Here we are in California now. We haven’t noticed much change in temperature yet. The nights are close to freezing and days are low fifty’s. I know, “there is just no pleasing some people.” We did hurry this far because we heard there is a big storm approaching the Pacific Coast. Some points on the coast this weekend are anticipating winds of over forty miles per hour. We think we have gotten ourselves south of that and we are now somewhat inland in the midst of the California Coast Redwood Groves. I will post some photos of Judy and Arcturus totally dwarfed by the giant redwood trees in the Humboldt Redwood State Park. Instead of driving the four lane US 101 highway we slipped off onto the “Avenue of the Giants” road. This is probably the same road Judy and I drove down in the late seventies to take the kids to Disney Land. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it was mostly the same road my parents drove when they moved to Bloomington California. That is near Riverside east of LA. The old home movies have scenes in the California redwoods. For those of you who have never passed this way, the roadway literally weaves its way through the forest of tree trunks. It takes little imagination to picture one of the trunks taking the mirror right off the side of the coach. The trunks have the scars to prove that they can do it too.

Tonight we are in a commercial campground in Garberville, CA. After we got camp set up, we walked back a mile into the Richardson Redwood Grove. The state campground was closed to traffic, but we were able to walk the trails and enjoy the trees. Today was bright and sunny. It still didn’t warm up very much. Winter is moving in, for sure.

We have no cell phone but the camp has wi-fi including a very complete weather station. Last nights low was 31.5 at 7:30 a.m. The day’s high was 47.7 at 3:24 p.m. We expect to be in Napa Sunday, perhaps it will be warmer there. We hope to spend a couple days and explore the Napa valley by bicycle.

From the California Redwoods, Bye from Gary and Judy.