This is the end

Another day of working and driving took us up the Chehalis, Wa Walmart, where we encountered the cold again, then the next day we drove to Tulalip, Wa. At this point we could have just continued home, but we wanted to check out the casino and do some shopping before heading back across the border.

The casino parking at Tulalip is a good size and there are a lot of people who use it. The weather was sunny but cool. It was kind of nice to put on our warm clothes again. Just so long as a jacket was still unnecessary.

With Walmart, Costco, Ross, and a big outlet mall close by, and a Trader Joe's 15 minutes away in Everett, it's the perfect place to make a last stop before going home. We dropped off the trailer and while Harold worked, I went off shopping.

That evening we joined my parents at the Olive Garden and all ordered the two meal special. Usually, I just stick to the soup, salad and bread-sticks, but for just a little more, you get one pasta, and they package up a second for you to take home. We couldn't resist such a deal!

The Tulalip casino is very big and quite beautiful, with a sexy darkness illuminated by subdued lights in an underwater decor. It's surprisingly smoky for such a large-scale casino, and I'm rather sick and tired of my clothes smelling like smoke. Next trip I'm going to designate one set of clothes as my casino clothes and store them in a bag until we do the washing again. We scoured the entire casino and found exactly four video poker machines, way in the back. They were 25 cent machines and we prefer playing the 5 cent machines so we can play 5 coins, which gets you the highest winnings. If you play 5 quarters, $20 goes down too quick.

There wasn't much of a chance to get a drink. No servers were to be seen anywhere. I'm sure it wouldn't have been free anyway. We plunked our money in, selected to bet 1 coin and started to play. My first game, I got a great hand and won $40, so I cashed out immediately and sat there trying to figure out how I could have won so much on a 25 cent bet. On my right, Harold suddenly stopped playing, and said out loud, "Where's my money gone? I only played 4 hands!" It was then we both clued in. The machine said you could play only 1 coin but didn't allow it. We'd been betting 20 coins -- $5 per hand! So half my win was cancelled out by his loss, but we were still up $20. Time to make a hasty retreat.

Tomorrow we'll be home!

Stalking the band

Driving from Yreka, CA to the Seven Feathers Casino, in Canyonville, OR, we were passed by an interesting looking bus. By the time I realized that I wanted to know what it was and get a picture of it, it was quite far ahead of us. Due to the traffic, it became a real problem to catch up. When we had to pull off to refill our diesel, we figured we'd lost our chance, but they must have pulled off too, as about 30 minutes later they went roaring past us again. This time we managed to pull up alongside and I tried to get the best photos I could from the truck, before they roared off again and left us in their dust.

We arrived at the Seven Feathers Casino about an hour later, and couldn't believe it. About five parking spaces over from my parents, there was the bus we'd been chasing all that time!

The pictures I'd taken from the truck had been a mess, so I took this one instead. The band, Camilo y sus Cazadores doesn't have much of a web presence. They were playing in the casino when we went up there later.

It was like a bucket of water in the face to realize we were back in the land of having to pay for our drinks. It takes all the fun out of it when you not only have to lose your money but pay for your own wine. I understand it's a State law, but you'd think if they have to charge, they'd maybe charge less than $5 per glass .... see how I've been spoiled already? Getting a glass of wine for $5 in Canada is a big whoop-dee-doo. Paying that much for wine in a casino in Oregon gets on my nerves.

Jefferson - the 51st state?

It was down in Paso Robles that we'd first heard of a secession plan to take the northern part of California and the southern part of Oregon and make it into a 51st state named Jefferson. Funny that we'd just now heard of it, since the idea had been hatched way back in 1941. It sounds like it's an idea that has been there ever since, but has gained more momentum since the Tea Party came about. The area is heavily Republican, and I get the idea that is a big part of the problem with both California and Oregon being more Democratic as a whole.

Up along the east side of I-5, just south of Yreka, the proposed capital of Jefferson, there is a barn proclaiming the area as "State of Jefferson". We suddenly clued in. This was the area we'd heard of!

We met up with my parents in the Walmart parking lot in Yreka. I got out to direct Harold into where we should park, and a large, hairy man wearing a little pink skirt came up and started to ridicule our skills. I wasn't sure whether to be aggravated at his rudeness or amused at his get-up. I settled on both and tried to ignore him. After we were settled in, he then tried to hit us up for cash, which I had no problem in declining. First rule of pan-handling: don't offend the mark.

We were awoken at about 4am by one of my clients in trouble. Since my laptop battery is no longer holding a charge, I need the generator going constantly to run my computer.  I have learned to save very, very often as the moment the generator runs our of gas, I lose all my work. I looked out the window to see a motorhome parked beside us, and was thinking we'd have to move somewhere so I could work, but lucky me, they started up the engine and left as I stood there watching.

My parents left pretty early and we stayed to keep working. I took a few breaks and wandered around, checking out the people who had stayed overnight around us. The woman parked behind my parents was from Saltspring Island, BC. She, and her husband, used to travel in a Class A motorhome, but he died a few years ago, and she sold it. She, and her two dogs are making their way down to South America, in this minivan.

The people in this truck turned up late the night before and pulled a ton of stuff out of the back of the truck, in order to make room to sleep. They had a huge spotlight that lit up the whole area. They had three big dogs they left in the front seat that kept looking up to make sure we kept our distance all day long.

The Mount Shasta area is so beautiful and is sunny every time I've gone through. I've never spent much time in this area but we definitely need to in the future.

Down and out in Susanville

This part of the trip is where things became more of a chore and less about fun. Harold had only been able to take two weeks of vacation and we'd wanted to be away a month. Add to that, my best client had a big emergency that couldn't wait until I returned. So the plan was to work each day until 3pm when Harold's office closed for the day, and then drive to the next spot. It doesn't leave much time to look around.

Susanville is located up in the north-east area of California, about a two hour drive from Reno. The city was originally named Rooptown, after Isaac Roop, who renamed it Susanville, after his daughter ... wait ... guess her name. It's a small, pretty town that used to rely on logging and mining, but now relies on the High Desert State Prison, a maximum-security facility, for the local economy. You might want to be wary of any hitchhikers wearing orange jumpsuits.

There is a small Walmart near the southeast entry to town where we planned to stay the night. We got there about dinner time and there were already quite a few RVs in the lot. It's a small lot, as Walmarts go, and the nicer spots along the edge were already taken, but there were four long pull-throughs available so we took one and set ourselves up with our laptops and went back to work.

After sunset, I was wishing we'd picked a different space as there were so many cars speeding past us, almost clipping us. It felt like we were going to be hit at any moment. But by that time the lot was even fuller, and there was really no place to go. Thankfully this Walmart closed at 10pm so by the time we went to bed, things had quieted down.

The next day all the big rig RVs left early. We're seeing a lot of Snowbird traffic going the opposite way of us the last few days, all heading down to the desert, to get away from winter. We've had a couple of them telling us "You're going the wrong way!" when they hear we're headed back to Canada. The rigs they drive are everything from quite modest to super mansions on wheels.

All that was left in the lot with us were some rather sketchy looking people sleeping in their cars. This was our first touch with homeless travellers. There was a car with three twenty-something punk kids out in front of us. They were really dirty and threw their garbage all over the lot. Their two vicious dogs caged up in the back seat, lunged and smashed into the windows, seemingly wanting to rip out my throat as I walked past. They aggravated me. The people, and their garbage, not the dogs. Then I felt like an old curmudgeon for being bothered, and that aggravated me more.

Right across from us was an older man in a beat up, old truck that had seen better days. He just sat there all day, all alone, in the driver's seat, looking out the window. He made me feel so sad. What kind of life is that? To have no purpose, no company. It seems so unbearably lonely. Just before we left, I begged Harold to walk over and find out if he was okay, and if he needed help, to give him a bit of money. I was too nervous to go over myself.

Harold went over and spoke to him for a bit before heading back. The man's story was that he was waiting for his social security check to come in, in a few days, and until then he had nowhere else to go. He refused our money but seemed to appreciate the gesture and the chat. It makes me wonder, maybe he's better off travelling around in his beat up old truck, than he would be all alone in an apartment, or living on the streets. I guess it depends on why he's doing it, necessity or desire, and whether it's enjoyable or a misery. I wish he had a dog. That would have made me feel better for him. He waved at us as we drove off.

Baldini's, a cure for the family curse

I figured after a night like we'd just had, we'd never get back to sleep. The plan had been to leave at dawn but we slept in a couple of hours after the sun rose. My parents of course, were ready to leave about the same time we woke up.

