Day 9 -- Monument Valley, Utah to Cortez, Colorado -- 121 Miles

It was with some reluctance that we packed up and rolled out of the Monument Valley KOA campground this morning. We had such a good time on our tour yesterday that it would have been easy to linger just a bit longer. But alas, it was time to move on. We had been headed to the Navajo Tribal Visitor Center first thing, but at the last minute I chose the opposite direction. Not sure why I did that, and Concetta was a bit unhappy, but in retrospect if we hadn't turned left out of the KOA instead of our intended right, we would have missed the stretch of the Monument Valley Highway where they filmed Forrest Gump doing his long-distance marathon.

Our route was on Utah Highway 163 through towns like Mexican Hat and Halchita. We planned on staying on 163 until just past the town of Bluff when we would segway over to Utah Highway 162, which sported towns like Montezuma and Aneth. Once past those towns, we would change directions again and hop on Colorado Route 160 and head for our ultimate destination of Cortez, Colorado.

Still wondering if it might have been better to drop in at the Navajo Visitors Center as I had promised Concetta, we rolled into the town of Bluff. That event changed our entire day. We had only just entered the town limits, when we saw a sign for the Bears Ears National Park Visitor Center. Wow, I thought, I was saved! Where we might have just powered through Bluff as we have done hundreds of other tiny towns in America, this time we immediately pulled in front of the Visitor Center building and opposite the "NO RV PARKING" sign posted for the property next door.

Naturally, we were so thrilled at finding a visitor center we could actually visit, that neither of us saw the "NO PARKING" sign. The bottom line for the Bear Ears Partnership Center is that it's a very high-quality experience. There were lots and lots of things to read, a few exhibits you could actually touch, and a small library of books for sale on the flora and fauna of the area as well as on the geology of the Utah/Colorado border. We were just enthralled with with the effort being put forth by these folks.

You might guess that i just HAD to have the geology tome because the five I carry in the RV did not discuss the Monument Valley area. I also picked up a sort of fold-out color photo handout showing all the flowering plants in the area. We just couldn't have been happier with the experience.

Once back at the rig, the first thing we noticed was the "No Parking" sign so we hastened to get rolling before Barney Fife appeared to scold us out-of-towners for breaking the law. So after snapping just a half-dozen photographs of the location, we headed off down the road -- for about five hundred feet. We hadn't even gotten up to speed (the downtown version) when we saw a huge sign reading "Fort Bluff." Now it's a rare occurance that I willingly pass up an opportunity to visit a frontier fort. Without a second thought I put on the left turn indicator and piloted our rig right up the fort's entrance and shut off the still cold engine.

Looking at our watches, we determined that we could probably spend an hour strolling around the fort and gift shop, have our lunch at noon, then be back on the highway with still time to reach our evening camp spot in Cortez. And that's exactly what we did, except it was more like 1:30 before we managed to do all that stuff and take off.

What we found out is that Fort Bluff was established in 1880 by over 250 foot-sore Mormon pioneers who had been assigned by the head of the church back then to abandon all their hard-won farmslands and worldly possessions and load a pitiful minimum of supplies and gear into 32 square feet of convered wagon and head south from various Mormon settlements to the extreme south of Utah to establish a town on the bluffs overlooking the San Juan River. The country was so rough through which they hacked their way, the wagon train only made 1.7 miles each day for six six months.

Concetta and I watched about twenty minutes of film on their adventures, and it seemed truly unbelievable that all of these pioneers survived the ordeal. For most of the journey they were building their own roads into steep canyons, double and tripple-teaming up and down horrendous grades, as well as managing to feed not only themselves, but 200 draft animals pulling the wagons, and 1200 farm animals.

And that wasn't the worst of it. Once all the families had arrived and had built the fort and log cabins for everyone, and each family was given a portion of all the settled territory to use for farming, their troubles weren't over. After the first couple of years on the bluff, it became evident that the area would not support as many families as were present. Thereafter, two-thirds of the families were ordered by the Church to move to yet another location to allow the remaining one-third to have more land for cultivation.

I always knew my Mormon ancestors were tough, but I never realized how tough they could be until we visited Fort Bluff. My three times great grandfather, Moses Daley came west by wagon train, not once, but twice. The second time he was the actual wagonmaster, and it's said that on his second trip west from St. Joseph, Missouri to Springville, Utah, not a single person died on his train. Moses later went on to help found the southern California City of San Bernardino sometime before 1860 and he and his wife, Almira, are buried right there in the San Bernardino pioneer cemetery.

After leaving Fort Bluff, we set our course for Cortez, Colorado as it seemed to be just about the right distance away to get us there between 3:00 and 3:30. For the first time since leaving home, we didn't bother with trying to make a reservation as most of the camps we've encountered seem to have plenty of empty camp sites available. Right in that time frame we arrived at the "Journey, Cortez RV Resort" on Route 160 and found only about ten percent of the spaces were taken. They have an ideal bluff-top site overlooking a broad, mature valley and there are lots of trees throughout the camp.

Tomorrow we hope to head for Durango where we plan to see if the Durango to Silverton train has any available seats. This evening promises to be a bit stormy here in Cortez. Above us dark clouds are gathering and rain is beginning to clink against the tin roof of the RV. Gusts of wind are increasing and I decided to retract the living area slider to lessen the chance of leakage.

As I finish up this blog the wind has increased and the rig is being buffeted to and fro and the rain intensity is increasing. I sure hope it doesn't last all night. So far on this trip we've had incredible weather with just a spot of rain in the Bay Area south of San Francisco. We also had about a quarter hour of rain as we drove toward monument Valley. Otherwise, nothing but blue skies have prevailed.

Cheers and happy travels to you.

'

Day 8 -- All Day in Monument Valley and a Tour -- Unrecorded Miles

Well, we've now accomplished a lifetime goal that we've flirted with for years, but we had never attempted until today. We took the jeep tour (truck tour, actually) through Monument Valley with an onboard guide. The instructions we received when we bought our tickets were simple: be ready to go at 8:00 a.m.; wear warm clothing; and if you wear a hat, bring one that won't blow off in the wind. Well that seemed easy enough. It's only a short walk to the office where the truck would arrive to pick us up. We wisely wore hooded sweatshirts thinking we could tie them around our waists if it got hot later in the day, and I figured I could probably keep my ballcap on in any sort of wind even if I had to turn it backwards. It all sounded pretty simple.

Concetta and I walked to the office at ten minutes to eight, and the truck was already there with its complement of passengers, and we only needed to hop aboard. The morning was cool but not brisk so we figured there wouldn't be much need for the sweatshirts. Well, the driver of the truck soon demostrated that we were wrong. The fairly young Navajo woman took off down the highway like the Starship Enterprise accelerates to "warp speed." Before too many seconds had passed, we two were pulling on the drawstrings of our sweatshirts to try and deflect more of the cold air roaring through our seating area while we huddled together like two survivors in an open lifeboat.

Nice and warm in the truck cab, I'm sure the driver didn't even notice that while the morning air was mild enough to sit outside and have your breakfast coffee, the morning air at fifty-five miles an hour felt decidedly different. Fortunately, it was only four or five miles at that speed, and we slowed to approach the gate for touring Monument Valley. Then, our entrance fees paid by each of the four couples aboard, we all too soon were bucking and jolting over super rocky terrain and slipping and sliding through miles of six-inch-deep sand.

It was a good thing that the truck had seat belts and grab irons that allowed us to stay seated. Otherwise, we all would have been tossed out into the sage and cacti patches that lined the road. I couldn't think of a bumpier ride I had ever experienced, but it reminded me of personal accounts I've read in my studies of history by riders aboard the horse-drawn stage coaches of the frontier west. Samuel Clemens has a particularly vivid account of his trip west in 1864 with his brother Orion in his book, "Roughing It." I found myself wishing for the sandy areas because the truck rode a lot more smoothly.

Most of the time the scenery is so breathtaking that you really don't mind hanging on for dear life. One word of warning, however. Don't try to take photos from the back of the moving, bouncing, jolting, sliding, careening truck. You'll have plenty of opportunity to shoot when you disembark from the vehicle.

The thing that struck me about the 300 hundred million-year-old sandstone monoliths and majestic mesas in Monument Valley was the completely different character they all took on depending on the light that was stiking them. They can be anything from boring and bland to vivid and awe-inspiring depending on whether the sun was high in the sky, or whether it was hitting them a glancing blow from the side. The very same formations you see in the morning light can look completely different in the afternoon light. If I was a serious photograher, I'd have to come stay for a week or two and shoot the same formations in different kinds of light. I think it would be especially thrilling to shoot Monument Valley during storms.

The next thing that intrigued me was the flora throughout the valleys. There didn't appear to be water avaialbe anywhere we could see, but a whole spectrum of plant life seemed to both survive and to thrive. Unfortunately our guide was not so well versed in plant history, but we heard later from an elderly Navajo grandmother that when she was a girl her mother, who lived to be 102 years old, would collect as many as three dozen different desert-dwelling plants to use either as food, medicine, or dyes for her weaving yarn. She told us about one plant that was known to be poisonous but could be placed on your gums if you had a toothache.

When we visited the Navajo grandmother, it was in her traditional Navajo Hogan where she customarily receives members of the public and where she demostrates her weaving skills. Concetta and I have always been fascinated by weaving crafts and often seek out demonstrations when we're traveling. This particular time, while I was watching the grandmother spinning wool for her weaving, I happened to glace up at the rafter construction of the Hogan and was surprised both by the simplicty of the engineering and by the rock-solid sturdiness of the final product. I'm not sure what the style is called, but I bet you could place a full-sized pickup truck on the rounded dome of the Hogan, and the dwelling would have no trouble supporting it.

One word of advice if you decide to visit Monument Valley, come early in the spring. According to our guide, all the roads are just mobbed with tour vehicles further into the summer. And the public may also drive their own cars and off-road vehicles into the area. Though this morning we saw a very tiny group of other tour trucks in all the areas we visited, by the time we were leaving at 11:30 a.m., there was about twenty times as many vehicles that kept passing us as they entered.

Here at the Monument Valley KOA, you can buy tickets for the tour and the tour vehicle will pick you up in the camp. I definitely recommend them. You can also bring your RV to another camp located to the west of our current location called, I think, Gouldings. Gouldings has their own fleet of tour trucks, but is a smaller camp and more difficult to find a spot to park your RV. Both camps are your basic sand and gravel desert landscaping, though both have trees next to most spaces. Come early in the spring, and you won't have any problems.

Day 7 -- Flagstaff, Arizona to Monument Valley, Utah -- 172 Miles

Today we rolled out of the Flagstaff KOA camp where we have so much history, and headed down the highway going west. We needed to fill the tank (easy on the wallet at three dollars a gallon) and stop at the nearby Safeway supermarket to fulfill our grocery list. It always kills most of the morning when shopping is necessary, and this morning was no exception.

By 10:30 we had our full tank, our full fridge, and were headed for the open road -- in the wrong direction as it happens. I knew we had to grab Route 89 toward Monument Valley, but I thought Route 89 forged its way north couple of miles west of our camp location. Wrong. We were already on Route 89 (which used to be Highway 66) and once we got turned around and headed East the road signs made that perfectly clear.

Initially we had an interim destination that we hoped to reach long before Monument Valley, that of the Wupatki National Monument where we hoped to see sandstone dwellings that dated to the eleven hundreds when the Cohonia, Kayenta, and the Sinagua cultures converged at Wupatki for mutual protection and innovation sharing.

The road to the Wupatki National Monument Vistors Center left Route 89 and coursed about 15 miles across the high desert. Even before reaching the center we could often see atop small sandstone bluffs the handiwork of the ancients as they constructed dwelling using the natuarlly-occuring sandstone blocks that were constantly weathering out of the mesa sides.

We really enjoyed our visit as the Visitor Center folks were extremely friendly and helpful and our Lifetime National Park pass got us in for free. The biggest attraction of the center was the several hiking trails that led visitors down into the sandstone-studded arroyos to get a closeup view of how the natives lived close to a thousand years ago. I really like the trailside flora identification plaques that helped us recognize and appreciate the many types of sage, cacti, and grasses that lay around Wupatki.

After our visit we stayed long enough to have our lunch in the parking lot and Concetta called ahead to secure a KOA camp reservation for the night in Monument Valley. After that, we made our way back to Route 89 and hastened to put some miles behind us. The reason for the rush was that we had unfortunatley picked up an extra hour while we sat eating our lunch because the time zone had changed to Mountain Zone. Since it was now two o'clock and we had better than a hundred and seventy miles to go, haste was a necessity.

We spent the rest of the day until just a few minutes after 5:00 p.m. racing to get checked in before the office closed. Nevertheless, the beauty of the drive as we headed north on Route 89, Route 160, and finally Ruote 163 to reach our destination was stunning. All the the sky had been studded with a thick layer of cumulus clouds. The clouds were fluffy and whispy but darkened and ominous. As the day wore on the sky continued to darken and at time we felt like we were completely surrounded.

Soon, on the far horizons in every direction, wisps of diaffonous blackness appeared telling us that rain was falling everywhere across the darkened orroyos and the lofty sandstone megaliths alike. Darker and darker the surrounding skies appeared until in one instantaneous stroke, rain began to pelt the RV huge droplets that quickly turned to mushy hail keeping the full-on wipers busy.

Finally, as we motored north the last few miles the sun broke out and promised a late afternoon of easy setup for the rig. But good news was not awaiting us as we checked in at the Monument Valley KOA. When I showed the clerk our KOA card she said that she had not received our reservation. I'm sure our faces fell at the news, but then the clerk hastened to add, "But we have a full-hookup site for you. Things got even better when she told as the price for the night as it was 30% cheaper than the on-line reservation site had indicated.

We were so thrilled that we booked two nights. We decided that we wanted to take one of the guided tours that offered to come right to the the camp to pick us up and we'd get to spend a morning really getting to see the monuments in Monument Valley. According to the brochure the vehicle has completely open sides which should make for great photos.

So here we are, taking it easy. Tomorrow we're going to go on taking it easy, well, except for the fact with other half of the day tomorrow is going to be devoted to laundry. That's always fun. We'll get to see if all our socks come back with their mates. Tonight Concetta concocted an excellent dinner of pork chops, fried potato chunks with Anaheim peppers, green salad, and a bit of very nice Cabernet aged in burbon barrels. Rounding out the meal was a tiny bit of chocolate and a sip of coffee. Just the end of a perfect day.

Day 6 -- Needles, California to Flagstaff, Arizona -- 209

Today was a driving day, not much of a stop and shoot pictures day. The terrain east of Needles, California is mostly Mojave Desert-style country and rolls along for mile after mile with nothing much to appreciate but Mesquite, cacti, and dry arroyos. The startling sandstone cliffs, roadside cuts, and upthrusted mesas that come next are great photographic material but don't often present themselves with a handly pullout for the RV.

However, one attraction that did present itself for a very short stretch of desert was scattered majestic stands of one of my favorite desert plants, the Ocotillo. To our amazement the dozens of ocotillo plants that rushed by our side window were in full bloom, a spectacle that we had never seen before.

Naturally after we'd rolled by countless examples of these beautiful plants, I decided that I just HAD to stop and grab a few photos. I diligently searched ahead for a pull-off spot wider than the normal shoulder and none appeared. But mircaculously one eventually presented itself and the wider spot allowed me to pull further off the highway then normal and be well away from the speeding traffic.

The traffic on Interstate 40, as we learned on our Kitty Hawk, North Carolina vacation a few years ago, is largely comprised of truck traffic. 18-wheelers are constantly roaring by much faster than I'm willing to go, or are going so slow that I have to constantly be passing them. Either way, I have to concentrate most of my attention on what's happening on the highway and not the passing scenery. Inevitably, the photography suffers in such a situation. It's the reason we don't often travel the interstates.

Tonight we're staying at the Flagstaff KOA which has a very special place in our hearts. It was here that Concetta and I stopped for the night back in 1977 on our very first camping trip. We were not married at the time and were driving her largely worn out 1964 VW Beetle which had a top speed of under fifty miles an hour. You certainly get to see a lot of scenery up close and personal at that speed.

Our night at the Flagstaff KOA was uneventfull, but the next morning the VW refused to start. Since my Dad and my Brother were the automotive geniuses in our family, I usually went to them for mechanical advice. But in the KOA camp, so far from home, no such advice was available. Instead, I loosened the bolt that held the distributor in place and I asked Concetta to get in the car and keep trying to start the car as I carefully revolved the distributor a tiny bit in each direction.

Miraculously, the car "liked" what I was doing and fired up when the distributor got to location it needed. I then tightened the unit down firmly and away we went. I like to think that such "tests" helped cement our relationship back then for we have enjoyed many fantastic trips together in the last forty-seven years of our marriage.

Tomorrow we're finally divorcing ourselves from the "Big Rig Alley" of Interstate 40 and we'll be headed north on Arizona Route 89 to visit the Sunset Crater Volcanic National Monument and Wupatki National monument. So hopefully, more photos will be possible then were possible today.

We wish you happy travels of your own! Cheers!

Day 5 -- Bakersfield to Needles, California -- 272 Miles

When we're on the road, the first thing that we must decide after breakfast is "where do we want to go." In other words, assuming there exists a multitude of choices, "which direction do we want to drive." Concetta and I seldom have a destination goal except on a daily basis. This makes for less stress in the gotta-be-there-by-some-time-of-day category, but more stress in that there are more things to see and experience if we go down that particular road.

Today we had to decide if we wanted to leave Bakersfield and head directly east toward Needles, or did we want to grab Interstate 15 at some point and head for Las Vegas and Utah. I sort of preferred the latter as I figured it would ultimately be just too hot to head for the wilds of Arizona. But Concetta didn't want to go to Utah so here we are tonight in Needles, California.

I think the desk clerk at the Neddles KOA where we stopped about 3:30 told me that the temp was hovering around the mid nineties. I think she was right. It's hot for sure, but the clerk put us in a spot with a pretty-good-sized tree that's presently shading the living area of the RV. A gentle breeze is wafting through the windows and drinks out on our sandy patio area were quite nice.

We caught California Route 58 out of Bakersfield and stayed there most of the day as we headed east. Neither one of us had ever traveled Route 58 before, and it was quite an amazing experience. Loads of truck traffic were our downtown companions, but once we reached the outskirts of town, the hustle and bustle of truck traffic quieted down, and the landscape became one of verdant orchards and vineyards

Interestingly enough, we were never free of truck traffic for the next six and one half hours and 272 miles. It turned out, we decided, that Route 58 is a major arterial across central California, and our highway companions were big rigs. In fact, we estimated six out of every ten vehicles that we saw going either direction were 18-wheelers.

In all our travels over the past decade we somehow had never driven over Tehachapi Pass. Accourding to Wikipedia, "Tehachapi Pass (Kawaiisu: Tihachipia, meaning "hard climb") is a mountain pass crossing the Tehachapi Mountains in Kern County, California. Traditionally, the pass marks the northeast end of the Tehachapis and the south end of the Sierra Nevada range. The route is a principal connector between the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert."

Naturally, when you spend half the day grinding up hill after hill with big rigs along side the driver's side window, you know immediately what a "hard climb" is all about. We're very fortunate that we chose an RV with a gas-guzzeling V-10 engine. Our truck was able to keep up with and even outclimb most of the big rigs that were struggling alongside us.

One interesting thing I saw today that made me harken back to my days in the Carson City Railroad Association was the intricately-carved railroad right-of-ways through the Tehachapi canyon. Some of the most photogenic railroad grades I had ever seen were just a stone's throw outside our window, and I found myself longing for the days when I would have stopped and climbed down there to do some photography.

Once we reached the top of the pass at 4046 feet, driving got a bit more easy and we sailed along until we got to the town of Barstow at the crossroads of Interstate 15 and Route 58. Here we decided to have our lunch, and we fortuitously chose a bluff overlooking a trio of railroad tracks to pull over and stop. The tracks were about twenty feet below us, and I thought it would be cool if a train would happen by for a photograph.

Well, surprise, surprise. Not only was our perch atop the bluff perfect for "train spotting" photography, but the line down below us turned out to be primary artery, and a train speeding by in each direction would pass at least every 15 minutes. If you're not familiar with freight-born rail these days, a very large percentage of rail cargo conists of "Intermodal containers." Intermodal means that aside from being carried by flatbed freight cars, the cargo containers can be lifted off and placed on a flatbed truck for its final destination delivery.

While Concetta was whipping up a sandwich for me, I was out train-spotting. On my very first try, I was able to capture two trains from oppossing directions that flew by each other right beneath me. Interestingly enough, in addtion to the intermodal cars there were automobile-carrying cars, tank cars, covered hoppers, and boxcars of various descriptions. I was truly awed by the quantity of freight that was passing by me.

With lunch done, and the camera put away, we jumped back on Route 58 (which had become Intersate 40 at Barstow) and continued our eastward sojourn. Our eastbound highway companions continued to be largely trucks, and I was kept busy passing the slow ones and

staying out of the way of the more speedy ones. Out the window some pretty amazing desert scenery was beckoning, but we resisted the temptation to wander off the highway since we were not destined to get into Needles until after the usual cocktail hour.

So here we are at the Needles KOA, and everything is just fine. The entire grounds are the usual desert-country sand and gravel, but the various utility amenities were in place and seem to be working fine. It's hot, but not too hot, and the air is the usual crystal-clear desert variety that we have come to expect in the southwest. We've discovered that at this time of the year -- late April -- the camps we've visited are two thirds empty, and this KOA is no different. Even the camp in Pacifica had loads of empty spaces.

Tomorrow we will continue east on Interstate 40 and will probably end up in Flagstaff, Arizona. Flagstaff is a very memorable place for us as it conjures up memories of our first camping trip in 1977. In that year Concetta and I had only been together for less than a year, we weren't married, and had no idea what lay ahead for us. All we knew is that we wanted to go camping. So we loaded up her dangerously worn out 1964 VW Bug and headed for the Southwest. We stayed near Las Vegas on our way south, and on the third or fourth night we found a spot in a tiny camp in Flagstaff. The next morning the VW refused to start and we had to work together on the car to solve the problem. I'm sure it was about then we started to fall in love and forty-seven years later we're still in love. Such is the magic of camping!

Day 4 -- Paso Robles to Bakersfield, California (via St. Margarita) ~ 140 Miles

Well today the GPS on Concetta's smartphone decided to play with us again. This morning we decided to drive south about twenty-five miles from our camp in Paso Robles to visit the Ancient Peaks Winery for a late morning wine tasting which included lunch. It was a lovely morning and we found the winery without any trouble, well, excepot for overshooting the offramp on Highway 101 and having to double back a couple of miles. We reached the winery about twenty minutes early so I wandered around getting photographs and enjoying the brilliant sunshine which felt good after our rainy reception three days ago in the Bay Area.

After the winery opened, a very pleasant young girl quickly seated us on the patio and began spoiling us with her individual attention. This wasn't hard since we were the only customers. The morning simply flew by as we tasted five different types of wine and listened to our server's detailed description of everything she brought to our table. At the outset we were offered the opportunity to combine our lunch with the tasting and we quickly agreed. We split a chicken sandwich and each got a side order. I chose the potato bacon soup, and Concetta had the fresh green salad. For desert we ordered a hot berry compote to share.

Around noon, with lunch and tasting finished, we purchased a couple of bottles of the wines we had tasted and were ready to leave Santa Margarita and head for Bakersfield. Since I had been studying the map, I knew that California route 58 went almost directly to Bakersfield from Santa Margarita. So I was expecting the GPS to take us right to that highway without delay. But when Concetta activated the little darling, it insisted that we retrace our 25-mile route to Paso Robles and take California Route 46 instead of Route 58. Both went in the same direction, but Route 46 added an extra fifty miles to our day. Not quite sure whether there might be something wrong on Route 58 that the GPS knew about and we didn't, we decided to go ahead and accept the detour.

Still, all things considered, it was truly a grand day. We drank a little wine, we had a nice lunch, and enjoyed our conversation with the young girl who was our server. She even turned out to be an amateur photographer and was able to use my camera for a photo of us.

So tonight we're in Bakersfield at a very nice camp that turned out to be about half the price of the one in Paso Robles. In the morning we will probably head further east via Route 58 and see what we can see.

Day 3 -- Pacifica to Paso Robles, California -- 202 Miles

Today we woke to light rain and more gloomy skies, but we didn't have to break camp right away. Jason and his family wanted to have breakfast at a Pacifica restaurant that they had heard about so at 8:30 they came to retrieve us and we headed just a few blocks away to a tiny restaurant near the seashore called "The Breakers." There we found a table, scanned the menus, then headed up to the register location to order our respective breakfast choices and pay. Everything was very streamlined and well thought out. Almost before we were back at our table, our orders were being delivered. As it turned out, high school English teacher, Caroline recognized our waitress for having been a former student. So, in addition to our orders, we were comped with a Belgian waffle topped with whipped cream and strawberries.

Back at the RV park, Jason and family dropped us off with hugs all around, and we were soon on the road headed south on California Route 101. We didn't really have any firm destination in mind and didn't know how far we'd end up driving for the day. Up near San Francisco, Route 101 is just about as heavily travelled and busy as the other two routes south, California 99 and Interstate 5. But once we had driven past San Jose, the traffic started to thin out a bit, and at least half the day was spent driving past ranches and farm land.

Just after noon we stopped in the tiny town of Gonzales and had lunch. Not much seemed to be happening there, and it was so rainy and gloomy that I wasn't tempted to take any photos. However, once we realized that we were traveling on "El Camino Real," the highway of the Kings from the Spanish mission days, we started noticing all the Mission Bells that had been erected along Highway 101. Naturally, I was suddenly hot to stop somewhere and photograph one. The problem was there was no good stopping place, at least none that would satisfy passing officers of the law. I just knew that I couldn't get far enough off the highway with our 32-foot rig to be safe from onrushing traffic.

Amazingly, we soon passed an officer giving someone a speeding ticket (I presume), and that meant for a short time the cop would not be out partolling our route. So, the very next bell we saw, I pulled as far off the highway as possible and stopped. I grabbed the camera, sprinted over as close to the bell as I could and snapped a couple of photos. Then I raced back to the rig, waited for a break in traffic, and sped off. I watched the side mirror for a bit to see if I had excited anyone, but it turned out I was home free.

If you'd like to know something about the commerative bells, here's a breakdown from Wikipedia: "...In 1892, Anna Pitcher of Pasadena, California initiated an effort to establish a commemorative route for El Camino Real that connected all the Spanish missions. It was adopted by the California Federation of Women's Clubs in 1902. In the early twentieth century, organizations

"A 1915 map of Higand government agencies became interested in creating official designations or commemorations of roads and highways. Given the lack of standardized highway signs at the time, it was decided to place distinctive bells along the route, hung on supports in the form of an 11-foot (3.4 m) high shepherd's crook, also described as "a Franciscan walking stick".

The bells were designed by Mrs ASC Forbes, who also owned the California Bell Company where they were cast. The first of 450 bells were unveiled on August 15, 1906, at the Plaza Church in the Pueblo near Olvera Street in Los Angeles."

highway 101 produced by the Automobile Club of Southern California traced the route that connected the missions for motorists to follow. The club and associated groups cared for the bells from the mid-1920s through 1931 after the original organization which installed the bells fragmented. Distinctive route markers were added to U.S. Route 101 and other national auto trails when the joint board of state highway officials adopted the United States Numbered Highway System in 1926. The state highways forming El Camino Real were identified as Highway 1, U.S. Route 101 and Highway 82 on the San Francisco Peninsula in a 1959 law. Most of the bells eventually disappeared due to vandalism, theft or simple loss due to the relocation or rerouting of highways and roads. The State took over bell maintenance in 1933. After a reduction in the number of bells to around 80, the State began replacing them, at first with concrete, and later with iron. Justin Kramer took over the production of the bells in 1959. The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) began a restoration effort in 1996."

"Keith Robinson, Principal Landscape Architect at Caltrans developed an El Camino Real restoration program which resulted in the installation of 555 El Camino Real Bell Markers in 2005. The Bell Marker consists of a 460 mm diameter cast metal bell set atop a 75 mm diameter Schedule 40 pipe column that is attached to a concrete foundation using anchor rods. The original 1906 bell molds were used to fabricate the replacement bells."

And there you have it. For our 2024 RV trip we were fortunate to visit no less than three of the historic missions so we probably won't do any missions this trip. However, if you decide to drive El Camino Real (Highway 101) sometime in the future, the space of highway between San Luis Obispo and Salinas, California contains the three missions we visited last year, and we heartily recommend all three.

A couple of decades ago I learned that along about 1915, a company had produced exact replicas of the famous El Camino Real bell posts and bells. If you could even find one they ran from about fifty dollars to a lofty one hundred dollars. The "if you could find one" was the operative phrase. I haunted Ebay for years and years without any success since I was looking to pay something on the affordable end of the spectrum. But success finally came, and I sniped a bid in at the last several seconds and secured a mint condition one for under the going rate. Now it graces my display case with all the other "treasures" that I just had to have at some point in my life."

By the way, Concetta did a bit of research on the pink flowered bush next to our rig and discovered that it's called a "Rock Rose." Very pretty and grew like a weed at the camp.

Day 2 -- All day in Pacifica, California -- no miles

Today dawned sunny and bright and turned out to be pretty awesome day for all. In the morning hours our daughter-in-law, Caroline drove into San Francisco to the French patisserie called Tartine which has been described as "premier" in local tourist literature. There Caroline selected an entire cakebox full of fabulous pastries, from sweet to savory, and then brought them over to our RV park for the family to enjoy. Once she had arrived, we gathered for coffee and pastry at our very own camp picnic table overlooking the majesty of the Pacific Ocean right outside our door.

After we finished our "breakfast" Caroline and grandson, Nico, had a chore to perform and left. Son, Jason, then broke out his photography gear and spent the next hour or so using the two of us as happily-married subjects in senior-citizen photos he intended to submit to the Getty stock photo images company. Jason has the distinction of having many thousands of photos that are available to advertisors via Getty iStock Images.

As one often does when on vacation, we rode with Jason back to his house where we met Caroline and Nico for a charcuterie board lunch, cheese, salami, olives, chips, salsa along with mango and watermelon. No one was really hungry but we knew we would be skipping a formal lunch in order to be on time for grandson Nico's confirmation in the local Catholic Church.

We traveled to Pacifica to attend our grandson, Nico’s, Confirmation mass. Confirmation, is the third Sacrament after baptism and first communion.

The high mass was at 2:00, and it was emotionally moving to see these young people who studied for months to be “sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit and strengthened to the Body of Christ.” Nico took his Confirmation name of Joseph from his uncle, and he was sponsored by the family’s good friend Marcella.

After a round of photos, the family celebrated with a dinner at Nico’s favorite restaurant, Bennihana, where the food is not only delicious but entertaining as well.