What's In a Name

Sonoma, CA - November 24
Tulare, CA - November 25 - 28, 2012

We left the Redwoods and headed to the famous Pacific Coast Highway hoping to enjoy a beautiful drive down the California coastline.  There was a sign posted that trucks longer than 30' from kingpin to rear axle were prohibited, but we are only 27' so we forged ahead.  Peg did an amazing job driving, but it was 35 miles of nail biting turns with both of us paying strict attention to the rock wall on one side and the oncoming traffic on the other.  After an hour and half of the beautiful pacific coast we decided to cut back to 101 to continue our trek south.  We felt like we had a good sense of the drive and our nerves needed a break.  The drive was still gorgeous through the hills and vineyards - one of Peg's favorites.  The Sonoma Wine Country RV resort had confirmed space available via email, but when we arrived they didn't have any room at the inn.  The bad news was they informed me that the turns around their park were too tight for me to make so I needed to do a three point turn around to get out.  There wasn't even enough room for the three point turn, so I decided to back out the way we came in - about 100 yards back down the narrow entrance road.  We were suddenly happy they couldn't take us, but were also homeless for the night.  We found another "park" at the Sonoma Expo Center and Fairgrounds.  It did the job for one night, but wasn't anywhere near the beautiful Sonoma wine country so we just got up early and countinued our travels southeast.

We reached our next Passport America park called Sun and Fun RV park in Tulare, CA.  This has to be the low point for RV parks on our journey.  We drove to the spot that they assured us we would fit in.  I backed in between two big rigs with a couple of feet of grass between each space and trees on each side.  We tried to judge the spacing for the slide-outs, but after we unhooked and started to set-up we realized the top of the desk slide-out was going to hit a tree branch.  We hooked everything back up and I moved Suni over six inches which is a lot harder than it sounds.  When we were finishing up getting set up for the second time an older couple walking by said "wow you were able to get it in there huh?  I had to have one of the guys from here help me".  I was very proud.  The low point came a couple of hours later when we took the dogs out and were completely bowled over by the smell of cow manure at the same time a train rumbled by blowing it's whistle.  The trains were a regular fixture every couple of hours all through the night and the manure smell continued to make our eyes water throughout our three night stay.  Sun and Fun yeah right!

The upside is we were relatively close to the Sequoia National Park and Forest.  These are the second type of redwood tree found in the Northwest.  The sequoia tree is only found on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains and is very different from the coast redwoods we have already seen.  They are bigger in diameter, don't grow as tall and have a much redder bark.  They only grow at elevations between 5,000-7,000 feet so we made the drive through the beautiful foothills and up the mountains.  Again these trees are truly something to see.  Not as prolific as the coast redwoods, but are more majestic and easy to pick out.  We took one day to drive through the National Park stopping for the Big Tree Loop hike and a second day to drive through the National Forest stopping for the hike to the Stagg Tree.  Two completely different drives each uniquely beautiful.  Can I say again how thankful we are for this beautiful planet God has given us.  The Stagg tree is 3000 years old (the second largest tree in the world) another difference between the trees as the coast redwoods only live about 2000 years.  There are only 75 Sequoia groves left because 2.5 million years ago, Mother Earth started to dry out and these guys need lots of moisture.

                                                          1000 years older than Jesus!

Coming Soon... Needles, CA and Maricopa, AZ