"In 400 feet, take Ferry................."

I'd read articles about what can happen when people develop an over-reliance on GPS devices. The extreme cases end badly, with someone dying in the middle of Death Valley on a road that shouldn't have been in the GPS database. While I wasn't afraid of a slow excruciating death as I followed the GPS's directions to Salem, it did seem that it was taking a rather strange route, at least from what I could recall from studying the map earlier in the day. The Death Valley article did come to mind.

“Turn left on Wheatland Ferry Road”. OK I think, that's a quaint old-school name for this narrow two lane road. We'll probably hook up with I-5 shortly. Then I see a sign: “Ferry Operating”. Apparently this is literally Wheatland Ferry Road. We're in a half ton pickup pulling a 30 foot trailer and I'm wondering what kind of ferry this is going to be. We're in the boonies and I'm picturing something like the ferry in True Grit.

As we approach the ramp for the ferry, the GPS says “in 400 feet, take Ferry”. The graphic in the upper left hand corner of the GPS screen, where it usually shows an arrow for a left or right turn has a little graphic of a boat. I shit you not.

We get to the ferry stop and see that the ferry is large enough to take several cars and in fact, a commercial dump truck is driving on. At this point one of the guys directing cars onto the ferry runs up and apologetically tells us we won't be able to use the ferry. The length of the truck and trailer combined with the angle between the paved ramp and ferry are a deal breaker due to low water. So, back we go the way we came.

“Recalculating............................”

Trade-offs

Cashier at buffet: “You get a senior discount if you're over fifty. Are you over fifty?”

Me (enthusiastically): “Yeah ! We're both over fifty!”

After picking up the new trailer we drove about 8 miles out of town to the Wildhorse Casino RV park golf course gas station and cineplex. On the recommendation of the RV dealer's staff, of course. We'd spent the first half of the day at the RV dealership and we spent the rest of the day setting the trailer up, buying groceries and putting them away and unloading the truck into the trailer. Then it was time to test the recliners and enjoy an adult beverage.

As I was drinking a beer I started thinking about the trade-offs that come with age. My hair is leaving the top of my head and migrating to my ears and nostrils. My distant and close up vision are both going. On the other hand, after working for 37 years I have the financial stability to not have to worry about paying my bills. And thanks to the CCPOA and Gray Davis, I can retire and an age where I can camp, hike, fish, drink and generally annoy the hell out of my wife. It's hard not to feel like you're fortunate when you're drinking a beer.

For breakfast the next morning we went to the buffet (pronounced Boo-fay) at the Casino. This is where the exchange at the start of this entry happened. When I excitedly looked at Connie for some acknowledgment of our luck in saving yet more money off of a $7.95 all you can eat breakfast, I could see she'd rather have paid the extra money. Apparently the 95 cents off wasn't a good trade off for me announcing our (her) age to the world. The buffet was pretty good, except for the casino lady who kept wandering around calling the name of her lost dog .

After breakfast, we went to the Tamástslikt Cultural Institute which is adjacent to the Casino RV park golf course gas station and cineplex. The gentleman who was taking admission money at the counter was very clearly a Native American. He asked Connie “are you Native American?”. She said “My Father said we are, but I'm not sure which tribe”. He said “doesn't matter, you get in free”. Then he looks at me and says “afraid I'm gonna' have to charge you”. Seemed like some kind of strange cosmic payback for my earlier faux-pas. We saved eight bucks though, so that was a trade-off I could live with.

Well, here we go again.....

After almost four years, it's time to fire this blog up again.  After 32 years at Sac PD and an 8 month stint as King Moonracer at TRPD, I'm retired.  Time to go camping, among other things.

We had a great time on our first trailer trip, which we covered in this blog.  We took another with Connie's sister and her son in April of 2011 which was also great.  So we bit the bullet and put a down payment on a trailer at a dealership in Pendleton Oregon.  The lower overhead and proximity to the factory (50 miles) saved us several thousand dollars and we wanted to see more of Oregon anyway.  So day one, later this week, will be about 700 miles from Roseville to Pendleton.  We're looking forward to the trip, but not the first day's drive.

