Common mergansers

 

Stumbled across a pack of mergansers.

 

 

 

 

What acorn woodpeckers do

 

 

They transform a snag into a pantry.

 

They fill it full of holes, then they fill the holes with acorns.  Nuts for the winter.

 

It’s a group effort.

 

The devil made me do it

 

I’m following the Duggar logic-trail for cheating on his wife and getting busted in the Ashley Madison hack.

 

The devil made me do it.  He made me lust after women and get addicted to porn, so I cheated.

 

No. Wait.  That was the almighty creator that made me lust after women so I could go forth and multiply.

 

But no.  I’m apologizing for it, so it has to be bad…

 

This is so confusing.  There has to be some reason it’s someone else’s fault and not mine.

 

Remember Karen's Country Kitchen in Louisville?

 

When Karen retired and sold her restaurants, she moved to Davis, CA.  We got to have a visit with her today.

 

 

I tried to take a picture of her house from outside,

 

….but it’s hard to see her house from the street.

 

Remember all that stuff that filled her store?  Her house is just as interesting.

 

 

 

Karen lives here with her sister Laurie.  Laurie is a train person.

 

 

Laurie has a live train running around the perimeter of her room.

 

And pictures from when she got to drive a real train.

 

It was such a good visit.  (Karen even made us lunch.)

 

 

The osprey

 

 

Usually, he swoops down low, snags a fish with his talons,

 

…aligns it headfirst beneath him,

…and flies it back to his nest to eat.

 

This time however, he hits the water with a giant splash, but he doesn’t take off with a fish.

 

It was a successful hit, but the fish is too big to take off with.  So, talons imbedded, he rows the fish to shore.

 

 

Flapping again, he hops up on the bank with it; a fish longer than he is (and he’s two feet long).

 

 

…and eats his meal right there on the shore.

 

 

Sundial Bridge

 

 

It’s a pretty cool bridge.

 

And it really does tell time.  The giant arm on the bridge casts a shadow on the ground where the hours are marked.

 

 

It was almost 1:15.

 

I've heard it said

 

…that everything happens for a reason.

 

I don’t think I want to know the reason why this sign had to happen.

 

JGW RV Park

 

Redding, CA.

 

Nice spot.

 

Right on the river.

 

2015 summer trip map

 

If Mom and Dad had a favorite place 50 years ago

 

…it was probably Burney Falls at McArthur Burney State Park in Northern California.

After all these years, we finally got here to see it.

 

Falls

 

A walk to the bottom for the view there.

 

…and it’s a very nice view.

 

Continue downstream, cross over the bridge

 

Stream

 

Collect a little Stream Zen.  Hike back up the other side to finish the loop across another bridge.

 

 

Somewhere in the process, we had to have walked right through places Mom and Dad used to go.  It felt good.

 

This isn’t a place for us to camp; we don’t fit.  We’re parked in Redding and day-tripped here.  So glad we did.

 

I walked down the hill to the park

 

It wasn’t far.  There is a parking area on the street just outside the park and I got caught up in a little traffic there; three cars I had to wait for, but after a moment of shuffling, everyone was settled and I proceeded on a trail that was an out and back.  When I got back to the parking lot, I wasn’t through with my walk, but I saw the tan minivan and thought “I don’t remember locking the doors.”  I always do lock them, at least by reflex, but since I couldn’t specifically remember them going “click”, and in the spirit better safe than sorry, I diverted over to the car to lock it.  When I got there I realized the car I had just walked to was not a tan minivan, it was a tan Jeep.  An easy mistake for me to make because we had a tan jeep for ten years before the minivan; but when I looked around, there was no minivan anywhere in sight.  What?  I left it unlocked and someone took it?

 

No.  Not exactly.  I didn’t lock the car because I didn’t drive a car to the park, I walked down the hill.  Oh yeah.

 

I continued my walk.  Oh, these golden years…

 

 

Grants Pass, Oregon

 

2015 summer trip map

 

Moon Mountain RV Park.  It’s a nice little park.

 

A little tight,

 

… but very scenic.

 

 

We went south

 

We were going to go east through Eastern Washington and Idaho into Montana.  Problem is, Eastern Washington and Idaho are on fire.  It would take a couple days to get all the way through dangerous unhealthy air.  So we went south.

 

Out of Washington into Oregon.  In Salem yesterday and today.  Grants Pass on Friday and into California at Redding Saturday and Sunday.  We haven’t decided on a route from there, but we mean to end up in Colorado to visit with the kids some more before we head all the way south to Texas again.

 

2015 summer trip map

 

We hear there is a fair in town for the weekend.  We presume these bunkhouse trailers are connected to that event.  No sign of the pullers; just mobile affordable housing.

 

They each have seven access doors.  This one has three doors on one side.

 

…and four on the other.

 

This one has all seven doors on the same side.

 

 

The stacked windows on the other side suggest double bunks as well.