Christmas and the week before ! !

We arrived at Corey and Angela's about nine days before Christmas. Winter is here too. Left ice and snow at home but there has been a lot of rain here and cold, cold, cold.  Surprised that it was freezing here several days. Have gotten to spend quality time with Corey and get ready for working the Rose Parade for Fantasy RV Tours but first Christmas....

And then there was dinner ! ! ! Salad course first.... oops, no dinner pics but it was delish !

 

Will be leaving here, tomorrow, the day after Christmas and heading to San Dimas. Need to be there for a 5:30pm meeting.  Better have our running shoes on for the next couple days. Fantasy RV Tours Rose Parade Rally coming up ! ! 

Day Two Heading South

Started out in the pouring rain today, Wednesday, December 14th heading from Sunset Bay to the Eureka Elks in California right off 101. The wind and rain continued for a good five hours.  Forgot about those coastal winds and the winding through the redwoods.  Stopped in Port Orford at the Crazy Norwegian, one of our favorite places for lunch.  Fresh rockfish and chips!!  Yummy ! !  Then on to the Elks in Eureka. This is one of the best clubs we have been to. They have figured out how to get the young crowd in and they still give a free drink if you camp there.  Very nice after a long day of driving, about five hours! Then, they also have a dinner on Wednesdays. Is there ever too much fish??  The dinner tonight was petrale sole. They did a great job with it and I bet 75 people for dinner~~...

Trying to access Facebook most of the day, sometimes I can and sometimes I cannot but what I have finally learned is that there has been about four inches of SNOW at home today and more expected tomorrow...  I think we left just in the nick of time ! !  Guess rain isn't so bad! ! !  LOL

Heading South 2016 Winter

My oh my, we have spent the last four weeks celebrating Thanksgiving, getting the house ready to have someone stay in it off and on while we are gone as well as have two Christmas celebrations, my annual Cookie Exchange, packing to be gone about four months, get started on all the stuff we need to go to Alaska in June and making sure that Gary is doing better after his bike accident. We are tired ! !   Must be time to leave. Sooooooooo, we headed out yesterday morning about 9:30. Had made reservations since we were worried that Sunset Bay State Park would be packed since it is next door to Shore Acres.  Had never been to Shore Acres and had heard for years how wonderful the light show is. For the first time we decided to ignore the GPS and go the "correct" way. Well, an hour later than planned, we arrive at Sunset Bay after having to turn around and practically go the way the GPS said in the first place.  Got to the park in just enough time to set up before dark.  We drove over to the light show.  Very nice. 

Random Things from the Trip

Do you ever forget when and where you were when a picture was taken?? Well, it happens a lot to me so here are just random things that happened throughout the trip.

Fireweed at the height of the season !

and at the end of season...  Winter is almost here, six weeks til first snow ! !

In some areas the popular trees look like they are taking over the forests as they grow so much faster than the evergreens. Some of the trees might be birch and the syrup is a specialty here but is also very pricey.

Graffitti

 Road signs can be very interesting here.  The red flag on the side of the road means that you better slow down if you don't want to loose your rig in a pothole on over a hump/bump in the road.  Maybe it was repaired and maybe not..

At first I thought that this sign meant to watch the mountains... NO... it means that there are freeze heaves or damage in the road and you are going up and down ! !  LOL  Better slow down again ...

Most of the trees everywhere but Skagway are very different. Very small branches and not big around. They are very old but since they are growing just above the permafrost they do not get good nutrients and then there is the whole winter issue. Growing season is very short.

We actually ended up seeing these kinds of trees in all the higher elevations of permafrost.

This one took me a long time to figure out... and do not confuse it with the two cars and a green circle.  This is no passing ! ! !   LOL

Never figured this one out

How about that falling rock??

No tipping the trucks !

However, that doesn't mean that you really get to see any wildlife..

The last week or so of our trip, we hardly saw any wildlife so all these signs were a little confusing to say the least !!!