Pics of Zion

Here are some pictures of Zion. We hiked to an overlook and up a river canyon.

Yet another Critter Page

Greetings from Zion National Park

We are camped out in the entrance of the park. We are watching 'The Biggest Loser' on NBC and I am typing away on the laptop. Meanwhile the neighbors have a campfire going and their smoke is wafting in through my window. Campfires and tents, how quaint. I might have to go have a word with them, this is really upsetting. Oh now they're getting the marshmallows out, I'm going to puke.

Backtracking a little, we spent about 5 days with my Dad and Stepmother in Palm Springs, CA.

Palm Springs is a city in the desert built on top of an underground aquifer. There are lush green yards, palms and golf courses everywhere. If you are an old Jewish gay golfer you are at home in Palm Springs. Actually, any one of the above descriptions are in the demographic here. My stepmother is Jewish and my dad is er uh ...well, he doesn't play golf and he ain't gay. The folks home here is beautiful. Lush green yard with tall hedges, pool. hot tub. and the obligitory orange tree in the front yard. The smoke from the San Diego fires blew offshore for a couple of days and then came onshore to haze up the Palm Springs area. We hiked in painted canyon and Joshua Tree National Monument and had a couple of nice dinners and chats with my folks. The smoke came, so we left and headed to Las Vegas. We spent two nights in the Oasis R.V. park, which has 1000 sites or so. It has two pools, hot tub, workout room, theater room, and all the amenities. After a nice meal and a small amount of gambling (I won a whopping $80.00) we took off to Zion.

We had a great hike today up an eight mile trail. We got to go through some narrow canyons and alongside a creek. I took too many pictures. It is beautiful here with the fall colors and the low, autumn sun dancing off the canyon walls. The pizza we had a while ago was beautiful too. Pesto, canadian bacon, mushrooms and feta cheese ... numskie. Kim is playing solataire and watching the Biggest Loser, now that's good ol' American multitasking. She is more tired than I am, that is new. It is tough being chipper, saying "morneen" to everyone on the trail and "good afternoon" or "hello, how are you" to everyone on the way down. Tomorrow we hike up the canyon by wading through the river, I can't wait.

Talk to you soon, James

Happy Birthday Tuna Fish!

Happy Birthday Mr. Feeshman!

Yes, indeed it is Tuna's 43rd birthday. Old bastage! The only bad thing is that I trail you by 1 1/2 years, so I am sure to reach your milestones about as quick as you do, HOWEVER, that being said you are still an old bastage! Grey haired, bad backed and kneed, goiter, gout, arthritis and hemmorhoid havin', memory losin' old fart with sudden moles. The sad thing is that you still can outwork most 20 year old dudes and in this day and age of obesity you are in better shape than most 20 year old dudes as well.

It is a miracle that you are still alive through the falling off stair wells, dams, bicycles, skateboards and riding around in fast cars with no brakes and the general bad luck, but here you are! It has been a journey. I doubt you would give it back, maybe tweak it a little here and there, but not cash it in. It has been good to see you enjoying life, raising your daughter and most of all taking care of my b.s. while I goof off.

The main reason it is good to have you around is FISHING! You are my best friend and fishing buddy. Since you have been ruthless about my small fish I had to include this picture of you being very serious about the minnow on the end of your line here. Silly rabbit 4 oz. walleye are for kids. Anyhoo! Happy Birthday Tom. I miss you and love you and hope to see you in a few weeks catching fish in Texas.

By the vy Tom. We are staying in the Oasis R.V. park in Las Vegas. It is huge. We cruised around the downtown area this afternoon and I won a little here and a little there, enough to afford the seafood buffet at the Rio. It was "a very nice". We swam in the pool and got in the "Hattub" as Will Farrell would say. Yes, there were rude oriental girls snatching up the crab claws at the buffet, but there were plenty left for the old lady and me. Hate to rub that in on your birthday, but we were celebrating in your absence.

Monterey Bay/ Santa Cruz

While James did a great job detailing our awesome trip to Yosemite, we did skip over Santa Cruz & Monterey. I do have to say I was so glad he like Yosemite (of course who wouldn't) because I had talked it up so much. He was so great about letting me play tour guide and indulged was a regaled him with stories of past family reunions and he also tackled the cables of Half Dome like a pro while I was having an anxiety attack realizing we were 4,000 ft. about the valley floor on a rock ledge.

