Well, we are back home in Newfield, New York, after 10,250 miles logged in 79 days of traveling. Thanks to our wonderful friend and neighbor Gundy, who stopped by weekly to look after our house and water the plants, our home seems as we left it and the plants have never looked better. The final leg of our journey saw us leaving Portland, OR and Rob, Leila, and Leo early on the 21st of April. We travelled up the awe-inspiring Columbia Gorge on Interstate 84, then headed to Spokane, WA. Since we were to visit some friends in northern Wisconsin, the plan was to head east on Interstates 90 and 94 through Idaho, Montana, North Dekota, Minnesota, and on to the tiny town of Minong, Wisconsin. This north-most route across the US allowed us to avoid ... read more

This entry covers our trip from Fort Bidwell, CA to Valley of the Rogue, OR, where we spent three days, and the five days we stayed in Coos Bay, on the south Oregon coast. Our last night in Fort Bidwell saw snow and wind. We had planned to take a shortcut over Fandango Pass, but decided given the snow, that we had better take a longer, but less elevated route to our next stop at Valley of the Rogue (named for the wild and scenic Rogue River), in southwest Oregon. Although it snowed on the higher passes, the road remained dry and safe and we arrived mid-afternoon at the Valley of the Rogue State Park and settled in for a three day stay. On 9 April, we left Valley of the Rogue and traveled north on ... read more

Here we are in Oregon, playing catchup on blogs we have neglected due to too much "living in the present." We knew this would eventually happen! This missive covers the time we spent in the Bay area both before and after our Yosemite trip. Since we had done most of the city stuff on two previous visits to San Francisco, we devoted this period to spending time with friends, our son Nick, and several scenic/birding locations in the Bay area. Our home-base during this period was the Anthony Chabot (prounced "sha-bow") Regional Park to the east of Oakland. From here we visited the city of Berkeley and the UC Berkeley campus, Marin County, and the Palo Alto Baylands Nature Center. The photos we include here summarize these experiences. We left San Francisco for the high deserts ... read more

For three days we stayed at Sunset State Beach near Watsonville in the Monterey Bay area about 90 miles south of San Francisco. California has many state beaches, some with camping, some without. Some allow dogs on the beach; some do not. No services were provided at Sunset Beach, so we were "dry camping" here. We could not help comparing coastal development in Florida where we spent three months RVing several winters ago with coastal development in California. Florida is dominated by housing developments, golf courses, and high-rise condominiums blocking view of the ocean and access to it. This section of California’s coast is dominated by artichoke and strawberry farming. Although agribusiness has co-opted most of the land right up to the sand dunes and cliffs overlooking the ocean, there is an abundance of state beaches ... read more

We are coming to the end of a 5-day stay at a state park in Morro Bay, a part of the Central Coast of California that seems to have everything a reasonable person could want. First, the scenery is drop-dead beautiful. The entrance to the bay is marked by Morro Rock, a 23 million-year-old volcanic plug, the first of some nine that are arranged in a line between Morro Bay and San Luis Obispo. Morro estuary is considered to be the least disturbed and most important saltwater marsh in the state and provides critical habitat for thousands of ducks, geese, and shorebirds. So, the birding is great. We have been kayaking every day in the bay and estuary, accompanied closely by several species of loons and grebes, all kinds of sea ducks, and sea otter and ... read more