Traveling to Silver City Again

4/25/2016 Monday morning over the summit was dry, but coming down the east side we encountered a lot of snow mist. Only a few times did the road and the windshield actually get wet.

We stopped for lunch at JT's Basque Restaurant in Gardnerville . Gone are the days when we ordered the full basque lunch. That's a huge amount of food. Bill ordered a Basque burger. Amazingly it held together even though it looked like almost half a pound of meat. With all the fixings on toasted sourdough it piled up about 5 inches. I had a nice soup and tasted most of Bill's salad. His giant burger came with a platter of salad and fries.

Fair amount of wind on the road, but we landed in Bishop in short order and checked in at the J Diamond Mobile Ranch right behind Erick Schat's Bakkery. We didn't plan to eat here, but wound up walking over to shop for a loaf of nice bread. Bill picked out cheese buns and cookies.

We drifted out and back on the road fairly late.

Manzanar was our next stop. We hadn't been here in a few years. I knew the exhibits had changed and they have been updating the site with excavations of scenic gardens and recreations of barracks furnished as they would have been for new arrivals and those who had been there a while. Bill knew that there was now quite a bit about those who were sent on to another detention camp at Tule Lake for refusing to join the service. Manzanar is getting ready for the big annual commemorative weekend next weekend. They are expecting some 15 thousand visitors.

We had to stop and say hello for an hour or so at the Alabama Hills. No driving on tiny trails this time.  

Tonight we are at Boulder Creek RV Resort. Met a couple from The Netherlands who were doing the Southwest in a rental RV with an 11 month old baby. Talked travel and bicycle racing.

The roads that were not repaired the last time we drove through Death Valley are still not repaired. Too bad, Jubilee Pass is a nice road.

After that looks like we might hit a few showers so we plan to stay in Tacopa rather than Shoshone. We'll do the indoor hot baths over the outdoor lukewarm pool.

On Wednesday 4/27 we decided it was warm enough, so we stayed in Shoshone and the outdoor 90 degree pool was fine until the afternoon got too late.

The next morning we drove over to Tecopa Hot Springs for a soak until 1130. This is hot mineral water. The ladies side was empty until a Japanese lady came in just as I was showering after. These are no clothing baths, which is why they separate the men and women.

We drove through the Mojave Preserve and walked a bit and looked at the flowers. At times I have known the names of all the southwest flowers, but I'm having trouble coming up with much beyond beavertail cactus.

Thursday night 4/28 we are at Blakes RV, a stop we've made before.

Friday 4/29 we make it to the historic La Posada Hotel, the Turquoise Room, for a marvelous lunch. This is a great place with a great story. About how a historic landmark was purchased for the price of the land and restored over the years, room by room, to be the multimillion dollar hotel, restaurant and art museum it is now. Winslow Arizona has its run down parts, but this beautiful place has certainly added to the tax base and given the town something to be proud of.

 We camp in a howling wind over in Homolovi State Park, just out of town. The showers were nice , but I practically blew away walking there and back.

Saturday 4/30 we head back over to the Turquoise Room for breakfast. I make it a point to order unusual foods when we go out, so I had the Corn Maidens Delight. Polenta, vegetables, poached eggs and grilled corn salsa. Very nice and very filling.

We take the Coronado trail, but it has changed. The last time we were in Silver City was 2011 when we came to support Jon's team although Jon was not here, since he had retired. In the fire season later in 2011 a huge fire burned through here. So we pass lots of sticks, standing and lying, ready for the next fire.

Ghost Forest

We stop for lunch at the Hannagan Meadow Lodge. Pub food. So I order extra hot wings. William is not fond of these, so I never have them at home. Pretty good.

We are camped for the night at the free campground down the road. The few mist bits of snow have turned into enough to look like it is sticking here at 9120 feet. I'm not afraid of getting cold. Though I feel a bit chilly in here. William built a big fire. We hung around it earlier and walked out to see the edge of the burn. Lots of aspen coming up in this otherwise ghost forest.