The Drive Home

We left Brookings at about 10:30 Thursday as the trailer had to be back at the rental place Friday morning. We'd decided to take 299 from Crescent City to Grants Pass and then I-5 south from there. It took about 2 hours to get to Grants Pass. There never seems to be a relatively straight road from the coast inland. Google maps said this route would add 30 miles, but it looked like it was much less twisty than the alternatives. We stopped at Valley of the Rouge State Park near Grants Pass for lunch and then continued south.

Around Lake Shasta, Connie took over driving. Connie said “it was pretty easy – cruisin'”. Her sister called on the cell phone during this leg and laughed pretty hard at the thought of Connie driving the large truck pulling the trailer. I was happy to get a break.

We stopped for dinner at a rest stop near Willows, fired up the generator so we could use the microwave (really roughing it now) and took a break. Then it was home to Roseville.

We got home about 9:00. The total mileage for our less awesome trip was 1,083 miles. We had a good time and I suspect we'll be doing something like this again in the future. Maybe a group outing with some of you all ?

North of Brookings

On Tuesday we left the trailer in Brookings and drove north. We went as far north as the Cape Blanco lighthouse and drove out to the point for the tour. This lighthouse is on Oregon's westernmost point, windiest point, it's the tallest lighthouse in the state (245 Feet), first to be staffed by a woman, longest continuously operating, etc., etc., etc..

There were a number of volunteers giving the tours and they were a friendly and interesting group. One gentleman was going on at length about how everyone should be allowed to carry a concealed weapon. The volunteer guide at the top of the lighthouse was wearing Birkenstocks (or “Air Jesus” as Francine calls them) and a hand fashioned wire peace symbol around his neck. Connie mentioned the firearms discussion we'd left behind in the museum and this fellow said “Oh, I know who that was. He's from Idaho”. I guess that explained it. The Birkenstocks fellow mentioned he figured he'd have to vote for Obama, but that he'd prefer to have been able to vote for Ralph Nader. And I guess that explained that.

We drove back south and stopped in Port Orford in a park next to the highway. It was a good place to sit on a park bench and have lunch in the sunshine and calm breeze. We continued to enjoy unusually good coastal weather.

As we drove back towards Brookings we stopped at a few places, one of them was a natural bridge. There was a trail that led to a viewing platform and we got some photos there. From that point we noticed a less improved trail that led downhill. Looking at the top of the natural bridge, it appeared there was a trail going at least up to, if not over it. We decided to give it a try and found it was very steep. The last 200 yards or so were really steep with an almost vertical drop on either side for 200 or so feet to the surf. We made it to the bridge and came to the realization that the only really cool thing about being on a natural bridge is if someone else is at a distance and takes your picture because when you're on it, you can't tell you're on it – it just seems like you're standing on a narrow rock over the ocean. So it was back up the trail, on all fours at some points, and back to the truck.

We drove around Brookings, went to a “brewery” that turned out to really be just a pizza parlor, and checked out the “Azelea Park”, which was a pretty good municipal park for a town of 6,000, but not something I'd recommend.

After dinner we checked the weather and found it was forecast to be as nice on Wednesday as it had been Tuesday. We discussed the option of driving inland to camp one night in the Grants Pass area and do some sightseeing there. That would also take about two hours off of our dive home on Thursday as well. In the end, the lure of another day in great weather at the beach was too much so we stayed another night at Harris Beach and spent Wednesday sitting in the sun on the sand, reading and taking it easy.

It's the grease from last night's steaks......”

As my Grandma would say, someone pulled a boner. We got a small gas grill from my Mom for the trip. I set it up this evening to grill some burgers. It has a button on the side to start it without having to open the thing up and start it with a match or lighter. Seems like a good idea..........

