Oregon‘s nickname is the beaver state – unfortunately we didn’t see any, just the Cascade Mountains and trees mainly Douglas fir trees. Our home for the week was Armitage Park in Eugene, a truly amazing public park, lots of grass and trails and the McKenzie River running alongside.

Oregon has the largest collection of covered bridges in the West and one of the largest in the USA. The settlers used the most abundant materials available, Douglas fir, to construct these river crossings – with ‘houses’ over them to protect the bridge from the damp Oregon climate. By 1925 there were nearly 600 of these bridges; this number fell to just 56 in the mid-1970s.

We toured one area and found 4 bridges all fairly close to each other, crossing the Row River, some of them can still be crossed in a vehicle.

We decided that we needed to go explore the Pacific coast so set off along 126 which runs by the Siuslaw River from Eugene to Florence, a really twisty and beautifully scenic trip, even having to return on the same route was enjoyable. We arrived at the Harbor Vista Park and walked along the Siuslaw North Jetty to the beach, Connie wanted to feel the water with her fingers, the Pacific had other ideas as the surf came in and left her in about 5 inches of water, wet but totally happy. As usual little Rusty just went crazy running around the beach, unfortunately he jerked on his leash and the camera hit the sand, still works but the lens cover doesn’t close fully, maybe its time for a new one.

On the way back to Eugene we stopped to take a picture of a crazy house built on the very top of an iron bridge over the river, anyone wanting to live in this place would need to be slightly insane and have a good head for heights climbing the ladder.

A second day of touring for covered bridges and finding a craft brewery brought our stay to and end and we headed for our next stop in Washington State for a 2 week stay in Preston just 20 miles east of Seattle.

Most of this part of California was being tourists around Fresno and Vacaville – Yosemite for the huge trees, Napa Valley for the vineyards, Old Town Sacramento, Sausalito for eggs benedict and the Golden Gate and of course a tour of the Jelly Belly factory, so this post is mainly a collection of photographs.

One trip was around Lake Berryessa and the small town of Winters and the local wildlife preserve, the drought is really hitting this area, the lake is so low.

You can’t go to Sausalito without taking a couple of pictures from that side of the Golden Gate.

Old Sacramento is a really nice part of town, had lunch overlooking the Sacramento River at Rio City Café and then took a carriage ride with Phil the horse – Rusty wasn’t impressed.

The Jelly Belly factory tour was really good, free samples – so what do they call the rejects – Belly Flops. Misshapen Jelly Bellys that they sell at $10 for a 2 pound bag – who cares what shape they are.

Napa was really busy, lots a tourists getting in the way – and some really great views of the vineyards. Yosemite has its own share of remarkable views, and some really incredible trees.

After leaving Vacaville we spent our last night in California at Yreka, just an overnight stop before entering Oregon.

As we’re spending over 5 weeks in California we need to split our adventure in 2 parts, so here is San Diego (Escondido), LA (San Dimas) and Fresno.

We left Yuma, Arizona and soon entered California in the desert – really looking forward to the climb up and over to San Diego (not). The Vallecito Mountains in San Diego County rise from sea level on the East to over 4,000 feet and then down to close to sea level again in San Diego – roller coaster comes to mind though slower in Junior towing the CR-V. Less than 80 miles over these ‘hills’ and stressful, the rising revs of the V10 going up and the careful use of the brakes on the way down.

Escondido was our stop for a week, to visit some very good friends – Mo and Ky, sadly Mo was off to England the day we got there but Ky welcomed us to their home and made a real authentic chicken curry, What a great visit, eating, talking and watching the hummingbirds – they have a wonderful house in the foothills of Escondido. Thanks Ky.

We visited Oceanside and down the 101 to La Jolla, then a couple of days later toured Temecula, we are learning to take long rests in between small bouts of tourism and sight seeing.

We took a short drive from Escondido to San Dimas and experienced driving a near 60 foot vehicle through the freeways in LA, doesn’t help that vehicles towing are restricted to 55 MPH when everyone else is doing 300, OK 65 minimum going on 80 from both sides, the overtaking (left) side and the more lethal undertaker (right) side – that is not a pun. We made it to the park but had to change sites twice to get a reasonably level one, so that the wheels were on the ground once the leveling jacks had done their job, always a good idea. The views from this campsite were quite spectacular.

Friends again – we had lunch the first day with Ariel, a friend who works for TT electronics as the Data Center manager for the Americas, great time at the Lazy Dog, catching up on the latest gossip. It was really good that Connie and Ariel could meet, Connie had heard many of the one-sided conversations I had with Ariel when I was working for TT.

Sometimes the little known friends become really good friends and surprise you. Angela and Gerald Bush wanted to go out for dinner, however our pooch has never been left for long at night – so Angela cooked a meal, including desert and wine and brought the whole thing to the site. We ate, drank and talked outside well into sunset – and thoroughly enjoyed every minute. Thanks Angela (and Gerald for driving her out to us). They are simply a great and friendly couple.

OK, this is LA so what do you do. Go to see the Hollywood sign, go into Hollywood and the Chinese Theater, the stars on Hollywood Boulevard, visit Santa Monica Pier, drive through Venice Beach – yes we did – all of that. We had to stop and have lunch on the pier – of course we chose Rusty’s Surf Ranch. The Chinese theater was getting ready for the red carpet opening of the new movie ‘Hot Pursuit’ so the road was closed off. The freeways are horrendous – I always thought that Dallas drivers were bad, they are twice as bad in LA – manic speed and lane changing at the last minute, really!!!

So we finally plucked up the courage to get back on I10 with Junior and Toad to make the next stop in Fresno. I had not done my homework on this leg – I thought the only mountain range we would traverse was between Yuma and San Diego – WRONG. Lebec is a community on the Tejon Pass in the San Emigdio Mountains – another climb, this time to over 4,400 feet, Junior screaming on the way up, me and Connie screaming on the way down, however our existence testifies that we made it – and my hair cannot go grayer. We love (nearly) every minute of this great adventure.

Part 2 will follow once we leave Fresno and then Vacaville and Napa Valley.