However, before we went to Yosemite we had a great week in the Monterey Bay area. So please indulge me as I backtrack................... I hadn't been to Santa Cruz since I briefly resided there about 15 years ago when I was 19 (am I really this old?) so it was fun to go back and wander around. I forgot what a neat town it was and how much fun it was to live in an ocean front town. I managed to find my old house and also took James down to the boardwalk. Unfortunately the roller coaster wasn't running so it was pretty dead and seemed nothing like the scenes from Lostboys.

My cousin Tracy lives in Santa Cruz with her husband Forrest and their adorable little girl. It was fun to hang out with them and my Aunt Cyndie and Uncle Mike were even visiting from Bella Vista so we got to see them as a bonus. Tracy & Forrest have a nice house right by hiking in the canyons and with plenty of room for a greenhouse for their orchids and of course most important a place to park the RV. We have quickly gotten over any manners we once had and will happily leech anywhere we can.

We went to the Monterey Bay aquarium one day which is by far the best aquarium in the country, well at least of all the ones I have gone to. We also took Uncle Tom's advice and rode our bikes from Monterey to Carmel along the 17 Mile drive, some of you golfers may know about this route for those of you who are unfamiliar it is the home of the Pebble Beach golf course along with many multi-million dollar homes. James and I found a fixer-upper in Carmel, 800 sq. ft. only 1.6 million. We thought about it, but you know who would really want to live that close to the ocean? ME!!! Oh well maybe we could get about 50 people to all go in on a vacation home, any takers? The ride was beautiful and fairly flat so the 34 miles didn't seem so painful.

We have had a good week in Palm Springs and will tell you more about that later. We are leaving tomorrow while we can still see and the lung damage is minimal.

We hope all is well with everyone back home and are looking forward to coming home for Christmas.

I almost forgot to wish Max & Tuna Happy Birthdays!!!

Love, James & Kim

"Gosh it's hot" I feel like the abomnibubble snowman on Bugs Bunny. We are in Palm Springs at my father's house and it is about 90 degrees. After avoiding summer for four months we aren't used to the heat. The R.V. likes it. It was made in southern California, so I believe it was designed to work best in sunny heat, solar panels charging, exhaust fans a cruisin', and tinted windows blocking the sun. We aren't immersed in smoke from the fires, right now the San Diego fire smoke is blowing offshore, so we are clear and sunny with fresh air here.

We finished a week in Yosemite on Sunday. Kim has been aching to get me in Yosemite for years now. This whole trip she has been focusing on getting to Yosemite. Of course I wanted to see Yosemite, it is one of our foremost National Parks. When your wife has a cute, sort of mousey voice you tend to get tired of the word Yu-sem-it-teee, so I wanted to put this portion of the trip to bed for that reason if no other. We camped in yet another dark, wooded campground in the valley, but what an incredible valley it is. There are sheer granite cliffs rising up on three sides with meadows and the Merced River in the middle. There were herds of deer and even a bear or two to be seen mingling with the tourists. The tourists were a mixture of Germans, Swiss, French, Canadian, Japanese and some Americans. The weather was very nice, the fall colors in full glory and the pace was busy, but not overwhelming. The first evening we took a walk to the Mirror Lake or should we say sand pit since after the long dry summer there was no water left. There we saw a cute little black bear scrounging for food and climbing a tree.

We took several small hikes preparing for the biggy to Half Dome. Kim has been talking about Half Dome since I met her 12 years ago. Half Dome is a 17 mile round trip hike with about 1000 stairs chisled into the granite along Vernal Falls, Nevada Falls and Halfdome itself. Let me assure you I was not rubbing my hands together in anticipation of this hike and to complicate matters Kim had us both on the South Beach Diet for the last few days. I had half of an omlette, two cheese sticks, two celery sticks, two lettuce wraps and chicken and broccoli for food on the two days preceding this hike. Kim had the same menu. When we were half way up the mountain Kim allowed me to have a clif bar and some crackers. Kim had a clif bar and crackers.

