Central Coast Senior

We would be going to Crater Lake, a spot I had always longed to visit.  So we got an early start and after loading the car, away we went. We headed out of Klamath Falls and began our journey to Crater Lake. We had been going along for a bit and were in t he middle of some beautiful countryside when I glanced down at the gas gauge. Oops, I knew I was supposed to do something before we left Klamath Falls. Oh well no worries, I’ll find a station between here and Crater Lake, I thought. So we tooled along the highway following the signs to the National Park, and no gas stations. I’m not worried though I figure I have enough to get us to a gas station after we leave the park. And that’s when we begin to drive up the mountain to get to the lake, I can almost see the gas gauge falling as aI drive. So just as we get to the main entrance, I notice that the little tourist village next to it says it has a gas station! I’m saved!!

So we get into the park and I drive around to the gas station and as we pull up there is a man standing, staring at the pump, Helen rolls down his window and the guy tells us it will be a few minutes. Not a problem I see that the fuel truck is there, so I figure that they are just waiting until he dumps his fuel into their storage tanks. So we wander off to the gift shop and look around for 30 minutes. We come out and I notice that the man now has the top half open and is peering at the innards of the pump. Oh-oh that can’t be good. We wait a lot longer and then drive up and ask them how much longer. At which point they tell us that the pumps are down indefinitely due to a power outage that fried some of the pump Now I am sitting here with about 60 miles worth of gas left in the car and we’re in the middle of nowhere, not good. One of the guys tells us that there is a gas station in Diamond Lake, just outside the North Entrance, So I guess that will be our new goal.

But first we have a park to explore! Well at least part of it. The drive from the South Entrance to the lake is about 5 miles of two lane highway that winds its way up the mountain side past a visitors information building and a trail to a garden walk that we weren’t interested in, we were here for the lake. You follow the road up and you come up to a T in the road, turning left takes you on the road that goes around the lake, which is a 33 mile drive, or you turn right and head into the visitor information center and gift shops. We opted for the right turn.

After hunting for a parking spot, we hopped out of the car and began walking towards the lake, where I quickly snapped a picture before hurrying back to the car. It had started to rain and I wasn’t going to let the rain wreck my camera! So we grabbed an umbrella and a jacket and walked back.

The lake is amazing and beautiful, and all I could think about was how awesome it would be take some photos here of the lake at night with the stars and milky way shining into the lake. Unfortunately that wasn’t in the cards this time so we settled for walking around and took a few shots that I could stitch together and make a panorama with. We also learned that there was a boat tour you could take (GREAT!!) but you have to hike down several hundred stairs to get to the boat (not so great). We settled on driving around the lake and what a drive!

We went up and down and around the lake, stopping at every pullout to take a picture or six. It was interesting how between the change in our position and the constantly shifting clouds the character of the lake changed with each stop. And while we are doing this I am keeping one eye on the gas gauge and watching it drop  to 50 miles, 40 Niles, and finally at around 30 miles we reach the halfway point around the lake and more importantly the northern exit, which we do. So we leave the park and drive towards diamond lake and as the car is warning me we have less than 20 miles of gas left, we still haven’t hit this gas station. Finally we see a sign and take the turn and I could have sworn I began to hear dueling banjos. The gas station was looked like it was right out of all those old movies with two pumps, a dilapidated old building, and a gas station attendant with a bewildered look on his face. I guess the good news was that at least he pumped the gas for us.

After this we went back into the park and finished our drive around the lake. We were at the next to last turn out when the sky opened up and it began to pour. Helen and I were both outside the car at the time taking pictures when it started. I being the chivalrous man that I am, turned and dashed to the car and threw myself in and waited patiently for Helen to open her door and get in. I did have the expensive camera after all.

From here we headed off to Bend, Oregon for the night. The drive there was uneventful except for the road construction that required us to wait for our group of cars to go. As a side note as we traveled through the National Parks we have come to the conclusion that every National Park has to have some sort of Road Construction occurring either inside the park or on the access road to the park. So far in every park this has been true.

We arrived at the Hampton Inn in Bend and first noticed that parking lot w’s full and that there seemed to be a lot of people walking either through the parking lot or the park below it heading over to some sort of pavilion. It turned out that there was a concert about to start with the group Death Cab for Cuties. Good news was you could hear them from the hotel, bad news is – we weren’t fans. Across from the hotel and the river it was next to was a small outdoor shopping mall. We went there for dinner and walked into Greg’s Grill. New England Style Clam Chowder, which was delicious.

After Dinner we returned to the hotel to rest up for our drive to .Puyallup, WA and a weekend with Bobbi

Now for some photos from Crater LAke.

