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