San Diego Trip - Missions - Day 3

After the second and last day of the Coastwalk Board Meeting, we left Sebastopol around noon for the the two south bay missions - San Jose and Santa Clara.

We arrived at the San Jose Mission around 2:00 PM which is actually in Fremont, adjacent to San Jose. Mission San Jose, the 14th Mission is the latest Mission to have its church restored. It was founded in 1797 and like many of the other Missions fell into neglect over the years. The restoration completed in 1985 cost over $5 million dollars and closely reesembles the Mission as it looked in 1809. It is also a working Catholic church seving the Fremont community.

Day 3 Pictures - San Jose Mission

The Mission at Santa Clara (Santa Clara de Asis) is the 8th Mission and is on the camapus of Santa Clara University, the first college of higher learning in California. The Mission was transferred to the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in 1851by the Dominican Bishop who could no longer afford to maintain the Mission. Since then, Santa Clara University has become one of the top universities in the country. It has a full-time enrollment of about 5,000 students and tuition costs $35,000 per year with room and board another $11,000. It is a beautiful campus and a great school, but it looks like you either have to be very rich or very poor to go there, but in any case, I am sure you would have to be a good student to stay there.

Today, the Mission church serves as the student chapel and is the spiritual heart of the university. And again, like other Missions it has been rebuilt and restored over the years. There are however, some initial Mission walls remaining and the bell tower holds the original bells sent from Spain when the original Mission was constructed.

Day 3 Pictures - Santa Clara De Asis Mission

Arriving back at the RV Park around 6:00PM, we ate take-out BBQ in the RV and watched the rest of the Eagles-Cowboys game on TV. Not a good game, but the BBQ was good.

We break camp early tomorrow morning and head for Monterey with two Missions enroute (San Juan Batista and Santa Cruz) and another (Carmel) after we sent up camp at the Naval Post Graduate School RV Park in Monterey.

San Diego Trip - Missions - Day 2

Pat attended the first day of the Coastwalk Board Meeting in Sebastopol and Judy went shopping. After dropping Pat off at the meeting, Judy went to the factory outlet mall in Petaluma and bought a few more things for the upcoming cruise.

The meeting was over at 2:00 PM and we then traveled to San Rafael (:45 minute drive from Sebastopol) to tour the San Rafael Mission (San Rafael Arcangel- Mission 20). This Mission was originally established in 1812 as a sanitarium and hospital for people housed at the Mission in San Francisco. Due to its success, it was raised to full Mission status in 1817. The Mission chapel is a replica of the original chapel, rebuilt on the same site in 1949 by William Randolph Hearst after the original buildings were demolished in 1870 for firewood. It is adjacent to a large working Catholic Church and school with what appears to be a diverse ethnic congregation.

This evening, we went to the Coastwalk Executive Director’s house in Sebastopol for dinner with the Coastwalk Board of Directors.

The weather has been great so far and the itinerary timing worked O.K. Tomorrow will be a busy day with Day 2 of the Coastwalk Board meeting until noon then a road trip to San Jose and Santa Clara and back for two more missions.

Day 2 Pictures - San Rafael Arcangel Mission

San Diego Trip - Missions - Day 1

Well, we are on the road after a delayed start. The goal was to get going by 8:00 AM but it was 10:00 AM before we were ready to go. We then discovered we had an electrical connection problem with the towed VW – nothing too serious other than the brake lights and turn signals on the VW wouldn’t work when being towed.

We then went to the RV dealer in Sacramento where the tow package was installed. It was a connector problem and they were able to fix it, but it took another hour or so to install new connectors. We finally left Sacramento at 12:30 PM for Sonoma. We then stopped along the way at our first Mission – San Francisco Solano (Sonoma) – Mission 21.

This Mission was the nothernmost CA Mission and was established in 1823. It was the site of the "Bear Flag Revolt" and the effort to establish the CA Republic in 1846. The Mission is now part of the Sonoma State Historic Park. The present Mission Chapel was rebuilt in 1840 after the original building was destroyed in a storm.