Have you noticed a problem? You can't fuel a Prius and a Suburban with the same quantity of fuel and expect the Suburban to make it the same distance, it just doesn't work. Needless to say, I ran out of fuel at mile six. I was shaky, faint and queezy and felt like I couldn't go on, but I could see the disappointment in Kim's face, so I took a lot of small breaks and finally got to feeling better when the Clif bar kicked in. The Park Service had dismantled the cable stairs to the top of Halfdome and all that was left were the cables. I climbed half the way, but my legs were too tired to make it on the steep part of the cables, so I couldn't quite summit, dammit. The French and German freaks marched right on up, I'm sure that they were laughing at the fat American. Our society is gross, we are out of shape, careless and complacent as a whole. I hate to say it, but that is what our travels have told us so far. Too many fast foods, processed foods, sugars and junk being advertised and crammed down our throats, but damn they taste goood! I want a Carls Jr. patty melt and french fries so bad right now, but Kim would order the Caeser salad and a diet coke and I would look like the greasy chinned fat bastard, so I can't do it.

We took a hike to Glacier Point two days after Halfdome. It was a sixty swithcback, 4.8 mile, "why did I marry this little ....." to the top. At the top there was a parking lot, gift store, tour buses and a thousand tourists, but a beautiful view of the entire valley and mountains. It didn't seem fair that we busted our butts just to share the view with all the lazy folks that drove, but it is nice that all the HUGE people get a view as well. We stopped at the Mariposa Grove of giant Sequoia Trees on the way out of the Park and headed to L.A. to get the warranty items fixed on the R.V.

We spent the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Covina. There was a security guard riding around and we checked in with her. She told us to approve it with the manager of the store. He said no problem. I still didn't feel real secure, it's the L.A. area after all, so I didn't sleep. Free accomodations, but no sleep. The next day we took the baby back to the factory it was made at. The people at Lazy Daze aren't really friendly, but they do take care of you. They fixed the four minor problems with the "coach" while we went to breakfast with uncle Carroll. When we left the restaurant Carroll realized that his car had been entered by a stranger and his registration had been stolen. Two words folks "Los Angeles". High cost of living, high taxes, high temperatures and high pollution, not to mention the fires. Yeah, but Disneyland and the ocean and WHATEVER!

We went hiking in the desert yesterday up narrow canyons in the Painted Canyon area. I led us down two long, dead end canyons that tacked on an extra five miles to our hike and forced us to walk by moonlight down a two mile canyon to the car. Chipper? Not exactly. Kim doesn't like uncertainty, but come on people, we are on an "adventure" here. She is hanging out by the pool with my Dad right now, we spent the day doing errands and burning up Joni's laundromat with our two tons of laundry. It's a nice campground here at Dad and Joan's. We have a pool, hot showers, laundry facilities, cool nights and warm days, great food and a hot tub. We should stay through the winter, but we are headed to Utah instead.

San Francisco Pictures

Chinatown, Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Crowd at festival, anything for a good seat

Northern California

We'll I guess it is my turn again! Just to reply to a few comments.......Shelley, I will take you up on any offers of free food. We have had a harder time sticking to our budget than anticipated. We haven't resorted to fried bologna yet, but James better be on his best fishing game this winter. And Tuna I appreciate you supporting your brother and you may think that since he said all those nice things about me I should cut him some slack. He promised a month long moratorium on pushing my buttons, but it lasted about 2 hours. It's a good thing he's so cute.

Once again we had a great time in Oregon. The good weather followed us to Northern California where we enjoyed the Redwoods and some more beach time. It is amazing to think that anyone could have looked at a 300 ft tall, 20 ft in diameter tree and just think about coffee tables and toilet paper instead of being awestruck with the magnificent beauty. It is such a shame that there are only a few old growth forests left in the world, let alone the US and some of them still aren't protected. Okay, I am off my soap box and back to the blog........ We decided to take scenic highway 1 down to San Francisco and didn't realize this decision would cause James' stress level to mimic those of his mid-July Viking Refrigeration levels. You're right Mary, vacation is not supposed to be so stressful. For anyone who hasn't driven Highway 1, yes it is gorgeous, but there really were times where we could not only see the entire car on the other side of a curve, but also part of the RV. James did great driving the rig as usual while I got to enjoy the view. Okay, so maybe he should be allowed to mess with me a little, it's only fair I should have a little stress in my day as well. We stopped by one of the three redwoods left on the coast that you can drive through. Of course we didn't fit so we just had to take their word for it, I think maybe a miata might have made it, but probably not any American made car. We also found a cheap campground right on the ocean. I was in heaven. As we were continuing down this curvy highway the next day we saw a tree that had fallen across part of the road that looked to be on fire. We made it past just before they blocked the road off for several hours. We felt fortunate to have made it past and be able to make it to San Francisco in time to sit in rush hour traffic. Actually it wasn't that bad, of course I'm saying that because I didn't have to drive the rv/car combo in 8 lanes of traffic.

