Travels with Ann and Ken

Actually, we are home and have been doing chores around here like doing a top-to-bottom cleaning of our RV. This will be the last post for this trip so I've got to catch you up on the last few stops along the way. After Fort Kearny we headed further east along I-80 but before leaving Nebraska we decided to leave the interstate and get back on secondary highways. We crossed the Missouri River into Iowa and headed east along US-34. Iowa, in case you don't know, is the buckle of the corn belt (notice the wind turbines, again). We continued along US-34 to another charming campground near Chariton, IA called Red Haw State Park (we never did find out what a "red haw" is). Its main feature is a small lake (Red Haw) and lots of shade trees in the campground. We hiked around the lake (about 4 miles) but otherwise tried to keep cool. We were back in the land of humidity, after all. From Iowa we turned south into Missouri parallel to the Mississippi River for a...

We have always kept our eyes out for state parks that might be gems. We found one in Nebraska along the Platte River very close to I-80. It is Fort Kearny State Park and Recreation Area. The recreation area has a great campground in the midst of 7 sand lakes. There is lots of shade and the space between campsites is great. We found a site that backed right up to one of the lakes. It was still hot but the shade trees made it bearable. In the photo above Ann & I were getting ready to go for a evening bike ride. There are great paved bike trails that start in the park and cross then follow the Platte River. The photo below was taken from an old railroad bridge that crosses the south channel of the Platte (not to be confused with the South Fork or the South Platte). The river here is said to be "a mile wide and a foot deep". Early explorers were hoping it might be a route to the Northwest but found it to be so shallow and shifting that they pronounced it usele...

After visiting Swami and Nikki it was time to start heading back east. As mentioned in a previous post, fire season was in full swing in California and as we went back through the Central Valley and further east, the air always had haze of smoke from numerous fires. We were never close enough to one to be in danger or even see a fire but we knew they were there. We crossed back over the Sierra Nevadas and into Nevada itself again. It was HOT. We spent one night in a town called Battle Mountain along I-80 and it was over 100 degrees. We were starting to get tired of the heat. The landscape in Nevada along I-80 is not really inspiring but we did take a few shots to give you all an idea of what it looks like. Notice the haze - from wildfires. At the right of the picture are the ribbons of the highway in the distance. We crossed into Utah at the Bonneville Salt Flats. After the Salt Flats we came to the Great Salt Lake just west of Salt Lake City. We stopped to take a look. ...

From the beach in Mendocino County we went back up into the Coastal Range and to my brother's place back in the hills. It is north of Laytonville and after leaving the paved highway we traveled on dirt roads for almost an hour to get to their property, called Turtle Creek Ranch. My brother, the Swami, lives there with his wife Nikki on their 160 acres of rugged hills. The main house started out as a hunting cabin and they have added multiple rooms, passageways, a complete separate residence, a barn, etc. It is a village really. There are always other people living there doing work on the farm. For example, in the photo below there are 2 women watering plants on the porch who are from Costa Rica there as part of a program called WWOOF, World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. But, typical of Californians in the summer, they live outside with a full living room set out under the shade of oaks and Douglas firs. I managed to catch Nikki and Swami resting in the shade. ...

We headed west on I-80 over the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The path that I-80 takes is near to some of the original trails that settlers and 49ers used to get into California. An example is Emigrant Pass which can be seen from I-80. It's not as high as passes in Colorado but still very rough (ask the Donner Party). We got off of I-80 and onto California Route 20 heading west through the Central Valley then up into the east side of the Coastal Range. The hills were typical of Northern California this time of year - dry as tinder. The wild grasses are all dry. Looking at this you can understand why California has so many wild fires. As a matter of fact, as we were approaching Clearlake Oaks, we passed a large collection of fire-fighting equipment that we learned later had been involved in fighting the Pawnee fire the weekend before we passed through. It later started up again. The wind was hot and dry and over 20mph the whole time we were in the area. The lake itself was very...

Passing into California from Nevada on Interstate 80 with no particular schedule, one has to ask, have I (or we in this case) ever seen Lake Tahoe. Since for Ann and I the answer was "no" then there can be no doubt - hang a left and let's go see Lake Tahoe. It is very beautiful and the color blue of the water is hard to capture with a camera. This spot where we first stopped had a great overlook and we wandered around some rocks to get a more unobstructed view. We came upon a couple who appeared to be in their late forties or early fifties and they explained that on this spot, 36 years ago, they had been married. They came back every year to celebrate their anniversary, that day. They were very friendly and offered to take a picture of us with the lake in the background. We reciprocated with a picture of them on their camera. He then explained that part of the annual celebration was that he sang her a song. As he began, we excused ourselves and could her him sin...