Day 2

Mileage – 274.4 miles

We left Red Bluff at the crack of 10:30 and headed off to Lassen Volcanic National Park. To assist us with this I plugged the destination into my phone’s navigation app, pushed start and began to follow it’s guidance. Things were going great, we were following the directions, enjoying the scenery, and just having a great time. Until I noticed that the next direction it was asking us to follow would have had us turning off way to early. So I did what I normally do and just ignored it until it could sort itself out. For a time the Nav just kept trying to get us to turn around and after we ignored it for a few more times it’s personality seem to change. It’s next direction to turn, if we had followed it blindly, would have had us driving into the middle of a large field, after going down a short steep embankment. When that turn didn’t get us it’s next instruction would have had us drive right off the side of the mountain!! After that, I shut the Navigation off and we went low tech and pulled out the atlas for awhile.

As we continued on to the park, we both reveled in the beauty that surrounded us. We were blessed with very little traffic and therefore we were able to just enjoy the drive. The highway was lined with tall pine trees and with the top down on the mustang we were able to enjoy the openness and clean fresh air. This was exactly what I was hoping for on the road trip!

As we entered the park without having to pay, thanks to our shiny new annual pass, we pulled into the visitor center, grabbed our gear and headed on in. As we walked through the door one of the rangers mentioned that a video had just started in the auditorium and we could catch it if we went in. So we did and I had an instant flashback to my youth. I could remember my folks dragging me and my siblings into these at each and every national park we ever went to. The video covered the formation of Lassen and was mostly interesting for many of the older pictures that they used.

When the video finished we headed off to see the park. And for that I think I will let some of the pictures speak for us.

Wish we had had a little more sunshine; but overall the park was as wonderful as I remembered it.

From here we were off to Lava Beds National Monument, home of the Modoc Indians and lots of lava tubes. My plan had been to go in through the southern entrance and drive through the park so that Helen would have a chance to see the land of our kids 4th grade Indian village project. That was the plan.

Unfortunately the road was closed and we couldn’t go in that way. So we gave up and just headed on in to Klamath Falls and the Olympic Inn. Our highlight for here was finding a Subway sandwich shop that had Gluten Free Bread!!  So after gorging myself on a couple of sandwiches we curled up and called it a night so that we would be ready for tomorrows trip to Crater Lake.

Distance – 468.8 miles

Today we started our cross country road trip in a grand way. We started the morning with breakfast with our Granddaughter Sophia and her parents. We went to a little local diner in a converted Carl’s Jr. in Atascadero. Everyone had an omelet of some sort, except Sophia of course. The food was okay and filling but we were all wishing for gluten free pancakes, which they didn’t serve.  We said our good byes and then proceeded to drove back and forth between Paso Robles and Templeton running last minute errands. This meant that we left about 2.5 hours later than we meant to. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise for us as our first stop was in San Carlos for a meal at the Refuge.

The Refuge is well known for their pastrami and according to Guy Fieri and Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives has some of the best pastrami on the west coast. With Helen’s love of Pastrami, it only made sense that we make that our first stop on our cross country adventure. So we pulled into San Carlos and following the Directions to 963 Laurel Street we found a parking spot right in front of the door and the CLOSED sign. Uh-oh; it was time to whip out the phone and do some fast checking. I couldn’t believe that we would drive all that way and added an hour and half extra to our drive, just to see a closed sign. At least there would be one thing making us feel better, all the other people walking up and shaking the handle trying to get in.

Fortunately it turned out that they close everyday between lunch and dinner service, so all we had to do was pass the time for 45 minutes and we would be home free. So we chose to wander down Laurel Street and we were glad we did, the street is packed with little restaurants serving all sorts of cuisine. From Japan to Italy, to Burma we found lots of options. And no dining district would be complete without the ubiquitous Starbucks nearby. The other good news was that if you weren’t hungry you could slip in to one of the many nail salons for a quick mani/pedi.

While I just barley managed to not give in to a manicure we headed back to the Refuge and after 2 minutes we were seated. We grabbed an outdoor table and ordered. Helen went straight for the Pastrami sandwich, I first needed to check out the gluten free options, which boiled down to “you can order the sandwiches without the bread” So instead I went with the Pastrami Chef Salad and it was pretty dang good, The pastrami is definitely worth the effort to get here. The other nice thing about the place is the beer selection, for normal folks that is, for me it was Bards beer or a cider. Not too interesting. But for beer drinkers they have a selection of Belgian Beers that are really good and if it wasn’t for this darn celiac, I would have ordered a large Kwaks from Belgian “<cough>small Kwaks please<cough>” Which are served in one of the coolest beer glasses ever. .

