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1 to 15 November 2016   16 to 30 November 2016



Tuesday November 1, 2016


We had rain a big part of the night.
We are out of our site by 8 am


One more stop and we are ready.  We have to hook up the car.


A few minutes later we arrive at the American custom.
This is the first time we have to wait for half an hour.
Once at the custom officer, we understand why the long wait.  All RVs have to have a quick inspection for fruits and veggies that you are not supposed to have when you cross the border.  The custom officer open the fridge and a few cabinets, found nothing and hands back our passport and wish us a good trip.


We are still in the Okanagan valley, but on the American side now.  There are a lot less orchards and vineyards on this side.


The road is very nice and smooth.  We stop on a reserve for gasoline, we pay the white man price, but still, at $0.95 per liter after conversion, not too bad at all.
 

I mentioned it before, but we love taking the back road because you can see more stuff, like those super big dish.
 

Our GPS is telling us to go on a certain road, but I decide to follow this 5th wheel.  He is taking a different road.  We are now on hwy 17 south.
 

Notice the shape behind the number 17.  We are in Washington State and the silhouette is of Washington to himself.  In the distance we can see some nice scenery...
 

We have to stop at "Dry Falls State Park".
 


Everything is so big here.  It is hard to grasp at time...
 

Just to give you an idea how big it is, the left arrow points to a fishing boat and the right arrow to a motorhome.
 

Our chariot!


After the Dry Falls, we drive by Lenore Lake.  Hwy 17 is not very good here, but the view makes up for it.
 



We leave Washington State behind to enter Oregon State.


Shortly after, we make it to our RV park for the night.


We drove on Hwy 97 and 17 for about 440 km.


It was a very good day traveling today.



Wednesday November 2, 2016


It is a very nice RV park.


Yesterday, we were driving south, today we will be driving west.  And we are taking Interstate 84.  Some times you just have to use the Interstate...


We really enjoyed hwy 17, but I-84 is just a nice.  We will be following the Columbia River.
 

The I-84 is so nice, almost like driving on a carpet!
 

We still get to see all kinds of stuff during the drive.
Like these barges and a two story MH!
 

The circulation is light, people are not crazy like on I-95, a beautiful drive.


We saw some eagles.
 

One of the few dam on the river.  If you look closely at the right photo, you can see a snow capped mountain.  It is Mount Hood at 11,240 feet.
 

Big bridges and a fish ladder.
 

I-84 is between the rock and the river.
 

As we get closer to Portland, we move inland a little.  We are now driving in wooded area.  The West Coast is very wet and you can see the moss growing on everything, even the divider.
 

Going around Portland was a piece of cake.  We are now driving south in a valley with farms everywhere.


Our next RV park is 20 km off the I-5, but at $20 per night, why not drive a little.


We started this morning at #1 and finished at #4.  We drove 386 km today.


Another nice day traveling.



Thursday November 3, 2016


Today is a rest day.  We still took the car for a spin to the next town, Salem.  Now, that is a big Goodwill, it is a Goodwill Supercenter.


Once back at home, we spend the rest of the day watching TV, do some reading and surf the net.
This morning I found two caches.



Friday November 4, 2016


We woke up to a foggy morning.  We finally hit the road at 9.30.  We only have 265 km to travel today.


Here is our site.
 

The fog is slowly dissipating.


In some places, it is still pretty thick.


Once we are back on I-5, the fog lifts slowly.
 

We can see things now, like this big truck with only four "logs".
 

A few minutes earlier, we mentioned that we have hit only a few construction sites this year.  There it is, construction.


The fog is gone, but you can still see the humidity in the air.


Our new home, Tricity RV park in Myrtle Creek, Oregon.


Once installed, we go out and wash the car and visit the small village of Myrtle Creek.
 

We are staying here for 5 nights.


Again, we had a very good day traveling.  The traffic was smooth, the roads great, what more can you ask!



Saturday November 5, 2016


I woke up at 7 this morning, but I got this beautiful sunrise!


Our RV park is in the Tricity section of the village of Myrtle Creek.


Since I am up, why not go for a walk on main street.
The view to the north and the view to the south.
 

Since we are in a valley, a view to the west, but no view to the east!


In the afternoon, we returned to the "downtown" of Myrtle Creek and shopped the Thrift Shops.
On our way back, we took a little detour to check out a covered bridge.  The little guy is watching us.


A short covered bridge.


What is special about this house?


What a good idea!


The little walk I took this morning was 3 km long, it felt good.