I've obviously retreated to the RV

The next morning

The largest copper mine in North America, the Morenci Mine, has gotten lots larger in the years since we last drove by.

Our first stop in New Mexico is at Faywood Hot Springs. This place had been closed for many years and was purchased in 2011. We had always enjoyed coming here for the hot water soaks. Many of the pools are clothing optional. Lots of friendly gray kitties that remind us of our old Fumo. They would like to come home with us. If we weren't so far from home, we might take one. They have lots of extras.

Tempted to take this one.

After two nights we head on into Silver City on Tuesday to meet son Jon and teammate Mike for lunch at the Southern Bistro. First race of the Tour of the Gila is Wednesday May 4th. We will be working the feed zones for the boys.
I have had lots of trouble getting this first installment of the blog posted. The WiFi at the Silver City RV park has given me fits, although the worst problem at first was the fact that I packed the wrong cord for the laptop.
A strange little computer junk shop at the corner of College and Ballard in downtown Silver City, Binary Circuits, saved me. The owner only charged me $5 for a cord. He gets his stock from recycling and junk, so all is used, but still I would have paid more.
I am going to post another entry about the 30th annual Tour of the Gila bike race when it is completed on Sunday.

Mendocino 50th Continued

Yesterday we loafed in and walked around Mendocino Headlands. 

Remnants from old logging days.

We lunched at Trillium. Fancy eats on the back porch. The weather has been fabulous. I did a bit of shopping before the store I had my eye on closed at 5.

Today we hiked the pygmy forest at Van Damme State Park.

We hiked the flats and almost got down to Fern Canyon. Ran into a few mosquitoes. But they didn't bite too hard. On the way back we stopped to walk from Big River out to the ocean.

 Reminisced about the ocean kayaking trip here in about 2002. Hardly any swells right now. Then it was 9+ foot swells because of a recent storm.

 Fun lunch at Patterson's Pub. 

 

Tomorrow we will dawdle home taking a route through Ukiah.

To Mendocino to Celebrate our 50th Wedding Anniversary

Yesterday we took a long ride on Highway 20 to Mendocino. We saw a lot of evidence of the destructive wildfires that hit the Clearlake area last year. Fire scars on both sides of highway 20. You could see where care had been taken to save houses. We ate lunch outside at the Boatman Bar and Restaurant in Nice. The place has 2 separate owners. One owns the bar and one owns the restaurant. They were just hiring and training new wait staff, so that was confusing. But overall everything was fine. Food and beer were very good.

The last part of the highway over the mountains is very winding. Bill says it helped to keep him awake after a weekend of partying and not enough sleep, on his part.

The Sweetwater Inn was our destination, because we like the garden cottage where we had stayed before. The cottage has a full kitchen and a comfortable bed. The hot tub is out in the garden, which is kept private by a high fence. 

We stayed here for about our 35^th anniversary and at that time they were discounting the cost of the room by how many years you had been married. No such deal this time for 50 years.

After a relaxing evening snacking on the fruit and cheese basket left for us, we retired not too late and slept in. Warm homemade pastries are delivered in the morning, so no cooking so far for us, except for using the coffee maker.

Off to spend the day at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens. The rhododendrons are in full flower and we walked all over the Gardens and explored every trail. Sat on every bench, almost. Glad I wore a hat as the sun was bright.

As we head back we came upon a guided tour. The guide was explaining about how to plant rhododendrons. They like to be planted loosely in bark to give them the well drained acid footing they like. Interesting, since we had thought about a few near the tiny house.

For a late lunch, we drove down into Noyo Harbor and had a delicious lunch at Cap'n Flint's. Scrimshaw beer on tap is a pilsner with a light but tasty flavor.

