November in Placerville, CA

Placerville, CA
Storm Valley Ranch



We were welcomed back to Placerville with what else, rain.  We sure hoped it wouldn't turn in to a repeat of last year when it rained almost every day we were here (4 months) resulting in us staying until almost March before we could get out.

A couple of days later Steve met up with several of his friends away at a Men's Weekend.  This is usually when my friend, Chris, comes up to visit.  We have fun hiking and hanging out.  This time I got sick just after we got here.  She still wanted to come up and visit.  We just lounged around and hung out with some of the animals.  The sun had come out and the weather, while chilly, was nice.  Sorry I wasn't better company Chris.  Always great to see you though!

 The resident Scottish Highlanders that my brother raises.

Lot's of cute babies!

 

My brothers new rig on the left, ours in the middle and a friends that was just here for a bit on the right.  My brother and his wife are going fulltime.  They will follow us to Quartzsite for a bit then they'll head to Florida and back and join us later in the year up in Oregon.

 

 We surprised our friend Doug at his work event.  Too bad his wife Deanna didn't come!

Happy Birthday Doug!

 But later that week they took us to a King's game.  They have season tickets and great seats!

 Doug, Deanna, Me and Steve

 

 

Thanksgiving came quickly.  Unfortunately that pesky cold was going around with a vengeance and my sister was also sick and couldn't come.  It eventually went through most of the family.

Some of the kids playing card games.  Ryan couldn't make it as he and his girlfriend were out of the country on vacation. We'll have to wait until Christmas to see them.

 

 

 Me and my sister-in-law, Diane.

  Most of the family.

 There was a gorgeous sunset later that evening.

 Up early we were to do some hiking while the weather was still nice.

 

 It was a cool hike in a fern canyon.

 A different hike took us high up on a ridge over the river.

  

Came upon a heart on a rock that was lichen. 

It's not visible in the picture, but the American River flows down at the bottom.

 Tina and I out on a short hike.  We hid a couple of geocaches along the way.

Yet another hike around the lake at Sly Park.  It's close by our old home and always a go-to for me.  It's a great hike in all seasons, even snow.

 With all the rain, flooding and damns failing last year they are keeping the water levels around here very low. 

 The waterfall at the end of the trail. I was surprised how much water was running through.

 Hmm?  Thankfully we never did see any flying debris!

 Me, Rose, Steve and Mike.

 

After our 6 1/2 mile hike we drove back to Placerville where a couple of breweries had opened since we were here last year.  This one is called Solid Ground.  The guys didn't care for the beer at all.  They make a lot of wine beer.  I hadn't heard of this before.

 The back room if you want a more intimate setting.

I don't remember which were the wine beers, but many of them were.  What I didn't like is that beer and a couple of types of wine, were all they sold. No soda or iced tea.  So I just drank tap water!  They need to get some better non-alcoholic choices.

Shane took Steve to a 49er football game and I visited with my friends Chris and Debbie.  I did not get any pictures though ;-(

After Thanksgiving another round of the cold/flu went around and we all got sick again.  We rarely get sick and this just complicated all our plans.  There are so many appointments to get in and there was some maintenance we wanted to do with the truck and trailer At least the weather turned out wonderful.  It didn't rain much at all the entire month of November!

 

 

I went to the grocery store for some medicine, but happened to spy this out of the corner of my eye as I walked down the bread isle.  God how I love these Breakfasts Claws! So bad!  My once a year bad habit.  I ate them in just a few days too.  Feed a cold, right?

 

A Bittersweet Visit in Arizona

Navajo County, Arizona

Homolovi State Park

 

Winslow, Arizona is one of those places we love to stay at for a couple of days when we pass through that area.  We usually stay at the free McHood County Park just outside Winslow, but this time we wanted to visit the Homolovi State Park and its archeological pueblo sites.

$30 for an electric/water site.  The sites are very open but nicely spaced.  Very dark at night and quiet. Front and back view of our site.

Plenty of space between sites.

Beautiful dark skies.  A slice of moon still out just after the sunset with the lights of Winslow.

Our favorite reason to come again was visiting the Turquoise Room at the La Posada Hotel.  We absolutely LOVE their food.  The hotel is a gorgeous Spanish/Native Indian style.

We have never had dinner here so for Steve's birthday we made an evening reservation.  Dinner was great but we much preferred the breakfast.  So of course we returned the next morning for breakfast.

Pretty courtyards all around outside and some very unusual artwork upstairs.

Much of this artists work involved bullets and had a dark element to it.  Interesting though.

