They had prepared a wonderful barbecued salmon dinner and I gained back all the weight I had so carefully lost eating at Randy and Margie’s.
My King Salmon, the one I caught (bought).
Tuesday John drove me around the town of Florence, first stopping at the airport. There were no hangars available from the city, but a couple private hangars were for sale somewhere between $35,000 and $45,000. None of the hangars were special, no bathrooms could be installed and no apartments. We looked at a metal one and a wooden one. The land could be rented for putting up a hangar for $0.17/square foot/year. Tie downs were $5/night or $60/month. With all the salt air blowing around an open tie-down would not be a good idea for more than a day.
Next we drove downtown and looked at older looking homes that might be for sale. We were looking for something with character. We looked at a couple commercial buildings, one with docks in the river, but there were no contact phone numbers so we didn’t delve any further. For dinner we went to Abby’s for pizza and met Pam and Juan Reyes from Needles. Not knowing they were going to be there, not having seen them in 13 years, and not having a clue that they had moved up here I didn’t recognize them right them away. They had taken my dog, Zuppa, when I moved to Taiwan. We had a great time and I learned all about all the people I had known in Needles. Hsien-Ling went outside when she finished eating and found a ton of wild blackberries. They tasted great on top of ice cream when we got home.
Wednesday was a big tour day. We started out going to the Sea Lion Caves. This is a giant Sea Lion hang out, one of the largest in the world. We took an elevator down into the cave to see them. There they were, sheltered from the sun, barking away and playing. Birds flew in and out as well.
Next on the tour was the Heceta Head Lighthouse. It is the brightest lighthouse on the west coast. We took a free tour and were able to climb all the way up to just below the light itself. We saw the two oil storage buildings, the gift shop that used t be the stables, and the house that housed the two assistant light keepers. That house is now a bed and breakfast that also hosts weddings and other parties.
At the beach by the lighthouse there was a whole bunch of people sitting on chairs waiting for I don't know what. So I stood before them, thanked them for coming and spoke to them for a few minutes.
Next we went beach combing on Strawberry Hill beach. We saw whales and sea lions in the water, and jellyfish on the beach. We saw lots of driftwood, starfish, crabs, sea anemones, sea urchins, and mussels.
And you have to believe me, we saw whales. We saw little more than their spouting, but we did see them.
After beachcombing we continued to drive north to Yachats where we had dinner. Guess what we had? Seafood. It was great, Ling, Halibut shrimp and cod. They were out of Salmon. The clam chowder was excellent also.
On the way back to the house we stopped to see the golf course. Greens fees were $79 plus $15 for a cart during the week, and another $10 or $15 on the weekends. Oh, and Friday was a weekend also. They did have a special for about $350 where you could play every day for a month. I didn’t check to see if that included weekends as well. It makes Taiwan’s green fees seem reasonable.
On Thursday, our last day of play here, we loafed around then went to the library to use the internet and let me catch up with my e-mail. There was nothing real important except that my mechanic wanted money. No real surprise there as I had talked to him a couple days ago. While I was in the library with John and Johnny, Hsien-Ling went to Safeway to get food for our trip down to Manchester tomorrow.
Back at the house we sat around reading and watching videos. We did get to see two does walking down the street and I did get a few pictures.
Dinner was barbecued chicken with zucchini, onions, mushrooms, potato salad, and string beans. I did pass on the pecan praline ice cream for dissert. My feeble attempt at keeping control.
Friday saw us driving south even though Hsien-Ling swore we were going north. There were lots of nice views and bridges along the way, places that would take days to explore. We stopped in Brooking to look around and talked to Scott Backer who said he would e-mail me info about the airport.
We saw lots of bridges
Sometimes we listened to the GPS and sometimes not, sometimes we didn't know where we were, but so what I always said (to myself).
Into California stopped and drove through a Redwood tree. Hsien-Ling and I had done this once before but when we got to Arcata that time we somehow lost the roll of film when we got out of the car at some view point. This time we had digital!!!
We turned off Highway 101 at Liggett to catch Highway 1 down the coast. What a winding road that is. We even lost reception on the GPS several times as the sides of the canyons got steep. Back on the coast the road wasn’t any straighter and we weaved our way south watching the GPS keep adding time to our arrival estimate. When I thought I was close I tried to call Ken and Carol Hofer but there was no service. Half the time I think it was my phone, the other half I think there was no service. Can you hear me now? WHAT????
North of Arcata we stopped at Trees of Mystery to buy my sister a Redwood Burl. The last time I went through I got her one also but it died. At the time she said she knew what she did wrong and could keep one alive the next time so I got her another one. We also the statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe.
We finally made it,
rested a bit then went farther down the coast to have dinner on a pier, or near it. We had eaten there before. Not much choice in these parts we were told. We ate outside and enjoyed it very much. Carol had a couple other friends join us and we all had a great time. I couldn’t believe it when I found out that they had lived on the coast for over 30 years and Carol didn’t eat fish. She and Johnny were instant friends. They both liked Hawaiian pizzas too.
At the house I gave Ken some Salmon and he gave Hsien-Ling some Abalone. Yum yum. We swapped lies till late at night and finally went to bed with the windows open and enjoyed the cool night air. We wouldn’t be getting any of that when we got back to Bullhead City. In the morning we went to breakfast and started on our way to Napa after promising to get together more often that every 13 years.
The ride to Napa was mostly pleasant, not overly curvy. When we got to Calistoga we called my college classmate, John Montmorency and gave him a heads up on when we would arrive in Napa. He gave us a different route and after starting on that route, and looking at my unimaginative GPS, we took a third route that turned out to be beautiful, but longer and curvier.
But we made it anyway. I had to make about five phone calls for directions once we reached Napa; I guess I should have written down the directions the first time…..
John and Tege were great, as was their daughter, Jessica. We hadn’t seen them in 13 years either. First things first, John had to take me to see his 1941 Beech Staggerwing. What a beauty.
Due to a primer problem we couldn’t take it up but it was a real joy just to look at it. It should be in the air again in a couple weeks. We managed to fill our time with stories of flying at San Jose State College, me in the Flying Aces, John in the Flying 20s. He and my instructor, Dan Dill were best friends and both went on to fly for Flying Tigers and then for FedEx. It was amazing what stories we remembered about our early flying days back in the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s.
In the morning John made breakfast for us and we talked some more until Tege had to go work out. She is going to swim a race from Alcatraz to San Francisco so she needed to train. There’s another goal for me, a former swimmer (emphasis on the word former). When she left, so did we, making our way down the central valley, across Tehachapi and eastward till we got home in time for bed.
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