October 12, 2020
Howdy folks! And happy fall! My favorite time of the year, especially when we are in Aspen country (and we are, now). We arrived Santa Fe today, our 3rd year in a row spending time here in October. But that will be for another post. Right now I’m going to update you on our past couple of weeks.
So you know we were supposed to go to the Redwoods National Park when my brother and his wife were visiting, and we had to change those plans. Well, we were also scheduled to go to Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks. Both ended up closing due to fires in the area. So….we had to make a new plan. We’ve never been to either Yosemite or Sequoia. We hear Yosemite is a must see. We also know it is always crowded and you know how we already have a love/hate relationship with national parks. So we honestly we were not all that disappointed to change our plans. We’ll get there someday, I suppose. Meanwhile, we re-routed ourselves through Mt. Shasta, California (really liked it, will go back someday) and then on to the Lake Tahoe area (same – really liked it, will go back someday). So it all worked out. That really is one of the great things about traveling this way, we can be flexible and change plans when we need or want to.
So we still got to see some of northern California, and new places we had never been. And, it was SO GOOD getting back into the mountains. After several weeks on the Oregon coast, we really were anxious for some mountain hikes, and we found them! We had a little smoke in the skies while in California, but nothing terrible. You’ll see in some of the pictures the sky is a little hazy. And guess what?? The Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) goes right through the Lake Tahoe area, so one of our hikes was on part of the PCT. You might remember we hiked part of the PCT while in Oregon too. I just love getting my feet onto these historic, cross country trails, even if it’s just for a few miles. All that good energy there to soak up!
Mt. Shasta was a very cute little mountain town. It has a reputation for having good energy (similar to Sedona), so I planned our stay there to be over the fall Equinox. They were just beginning to re-open the national forest areas while we were there, and several areas were closed still, but we were able to find a beautiful hike. It’s an area that we would like to spend more time in, and explore more.
The Lake Tahoe area was very beautiful too. We stayed right on the Nevada/California boarder. In fact, half the RV park was in Nevada, half was in California! And, the RV park was associated with a casino, and they had a building on the property that sold both Nevada and California lottery tickets. We kept seeing a lot of cars in the parking lot of this building and couldn’t figure out why – then someone told us it was a lottery sales place, and they had a line of tape down the middle – one side sold Nevada lottery tickets and the other side sold California lottery tickets!
We really enjoyed the whole area. We drove around the entire lake (about 75 miles). It has lots of little villages and towns all around, each with a different personality. We had fun being tourists some days, doing some shopping and going out to dinner a couple of times. There were so many hikes in the area it was almost overwhelming to pick a few out. We loved all the hikes we did – but we found an area (the Mt. Rose Wilderness), on the Nevada side of the lake, that had beautiful hikes around a couple of creeks, and with shade. Gerry just can’t handle the sun and needs a creek or stream to get into with the heat. So we spent a few days hiking that area. You’ll see lots of pictures in the link below.
Then we moved on to Sedona. We were there 2 years ago and loved it, and decided to route ourselves through there again, on our way to Santa Fe. Wow. We remembered we liked Sedona. We remembered it was beautiful. But wow – when you come around the bend in the road and see all those red rocks again….pictures and memories do not do it justice. We loved being there again, even for just a few days, and it was a good reminder of how much we like it – and we plan to spend more time there at some point.
I have to tell you a little story about one hike we did in Sedona – Boynton Canyon. It’s a lovely, 6 – 6.5 mile hike, all through a canyon (thus the name!). We had done the hike when we were in Sedona 2 years ago, and my sister, Laura visited. You long time readers of my blog will remember how there was a guy playing the flute on top of a big red rock back then…well guess what?! He was there this time too! When we arrived for our hike, in the morning, he wasn’t there, and we figured he wasn’t doing it any more. But, when we were almost back at the end of our hike, we could hear the flute playing in the distance – so we hurried down the side trail to where he was. He saw us coming, rushing up the trail, and I think he added a couple of songs to his play time to let us get up to the area to sit and listen. It was wonderful! And we were able to talk to him after, and he gave us each heart rocks he carves out of the red rocks again! We had received heart rocks last time also, and one of ours had broken (fell off the dresser in the RV while we were bouncing around on some road somewhere). He is a very inspirational guy, and it was very special to us to hear him play again. And we are thrilled to have the heart rocks! Here’s a short video of him playing: https://photos.app.goo.gl/fcZYx9tq6iU9ptMC7 Really – does it get any better than that??
We have had absolutely beautiful weather for several weeks now. We’ve done as many hikes as we can fit in every where we’ve been, and I have lots of pictures for you. And, we are settling in to our digs in Santa Fe – we love it here! And…Guy and Katelyn arrive in a couple days for a visit (Yay!!) so I’m busy cooking and prepping for that. I’ll have lots to share after their visit, I’m sure.
So enjoy the pictures, and I hope you are able to get outside and enjoy some fall weather where ever you are!
Mt Shasta, California: https://photos.app.goo.gl/7nogdP2NVt51MYFr8
Lake Tahoe Area: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Fea3M9KP1gzj8DuEA
Sedona, Arizona: https://photos.app.goo.gl/JfvxxZi9EMxd93zv6