RV There Yet?

This morning Barbara and I drove over to the Santa Cruz Lighthouse for what was advertised as a farmers market. We walked the entire “farmers market” and never saw any fruits or vegetables. As it turned out it was actually a craft fair. The advertisement also indicated that there would be lots of wonderful views of the coast and the Pacific Ocean. Well they were right about that. Barbara and I enjoyed the weather, the view, the wildlife, the waves, the surfers and even learned a few things about drones.

After the events of the past few days I decided that today would be a good day to stretch my legs and clear my mind. As usual I took a hike into Coloma this morning but wanted to hike up to the Marshall Monument. Now there are two trails that lead to the monument. One is one mile roundtrip and the other is 3.4 miles along the Coloma ridgeline. So since one of the reasons for my hike was to stretch my legs, I decided to hike the ridgeline. I enjoy the ridgeline because very few people hike up there so it is quiet and very peaceful. A great place for me to clear my mind. All in all my hike this morning ended up being 5.63 miles.

On January 24th I took my truck to the dealer where I purchased it for some service. The engine had an oil leak that needed to be addressed and it was time for the 90,000 mile service. The dealer has always given me great service in the past, but not so much this time. What was supposed to be a one to two day job ended up taking seven business days, nine days all together. When Barbara and I went to pick it up on Tuesday, February 1st, it wasn’t ready when we arrived. They still needed to take it for a test drive. However, during the test drive it was determined that the transmission was not shifting. When the service manager told me of this issue, I indicated that the transmission was working fine when I brought it in. He agreed. So they now needed to address the issue with the transmission. The next day everything change. The service manager called in the morning and stated that the transmission was damaged before I brought it in and indicated that it would need to be replaced. He wanted to replace it with a used transmission from a salvage yard and I told him no. I stated that if it is damaged that they either rebuild it or replace it with a remanufactured transmission from General Motors (GM). This began what turned out to be two days of arguing back and forth on how the transmission was to be taken care of. Even the store manager called me and stated that he would only put the salvage yard transmission into my truck and nothing else. This totally did not make sense to me because the transmission is still under warranty. What was the issue? Finally this morning the service manager indicated, in and email, that they would replace my transmission with a remanufactured transmission from GM. We hopefully will be able to pick our truck up early next week, more than two weeks after I dropped it off. So after all of this I needed to get out and stretch my legs and clear my mind.

The American River in northern California is, I believe, one of the most beautiful bodies of water in North America. It is also one of many rivers in the US that is protected, in several locations, under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (WSRA). The WSRA was enacted by congress to protect rivers in the US from future development and preserve their natural flow for people to enjoy for generations to come. Take a look at a few of the photos I have taken of this beautiful body of water.

This afternoon while I was enjoying the company of family, I noticed a woodpecker land on a nearby tree. I ran inside, grabbed my camera, installed my largest lens and went to work trying to get some photos of this elusive bird. It seemed like every time I would find a good vantage point, the bird would move. So after the bird moving and myself changing position, several times, I finally got some photos. They’re not the best, but I thought they were worth sharing. Check out the numerous holes this bird has made in the tree.

Hopper woke me up early this morning. So after I took care of his needs I decided to go looking for some river otters. It was cold out this morning, 34 degrees, so the water temperature was warmer than the ambient air, which made for some interesting photographs. However, as you can tell from the progression of photos, the air cleared as the morning went on. I spent two hours sitting by the river this morning taking photos, but not one otter was ever seen. I did see a lot of Canadian Geese and some kind of migratory bird of which I am not familiar. I believe some of the Canadian Geese were actually posing for me. In all I took 287 photos and sharing some of my favorites here.

After Christmas things have been slow in northern California while we wait for parts to make minor repairs to our trailer. After the December rain and snow the weather has turned sunny but cold and sometimes windy, so my time outside has been limited. During the month of January we travelled between the Thousand Trails campgrounds of Lake of the Springs (LOTS), Lake Minden and the Ponderosa in Lotus. I have taken a few hikes and photos of which I am sharing my favorites here. These include, but are not limited to, an assortment of our feathered friends, the January full (Wolf) moon, a real buck not the paper kind and Lake Mildred at LOTS. I hope you enjoy these photos as much as I enjoyed taking them.

This morning I braved the cold, it was 35 degrees, in an attempt to get some photos of the local river otter. I did get to see him or her, but it was too fast for me to get a photo. I was sitting at the river’s edge when it popped up in front of me, approximately 15 feet away, looked right at me and then disappeared below the surface of the water. So while I was waiting for it to make an encore appearance, which it never did, I took photos of some waterfowl that were happy to pose for me.

This morning I got up and my legs were sore due to my eight mile hike yesterday. So I drank some juice, green tea and Muscle Milk and took another hike to work the soreness out. This time I only hiked 3.8 miles, but found another trail on the far side of the river that I have not previously done.

Yesterday the rain finally subsided so I checked out the AllTrails app on my phone to see if there were any trails in the Coloma area that I haven’t hiked. As it turns out there is a trail, not too far from camp, that has a nice looking waterfall and with the recent rains I figured it would be flowing real well. It’s been awhile since I have had a chance to get out and shake some of the rust off of this tired old body. The trail to the falls is rated as moderate, but the last 2 tenths of a mile kicked my butt. I made it and the hard work paid off. All in all my hike was 8.1 miles roundtrip, but it felt great to get out and enjoy the scenery and fresh air.

On Wednesday I drove a few miles to the east to take advantage of the local farmland, the waterfowl on the Pacific Flyway and the evening sunset. I wasn’t disappointed. In this area the farmer’s fields are filled with water, there are plenty of waterfowl enjoying the fields, and with the rain earlier in the day there were enough clouds to provide contrast in the sky. In addition, the coastal mountains provided a nice backdrop. Take a look!