After dinner we climbed back into the Mustang and drove the 4 hours to get to Red Bluff where we are spending the night. After we fill out all the paperwork that our loan officer tells us we need to get done so we have a home to someday come back to.

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Tomorrow we begin our road trip. So in preparation for that today we completed the move out from our rental home in Shell Beach. As was pointed out to me, we are now homeless and have to live out of our car. At least until we check into our hotel that is. Having owned our own home for a long time, having switched to a rental in Shell Beach was a strange experience, having to schedule cleaners, carpet cleaners and the Got Junk folks; all to show up on a single day. It made today a bit of a circus. But we got it done. We called the property management company to come do an inspection so we could be on our way. So she shows up at 2 pm to do her walk through and has to step over the carpet cleaners and cleaning crew to check out the house and she begins to fill out her check sheet saying that we need to be sure that clean the carpets and the blinds! Oh and do you have a forwarding address? So hours later everything done, we eat and go to turn in the keys and the first thing they ask ” do you have receipts for the cleaning and carpet cleaning? If not we will have to charge you for it” “and do you have a forwarding address?” So now we get to have dinner with our daughter and her friend and then head off to Atascadero to visit with our other daughters and play with the grandkids. We had a blast for the short time they were there and took some photos to hold us over until we get more photos.

Papou with Elli and Sophia

Boy Papou looks just slightly demented and the grandkids aren’t too sure of his sanity either.. Tomorrow the trip begins and the first stop is Pastrami!! http://refugesc.com/

Well we did it. We survived the 4th. In spite of all the packing and cleaning, we still managed to have a great day where I was able to smoke some ribs, drink a little whiskey, play with my grandkids, spend some time with old friends, and then go back to packing and cleaning

Today I made some bourbon barbecue ribs with my normal ‘make it up as I go along’ rub. The barbecue sauce was amazing, thanks to the generous use of Costco’s 7 year old bourbon. With that and lots of brown sugar, the barbecue sauce will be awesome. Though to be honest, when I first made it, I thought it was way too sweet. Fortunately a little extra salt and cayenne solved the problem and by barbecue time the sauce came out just right.

I always kid Helen about how Greek she is and prepares enough food for twice as many people as are attending. And then I turn around and prepare six racks of ribs for just 11 people. Needless to say we had plenty of leftover ribs. I smoked them using a combination of Cherry and Apple wood chunks and an occasional piece of red oak (to keep the heat up) for about 3 1/2 hours. And this provided the final proof that my current smoker is a disaster and the review of it that begins with “Please God, don’t let him buy this…” was 100% correct. While most of the ribs were incredible, there were a small percentage that were insufficiently cooked and this was solely due to the thin walls of the smoker.

Oh well guess I’ll just have to force my self to buy a new one. Poor me…

Later we all walked down to the coast to watch the bottom half of the Pismo Beach fireworks. And when I say bottom half, I mean we saw the whole show, but due to the marine layer, half of the fire works were to high in the sky to be seen through it. So at the very least I can attest that they were sufficiently loud.

Overall it w’s better than nothing.

We moved to Shell Beach almost 3 years ago and at the time swore we would never, ever, never move ourselves again. And that lasted until we moved again. We are now in the midst of moving ourselves to a home that is being finished. We have a rather interesting dilemma. We need to be out of our current house on July 6th, in order to begin our road trip the following day. Our trip is going to last for quite a while and so we needed to have our stuff stored for several month. Finally decided that the best thing to do was to use a storage container that could be dropped our house, stuffed by us, and then stored in a secure facility until we needed it delivered. It sounded perfect at the time, at least until I started to load it. There are only 3 sizes available, 7′, 12′, or 16′.  So I figured since we were tossing most of our furniture, one 16′ container would be enough to hold what left. WRONG, I forgot the fact that we have enough small stuff to fill a small department store.