Sunday November 6, 2016


A few weeks back, I bought a pair of wireless headphone.  I like to listen to audiobook as I walk.
However before my morning walk, go out and have breakfast at the local restaurant.  The "Little Suzies".  It was barely OK.  I ordered eggs over hard and got over easy, the hash brown were barely cooked and the coffee tasted like dish water.  The only good thing was 4 slices of bacon.
After this meal, I went for my walk.  I walked 6 km today while listening to my audiobook.

We decided to do the Myrtle Creek - Canyonville Scenic drive, 109 km.  Of course, we will look for caches too!
Here we are in Canyonville and it is not much bigger than Myrtle Creek.


Just as we drive out of town, we had to stop and let some turkeys cross the road.  With Thanksgiving coming up here in the USA, if I was a turkey, I would be hiding...


One of the cache takes us at this historical marker.


In one of the cache, I took a geocoin (traveler coin).  I have to log it as "in my possession" and drop it off at some other cache somewhere else.  Than another cacher will take possession, log it and take it somewhere else too.  We will probably drop it off around San Francisco.  Try to Google it (GGGHZV) and you will see where it has been.


The "Milo Academy Bridge".
 

Another cache took us to this place.  Look at the size of the picnic tables.
 


On our way to the cache...


The trees are covered with green moss.  It looks like a green fur coat...


We found the cache.
 

This scenic drive is taking us on a very narrow, single lane, forestry road.  We drove on it for an hour.


I would not recommend this scenic road unless you love trees and more trees.

We found 6 caches today.



Monday November 7, 2016


Today we are driving the Cow Creek Canyon scenic road.
We will also be looking for caches.


Some of the things we see in our travels!


The lumber industry is big in this area.
I do not know why they have to keep the logs wet, maybe to prevent splitting?


One of the cache is near the Cow River.


Some trees have a really weird bark!


We looked and looked, but did not find this cache.


Once again, the roads we are taking are very narrow.


A vulture turkey.


We found 13 caches today.



Tuesday November 8, 2016


What? No photos today!
We stayed home and slowly got ready to travel tomorrow.



Wednesday November 9, 2016


We have so fog this morning.
We wait a little for the fog to dissipate and we are on the road by 9 am.


Now that can be a confusing stop sign!
The fog is lifting slowly.
 

However, there are still some area with fog.
 

Now we know where the fog is coming from, a fog making plant...Hi hi hi.


We have to drive over many passes today.  Many of them are over 3 and 4 thousand feet in elevation.
However, being on the interstate, they tend to be less steep and less "curvy".


This pass is pretty high.


We leave Oregon behind and move in California.
 

Look at that big mountain!
 

It is Mont Shasta.


The driving is a lot nice now that we are in the valley.




We have to gas up, why not do it in the town of "Weed"


As we near a very sharp curve, this animated board tells us what will happen if you drive too fast.
 


We finally arrive at Redding RV Park.
I usually check our destination on Google Earth just to make sure how to get there.  Lucky I did, our GPS was going to send us the wrong way...


Michele going shopping by herself!!!


Our home for the night.
 

I asked Michele to bring back our supper.  She found a chicken at $4.98 and a pizza for only $2.50.  That is a very cheap meal or two.


Today's driving was a little more tiring because of all the passes we had to go over and the traffic.  The interstate had a lot of sharp curves.  We drove 360 km today.



Thursday November 10, 2016


Let's go to San Francisco.
The first part of the morning, we drove in the Central Valley where agriculture is king.
 


I wondered if the driver was going to have a turban on his head.  Nope, a baseball cap!


We are now in the Sacramento Valley and here to the agriculture is king.
 
 

The trees are all cut to the same height, we wonder why.


On the the next interstate.


Another mountain to get over.


One more change of interstate!


Even if we are not in S.F., the traffic is heavy.


Our exit...


Our home for the next week.


Once we are settled in, we go to the Vallejo information center and also to the ferry office.
The lady at the information center is very good and she tells us all about using the ferry to get to S.F.
We buy our tickets to S.F. and return for $76.00.  We wonder if it is worth it! We will see I guess.


Our first ice-cream truck of the season.


We drove another 303 km today.
We have a busy week in front of us.



Friday November 11, 2016


First of, a very big thank you to all the veterans of our country and the world  We remember.


We have a busy day ahead of us.  We woke up at 6 am and got on the ferry at 7 am.
Our ferry is the Intintoli.
 

The monitor shows us all kinds of information about the ferry.


We travel at 39 knots.


A nice home on this island.


The famous Golden Gate Bridge.


As we near S.F. we can see the Coit tower.


The port of San Francisco.


The ferry ride was an hour long.
We are now on the Embarcadero street.  This street follows the water's edge where all the docks/wharf are and all the attraction for tourists.


Our bus for the tour of downtown S.F.  It is a hop on hop off tour bus.
We bought our tickets online and paid only $17 compare to $35 at the bus terminal.


