Winchester Bay, Oregon

We arrived in Winchester Bay early this week. On the drive in we saw a 20 mile stretch of the most incredible view of the Oregon Sand Dunes.  ATV is a big past time sport here for many people.

Many of the sites overlooked the ocean, it was not difficult choosing a site here...... it was nice.

The first few days the rain bands were coming in which kept us close to our RV. Temperatures in the 50's.    Our first night we had concerns with the high tide coming in. The tide chart indicated tonight was going to be the highest of all tides of the month, about 9.5 feet.

   The waves were small and pounded the shore.  Midnight we would look out to see the waves splashing over the sidewalk....yikes! The pounding of the waves sounded like thunder.  A few times it sounded as though the Rv was being engulfed by waves. I half expected to wake up and find us out to sea. This is the calm before the storm.

During the day it was interesting watching the rain  clouds move across the sky. The sun would come out after the rain as if it hadn't rained all and within a half hour or so clouds moved in and they moved in quickly and before you knew it is was raining again.
 

After the  rains one afternoon the most beautiful double rainbow stretched across the harbor.

The harbor area here is pretty.   The long tides that come in and out make for an interesting shell excursion. You have to be moving quickly when the tides come in. 

One evening a helicopter came flying into the harbor and hovered right near our Rv over the water. We watched as the coast guard practiced rescue missions.  A diver would throw out a dummy (at least that is what it looked like)then he was lowered into the water to retrieve it.  We were inside our Rv watching the whole exercise.

 We rounded up some shrimp from a local  bait store and headed out fishing. The kids enjoyed the day fishing  even though the fish were not biting.

We drove up to the whale watching station yesterday to try and catch a glimpse of the whales.  The view was beautiful from the hilltop.  We did not see any whales.  We did enjoy watching a bald eagle try and defend the meal he had just caught  from another predator.

Bullards Beach, OR

Oregon coast beach line is beautiful. We spent the afternoon walking on the beach and watching the California Sea Lions catch fish as they go in and out with the waves.We walked out onto this pier/rock into the water.  The waves coming in were very rough and a bit intimidating.

A old lighthouse overlooked the bay area with a  beautiful field of yellow flowers  all around. 

Kids ended up in the water trying to stay ahead of the waves coming in.  Wave due in any moment.

The beach area had many different types of rocks, not so many shells at all here. It was fun looking for rocks in the ocean until we had to make a run for it when the waves chased us in. 

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  David found a few fossilized clam shell rocks.  We let Cindi and Jasmine run on the beach it was fun watching them chase each other in the sand. 

Harris Beach State Park, Oregon

                                         
The Trinity River......

We drove through a part of Redwood Park along highway 101 N up to Harris Beach.

We only stayed a few days here.  We hiked down to the beach and found between the rocks different types of  star fish and anemones, they were quite pretty to see.  Kids enjoyed exploring the  black sand beach.

Yosemite Pines, Groveland CA

                                                            Yosemite National Park
El Capitan is a 3000-foot vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park, located on the north side of Yosemite Valley. While we were there 2 climbers were making there way to the top.  In this photo they look like tiny little ants.  Standing at the base of this mountain and looking up....is a incredible view.

It was free camping in all the National State Parks throughout the U.S this weekend. We were near Yosemite so we decided to stay a few days.   There were only 3 places inside Yosemite that were big enough for out rig and those spots you have to reserve a year in advance, so we had to find other means.

Yosemite Pines had great reviews so we thought we would try them out.  It's a very quite location with cabins and tent areas and even a petting zoo for the kids.  Petting zoo had Lama's, donkeys, chickens and goats. Jasmine and Cindi went nuts when they saw the Lama's. Even though it was free pass into the park there were not many people here this weekend.  Where we were there were only 2 other families and after talking with them they were leaving in a couple of days.  That night just before dusk a family of 6 deer came right through our  camp.

We drove into Yosemite which was about 20 miles from our location.  The drive was really pretty with lots of places to pull over and take in the breath taking views.

We spent the day panning for gold and  hiking up a riverbed of big boulders. We were able to see several  waterfalls  cascading over the edge in several areas. Beautiful mountains.

The largest piece of gold found in Yosemite was a 75 pound chunk. David wanted to try his hand at gold digging. David found 5 to 6 flakes of gold he thinks but is probably pyrite,called fools gold.  He's still hopeful and is hanging onto them.

Mammoth Lakes, CA

Mammoth Mountain is located in California's Eastern Sierra approximately 100 miles south of the Nevada state line and 30 minutes from the Eastern Gate of Yosemite National park. Some of the highest elevation points reach 11,000 feet.  We took it nice and slow through the mountain ranges.  

  Driving through and seeing all the snow piled up made us nervous at first.  We knew the main roads had been cleared and weather forecast was not calling for anymore snow so we drove on through and we are glad we did.  A few of the roads were narrow due to the snow piles.  We ended up down a road that was blocked by snow, and turning around was a bit difficult.  We had to unhitch the tow vehicle and then was able to turn  the rig around and get back out on the road again, that was a bit tight and STRESSFUL for us.

  Driving through the Mammoth Forest was the most beautiful scenery we had ever seen. We were all happy to see it from inside the RV. Cindi and Jasmine looking a bit stressed, where are our sweaters they must be wondering. Temperatures up in the mountains, very very COLD. Mammoth receives an average of 339 inches of snow per season, though the 2005-2006 season saw the resort accumulate an astounding 578 inches a record.  By the afternoon we were out of the mountains and no snow to be seen anywhere. 

Daves knuckles regained their color once again.

Bishop,CA

Elevation - 4,000 ft. Campground is tucked into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Range below a volcanic rock flow. Campground looks east, out to the Inyo Mountains Range and Owens Valley. Climate is high desert: Spring and fall are ideal times for camping.

At first you say nice photo of the ground but at a second look can you see the Horn Toad Lizard in the photo?

Death Valley, CA

The drive on highway 190 in California is nice to see this  time of year.  One of the local residents told us that they had received a lot of rain this year and advised us to go see while we were here. Death Valley is 190 feet below sea level. It was a slow drive up out of the valley floor. 

Pahrump Nevada-Geocaching

Geo caching is a high-tech, at least for us anyway, treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, inside are items that people have placed.  If you take an item you must leave an item of some kind. We have found many interesting places that people have placed these boxes. You can record your experiences online.  I can tell you we have only been playing a short time and we have found it to be wonderful family event to do together. To play you go to the official Geo website www.geocaching.com for more details.

Pahrump Nevada

On Tuesday April 30, we left Zion traveling west headed to Pahrump, Nevada.  We had wanted to continue north into the Bryce Canyon area, but it's still too cold just 60 miles north.  We have enjoyed 65 degree days in Zion, but the next couple of weeks show lows of 15 - 25 at Bryce.  We had thought about going to the Page / Lake Powell area, or the Kanab, UT area, or even back down south to the Lake Havasu / Colorado river area, but we just didn't like those options for various reasons.

We will stay in Pahrump until it feels right to move on.  We will either head into California to Kings Canyon/Yosimite, or east, back towards the Bryce Canyon area.  We'll see.


Saturday April 3
Late Tuesday night approx. 11pm, I placed an order with ryderfleetproducts.com for oil, fuel and water filters and spare belts for our motorhomes Cummins 350hp diesel.  The order arrived on Thursday morning.  Now that's what I call service.  The RV park we are staying at has a service pit.  I'll be replacing fluids and filters today.