The end of the line

We had a  couple of very long days, 480 miles one day and 550 the next, but we arrived back at Rainbow’s End Tuesday afternoon, hot tired and dirty!  Fall seems to have arrived here in East Texas, the temps are not to high and there is no humidity to speak of – which is a real pleasure!

So here’s a few photos from the drive home.

 

Ocotillo Cactus, which are really a member of the rose family and a Giant Saguaro

Can you see the Indian on the mountain?  From West Texas?

Sunset over the Colorado River.

Just the facts please!

We drove the truck in excess of 18,000 miles.  Towed the trailer over 14,000 miles.  We were gone a total of 168 days and took over 4300 still photos and 20 movies.  This was a truly amazing journey.  The sights we saw were awesome, the mountains majestic, rivers that defy description, and animals we never in our wildest imagination thought we would see.  We traveled with some wonderful people, laughed, cried and told stories, had breakdowns (vehicle) and helped each other along the way.  We ate out, cooked pot luck and ate in.  We samples beers we’d never heard of.  Rode trains to fantastic places, took boat rides to see glaciers calving and watched with mouth open  in wonder.  Took back roads to the top of mountains just to see the view, drove thru passes that left us thunderstruck.  Explored an old mine and watched some locals fish for salmon (they even gave us some which was wonderful).

I say to you, if you have the chance to go to Alaska, DON’T WAIT!  Do it by all means!  I hope you have enjoyed reading about our adventure, it was fun to write and a great way to remember what we did!

Until our next adventure, stay healthy and happy.

Sue & Jon Glick and our cat Jezebel.

Last leg of the Journey

This morning we began the last leg of this incredible summer journey.  We left my Uncle’s house about 8:30am.  Our route took us thru Pasadena, the San Gabriel Valley (smoggy – yuck!) and Palm Springs where we stopped for lunch.  Continuing on over the Chiriaco Summit then down to the Colorado River.  We decided to spend the night camped next to the river.  Tomorrow is another long day of driving, but with luck, we should reach Livingston by Wed afternoon.  I’ll post photos after we get home.

Good food, bad food and just hanging out

Staying with my Uncle, he insists on our trying his favorite places to eat.  We don’t go out since he has trouble getting around, but we do take out.  One of his favorite places that we had never been to before is Panda Express.  They have a variety of shrimp, beef and pork dishes along with rice and noodles.  One order for Uncle lasts 3 days!  Another place he told us to go to was “The Habit”, it’s a burger place and all I can say is WOW!  For pasta he really likes “L.A. Lasagna Co”.  The Spaghetti with Marinara is wonderful and they have a chicken parmesan that just melts in your mouth .  Another great place is Joseph's Deli, melt in your mouth pastrami!  YUM!

When my Dad was alive we all used to go for breakfast at least once a week.  One of Jon’s favorite places was Uncle Bernie’s Deli.  So Jon and I went, not at all what we remembered!  This time the food was so bad that Jon actually sent it back!  He doesn’t usually do that.  Won’t be going there again anytime soon.

To say it’s been hot here is an understatement.  The daytime temps have been from a low of 85 to a high of 106, but the overnight temps have been delightful, there is a 40 degree difference between day and night, so sleeping is good.  As I said before ( I think I said this), we are parked in my Uncle’s driveway.  We have power, enough to run the AC part of the day, but that’s all we have.  Any water is from the holding tank, there is no place to get rid of water we’ve used.  We do spend a lot of afternoons at the malls, walking around trying to keep cool.  Mornings are spent sitting in the shade of the RV watching the birds around here.  We did drive up to Ventura one day, looking for one of our favorite meat markets in Saticoy.  It’s long gone, but the strawberry fields are still there, in fact we were told that now berries grow year round.  We bought some and they were fabulous!

This is a Golden Eagle across the street and here are some of the other birds we have seen around the house.

Here’s some from our day trip to Ventura.

And yes, I did get my feet wet, all the way up to my knees!  The water felt wonderful.  Some day, I will go back and get all the way in.

San Fernando Valley

So we arrived at the Thousand Trails Park in Acton, got set up and called my Uncle.  Went to see him on Saturday, he asked us if we could take him on some errands which of course we could.  It was agreed we would bring the trailer down, park it in his driveway and use our truck to take him where he wanted to to.  Sunday Jon and I went to Vasquez Rocks County Park.  In all the years we lived  in the area, we had never been there.

The odd shapes and slanted rocks are the results of earthquakes, this area is on the San Andreas Fault, and there are a lot of quakes here, some big some small.

Then on Tuesday we parked the trailer in his driveway.  While we were having lunch one of his Dr’s called and wanted to see him that afternoon.  The news wasn’t good, the cancer is back.  The rest of the evening we talked about the next step, a bone biopsy.  That’s what we are waiting on now, after that ….. well, we will just have to wait and see.

Saturday my brother and his wife came up from Ramona for a visit.

This last one is looking across the street at sunset.

California Central Valley

Much changed since we last traveled Highway 99, either North or South.  This valley is where a major portion of food is grown, however, now there is a big problem with water – they don’t have it!  There is a drought, but that isn’t the main problem, most of the water is going to the new housing that is going up all over this long, long agricultural valley.  We’ve seen groves of nuts; almond, pistachio and walnut, grapes; both wine and table, rice paddies and fields of peppers and corn.  Nearer to Bakersfield we saw fruit trees; peach, plum and orange.  Then smelled garlic.  We also saw several areas of feed lots, mostly milk cows.  We also saw lots of fields left unattended, and that was the saddest part of the drive.  It took us two days to travel from North of Sacramento to Acton (near Palmdale in the Antelope Valley).  Not sure how long we will be here, tomorrow we are heading into the San Fernando Valley to see my Uncle, depending on him is how long we stay.

So here are a few photos from our drive.

First is a rice field, followed by a rice drier then the Sacramento skyline and of course the traffic.  There has been road construction since we left Texas.  And finally, we saw a sign for Livingston, but it isn’t in Texas!

 

Florence to Calif

For the past 4 days we have had no internet, so here’s a brief look at the last 4 days.

 

Jezabel on a hunting trip behind our site at Florence.

Bridge at Coos Bay

National Sand Dunes

The foggy coast

One of the many rivers we crossed, then we were  in the Giant Redwoods, from sun to fog.  These trees love the fog!

The coast, then over the Klamath River and back in to the Redwoods

A Bull Elk, one of many that we saw.  Also went past a herd of female Elk but no where to pull over.

It’s very hard to photograph a Giant Redwood.  This was looking up at towards the top of the tree.

Today we traveled east on Highway 20, thru the mountains towards the central valley farmlands, past Clear Lake.

We stopped for the night at Nicolaus.  It’s North of Sacramento.  We plan to reach the Los Angeles area by Friday.