The route we took on the 2009 Summer Trip

This is the trip that we took. The black line represents where we towed the trailer. We took lots of small side trips, and the small red lines are some of the more significant ones.

The Trip Home

When we got near San Antonio, we stopped taking pictures. We made it home safely on Saturday August 15. The only major problem we had was that we lost the exhaust brake (again!), but after most of the worst mountain passes. We got bad (watery) diesel a couple of times, but that was fixed with some diesel additive that dries it out. Other than that, the trip was relatively trouble free. We ran into a few RV parks where the electrical power was at low voltage because everyone was running air conditioners. I used my Autoformer, and all was well. The trailer had no problems at all. Total milage on the truck was just under 9,000 miles, and milage on the trailer was about 6,500 miles. I'll post a picture of the route we took.

West Texas is very beautiful when it has been raining.

Here is some of it.

West Texas was also very green. They had been having a lot of rain.

West texas showed some very colorful rock formations.

This area in New Mexico was called Texas Valley.

Nice rock formations in New Mexico.

We starterd to run into areas of Sequarro (sp?) cactus.

A turkey buzzard eating roadkill (a ground squirrel).

More wind farms in Arizona.

It was so dry, most rivers were dry, and most lakes were very low. This lake should have been right up to the road. It was down at least 100 feet.

Eventually, we started to head east, out of California.

We got off the Interstate and ate lunch in a smal town called Desert Center. They weren't kidding!

We started to run into large groups of wind generators.

As we neared Los Angeles, the smog became intensely apparant.

We left there and drove south.

They had Hummingbirds too.

They had a cat. This is a picture in their back yard.

We stopped in Sunnyvale, California (neart San Francisco) to visit with Sandy's sister-in-law. The weather there was in the low 60's at night and in the 70's during the day. It was perfect for growing tomatoes. I love vine ripened tomatoes, and was able to eat my fill while there. Thanks, Joan.

We made it to San Francisco

Very close!

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This one was close to our trailer.

My obligatory pose for Sandy.

Closer view

We camped that night in an RV park that was full of giant redwood trees. This one appeared to be the largest.

The same stop had two "tree houses" We thought they would be high up in a tree. Instead, they were made from hollowed out trees. This one was two stories, and you (not me) could climb up inside to it.

Us in the same tree.

Same tree.

Another location. I thought that there was only one tree that you could drive a car through. This is one, but not the famous one. Still, it was very large, and still alive even though the top was gone. It was only about 100 feet high.

This big boy was a few feet off the road. It almost makes me look skinny (almost).

A different tree with a car to show relative size.

The same tree with Sandy standing in a large hollow in the trunk.

The same tree.

This is a shot to show relative size between the cyclist and the very large redwood behind him.

We drove south. In California, we got off US 101 and went about 32 miles down a highway called the Avenue of Giants. It was full of giant redwood trees. They tended to grow in groups (groves), and each grove had a name. The road had many pull outs where you could get out and take pictures.

Headed south down the coastline

This is an amazing old fashioned General Store, complete with original, squeaky, hardwood floors. If you go be sure to check out the back room down stairs and the upstairs "museum" of antique store items.


This is just a small portion of the museum collectibles.

Sorry, added twice and we can't figure out how to remove it, yet.

An old Victorian town, Ferndale, just southwest of Eureka.

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FERNDALE, CALIFORNIA

He made furniture too.

A roadside chainsaw carver's place.

Good perspective on size.

Back in the redwoods.

Hydrangeas. Out here they are usually blue, and are everywhere.

This sea gull landed on the hood of our truck while we were stopped eating lunch in the truck. I honked, and he just looked at me. Brazen little B-------s.

Fog every morning.

We are now driving through a giant redwood forest, away from the ocean a little bit, still on 101.

Back on the coast. See my new decal on the back?

We went through some class 4 rapids. He said the rapids were only rated class 4 because of the large rocks present in most of them.

These guys were setting test nets to survey fish populations in the river.

I went on a jet boat ride on the Rogue River. This was one of the boats like I rode on. The boat had three 360 h.p. gas engines, each with its own jet drive. 1100 horse power gives a pretty good ride. It can run in 6 inches of water. The driver liked to spin the boat 360 degrees. There were lots of rafters drifting the river in groups. Many of them liked to engage each other in water fights, using long tubes with a plunger that could suck up river water and then squirt it in about a quarter inch stream for about 20 feet. Our driver liked to water fight too. However, his water gun was 1100 horsepower that put out a flow of 26,000 gpm at full power. He would just ease past those who had squirted us first, and then just rev the engines a second to drown them. Those who weren't too bright, then would squirt the driver rather than the passengers. He would turn around, ease near the offending raft at about 5 mph, and then put the engines in full reverse. That would make the bow of the boat squat heavily into the water, and send what had to be several hundred gallons of water into the raft in a large wave, much like an ocean breaker. That was fun for us to watch, but he made sure no one got hurt.

More Oregon coast pictures

This guy passed us. He has what looked like a 14 foot boat, motor, and trailer, in the bed of his pickup. We saw another like this later.

The following few pictures are of the Oregon coast. We traveled down US 101.

The fort was 50 by 50 feet.

We headed down the coast because it is cooler by about 40 degrees compared to 30 miles inland. We stopped at a replica of the fort built by Lewis and Clark for their winter at the end of the Cloumbia River.