We're here! Fair Oaks, CA with Joe and Linda Nix, Peyton James. Taking time to update my blog before the big birthday bash for Andy Nix. Can't believe he's 30. Gosh all mighty how times flies. I am going to digress to tell you about our day yesterday. We stayed in Red Bluff, CA, which is about 45 miles west of Lassen Volcano National Park, and drove over to the park, through miles and miles of forest. Beautiful scenery and a lovely drive, not crowded, and very pleasant. We were amazed at the grandeur and the difference in terrain around every corner. We thoroughly amazed and astounded at this phenomenon of mud pots and sulfur ponds. This is a most beautiful area of our great nation. Every American should try to see our great country.

Today we drove through the Redwood National Park and stopped to have our picture made with Paul Bunyon and Babe. A nice couple agreed to take our picture if we reciprocated. Of course we did! We went in the gift shop and snagged a couple of tee shirts and a pin for my hat! Our goal today was to wind our way from McKinleyville, CA, which is on the coast, to Redding, CA where we will spend tonight and tomorrow night. The highway, CA 299, was a roller coaster ride through the Salmon Mountains, over Trinity River, Big French Creek and the Shasta-Trinity National Park. We were able to stop and get out to photograph the Whiskeytown reservoir. What a glorious albeit, slow ride. There was lots of construction going on a various points along the way and the most terrifying was the cleanup of a tremendous rock slide. The road was one lane and it was obvious that it had occurred not long before we got to that point. Tons of rocks were being held back by sturdy concrete barriers. Eeek! I am going to digress a bit here. There is a $1,000 fine posed in CA for littering, but hey, in Oregon, by George, you better not litter because the fine is $6,250!!! I wonder how they came up with that exact figure??? We don't litter and haven't since being teenagers and I am not sure that John Garner has ever littered in his life. He hasn't broken any law or rule in his entire life. I think it has to do with his mother, who was a force to be reckoned with!!! We are settled in our home away from home, the HI Express in Red Bluff, CA. Tomorrow we are going to visit the Lassen Volcanic National Park which is a day trip for us and then back here for a good nights rest and prepare for our trip to Sacramento, CA to spend the weekend with the California Nixes, Joe, Linda, their three sons and their significant others, Joe and Carolina Nix, Andy Nix and Jesse Nix, with his fiance Samantha Waller, who will be Samantha Nix as of next summer! Joe and Linda are planning on having a cook-out to welcome us to their home and also to celebrate Andy's birthday. We are so looking forward to this visit and we are going to stay the whole weekend as Joe has golf planned for Sunday. Yippee!! I think I covered all of our adventure up to now. Enjoy the pictures!

What a day today! We left The Elizabeth Street Inn at around 9 a.m. PST, headed south on the PCH. We had to make a quick stop at the Hi-School Pharmacy (??) for Benadryl, as my eyes were itching and my skin is so red and flaky. Not to spoil any vacay plan, I soldiered on with John at the helm and we saw some magnificent views of the Pacific Ocean and environs. We stopped at Seal Point and Cane Creek park to take pictures. The vibe here is so laid back. I love it and I wish we could summer here, late June to the end of September. There is no humidity, cool breezes and wonderful views at every turn. We were determined to make it here, Klamath, CA, at the mouth of Redwood National Park. These travel days are long and we just hunker down and do it, as we have certain goals for each day. Of course, after touring the Redwood Nat'l Park, we are going to figure out if we have time to go to the Lassen Volcano Nat'l Park on Thursday, which will give us the day Friday to make it to Sacramento to brother Joe's home for a weekend of family fun and recharging of batteries, both literal and figuratively!! We are nestled in at the Holiday Inn Express in Kalmath, CA, which is adjoined by the Native American Casino, as we are on the reservation. John has ordered Elk burgers for supper from the restaurant in the casino so we can chill and catch NCIS and Bull on tv! This has been a very cool day that is so good for the soul. The majesty of the trees and the excellent views of the Pacific Ocean are much to be admired. On our way here, we passed a dispensary of Marijuana. This is so different from Boulder. This outlet was on the 101 PCH and was nondescript. Out in the wilds of Southern Oregon and only a couple of cars in the lot. As I was photographing the signs for said dispensary, I overheard comments from two customers: Man 1: Here's my truck, man. Man 2: Far out. That is one cool truck, man. High much???? Very freaky. The whole state of Oregon is weird. They are very liberal about individual rights, but the homes and land around the coast are very seedy and low rent. I guess if folks stay high all the time, they don't take time to clean up their mess. Very strange.