James did a great job of booking us at an RV park just south of San Francisco. We were only about 10 minutes away from Golden Gate park and were able to make it in & out of the city fairly easily. Our weeks of blissful compainableness were shattered when we spent almost an hour trying to find a parking place, thankfully the 2 mile walk to the festival cooled us both off enough to start speaking to each other again. We were here for a music festival called 'Hardly Strictly Bluegrass', sounds like fun to some of you and tortue to others I know. The amazing thing about this festival is that it is all free. One man puts it on as his gift to the city, and this is a big gift; 5 stages; 60 different groups and plenty of port-a-potties. The weather was beautiful so my banjo tolerance was high. There were well over a hundred thousand people and over half of them looked as if they had just come from a Grateful Dead concert. The people watching was just as entertaining as the music. I really did enjoy some of the music, Guy Clark, Gillian Welch, John Prine and Emmylou Harris just to name a few. We met up with my Uncle Carrol, his friend Don and my cousin Rick at the festival. They all know the city pretty well so after the concerts they led us to some good sushi and pizza.

Yesterday we decided to save our marriage and took BART (Bay area rapid transit) into the city. We got off at Union Square and walked through Chinatown to Pier 39 & Fisherman's Wharf. Again we were blessed with great weather and almost made it to Golden Gate bridge before the fog set in right at sunset. San Francisco is such a neat city with so many interesting neighborhoods. It is also the home of Ghiradelli chocolate and sourdough bread. How could you not love this place? We had hoped to go to Alcatraz but didn't realize California schools are closed on Columbus day so there was no room left on any of the tours. I guess when you have no chance of a snow day you take any holiday you can. Today was declared chore day by James so we washed the car & RV which of course means it is now raining. Tomorrow we are headed down the coast to Santa Cruz to visit my cousin Tracy and see if the commune I briefly lived in is still standing.

Hopefully everyone in Fayetteville still has their eardrums intact after this weekend! Thanks for all the comments and staying in touch. It is good to hear from people at home. To all my friends at school I bet you guys never thought you would see the day when you actually wished for craft fairs. Don't worry, Thanksgiving isn't too far away!

Love, Kim

View out of Bandon Pier to River Bar
Big Lebowski Rock
Kim Showing The perspective of the big Redwood on the ground
Arch Rock on Oregon South Coast

