Lunch at the Tides and a visit with Bob 05-29-14

Patti and I decided to take a ride to the coast yesterday.
We are so fortunate to live in an area where in about an hour you can be on the coast or you can be in the mountains depending on which direction you drive.

We worked our way through town until we got on to Hwy. 116. We followed 116 through the village of Forestville

and continued on through Pocket Canyon.

We across the Russian River on the Guerneville bridge

 
and entered the town of Guerneville.

 
We went to see if Bob was home.
When we got to his place the gate was closed so I (assumed) that Bob had gone kayaking. We turned around and continued our ride to the coast.

We drove through

and continued on along Hwy. 116.

and arrived at the coast and Hwy. 1.

We drove the couple miles north to the town of Jenner by the Sea. We didn’t see Bob’s car in the parking lot. The plan was to have lunch at Jenner but there were so many tourist’s there that we couldn’t find a parking spot.
We decided to head south to Bodega Bay and have lunch at the Tides.

For those of you who don’t know; Bodega bay and the Tides were featured in the Alfred Hitchcock movie “The Birds”.

Driving down the coast is always beautiful.

It was pretty windy and the surf was up.

The weather was warm and there were a lot of people on the beaches but we didn’t see any surfers.

We drove past all the little tourist shops along the road

and eventually arrived at the Tides. It’s the building behind the sign. 

Patti took a picture of this whale jaw bone

and some of the fishing fleet.

Here are some of the local gulls waiting for some scraps.

We went in to check out the restaurant and decided that we didn’t want a $50 lunch so we ate at the snack bar.

Patti had clam strips and chips. I had prawns and chips.

While we were there we watched some wind surfers playing in the bay.

After lunch we bought a pint of clam chowder to take  home for dinner.

While we were having lunch we decided to head back home through Guerneville with a stop at the Monte Rio boat launch to see if Bob’s car was there. The car was not there so we decided to check at his house again.

Bob’s gate was still closed but he was home.
We visited with Bob for a couple of hours and then headed for home.

We ate the chowder for dinner and it was excellent.

Okay that was our trip to the coast. It was a good day.

An Unexpected Party 06-28-14

Joanne, Dave, Patti and I went over to visit our friends Loraine and Jerry for a visit yesterday.
It was just a couple of days before Jerry’s birthday so Patti picked up an ice cream cake

and we had surprise birthday party for him.

We visited with J&L until around 6:00. 
On the way home we decided to stop for dinner at El Charro Mexican restaurant. It was quite good as usual.

Okay that’s about it for now . We are slowly getting things together for next weekend and the trip to Canada.
The frustrating part is most of the stuff we want to pack, we are using or just won’t be able to pack until the last minute.

Ok, Talk to you later.

 

New parts and getting ready for a trip

Sunday we got the RV out of storage and it is now parked in front of our house.

We are slowly putting stuff in for our trip to Canada.

Yesterday I received the new Tie-rod ends for the van.

I won’t be doing any work on this project until we get back from Canada.
On the way home we are going to stop for a couple of days to visit Patti’s sister and brother-in-law. While we are there I am going to check out the wrecking yards around their area for a tie-rod.
If I can’t find a tie-rod there, I will have to build one. I have found all the parts I will need on line.

Other than that we have just been getting things ready for a trip to the cabin for the fourth of July and the trip to Canada right afterwards.

More van work 06-21-14

Since we got home on Tuesday I have been working on the van.

I replaced the rear output yoke seal on the transfer case. Then I replaced the universal joints on the drive shaft and installed the shaft.

  
I also ordered the correct tie-rod ends. They should be here in a couple of days. Then I will have to figure out what I want to use for a new tie-rod.

My daughter Felice came by yesterday for a visit. It’s always nice to see her. 

Dave also came by. He was working on the control module from the shower water heater for the cabin. It took two of us to remove a fitting on the controller I think it may have had glue on the threads. We got the fitting off and now Dave can get the heater back together.

Okay that’s it for now.

Talk to you in a couple of days.

A week at the cabin 05-18-14

Tuesday;
I arrived at the cabin after an uneventful hour and a half ride from Santa Rosa. 
By the time I had the jeep unloaded and the refrigerator hooked up it was already getting hot.
I don’t normally do any work on the first day and this day was no exception.
I did however take a walk up to check the springs. The camp spring is still producing water but it is down to barely a trickle. The cabin is producing about the same amount of water as it was last fall which is a little less than normal.

I took the top and doors off the jeep.

Wednesday;
Cut firewood in the morning.

Patti decided that we needed a hammock up here so I assembled the hammock.

  

Took a walk to check out a spring up the road toward the Bear Spring. The spring is still flowing. We will have to tap this one.

Goofed off the rest of the day.

Thursday;
Cut firewood after breakfast.

The windows in the cabin are getting kind of dingy so I tried washing them. The windows are made from a heavy duty clear plastic film. I tried using the brush that I wash the RV with but the brush is a little stiff and I was unable to get the windows very clean because I couldn’t put much pressure on the plastic. I will try it again with a sponge.  

I test drove the hammock for a while.

Took a walk to the slag heap via the first bench.

Stopped at the second for just a moment to check for a tick.

The slag heap is large rock with a good view of the valley. Before we started camping where the cabin is we used to camp here in the winter.

Here is the view from the slag heap.

Friday;

In the morning I bucked up the last of the trees that Bob had cut down.

Patti arrived around 12:00. We got her moved in and sat around for a while.

Saturday;

I dragged some plastic pipe up to the cabin spring. I am trying to bring the overflow from the spring down the hill so it can be used for irrigation. I didn’t have enough plastic pipe available so I will have to bring some more up.

We took a ride to the Bear Spring.

There is still plenty of water in this spring but it is too far from the cabin to be useful.

From the Bear Spring we drove down to the barn where I wanted to check for plastic pipe down there.

The road to the barn goes by where we shoot clay’s but isn’t used much so we always have to clear something out of the way. 
Here is Patti moving a small sapling out of the way.

There is an old cabin down by the barn. Originally it was the pay masters office when this was a logging camp back in the old days

The building is long and narrow and sits down in a dark hole that seldom sees the sun. At one point I thought about rehabbing the cabin but it is just in a bad spot.

This is one of the most photographed item on the ranch.
It’s an old truck with a Madrone tree growing up through the middle of it.

We did a little weed wacking at the shooting site.

The string got all fowled up in the whacker so we had to quit.

We got about 2/3 of the flat done before we stopped.

Sunday;

Patti finished stacking the brush where we were cutting wood.

That completed phase two of the wood cutting project.

While Patti piled brush I put up some strings for the Morning Glories to climb on.

Later we went back down to the shooting area and did some more weed wacking. This time we concentrated on the road.

In the evening we took a ride to the north fork.

Crossing Indian creek

There is a good spring along the road.

Patti got a picture of a wild Tiger Lily at the north fork.

Monday;

In the morning we watched these two deer walk across the clearing.

 and a couple of young squirrels playing in a fir tree.

Later we cut some brush away from behind the cabin.

In the afternoon we heard an airplane flying around in circles. After a while we took a ride up to the top gate to see if we could figure out what was going on. We saw a S2F aircraft flying over the trees. We couldn’t tell if it was a fire bomber or a coastguard rescue plane. We couldn’t see any smoke anywhere so figured that the plane must have been a rescue craft. Eventually it flew away.

A small bird had built a nest on a beam at the south east corner of the cabin. It was there for a couple of days.

This morning it fell off the beam.

The eggs that were in the nest got broken.

Tuesday morning we got up started packing up and left for home around noon.

It was another great week at the cabin.

I won’t be going back to the cabin until the 2nd of July.