We had a nice visit, then traveled to the RV Park in Rohnert Park, arriving about 4:30 PM. Due to the delays, we canceled the trip to the San Francisco Mission and met Kevin for dinner at Angelino’s Restaurant in Sausalito instead.

Day 1 Pictures - Sonoma Mission (San Francisco Solano) 

San Diego Trip - Day 0

We are going on a major road trip with the RV to San Diego and beyond on November 6, 2009.


Starting with a trip to Sebastopol for a Coastwalk Board meeting on November 7 -8, we will travel down the state, visiting each of the California Missions and arriving in San Diego on November 12th. Kevin and Phinneus will fly in to San Diego on November 14th and we will attend the San Diego Chargers/Philadelphia Eagles NFL game on Sunday, November 15th. After Kevin and Phinneus fly home on Monday, November 16th, we will depart on a 6-day cruise to Mexico, returning to San Diego on Saturday, November 21. If all goes well, we will then take two days to drive home in the RV, arriving on Sunday, November 22nd.


As we are also hosting Thanksgiving dinner for 20 family and friends the following Thursday, November 26th, it is going to be a busy November.


More to follow

Going Home - Fortuna to Nevada City

Monday, August 17, 2009

We left the park at 8:00 AM, heading south on Highway 101 to Highway 20 at Ukiah, then east to Nevada City. We should be home this afternoon and will close out the journal after we get home.

We arrived home about 4:00 PM after a long, but uneventful ride. It was a great trip and a sucessful first experience towing the VW Bug.

Additional pictures from the trip can be seen at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/patz.gm/OregonTripAugust2009?feat=directlink

Fortuna

Sunday, August 16, 2009

We invited Dick, Susan, Dennis and Julie to breakfast at our RV this morning. After French toast, bacon, sausage and hash browns, Dennis and Julie headed for home. The Panzicas and we went on a mini road trip north on 101 to Eureka, CA. We toured the Samoa Cookhouse , a family-style restaurant on Humboldt Bay which used to be a logging company dining room.


We then drove north to Trinidad, a small village on the cliffs overlooking Trinidad harbor, a sports fishing center. We had lunch at the Seascape Restaurant at the end of the pier and then drove back to Fortuna.

After a short rest in the afternoon, Dick and Susan took us with them and some new friends they had made at the RV park (the Asphalt Cowboys, a service organization from Redding, CA). We drove south on 101 to Scotia, CA, a former logging company town. The Scotia Inn, which was part of the original early 1900’s town, is still there and operating as an event location and hotel.

At the hotel, we were the guests of the night manager, Linda Fuller (the daughter of one of the Asphalt Cowboys couples), Linda’s husband Mike, their daughter Kaylie and son Kyle. They served us wonderful hamburgers, French fries and green salad for dinner and gave us a tour of the historic structure. The rooms were filled with lots of redwood, antique furniture, claw-foot bathtubs, pier glass mirrors, etc. This evening was a delightful end to a memorable vacation, as we head for home tomorrow.

Umpqua River to Fortuna, CA

Saturday August 15, 2009

We left Umpqua River State Park about 8:30 AM under clear skies and headed south on Highway 101 to Fortuna, CA. After some tedious driving over and around numerous coastal mountains and narrow roads, and a mocha stop in Gold Beach, OR we arrived at the Riverwalk RV Park in Fortuna at 4:00 PM.

We had stopped along the way at the Redwood National and State Parks Visitor Center in Orrick, CA for lunch and a short tour of the visitor center.

Dick and Susan Panzica were also camping at the park along with their friends Dennis and Julie. Dick and Susan grilled fish and made fried rice and snow peas for dinner and we visited into the early evening.

Tomorrow we are planning a relaxing day around the Eureka/Fortuna area, then heading for home on Monday.