The grill's heating up and Connie mentions that it's smoking quite a bit. I tell her “It's the grease from last night's steaks”. I go out with the burgers and find I'd forgotten a plastic handled wire brush that was inside. It was a bit deformed and runny looking. I should have gotten a picture before I chucked it. Doh !

On the Oregon Trail

We left Prairie Creek and headed north on 101 towards Oregon. We came to the “Trees of Mystery” and had to stop as it's a place Connie remembers going to as a kid when she lived in Arcata. We didn't take the “tour”, but we did hit the gift shop. They also have a pretty good private collection of Native American artifacts.


It didn't take a long time to get to Harris Beach State Park just north of the town of Brookings Oregon. The campground is very nice. There are about 7 spaces that have ocean views, but of course they were all taken. We got into a space just across from the really good ones. There are trails to the beach, showers, full hook-ups in some spots, and Wi-Fi throughout the campground. We're roughing it now. They did have a cougar sighting a few days ago (the four legged kind Zorro).


We went down to the beach and spent some time sitting and reading. I had to take a picture with my feet in it – Allena has one like this. The weather is exceptional for the coast, from noon until about 4:00 there was very little wind and it was in the low seventies. It's not going to be as cold here at night either. We are going to check out Brookings in the morning, and then probably drive up the coast a bit.

A Maccoun Moment or, “I Better Lock the Hubs”

This requires a little set-up. Many years ago, (seriously, many) a bunch of young cops took their 4WD Toyota trucks to the snow. I rode with Jim in his truck. As is always the case, Jim was being super cautious, driving very conservatively and, not surprisingly, we were bringing up the rear. I know Sgt Zorro had a truck and I'm pretty sure Mark Sakauye was driving one also. I can't remember if Deputy Chief (now) Brian had his own truck or was riding with someone else.

Anyway, the road's getting wetter and snowier as we head up the hill and Jim keeps giving warnings that nobody is paying attention to. Jim keeps talking about stopping to “lock the hubs” and eventually we do. Jim's really in Eyore mode now about the dangers of black ice and what not. As we're going down a pretty steep hill the lead guy tries to stop and start to slide. On black ice. And pretty much everyone behind him also slides and spins and I think about 4 trucks slid into each other. Jim's watching this, from a very safe following distance of course, saying something about “flatlanders”. Jim was almost the only one who didn't bash his truck that day (a fact he's probably already yelled into his computer screen about 3 times as he read this) and “locking the hubs” at our house has come to mean being extra careful and cautious, basically being in Maccoun mode.

So, fast forward about 22 years. We're driving down the dirt road to the Fern Canyon trail and we come to a stream crossing. Connie says “lock the hubs”. I can hear Jim's voice saying “don't be stupid, flatlander” as I'm looking at the water trying to gage it's depth. I'm thinking I probably would lock the hubs, if I had any. The ranger had said she drives her Ford Taurus down this road. I'm looking at the water thinking it must be a home retention vehicle. So after a few moments of trying to estimate the depth, current, best way across, etc., and realizing there's a fair amount of water on the other side indicating others have crossed successfully, we cross without incident. I'm feeling pretty good about myself and my truck at this point, although it's probably not a big deal since it's pretty tall - Connie needs a ladder to climb into the thing. I start talking about going back and driving through the water again while she takes pictures, stuff like that.

We get to the parking lot at the trail head and I'm looking at all of the large trucks there. Then I see it. A Honda Fit. Then I see a Civic CRX. Neither of them seems to have water running out from under the bottom of the door. I'm suddenly a bit less impressed with my water crossing efforts. I guess they must have locked the hubs.

Hiking

Today (Sunday) was our first full day without traveling. After a surprisingly cold night, given our proximity to the ocean, we had breakfast and set out in the truck. We started at the Redwood National and State Park Visitor Center, picked up a map, a pocket book with some hikes, and some tips from the ranger.

