Leaving Pismo Beach, we headed up the coast to the Monterey Peninsula.  We drove around Monterey Bay and got to see about 50 otters playing around at Moss Landing which was really fun. Then I got to ride the "Big Dipper".  This is a wooden roller coaster that was built in 1925 on the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz.  This was my 4th trip on it and it was wonderful!  East of Redding we stayed at McArthur-Burney State Park.  The waterfall there was great since they had gotten so much rain this year.

When we got back into Oregon, we stopped in Ashland and went out to dinner with Miki.  She is a Japanese student at Southern Oregon University that we met a few years ago.  We had a wonderful Italian dinner, but had a minor disaster.  I asked the waitress to take our picture and it turned out all out of focus!  You can see for yourself in the images below.  During Spring Vacation Miki went to New Orleans and worked with a group known as "Common Ground".  She would have been there about 3 weeks after we left.  (Good job Miki!)  I read a great article on their webpage about the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans and what is happening right now.  If you are interested you might want to read WATER.  This shows there is going to be lots to do for a long time in the gulf area.

After 3 1/2 months... 16 weeks... 110 days... we are home!  We had a stupendously wonderful trip, but we are very happy to be home again.  We had wonderful weather on our trip.  Except for Oregon and California, every where we traveled, people were talking about "the drought".  In several states I heard mention of the worst drought in at least 2 decades.  Of course, that meant dry and warm weather for us as we traveled around.  Now that we are back in Oregon, the weather is great here also.  Out of the 110 days on the road we only had 7 stormy days, 3 days where it rained, plus 9 days where it just sprinkled a little (sometimes late at night).  We did have one day in the Grand Canyon where it snowed lightly for a short time.

I have failed to always mention the wonderful animals we have seen.  Between Oklahoma and Arizona in one day, we saw about 60 Pronghorn.  We saw a Condor in the Grand Canyon and Manatees in Florida.  We saw deer, elk, squirrels, rabbits, lizards, raccoons, turtles, a tortoise, mallards, coots, gulls, roadrunners, hummingbirds, goldfinches, woodpeckers, jays, quail, finches, red winged blackbirds, sharks, rays, man 'o' war jelly fish, feral pigs, lobsters, scorpions, sponges, butterflies, prairie dogs, coyotes, wood storks, roseate spoonbills, dragon flies, frogs, egrets, herons, warblers, osprey, hawks, turkeys, an owl, pheasants, cardinals, anhingas, cormorants, meadowlarks, and fly catchers.  These were all animals that we saw in the wild, not at an aquarium or zoo.  Of course, we also saw lots of Alligators!  (We may have forgotten a few other animals that we did see.)

We drove an awful lot of miles.   14,989 miles!    It only seemed like more as the gas prices went up.  When we left Keizer on January 16th we paid $2.01 for a gallon of regular.  Today, the price is $2.98.

Thank you for sharing the trip with us.  Now we won't have to invite you all over to watch a slide show!  Of course, I only sent you about 500 of the 7,000+ pictures we took.  Having a digital camera we take a lot of pictures.  Many of them turn out terrible and we always say we will delete them... but we rarely do.  We hope you have enjoyed the trip.  It's been fun for us and fun for us to be able to share with you and keep in contact.  We have missed you all.

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Now... as a special bonus to those of you who are still paying attention, I need to mention some other folks who have "traveled with us".  I haven't mentioned them before... they are the strong, silent types.  To check this out, click on THE BOYS at the bottom of this page. 

Be sure to check out the inform-
ation at the bottom of this page