Good morning America! We slept with the balcony door open and the breeze was invigorating and there are no bugs here. Seriously, no screens necessary. We are going to chill today and enjoy the see breezes and recharge our batteries. If we do get out, I will take more pictures and post them here. Here are photos from sunset and after last night. There were several people milling around the bonfire.

We arrived in Portland and what an unusual and funky place. Lots of homeless people, though, and we saw a row of tents pitched on the highway right of way, maybe a hundred, sort of a homeless camp. There were lots of pan handlers and forlorn and lost looking young people. We saw a group of protestors in a park, who apparently were against placing a pipeline on the Indian Reservation. I took a photo. We saw the original Doc Marten studio and the original Whole Foods! Finally we found Powell's bookstore, which is the largest bookstore in the country, maybe even the world! It consists of 4 stories and has any book you could ever want to read. I snagged a book that Nancy recommended, the latest Walt Longmire saga, "An Obvious Fact" which takes our heroes to Sturgis during the Harley Davidson throw down. Traveling from Portland to Newport, OR, which is on the coast, we saw lots of farms and vineyards, lots of canopy over the road, really a scenic drive. I couldn't get the book picture to rotate, sorry.

We made it! We are now on the Oregon coast, staying at the Elizabeth Inn, which has just been newly redecorated and is the most amazing Inn with an ocean front room with a balcony. Plastic deck chair and table provided!! Also we have a gas fireplace and ceiling fan, bathrobes, complimentary salmon chowder and breakfast. Country only comes to town once in a while! I will go ahead and upload the picture of our room and the beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean!

What a day this has been. John wants to get to Portland by Sunday afternoon, so that we can hit the Oregon coast on Monday. So, we left Idaho Falls, ID this a.m. at about 10:15 a.m., drove all morning and stopped in Twin Falls for lunch at IHOP. As usual, the meal was plentiful and satisfying. We shopped at the nearby T. J. Maxx for jeans for me and at JC Penney for a flannel shirt for John. We were way unprepared for these cooler temps. We only brought one pair of jeans and I have worn them 3 days now. Thankfully, jeans don't actually get dirty, or maybe only a little! We adjusted our stuff, got water and hit the road again. We rode and rode and rode and I posted pictures on facebook all along the way. The scenery was so different than that of the Rockies and surrounding areas, but it was beautiful, just the same. We were so tired of Idaho by late afternoon, we decided that we were going to go as far into Oregon as we could to be closer to our weekend destination. We stopped just over the state line in Ontario, OR and got ice, snackage, and rearranged our stuff once again. We plugged along for 2 more hours and landed safely in Pendleton, OR at our new second home, HI Express. We plan on totally repacking in the a.m. and consolidating all dirty clothes in one bag. We have about two weeks worth of separate bags and I want to find a laundromat somewhere along the Oregon coast, as we plan to spend a little more time there. I took a couple of pix with the "good" camera and post them here. It is really a beautiful area and we have thoroughly enjoyed this leg of the journey. Tomorrow we make it to Portland!!! YAY

