Lisa
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Shore Acres State Park
There are three state parks altogether here just west of Charleston and south of where the Coos River meets the ocean. Only Sunset Bay has a campground. Today, we hiked up the connecting trails that included part of the Pacific Coast Trail to Shore Acres and the formal gardens that are there. We parked Usain…
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Sunset Bay State Park
Our journey today took us north on the 101 to Sunset Beach State Park, which is south of Coos Bay. We continue to enjoy the scenic drive along the 101. There are a few interesting signs we see repeated along the highway. The “slides” signs indicate unstable hillsides and the tsunami signs warn about that…
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Another Day Near the Rogue
Each day this trip we are trying to keep up our morning exercise routine from home. Tony dons running clothes and finds a bike trail or neighborhood (or even a large Walmart parking lot once) to run a 5K while I take my yoga mat and the picnic blanket outside for a quiet bit of…
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Last Day at Sue-Meg
No traveling today for us as we find plenty to do here on our third and final day at Sue-Meg State Park. Ceremonial Rock The hike up Ceremonial Rock this morning brought to mind the opening Circle of Life song of Lion King. It’s a tall rock with the park’s highest views of the tree…
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Sue-Meg Rim Trail and Big Lagoon
The Rim Trail at Sue-meg State Park follows the coast line along the cliffs with several places to climb down to the beach or up to lookouts on big rocks. The day started out very cool, so we were wearing warmer clothing with hats knowing that the fog would eventually burn off and sunshine would…
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Lassen Volcanic National Park – Day 3
King’s Creek was our destination for hiking today. Parasitic Beauty Along the drive, I finally saw a place to pull over so I could get pictures of a really cool plant that I saw yesterday growing along the park road. The Snow Plant is bright red and is found in conifer forests like this one.…
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Lassen Volcanic National Park – Day 2
For our first full day in the park, we wanted to drive the scenic road from our campground to the visitor center at the other end with hikes and stops in between. Lassen Peak Hike Our first stop/hike was up Lassen Peak, which is correctly labeled strenuous. There are areas of snow where some kind…
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Lassen Volcanic National Park – Day 1
Traveling from Iowa to California was not scheduled day-to-day so we could decide when to stop as we felt we needed to. But once we reached California, I had each day planned out (except for two) because summer campgrounds fill up when families get to take vacations. We happened to make the trek across Nevada…
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Historic Wendover Airfield Beyond the Salt Flats
This Harvest Host site in Utah we are staying at tonight is steeped in WWII history. The airfield was opened in 1940 with a few buildings and bombing and gunnery ranges for training. This quickly grew to several hundred buildings after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The B-17 and the B-24 heavy bombardment groups were…
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Green River, WY
Our drive today across Wyoming was uneventful. We are always amazed at the scenery along I-80, with abrupt changes from prairie to mountain, then back to some farmland, then more mountains. We stopped at the Sherman Summit rest stop at the highest point of the entire I-80 route at 8,640 feet. There is a massive…