Once in awhile-now and again-this is us

we finally had our artichokes. jerry cooked them to perfection in the one big pan we have. it was the biggest and best artichoke i’ve ever had. with melted butter it melted in your mouth.

they do create a mess though.

as we got back on 101 we were moving along nicely. enjoying the trees again. then a familiar site.

lucky for us it was open. but look up the road on the other side. see all the cars. well that went on for miles. because of this.

we couldn’t believe they kept one lane stopped for so long. i was just taking pictures at random intervals. it was  r e a l l y   l o n g!

when we got to agate beach, the one we’ve found beautiful agates at. (they look like diamonds in the sand as the sun hits them). alas, they are no more to be found.  i did find a few rocks.

watching the dog play in the water was very entertaining. and having chili dogs and beer with this view was alright too.

can we take this home jerry?

we made it to oregon

stay tuned

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i’ve had little success with dahlias at home. i can grow the little ones somethimes but not these big ones. i mean huge ones. they are so gorgeous. there are as much as 150 varieties and 400 plants.

i found one to match my hair

SO  MUCH  JOY  JOY  JOY!

SO  MUCH  FUN  FUN  FUN!  

we’re headed for agate beach next

stay tuned

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i had to include this. it’s remarkable what a vision they had and made it happen.

enjoy the pictures and if you are ever up this way you have to stop and see it. this was our second time to experience it.

achilles

do you see the heart?

could this be that blue flower we’ve been looking for?

and i haven’t even shown you the dahlias yet!

stay tuned

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we turned off hwy 101 in willits to go west on hwy 20 to ft. bragg on the coast.

a lot of the older small towns have these signs over the road. usually with their claim to fame.

lots of life’s beauty on these roads. this is hwy 20.

our next stop was ft. bragg. it’s the home of the famous glass beach. in the old days they dumped the towns trash in the ocean. after years of tumbling in the ocean it came ashore as little bits of treasure. but there isn’t a lot to find anymore. we used to find bucket fulls years ago. so we were part of the problem. uh-oh.

after an hour of beach coming this is all we found.

do you see yours ted?

the other town’s treasure is the ‘mendicino botanical gardens’.
is a marvel of someones love of nature. and it’s 47 acres.

stay tuned for those pictures

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to begin with it was a very dreary day.

there is a lot of construction going on and one way streets, road closures, people jaywalking and bikes in the way to maneuver through quickly. in a car it would be bad enough, but in the coach?  it took over an hour to go across town to the golden gate bridge.

a few pictures i took on the way

check out that guy’s hair. it’s in a big ball at the end.

a purple house? only in san francisco.

oh, and a police closure for the bomb squad to do it’s stuff that had us going around in circles trying to get to the bridge. which took over an hour to do.

we finally made it to the iconic orange masterpiece. it was still foggy.

i still remember the time we walked on it to the other side and back. a pleasant memory.

we gained our calm back as we drove to santa rosa 2 hours behind schedule. the beautiful trees have a way of doing that.

we met kara’s daughter, evalynne, in a parking lot at 4:00 and quickly unloaded her box. it was like a drug deal or something. we hugged and said good-bye wanting to get to cloverdale to spend the night. i didn’t even take a picture. sorry kara.

we did make it to cloverdale but the campgrounds were kind of sketchy. we came upon a bible study group at the fairground campground, which was $50 a night for a cement slab. a nice lady told jerry to call the police and they would tell us where to park. they did and we did. right on hwy 101 with all the big rigs. hey, it was free.

we drove into ft.bragg the next day.

stay tuned

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after a good nights sleep we drove into castroville, stopping at a vegetable stand to buy some artichokes. it is the artichoke capitol of the world you know.

we got some beauties. needed help getting them in the car.

we didn’t stop at any of the stores in town, but stopped to look at something interesting parked on the street.

it’s only $80,000.00 dollars norm. it was immaculate.

after leaving there we headed for san francisco hoping to bypass the city and get to santa rosa by 2:00.

but a wrong turn onto the bay bridge spoiled those plans. we drove smack dab into the city.

it was a wild ride to get out of it.

stay tuned for a few pictures of that,

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we left soledad heading to santa rosa. we had another package to deliver to kara’s other daughter, evalynne.  we were so close to hwy1 when it was time to stop  so we went west to moss landing to spend the night.  there is a restaurant we like to eat at there.

it’s a popular place.

