the trail, I passed them and cranked my way up a very steep uphill. While resting at the top, they passed me by. I soon came upon them when the first guy stopped and said to his buddy there are few 4 foot drops ahead, let’s watch this guy do it. I was a little apprehensive of 4-foot drop offs, but proceeded anyways. It was really a series of 2-foot drops offs, but I cleared them with ease. For the next two hours on the trail I didn’t see a single sole; it was very serene. I did get a little concerned that I took a wrong turn, because after I passed a turn off, I expected to seen another one in 2 tenths of a mile, but it was a very long time coming. I finally came upon two other riders ridding in the opposite direction, I asked them if the were riding clockwise, they said yes. This was very good since I was riding counter clockwise.

As I got closer to the trailhead, I began to come across many mountain bike riders. It was very nice to get out early and avoid the throng of riders! I did receive a few complements on my riding abilities, which was very nice! The slick rock trail was very enjoyable, not too technically demanding. I’d do it again, given the chance. Next time in Moab, I’d like to do the Porcupine Ridge trail. It would be better to do it earlier in the year since it’s longer and it gets hot out there quick!

After the slick rock ride, I was back at the RV by 10:30 as a I promised Aimee. After a quick shower, we went out and took a tour of Arches National Park. It was pretty cool to see all the arches. I don’t know what all the hub bub is about delicate arch, because I think the spectacles and Landscape Arch were much cooler.

The following day, Aimee drove to Telluride and I stuck around the RV park. In the morning I did a short two-hour ride from the RV park out into the desert toward Arches National park. I ran into a fence with an opening that declared I was at the Arches national park boundary and that no Mountain Bikes were allowed! The bastards! It was a friggin desert with nothing around. Anyways I found a bunch of riding to do just outside the park boundary.

The next morning we got up and drove to Bryce Canyon. On the way we drove through Escalante Grand Staircase. It really isn’t something you want to do in an RV! There are many steep upgrade and steep downgrades. The RV was whining like a teenage girl! At one point the road was barely two lanes wide with thousand foot drop offs on both sides and no guard rail!

Yesterday we drove through Bryce Canyon National Park. After a quick tour, I had Aimee drop me off and I did a one and half hour hike through the Hoodoo’s. It is much better to see them from below, than from the viewpoints just off the road. It was very cool. The Indians believe that the gods turned people to stone right where they were working.

Today we drove to Zion. It’s not quite as cool as Bryce, but definitely impressive. I hike up to Angel’s point but chickened out just after Chicken out point, since the trail was barely a foot wide with 6 thousand foot drop offs on each side. There was a chain to hold on to, but that wasn’t enough for me! I really didn’t think I was afraid of height until this point. I was actually more freaked out about freaking out than actually being freaked out. I didn’t want to freeze up on some ledge and have to have someone come and talk me down. So I turned around and came back down the mountain. I was a little ashamed, but was alive!

Abandoning Angels point gave me the time to do the river walk and wade up the Virgin River, which winds it’s way through thousand foot tall and 20 foot wide box canyons. That walk was definitely worth the hike! I’ll try to post some pictures soon!

Moab RV Life!

It’s Thursday at 2:30 and 89 degrees in the shade in Moab, Utah. Aimee and I visited the Canyon Lands today; it was very picturesque! Previously we were in Mesa Verde, Colorado, which was pretty cold. In fact, on our drive up to Mesa Verde we drove through a Snow Squall!
Here's an evening shot of Mesa Verde ->

We haven’t gotten much hiking in yet, since all the National Parks we have been in so far don’t allow dogs on the trail. Tomorrow we plan on going to Arches National park and we’ll be leaving Barley in the RV in air-conditioned comfort. However, I did get my first Mountain Bike ride in at Phil’s World, just outside of Mesa Verde. Riders on mtbr.com have rated it 5 Chili’s, but I didn’t think it rated more than 3.5 Chili’s. It’s just a little more difficult than Shaffer Farms in Gaithersburg, MD. There were some excellent whop de doo’s that you could catch air off of, but since this was my first ride since I broke my wrist, I thought the better of it. This morning in Moab, I took a short ride out of my campground into the desert wilderness. It was pretty cool to get out there early in the morning where you could see no civilization other than a natural gas pipeline. It was supposed to be a single-track trail, but not according to east coast standards. You could ride three riders abreast on this trail. Tomorrow I get up and ride the famous Moab Slick Rock trail. Wish me luck!

Windy in Ruidoso

Last night when we set up in Ruidoso, NM the wind was holing so hard that I thought the RV was going to tip over. Aimee and I really didn’t sleep well due to the wind. Ruidoso is a really cute little town that apparently has a few ski areas near it, so there are a lot of shops in the town. We took a scenic ride this morning up a winding road to Ski Apache ski resort that is run by the Apache Indians. We drove up 12 miles and climbed 3000 feet. On the way down we stopped at windy look out. I swear that the wind was gusting at 70 mph. In the afternoon we drove into town to look at a few shops and got a prescription filled. We set out in the morning for Mesa Verde, Colorado. Hope to have some more pictures by then.