We drove around Fort Bragg and decided that it is definitely looking a bit ragged from the last time we were here in 1997 for Frank and Robbin's 25^th anniversary. Back then Robbin and I did walk in some shops on the main street and bought a few things. This time I drove past and didn't notice a lot that looked interesting. We drove around a lot of the small roads on the way back to Mendocino, just looking at the houses. Some looked like they might be vacation rentals, others looked like they might have many families living in them, the ones with 5 working cars parked around them in midday.

Back to the Sweetwater for a short nap. I plan to look around the shops in Mendocino. I walked around a bit on Sunday. A few stores were open after 5, but not the one on the corner that I wanted to go in. We'll have dinner in again. Enough stuff around for a light meal after a big lunch.

Home from Death Valley

2/19/2016
We take off towards home heading north. No more driving through Death Valley because of too much traffic. Nothing interesting to see on the road until we get to Hawthorne. This is one of those places in Nevada where the desert floor is covered with old ammunition storage huts. Hard to get a picture as we race by.

Walker Lake looks nice for nothing going on. 

We stop for the night in Fernley, at Fernley RV Park. Notable mainly for looking like new bathrooms. 

There was a storm on the pass, so we didn't want to risk the road over the top.

2/20/16

Looks like sunny weather for the rest of the month. The road over the top is clear and dry. Hello Mr. Drought. You are not done with California yet.

Death Valley

2/17/16 It's been quite a few years since we have been to Death Valley. We are planning to see the flowers, but also have found out that our ex brother in law is a volunteer camp host at the Furnace Creek Campground, so we will visit with him and his spouse.
It is still windy as we leave Lone Pine and the wind is kicking up toxic sediments from the bed of what once was Owens Lake.

 When we pass Keeler, Bill mentions that this is the place he would never want to live. Keeler is not only a poor, scruffy place, it gets covered in toxins blown from the old lake bed.

LA Water district is supposed to mitigate this, since they drained all the water out of the Lake. But Lots are for sale! Probably cheap.
Tom and Patty have arranged for us to have the overflow host spot right next to their camp host spot. Really nice tucked in between the tamarisk.

 Much better than the regular spots that are right out in the wind. Tom is going to show off his skill with dutch ovens for dinner.

 He has four of these in graduated sizes and plans to use three. First he has Patty and I slice up some apples, then he mixes up a batter to put on top for an apple crisp. He has a lot of charcoal started and when it is going he puts some under the first pot, they all have three legs, and some charcoal on top of the lid. Then he mixes together the ingredients for chili and Patty mixes up a cornbread batter. He stacks the pots up, largest on he bottom, then the medium sized, then the smallest.

 Each one has coals under and on top. Every 15 minutes he rotated the pots in a particular way. I think there is a pot like these in the garage. I'm going to have to try this. The food was great and the visiting was great.
It rained during the evening. Although it sounded loud in the RV, I doubt it amounted to much more than a dampening of the sand.
2/18/16 Time to head off. After saying our good-byes, we head out to drive around the park. Our choices are limited by the roads that were washed out back in October with the heavy rains. The road to Scotty's Castle is washed out . Lots of damage there. But we weren't planning to go that way. Worse news is that the road is washed out before you get to Jubilee Pass. The flowers are said to be best in the Southeastern part of the park. So we had thought to go over the pass to Shoshone. Good memories of the superbloom of 2005 when we were really thrilled with the flowers there.
So we will drive past Badwater and toward the pass then retrace our steps to the junction to go toward Pahrump and then to Shoshone.

This is just the beginning of the bloom. A skuff of Desert Gold flowers covers the rocks and sand of the alluvial fans with yellow gold. Occasionally we see a Notch-leaf Phacelia making a blue-purple patch.

 Bill saw these shallow pools. Maybe from last night's rain.
After we turned around, we take the scenic detour along Artists Drive.

On toward Shoshone through drab scrub land.
When we arrive we get a nice spot in the tamarisk.

 Just in time to get down to the warm pool.

 Ninety-one degrees in the water, but the breeze makes it cold when you get out.
 Another lazy day.