Well, after loading about 2/3 of the pod, I came to the realization that there was no way we would fit all our stuff into that thing. This is after a month of filling our trash can and recycle bin to the top with items that we no longer needed. Our problem was that when Helen’s parents passed away we ended up with a few of their items. Well maybe more than just a few. We had already filled one storage 10’x10′ storage room with their furniture, but also a bedroom in our house and some of the garage. We had A LOT of their things. And after carefully going through the things, we now have fewer of our things which we replaced with the more time tested (worn) items from her folks house. So at the 2/3 point we had to go searching for another storage area. So we began our search in mid June, so the nice thing about a college community is that many of the kids go home for the summer and things are a little less hectic for us residents, we will for the moment pretend that there are no tourists. The bad thing is that they fill up all the storage spots with their gear while they are gone

So after much searching Helen find s a 5’x7′ storage room, so I tell her to reserve it and immediately begin calculating what things I will be discarding because we have no place to put them. So as I begin to fortify myself to say good bye to my Santa Maria style grill and my smoker (both to big for the storage room) Helen calls the storage yard again and miracle of miracles they have a 5’x10′ storage room! I’m ecstatic and teller to reserve it immediately, which she does and we tell them at the beginning of the following week we will be in to fill out the paperwork and give them a check. So over the weekend I realize that I will have to decide between my 2 children, the smoker or the SM Grill, I only have room for one. So I finally decide that the smoker is going to have to go (but after the 4th of July barbecue). While not happy with the decision, I know it’s for the best and the smoker is doomed.

UNTIL we go into pay for our new bigger too small storage room and Helen asks if they have anything bigger and lo and behold, they have a 10’x17′ available which we take immediately and I am now ecstatic, I don’t have to give up any of my kids, I am officially in Barbecue heaven.

So it looks like we have enough space to store everything, it just means we have a lot of stuff to go through when we get back….

I can’t believe I have not posted on this thing for so long. That was not part of the plan. So it’s time to get back into the groove on this thing. For the past year I have thought about getting back to the blog, but something always came up. It seemed that only big events would cause me to stop and visit the site. Today is no exception. Today is a baby shower for Eileen, who is do in April – sometime, her delivery date has been all over the month so we will just have to wait and see. Eileen and Adam decided to go old school and not find out the sex of the baby ahead of time and I think that’s great.

So beginning today I will be attempting to blog most days. There is still lots to cover and stories to tell. Looking forward to the journey and hopefully some good memories will emerge.

Okay I understand my hair is white and not thick like it use to be. But Senior Discount, I’m too young!

Lately I seem to be scoring the Senior price way too often. It was cute the first time. Funny the second time, now it’s making me feel old. Today I go to Supercuts and get by normal every 6 months haircut. No big deal. I am my usual lame self in the chair and all proceeds per plan. So we go to the front to pay, I am thinking $18 plus $5 tip, so I am pulling out $23. She stands at the register and fiddles around for a bit and then looks at me and says “that will be $14.”
I look up and it’s the senior price. Yeah I know I should be thrilled to get the discount. But you know I really would like to be young for as long as I can.

Well we continued to celebrate my turning 57 over the weekend . Saturday was wineries and a Jacuzzi. The wineries we visited were:

Broken Earth Winery – Very surprised lots of great wines. They are located along Highway 46 on the east side. Very enjoyable. I can highly recommend them to anyone asking. http://www.brokenearthwinery.com/

Cellar 360 – They were okay, They had a couple of good wines, but definitely not equal to Broken Earth. Cellar 360 was a nice place to have lunch, which Cathy prepared. But again nothing special. Although I did buy a bottle of Port that I am dying to try….

Last up was the Rockin ‘R Winery. – One of my favorites. Great Reds and the owner is a blast. I need to get there when they host one of the barbecues. I hear they are a treat. Best thing this trip was picking up our shipment of wines from their wine club. You can’t go wrong here. http://rockinrwinery.com/it

We hit the Mineral Jacuzzi after that and dang if that didn’t feel good. Climbed out and took a short nap. Very relaxing. Then a little dinner and home to bed. Great Saturday.

Now Sunday was really special. They let me cook so I got to smoke an 8.5lb brisket. I marinaded it for almost 24 hours before I threw it on the smoker for 5.5 hours. Came out delicious, if I do say so myself. Had Helen, Cathy, Ron, Eileen, and Adam there. The only one I missed was Nikki who was stuck at home in SD having to finish a project for her new job.

So ended up getting to spend the day drinking whiskey with my son-law and almost son-in-law and just talk. This was probably the best birthday I have had in quite awhile. To make it perfect it would have required Nikki’s presence. But you take what you can get.

Now the bad news – I have come to the conclusion that I drank a little more than was wise. Yes I think I have a hangover….

Well yesterday was my Birthday. I managed to get through work without anyone saying anything. Then I went home for a quiet evening at home with Helen (wife), Cathy (daughter 1), and Eileen (Daughter 2). Had some homemade gluten free Lasagna, which was delicious and then called Nikki (daughter 3) and had them all sing happy birthday to me with my Mickey Mouse candle and Strawberry Shortcake (gluten free). Then we relaxed, which gave me a few minutes to crush some zombies on the Xbox. Great way to turn 57. I’m a lucky man.