Cathy & Jan's Travels: October 2010

Big Sur Coastline (with Bixby bridge in the distance)

In our last update, we were leaving Lassen National Park in northeastern CA and the gremlins had been following us with a vengeance. We are now happy to say that we think that the gremlins have ‘jumped our ship’ since we have been trouble free with our truck & 5th wheel for the last 5 weeks. Yeah! To make sure they stay away, we had the truck fuel tank replaced in Sacramento (the aluminum inside coating in the tank had delaminated causing silver flakes to be in the fuel lines) and Jan replaced the last original 5th wheel independent suspension axle with a new one (so we now have all upgraded axles).

We think that maybe the gremlins jumped over to rental cars in that we had problems with 2 of them. We exchanged one on Sacramento when the dash indicator lights acted up, the remote would not work, and the interior lights stayed on after closing the doors. In the LA area, on another car rental the low tire pressure indicator came on & we had to add air at service stations a few times. When we turned the car in, we noticed that there was a note on the key that said ‘flat tire’. So, it appears that they just added air before we got the car (instead of fixing the flat).

Since our last update we have been covering a lot of territory in California, seeing lighthouses, seeing National Park Service sites, and visiting with many relatives – from northern California down to San Diego. In order to do this, we depended heavily on rental cars to get us around with ease on the numerous freeways and the hundreds of miles that we traveled down highway 1 along the coast. On highway 1 we don’t know how many thousands of curves that we went around, but we were sure glad that we did not try to drive it with our RV.

Here are some of the highlights of the last 5 weeks:

We reached another milestone as we passed the total of 600 lighthouses that we have photographed (actual number is 612). On this trip we added 20 ‘new’ lighthouses seen in California to our list plus we saw some previously seen lighthouses as well. Some of the special ones seen were:

Point Sur lighthouse (in the Big Sur area) sits on top of a 350 ft tall rock. In order to visit it, we had to walk up a path to the top of the rock. It was worth the hike.
Vicente Point lighthouse (in the LA area) is open only on the 2nd Saturday of each month & we happened to be there at the right time in order to climb to the top.
Yerba Buena lighthouse in San Francisco is on an island that is in the middle of the Bay Bridge which goes from Oakland to San Francisco. In order to see the lighthouse, we passed it on a round trip ferry ride from Oakland to San Francisco and back. (See photo below)

We drove to 13 different locations throughout the state to visit with 10 cousins, 3 grown children of these cousins, & 3 aunts. We enjoyed re-connecting with these folks and catching up on what is happening in each of their lives. We had planned on visiting with some other friends and relatives, but our time was limited and we can endure only so much freeway traffic. Maybe next time we can catch up with some of the ‘missed’ folks.

We visited the following 4 National Park Service sites:

The Pinnacles National Monument (a great rock climbing place about 125 miles SSE of San Francisco). We just happened to campout in the campground there when the temperature hit 110 degrees (in what was called a ‘temperature explosion) – this was the same day that it reached 113 degrees in LA. At least the temp dropped into the low 60’s at night. Now we know why there is a swimming pool in the campground at this National Monument.
Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area (of course in the Santa Monica Mountains north of LA.)
Channel Islands National Park (which consists of 5 islands off the coast between Santa Barbara and LA). We went on a boat trip out to one of the islands (Anacapa) and saw the lighthouse on the island, plenty of birds (including the brown pelican), porpoise, sea lions and harbor seals.
Joshua Tree National Park in southeastern California is an area set aside to protect the unusual Joshua Tree. This park contains part of 2 deserts the Mojave desert & the California Colorado desert (which is part of the larger Sonoran desert). We really enjoyed the drive thru this desert park – probably more so because of the openness and lack of people/freeways etc. that we had left behind. Not only were there lots of Joshua trees, but also other desert plants, rock formations, and 2 refreshing oasis.

We noticed that the Hearst Castle was close to the Piedras Blancas lighthouse and decided to take a tour. What a beautiful place to visit and see what excessive money could buy back in the 20’s & 30’s. If you are out in this area, we would highly recommend that you take part of a day and visit this place.

In searching out lighthouses, we were blessed in ‘having to’ travel along countless miles of the beautiful California coastline. Many of the lighthouses were in great coastal locations and the Big Sur coastline was especially beautiful.

We enjoyed great weather (except the very hot day in The Pinnacles). After leaving there, we drove to the coast (Monterey) and the temperature plummeted down into the upper 60’s for a high. Most of the days were nice and clear with intermittent fog along the coast some of the days.

We are now in St. George – southwestern Utah. As the aspen leaves turn to a beautiful yellow & snow is falling in the higher elevations, it is a signal that winter is coming and it is time for us to start heading to Texas until we resume our wanderings next year. We hope to be back in Texas by November 15th. In our next update, we will report on our Mojave National Preserve, Great Basin National Park, Grand Canyon North Rim, Rainbow Bridge National Monument, & Monument Valley planned visits.

Hope this update finds you all doing well.