Alcatraz & Fisherman's Wharf (Pier 39)

I like this first one - looks like a ghost image in the background. 

This shower setup is thought to be the inspiration for soap-on-a-rope.

Had lunch at this place on the wharf.  Chowder was pretty good, salad and fish not so much.  Whadya expect for $57, though?

Our campsite.  Can you spot the Bounder (you should know what it looks like by now)?

I suppose they have to jam them in to pay for the solar panels (and maybe the Prius Hybrid, since everyone here seems to own one.  OK, maybe half - and the other half own Yukons and Mercedes SUVs. 

San Francisco

Bodega Bay is only about 60 miles from San Francisco, so it was an easy trip into the Novato RV Park.  Typical city RV park: packed in like a parking lot, but with hookups, wifi, and cable for not much more than Arnie wants for an unserviced site. 

We went scouting in the afternoon, which as you can see was quite nice (high around 60F, I think).  That's Alcatraz Island behind Wendy in the middle picture, and she's taking a shot of the Golden Gate. 

The day was slightly blemished by a small misunderstanding between me and GPS Lady... I thought I said to take us home while what I actually said (and it must be true because I never argue with a lady - computerized or other) was to take us on a tour of Oakland, San Jose, Palo Alto, and South San Francisco before getting us home in the midst of rush hour traffic at 5:30 tonight. 

Ah well, tomorrow's another day.  We're booked on the 10:30 AM Alcatraz tour, so I should have some more soon.  We'll push off from here Sunday or Monday depending how it goes. 

Pacific Coast Highway

Thursday was winding down the coast highway.  Sorry I don't have any pictures, but my hands were two busy sawing the steering wheel from one pin to the other to think about holding a camera.  My advice for the Redwood road goes for the costs highway as well, as they didn't want to use any dynamite at all.  Stopped for the night at the municipal campground at Bodega Bay ($22), after checking a couple of state parks and finding them all priced at $35.  They were all empty, needless to say. 

Yup, that's the campsite.  It's on a peninsula which serves as a breakwater for the bay.  You're looking south at the Pacific side and behind you is the harbour side.  Would have been nice to think of a pano picture, no? 

California, here we come!

After spending the night in Valley of the Rogues, we backtracked to Grant's Pass and headed west to Crescent City, CA.  If you're wondering why, have a look at a map. 
This took us smack through Redwood country, wich was an awesome drive.  If you get a chance, do it.  Just make sure your brakes are it tip-top shape first, and makbe buy brakes for the toad too. 

After a great ride through the forest, with an extra hour stop along the way to let the brakes cool a bit, we reached

Yup, that's what you think it is.  But we weren't done with the Redwoods quite yet...

...and then more of...

...until it all got quite tedious, really.  Well, not really.  We stopped for the night at a little pulloff near Garberville (we were thinking of springing a few bucks to camp among the trees, but Arnie wants $35 for an unserviced site even in December, so we took a pass on that.  I've slept under trees before, and it ain't worth $35). 

Water!

Top priority for the day was to get some water on board, since we were far enough south not to worry about it freezing up.  Took a scouting trip down the Interstate to the Pilot Truck Stop hoping that they'd have RV services, but nope.  So we circled back to Woodburn to the Tourist Info booth... it didn't open until 10 so we did a little sightseeing and found a nice little covered bridge for Wendy. 

When we got back to the TI office, she gave us a nice little brochure on the state dumpstations.  Lots along the coast, but the next one on the interstate was at mile 45, quite a ways.  But, we loaded up and hit the road.  We were still thinking interstate at that point as it was still pretty damp, and we didn't see much point spending time on the coast in the rain. 

When we did stop in Valley of the Rogue state park to de-winterize, it was late enough in the day that we just decided to stay.  Nice pull through site with full services for $16 for the night. 

BTW, temps in the low 50's for high, and the low 40's for lows... still looking for some decent weather!

Spokane WA to Woodburn OR

Woke up this morning to two surprises... one was a half inch of fresh snow and the other was the above stuck to the door.  Sorry it`s not readable: I`ll translate.  It says we was BAD for parking overnight at the mall.  On the bright side, There`s no actual fine or anything and the Security Cop was pretty quiet about putting the notice on the window (he could have rousted us at 3:53 AM and told us to leave), so seeing as we`re not planning on being back this way for a while we`ll just treat this as a souvenir and a scrap booking opportunity.

After a nice IHOP breakfast, we were on our way as soon as it was light (no need for clearanceétail lights in the daytime!). 

Once we got out of Spokane we were back to bare ground again, so Gabby was again pretty happy about being able to walk on grass instead of snow.  Here are some pics of the scenery from Spokane down to Portland.  If you ever get the chance to travel along the Columbia River, you should.  It`s great! (Through-the-window pics don`t really do justice). 

We skirted around Portland, and arrived at the Woodburn Super Wal*Mart about 4PM.  It`s now about 8:45, and I`m pretty much all caught up on the emails and the blog thanks to my new buddy athomeBB29 who lent me his wifi signal.  It`s been raining pretty much since 3:00 or so, which at this point is a pretty good thing since maybe it`ll wash some of the gravel off the vehicles, and the outside temp right now is 41F.  Not balmy, but a real break from a couple days ago. 

Tomorrow we`ll hunt down a spot to take on water and de-winterize (probably the Pilot truck stop just down the road) and then we can kick into holiday mode for real. 

BTW, as I suspected and hoped, the tail & clearance light circuit seems to be fine now.  Some of the snow and slush must have gotten into the wiring at the back end somehow and shorted it out.  Something to investigate, but not today. 

On the road... again!

Sunday was relatively uneventful for the better part of the day.  We crossed over into the States (with no problems, as usual), and followed the familiar route through Bonner's Ferry and Sandpoint to Coeur d'Alene and Spokane.  Only one picture worth looking at from this portion: this is the rest area just west of Coeur d'Alene.  Note the lack of any white stuff on the ground (although to be fair the temps were still about 23F). 

We had a small adventure: after stopping to take on groceries near Spokane, we had an electrical short in the clearance/tail lights that kept blowing the fuse.  Discretion being the better part of valour, and not wanting to be rear ended by a maniac on I-90, we swung into the Spokane Valley Mall to try to fix the problem.  That didn`t work so we decided to be safe and just spend the night.