1000 Miles with Neb: Day 3—Back in LA—200 Miles

With only 200 miles left to drive, we had time to sleep in AND head back into the casino for some morning gambling!  Neb was reluctant, but I paid him $100 to come gamble with me (which he paid back out of his winnings). The scariest part of this whole scenario was that we weren't the only people in the casino at 9:00 AM on a weekday....

Just a few more hours of (mind numbingly straight) driving on I5 and we hit "the grapevine" pass over the mountains into the Los Angeles basin. We went straight to the Campers' World store near Neb's house to refill the liquid propane and make one final dump of the black and gray water. By now, all of the wastewater management was old hat. So much personal growth since my formative days as the Poop Nazi.

We dropped the RV off at Neb's house and quickly jumped in the Super Cucas Shuttle (how I had missed her) to drive to Burbank to meet an old friend from the Stanford Fleet Street Singers for dinner. Greg Chun (affectionately known to us as "Chune") is now a talented voice actor and professional composer, but I mostly remember him as the guy with the photographic memory who could play any song on the piano by ear. I had hoped we'd have the chance to catch up with a few of the other guys from our Stanford singing days, but they were all out of town. 

Chune!

Back at Neb's house, I started unpacking the RV and packing up my stuff up for the RV return and my flight back to Albany the next day. Rachelle and the girls had been home for three days with the intent of getting some good nights' sleeps in their own beds. Ironically, they hadn't yet been able to do that. Rachelle called, in a highly frazzled state, and told me that the bat that had been in our house—and had forced them all to sleep in the living room—was back.! She was chasing it around the house with a tennis racquet while on the phone with me. I'm not sure what she thought I could do about the bat transcontinentally, but I guess I provided some comfort during her eradication maneuvers.

One last night, this time by myself, in the RV (in Neb's driveway) and the West Coast Adventure entered its final day. We returned the RV without much fanfare and went to the final performance of Neb's daughters' theater daycamp. Very cute...except for the part where some of the kids acted out commercials. I guess when you live in Southern California, it makes sense that theater daycamp would include some lessons for commercial auditions.

Lea Meisel

Sophia Meisel

Neb was kind enough to drive me to the Burbank airport to catch my return flight. And with that, our 2012 summer RV adventure was finally over.

1000 Miles with Neb: Day 2—Casino!—300 Miles

With no kids in the RV—and perhaps feeling the residual effects of 19 beer samples the night before— we slept in!  Sleep, glorious sleep!!  The (rather elderly) people running the Almond Tree RV Park recommended several breakfast joints. We ignored their suggestions and followed the wisdom of Yelp, which led us to The Sin of Cortez. They had everything we needed:

Morning Essentials at The Sin of Cortez

We didn't do quite as much singing on day two of our adventure because neither of us could really speak, let alone sing. Interstate 5 South was unbelievably uninteresting at this point. Perfectly straight with nothing but dust and fields. A scan of the radio stations turned up only two music genres: classic rock and a variety of Mexican music with  awesome horn parts (but incomprehensible  lyrics ). A couple of hours' worth of horns later, we stopped for gas (typically a $175 affair) and there it was...the In-N-Out Burger.  I had heard lots of stories about these places, but I'd never eaten at one. Neb spent about 30 minutes educating me on the finer points of ordering from the "secret" menu (how can there be a secret menu?) but before too long I was holding a double-double in one hand and fries ("well well; animal style") in the other. Yeah, I didn't NEED any of these extra calories, but it was worth it. Oh yeah, I also bought a t-shirt.

Well Well: My first time at In-N-Out Burger

Animal Style

A few more hours down California's least interesting road and we pulled into The Tachi Palace Indian Casino, just outside of Fresno. Neb called up a couple of old friends who recently moved to Fresno and they met us for dinner and some gaming.  I love playing blackjack, but the table wasn't friendly to me this night. After I had blown through $50, I moved over to a pai gow table with only one player and asked the dealer to teach me how to play. I had played the game once or twice a long time ago and it came back quickly. The most important thing is that you push (tie) most of the time, so you don't win a lot--but you don't lose a lot, either. After a while, Neb and his friends joined me. I won back my blackjack losses and finished even for the day. A pretty fun evening.

The Tachi Palace

So, the kind folks at the Tachi Palace told us that we were welcome to park our RV in their parking lot overnight. I mean, why would we spend $40 to stay in an RV campground overnight when we could stay right at the casino? OK, well now we know the answer: It's because the security lights in the parking lot are on (really brightly) all night long. It's because the trucks that park there keep their engines on all night. It's because you have to run the generator if you want to use the air conditioner—and it shuts itself off when the gas tank gets too low. It's because you become white instantly upon making the decision to camp out in a casino parking lot.  Well, at least I can still say that I've never spent the night in a Walmart parking lot...

