Coffee-break

Well, guess what? We're in Newberg already! And yes, that's a whole week ahead of schedule.
I've said it before .. you can make plans all you want, but things happen ..
And boy, did they happen! But let's not get ahead of schedule and I'll try to chronological-ize (I don't think that's a word) this post a little.

We actually left Palm Springs according to plan on Friday, although even that almost didn't happen because the day before James came back from golfing, and power-washing the truck, with the wonderful announcement that the truck's computer indicated the injectors were failing again! Son-of-a-@#!$%^!
So, we canceled our next campgrounds, extend our stay in Palm Springs, rented a car, ordered new injectors and drove the truck to a mechanic ... only to find out that the injectors were all of a sudden all fine!
Long story short, it turned out that moisture from pressure-washing the truck had caused the computer to throw the codes, and when everything dried all was OK again!
Pffffft! Doesn't that beat it all!
It took us some time to reinstate most cancellations and cancel some installations .. or something like that, but at the end of the day we were back on schedule!

So, of we went on Saturday! Since it was going to be a long and hot (truck's AC still not working!) day, we left early and soon we passed our old stomping grounds, or at least the cut-off to, Lake Arrowhead. I'd hoped we could go for a visit while we were there, but it wasn't in the cards this time ..

Evertything went smoothly, until we started to reach Los Angeles and found ourselves in some endless stop-and-go traffic. Funny how you seem to forget about things like that. We quickly remembered though, that this is not a place we want to be! Way to busy!
Unfortunately we had to brave it for one last time, since I'd bought a spinning wheel (on-line) from a lady in Ventura, and passing so close going north it seemed not such a big deal to pick it up while in the neighborhood.

Eventually we reached Lowes in Ventura where the hand-off took place, and after a short lunch we were back on the road again. 

 

The sun was already setting when we reached the Santa Nella Campground around 6.30 pm, about 2 hours south of Sacramento, where we'd reserved a pull-through site.
And after a simple dinner, we decided to call it an (early) night. 'Nough for one day!

The next day was a Sunday, always a good day for going through a big city, and we breezed easily through Sacramento this time.
An hour later we left the I-5 (talking about a rough road!) and took the 20 towards the coast. We passed Clear Lake around noon and parked the truck alongside the road to have some lunch. We'd been here before, about 9 years ago, when we traveled from Vaillecito to Gold Beach, and it was fun to see it again. It's a beautiful area!

We made good time that day and around 4pm we arrived at our campground in Willits, the Golden Rule RV Park.

                                                     

After a quick set-up it was time for ... you guessed it, Happy Hour!
We spend a relaxed evening and a good night sleep in this peaceful RV Park, which, by the way, is on the same property as Ridgewood Ranch, the horse stud-stables where Seabiscuit, the famous race-horse, was bred.

OK, moving on, the next morning we headed for Eureka, where we had the first look of the pacific ocean since 2011, when we park hosted here in Gold Beach, OR.

Yeah, the ocean!!

What a wonderful sight! This part of the coast is just so beautiful!
Lots of interesting rock formations:

                                                    

And picturesque lighthouses ..

Unfortunately we had a 1.5 hr (!) delay, just before Crescent City, due to repairs being done on the continuing slide areas. This part of the coast apparently is highly un-stable.

OK, now we're getting to the part where our luck ran out! We decided to top of the truck's tank at a local gas-station in Crescent city. No problem, no?
Since we're BIG, we usually use the big truck-stations on the freeways but Hwy 1 doesn't have any of those, so we made the narrow turn into this one ... only to hit the bollard guarding the entrance, wiping out the left back-side of the RV!!!

(This picture is from after we arrived in Newberg ..)

Not good, or  %$#@*&!
Needless to say we were a little 'shook-up', especially me, myself and I, but James, always the more unfazed and practical, gassed up, pulled in a side-street and started taping and strapping things together and collecting all solvable parts from the road.

Oh well, as Forest Gump said 'Shit happens', and we went on the road again for the hour drive to Turtle Rock RV Resort in Gold Beach, where we'd planned to stay for 2 nights.

As you can guess it wasn't a very happy, although very pretty, drive ..

After talking about it for a little we decided that it was probably better to cut our week-long stay along the coast short, and head for Newberg, our end-destination, the next day.
Especially since we had rain in the forecast and we weren't quite water-tight anymore ..

 

After we arrived at Turtle Rock we quickly settled in for the night and walked to the beach to watch the sun go down. We definitely needed a calming end to this day ..
We actually camp-hosted at this campground during the summer of 2011, so it would have been fun to hang around for a day or two and see of the owners were still there, check out the town and go for a hike at the beautiful State park. Bummer ..

That night it got down to 34F! Wow, what a difference with those last nights in Palm Springs (61C)!
The days were beautiful though, clear and sunny and quite warm, which made for very pleasant driving conditions, all the way from Arizona.

And so it went, we drove all the way to Newberg the next day. It was another gorgeous day and we passed all the gorgeous places we were going to spend some time at during the rest of the week .. if not for .. sigh ..
Fortunately, Newberg is only an hour from the coast, so .. we'll be baaaaack!

And this is our new site! It turns out we're in a Christmas tree orchard, how about that for a change?

It's a beautiful green, 2 acre  parcel and we are the only ones there! To get to Doug and Brenda's yard and house you'll follow that small pathway here towards the camera ..

... and go through the gate ..

It will be the extend of James' commute to work in Doug's office/house .. not bad!

OK, I think that's enough for this post. More fun stuff in the next one!