I'M BACK!!

Overlooking some vineyards in Napa Valley

Finally, we have found a campground that has decent wi-fi. I think we are all having withdrawal symptoms. It has been about 5 days that I have not posted. Where did I leave off? Oh, yes. Dreaded Twentynine Palms, CA. I drove to Oakdale, Ca. near Modesto, to meet up with Amye and Joan, How rested they looked! Sitting by the pool. Amye's friends were delightful. We enjoyed a BBQ ribs dinner poolside. Weather was so much nicer!

We left early the next morning for Napa, CA and an overnight visit with the Fowlers. They also own a Rialta. We did make one important stop on the way....The Jelly Belly Factory! It was so crowded with kids, we decided not to take the tour. Instead, we spent the time sampling and deciding what flavors we wanted to buy. And buy we did! Each of us came away with a bag of our favorite flavor(s) as well as 5 bags of Bellyflops! Bellyflops are rejects. Guess they are not all perfect. We got to the Fowlers around 12:30 PM. Rich did a fantastic job of greeting us at the end of their property, taking us up the hill (and I do mean hill) and parking us along the front of his house so we could enjoy "The Million Dollar View" of some of the vineyards in the Napa Valley. That afternoon Joyce and Rich treated us to a great tour of the valley that included not only wineries, quaint towns, and olive oil factory and the CIA (aka Culinary Institute of America) which used to be the Christian Brothers Winery. We saw Sutters, Beringers and Mondavi to name a few. The evening was spent in downtown Napa having dinner and enjoying the Farmers Market/Craft Street Fair they have every Thursday night. There were so many wonderful pictures that I can't possibly post them all.

Joyce made us a yummy breakfast on Saturday before departing for northern California. She suggested we stop at the Mrs. Grossman's Sticker Factory in Petaluma. Wow, for scrapbookers it is a paradise and with terrific prices! One could also do a tour of their facility. Of course, I bought some!! We spent Friday night on Clear Lake.

Drive -Thru Giant Redwood Tree

Our journey today (Saturday) takes us up through the Redwood Forest and one of the "drive-through" trees. No, the Road Runner, Tilton Hilton and The Happy Turtle had to settle for the parking lot. That's what happens when one is over sized, by quite a bit I may add. We walked through the tree instead. On to Myers Flat on the Avenue of the Giants. It's a beautiful drive. We found a very nice campground on the river that had wi-fi. Not so!!! Wi-fi signal was so weak I could not pull up my emails from either the AOL or Yahoo site. I had it a short time in the afternoon, but not evening, not at 2:00 AM nor at 6 in the morning. No internet tonight. While walking the river's edge, we came across a snake, who wasn't cooperative in having his picture taken.

We left at 8:45 AM to go to the Interpretive Center. Neat thing we saw, but not associated with the park was a "bum" feeding a kitten on a picnic table just outside the entrance to the Center. When I cam back out, he had just started to walk away. I wondered where the kitten was....sitting atop his backpack. It looked like she was tethered to the backpack. After the Interpretive Center we drove to the Founder's Grove of redwoods and saw three gigantic fallen trees. It was here that the Tilton Hilton had a mishap with a post. No Comment!

The Happy Turtle, "Tilton Hilton and the Road Runner

Too broad to fit through the tree.

We have stopped for the night just north of Crescent City, CA and on to Oregon in the morning.

Happy to be back on-line!