Fort Bragg, CA

This is Glass Beach in Fort Bragg. It was really amazing. Used to be a public dump in 1949. Then, in 1967 it was cleaned up except for all the glass. Over the years the glass was busted up and tumbled around till it was smooth.
Glass Beach. There were a bunch of people out there picking up souvenirs.
So, this is a typical beach (?) in northern California. Big rocky, jagged cliffs
Me going for a new tattoo at Triangle Tattoo and Museum.

What do you think, I got my money back.

San Francisco, CA

Alcatraz, 22 acres, was a harbor defense fortress in 1854, then a military prison during the Civil War. In 1934 was turned into a maximum security prison. Held Al "Scarface" Capone, and "Machine Gun" Kelly. Closed in 1963.

We took a cruise in the San Francisco bay and this is a shot looking back at the city. The highest point is Telegraph Hill which was a morse code signaling station.

Golden Gate Bridge, as usual it was foggy.

Pier 39, full of stinky, lazy seals.

We took a double decker bus tour of the city. This is Chinatown.
We stayed with Roberts cousins in Santa Rosa, Kelly and MS. We took a day trip into San Francisco which is about 50 miles.

Bowling Ball Beach, CA

We stopped here on our way to Fort Bragg and took a small hike. This beach, which is in northern california features prehistoric boulders that have been finely ground down over the millennia into perfectly smooth spherical shapes from the size of perfect bowling balls on up to 12 foot. Couldn't find them but look it up online, it looks real weird. Guess we didn't get there at low tide.

Sacramento, CA

We stayed in a very nice suburb of Sacramento, Orangevale, with Tonni and Rich, friends of Roberts. (And now Patti's) They have a beautiful home. We forgot to take pictures of the backyard, which was as nice as an arboretum.

Capitol building in Sacramento, we rode the light rail into town.


Old town area of Sacramento was beautiful and busy due to jazz festival. Sacramento River is just to right of this pic.


Went to huge farmers market and bought way too much fresh produce. This place was like Traders Village in Grand Prairie, had everything. This whole area of California was mile after mile of huge orchards and produce farms. NICE

Grinding Rock Historic Park

Miwok roundhouse


After we left Virginia City (this is out of order), we drove around Lake Tahoe, very touristy and expensive, but pretty. We stopped for the night at Indian Grinding Rock State Park in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We rode our bikes around. The Miwok Indians used the marbleized limestone to grind down acorns, their food staple. This is the largest collection of bedrock mortars anywhere in North America.

Yosemite National Park, CA

Big tree on our hike. This sequoia was 28 feet in diameter, Patti was standing 20 feet in front of it so you can't tell really how big it is.

Another big tree, this one was dead. It was cut like this in 1878 to bring in tourism. You gotta love killing a 3,000 year old tree for money.

The pine trees had huge pine cones.

Half dome, a famous rock in Yosemite.

Yosemite Falls, the fifth longest water fall in the world.

May 20. Yosemite National Park was huge, the size of Rhode Island, 263 miles of roads, this park is 1,169 square miles. Our RV camp was about 24 miles of winding, up and down, neck breaking road just to get to the park. And then we had to drive about 15 miles to get into the park enough to see anything. We did several short hikes. The second day we went in and did the giant sequoia hike. Beautiful.

Virginia City, NV

May 10, we crossed into the land of gambling, Nevada. Stopped in Winnemucca at the Model T hotel/casino/rv park for one night. Then went to Virginia City and stayed with Robert's funny and too cool Aunt Pat and Uncle George for a week, (Aunt Pat you can have your room back). It was nice to have a place to take a real shower and eat real food and not use a strange bathroom. Virginia City is so cool. Established in 1859 as a mining boomtown, it became the "richest place on earth" after the richest vein of silver the world has ever known, called the "Big Bonanza" was discovered there. Although there were two great fires that destroyed 2/3 of the city, many of the buildings are still from the 1860's. First, gold was discovered about 7 miles south. Following the gold up the canyon, gold mixed with high quality silver ore was known as the Comstock Lode. This gold and silver kept the Union solvent during the civil war. In 1865, Gold Hill (several miles down the mountain)and Virginia City mines produced over 1400 tons of ore daily. The Comstock Lode fueled the building of San Francisco. Virginia City had 30,000 population in the late 1800's and now has about 1500. It is at an elevation of 6200 ft. and a winding drive down the mountain takes you to Carson City, Reno, Lake Tahoe. While here we went on a short train ride to Gold City, a trolley ride around the city (two streets), went in an old mine that was inside a saloon (Robert hit his head first thing in), went to an old, old graveyard, and old school, saw the Mark Twain museum (he actually started his career here), saw his old press stuff, really old fire fighting equipment, radio museum with antique radios dating back to 1915, and several mine museums. We went to chalk hills hunting for fossils, and up a mountain to find rock crystals with amethyst. This town is so old and cute.