If you wake up in a casino parking lot...on a weekday morning...you might just be a redneck...

1000 Miles with Neb: Day 1—Sierra Nevada Brewing Company—500 Miles

We were up at 4:30 AM and delivered Rachelle and the girls to PDX in time to catch their 6:00 flight back to Albany.  Bon Voyage!  Their trip was over, but I still had the task of returning the RV to Los Angeles. We could have rented the RV one way, but would have had to pay $3000 extra to do so. Instead, I convinced Neb to join me for a "haul ass" southbound return trip while Rachelle and the girls had some time to readjust to East Coast time and pack for summer camp.

The traffic was very light as the sun was just starting hit the road. We had 1000 miles to cover in three days, but no particular agenda other than to enjoy each other's company...and the quiet.

Leaving Portland, Heading South!

Sixty miles later, we stopped in Salem, the capital of Oregon, for breakfast at a place called the Sassy Onion. I had already polished off my jalapeno chipotle breakfast burrito when Neb struck up a conversation (making best friends...) with the manager, who simply couldn't believe that we hadn't ordered any cinnamon rolls. Of course, we had to try some. Holy crap! Unbelievably good!

Pigs at the Sassy Onion

After breakfast, Neb was on a quest to find a pawn shop so that he could buy a guitar. I thought he was just looking for a $20 junk guitar for the road trip, so I stayed in the RV while he was in the pawn shop. An hour later, he emerged with a Gibson guitar and a letter authenticating the signatures on it: Johnny Cash & Brian Wilson. Presumably it had been part of a charity auction at some former time. I won't say what Neb paid for it, but it was way more than $20! Neb tuned her up and she sounded pretty good. For the rest of the day, we played and sang at the tops of our lungs. My favorite was an extended version of "Sardines...and pork and beans."

Horse from singing, we stopped for lunch in Ashland, OR, the home of the annual Shakespeare Festival. Neb was interested in checking out the town as a possible future home for his family. Ashland is a super-crunchy place. It has a similar vibe as Burlington, VT or Boulder, CO. Lots of  knit caps (in the summer) and beards. We drove the RV up some residential streets on the outskirts of town. The views were pretty sweet, but getting the RV out of there was a little dicey. Lunch was at a funky place called Wiley's World Pasta Shoppe & Eatery. When the cook discovered that he had none of the ingredients for the noodle dish I had ordered, he came out to the table (he may have been riding a skateboard) and worked with me to design a replacement. To make up for the inconvenience, he agreed to name my new recipe "The Rager Tom."

Wiley's World

Neb drove the stretch of highway between Ashland and Redding, CA that crossed the mountains. There were a few sections where there was a steep dropoff on the passenger side of the RV and I had to close my eyes and breathe deeply. It's way more nerve-wracking to be the passenger than to be the driver. I think this is why I'm no good at riding roller coasters...

Watch this!

After lunch, I calculated that if we kept rolling, we could reach Chico, CA—the home base of Sierra Nevada Brewing Company—in time for dinner at the brewery restaurant. Game on! Once we got past Redding, Interstate 5 became incredibly boring again, but we made excellent time. I made reservations at a campground in Chico and we rolled in to the Sierra Nevada parking lot an hour before closing time. It was too late for any kind of tour, but the restaurant had—count them—NINETEEN different house beers on tap. I sampled all of them. Fantastic!

Yes, please, I'll have one of each!

We had driven 500 miles over about 13 hours, including stops for breakfast, guitar purchasing, lunch, and Ashland touring. On top of that, we had shot our voices out from all of the singing. Overall, a highly successful first day—and pilgrimage to Sierra Nevada!

Mecca

To Portland via Tillamook

With Keiko, Amaya, and Rachelle's flight back to Albany from Portland less than 24 hours away, we had quite a trip to make, yet there was a lot of beautiful scenery that we didn't want to miss along the coast. We set our course to continue North on Highway 101 toward Tillamook—almost at the Washington border—where would turn East and sail in to Portland. Since we were in a fancy schmancy RV resort, we decided to take advantage of the pristine shower facilities before shipping off.

Freshy Fresh!