The Dunes

Friday, August 14, 2009

The weather was great again today: There was a little patchy fog in the morning that quickly burned off - it was sunny the rest of the day with the temperature in the mid 60’s and a cooling wind out of the north.

After posting the journal entries from the last few days on-line at the local coffee shop this morning, we went down to the Off Highway Vehicle (OHV) rental place at Spinreel campground south of where we are staying. We decided the best plan for us was to take the 1-hour guided dune tour before deciding if we wanted to rent a OHV to explore the dunes on our own. As it turned out, this was the right decision. We rode in a converted Chevrolet Blazer, modified for off-road sand operation (open top, 4-wheel drive, big tires, roll bars, aircraft 4-way seat belts, etc.) and got to see areas of the dunes not open to OHV rentals. It was a great tour through the dunes and along the beach with an excellent guide (Dann) who told us everything one might want to know about sand dunes, including why the dunes are here, the dunes ecosystem, and issues related to OHV use and the people who recreate on them. It was an exciting ride and much rougher and more windy than we expected.

There are also a myriad of roads and trails in the dunes; it appeared that it would be very easy to get lost if you didn’t know where you were going. It also appeared to be very easy to encounter an unexpected crest or dip and in the dunes and some of the slopes are very steep. It was evident you could get into trouble if you didn’t really know what you were doing. There were also a number of people sand camping in the dunes and numerous OHVs of all sizes and descriptions zooming about in every direction. We probably could have managed it all, but the tour gave us an excellent overview of the dunes and we decided not to rent an OHV after it was over.

Later in the afternoon after we took a short walk on the beach from the south jetty on the mouth of the Umpqua River, we went out to dinner at the Sportsman’s Cannery and Smokehouse, one of several seafood restaurants near the marina in Winchester Bay. We shared an excellent seafood barbeque including clam chowder, cippino, (barbequed and Cajun) oysters, crab, blackened snapper, shrimp, potato salad, coleslaw, baked beans and rolls. It was a lot of food, but a great way to spend our last night along the Oregon Coast.

We hope to get an early start tomorrow and arrive in Fortuna, CA near Eureka tomorrow afternoon.

Catching Up

Day 9 - Friday, August 14, 2009

We have been unable to post journal entries for the last two days due to lack of Internet access. I found a coffee shop in Reedsport with Wi Fi access however, and am now sitting here about 7:00AM drinking coffee, checking e-mail, and posting the Blog posts for today, Friday August 14th, and Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, August 11th, 12th and 13th.

The plan for today is to rent a two-seat dune buggy and explore the dunes south of the Umpqua River. If we don’t chicken-out - and survive the experience, we’ll let you know how it all worked out when we get to Fortuna tomorrow.

We will break camp early Saturday AM and head south to Fortuna (18 miles south of Eureka, CA) and join the Panzicas for Saturday and Sunday night at the RV campground. We will head home early on Monday morning and hope to be back in Nevada City in the late afternoon/early evening on Monday, August 17th.

All is well!

Reedsport, Winchester Bay & Shore Acres State Park

Day 8 – August 13, 2009

Today dawned sunny and warmer – no rain or even coastal fog in sight. We went for a 1- mile walk around Lake Marie, a small lake enclosed by sand dunes, just down the hill from our campground. The older dunes right around the campground are completely covered with woodlands – Sitka spruce, western cedar, western hemlock and all the typical understory plants such as sword fern, huckleberry and rhododendron. The younger dunes nearby are mostly bare of vegetation and move according to the direction of the winds, summer and winter.

After our walk, we drove the Green Machine to Reedsport, OR to the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area Visitor’s Center to refresh our memory about how the dunes were formed in this area, We had been to this visitor’s center 5 years ago, but it is a good one and well worth a second visit. We then went to a local crafts gallery and looked at items made of myrtlewood, a tree which grows only here and on the northwestern coast of California.

