"Don't Text While Driving - It's the Law"

This has to be my favourite road sign for the year.

January 3, 2009

We made a few necessary purchases at Woodburn mall …. I got some very cool Pearl Izumi bike clothes … and just a few other things. Lorne found some great deals on running shoes and t-shirts. We found open Wi-Fi outside the Super 8 Motel nearby, apparently they all provide this, wonderful!

We drove only as far as Seven Feathers Casino just north of Medford (about 4 hours). We wanted to go over the Siskiyou pass mid-day to avoid ice and snow as chance of ice and snow were predicted for late in the day.

We got an extra 10% off our fee at the Seven Feathers RV park if we registered with the Players Club at the casino. Of course we did that and then received $5 free if we put our Players Club card into a slot machine along with one dollar to activate it. Of course we did that too. We lost the first dollar as we didn’t know what we were doing. Asked for help 3 times, and still couldn’t figure it out so we finally had to have an attendant come directly to the machine to help us! We then sort of played the slot machine. Neither of us really have any idea how to play the slots – do you just push the button? That’s it? Any sort of strategy involved? I really don’t see the attraction, we couldn’t figure out if we were winning anything until we had lost all $5, of course that was really $7 as we had to put in 2 of our own…. Well, so much for slots. I much prefer Black Jack but didn’t play. We watched craps for awhile – still can’t figure out what’s going on either except for a lot of money flying around and everyone getting very excited.

January 4, 2009
It was incredibly cold with what they call frozen fog here when we left in the morning. It was a bit foggy and the trees were covered with frost, quite spectacular. Frozen fog – an interesting weather feature for this area. According to Google:

When the humidity approaches 100% and the temperature and conditions are just right, the sky begins to snow without the presence of clouds. Frozen fog doesn't really fall; it just appears and then gently settles on
things. You can literally watch it form before your eyes. Like magic, it
just comes out of nowhere. It has a very sticky nature, so it tends to stick
to everything it touches; trees, bushes, houses, hats, gloves...

I think frozen fog is what we called hoar frost on the prairies.

As we crossed the Siskiyous there was snow all around us. Mount Shasta was quite spectacular. The water in Lake Shasta was incredibly low, it looked very strange with very steep banks of red soil all around it and its many arms. The dam is not ready to release any melt from the winter snow.

In the Sacramento area, the snow is gone and the sun is going down, up above are literally thousands of Canada geese – going home I guess. We could see flocks of them flying in formation all over the sky. Don’t they know its still pretty cold up Canada way??

Making our way to Rio Vista along State Highway 12 in the pitch dark, we passed through/by an Air Force base. The road was very narrow with many potholes and much uneven pavement, sorely in need of repair. There was also lots of traffic wanting to go much much faster than us. All around us and about 30 – 40 feet in the air, were red lights, all flashing in unison and we were driving towards even more of these lights. It was a very uncanny sensation driving along like that, not knowing what the heck these red lights were all about while having to focus on this terrible road. Suddenly, looming out of the dark, was a huge windmill, standing completely still, then another and another, as we moved by them I could see that each one had a red light blinking on the back of it. We were in the middle of a massive wind farm! We have driven by them on the freeway before but this was entirely different, we were right in the middle of them and so close beside us. If it was windy and the blades were whipping around it would be very noisy I think, but tonight it was absolutely still and eerie.

Vagabundos is located in Rio Vista and we needed to pick up our fishing licenses. Since our arrival was a Sunday; Kathy from Vagabundos had left our licenses for us at the bakery down the street. By the time we rolled in around 6 pm the bakery was closed for the day. We found a lovely little RV park on 2nd avenue right on the river just a few blocks from the office, complete with a tiny fishing pier.

January 5
On and on thru rather desolate country, up and over the grapevine, then a search for the Sizzlers identified on our mapping program only to find both closed. Apparently Sizzlers are going out of business around here. Too bad, as this is one of Lorne’s few places where he can eat a wide variety of foods.

There is an annoying and dangerous driving behaviour that seems to be quite popular when driving here: don’t let the motor home change lanes, even when there is plenty of room. Speed up and come shooting by, this scares the ….. out of the driver and passenger – great fun! Or, if the motor home is successful at changing lanes before you can accelerate to shoot by, then dart over to the other lane, speed up, cut the motor home off and slow done – this also scares them. This is even more effective when you can combine cutting them off with shooting off an exit immediately in front of the motor home at the very same time… quite aggressive. Every one is in quite a hurry here. City streets that look like Blanshard have a speed limit of 50 mph (80 km).

Unsuccessful at finding a Sizzler we picked up some groceries and whipped up a very late dinner in the motor home. We bedded down for the night at Camping World in Santa Clarita, a very rv friendly place. This allowed for a very early shopping experience.


January 6
Ahh at last, warm sun and blue skies, this is the California we have been looking for; unfortunately my arthritis in my hands is suddenly very bad this am. I gave myself a liberal coating of Therapain and an anti-inflammatory. Last year my arthritis was like this for a few months before we left and didn’t subside till we were in Baja. I’ve been lucky this year and been relatively pain-free till today. Here’s hoping it will pass with the warm weather.

Our destination today is Miguel’s, our friend and favourite GMC mechanic. He will give our motor home its annual pre-Baja check-up and fix the few things that need fixing. I will spend the time cleaning and tuning up the bikes after their mucky trip south.