Rain, Rain Go Away!

Coloma, CA

Ponderosa RV Resort

2022 went out like a lion and hasn't left!  Northern California has had 4 weeks of almost non-stop rain/snow here.  As a matter of fact, more rain fell in the first 10 days of January than all of last year!  Once again, we had to evacuate from our campground due to the American River rising dangerously high and more back-to-back storms expected.  A few days later the entire lower section was washed out and is now riverbed.  It's not expected to reopen for a few months.  This will make it challenging to find somewhere close to my parents to stay.

We decided to move 3 hours west to San Jose to visit the kids and some of my friends.  On the way we had new tires put on the trailer.  We've always had Goodyear G614's.  This will be our 3rd set of trailer tires.  Unfortunately, the price of Goodyears has gone from $315 each to $588.  We didn't want to spend that crazy price so we checked with many of our friends who have been running Sailuns.  They have been very happy with them so we decided to try them.  $171 each was much easier on the wallet.  They are made in Vietnam instead of the USA, but their quality is much improved.  Time will tell if this was a good decision. We bought them online from Walmart and America's Tires mounted and balanced them.  They even offered replacement certificates for them.

San Jose, CA

Moochdocking

Me, Debbie & Chris

We were going to stay a week at my friend, Debbie's, but the storms have flooded out many campgrounds, roads, bridges, etc.  We just stayed both weeks here as we got our next reservation cancelled too.  We had one scary night where the winds gusted to over 70mph!  Worst we've experienced.  The winds have been worse than any I've felt since living here as a child.

This is the entrance over Uvas Creek to get into the campground.  Within 2 days the water rose several more feet and covered the bridge.  

We got lucky one day to get out for a little hike.  Boy did we enjoy the blue skies and warm sun.

We had a yummy dinner with Brian at Famous Dave's BBQ.

I didn't get pictures with all the friends and family we visited but I did get one with the Meatball.

Jaxon and Papa sure had fun pushing cars and trucks down the hallway to each other.

 

Another day there was a short break in the rain and I took some closeups of the landscapes.

 

This is very close up of some palm tree blooms.

Before you knew it our 2 weeks had flown by and back to Placerville we headed.  There was so much rain that parts of Hwy 99 had flooded.  This is a major north/south route that runs through all the farming in the central valley.  So many fields, vineyards and homes were flooded.  We had a few friends who had damage and flooding to their properties.

This is looking directly out the passenger window as we drove with the water partially in the slow lane still.

This small stream is a very wide lake now.

No playing golf for a while.

The Sierra has had record snowfall.  Several feet at a time.  Over and over.  There were avalanches causing closures along Hwy 50 from Placerville to Lake Tahoe.  Even Hangtown Creek flooded causing Placerville to close Main Street with 2+ feet of flooding.  This surpassed the rain back in 2017 when we were stuck at my brothers due to heavy rain/flooding.

There were more fun times though back home with Tim & Leslie and with my parents.

So where was this view of the well-known Water Tower taken from?

Steve's hospital room.  What???  Yes, unfortunately Steve had another GI bleed and he spent a week there recovering.  A much milder case, but a week nonetheless.

The crazy storms have finally passed so I took advantage of some downtime at the hospital while he was having some testing done.  All the years we lived in Placerville and I had not visited Sutter's Fort in Sacramento.  (That's the hospital across the street)

Usually this would've been a field trip in elementary school, but not that I remember.

California was the northern province of Mexico and it was so far from the center of the country that it wasn't even settled until 1769.  Settlers mostly inhabited large ranches on the coastline and central valley. Before that the Miwok and other native tribes lived here.  The Catholic Church built a series of missions.  Partly to force the Indians to become Spanish citizens and partially for free labor.  Either way it was a lose-lose for the natives.  More than 70% were wiped out due to disease brought by the settlers.  Mexico started closing the missions in 1834.  The land and cattle were supposed to belong to the Indians who worked and lived there but that never happened. Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821.  John Sutter arrived in 1839 and began to make money by trapping and selling furs.  That ended rather quickly and he did much better with agriculture, fishing and cattle trades.

Cannons in the corner bastions.

There are many buildings and rooms that you can look into where they cooked, slept, made tools and blankets.  It was a nice day to walk around.  $5 for adults.

This is a replica wagon that would make the 2,000 mile journey.  It was to carry food and supplies only.  Everyone except young children or the sick walked.

Blanket weaving was very important.

The grounds were nice too.  Not much blooming at this time but still pretty.

The fort lit up at night.

Steve has been back home and doing well.  Sure not a fun thing to go through.  I'm glad he's better as we have a fun hike coming up.