We had lunch in Winchester Bay, OR at Unger’s Fish & Chips, a floating restaurant in Salmon Harbor. The halibut, fries, coleslaw and clam chowder were all delicious. We then drove south on 101 to the Spinreel Campground Dune Buggy Rental office to see if they had any vehicles to rent that a couple of old fogies like us could take for a spin on the dunes and come back alive. The young women behind the counter told us that they had the vehicles, but that they could not guarantee the “coming back alive” part. We may rent one tomorrow, just to show them.

Our next stop was further south on 101 near Coos Bay, OR. It is Shore Acres State Park, once the site of the huge 1920’s mansion of Lewis Simpson, a local entrepreneur. The mansion is long gone, but the beautiful gardens remain - we especially enjoyed the rose gardens the Japanese water garden and the daisy - lined path to the sea. The gardens are located right on the edge of the cliffs overlooking the ocean, a spectacular sight.

After a short trip to Safeway for supplies, we returned to Big Mother for the evening.

Cape Kiwanda to Umpqua Lighthouse State Park

Day 7 – August 12, 2009

When we awoke this morning it was still raining and we had to break camp and hook-up the VW in the rain. It was more like a “heavy mist” than a downpour but it was not a lot of fun getting everything ready to go. Nevertheless, we were on the road by 10:30 AM heading south to Umpqua Lighthouse State Park.

We were hoping the weather would clear-up the further south we went, but off-and-on rain followed us almost all the way to the park. We arrived about 2:00 PM and set-up in a nice campsite in the trees next to a small lake (Lake Marie).

Umpqua Lighthouse State Park is a relatively small, laid-back state park near the mouth of the Umpqua River south of Reedsport in Winchester Bay. We have one of 20 full-hook-up sites in the park. There is no cable TV or WiFi Internet connection so we are not sure when we will be able to post the next few journal entries. This is almost like real camping again.

After we set-up the RV we drove through the area to check it out. In the campground, we found a one-mile trail around Lake Marie that we decided to walk tomorrow morning. The campground also has tent camping sites and a few yurts that offer another camping option. They actually are fairly well-equipped, offering heat, kitchens, microwaves, bathrooms, etc. The Oregon State Park system does a really nice job with their parks and despite the financial challenges I am sure they have, there is a priority on providing recreational opportunities for their constituents and others accessing the parks.

We also went to the Umpqua Lighthouse again which is just down the road. We have been there twice before, but it was worth a return trip. It is a nice little working lighthouse on the grounds of a Coast Guard housing area (nothing fancy but a great location), near the mouth of the Umpqua River above a long stretch of sand dunes south of the breakwater. Driving down the dunes later, we saw several beach camping areas catering to ATV users (think Mad Max). There are really a lot of ATV enthusiasts in Oregon and a lot of sand for them to play in.

Winchester Bay is mostly a boat harbor with numerous seafood markets and restaurants near the water. There are also two large RV parks near the bay that appear to be very busy. Reedsport is a little bigger and a gateway to the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area.

We had dinner again in the RV and early to bed to the distant sound of the Umpqua River fog horn every10 seconds (and it’s not raining)!

Tillamook Again/Housekeeping

We awoke again this morning to more low clouds and drizzle. Today is laundry day and we are also getting caught-up with e-mail and telephone calls.

After the laundry was done, we decided to go back to Tillamook again for lunch (and more ice cream). After grilled ham and cheese sandwiches at the Tillamook Cheese Factory and ice cream cones for dessert, we went a little further north through Bay City to the fishing port of Garabaldi on the Miami River estuary to look around.

On the way back to Cape Kiwanda, it started raining very hard and kept raining through the night. We had dinner in the RV, watched a little TV, listened to the rain on the roof, and went to bed early.

We break camp tomorrow morning and head down the coast to Umpqua State Park near Reedsport for three nights before heading to Fortuna, CA for two nights before heading home. We will join the Panzicas at Fortuna. Hopefully, the rain will stop on our way south along the coast and we will not have to set up camp in the rain at Reedsport.