Good day from the Oregon Coast. We are enjoying a typical evening in the R.V. Kim is reading a book while James goes stir crazy. Fat man in a little house, fat man in a little house. Tommy Boy fans will get the line. I spent an hour in vain trying to dial in some t.v. via satellite or antenna, but NO. I then picked up the guitar for a while and now I am typing on the blog. Kim is very content in the back of the r.v. under the 12 volt reading lamp. Kim is just content in general. It can be a challenge living with the eternally chipper. James says "this rain is a bummer." Kim says "but look at all the sunny days we have had." James says "$3.89 for gas, they're smokin' crack." Kim says "think of all the times we paid less than $3.00!" James says "This guy is a (bicycle horn)!" Kim says "he might just be having a really bad day." She is always sunny! It is tough to hang with, so I decided to stir the hornet's nest, as it were. Yesterday morning I engaged a rather hard corner coming out of the campground and the fridge door flew open, spilling it's contents onto the floor of the r.v. Kim jumped out of the passenger seat immediately to deal with the mess. I don't know if I was trying to drive home the importance of latching the door correctly (3rd time Kim has failed to do so) or I was just venting a little cabin fever steam, but I decided to take the next two corners really hard, rolling fridge contents and Kim around the floor. Let me assure you there was a consequence for this moment of indiscretion. When I finally stopped the rig, I walked around and opened the side entry and quickly closed it. I caught a glimpse of what I was pretty sure was the devil sans pitchfork and decided to keep it stowed inside the r.v. for a few more moments. Jekyll had turned to Hyde and I was not going to turn 'er back too easily. My pleas for a kiss went unanswered, my promises of chocolate went unheard, only time took care of this one, and of course an admission of utmost guilt.
We have made our way to Astoria, Oregon. Yes, Lewis and Clark made their way here to end their long journey in quest for a east- west trade route via the river system. This is where the mighty Columbia River hits the wild Pacific Ocean and creates one of the most hazardous river bars in the world. The wake where the two bodies of water hit is often 10 - 14 feet high and the river is miles wide here. Astoria was a huge salmon canning town until good ol' mankind raped the waters free of good salmon runs. HOWEVER, the most important fact about Astoria in Kim's mind is that the Goonies was filmed here, she insists that the house you see pictured along with this blog is the Goonies house. The first person to accurately confirm or deny this claim will get a prize. (t-shirt, jelly, nature sound c.d. or shot glass or something touristy like that) We went up to the Astoria Column and you should be able to tell which was the column in these pictures. Kim and her columns. Well , it was cool and there was something along the lines of 2387 stairs to the top. I felt like Fatty Mcghee when I made it to the top, "Yes, the view is beautiful, just don't ask me any more questions until I can get my lungs stuffed back inside my chest cavity."
The maritime museum in Astoria is awe-some. For all you Arkansas rednecks, maritime has to do with boats and oceans. It was very well done, so much info on fishing boats, dugouts, coast guard boats, sloops, schooners, and battleships that it almost made my head explode. We were in there three hours, I need to upgrade my hard drive to 80 gig 'cause I absorbed so much information that my brain locked up and now I can't remember any of it. I do remember that an astrolabe is a very ineffectual instrument for navigation and that being a coxswain on a Coastguard boat means you have big brass ones and I'm not talking astrolabes. The coxswain is a coastguard sailor or captain or such. The risks those boys put themselves under to save a couple of white trash fisherman on a Saturday salmon and beer junket is commendable. If you like oceans and boats, go to this museum!
Off to Newport. Take two rings, one smaller than the other with a net tying them together. Strap a piece of dead flesh to the bottom and throw it in the bay. Wait for 20 minutes and pull it up. Sift through the contents, usually too small or wrong sex and you have the all-consuming sport of crabbing for Dungeness Crab. I went out for 14 hours and caught four keepers (male over 5 3/4 " across carapace) I still had a blast. The people you meet and talk to are very nice and sometimes interesting. I left the pier at 11:00 p.m. with my four keepers to the jeers of the locals "if you're going to leave 'cause of a little rain, you'll never be able to fish in Oregon!" I reckon this is the only time I could come home at midnight with the crabs and it would be o.k. with Kim. I cooked them right then and we ate right then, they were delicious.
Crater Lake, or shall we say pea soup lake. We went towards the interior of Oregon to see the acclaimed beauty of Crater Lake. We stayed at a very nice campground on Diamond Lake, caught the sunset and it was perfect. It rained all night and we woke to a 48 degree R.V. We stayed in bed until at least 9:00 a.m. and then big snow flakes started to fall. I don't know what kind of primordial trigger this tripped in Kim, but she saw the flakes and kind of freaked. "We need to leave, we need to leave now!" "What, it's 50 degrees out, it's not going to stick!" With that bit of logic, she calmed down. We gathered up at our usual pace. Kim went to take a shower and I proceeded to empty the fridge. Three egg omelet with leftover Canadian Black Forest Ham and Tilamook Sharp Cheddar, and sliced.... oh come on I ran out of Bistro menu adjectives for my mushrooms. Anyway, it was a true gem of an omelet, perfectly cooked. I reached for a plate and in my haste knocked the jar of spaghetti sauce out of the micro pantry/ dish cabinet onto the floor. No forgivey. Cabooshgi! Sketty sauce on every square inch of the kitchen and my clothes. Fat Bastard haste gets me again. I had it almost all cleaned up before Kim got back from her shower. We found sauce bits for a couple of days after, but no lasting damage. We drove to Crater Lake, the higher we got the harder it snowed. When we got to the entrance gate and showed our get out of jail free card (80.00 annual park pass that has paid for itself twice now) the park ranger said "your best chance to see the lake is on the East Rim." Not a good sign. The lake was completely fogged in with snow and mist clouds. The visitor center ranger said it was going to snow for two days. We boogied back down the mountain to Ashland. It was a Bohemian little town where they have the Shakespeare festival and an very pleasant park with lots of cool foliage. I can see why my Uncle Tom the green thumb recommended it. We spent the night in a noisy rest area and headed back over the mountain to Gold Beach. I had decided earlier to take this route because it appeared to run along the Rogue River. My father said this was a pretty drive as he remembered. This drive was 65 miles of steep, very windy, one lane at times, rock slides in the road at times, nowhere to turn around remote road. It took three hours to drive 65 miles. We got to Bandon, Oregon where we found a nice campground in the sunshine. The surf is big from the storm that came ashore yesterday. We walked to downtown Bandon, which is picture book quaint. There are seafood shacks next to a perfectly maintained wharf area. We walked down the pier and met several nice old couples. One couple was from Grants Pass, Oregon which we had passed the day before. We told them the route we took to get over to Gold Beach. The lady said "Oh my god, are you crazy? In an R.V? Do you not know how dangerous that road is? There have been two families stranded on that road. One family got there R.V. stuck and they were up there for two weeks and only last year a Man died trying to walk out of there!" It was then that we realized she was talking about Mr. Kim, the man all over CNN last spring break who got off on a wrong road and got stranded with his wife and child. After burning the tires from his car and exhausting all resources he died trying to go for help. I remember asking myself last year "how in the hell could you get off the beaten path like that and then die trying to get help?" If we had had a quick coastal range snow storm and slightly colder temperatures. Let me tell you, there are no road numbers posted on this road, but the maps show it as a viable route from Interstate 5 to the coast. Sobering, no wonder the three people we passed looked at us as if we were just crazy. Kim's whole paranoia about snow kind of made a little sense. Women pick up on crap like that, so they can protect any babies they might have. It is info stored in the uterus, but good info nonetheless.
We had dinner tonight at a pizza place in Bandon. We have had seafood a lot lately and decided to give it a break until lunch tomorrow. After dinner we walked back to the pier to check the crab net I had left in the water. As we approached the pier I saw a freshly trailered fishing boat. In the dark I could make out the sign on the side of the boat. 'Memory Makers' Fishing Guides. Without surveying further I went into a spiel. "Memory Makers, yeah right! What, the memory of freezing your ass off out on the high seas, puking over the edge, and not catchin' jack squat!" Not realizing that the guide and his wife were only 10 feet from me cleaning their fish in the fish cleaning station. "Oh, hey. How's it going? See ya got some there" I said feeling like a jackass. "These are what they call King Salmon" said the short, grey-bearded man. He had a very gentle voice and I could tell he would accept my barrage of fishing questions, the usual where at?, what bait?, how deep?, how big? etc. He answered all of my questions without hesitation. I informed him I was from Arkansas and would never be a threat to his fishery. I asked him about the "Memory Makers" name to smooth over my previous embarrassment. "Oh, we take terminally ill children and their loved ones on fishing trips to try and give them lasting memories", he said. A wave of heat passed over my face and all I could think was "Please Lord, let me have bamboo shoots shoved up my fingernails by a hundred Chinamen for eternity, just don't let him have heard what I was spouting earlier about his slogan." My mom says I was born with my foot in my mouth, I guess at 41 years old I am still choking on my toes.
Well, I have rambled on. Kim is asleep. You would think by looking at her right now that she is awake and enjoying her book. She is on her side still holding the book in an upright position, but I know she is sound asleep. There is a 90% chance if I ask her "good reading" or "awesome book, huh?" she will come to, turn a page, mumble an answer and act as if she was never asleep. It is the cutest thing, but kind of selfish of me, so I think I will just carefully slip the book from her hands and turn off her reading light. My mom is right, I am lucky to have found such a sweet person.

