Santa Clara, CA to Santa Rosa, CA

The Santa Clara Elks lodge office was scheduled to be open at 9:00am this morning, so we planned our departure to fit with that as we had keys to the dump station and water to turn in to the office so that we could get our deposit back.  We dumped the holding tanks, hooked up the pickup, turned in the keys, and headed north on Hwy 101.

We noticed this unusual looking hangar at an airport as we drove by.

As we were getting nearer to the Golden Gate Bridge, I noticed these flags on the lampposts.  Obviously, it must be the 75th anniversary of the bridge.

My photos today aren’t the greatest, but here’s our approach to the bridge.  As opposed to our last trip over the bridge a few years ago when everything was fogged over, there were some beautiful views today.  Unfortunately, looking through my side window produced a bad reflection on any photos taken from that angle.

In this photo, we’re about halfway across the bridge.

Continuing our journey north to Santa Rosa, Ken spotted this Citoen in the right lane, so I took a couple of photos of it.

We pulled into the Sonoma County Fairgrounds RV Park around 12:30pm and got set up.  We had originally planned to be here for at least 2 nights to do a little bit of research on my grandfather who was from this area.  However, the camp host got confused in signing us in and he only charged us for one night instead of two.  He came by a few minutes later to let us know what had happened.  After the long day yesterday going over Ken’s family history with his cousins, I wasn’t too interested in doing any more research and we were both getting tired of the big city atmosphere, so we will continue on north tomorrow.

A Day In Genealogy Land…Catching Up With the Gear Family

Okay…I’m the first to admit that I’m not into genealogy as much as Ken is…but for better or worse, I’ve agreed to help him as much as I can.  We’re in Santa Clara, CA where Ken has been in touch with a cousin he has not met before but who has an old family bible from the early 1800’s.  That he had to see, so plans were made to visit him.  Another cousin Donna from Vancouver, WA made plans to meet up with us also.  We met her for the first time last spring on our way north.

Here are the three cousins:  Dave, Ken, and Donna

From left to right:  Ken, Dave and Donna.

Ken on the left is looking over Dave as he opens some pages in the old family bible.

Ken had a truly amazing day being able to actually see the close to 200 year old family bible that was actually written in by his ancestors.

Before we headed back to the RV, Dave’s wife Theresa returned home and we got a photo of the two of them together.  We left wishing we could have had a little more time with Theresa also.

As we said our goodbyes and got ready to leave, we got some last photos of the cousins:  Dave, Donna, and Ken.

It was a long day for me, but I think Ken had a very enjoyable day meeting up with the cousins and getting caught up on their genealogy.

A Relaxing Day and Some Ebook Recommendations

Today we did pretty much nothing other than relaxing around the RV.  Ken was busy getting his genealogy records fixed up in preparation for meeting a new cousin on Sunday and I read for most of the day.  Since I’ve been reading a lot of books on my Kindle since leaving Arizona City, I’m going to recommend a few of the better books in the blog and include links for anyone who is interested in purchasing them (if you do purchase, I might earn four cents from the sale).

The ebook I finished earlier today is Abducted by T. R. Ragan.  It’s the first in a series about Lizzy Gardner, a P.I. who had been abducted 14 years earlier and somehow managed to escape from the serial killer.  Now he’s back and seems to know everything about her family and friends and is trying to draw her back into his web.  This Kindle ebook sells for $2.99 and I’m impressed enough with this author that I already purchased the second book in the series.  There are so many free and inexpensive books available for the Kindle, that it hasn’t bothered me at all to avoid some of the best selling mystery/suspense/thriller author’s books that I usually read.  I’ll admit that several of these books have poor editing, don’t develop the characters well, or something else is just lacking.  But this one drew me in right away and I didn’t notice any problems with editing or any other problems that made me want to put it down.

 

Another book I finished this week was Double Exposure by Michael Lister.  It was different in how conversations were carried on in the book.  Usually when I read a book, a character’s conversation is contained within quotation marks.  In this book, conversations were started on separate lines starting with __ and then whatever was said.  The premise of this book is that main character is a photographer who has some hidden wildlife cameras out on property in Florida and the camera catches photos of a woman being murdered.  The murderer catches on that he’s been photographed, and for the rest of the book, the photographer is on the run for his life by not just the one man, but 5 or 6 others.  It kept me interested enough to finish the book and I would read something like it again.

And lastly, I read the 4th in the Manny Williams series:  Caribbean Rain by Rick Murcer.  Manny started out as a criminal profiler for a police department, but is now doing that for the FBI.  His associates have followed him to the FBI for work.  The characters have been well developed throughout the series and I’ve not noticed anything in the editing that has slowed me down or made me question anything.

So that does it for my ebook recommendations for the night.  I guess I shouldn’t be so critical of editing problems and otherwise since I couldn’t do a better job myself, but it does help so much in the reading of a book.