It was pretty slow going up the coast, but it was beautiful, as expected. We stopped at a several coastal state parks along the way, but—not wanting to repeat a Trees-of-Mystery-type experience—skipped the Sea Lion Caves. At the places where we DID stop, Amaya didn't feel like crutching out onto the beach and Rachelle had had enough sight seeing for the trip. Keiko humored me and trekked with me down to the various beaches along our path.

Stumped, Keiko?

This was one of my favorite spots. The island was accessible by foot at low tide. We waded in in the surf for a few minutes and noticed that the water was full of brine shrimp (we call them Sea Monkeys (TM)). 

Tillamook, was a beautiful town/county with rolling hills. I love their cheese...

Our approach to Portland intersected perfectly with rush hour. That was a big shock after so many hours of driving off of the beaten path. We had chosen a campground (Jantzen Beach RV Park) pretty close to the airport because we had to pick up Neb, who was arriving at 7:30 that night, and would need to drop the girls off at 6:00 the next morning. We picked up Neb curbside in the giant RV, which must have been a pretty bizarre sight. We had done some research on an awesome place to have dinner during the last night of our time together and we went there right after we picked Neb up from the airport. The place was called Tasty n Sons, and I've never had a meal where EVERYTHING we tried was jaw-droppingly good. We were a little nervous about leaving the RV parked in a seemingly dodgy neighborhood during a late dinner, but it was still in one piece when we came out of the restaurant at 10:00. The girls were toast by that point and started to melt down. I had done it again. Mission accomplished?

Dune Buggies!

The Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area was just up the road from our campground and I was on a quest to get the family out on dune buggies. The best rental place from my internet search was called Spinreel Dune Buggies and it looked awesome. I made reservations for noon and we got there plenty ahead of our rental time. 

I'll play the spoiler and confess that this activity didn't go as I had hoped...

First off, Amaya was still on crutches, so she wouldn't be able to ride a small ATV on her own. Rachelle wasn't keen on the whole affair since she had had a bad experience with an ATV when she was a kid. I was fired up, of course, and Keiko seemed pretty exited about the whole thing when I brought it up to the family the day before. 

Things took a turn for the worse when the rental place started talking about all of the rules and regulations and then parked us in front of a "safety" video that was basically a series of home videos of people doing the most idiotic things possible on their dune buggies and either having to pay extra damage fees or getting hurt. By the end of the video, everyone was completely paranoid. I tried to explain that the company was just covering their butts and there was no reason to think that we would drive like idiots ourselves. We could follow the rules, be safe, and still have lots of fun...

Second spoiler alert: nobody got hurt, no ATVs got damaged, but it didn't seem like much fun was had—and everyone was annoyed with me by the end of the day....

Excited or Terrified?

The second turn for the worse occurred when it was time to sign all of the rental paperwork and I couldn't find my driver's license! I looked everywhere in the RV, but couldn't find it. (A few days later, Rachelle found it in the pocket of my swimsuit--leftover from the water park excursion with Neb.) That meant that Rachelle had to drive the 4-seater ATV. Keiko would follow along on her own 60 cc 4-wheeler. After getting fitted for crazy helmets and being given more caveats about extra damage charges, they showed us how to operate the equipment.  I rode in the back of the 4-seater and Amaya rode shotgun.

Rachelle: A Very Responsible Driver

Spoiler number three: Amaya spent the next hour chanting "we're gonna die!"  Super fun...

Keiko: Tearing it UP!

The dunes were steep in some places, but tapered off toward one end. Other people were zooming around on the steep parts. Boy, that looked fun! We, however, spent most of our time on the mellow side, negotiating very shallow rises. Still, the vast expanses of sand were pretty inviting. Keiko got the hang of it pretty quickly. Keiko got stuck a few times going uphill without enough momentum, but I jumped out of our dune buggy and was able to lift her machine out of the sand to free her.

I am your father, Luke...

At one point, we stopped and I took a video of Keiko. She disappeared around a little mound of grass and then didn't reappear for quite some time. Just when we were about to follow her to investigate, she ran out from behind the mound waving to us. Pretty funny. It's hard to make out clearly in the video. So far, I've had zero luck getting the video uploaded, but if I do, I'll post it here.

She had gotten stuck in the sand. We still had a few minutes left on our rental time after freeing her wheels, but Keiko's hand was cramping up from using the hand-throttle on her machine and Amaya was still freaking out. Rachelle had had enough. I reluctantly agreed to call it a day.  A disheartening defeat, but still fun overall. Man, I wish that I hadn't misplaced my license....

