Showing posts with label California. Show all posts
Showing posts with label California. Show all posts

Monday, July 12, 2021

Le Legion D'Honneur Et Les Jardins De Gilroy

Because of the change in plans and some pre-existing reservations, our time in Menlo Park was short. We arrived June 8th and departed June 14th, with much reorganizing, packing, planning, etc., done. Nonetheless we enjoyed a variety of outings with Rebecca and family, the Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco, a nice IMAX film in San Jose, and a day and overnight with Penelope at Gilroy Gardens.

San Francisco's Legion of Honor Museum
What attracted us was an exhibition of artifacts from Pompeii;
some we'd seen before, some definitely not; here, foodstuffs

An old friend from the National Archaeological
Museum in Naples

Love that Roman glass

Definitely new to us: most of the "bodies" you seen from Pompeii
are really "bodies in negative," so to speak...cavities in the ash
later filled it as a mold; this woman's body never decayed, for
whatever reason, and was preserved intact 

From the larger collection, Bouguereau's The
Broken Pitcher, 1891

And Alma-Tadema's A Coign of Vantage, 1895

Views from the museum grounds


Ruins of Sutro Baths

California Beach

With Penelope at Les Jardins de Gilroy

She now definitely of the age that enjoys wild rides

She's up there somewhere; Vicki and I are not

Whizzing by; ditto

Sunday, May 9, 2021

Return To Middle California, 2021; And Pinnacles National Park

On April 8 we drove back to Menlo Park for a brief stay, the highlights of which were a) a week-long camping trip with grand-daughter Penelope to old friend Pinnacles National Park, and b) Penelope's 10th birthday celebrations. 

Our campsite at Pinnacles









Back side










Right on the creek
















Campsite visitor
























Out on a hike, with new back pack, pointing out the Pinnacles


















Poppies all over the valley floor




















New-fangled Park Service trail signage


















Below some of the pinnacles


















With Grandpa, before boldly entering one of the trail's tunnels

























Later, back home, Birthday Girl
























Can't believe it's been 10 years!


Monday, April 26, 2021

Sierra Primavera

And so it came to pass that we left Pahrump (we'll always have Pahrump) and drove back across the Mojave into California and the greener land of the Central Valley--land of fruits and nuts--and eventually up into the western foothills of the Sierra, about 30 miles south of Yosemite National Park. Our destination was the Park of the Sierras Escapees' RV park, near Coarsegold, CA. We were there almost two weeks, including an initial stay at the nearby Chukchansi Casino. We were quite enamored of Park of the Sierras, the terrain and natural landscaping, mostly, but also the situation, not too far from Coarsegold and Yosemite and only half an hour's drive to Fresno. It was early spring when we arrived, everything green and budding and blooming, adding to the interest. The Park was still on a mostly buttoned-down basis due to COVID, so we didn't fraternize with the residents much, but we very much liked what we saw. 

Google view of the Park of the Sierras; all the 
previous Escapee RV parks we've visited have
been laid out on right angle grids...flatlanders...
not this park, in the foothills of the Sierras, it's
very hilly, but very scenic; getting our daily steps
proved to be quite a chore



























Our campsite, #314









The enormous clubhouse
















Outcrops like this everywhere, in practically every site


















More or less typical site


















Despite some uniformity in out-buildings, there was plenty of
room for expression in the landscaping; here, the gong show



















Californiana






Sunset in one of the park areas

















Only half the park is developed; the other half has been left
more or less wild, with a mile or so long hiking path; excellent
signage...




















Coarsegold (or some other) Creek runs through the property;
you have to ford it to get to the trail



















Vicki braving the raging torrent


















The Creek


















Interesting erosion, creating many pots and tubs


















But the main attraction was all the wildflowers and new green
leaves everywhere






































































We were hoping it might be a California condor, but it was only 
a (very common) turkey vulture; still, the third largest North
American bird, after the condor and the osprey




















Parting shot/practical advice department: under the car you'll see
a rope of LED lights, something we've seen in any number of RV
parks recently; evidently, the thinking is, the lights scare off any
rodents that might want to chew on your electrical cables and wires
in the engine compartment (a serious problem); we were all set to
order a 40 foot length, but then we happened on to the Monday
Mousetrap YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=EVN9JXUJXdY&ab_channel=ShawnWoods
) and were
disabused, and much amused, by this and similar episodes...truly, 
one of the treasures of the Internet...

Wednesday, March 3, 2021

Not In Mission Bay Anymore

February 24th was an eventful day. We decamped and drove to Oceanside harbor for a pleasant lunch with Vicki's brother Bob and his wife Beth. When we began to pull out of the parking lot--very long story short--our camper's transmission failed, utterly. I managed to coax the camper into a parking space while Vicki desperately called Bob to return and take us to our 2:30 and 2:45 appointments for our second Moderna vaccinations. It would have been a really bad day had we missed those! Meantime, I called Europarts San Diego, from whom we have been buying Sprinter parts for perhaps a decade, and asked their recommendation of a shop that knows Sprinters, near Oceanside. The vehicle was undriveable. 

After spending the night where we were parked, with police permission, the tow truck took us to Big Red's Performance Auto, in Escondido. There, all the scans indicated transmission, and, even after erasing the various error codes, a test drive indicated slipping between gears and no shift beyond 3rd gear. Prognosis: new (rebuilt) transmission, which would take perhaps a week to acquire and install. 

We were not happy campers. But, as Vicki observed, it is a common Sprinter malady, ours is a 15 year old vehicle, and we do budget for (minor) catastrophes. And, as catastrophes go, it was a fortuitous one. We had already planned on putting the camper in storage the next day and driving a rental car to West Yellowstone for a week's snowmobiling; and had already reserved snowmobiles and motel rooms. So, we just left the camper with Big Red (rent-free), rented an AWD Jeep, unpacked and repacked, and set forth, much poorer and not wiser, but still very lucky, for our old sledding grounds in Montana.

A scene I've been dreading, for decades...

Moonrise over Barstow, CA

Entering Nevada; of course

Definitely not in San Diego anymore; northern Utah

Now on route 20, Idaho, nearing West Yellowstone