Tomorrow we will be meeting a new cousin in Ken’s line of relatives along with one we met last year in Vancouver, WA.  It should be and interesting day and I will hopefully have some photos to add to the blog.

 

Lettuce Wine on our Way to Santa Clara

We left the Atascadero Elks lodge around 9:00am this morning and started our travels north on Hwy 101 toward Santa Clara where we plan to spend at least 3 nights.

We passed by an area populated with several oil wells in a close area.

Once again, we passed several vineyards along the highway.

We were even passed by an official Google Earth street view camera atop a car.

The trees on the left served as either a privacy fence or wind barrier.

We had to slow down and move into the left lane due to an accident this morning.

The CHP officer seems to be kicking something off the road.

It looks like the price of lettuce will be going up real soon!

A fresh crop of lettuce was just starting to show in this field.  Perhaps the price won’t go up too soon.

This field looks close to being ready to harvest.

Lettuce is being harvested in this field.

We’re getting closer to San Jose.

We arrived at the Santa Clara Elks lodge and got set up in our parking place for the next three nights.  After lunch, we took a tour of the area, ran some errands and returned to the RV for the evening.

While here in Santa Clara, Ken will be meeting with a distant cousin he has recently found out about who has a family bible dating back to the early 1800’s.  Another distant cousin who we met with last spring on our way north is driving down so that they can all get together.  It should be an interesting weekend meeting new family members.

A Day Trip to Morro Bay, CA

Our drive today took us through downtown Atascadero as we headed for Hwy 41 to Morro Bay.

As we turned south on Hwy 41, we found a different type of terrain from what we traveled yesterday through the vineyard country with the rolling hills.  Today found us in a heavily forested that hugged the highway.

As the landscape opened up a bit more, we found ourselves in avocado country.  There were large orchards everywhere we looked with avocado trees.

We stopped when we saw this sign for the Avocado Country Store.

 

Neither of us had seen a avocado tree before, so we had to get a couple of close up photos of the avocados ripening on the tree.

Getting closer to Morro Bay, we found a couple of distinctive landmarks.

Three smoke stacks from a generator plant.

And then there is Morro Rock out in the bay.

We drove through Morro Bay State Park to check it out.  There were squirrels running around all over the place there.  This little guy was resting comfortably on a picnic table apparently waiting for delivery service.

After driving north of town for a short distance, I got this shot of Morro Rock as we headed south.

It’s amazing to see how they’ve stacked houses on the hillsides here.

After enjoying a wonderful seafood lunch at Giovanni’s in Morro Bay we drove south along the bay and then headed back north to get another angle on Morro Rock.

This “woody” was sitting in front of a business in the downtown area.

As we continued our drive south, we went through Baywood Park area and Ken saw this fenceline and turned around so I could get a photo.  Just in case you can’t read it, the sign was for a business with Breakthrough as part of their name.

We continued our trip through Los Osos and into San Luis Obispo to catch Hwy 101 and our return to the Elks lodge in Atascadero.  Although we had leftovers stashed in our refrigerator, we opted to have dinner at the Elks tonight.  The meal of the night was beef stroganoff and it was a wonderful meal and Elks members here have been very hospitable.  We’ll be continuing our journey north in the morning as we head toward Santa Clara for our next stop.

Wine Country and Whales

We played tourists today and planned a drive that would take us on a loop north to Paso Robles, west to Cambria with a jog north to see the elephant sea lions, then south to Morro Bay and looping back to the Elks lodge at Atascadero.  As we headed west on Hwy 46 from Paso Robles, we passed numerous wineries.  In addition to their competition for the best wine, they also seem to compete for the biggest and best facility.  There were some very unusual and amazing architectural designs along our route.

Heading down the hill through the rolling green hills, we caught our first sight of the Pacific Ocean.

We drove through the city of Cambria to drop off some mail at a post office and then returned to Hwy 1 to continue north.

About 15 miles north of Cambria, there are some large areas of beach where elephant seals are in population at various times of the year.

Some prefer a spot on the beach alone.

Others seem to like close proximity to others.

Occasionally a few will wander into the ocean to cool off and go for a swim.

We didn’t count them, but there were elephant seals spread out on the beach as far as we could see.

And some were quite outspoken.

As we returned along the walkway to the truck, Ken spotted this small lizard.

We continued driving north to a lighthouse which turned out to be a closed area.  We turned around and drove south.  Ken spotted a whale blow, so we spent the rest of the afternoon watching the humpback whales as they headed north.

As we headed back to the RV, we took a side road in the San Simeon area and spotted this purple flower which I had never seen before.

On our return trip heading east on Hwy 46, Ken spotted this wild pig grazing in a nearby field.

She had five piglets, but only four were caught by the camera.

Tomorrow we plan to finish the lower half of the loop drive we wanted to take today.