Once in awhile-now and again-this is us

we had breakfast at our favorite place in reno. the homage. it’s a house they made into a coffee shop. it’s the neatest place, and has the best coffee and pastries around. starbucks, eat you heart out.

then we went for a walk here, which we did last time too. it’s so pleasant waking amongst the different gardens.

an interesting wasp nest. do you see a smiling face?

it’s only 117 days until Christmas now

after the walk  we went to two of the biggest thrift stores here. ted knows we like them, so he tolerated looking around for awhile. i can always find somethig, which i did. he didn’t.

we enjoyed another visit to the buffet on ted’s comps. thank you again ted. it was seafood night and we found plenty of it. but the cheese enchiladas ended up being my favorite thing of the night.

ted dropped us off at the campground and we settled in to play dominos. jerry said, “the sky is turning pink”.  i looked out to this beautiful sunset.

hey neighbors……..

look at the size of this porch. wouldn’t that be great? we could have parties out there. we’ll be home soon to our porch and it will be great to see all of you. we’ve missed home and loved traveling. i’m glad we have both.

there’s still a little more

stay tuned

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we got to reno Thursday, and pulled into my big brother’s, ted,  driveway about 3:3o. we were all happy to see each other. ted has lived in reno over 40 years. about the same as we have spent in our house.

we talked a while and then went to the atlantis buffet. ted gets comps for free dinners, so we used those. locals get a lot of discount offers. thanks for sharing them ted. there was anything you could want to eat put out for your taking.  I was in the mood for chow mein. but a lot of other things ended up on my plate. everything was delicious and we all probably ate too much. it’s so much fun to try new things.  and it was a lot of fun to be with ted again.

we’ve stayed here several times in the good old days of doing the trade shows for pbi.

darn, we didn’t make it to the head of the line. are you hungry? it’s 4:30 i’m starving.

great table, right near the desserts.

where should we start? this way?

or that?

i’ll start here.

we went back to his place. jerry and ted had a small snifter of cognac, one of their rituals. we made plans for the next day. a walk in the park, a couple of thrift stores, a n d, another buffet.

we slept in his driveway that night, and will stay at a campground the next four nights.

stay tuned

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we drove through the whole park. it’s only about 25 miles long, but very curvy. a lot of switch backs. very close to the edge of steep canyons.

there are a lot of  points of interest to stop at along the road. we stopped at most of them. this park is suited to hikers. you have to hike back in to see a lot of the prettiest things. but everything we saw from the car was beautiful.

the visitor center

where we ended a great day

I have one more then and now picture for you. I loved this picture in the snow. and I happened to notice it again this time and made jerry turn around so I could take a picture.

i’m so thankful for all the wonderful things jerry and I get to see, all over the united states. and we’ve seen all 50 states now and 48 of their capitols.  and every one of them has beautiful and historic places to see. I can’t wait to see more.

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we got to go in the park this time.

four years ago it was fall when we passed here and a completely different story.

it was so beautiful in the snow, but very scary. jerry did a good job getting us through that fifty miles of  snow.

lassen is like one big Christmas tree lot. the trees are absolutely beautiful.  mt. lassen is more or less unremarkable to me. it’s got a very storied past, but we’ve seen much prettier mountains.

there are several lakes in the park. all are very picturesque  we camped at summit lake.

no that’s not me with new camera. a lot of people drag these around and I get out my little sony and take the same picture that is good enough for me. I don’t think i’ll ever go this far. I sure would like a view finder though.

i’m going to continue this in another post. I took too many pictures. so if you’ve seen enough trees you can skip the next one.

for all others

stay tuned

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we were all packed up to go after two days, and here comes the owner and offers us another night free.  the first night was $12. and the next night jerry got the veterans discount and it was only $10. so three nights at a little slice of heaven was only $22.  we pretty much did the same thing as the day before and the day before that. it was great.

we did get to see the osprey feed their babies.

the vulture came back with a couple of friends

one of the cats came over to visit.

another pleasant experience.

we reluctantly left the next day. we made it to the town of vina. it’s a little north of chico.  we walked around the chapter house they are rebuilding. all the outside stonework is done now. they start work on the windows now. maybe in another four years we’ll come back and see how much they have done.

we headed over to the tasting room. sampled a few wines, bought a few bottles and left happy. ha ha

jerry couldn’t believe this was a walnut tree.

but here’s the proof

we hit the road again for lassen volcanic national park. this is what the road looks like now. next is what it looked like four years ago.

we hit a little bad weather

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I had too many pictures to share to put in one post. so I hope you enjoy some more.

we loved this campground so much. it is peaceful even though trains are going by 100 yards away.  there are only three campers here.

the osprey nest is fascinating. we only see two adults. they come and go and sit on the trestle looking at the water. they catch fish in their tallons.  we didn’t see that yet.  they have a very high pitched call.

i’m sorry but the vulture is another one of God’s creatures that is scary looking, but has a much needed purpose on the planet.

a lot of people take their dogs with them on the boats.

how long has it been since you’ve seen a robin?

this guy was what looked like playing, just running around and jumping. all by himself. we gave him some sunflower seeds.

one of the three cats that wouldn’t come to me.

the bats came out at dusk and flew right my our window. I didn’t capture any on film though.

it was a relaxing day. we took a long nap. took a walk. met some nice people. jerry made a nice dinner. I didn’t tell you that jerry went back to the barbeque guy in Dunsmuir and bought some tri tip to take with us. it was equally as good as the ribs. yummy. we played dominos and watched the river flow by. nice.

then jerry got out the book he bought in Ashland and read me a bedtime story. very nice.

