While traveling this year I started noticing pain in my right hip. After a month or so it got so bad I could barely walk up the stairs in the rig. We were planning to travel from Coeur D Alene to Boise, but instead I found a chiropractor in Grangeville and we arranged to spend a well there.
luckily in a small town the chiropractor wasn’t too busy and they saw me that day. Turned out my sacroiliac was our of whack. He saw me the times during the week I was there and he referred me to a chiropractor in Boise so I could get a few more treatments. After about 5 treatments I feel back to normal!
We got to the coast in Arcata, CA. It’s wonderful here after the heat of Coarsegold and Pollock Pines where it was in the 90s and 100s every day and barely cooled off at night. Here we have a marine layer every day and it only got as warm as 70 a couple of days. A few days it was actually chilly all day until mid-afternoon. One reason for that is we are under a huge tree and the sun only starts to hit the rig about 3pm. What a nice change!!
While in this area we took a few drives to see the country. On one drive we went to Blue Lake, which is really a wide spot on the Mad River. We drove along it for a ways but in the area where we drove the access to the lake would have meant scrambling down some rocks to get to the level of the lake, and as Laddy hasn’t been feeling well lately we didn’t want him to exert himself so we only looked out at it from the road. It’s beautiful and very unspoiled. Here’s a picture:
On another drive we went along the coast. Arcata is at the north end of the Arcata Bay, and we drove out to the coastline through two small towns – Manila and Samoa. Interesting names! Samoa was originally Brownsville, and as the harbor is similar to that of Pago Pago in the Samoa Islands, and because of a crisis there in the 1890s the name was changed. From Samoa you can drive to the Dunes Recreation Area and there’s a bridge from Samoa across 2 small islands to Eureka.
On one of the two small islands there is a marina and a restaurant where we had dinner at the Café Marina & Woodleys Bar. Great food and live music too! Here’s a picture of the marina taken from our table:
And another drive took us north to the small town of McKinleyville. Hway 101 is right along the beach for a few miles in this area and there was a vista point that looked down to the mouth of the Mad River. It runs parallel to the coast for a way before it turns to enter the ocean. There’s no beach access here because of the river, even though it appears very shallow. We looked down at the mouth of the river and were surprised to see lots of seals on the sandbar. Here’s a picture:
While in Florence, OR. We visited the Sand Dune National Recreation Area. There are sand dunes all over in Florence, you can see them behind the grocery store, alongside residential streets etc.
But there is an area that has been set aside as the Sand Dune National Recreation Area. This is on a narrow peninsula between the last mile or so of the Suislaw River and the mouth of the river where it enters the ocean.
The area has some typical sand dunes and there are a lot of ATV and motorcycle riders that come to ride around on the dunes. There are some areas where vegetation has grown and covered the dunes.
There are also several areas past the ATV areas where you can park and walk up the side of a dune and down the other side to reach the beach. When we visited we saw lots of people going to beach as it was a Sunday. Even though it was 63 degrees people had bathing suits on! Lots had wetsuits too.
Here are some pictures we took of the San Dune National Recreation Area in Florence, OR.
A pathway thru the dunes to the beach
ATV and motorcycle riders enjoying the dunes area
ATV trails over the dunes
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Dunes covered in vegetation
People on top of a dune
San dunes beach side
Sand dunes from beach side 1
The mouth of the Suislaw River looking across to the dunes area
We are currently staying near Crescent City, CA and have a very private site with a large tree shading our rig and a little stream. We set up on Monday in the pouring rain and the little steam was running full. A day later all the water is gone but it’s still awfully pretty at our site
After being here a few days we started to notice that the park is not real well maintained. But it worked for us. I don’t have any pictures unfortunately.
We made another trip to see the Carlsbad Caverns on this trip, We were here in 2013, here’s the link to our previous trip: Carlsbad Caverns but like it and wanted to see it again.
Last time we were here you had to go on a ranger-guided tour. It was nice cause the ranger gave us lots of information as we walked through the cavern. This time they let everyone go on a self-guided tour.
This was nice as it let us go at our own pace. Jeff would stop and set up to take pictures and had time to take several to get the best angle and exposure. Previously you had to snap a picture fast and keep up with the group.
You can choose to rent a little audio unit with a headset and there are numbers along the walkway so you can listen to a little blurb about what you’re seeing at that point. I noticed that not very many families and groups got the audio unit, and they basically walked through the whole place without stopping to admire what they were looking at. Plus the signs along the path didn’t give a lot of info, that was what the audio devices were for.
We headed back to Bakersfield to adopt a new Doberman. Our first Dobie, Laddy, died while we were in New Mexico and we were concerned that a rescue org. wouldn’t let us have another because a lot of them require you to have a yard.
We contacted Susan at the Doberman SOS in Tehachapi, 30 miles from Bakersfield. Because we had already gotten one dog from her and Jeff kept in touch with her, she was willing to let us adopt another. YAY!
So, we headed back to Bakersfield to meet and adopt a new dog.
Susan showed us three dogs. The second one was overly excited and bit and scratched my arm. I don’t hold it against her! The third one was a sweet small black and tan Dobie. The first was Chloe. When she brought Chloe into the yard where we were sitting waiting to meet our choices the first thing she did was zoom around the yard a few times and then jump into Jeff’s lap. So you can say that she chose us!
She’s wonderful! She’s very smart and learns things very quickly. She had been in a home but was too energetic for the couple and they relinquished her. So, she was housetrained and also knew several commands. The one thing she wasn’t very good at was walking on a leash, she acted like she was the lead dog in the Iditarod race!