Back to the corner.  Another visit with the new state of Glenn Frey of the Eagles.

We've been here a few times but it's one of those places that never gets old.

  

 

We took a walk down the other end of town and saw this memorial to 9/11.  We've seen a few of these over the country as we've traveled.

Hiking along the paths to visit the historical sites in Homolovi, we came across quite a bit of pottery scattered around.  Some we'd put on larger rocks along with other pieces of pottery that were there.

 

When we were at the Visitor Center later and asked about it, we were told that everyone keeps doing that and that they go out there every few days and scatter it back in the desert.  They want the area to remain as it is and you're not supposed to move them.  We should've known better :-(   They should put some signs out though since it's such a problem.

One of the old stone and mud buildings.

 A rather large Horned Toad that didn't care we were there.

On the way back we could see our trailer out in the distance.  Kind of shows how open it is here. 

 

We took some hikes out to see the pictographs.  We spotted a few on our own besides the ones they pointed out with signs.

After our hike we headed up to visit our friends Jodee and Bill of On the Road Abode blog who were staying at the same campground.  It was nice to visit with them and fluffy Tessa again.  After talking up breakfast at the Turquoise Room, they decided to join us the next morning. We all ordered the Arizona Green Chili Eggs over Creamy Polenta.  Delicious!

 Me, Bill, Jodee, Steve.

Tessa

 

It was a short but fun visit then we drove south to our next stop just outside Phoenix. It was very smokey and at first we feared there was a forest fire as we drove through Payson.  We really love the mountains in that area and hope to do some camping there some time.

A great picture I took out of the window showing Weaver's Needle to the left and Flat Iron to the far right.  We have hiked to both and they are great trails.

Scottsdale, Arizona

McDowell Regional Park

Before arriving at Steve's Dad's place in Surprise we wanted to take a couple of days to decompress.  We knew the next few weeks would be stressful and we rushed a bit to get back to Arizona.  We really enjoy the regional parks and have not camped at this one yet.  It was $30 for water and electric.

There were some geocache power trails in the park and we enjoyed some early morning and late afternoon hikes.  It was in the mid 90s and quite hot!

Gotta watch out for spiny things that go ouch! 

 

We arrived a couple of days later in Surprise.  It was a bittersweet visit.  It was nice to see Steve's youngest brother, Jeff again.

 

 We took him on some of the great desert geocache hides along Bell.

This one was real fun.  You had to blow through a straw and the cache flies out of the container.

 

 

Another crazy surprise was finding out that more of our RV friends were actually parked in the same RV Resort as us!  We haven't seen them for a couple of years.  They just happened to be here because they sold their 5th wheel and bought a beautiful Class A here in Phoenix.  They drove up from Texas to pick it up.

We had so much fun catching up and Jo made us some fantastic meals!  They were a great comfort to us as we were dealing with a lot with Steve's Dad who was in the end stages of his disease.

 

The last picture of Steve's Dad taken a few days before he passed away. It was nice that Jeff could be here to visit with his Dad before he passed.  We'll be back in February to help out his stepmom and for the memorial service.  It was a tough time but once more shows some of the pluses to being fulltimers.  You can be where you are needed for an extended period of time when it comes up.

Later that month we said goodbye and drove back to Placerville to have the holidays with our kids and my family.

A quick stop for gas in Quartzsite where we'll be once again in January with my brother who is heading out fulltiming too!

We got caught in horrible traffic on I-10 just before the border. Another pretty sunset as we crossed over into California. We took a different way home that we haven't driven the trailer on.  We went through Lancaster/Palmdale and eventually the Tehachapi Pass instead of going over the Grapevine.  I don't know why we don't go this way more often!  Much less traffic and not as long or steep as the Grapevine.  We pulled into the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds late at night and just went to sleep.  I didn't get a picture, but it was a nice enough area, tight between neighbors if you have them but deep spaces. It is $20 for water and 30amp or $35 for water and 50 amp.

An interesting, huge plant.  I think it was a concrete plant.

More windmills.  These dot the hills all along the central valley.

A fun burger place in Tulare.  We didn't eat here but saw it while we were getting gas.  I'll gladly pay you Wednesday for a hamburger on Tuesday!  We decided to drive straight through to my parents for the night as it would be late and we can't get into my brothers ranch once it's dark.  Plus it was supposed to rain the next day and we wanted to arrive early before the rain.  We did make it just as it started to rain at the ranch.  We'll be here until January when we'll head back to Arizona for the rest of the winter.

I'll do a 2017 Wrap Up soon and tell you our plans for 2018.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Have a great time and be safe, Always!