Our next stop was Lady Bird Johnson Redwood grove. The grove has a loop trail about 2 miles long. As with many of the hikes we've done today and yesterday, there were many huge redwoods, the greenery was dense and the sights pretty spectacular.

Then we drove to the parking area/trail head for a hike of the Fern Canyon. The parking lot there was near the ocean so we ate lunch before setting out on the hike. The trail runs along the side of a stream and the vertical walls of the canyon are covered with dense ferns. Connie walked by a snake on the trail and I pointed it out. He didn't stick around long enough to get a good picture.

On returning to the car, we walked out onto the beach. We had driven about 8 miles down a dirt road to get to the trail head and while there were people coming and going, the beach was almost deserted due to it's distance from easy access points. It was sand for as far as you could see in either direction and only about 15 people.

Then we were off to hike to Trillium Falls, which at this point in the year didn't have a lot of water, but was still pretty. We saw one of the infamous banana slugs on this hike. It's appearance reminded me of some folks I deal with when I'm not on vacation. If you've seen one, you'll know what I mean.

As we drove back towards the main road, we came upon a herd (I guess it's called a herd) of elk in a meadow. We got some photos of them, I'd guess there were 20-30. Further down the road we saw two very large male elk in the front yard of some cabins. There was a guy with a dog near them, one of the elk them never even stood up. Then it was back to the campground to fix dinner.

Some of the written stuff we had on the hikes talked about the age of the trees and how long the cycles take from seedling to mature tree to when they eventually fall and become a huge decomposing log. All of the big trees had been through a number of lightening fires and survived; the perpetual and self-correcting aspect of the natural system made me think of what George Carlin said about our ability to screw up the planet in the long term – the time frame that matters to the planet. “The planet will shake us off like a bad case of fleas, the planet will be fine”. We may really make a mess of things in the short term, but in the time frame of nature, he was right.

“It's only the wind.......”

When we went on our impromptu hike from the visitor center, he had a great encounter. The redwoods and vegetation were great, much like Muir Woods, but denser. As we were walking along talking, we heard the sounds of something moving in the bushes. We both stopped walking and talking. The noises continued and I could see some plants about 30 feet away moving, but I couldn't see what was making them move. I could tell by the way they were moving that something was there, but we'd been so loud walking along I figured it might be a person, but not an animal as we'd have spooked it. Being a little shorter, Connie couldn't see any of this and she said “Let's go, it's only the wind..”.

Then I saw a large set of horns and knew it was an Elk. We climbed onto a fallen tree and took the photo at the right. I guess this isn't real unusual in this park, but it was a first for us. He was about 25-30 feet away, the lens was set at 70mm. At one point I could smell him (not pleasant).

I took a number of pictures and then he put his head back down. I whistled and he popped back up staring right at us again. At this point, Connie decided I was taunting the animals and she started hitting the road. I think she went from thinking “it's only the wind” to visualizing us in an episode of “When Animals Attack”.

Prairie Creek

After a less than restful night at the Ukiah Wal-Mart, we hit the road north at about 8:30. With the winding road (at points) and the reduced speed, the GPS estimate of a noon arrival at Prairie Creek was a little off. We stopped for lunch at a county beach/campground (more of a parking lot really) just north of Arcata. We arrived at Prairie Creek about 2:00.

Our first attempt at backing into a space, leveling, etc. went ok, considering I was squeezing a 26 foot trailer into a 24 foot space. We got parked without a fistfight, and went to the visitor center to see what was available. We ended up going on about a 3 mile hike before returning to the campsite for a hot shower and dinner. This is a nice spot, and we're looking forward to seeing more of it tomorrow.

Dana was right......

Right after I sent the email with the link to this blog, Dana emailed me and said the address should have been http://www.tt.com/ (tt being short for trailer trash). But I'll get to that in a minute.

