We drove past Seattle, Portland, and Eugene. The skies were so overcast everywhere. Sorry, Portland and Seattle relatives and friends, we are so glad we spent 22 years in Tri Cities, WA., where the sun shines 300 days each year.
From here on it will all be new territory for us to explore. Grant's Pass, Or. Drove through downtown. There were baskets with pretty flowers in them hanging on an old bridge. I've never seen that before. They probably don't ever have to water them. Statues of bears all over town.
On to Crescent City, on mostly narrow, winding roads. It looks like Washington and Oregon with the pine forests, of course, since we're almost to redwood country.
Skies are very overcast over the ocean - 63 degrees at 4:15 p.m. We ate prawns and chips at a seafood restaurant on the ocean. Saw surfers in wetsuits.
Saturday
Ate at 7 and drove a few miles to the Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park. Saw a few places with fireweed growing on the way (we saw that for years in Alaska). The park was very eerie because little sun shone through the tall trees and moss covered everything and hung from everything. The trees were massive!
Of course there are several more redwood forests further south on the coast, but brochures said this 9500 acre park, started in 1929, has the largest diameter ones, though not the tallest ones. One with the largest diameter is 20' and 340' tall. Many are 500-700 years old. Of course there were a few fallen ones. Some were so close to the road that there was little room on either side of our pickup. No RVs or campers are allowed in there.
It only took one hour to drive through, look up at their massive height, and take some good pictures, so we decided we could visit other parks in the future and would get all the way to Reno today.
Had to drive 80 miles back up to Grant's Pass, Or. to catch I-5. Saved time over trying to take small roads over the mountains. Saw snow on Mt. Shasta, of course.
Drove through the Shasta-Lassen National Forest. 98 degrees. Signs in there for cross country and snowmobiling, of course. It was approx. 50 miles through the forest. Then onto another highway for over 40 miles. All forest-not what I think of when I think of Calif. Gas was $4.13 in this area-not as high as we expected.
Then onto highway 395. It immediately started having rolling hills and sagebrush. The area looks like where that highway travels in Wa and Or.
3148 miles 12 days
Reno
88 degrees. Very cloudy and rain forecasted. By the time we arrived in our 5th floor room, it sounded like a blizzard with the rain and we could see lightning. That night I gambled $12.00, won $2.80, and spent that, too. Those decimals are in the right place!
Sunday
73 degrees and humid
Walked around the downtown part that has casinos, pawn shops, and restaurants. Saw 2 separate arrests within 10 mins. Walked past the Reno Aces ballpark and along the Truckee River.
Took pictures of the old and new Reno signs.
We walked along part of the Truckee River river walk.
A building had a rock climbing wall up the whole side. People started at the top of the red section.
Picked up my sister and brother-in-law at the airport, lunch, guys to Harrah collection car museum, Linda and I walked along the river.
As soon as we left the museum parking lot, it started to rain. And it poured on the interstate. It was slow going in some places. There was an immediate drop from 93 deg to 57 deg.!
The scenery quickly turned to hills and pine trees. One lower hillside had snow. Then we were as high as 7000'.
3:30 arrived in Tahoe. A stoplight was out. Turned into Safeway lot. All the strip mall stores were black and closed. Safeway was almost black, but open, as they had their registers on generators. They were busy. So many resorts here and the restaurants couldn't serve food.
We followed the GPS to the top of a hill, where a sign said only 4 wheel drives with snow tires, or chains, were allowed in the winter It is right next to the ski resort.
Arrived at our timeshare and it was dark. Elevators were on emergency power, thank goodness, since our room was on the 8th floor. We had planned on beer, wine, crackers and cheese for dinner-good thing. It was light until about 8:45 and the power came back on at 9:15.
Monday
Drove around So. Tahoe, walked on a beach, drove back to the Nevada line where we came in last night. Very expensive lunch at a brewery.
Standing on a street corner, watching the many cloud formations.
Time to drive around some more, then buy groceries and go to the Laundromat.
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