Rifling through my wallet at the Pie Restaurant

To add insult to injury, the next time I was looking for my sunglasses, I couldn't find them. Two weeks later, I thought to call Spinreel Dune Buggies, and sure enough, I had left my sunglasses there.  I'm such a dolt.

It was about 4:00 by the time we got back to the car, so we headed to Don's Main Street Family Restaurant & Pie Shop(!) in Reedsport for a late lunch/early dinner. By the time the pie came, the family didn't seem quite as mad at me for dragging them to a scary activity, losing my license, and then complaining that we weren't driving fast enough on the dunes.  Once we had a campfire going back at the "RV resort," and started playing Apples to Apples, Jr., most of my transgressions had been forgotten if not forgiven.

Safely back at the Winchester Bay RV Resort

Up the Oregon Coast

Heading North up the coast, we crossed into Oregon after about an hour. Highway 101 was alternated between fast inland straightaways through farmland and very slow swervy sections right along the Pacific Ocean. There were Oregon State Parks signs seemingly every mile along the coastal stretches. We pulled into a few of them that looked like they would accommodate the RV. Amaya wasn't very mobile with her crutches, but we made it out to a few beaches. The rocks along the coast were really neat. 

Oregon Coast on Crutches

Keiki on the Rocks

 

 

Message in a Bottle?

We drove about half way up the Oregon coast to our final campground destination, the Winchester Bay RV Resort. Throughout our journey, other RVers—almost to a person—told us that this campground was one of the best they had ever visited. We rolled in just before dark after a long day on the road and were given the final waterfront site. The campground lived up to its reputation. The sites were beautifully manicured and every one had a fire ring. We started up a fire, cooked some burgers and had s'mores (along with a beer or two...). The coastal fog rolled in shortly after dark, but we stayed by the fire until it really started raining. We were tired of driving and had already decided that we would stay here two nights. That would give us some time to do a few day day trip activities in the area the next day—before we needed to be in Portland the day after that.

View from our site at the Winchester Bay RV Resort.

Trees of Mystery

....more like Cheeze of Mystery

Trying to let fate play itself out, we stopped by the Trees of Mystery before heading North up the coast. This "attraction" is a real piece of American Kitsch. I mean, the giant redwoods are magnificent on their own. Not sure that a giant paper-mache and concrete Paul Bunyan statue adds a lot to the experience of the natural majesty.

I had to give them the boot...

Big Blue (Ox) Balls

The cheesy exhibits didn't do much for me. I found sad that some really cool natural things had been trampled by hordes of tourists over the years. The sawn tree cross-sections showing thousands of years of growth were mindblowing.

Nature's Underpass

The best part of the experience was the tram ride up the mountain through the redwoods. The walls of the gondola were transparent, so it was a little freaky, but fortunately the floor was not see-through. The whole ride was a bit vertigo-inducing. The fog hadn't broken that morning, so we were not treated to the normal coastal vista. Instead, we got a spooky sensation as we floated through the mist. 

Vertigo!

Daddy and Keiko on the Gondola

Floating Through the Redwood Canopy

Amaya was using crutches after her run in with the floating lake toys, so she was able to join a few octogenarians on a golf cart ride up to the gondola base. When we got to the top, the operator brought the mechanism to a complete stop so that she could get off easily. Oy. 

Amaya stops the gearworks...

The final trail from the gondola base back to the parking lot took us past several huge trees. I mean, they were all huge, but these were HUGE!  In the end, it was clear to me that we weren't led to the Trees of Mystery for any mystical purpose, but we had a good time.

Them's some tall trees....

One Keiko Unit of Scale

Back to the Coast—or—The Day I Thought We Were Shot by a Sniper

Today's drive was back across the mountains to the Pacific coast.  It was beautiful scenery, but lots of two-lane curvy roads. Fortunately, there were lots of turn-outs so the cars never piled up behind us. The "brake buddy" saved our bacon on the curvy downhills, too. It was a long day, but a beautiful drive.

At about 4 PM, we were about 30 miles East of Highway 101 when I heard a sound like a gunshot. It took a few seconds to realize that we had blown a tire. The RV was still controllable, but we needed to get off of the road, pronto. At the moment of the blowout, we were driving down a steep, curvy, and narrow patch of road. Fortunately, there was a pullout on the other side of the road. I had to take a leap of faith to cross over the oncoming traffic lane—the sharp turn to the right made it impossible to see very far ahead—but we made it to the pullout and stopped. Whew! Everyone was scared, but safe. I got out to inspect the damage. The driver's side front tire had an 8" gash!

Gash!