But in just a few days she had calmed down and now barely pulls at all. She’s learning “heel” which is to stay just at the left knee rather than walk out in front. We do both.
She’s very social. We’ve taken her to a big dog park several times and she gets along with all the other dogs, big and small. She loves to meet people and is a ‘leaner’ like Laddy was. That means she’ll come up to you and lean against your leg.
She comes up the front steps into the trailer, and jumps into the truck, with no problem. But she is afraid to come up the three steps into the bed and bath in our 5th wheel. We don’t know why. She won’t even get her ball if it’s on one of the steps.
And, she’s a licker. The first couple days I felt wet all day! It’s annoying so we’re working to train her out of that habit. She’s definitely getting better.
When we decided to head back to Bakersfield CA to get a new dog (more on that in another blog entry) we stopped for a few days in Flagstaff, AZ. We’ve been there several times before and decided that we didn’t want to spend the time or gas to go to the Grand Canyon (an hours drive from Flagstaff) but we did want to do something while there.
We decided to go again to the Walnut Canyon ancient Indian ruins. It is located just a few miles east of Flagstaff. The visitor center has lots of information and the tour is self guided.
To get to the ruins area you have to walk down about 250 steps and then the ruins are along the edges of a standalone mesa and not on the top, but lower in an area where the sandstone was softer and more easily eroded away by the winds.
There was a nice level path made around the mesa so you can see many of the ruins.
Then, of course the hard part was going back UP the 250 steps when you’re at over 7,000 ft in elevation in the first place! We stopped frequently to rest, several times in the shade which was nice.
We met a range doing his daily walk through the tour area to see if everyone is doing ok. He said every 2 or 3 weeks they have to rescue someone who wasn’t doing very well.
We had made plans to head towards Yellowstone Natl Park where we made a reservation at an RV park for 2 weeks starting June 2nd. We know it’s early for that area and there still may be snow, but we wanted to be there before the summer crowds hit.
But, while we were in Carlsbad, NM Laddy took a turn for the worse and got real sick and passed away. He had been diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) 10 months ago and was on medications and really started slowing down. Also, his back legs had arthritis and he had a lot of trouble getting into and out of the RV and the truck. It’s a real hard decision to make but we know it was best for Laddy. We had a few hard days afterwards as well, he was such a big part of our family.
We still wanted to head toward Yellowstone and our plan was to stop for a few days in Santa Fe, NM, then head into Colorado going into the mountainous area west of Denver. We’d been through that area before and it’s so pretty. We had enough time booked in Grand Lake, CO that we could go into the Rocky Mtn Natl Park at least once. Then we would head to the east side of Yellowstone and stay in Wapiti, WY which is near Cody.
As we headed into Santa Fe we were worried about the two huge fires burning, one east and one west of Santa Fe. We knew they were about 40 miles either side of the city but on the way into Santa Fe we could see the eastern fire burning in the mountains. Here’s a picture of it:
Then, the weather reports started talking about heavy snow in the area we were going towards in just a couple of days. We decided to change our plans and go through Colorado on the eastern side of Denver which is not in the mountains and while there would be snow it wouldn’t be as bad. The day we were planning to head toward Grand Lake I looked at some live webcams in the area and saw it was already snowing and weather reports showed snow for the next two days as well. Here’s a picture of the road at about 10,000 ft that we would have been driving on one day after this picture was taken:
At the same time that our plans were changing, we also knew we wanted to find another Doberman to join our family. We were concerned about rescue organizations as they usually want to visit your home, make sure you have a yard and plenty of room for a dog. Well, we live in an RV and travel a lot so we were afraid we wouldn’t be qualified. We looked at a lot of animal shelters and humane societies webpages and there are very few full-breed Dobermans. We decided to take a chance and contact the rescue organization in Tehachapi, CA where we got Laddy, as Jeff had kept in contact with the owner once or twice a year with pics and stories about Laddy.
YAY! They were very open to letting us adopt another Doberman from them! We don’t want to wait, so we are changing our plans once again and heading from Santa Fe, NM to Tehachapi CA in the next couple of days to meet with them and pick out another Dobie.
After we spend some time in Tehachapi to get to know our new Dobie and to let him/her get comfortable with us, we’ll head north and try to see the places we are missing with our mixed up plans.
We ended up our winter sojourn and started heading out – first stop was in Casa Grande, AZ where we have family. When we left Julian it was about 65 and when we got to Casa Grande a few hours later it was 102! HOT! Laddy is very sensitive to heat lately with his heart condition and I don’t handle extreme heat very well either, so even before we unhitched and leveled Jeff got the electricity plugged in and I got both A/Cs going. Right next to our site was a huge saguaro cactus that was blooming – here’s a picture showing the size of it and a closeup of the blooms at the top.
We spent a couple of months in Julian CA this spring. We both have family in San Diego County and Jeff likes his doctor who he’s seen for several years.
Julian is beautiful in the springtime! We arrived just a few days after the last snowfall in the area and there were little patches of snow on the ground. Our RV park is just south a few miles from the town of Julian and is on a ridge with great views in both directions – to the west you can see almost to the ocean. To the east you can see the Cuyamaca Mountains and a little bit of the desert behind them.
It was very green the whole time we spent in Julian, where the rest of San Diego County is green for a few weeks and then starts to turn brown again. Also, lots of people who live in and around Julian plant bulbs, so there were daffodils all over the place, in front of homes, meadows full of them, etc. They have a Daffodil festival in April, and after the daffodils there are lilacs blooming everywhere and a Lilac festival. And in the RV park there were lots of irises which is my favorite flower.
Here are some pictures of the local wildlife (lots of turkeys!) and the views:
