4/21 - I met Alan, the BW host, in the morning and we chatted for a while. Super nice man, said I'm welcome to park there anytime. He lives in a development that didn't really get developed and so he basically has a whole road for people to park on. Quiet and level. He suggested a hike to McCloud falls (I guess you can drive to some of them). I would have liked to do the hike, but not a great idea for a 4 mile hike in my boot. I think I walk way more than I'm supposed to... The falls were about 30 minutes in the opposite direction, so I decided against it. I took a little tour through the town of McCloud. Not much there, but cute anyway. Heather called while I was there and so I figured I better pull over and chat since I didn't know if I'd keep signal while driving. It was great to catch up with her. She is quitting her job and hopefully we'll be able to meet up at some point. She said she's never been to Oregon and would like to. She's used to long drives...
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| Zoe wanted to go in the house as usual, but settled for sitting on their portico. (BW in McCloud) |
Took a hike a Siskiyou lake on the Chalet trail. It worked for me and Zoe. In the shade and pretty easy.
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| Stopped in the town to kill some time before heading to my BW host |
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| View from van at Cheryl's (BW) |
Great views of Mt Shasta from here place. Only negative is that I-5 is very close, so you get the road noise. I was able to ignore it, so no biggie for me.
Cheryl is a Refloxologist and gave me a free session. I didn't know she wasn't going to charge me, but that was so kind!
After leaving there I went to Castle Crags SP, but since it was so cloudy and being limited on what I could do, plus since Zoe couldn't join me, it seemed silly. She recommended Sulphur Creek trail (I could smell why it's called that!), which we did. It was a bit steep in my boot and got kinda rocky, so we didn't go the whole way. I was on the lookout for poison oak, but didn't see any.
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| The Crags at Castle Crags SP. I didn't actually go to the park due to the clouds most likely obstructing my views. I got this shot on a nearby Castle Creek Rd |
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| Lunch spot on Castle Creek - the water is so clear! |
After Castle Crags, I headed back to Cheryl's for 2 more nights.
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| Her beautiful Dogwood |
Cheryl invited me to join her, Carol, and Carolyn at the new wine bar in town, which was fun. We had a bottle of wine and some cheese and sausage/salami. Carol was very generous and treated us all to the evening. Super kind since she didn't even know me. New wine bar called Clandestino, which Cheryl said they had to go to now since businesses often don't last. We did note a bunch of things they could do to improve and thus hopefully last.
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| Cheryl, Carol, me |
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| Cheryl, Carolyn, Carol (we're all C's!) |
4/26 - Leaving tomorrow. 😞 I convinced Cheryl to take a break from the garden (it was a cool rainy day) so I could take her out for lunch at Pipeline. Super yummy food! A lot of others seemed to think that was a great idea too on a rainy Saturday.
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| The Labrador looks so real! |
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| Afternoon walk with the pups. Nice off leash area and no poison oak here! |
4/27 - Though I felt like I could stay in Mt Shasta forever, I decided it was time to move along, so I drove to Ashland, OR area and had a HH stay at Paschal Winery. It was super nice, good wine, great beet salad.
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| The headless dog |
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| Guard Swan - they had a nest with eggs. Many they move really fast and I'm so glad there was a fence between us!! |
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| Llama friends (or Alpacas??) |
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| This beet salad was fabulous and beautiful! |
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| This is how I parked in my spot even though I was supposed to park perpendicular to the pond. |
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The owner asked me to move, which I did, though he said I was taking up two spots (which I wasn't) and then no one parked there anyway. This is the view I ended up with after I moved... 😕
 | Not such a bad view once the RV left.
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There was music in the winery and I spent some time chatting with some nice ladies. Unfortunately I didn't realize there was another even later and I missed it. Another HHer told me in the morning that there was a story telling event and it was super fun. So bummed no one told me about it! 😢
I went to open my fridge door and the handle is breaking off. I was in a bit of a panic and went to a nearby Camping World. The guy said he was booked out for several weeks and didn't have the part anyway. He was super nice and helpful, but I ended up calling Dometic and they could send me the part. But it would take 3-5 business days and where to ship it to??? I was going to have them send it to Tami and Glenn's daughter in Ashland, but then I thought about going back to Cheryl's (about 1.5 hrs south). I called Cheryl and though she had her friend, Sheila, visiting, she said it would be no problem, so that's where I sent it. Then the next day she said that she didn't really think it was a great idea because it would be a lot of dog (5) and wants to be completely present with Sheila while she's there. I get it, but I have to admit that I was super disappointed since I have to drive 150 miles to get the part now and don't get to enjoy hanging out somewhere I felt so comfortable. Tami said I was certainly welcome at their place.
After my errands in Medford (REI and Trader Joe's in the same parking lot!) I headed to Ashland and grabbed dinner and walked around. Lithia park, which doesn't allow dogs, was really beautiful with the blooming trees/bushes. I walked in there a bit with Zoe (no sign where I entered 😁) and walked around downtown Ashland. I really liked the town and the vibe. Has some great convos at the restaurant with some locals as well as fellow travelers. Then I headed to park in front of Caroline's house (Tami and Glenn's daughter), but strangely never met her or her family. That felt a little weird, but it was a quiet and safe place to sleep.
4/29 - Went for a hike at Oredson Todd Woods, which had been recommended by someone the night before. It was a nice hike in the woods with a stream. Zoe off leash until I realized there was poison oak. Ugh!
After the hike we went to Emigrant Lake State Park and found a spot on the water to camp. $43 for full hookups though I don't need hookups. Pretty spot on the lake, so it was definitely worth it, plus I had a good shower in the morning.
4/30 - though tomorrow is supposed to be my last day in the boot, I decided I've had enough! It feels so good to wear 2 sneakers!
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| Morning view from bed |
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| After leaving the campsite, we went and hung out here while I worked on my blog catch-up |
Went to a spot from iOverlander for the night. There was another van there, but all good. At first I was a bit anxious - should I say Hi or no. What if he seemed scary? Basically I felt that it was best to find out if he was scary so I could leave rather than wonder all night. Nice enough guy. And then another guy came by with his very sweet, exuberant, overweight pittie. All good as most people are!
There were other spots on iOverlander along old 99 that were fine, but this was good as it was on a short side road which gave me a place to walk Zoe. Old 99 is 55 mph, but not a lot of traffic. This spot still wasn't very far from I-5, but it wasn't too noisy.
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| Zoe moved over to Scott's van. Why does she do this??? |
5/1 - May Day - I had signed up for a protest in Mt Shasta, but didn't have my sign, so I found a Dollar Tree (recommended by someone as an alternative to Walmart - Thank you!) in Yreka. I don't know if I've ever been to a Dollar Tree before, but it had just what I needed to make a sign. I was planning to stay at Tami and Glenn's and I messaged Tami what I was doing, so she ended up joining me, which was really nice. There was a decent crowd and we only got flipped off and yelled at and smoked out (exhaust) by a few folks.
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| Not that interesting, but twice on my walk I smelled this great fragrance and figured out it was this. |
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| Walk at the wild camping site |
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| Mt Shasta from the North. |
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| It's like the Mt Shasta ghost |
So, again, super disappointed to not be staying with Cheryl, but if I hadn't had the part shipped there, then I would have missed out on the views of Mt Shasta from the North - surprisingly worth it! and I wouldn't have protested with Tami. I had thought that the broken latch and sending to Mt Shasta was a sign that I should hang out there longer, but I guess it was a sign that I should hang out in the general area longer, but not at Cheryl's. It's all good. This is the first time I've had to wait around for a part when I wasn't already set to be at someone's home, so I guess I'm doing pretty well!
After the protest, we met Glenn at the Dunsmuir Brewery Works for a beer and dinner. They were super busy, so it took forever for the one waitress to bring my beer and then after ordering, she didn't tell me they were out of the bread I wanted until quite late and the other options didn't sound good so I had to order something else. So, though I was crazy hungry when we got there, it took a really long time to get my food. Oh well, surprisingly I survived and am here to write this ever so important story. 😂 After dinner we went back and hung out in their music room, but I couldn't get Glenn to play.
5/2 - Blog catch-up is complete! Phew! I wonder how many hours I've put into this last 1.5 month catch-up process.
I hung in the van until around 1 this afternoon working on the blog. Then I found out that Tami and Glenn were heading to Sonoma for the night, but I was welcome to stay, shower, laundry, etc. So, here I am on their patio in the shade (upper 70s and full sun out there) and really enjoying it. They have one of those super water efficient washers which don't seem to add nearly enough water. Maybe I did'nt wait long enough, but after at least 15 minutes I could see that the items were still pretty dry. Maybe that's just how they work, but it's a little disconcerting.
I managed to get a hold of the place that did my bone density scan and got the report on their portal. I am barely into the Osteopenia range, so that's great news.
TOTAL LUMBAR SPINE:
Total Bone Mineral Density 1.05 (gm/cm2)
T-Score -1.2 (between -1 and -2.5 is Osteopenia, -2.5 and below is osteoporosis)
Z-Score 0.1 (comparison to others in my age group)
RISK FACTORS:
none
Fracture risk assessment using FRAX, based on measurements of the left femoral neck
gives a 10 year probability of major osteoporotic fracture of 0.5% and a 10 year
probability of hip fracture of 0.3%.
IMPRESSION:
TOTAL SPINE: Osteopenia
LEFT FEMORAL NECK: Normal bone density
RIGHT FEMORAL NECK: Normal bone density
Tomorrow I'll head to Mt Shasta to pick up my part from Cheryl and check out all the work she and Sheila have done. From there I'll head to Ashland area again on my way to Crescent City, CA. At the protest a gentlemen gave me some spots to stop along the oregon coast. Port Orford (his and his wife's favorite town along the Oregon coast) with a place to stay on the water and Pacific City.
I'm going to try to be better about posting regularly as it will be better to not have to do hours of catch-up and I'll be writing when it's fresh in my mind.
So, I tried using Substack for creating my blog posts. I copied and pasted all my past (73!) posts from this site only to find out that many of the photos didn’t come over. WTF??? And then I tried creating a post (which I thought I had tried before, but apparently not thoroughly enough) and found that Substack pretty much only allows you to add one photo at a time or a gallery of photos and I don’t like those options. But since you can subscribe to Substack, I decided I would just create posts there to link to this blog so that if you subscribe you will get an email notification and it will have a link to here. Cool? Cool!
And here is the link to Substack. https://cjblake.substack.com/p/latest-catch-up-posts-links-to-blogspot
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