ANOTHER DAY; ANOTHER MUSEUM

Everybody knows Dean likes airplanes – and airplane museums.  This year's travels took us near the former Castle Air Force Base.  And, as it seems for most former bases, there's an Air Museum at Castle.  As with the railroad museum, we had visited here 20 years ago when there was only half a dozen airplanes sitting in the dirt, and a few ex-Air Force guys also sitting around trying to figure how to make a go of it.

They succeeded.  Castle's museum now has over 60 aircraft displayed in a well-manicured area with paved walks, grass, crushed-rock display circles for each aircraft, and plaques identifying each plane.  And benches to sit on.   And a real bathroom (not a porti-potti) along the way!  And a small campground – what do you know!

Some of the planes were unique enough that Dean didn't have pictures of that model, or were of a quality that he thought he ought to have more pictures.  Alas, he flubbed his technology test, and somehow deleted over half the pictures he took.  Not the first half – not the second half – just a random selection of the pics he took as he strolled for three hours through the display.  Damn and double damn!

So, with apologies, here's some of the survivors. 

B-36  --  Note added jet engines
Note also the two guys standing by the nose.  This is a big airplane!

C-123  --  Note added jet engines

C-97  --  Note added jet engines

Are we seeing the trend here??

Cessna T-37   "Tweet"

BEECH T-34

BEECH T-34  Gun??  Can that be possible?  A rocket-rack too???

Yep --- Some were sold to South American countries and converted to Ground-support fighters.
(Couldn't afford Warthogs, I guess.)

California - Eureka!

So, as often happens as the weather gets nicer, we spend more time exploring than sitting and writing blogs.

Northern California Coastline

After leaving the rain behind in Oregon, we moved into the Redwoods and dense fog – it took us a few days to find some California sun.  The tail-end of the storm that had drowned and blown the NW apart touched California too. 

Redwood stump (and Dean)

Redwood Stump Treehouse

Nice job painting the trees on the cabin

By the time we got down to Central California we came upon sun and mid-70's in the County of Lake (not to be called Lake County – who knows why) 

and spent a couple nice days in Nice (what a great name). 

We circumnavigated Clear Lake (100 miles) and saw lots of summer play areas, a few casinos, and summer homes of the rich and famous who don't mind steep driveways. Many times we could only see the roof line of the house - not the driveway because it was so steep.

We saw "cow" sheep. 

At least we think they are sheep, in the same pasture with sheep, 

same size as sheep and have no tail.

Found a forest fire base at a county park that was just closing up – fires are out for the season (TG).

Also traveled thru Lucerne (ah, from Switzerland to the French Mediterranean coast).

Next door to our RV park was a cute B&B - all the 9 rooms were cabooses.

Popped from there to the Sacramento suburb of Carmichael where we stayed over Thanksgiving.  Managed a full turkey dinner in the RV kitchen.  With lots of leftovers.

Sacramento calls themselves the City of Trees.  Since most of these beautiful mature trees are deciduous they might change the name in the fall to the City of Leaves.

THE CLAW

Homeowners are allowed to pile the leaves in the road up to 3x3x6.  A garbage truck and a claw comes by every week for 3 months.
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Our field trip in Sacramento was to the California State Railroad Museum.  We had visited this museum 20 years ago and thought it was time to tour again.

A lot of changes.  Many exhibits on building the railroads, duties running the trains and depots, riding the rails with a sleeping car, a dining car, and an ornate private car, railroad transportation was depicted with a tanker car and a refrigerated car.

Very few locomotives any longer but a great background on railroads for their visitors.  A new temporary exhibit was about the high-speed train line  to be built between LA and San Francisco.

High-Speed Train Mock-Up

On one floor here was a massive collection of model trains by many different manufacturers and of different scales from G to Z .

This model train layout had 4 trains and the lighting changed from day to night.

There was also a good-sized kids' area for them to blow of steam (and scream) 

with wooden Thomas trains. 

One of the few steam engines on display -
in RR talk: a 4-4-0 in case you are asked that question on Jeopardy 

Fascinating to us was the last front-cab articulated steam engine of 254 built.  

123 feet long and over 1 million pounds.

This is a 4-8-8-2 Articulated Consolidation locomotive (in case you care)

This design was modified from the normal cab-behind style because the engine exhaust sickened the engineers in the 40 miles! of snowsheds over Donner Pass.  They closed in the cab and ran the engine in reverse!

County Campgrounds

We've winter traveled south along Oregon's Highway 101 many times.  This is a nice quiet time of the year to enjoy the beautiful ocean views.  Those who know us know we have an affinity for public campgrounds (national, state, county, city, and port).  We've camped at many of Oregon State Parks wonderfully wooded coastal campgrounds over the years.  This year we explored a few more county parks.  Lane county parks have always been nicely done and we toured through them again this time.  But this year we stayed at two Coos County campgrounds.

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Tenmile Lake Coos County Campground located in Lakeside was definitely built for small boat fishermen.  It looked like an old lumber mill site with a lot of extraneous cement pads.  But who would have expected to see a sandy palm-lined sunning beach.  Great idea. 

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Our next Coos County Campground was at Bastendorff Beach outside of Charleston.  Again, as in Tenmile Lake, we were one of only 3 campers in the park.  Marvelous beach access and views of surf splashes on offshore rocks at the south jetty of Coos Bay.  Many birds taking shelter in the thick trees and many mushrooms popping up all around.

We saw this little critter taking cover from the rain and peeking out at us
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We had been warned, but were still surprised, by the number of tents of homeless people and dilapidated campers parked at the jetty.  In years past we would see the homeless work their way south to warmer climes for the winter but their numbers these days must be keeping that from happening.  The jetty is not near public transportation or groceries but the county has supplied permanent restrooms and a dumpster.

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We always head out when it starts to rain

Every year as we head south for the winter, we travel down the Oregon Coast to stay out of the mountain passes and away from snow.  And, every year, we spend most of the ride down with the wipers on and wearing boots and raincoats.  No exception this year.

After driving through very heavy rain in SW Washington, we have enjoyed traveling with sunny days, light showers, rainbows and fog. 

But just now we are awaiting a major storm coming to the NW.  Most of the rain and wind "should" hit Washington state.  But storm warnings are predicting flooding and high surf.  We'll stay put for a few days. 

Did take the time to stop at our favorite cheese factory in Tillamook - yummy curds.

Kalaloch

Lucky us to live where we can enjoy the sand, surf, and views of the Pacific from Olympic National Park.  Beautiful Kalaloch Campground.  Very busy in the summer and moderately busy early November.  Many times we are here and there are only 3 other campers.  This time there were 30 plus campsites filled.  We were all lucky as the weather was sublime.

We noticed that the beach topography has changed from last year.  Different winds, waves, or weather have moved the deep accumulation of logs elsewhere. 

Many less logs this year

Normal abundance of beach logs in the past at Kalaloch

SUNSET AT KALALOCH - PRICELESS