Our first breakfast meal in Christchurch after arrival. Streaky bacon and eggs. We call bacon strips. They say streaky bacon. Anyway, the breads in NZ were wonderful, for some reason. The tomato is served at all breakfasts, which is British origin. In all, we liked the freshness and organic nature of most NZ foods. Fish from the surrounding ocean. Cattle now make up about 50% of grazing animals taking over for the past where it was sheep almost 100%. We enjoyed the food in NZ much better than Australia.

Another not too exciting place.  Very small town but for some reason it had an outlet shopping center.  The only thing that struck me was the number of Tesla’s parked at the Tesla charging posts.   Who would have thought that out in the middle of nowhere there would be a Tesla charging station and much less a few Tesla’s getting charged.

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Now Florence turned out to be a different story than Coos Bay.  The people at the church we visited on Sunday – not many young folks – indicated that Florence was voted the number 2 place to retire in 2011, or something like that.  You know those old folks, they can’t remember hardly anything.  We struggled a little to see why it would be voted so high as we drove around but we have to say it was very nice and, of course, the weather in that part of Oregon is pretty mild except for the rain – hardly any snow, they said.  But we stopped by this little bar that had a band and a volunteer singer that had dropped in from San Francisco and was singing for free as all the young’uns danced. I’m being facetious of course, it is just like the Villages here and we are running away from that.

Florence is located on the Suislaw River that dumps into the ocean and deep sea fishing is the rage there.  You can see the results of the early morning fishing that day.  Next to the dock were 6 cleaning locations and it was busy with guys waiting.  The second guy had four salmon and he would strip a fillet off turn it over and strip the other side and throw the rest of the fish in the garbage can.  You can see him working here.

So I asked him if he was going to throw away the next one knowing he was so I asked if we could take it.  Lynn’s eyes got the size of an Caucasian and so excited that she went to find a plastic bag in the car.  Here is a photo of her in the kitchen with her “catch.”

Soup, soup, soup, and then freeze the rest for later use and we are still eating that in Reno, NV.

But, at the docks there was one boat that sat at the docks and cleaned freshly caught sea tuna and people flocked to the boat to buy large quantities right off the boat.  Here is a photo of the boat.

We actually had a pretty good time in Florence.  Good restaurants!

 

Brookings is just over the Oregon border, just north of Crescent City which is just north of the Redwoods.  After parking at the Elks Lodge we decided to go hiking again in the redwoods south of Crescent City – sort dumb if you think about it since we drove through there the day before and its about 35 miles back.  Oh well.  Anyway here is how beautiful the place is and why we came back.

And them, of course, I have to get in the act.

Back at Brookings it was time to finally clean the rig (home) outside.  I think there is about 1,200 square feet of urethane painted siding and 500 square feet of windows!!  Anyway, it has to be done.

Not withstanding me being in the photo, I thought the colors here along with the sky were great – of course, that is tempered by the fact that I am red-green challenged!

As I was working, I kept hearing this screeching in the sky and I looked up and there was this Osprey flying up and then diving and then up and diving and . . . well you can see what I mean.

After that we were off north along the coast with a goal of eating cheese at Tillamook, OR, the home of Tillamook cheese.

On our way up the coast of California, before we entered Oregon we’re thought we’d stay a day or two in Eureka, a small harbor and town of about 28,000 folks and rest a while.  Boy was that wrong.  We spent 8 days there playing golf, going to a performance, hitting the farmers market, Taco Tuesday at the Elks Lodge and it went on and on.  We had a great time!

We went bike riding on this cold cold day on Samoa island.  Yes, Samoa.  The towns in the area are named Trinidad and Manila.  You’re think that they could be more original than that.  But we had a good 10 mile ride.

After the ride we went to this nice seafood restaurant right on the wharf.  We watched the birds diving into the water for their dinner.  The waitress brought us ours.

Eureka has so many beautiful Victorian houses the whole place should be made an historic area.  But, this one Victorian home, the Carson Manson, is the probably one of the most beautiful homes of this type in the US.

The sign outside the mansion says that the mansion has been restored by the Ingmar group which, as I understand it is a men only social group!  They hold functions and have dinners and ……  But, at an all you can eat pork ribs dinner at the Elks Lodge the people we sat next to indicated that just recently the Ingmar group has been opened up to women.

As we understand it, the entire Eureka, Arcata, McKinnleyville has been influenced greatly but the philosophy of the Humbolt State College and SF transferree mind set and has become VERY progressive.

As an example, we went to a performance in Arcata, just outside Humbolt State by Will Durst, a presidential election satirist.

He lives in San Francisco and has very left leaning attitudes toward past presidents and presidential candidates.  He spent almost 90 minutes going over his opinion of past presidents and, more recently, the present presidential candidates.  Of course, Hillary could do little wrong and Trump received much of his humor.  Here is just a few comments from him about our illustrious Republican presidential candidate.

We had a great time at a local benefit function for a railroad restoration group.  They had a roundhouse full of old locomotives, a restored caboose and a walk through restored pullman, business and restaurant cars.  You can see the passenger cars behind the band that is playing for the diners of the Salmon, Oyster and Tuna dinners.  Lynn was enjoying herself also.