Our tour guide explained to us that if you want to know in which area you are, just look at the painting on the posts.
This one tells us we are in the Italian neighborhood.


There are over 5000 restaurants in S.F.  This one specialize in garlic food.


One of the many murals in S.F.


We are on the second level of the bus.


The tallest building in S.F.  The Lotta's Fontaine.
 

This building is classified as an SRO building.  What it means is that it is a Single Room Occupancy.  What it really means is that you pay for your room (small) and get to share the kitchen and washroom with the entire floor.  The price for a room varies between $900 and $1200.


One of many Cable Cars in S.F.


At the top of Lombard Street, you can see the part that is the most crooked street in the world.


We got off the bus and walked to the top of Lombard Street.


 

The famous Lombard Street.
 


We walked up one side of the street and down the other.
 

While we waited to get back on our bus, I notice this garage.
They are working on beautiful old cars.
 

Many of the older building have a lot of details on the facade and roof line.
 

The area where S.F. is built had no trees.  All the trees you see have been planted.
They even have a park with tall redwood trees.
 

After the last earth quake, many buildings have been reinforced with external structures like the one with all the Xs.
If you watched the movie X man, you may recognize this building.


Union Square, the big heart you see is changed every year with a new one.  The old heart is then sold at an auction and the money raised is given back to some charity.  There are one hearts in each corner of Union Square.
 

Me!


This building once belong to Mario Puzo who supposedly wrote the book, The godfather.


We are coming up the Chinatown.
S.F. Chinatown is larger then the one in New York.
 

Chinatown!
 

Denis has a China man?


More photos of Chinatown.
 
 


In one of the park we saw many older people gathering.  Most of the men smoke.
Two men play some kind of domino game while many other men are watching and commenting.


We have seen what we wanted to see, time to get back home.
Since there is no ferry at this time of day, they offer a bus to get back to Vallejo.
We are on the bus and on the bridge.


The distance between the ferry terminal and S.F. is supposed to take 30 minutes.
Like all cities built on an island or a peninsula, you have bridge, with bridge come heavy traffic.


I said 30 minutes!  We were more like 1 hour on the road.


We arrive in our city of Vallejo.


We had a very busy day and we have not seen all that S.F. has to offer.
I think it was a good choice to take the ferry.



Saturday November 12, 2016


Our street with the laundromat, washroom and office.  our MH is behind the red truck.


We are going to the Golden Gate Bridge.
We decide to take the "northern" road to get to it.
 

We are on highway 101 and on our way to the north side of the bridge.


We take the last exit before the bridge and drive to "Battery Spencer - Observation Deck".
It is one of the best place to photograph the bridge.
We can see the Alcatraz prison from here.
We can see the S.F. Bay.


Us and the Golden Gate Bridge.
 

Other and the bridge!


A closer view of the bridge and some kayakers on the bay.
 

The start of the bridge on the north side.


There is a schedule about the two sidewalks of the bridge to let you know when and where you can walk or bike the bridge.
Today the east side of the bridge is for pedestrians only.  We have to go under the bridge to get to it.
It is impressive to see the underside of this bridge.


I know it is written small, but it explains how they are making the bridge more earthquake resistant.


East side looking towards S.F.


The Coast Gard at work.


We only walked half of the bridge.  The noise from all the cars, trucks are making it a not so pleasant experience.
The cables vibrates from the traffic on the bridge.


Battery Spencer is at the top of this hill.  BTW, parking on weekends at the Battery Spencer is simply crazy.
 

San Francisco.


We saw many sailboat on San Francisco Bay.


Our little walk on the bridge.  The north tower.
 

The north tower is the city limit of S.F. and Marin County.
 

If you want more info, just click on the links above...



Sunday November 13, 2016


Michele does a lot of research on the web about what to do and see in the area we are in.
She found that on Sunday you can get in the Golden Gate Fields for $1, get a program for $1, get a hot dog for $1, a beer for $1 and the minimum bet is $2. 
You cannot go wrong with that!


Before each race, they parade the horses going to the next race.
 

Golden Gate Fields is right next to the Interstate 80.


This photo should be in a straight line, but the program I use to make a collage does "bend" the view.


Before each race, the horse and jockey is parade in front of the crowd.


Starting line.


A rather close finish.



With the race over, the winning jockey is weighted with his saddle.
One jockey was disqualified today.


This is where we place the bets.  It is more crowded further.


Around San Francisco Bay you always have a bridge to cross, $6 return.


We had a very busy week.



Monday November 14, 2016


We decided to take the car to go to S.F. today.
We hit the road at 7:15 am.
Fog and traffic...
 