Once again, I have forgotten to tell you about the events of yesterday. And John pointed out that I inadvertently left off one of the best pictures from our trail ride! I must tell you that The Cody hotel in Cody, WY is one of the most beautiful that I have ever had the pleasure to stay in. The staff was friendly and cheerful and the night we checked in was very late and we were tired, hungry and sleepy. As we were checking in, another staff member approached and told us that he would take us wherever we wanted to go to eat, dance,etc. Also, he said he would go pick up food if we would call and order it. All on the house. They had a huge notebook filled with menus from local eateries. that John perused. It was 9 pm and as it turned out, there was only one place open, a bar and grill. I will digress here. As soon as we hit Colorado, we found that there is a bar, grill and casino in every town. Of course, there are a lot of miles between towns, so I guess they have to accommodate every desire. Heh heh. Anyway, we ordered hamburgers and sweet potato fries from said bar and grill and Johnny (I think that was his name) went and picked it up for us and brought it to our room!! Awesome for weary travelers. The next morning, Thursday morning, we went down for the complimentary breakfast. What a feast! A smorgasbord aplenty! From Belgian waffles, to biscuits and gravy, takeaway egg and Canadian bacon biscuits, Yogurt with mixed berry compote on the side, cereals of all kinds, breads of all kinds, scrambled cheese eggs (to die for), mixed fruit, sausage, but, alas, no grits. Haven't had grits this whole trip. John is not a breakfast person, but he could not resist the biscuits and gravy! We took some take away biscuits with us yesterday morning to enjoy after our ride. So, there, I think I have caught up with everything now and will post the good picture that John requested. Today we wind our way towards Portland, OR. Yippee.

This has been the most awesome day so far. If you had asked me yesterday if I would ever ride a mule, I would have said "not in a million years"! Well, never say never, right? John and I checked out of The Cody early so that we could make our 10 a.m. appointment with the Trail Riding folks. The weatherman had predicted rain and snow flurries in the higher elevations, so I said a prayer last night to keep us safe and fortunately, there was only a slight drizzle when we started out and eventually as we were riding the drizzle stopped until well after we were through with our adventure. This is going to sound so crazy, but I was assigned to Leroy the mule and John got a draft mix named Bubba. Our able and knowledgeable guide, Christine, rode Hollywood!! Once they got me on Leroy and after I got used to the signals and relaxed a little, off we went! We took the hour ride, which, to my surprise, meant an hour out and the hour back didn't count, so we got a great experience. John's mount, Bubba, was very skittish and would spook at the least little thing. He did, in fact, got a little squirrelly a couple of times, but thankfully, when Leroy followed suit, I remembered how to get him to whoa!! I was a totally tourist and used all the phrases seen in westerns, e.g. Giddy Up, Whoa and clicked my gums. Leroy wanted to eat all the way out and would just stop and start eating. Christine said, "they don't say 'stubborn as a mule, for nothing". After having one of the best adventures in life so far, I felt like a female version of Festus and his mule, Ruth, on Gunsmoke. The last picture is one John took in Yellowstone when got out and walked into the fir forest to get a "feel" of it and found this tree that had been scraped by an Elk. Too Cool! We have arrived in Idaho Falls, ID and I must say, it is a very seedy town. We are staying at a brand new Candlewood Suites (a IHG property, so we get points)and will chill out until checkout time tomorrow before we head west along the Snake River corridor. We will be staying at a spot recommended by Bill Horton, but only long enough to get a photo or two. We are on a mad dash for Portland, OR and should reach there late Sunday. All I want to do there is go to Powell's Bookstore and buy a book and get a picture in front of the store, to prove that I went to there! I hope you like these pretty funny and awesome pictures from our exciting adventure on Horse/Mule back!!!

Old Trail Town has had the remains of some famous and infamous old west figures moved and re-interred on the property. I got pictures of Jeremiah Johnson's grave and a famous buffalo hunter. The last picture is of a tool that I am going to ask who can identify. John was able to, but not me. This is my version of "do you remember" posts on facebook1! After finishing up the tour, we went through the gift shop (mandatory at museums) and bought a pin for my hat and talked with the clerk about how disappointed we were that we couldn't trail ride. She called all around (she knows everybody in the tourism business here) and she found one ranch on our way back to Yellowstone in the a.m. and we were able to arrange an hour ride in the morning before we leave. We were so worried about our weight, but they have draft horses for us sturdier senior citizens! We are going to have to get up at the crack of dawn to check out and get there before 10 a.m. This has been an excellent day and tomorrow promises to bring more adventure. Until tomorrow night, as we check in at the Candlewood Suites inf Idaho Falls, ID on our quest to reach Portland Oregon by Sunday night!