The fish is so fresh.  I had sand dabs and Jerry had a calamari steak.  What a treat.

i hope they didn’t catch it from this boat.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium has research facilities everywhere up here.  This is a beautiful one here in moss landing. Jerry says Clive Cussler refers to it in his books a lot. Our neighbor, Frank, put it in his book also. We walked on the beach for awhile after we ate.

These are  the two smokestacks we can see while sitting at the windows in Green Gables in Monterey across the bay.

This is looking towards Monterey. No Green Gables to see tonight.

We had a great sunset.

as we were walking back to the coach, we saw a flying saucer. haha.                                 but it does look like one don’t you think?

we listened to barking harbor seals as we drifted off to sleep.

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starting our trip on hwy101 going to the hitching post, always our first stop. while driving on this familiar road there’s not a whole lot we haven’t seen. but on this day we spotted something different.

a big flatbed truck with an old car on it. an old bronco. what a beauty. we hope they add a similar style to the 2020’s.

of course some of the sights we love to see over and over and over and over and over again. like out favorite campground ‘thornhill broom’ in pt. magu state park on hwy1.

at the hitching post we parked in the back, where they let us stay the night.

frank, the owner, and brad, the head chef, were not working tonight. bummer. but that doesn’t stop us from having fun. all the chef’s are great and George was cooking tonight. it’s amazing what he does. throwing on meat left and right. turning this one and that one. moving one here from there. and then he threw mine on.

no not that huge one. the pink slab of baby back ribs on the right. and boy were they good!  delicious!  incredible!

“thanks George”. (he didn’t leave that grill the whole time we were there). amazing.

when we got to the coach it was very dark and quiet. the little light you gave us worked perfect as a night light ray. thanks.

we woke up happy and ready to hit the road again. our next stop was ‘soledad’. we had some things to drop off from kara for her daughter lauraetta,  she’s living up here now and said she loves it. she was very happy to get the boxes. and couldn’t wait to tear into them.

we couldn’t stay long this trip, so had to leave. but not before we got a basket of goodies for the road. thanks again lauraetta. can’t wait to tear into that.

and here I go, getting ready to do just that. yummmm.

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i told you there would be more

there was a lot of talk years ago about this being built. it seemed like an interesting concept.using old discarded shipping containers for the buildings. one problem it has though,  it’s  downtown. who wants to be downtown at night? we decided to check it out if we could park close. we did and went in. it’s just a tourist trap. i don’t think locals would want to be there.

we ended up having dinner at a b-b-q restaurant there, thinking we would eat at ‘mon abi gabi’ the next night. we hadn’t eaten there yet.  since we left a day early, that didn’t happen, we didn’t eat at ‘mon abi gabi’. not even once this trip. i know you are all gasping right now, how on earth did that happen?   don’t let time run out for the things you want to do.

at the entrance of the park, there was a place for people to put padlocks on. proclaiming love or wishes for someone. i’ve read they took them off the brooklyn bridge because of the weight.they had thousands of them.

yes, this is a real truck

flames shoot out of his atnlers

i think that’s it

thanks for tuning in

p.s. i have to explain, jerry started talking when i took the picture of his toast. he actually had only one glass of wine

wait i have one more picture, well actually three

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we called as soon as we got to las vegas to get our tickets. last time, they were all sold out by the time we called.

our tour guide was very knowledgeable and explained the signs so well, they almost came alive. they were all so beautiful in all their glory. the patina and rust on them gave them special colors. my camera couldn’t quite capture all the nuances

this is one of the first usage’s of this type of sign in las vegas. after neon and before digital. notice they welcomed seniors and gave away free coffee.

then

and then

a lot of the signs are red and yellow. that color combination attracts attention. think mcdonald’s, shell, weinerschniteziel, and all the others that use that in their signage.

stay tuned in case there’s more

 yes, i think jill  has  a few more for you. isn’t she doing a great job?

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