Exhausted in West Texas!

Exhausted in West Texas! We rolled into the Fort Stockton KOA on Thursday at 6:30 pm after a very brief visit to Austin, TX. In Austin,we went to Freddies in South Austin for dinner, because a brochure Aimee picked up from the RV park in Austin had a picture of this place that I was sure I had gone to in ’90 to ’95. Freddies looked identical to place I had gone to that I was thought was called Chevy’s and served Mexican food, but it only served burgers and other stuff, no Mexican food. I asked the waitress if they used to serve Mexican food, because I was sure I had been here 15 years ago and she said Freddies had only been open 3 years, but it was a different place before that. After Freddies, we drove to 6th street, which is the hopping College scene. But, on a Wednesday at 6:30 pm the only people hanging out where 40 something good ole boy conventioneers.

When we rolled into our spot in Fort Stockton, a good ole Texan named Randy greeted me with a beer. As I connected our utilities he told me about how deserted El Paso was on 911; nothing was moving on the streets since everyone had been called back to the base and the border was shut down. Randy had just move into the KOA on April 21st and was planning on staying there for 2 and half years. His fifth wheel definitely had some living done in it. Since we had no food to cook, I went to the Road Runner Café at the KOA and had some Barbeque Ribs that were the specialty of the day. According to Randy they are they special every day. The ribs were actually slow roasted pork shops served with overcooked canned green beans and mashed potatoes, but the Coors light was only $1.95!
We got up Friday morning and left at around 9:30 am for Ruidoso, New Mexico.

Petit Jean

I'm sittin here at an RV park off I-10 in Beaumont. We're here to visit my brother Mark.

Great Smoky was nice, but a little too brief. The first day was overcast, so we decided to do a scenic drive over to Asheville to visit Aimee's Mom, who was there looking at places to retire. We stopped at Clingmans dome on the way, the highest point in the Smoky's. The view wasn't so good, no big surprise do to the weather. Here I am Clingmans dome:

The next day was beautiful and I was well rested. Aimee and I did a quick hike in the morning on the most popular trail in the park - Laurel Falls trail. It was a ½ mile pave trail to a 15’ falls. Not my idea of a hike. That afternoon Aimee agreed to start a big hike with me and when she got tired she would turn back on her own and pick me up later. I was contemplating turning around with her so we could go into Gatlinburg and do some touristy stuff, when along came a hiker who I asked is there anything interesting at the top of the trail. He told me a beautiful 80’ falls. I decided I had to go to the top. Aimee turned around after 45 minutes and I continued to the top. The two-hour hike to the top was worth it, a beautiful 80’ falls, heare are the falls:
As I headed back down I passed a couple that just came out of the woods onto the trail. There was a black bear blocking the trail eating berries. I was a couple of men hoofing through the woods down the mountain, so I followed their path. As I was approaching them I knew they would ask about the bear, so I came up with a good story. One man asked me did I see the bear. I replied, yup he was blocking the trail so I swatted him on the ass and he got outta the way. The guy replied incredulously, really? I couldn’t keep up the story, so I told them no.

I got down the mountain in 1.5 hours and was a half an hour early for my pick up. So I started walking down the road, tired as hell, hoping that Aimee wouldn’t be late, but would be early. In 10 minutes Aimee came roaring up the road; boy was I happy!

The next day we got up and headed for Arkansas. It was over 636 miles away predominately I-40, to Petit Jean State Park near Russellville, AR. We stayed overnight in West Memphis in an RV park 7 miles north on I-55. It was flat and noisy since it was just off the interstate.

We arrived at Petit Jean around 1pm. The young girl at the registration desk had a hard time figuring out how to charge us for the remaining two nights of our 3 day stay; welcome to Arkansas! We took a shot hike and retired for the evening.

The next morning we got up took a very nice hike down to Cedar Falls. This is a picture of the falls:

In the afternoon we drove to Hot Springs, the other home of our former President Bill Clinton. It really wasn’t worth the drive. The shops along the street had little to offer in the way of wares to buy. The National Park offered a restored Bath House that could be out of a movie like the Shining. The next morning I got Aimee out of bed at 6:30 am and we got on the road for Beaumont, TX to visit my brother.

Today Aimee went shopping and I went sailing with my brother Mark on his 39ft sailboat on Sabine lake. It was my dog Barley’s first time sailing. She was a little nervous due to the heel of the boat in 22-knot winds! Mark put us on a broad reach and the boat leveled out. Barley and I enjoyed the sail very much. We finished with Barley taking a swim off the dock and Mark and I eating Chicken sausages, which were quite good and according to Mark apparently quite healthy!