Heading south slowly

This summer has held a visual and emotional feast for us, a bittersweet feast as we are heading south and don't know when we will see any of our lovely friends and relatives again.  While sailing the world has been a dream, making it a reality forced us to understand that dreams have costs, and that is leaving our friends behind.  Some will join us, and others have problems with seasickness and will visit us when we are land based, we hope.  That's why there are drugs for mal de mer....so listen up, folks...life is beautiful down south, but also as these photos show for the past travels, also beautiful with you......Carmel Mission below.

Linda's house in Prunetucky over Labor Day had us wandering Carmel beach and valley, looking for adventure.  We found it at a new middle Eastern restaurant back in the valley, that had openned the day before.  Yum.

The long drive up the crazy road to Edison/Vermilion Valley had us wondering what we would find after two month:  snow or no snow.  Snow, we found, but only with the afternoon thunderstorms, and only discovered high on the mountains.  Our campsite was empty, in fact the whole area was pretty empty and peaceful, although Jim said the Royal navy had sent a crew over for "team building."  We knew the area was rugged, and we puff in the altitude, so those young guys must be planning on  a mountain invasion.  Jim, the owner of the lodge said they were all "very polite"......as opposed to?

Below our favorite campsite - lighting crackling down on the trees in the afternoon did this above, and below the black  storm cloud made for fantastic light into the lake.  Thunder rolled for hours, and we huddled in the tent, asking ourselves where the safest spot would be.  All I could think of was what would we do in the Caribbean, with our tall mast.  Ai yi yi.

Getting ready to leave - we love this site, and were, with this site, committing several Forest Service sins:  visible from other sites, having a red chair, not disappearing into trees, and perhaps cutting the view off for other campers.  As there was only us there, with the exception of another hidden camper, ask us if we cared.

Changed plans.....

Cousin Margie  suggested an alternate route from Klamath Falls, due to delays from construction.  We headed off onto a "shortcut" over the Highway 5 in Sounthern Oregon and had an adventure.  We had been on the phone with Evan and Janice in Washington DC to get highway info, but despite no reports of delays, we took off on the shortcut, and an adventure.  Winding roads into pine forests at 2 - 3000', with mysterious roads disappearing into the trees.  No real civilization until we found a campground - with all sites full.  Driving around found us at the "horse" camp, and an empty spot on the lake - no motels for miles around, so we had another wonderful place to be, without the horses and campers.  A mist on the lake met our morning, and we wound out of there to civilization, not really too happy about leaving such a beautiful place.

Higway Five  south from Oregon is another adventure,winding through mountains at 4,500' - through great green valleys, and then all of a sudden this huge mountain, Shasta, appears as if right in the middle of the road.  We were on our way to spend a couple days back in Lodi, and except for the last hour of driving, our views were those that people pay big bucks for.  Lodi is always magic as Robert and Dave know a not too secret place for the best ice cream, and they really get Bridget upset as we all really know better about eating all that sugar and fat.  Shasta must reminded us for miles about ice cream.  That must be it.

Mokulumne River - below - we floated, paddled and tried to calm Koa, who really, really didn't like being in his little boat, but wanted to be with us, no matter what.  The current was still running quite fast, in late August, due to snowmelt runoff, and while it was hot on top, nobody was tempted to dive in.  Except some poor guy along the shore, who said he was trying to get his courage up to swim - while shivering in the shallows, probably wondering why he even thought of it.  Five hours later, we were glad we hadn't gone further upstream as despite the current, we had to paddle. We celebrated by going out for excellent, gourmet Mexican dinner, and oh, my, the best ice cream.  We are adults, we can do that.

Really, folks, if I get on the kayak, I won't tip it over, really, truly.

On our way to the mountains for more R &ampd R, we spoke to Jeff who asked if we could stop by to help take down the gutters off his roof.  Robert spent 2 1/2 days with Jeff tearing off his roof while I worked inside the air conditioning.  The temperature was in the 90s plus - so I  cooked fun stuff to keep the guys happy and quilted, thinking that boot camp was at work on the roof, while I was perhaps eating bonbons.  Not really.