today we go to the winery

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we had a nice campground in redding and we woke up to a cool breeze. we had breakfast and we thought maybe we can do the museum and gardens. we drove over to the sundial bridge which is right by the them and i got out to take a picture. ok, it’s too hot still, let’s go.

we stopped at a goodwill on the way out of town. it was cool inside. and look what jerry found among other things.

and you wonder why I like goodwills so much?   or do you wonder why I like peter rabbit so much?

the landscape changed drastically along 5,  from all the trees we had seen in washington and Oregon to this.

we got off 5 to go to vina and drove through peach orchards. you never know what you’ll see when you get off the highway.  but I like it when we see horses. and it seemed like everyone had horses.

the owner of the horses drove by while I was there petting her horses and I thought oh no i’m in trouble. but she was super nice and said it was fine to pet them. this one was her personal mare. it loved to be scratched. a lot of horses don’t.  this white one wanted to smell me but didn’t want to be touched.

we found a great campground near vina. right on the sacramento river. it is so pretty. there is a train that crosses the river right at the campground. but we love trains so it’s great to see them go by. there is an osprey nest on the top of the trestle. there is an eagle nest in the distance. we saw a vulture on the river. robins, kingfishers, bats are all flying by. squirells are running around. boats zooming by people fishing.  and three cats.

we liked it so much we stayed another day.

stay tuned

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we have had such spectacular weather on this trip, i’m not going to complain now. but redding is just too hot so we’re not staying. we did want to go to the turtle bay museum with all it’s great mosaic pieces, but redding is just way too hot. we wanted to walk on the sundial bridge, but redding is just way too damn hot. but I won’t complain.

we’re going to lassen volcanic national park next, with a short sidetrip to vina.  it is a little out of our way though.

you probably don’t remember the trappist monastery we visited in 2010, with the new clairvaux winery. the grounds are beautiful and very peaceful. they are rebuilding a chapter house out of sacred stones brought from spain.  i’m anxious to see the progress they have made.

this is from their website.

“The Chapter House, reconstructed here at the monastery, was originally built in Spain between 1190 and 1220.  It was originally purchased, dismantled and brought to San Francisco by William Randolph Hearst in 1931.  Originally intended to be the centerpiece of a new building project that was to surpass that of San Simeon, it remained scattered about Golden Gate State Park until the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco awarded it to the Abbey”

PLEASE VISIT OUR SACRED STONES WEBSITE AT WWW.SACREDSTONES.ORG

my picture of mt. Shasta is so bad, but it’s the only one I have. I took it while driving. there have been so many fires, there is a haze everywhere.

you can see how the level of lake Shasta has fallen. again taken while driving.

heed these words

these words also

that’s what we are doing.

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this was such a nice little town. not cute, not charming, not romantic. just friendly. looks like a nice town to be born in and stay there the rest of your life. as the volunteers in the ‘unexpected treasure’ thrift store were. we met her and her twin sister last time we were there.

2010

it hadn’t changed any. I found some books for the girls. the twin on the left was there. the other only works on Wednesday.

the hardware store across the street was out of the past too. it had up to date stuff to sell, but a lot of old stuff was all over the place.

we had a hard time finding the ‘hedge creek falls’. this may be why. the sign was kind of sideways, not facing the street.

it wasn’t very far to reach the falls.

I guess it looks better after a rain.

we also went to the sacramento river access under the bridge.

the train tracks went along the river. Dunsmuir still has an amtrack station.

in town I couldn’t pass up a chance to take a picture of a cat.

we we’re driving out of town when we saw the familiar smoke of a barbeque. in the local grocery store parking lot, a man was out cooking what turned out to be the best baby back ribs I have ever tasted. wow!

I hope we can find some more of those somewhere.

stay tuned

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Ashland, Oregon is the home of the ‘Shakespeare festival’. it’s been going on every year since 1935. I have wanted to go to one of the plays for years. I’ve never read Shakespeare, except for quotes. haha. but I have been intrigued about the lasting love for his works. our wonderful English professor neighbors, frank and linda, went all the way to London to see his home and some special plays. that’s love.  I thought if I am ever going to see one of his plays, this should be the place to see it. I sure can’t go to London.

the play we chose was the ‘tempest’. the story seemed interesting and I  wanted jerry to stay awake. haha. it was a glorius evening. we found a parking place near the theaters and town, again what luck we’re having. we found a cute place to have a Panini and beer for dinner. we liked it so much we went back for lunch and had a wrap and a beer.

there are a lot of expensive stores in town. I don’t even go in those. but it did go in this one. check out this jewelry Martha.

the play started at 8 sharp. they said don’t come late, you won’t get in until a suitable time and you will have to sit in the back. we had sixth row seats. so we weren’t about to be late. also it was strictly forbidden to take pictures, so I didn’t even bring the camera. of course people with smart phones were snapping away. we followed the play pretty well by what we read in the program.  but we’ll still  have to talk on the porch over wine, frank and linda. at least jerry didn’t fall asleep.

our route for today was to reach redding. but we didn’t make it. we had stopped in the little town of Dunsmuir last time and thought we would stop again and see if the same stores were still there. four years is a long time for these small stores to stay in business. it was still there, but closing for the night. oh no. so we decided to spend the night in dunsmuir and go into the store the next day. jerry walked around and found the city manager by the sheriff station and talked to her. she said sure, stay in the city hall parking lot. we’re so glad you came back to visit us.

we ended up having a wonderful time the next morning. we hadn’t walked to the falls last time so we did that. we drove around town looking at how it hadn’t changed one bit. I think it’s in a time warp of the 60’s. no starbucks, no mcdonalds, just old fashioned stores with old fashioned hospitality.

we did make it to redding today. it is so hot, we found a campground just to have electricity for the air conditioner.

stay tuned

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