Sat. 7/22.
Dove to L.A. Saw some dust devils! Passed some volcanic formations.
Sun. 7/23.
Passed some wind farms, art-y highway barriers, and funky buildings on the way into the city. Will have dinner with Bob’s 1st cousin once removed Danny, wife Vanessa, son Sebastian (Bob’s 1st cousin twice removed), & Vanessa’s parents from Australia.
Took a guided tour of the La Brea tar pits. The 1 x 3 mile deposit was originally mined for asphalt. The land owner made initial fossil findings, then gave the excavation rights to the LA Natural History Museum in 1913. In the next 2 years, they recovered 3/4 million fossils.
It only takes a 6″ deep tar seep to trap an animal–they weren’t drowned in the pits. They determined that 9 carnivores per herbivores were trapped. Not a normal ecosystem. Indicates that predators went after trapped prey, became stuck themselves, etc.
More recently, the adjacent LA County art museum was going to build a parking garage–and a huge fossil deposit was found. Archeologists directed the excavation–from earth movers to tiny brushes. Bones were found from 9,000 yrs ago. They don’t know how the animals died.
They use N propyl bromide now to dissolve the asphalt, instead of kerosene. Safer.
Other artifacts were found from 6,000 yrs ago. People came for the asphalt, but didn’t live here.
Mon. 7/24.
Had lunch on beach road north of Ventura. It’s stressful navigating on the fly, looking for and checking reviews of campgrounds, looking for nearest walmart, taking pictures.
Tue. 7/25.
Didn’t know it was so desert-y here. Turned into big farms later. Passed burnt fields with pink fire suppressant on margins. Some nice homes, yards, with stockyard-type covered pens right behind them. Used to be cotton farms here but the economics failed at turn of this century.
National and some state park campground use a central system, Reservations.gov. It said Sentinel Campground had few reservations (so first come first served would be ok), but when I called the ranger on site, he said there was no turnover (no one checked out) so in fact it was full. And .gov didn’t know about road restrictions preventing RVs >22’ (like ours) from using some campgrounds.
Retorqued tires, lost wheel cover, had trouble putting driver side front wheel cover back on, fiberglass damage.
Wed. 7/26.
The construction delay in Sequoia NP wasn’t as bad as I feared. The grass covered hills we see from the road are tedious steep & curvy to drive down. Sign at the 1st VC advised leaving there at qtr past the hour, which happened to be just enough time to view their exhibits.
Sequoia National Park has the largest trees in the world and Kings Canyon National Park is one of then deepest canyons of its kind in North America. Mt. Whitney, on the eastern border of Sequoia, is the highest peak in the continental U.S. Miles and miles of rivers flow thru the parks’ 865,257 acres.
The largest sequoias are as tall as 26 story building and wider than a city street. More on why here and how big these trees are.
The scale is amazing–look for the people in the photos.
Saw 2 chipmunks, 2 deer, some small butterflies, i.e., not much wildlife. Some cows. Plum & nectarine trees. The seedlings in their little white protective pipes look like crosses in a cemetery. Most fields have little irrigation ditches between the rows, just passed one with pipes or hoses running next to the tree trunks. Farmhouses here are right next to the crop fields/orchards, no yard or barns around them as in Midwestern farms.
Not very clever with street names here. Ave 308, Rd 8, M street. Avenues run EW, roads run NS
Thur. 7/27.
So, the place that rotated the RVs tires put a wheel cover on wrong, pressing on and slicing the valve stem, right front. Stopped to get fuel and check & fill tire and it started going flat. Bob drove out of the diesel lane before it died. A couple hrs for Good Sam (roadside service, like AAA) to get a guy out to repair it (Schwab Tires)–and then we see a tire repair place just up the block.
We are skipping Yosemite National Park, due to recent area forest fires and air pollution advisory saying to stay indoors
Long drive, last part on local streets at 25-35mph in the dark. Got to RV park, NW of San Francisco, at 10 pm.
Seen before that: Peach on Earth. Picked daily.
Passed a Sun Maiden raisin field.
305 acre wind farm. for sale by Sotheby’s.
Fri. 7/28.
Bob’s friends Alison & Lee came over for dinner.
Sat. 7/29.
At Cowgirl Creamery, the cheese store in Point Reyes Station, Bob to sales clerk : Where are you from? Clerk: NY. Where in NY? Long island. Where in LI? Nassau county. Where in NC? Cedarhurst. Where in Cedarhurst? Same elementary school and high school as Bob, 10 yrs later!
Sun. 7/30.
Extended lunch with Kim (Bob’s ‘sister’ Marcy’s husband) at Alison & Lee’s house.
Mon. 7/31.
Did the 1906 Earthquake trail.
And explored the park. Bob & I did the 300 steps down to the lighthouse and back up. Saw about a dozen deer. Ranches co-exist with the park. Walked trail to seal and elephant seal overlooks, but can’t see them clearly. Went down to South beach. Did not go to the part of the park with elks.
Tues. 8/1.
Drive from Olema. Steep hills and very winding road from Willits to Fort Bragg.
Wed. 8/2.
Mackerricher SP. Nice boardwalk, about a mile. Dad walked the whole way pushing the wheelchair, with a rest when we checked out the tidal pools. Big rocks offshore.
More steep hills and winding road as we took hwy 1 up the coast. Plus some fog over the water. Still having trouble.making phone calls and getting online.
Moving on:
Thur. 8/3.
Blue Ox Historic Village, Eureka, CA—working museum of Victorian era machinery, technology, and craftsmanship. Learned that a router scrapes, but this [other machine] cuts in either direction. From Rockford IL (not far from Chicago), the WFJ Barnes Co.
The fence posts are waterproof, cut as smooth as if polished, because the planer pushes the wood cells down.
One of their projects was to build a full-size replica of Abraham Lincoln’s hearse–from a photograph–for a 2015 anniversary parade. They had to figure the size of all the pieces, make full-scale drawings allowing for shrinkage of metal parts, use the drawing to guide cutting of pattern pieces from wood, cast metal pieces from clay molds they made themselves for 3D parts, . . .
Besides the tools, they have a collection of logging buildings and equipment. The buildings were built on sleds so that they could be pulled to the new logging sites by ox teams or steam donkeys. They were the first “mobile homes!”
and some antique vehicles.
There’s a resident elk herd at tonight’s campground (Elk country RV resort, Trinidad, CA), saw them in adjacent meadow on our way out. Nice grounds, trees.
Fri. 8/4.
Toured the Kuchel Visitor Center, Orick, CA. Key point: redwoods are younger but taller but lighter than sequoias. Sequoias are wider at their base and have that columnar shape we read about last week, so they have greater mass.
Also did Humboldt State Park, Avenue of the Giants auto tour, and Founders Grove walk
Sat. 8/5.
Toured the Jeremiah Smith Redwoods State Park.
Drive from northernmost CA to southern Oregon.