According to our GPS, it should take us about 35 minutes to get downtown S.F.  It took 1 hour 45 minutes...
We got there just in time to board the ferry for Alcatraz.
A ferry leaves every 30 minutes for Alcatraz.  With today's technology, we can see how the ferry is using power.
 

With the fog on the bay, we cannot see much.
Alcatraz started as a military fort (1850 - 1909).  Between 1909 - 1933 it was a military prison.  In 1934, the military prison was transferred to the Federal Prison until 1963 when it was closed.  If you want more information about Alcatraz, click here.
The first building we see coming to the island is the old officers accommodation/apartment for the prison employee.


Lot's of details.



Building 64 is very big.  Notice the words spay painted above the sign.  Once the prison was abandoned in 1964, the natives occupied the island for almost 2 years.
 


We are not into "gardening", but we learned that most of the trees/plants on the island are from around the world.  The military family brought them here when they returned from overseas posting.


This is the oldest building on the island, 1857.
 

The shop.


The Officer's club/the exchange and the social center for the employee during the penitentiary years.
 


One more shop/storage building.


We are going in the actual prison.
The prison had 336 cells, but it never operated at full capacity.
 

There are many demonstrations/lectures around the prison and grounds.  This one is about the doors.  The sound they make when you open and close them.
 

The entry fee includes an audio guided tour on the prison.  All you have to do is follow the direction you hear and listen to the explanations/stories.
Not a very big cells isn't!
   

This cell displays the setup Frank Morris, the Clarence brothers and John Anglin had setup for their escape.
To read more about the escape, click here.


Like all prisons, this also had an "isolation" wing.  If a prisoner was unruly, he ended up in this type of cell for a certain amount of time.
They had one hour a week for exercise and one shower a week.
 

The guards that were patrolling the halls were not armed with a fire arm, only a few items like a bludgeon/club.
If a guard needed to open a door, the keys were dropped down from the "Gun Gallery" by a rope and taken back up after being used.
The guard on the gun gallery had a gun.
 

The showers, not very private!


A little hard to read, but those were typical meals for prisoners.


The control room.


This is the employee's entrance.


The island has a lighthouse and it is the first lighthouse constructed on the West Coast of the continental US.  It was built in 1854 and has been working since them.  With the fog and the sun, the shadow is pretty neat.
 

Somewhere out there is the Golden Gate Bridge!


For a few minutes we saw the two pillars of the bridge and the city.
 

The plant looks pretty neat!


We hopped on the ferry at 9:30 am this morning and we hooped back on the ferry at 1:30 pm to go back home.


At the dock, they have a large mock up of the island, here are some photos of it.
 



To get back home, we decided to take the Golden Gate Bridge.  With the fog, it was not quite the sight we were hoping for.
 

Once over the bridge, Michele turned around to look at the bridge and saw this.  The pillars  and S.F. coming out of the fog.


Our way back, we even had a nice sunset.


WOW!  It was a big day for us.  We really enjoyed the visit at Alcatraz even if the fog was not lifting.



Tuesday November 15, 2016


Today will not be as busy as yesterday.

We are in the city of Fairfields to tour the jelly bean factory Jelly Belly.
 

But first, let's have lunch at the Chinese buffet!


The food was only OK...

We are back for the Jelly Belly factory tour.


The reception area.


Being a candy factory, it is geared more toward the kids and the BIG kids at heart.
 
 

We are in luck, as we arrived a tour was starting.
It is a self-guided tour with many stations where you watch tv and learn about a jelly bean is fabricated.
The former president of the USA, Ronald Reagan, really loved these jelly beans.  He even sent a letter from the White House to the owner of the factory.
 

I never realize how long it takes to make jelly beans.  It takes between 7 to 21 days to make a single jelly bean.
To know more about the jelly beans from Jelly Belly, click here for the official web page and here for the Wikipedia page.

Do you want jelly beans?


All those "painting" are made with jelly beans.


We stopped her for a few minutes just to watch a robot working.
Impressive!


This is one of the room where they let the jelly beans cool off and dry from a few hours to a few days.


Look at those big mixers. This is where they mix the recipe to make jelly beans.  In the photo on the right, they have the warm air going into the mixer to help give it its hard outer shell and brilliance.
 
 

Another robot arm, but this time a Jelly Belly is ridding it...


More jelly beans waiting for the next step.


The factory was built in 1988, over the years many upgrades were made.
 

We took our time to listen to all the videos and watch the process of making a jelly bean.  Now we can have our treat before we leave the tour!
 

Got one!


They are all made with Jelly Belly jelly beans.


WOW!


We really enjoyed our tour at Jelly Belly!

Until next time.

Life is good...



    
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