I got back to the house with the trailer at about 10:30 or so. By the time we loaded it, made a last trip to the store & ATM, grabbed a burger at In-N-Out and hit the road, it was about 3:00. I had picked the trailer up in Newcastle and reset the truck's MPG computer when I hooked up. Newcastle is “uphill” from home so it probably wasn't realistic to expect the mileage not to drop way off as we got going. As we drove through Sacramento on I-80 though, it stayed higher than I expected, about 11-12 MPG. When we got onto I-5 north, things changed. The winds were blowing south, we were driving north and the tachometer confirmed what we could hear – the truck was working a lot harder. The MPG average fell, and fell, to about 8 MPG. The wind also made the handling of the truck and trailer pretty interesting. Crossing the tall bridge just west of SMF and going across the elevated section beyond it was a treat. No major fishtailing and we stayed in our lane, but not a great way to start off the trailer experience.

I made a few lame attempts to draft some tractor trailers, but figured that probably wasn't a good idea. The wind finally died down when we got to Clear Lake, Konrad's old haunting grounds, and former home to at least one reader who I won't embarrass by naming. As we were getting close to 101, it was starting to get dark. I wasn't thrilled with the idea of backing into a camping space in the dark, so we decided to detour south on 101 about 5 miles and partake of the free “camping” at the Ukiah Wal-Mart. Yep, I suppose that's a little trailer trashy.

Up to this point, there hadn't been any issue with maneuvering the trailer, It just kind of followed the truck and except for needing more pressure on the accelerator, it was almost like it wasn't there. That changed when I made a left turn and didn't allow enough room for the trailer to clear the island. I felt the trailer pulling back on the truck and looked in the mirror to see the trailer hopping the curb of the island. Not having learned my lesson, I did it again about 30 seconds later turning into the parking lot. Doh !

So after about 5 minutes of driving in circles in the parking lot looking for just the right spot, we'd arrived. We parked near some rather colorful and interesting “rigs” as you can see. We got inside the trailer and found that all the pots, pans, food and other goodies had been launched from their storage places by my four-wheeling across the curbs. Nice.

The Ukiah Wal-Mart turns out to be a happenin' place on a Friday night. Cars were coming and going until at least 11:00. At about 2:00 AM, some people came in with a trailer and starting doing repairs that apparently required using a hacksaw, hammering on metal, and plenty of loud, animated discourse. And after they left, there was the completely foreseeable arrival of the vacuum cleaning truck. He sounded like he kept circling us as if we were the infield at a Roseville NASCAR event.

So with campgrounds, as with many other things, you get what you pay for. But you don't have to be head greeter down to the Wal-Mart to figure that out.

Huh ?

Well, it's pretty straightforward. My friend and co-worker Dave "Jiminy" Hargadon (photo at right) and his family took an awesome trip this summer and kept their friends and family up to speed on the adventure with a blog (http://hargadontrip.blogspot.com/).

Connie and I had talked for years about taking a trip like the Hargadons' in a motorhome but hadn't ever really done anything to make it happen. After reading Dave's blog we were motivated to move forward and decided to try traveling on a shorter trip in a rented trailer. Hence the "slightly less awesome vacation".

Another co-worker, Justin Eklund (AKA Sergeant Elkins), had rented a motorhome from a place just up I-80 so we reserved a 26 foot trailer there and started thinking about where we wanted to go. We'd spent a little time in Oregon in the past and decided we'd head north. I requested some travel info from the Oregon tourism website and got about a 20 pound box of fliers in the mail.

There were lot's of good ideas in the fliers, so after some time with a state map and a highlighter, the tentative plan is to head towards the California redwoods first, then the southern Oregon Coast.  One of Connie's Co-workers had suggested Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, then my brother Brett said the same thing.  Finally, Sergeant Zorro sent me a link to some posts one of his guys had done on a motorcycle trip (http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?p=8011722#post8011722)  and he'd also gone to Prairie Creek.  So the plan is to make that the first official stop.

Today was about grocery shopping and packing.  We're picking up the trailer at 0930 tomorrow and hope to be on the road in the early afternoon.  A high wind advisory and a trailer with no sway bar ! Suh-Weeet !