Working our Way to the Warm

Well, we're finally out of the cold, rainy Northwest and into a warmer climate. It's still not warm enough for me, but we're working on it.

Our first two stops, after leaving Pacific City were wineries that are members of Harvest Hosts. Harvest Hosts is a program where vineyards, wineries, and farms (usually organic farms) allow you to park on their property at no cost. It's a boon-docking stop-- no hookups, but we can put out our slides and get comfortable. And once we pay our $44 for the year, all our Harvest Host stops are "free." I put that in quotes because it's not likely we would ever stop at a winery, vineyard, or organic farm without purchasing their wares. And of course we did exactly that.

Devitt Winery

The first stop, Devitt Winery in southern Oregon near Medford, was a pretty small (and new) venture. They had a little vineyard and bought most of the grapes they used in their wine-making. Their wine was good but expensive.

The next night we were in northern California, about 30 miles east of Red Bluff at Indian Peak Vineyard. It took us a good deal longer to make the trip than we expected. We left Devitt at a little before ten in the morning, but since we didn't have a sewer hookup at our previous campsite, we needed to stop and dump our waste water. That took a good 45 minutes. The worst of it was that we ran into rain on I-5 going through the mountains. Slow up the hills, slow down the hills, plus rain, about doubled our travel time. We passed a mess of an accident where a truck jack-knifed in the north-bound lanes. It looked like a car was involved as well. The crash had traffic strung out for a good mile or more. You don't realized how many trucks there are on the road delivering our goods across the country until you see them dead stopped. It was impressive (in a bad way). Anyway, we arrived at Indian Peak at five o'clock just as it was getting dark. We tasted wine, made our purchases and visited for a little while. The proprietor picked up wine making as a retirement venture. So far, he told us, he has yet to make a profit. His wine was also quite good, but too expensive for us to be too generous with our purchases.

Indian Peak Vineyards

Thursday and Friday were spent recuperating at a Thousand Trails park north of Sacramento in a little town called Nicolaus. It was nothing special, but after being on the road three days in a row, we needed a bit of a cheap rest.

Saturday we headed south again to the San Benito Thousand Trails park out in the hill country east of Monterey. As a matter of fact, we are very near a little place called Ridgemark. (We're the white dot with the black center.) Over the past few days, Ridgemark has been experiencing a swarm of small earthquakes with strengths ranging from 1 to 2.9 on the Richter scale. Mark has felt a couple of them during the

night, but the one we both felt happened while we were in a little market in Hollister. It was a short little jolt-- strong enough to make you "sit up and take notice" but not strong enough to do any damage. A good reminder that we are indeed in earthquake country. I'm taking special pains to keep the glass items stowed when they're not in use. I really hate cleaning up broken glass.

Deer in the park

We love this park. There's a little herd of deer that roams around. We saw them when we arrived at dusk (again).  They were running across the road right in front of us as we drove in. The park employees are all very cheerful and helpful. As a matter of fact, since it was so late and getting dark when we pulled in, they escorted us to our designated area where we could find a spot. The park is so big that, left on our own, we would have been driving around for a half hour in the dark looking for a site. Birds and squirrels abound. And we're told there's also a bobcat mom and kittens that have been sighted in the area as well. But we've yet to see them.

We finally got the remainder of November campsites confirmed this week, which is a big load off our minds. We'll be here until Saturday when we head to the Fresno area to visit some family friends, Judy & Phil Bohnsack (parent's of Mark's son-in-law).

Can anybody ID this beauty?

Tomorrow it will rain. The area needs it. It's dry and dusty. Then on Thursday we're hoping to head to Monterey and visit the Aquarium there...provided it doesn't fall into the sea before then.

We should probably make an effort to stay on the east side of the San Andreas....just in case.