 

Lynn caught me playing with a toy the  railroad restorers had got working, a Steam Donkey, this particular one was used to power a lumber cutting machine.

Couldn’t upload this video, will keep trying.

Finally, we went to this really nice seafood restaurant in Trinidad, CA, and afterward we went for a walk on the dock.  It was foggy and calm and the Bell Buoy at the entrance of the bay was dinging soulfully in the mist.  It was sort of romantic, if you know what I mean.

We camped for a few days along the Eel River in a KOA with a 9-hole golf course next door. For $25 you could play all day.  Lynn and I went out a couple of times.  The course was not great, not well kept but it was little used and had great views, was up and down and narrow – meaning lost balls, lost balls, lost balls.

Here Lynn tees off and with the duck family helping her determine the wind speed, the proper distance and …….

What really happened with Lynn is that the blackberries were ripe and I could not get her to play golf.  Each blackberry bush group we passed drew her in and you can see what happened.

 

Again, it is fortunate that the course was not well used because we spent, probably, an hour picking berries and no-one came through.  But we got bags of blackberries and froze them to use in Lynn’s morning specialty, “green juice,” which is essentially every plant product we have in the refer being ground into a juice.  Actually, it is quite good.

We spend some time touring around the Redwood forest and found this little, actually not so little, shop that sells all kinds of redwood art and home decor stuff.  

Lynn assumed the job of SHOPPER!

They had this cute mushroom thing, I think a garden statue, but it was up on the hill and looked so cool up there buy itself.

The Redwood area is famous for the Bigfoot sightings and, as such, a lot of stuff for sale there has to do with Bigfoot.  I thought I had a Big Foot, size 12 1/2, until I put my foot next to Bigfoot’s.

There is no area, other then in France, that compares to the wine country, in our estimation.  Just riding through the rolling hills covered with huge oak trees, open grass land sliced by acres and acres of vineyards is a treat to the eyes.  And the professionalism beauty of the wine tasting rooms is cool to see.

Just seeing the actual grapes hanging from the vine that will be turned into bottles of fine and some not so fine wines is wonder.  I guess little things make us happy!

But, some things just don’t go well for people in the wine country.  For instance, in the RV park we were staying in, these folks ran out of luck!

But then you get a little tranquility when, as you ride through the rolling grassland, you see the cows, in a line, heading back to the barn for dinner.  Because of the drought the fodder in the fields is bleak.

We camped at the Elks Lodge in Petaluma, about 50 miles north of SF and visited some really nice shopping areas, restaurants and we went to a Funk Band performance at a local club.

The interesting thing about moving north of SF is that so many “hippie” progressive people live in the area.  The “yuppie” type and hippie type are all over and the conversations you hear at restaurants are VERY different from those in the south eastern US that we’re used to, as you can imagine.

Anyway, we then moved north into the Bodega Bay, Guerneyville area just west of the Napa wine country and camped at the Cassini Ranch next to the Russian River.  I had one too many Margaritas in our RV and then we went for a walk along the river.  I challenged Lynn to a “Thuuking” contest.  My three brothers and I had these contests over the years and the championship changed from brother to brother, although each of us would claim the grand championship.

Here’s how it works, so you pick up a small flat rock that is smooth and pretty much rounded all around and you put it in your index finger and throw it up and spin it and when it lands in the water, to win, it  must make a “Thuuk” sound.  That means there is little or no splash and there is “boing” or “clunk” or “thunk” sound.  It must be a perfect THUUK!!!

I love the way Lynn jumps up throwing the rock.  It’s so cute!

With my Margaritas, I could barely stand up but I got through it, Lynn was the champion that day and it was her FIRST TIME!  Bummer.

We went hiking along the coast putting on our hiking boots and taking our walking sticks. Going up hill I say these sticks give a “4 wheel drive” power!  Seeming to get upper body exercise when we use them.

My favorite golf course in all the US of A is the little 9 hole along the Russian River just west of Guerneville called Northwood.  It has bright green grass and huge Cedar and Douglas Fir trees on either side of the fairways.  You can hear other golfers balls, not ours of course, bounsing off of the trees and echoing down the fairway.  It is just a beautiful course and a beautiful experience.

 

Of course we went to Guerneville, just upriver.  This town is the pen-ultimate yuppie, hippie, and gay center of the area.  It used to be a logging, mining and cattle town until SF culture moved in.  Now, the cattleman’s bar is a Rainbow bar and the “boys” seem to have a boisterous time in there as Lynn and I walked by.

One last thing to share is the collapsing sea coast.  Lynn and I have been coming to this area for years and there were several houses propped on the edge of a cliff looking over the Pacific.  For years we laugh and said, “who would buy a house here, it could fall in the ocean!”  Well, it finally happened.  In the photo below you can see the cliff, it is far away, but maybe you can see the remains of at least three houses that were there the last time we passed by but are there no longer.  The irony of it is that one house that is still left has a “For Sale” sign in front of it.  You bet, we will buy that for our retirement home???!!!