Now what?  I tried calling Jeff, the RV renter guy who told me to "just call if there's a problem." Guess what...he didn't answer either of his phones. Hmmm. We're on the side of a road with a huge RV and a flat tire and evening is approaching. I called AAA and explained the situation. At the time, I didn't realize that we had a spare tire tucked up under the rig...but I did remember that Jeff had said that he didn't want us trying to change any tires. Yeah--I wasn't about to do that. Rachelle smartly suggested that we put down the leveling legs to get some of the weight off of the tire. That was huge. I was on the phone with AAA for a long time trying to figure all of this out. The closest town with a tow truck that could help us was Crescent City, CA. After about 40 minutes of talking with the AAA guy (who was very friendly and helpful) he told me that a tow truck would be coming out sometime in the next hour. In the meantime, we realized that we were broken down right next to a beautiful river named The Smith River! Keiko and I explored a little bit.

On the Banks of the Smith River

Should We Check it Out?

Keiko on the Rocks

While exploring and waiting for the tow truck to arrive, I received two calls on my cell phone. The first was from the central office of AAA, who wanted to let me know that my roadside assistance didn't include RV problems. Uh, OK, but I still had my family on the side of the road...they told me I would have to pay out of pocket. Yeah. At this point, whatever. I was just happy that everyone was safe and we just wanted out of there. The second phone call was the towing company letting me know that it would cost $350 an hour to deal with us--but they didn't have a driver anyway.... The one bright point was that the tow truck company gave me the phone number for "Les Schwab Tires" in Crescent City. When I called them, it was after 5:00 and only the manager was left in the store. He had one tire left in stock  that would fit our rig and told me that he could come out and replace the tire. Thank God.

The tire company truck was a welcome sight.

Rat-a-tat-tat

Now this is Camping!!

That dude was sweating pretty good by the time he finished wrestling that wheel off of the RV and fitting a new tire. I felt pretty lame just watching, but there wasn't much I could do to help. We followed the manager back to his store to pay the bill—past some of the biggest redwood trees I had ever seen— and he asked me if we had planned to visit the "Trees of Mystery" about 30 minutes to the South. I hadn't heard of such a thing, but he said that his kids loved it and it would be worth the trip. We had planned to head North, but since it was already almost dark, we decided to head South for the night so that we could check out the Trees of Mystery in the morning. Perhaps this whole tire fiasco was just way of getting us to The Trees of Mystery....

The drive along the coast was spectacular. This was the kind of scenery that I had heard about along the northern coast. We spent the night at a place called the Klamath Camper Corral, happy to be safe and secure.

A Bit South of Crescent City, CA

Beloved Heartsong

....is the name taken by Rachelle's friend and mentor who now lives in Mount Shasta City. Rachelle called her on the day we were driving there and she dropped what she was doing to give us a tour of her home town. 

Rachelle and Beloved in Front of Mount Shasta

We got the insider's edge as she shuttled us around between parks and waterfalls and fresh water springs. We were treated to one beautiful view after the other all day. 

Tree Hugger

Tree Grumper

Keiko and Daddy on the Bridge

Tiger Lilly

Jungle Gym Twins

Beloved's name suited her well. I've been thinking about what kind of name I would choose if I were to give myself a more meaningful or descriptive name, but I haven't settled on one that's both sincere and not ridiculous. Perhaps Rachelle can come up with one that captures my essence better than Tom Smith. It shouldn't be too difficult, right?

Family Photo by the Falls

After a healthy and delicious picnic lunch under the pine trees, we headed back to the campground so that the girls could get their fill of swimming in the splash zone on Lake Siskiyou. All of the floating climbers and obstacles looked really fun and the girls had been dying to play on them since we had arrived. I think it was torture for them to tour around town, but the promise of plenty of time to play kept them from going totally bonkers.

Nice Background

Trampolines

I swam out to watch them, but it's tough climbing up on those things and my knee wasn't quite ready for that kind of activity.

Saturn

Kekio, King of the Mountain

Strangely, Amaya emerged from the water after about half an hour and said that she was done for the day!  What?  I guess she strained a muscle in her knee climbing up onto the "Saturn" float. Ordinarily, I'd say that she was faking it, but after all of the talk about how much she wanted to play on these floats, there was no way that she was going to voluntarily remove herself after thirty minutes. Indeed, she limped back to the RV.

Nice Day at the Beach!

Amaya's injury put a little damper on the day, but she still had enough pep in one leg to limp out to the campfire and roast some marshmallows for s'mores :)