Journey to Darkness 2017 - Stop 1 Lakeview Oregon


We decided to join our first caravan in Oregon on the way to viewing the Total Solar Eclipse.  The Northern California Airstream Unit had a caravan published and we quickly tried to take a spot.  We were second on the waiting list with little hope of making the group, but got very lucky with a last minute drop out.  So, about 10 days before the start, we were registered.

We had attended a San Diego Airstream unit rally earlier and knew what a welcoming group these people would be.  A caravan is different because instead of staying in one location for a couple of nights, you travel around (in our case southern Oregon) with a group of Airstreams for almost 2 weeks.  We are a group of 22 rigs, with ours being the newest.  So far, we are most impressed with Dennis and Karen Richardson's rig.  Dennis bought his 1968 Chevrolet pickup truck new and has babied it ever since.  Their 1972 Airstream was gifted to them from his parents and he has rebuilt many parts of both over the years.  They are what I would call "the real deal".

We were fortunate enough to meet Jose' and Carmen Otriz on the first night welcome dinner.  As it turns out they are avid cyclists and Carmen is a planner extraordinaire.  She had already worked out and driven a 26 mile course which we intended to ride with them the next day, but got rained out.  They eventually went while we elected to stock up on groceries for the next 4 nights.  We will be sure to ride with them over the next two weeks.

At the nightly happy hour, everyone discussed their adventures of the day.  We wished we had cycled and when it came time for Jeff to relay our day, we only had Safeway and a minor cow confrontation to speak of.  Jeff said that had we known it was a competition, we would have been more adventurous.  He also noted that we were still recovering from Las Vegas (and I did take a two hour nap).  We plan to improve our reputation, since so far, we are the youngest and laziest!

Junipers Reservoir RV Resort is located on the KV Bar Ranch, a 6,000 acre ranch that boasts trout fishing, hiking and a very comfortable full hook-up for Betty.  We had our first rainy day here, which made for a truly lovely nap!  Tomorrow we drive south just over the California border for a 4 night stay.  That should allow for some more recreation.

Popular posts from this blog

Golden Gate Bridge and Surrounds

Image
Pt. Reyes National Seashore We have now been staying 4 nights in any given campground along our way down SR1. It really makes the trip much more enjoyable, especially now that our weather could start changing on us. Since we stayed out of order (meaning we first stayed in Olema and then traveled back north to Bodega Bay) on our way to San Francisco, I am mixing up the blog entries a bit so that it actually makes a little more sense. The Olema RV park was very nice. There were lots of Airstreams here and we even met a couple who were pulling their 25 foot with a VW Toureg. This vehicle is basically the same body frame as Sally but without the Porsche styling. We have also seen a Mercedes SUV pulling an Airstream, but everyone else has trucks. Both Jeff and I have wondered if Sally was the right call for us, but so far so good. We certainly look good while driving down the road, for whatever that is worth! The following passage is copied from a postcard, actually THIS post
Read more

And then it hit me...This is Retirement!?

Image
Jeff's Coronado garage Any of you who know Jeff even remotely will understand that his favorite part of our home is the garage. In fact, getting a two car side by side garage was pretty much the only reason that he got excited about finding a new home in Coronado a few years ago. In fact, even after painting and cabinetry improvements, the garage is our number one project when we get home. We need to epoxy the floors and perhaps add a coat of paint, at least to the trim. So back to the blog. As I was walking through some nearby neighborhoods one day in Brookings, OR, I started to notice all of the HUGE garages that are either attached to homes or built standalone beside homes. I would estimate that 50% of these homes had garages with big tall bays and every last one of them seemed bigger than the houses. It should also be noted that a majority of these houses were pre-manufactured homes of some type or another. Being from TN, my first thought was long haul tractor trai
Read more

Andalusian Hill Country

Image
Olive Groves After Granada, the adventure kicked into high gear!  The drive to my next stop was absolutely amazing!  I was delighted by the scenery and found the landscape to be very much like home.  There were olive groves as far as the eye could see and every turn of the road seemed to peak my enthusiasm and excitement for the region.   View from pool Thankfully, I spent several hours in Granada translating the directions that the hostess, Esther, had given me to Cottages of The Algarrobales.  I had paid 2X the price of the car for a Tom Tom GPS which was utterly useless.  I have had bad experiences with Tom Toms in Europe before and this was no different.  I had my backup Google Maps which turned out to be all I really needed.  Still, I can’t believe where I had to drive to my next location!  As it turned out, the directions from the owner were spot on.  When I took the right hand turn toward the cottages, I was met by a very handsome Spanish man who spoke exa
Read more