Bandon is a cute place. The people here all seem to be retired and friendly. There is a whole community of crabbers, they come down to the pier around 9:00 a.m., come and go around meals and such and leave around 5:00 p.m. Everybody looks out for each other's stuff and they all act as if they have know each other since kindergarten. They are nice to me, but I'm not old enough to be included in the old fart's circle of trust. After 12 hours of crabbing I caught at least a three hundred crabs and only one was a keeper. I am officially done with crabbing for this year!

We headed down to the Redwoods today(October 3) There was beautiful coastline to be seen in Southern Oregon. I am quite sure that I found the spot where the Big Lebowski ends. For those of you that have seen the movie it is the spot on the coast where Walter (John Goodman) throws the ashes of their deceased buddy and they blow right back into The Dude's (Jeff Bridges) face. Here The Dude says "Everything's such a (model tee horn)..ing travesty with you Walter. Its that spot. I have included pic on the next page. Can I get a confirmation? We don't have the dvd.

The Redwoods are huge, but the Park isn't so awe inspiring. Don't plan a week long trip, but definitely see these trees on your way to Oregon or something. We are camped now in an expensive, no amenity campground in Northern California. One of us will update in San Francisco.

Hop on your Harleys and contribute to the noise pollution on Dickson St. this weekend.

Love, James