Bonneville Salt Flats, UT

We headed west on Interstate 80 across the Great Salt Lake Desert and the Bonneville salt flats. We had to stop and check out the salt. I added some of it to my rock collection.

Salt Lake City, UT

Salt Lake City is in northern Utah and is sandwiched between the Wasatch mountain range and the Great Salt Lake Desert. It is a pretty and busy city. The main attraction is the Temple Square. It was beautiful this time of year planted with thousands of tulips and other flowers. Those Latter Day Saints must have some money. We went in the Tabernacle and got to hear a recital of that giant organ. It is the domed building topside of the temple. The city is not all mormans though. They do have some decent breweries. We also went into a huge LDS resale store and bought t-shirts.

Great Salt Lake, UT

We headed up to Salt Lake City and found a mobile home park/rv park about 20 miles north of SLC in Layton, Ut. I have always wanted to float in the great salt lake because the salinity is up to 28% compared to the ocean at 3%. The great salt lake is the largest natural lake west of the Mississippi river. It is a remnant of pre-historic Lake Bonneville, which covered more than 20,000 square miles during the Ice Age. Max depth now is only 33 feet. Water from 4 rivers flows into the lake. There is no outlet, only evaporation, hence the high concentrations of minerals. We went to Antelope island but for some reason we hit it the wrong time of year because we couldn't get out of the truck without being attacked by thousands of tiny flying bugs. So we just took pics. This pic is looking back toward SLC.

Bryce Canyon, UT

Still in the colorado plateau, Utah. 60 million years or so ago there was sedimentation, 10 million years ago there was uplift, creating the Grand Staircase, then erosion set in until we now have the Bryce Canyon hoodoos. Yes, more cool rocks. We hiked about 550 feet down into the canyon as you can see in the first and third pics. Stayed in the Bryce Canyon several days. Beautiful.

Zion Nat Monument, UT

Zion National Park, 4-29, is actually in the southwest corner of Utah, and the west side of the colorado plateau. The plateau's southern edge steps down in a series of cliffs and slopes known as the grand staircase. Below Zion, the Grand Canyon forms the lowest rung into which 90% of the colorado plateau waters run. Note the Virgin River in the second pic. More really huge rocks. This place was gorgeous and we hiked our legs off here. Shuttle buses go throughout the canyon and drop you off at various sites to hike. We are really professional hikers, note Robert's WalMart bag. Stayed in Zion 3 nights.

Lake Powell, AZ

We headed north out of the canyon and stopped at Lone Rock State Park, on Lake Powell. We parked right on the beach. Glen Canyon dam is where the Colorado river is dammed up to make Lake Powell before it goes through the Grand Canyon.

Grand Canyon, AZ

We arrived at the Grand Canyon south rim, 4-27, got a camping spot for one night at the Trailer Village right in the Grand Canyon area after we stopped and saw the Grand Canyon I-Max movie in Tusayan. There are shuttle buses that travel all over Grand Canyon rim, so we rode and looked and took pictures. It was awsome.

Williams, AZ

This pic is taken at a little cutsy western tourist set in Williams, AZ, which is just west of Flagstaff.

Sunset Crator, UT

April 23. We headed to Flagstaff, AZ. Stayed at Black Barts RV Park, Steakhouse and Musical Review. No phone or internet connection here. We spent almost a whole day trying to get connected. This is the only picture we have of Flagstaff. We went to a nearby old volcano, Sunset Crater. Not much to look at. We also went to the Flagstaff brewery in old part of town and a club to see Lez Zepplin, an all girl band that does Led Zepplin songs, very cool.

Slide Rock, State Park, UT

This is Slide Rock State Park just outside of Sedona. Too cold for me to swim

Sedona, AZ

We arrived in Cottonwood, a little town just south of Sedona, Arizona, April 20. Got a camping spot at Dead Horse Ranch State Park. Visited Jerome, a little touristy old mining town on the side of the mountain. Drove through oak creek canyon and into Sedona with the beautiful huge red rocks. Went to a very cute shopping area in Sedona called Tlaquepaque (can you say that?), ate mexican food, drank beer at Oak Creek Brewery.