We had a pretty uneventful day, driving north through the desert. I've done this drive twice before, once in 2001, and the last time when we moved Harold up from Arkansas near the end of 2008. Unfortunately, we'd driven late into the night so Harold hadn't seen much of it at all.

The drive is quite interesting and there are so many photos I'd have loved to take if we just had the time. That's the thing I hadn't really counted on with pulling a trailer on these long hauls. In my daydreams, I picture us driving along, being able to pull over to take great shots of the scenery around us.

The reality is that it's very difficult to pull over when you are 40+ feet long and driving highway speeds. It's hard to find a place to pull out and you usually don't have enough time to give the driver notice to pull over. If you're in a car, it's easy to just turn around, but when you are that long, it feels like too much work to go back. That's a big lesson for the future, plan for shorter driving days, and leave lots of time to drop off the trailer and head out in the truck to take photos.


In some future trips, we're going to spend more time in Nevada, getting to know the wild areas out there. Something about the wide open spaces and dilapidation makes me feel nostalgic for a bygone era. I'm not a person who looks back that much. I'm much more excited about change, and what's to come in the future, than I am wistful for the old days. But it's the strangeness of this place than I am attracted to. The old hippies, and the eccentrics, the alien abductees, the old miners, and the brothels. I'm interested in the stories of people who would go out and live in these areas. A part of me understands exactly why someone would want to live out in the middle of nowhere.

Reno was so beautiful with the sun glinting off the Truckee River, the banks lined with verdant and lush meadows. It was such a contrast to the barren desert and rocky canyons we had just come through. We were impressed to see a rest area with free Wifi and a dump station, but we didn't stop. We'll keep it in mind for future trips.


The last time I'd been in Reno with my parents was Halloween night 2001, just after 911. That trip had been with my first husband. We spent half the day in Death Valley, and then drove late into the night, all the way up through Nevada to Reno. By the time we got to Reno, we were all exhausted and disappointed that we'd planned it so badly. We parked outside the Reno Hilton, and wandered inside to a completely dead casino.

That day there had been reports of bomb scares in different places, and I guess most people just stayed home. I remember a band playing and slot machines blaring, servers standing around bored, and not a customer in sight. I have no idea what started the argument between my Mother and I, but it morphed into an argument between us all, and ended with my parents not just leaving the casino, but driving out of the lot.

I like to imagine them leaving like they'd show it in a movie. Screeching the tires, doing a quick u-turn and barely missing a collision as they bounce over the curb, before heading down a one-way street and seeing all the oncoming cars veering out of the way at the last moment. Of course, the reality is probably much different, much safer, not nearly as exciting. I'll never know. I wasn't there to see it. We were still inside the completely vacant casino.

It was a full four days until I spoke to my Mother again, which was very unusual for us. We ended up travelling the rest of the way home on our own. Once we all made amends, Reno became the family joke from then on. We'd make pointed remarks about "pulling a Reno" and all laugh about it. We blamed the city for the argument and swore we'd never go back there together. So it was with some trepidation that my parents and I revisited the place together again.


Flip ahead almost exactly 12 years, me now with husband number 2. We arrived at Baldini's Sports Casino in the afternoon, and pulled up beside my parents. In the good old days (like we could call the 2001 fiasco good?) you could stay overnight in the lots of most of the casinos in Reno, but the city council has since passed a by-law prohibiting it, so you have to be outside the city limits now.

Baldini's is just a few blocks from the city border, in Sparks. It's a small locals casino, as smoky as we've become accustomed to, but they have the best specials in their restaurant, with super cheap, but well made, and flavourful meals. We found our special video poker machines up along the bar and perched there for most of the evening, chatting with locals, and enjoying the complimentary wine.

I could feel the 3 of us walking on eggshells a bit, but Harold was pretty oblivious to it all. Of course, he doesn't have our shared history. By the second day though, we were all more relaxed. Mom and I went off shopping to Costco and a local mall. Driving around the area, Reno struck me as being a very liveable city, and definitely a place we'll come back to with good feelings, now that the family curse is broken.

Unfortunately, my work got in the way the next day, and we had planned to leave town in the late afternoon, so we never did make it downtown. Something for next time!

Tonopah, NV: I have a gun! Stay away!

There is this illusion you have about safety in numbers that gets stripped away instantly, when you have some crazy drunk guy running around your trailer, banging and smashing on it, demanding to be let in, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere.

I remember reading a story in a travel magazine about an RV park along the Baja coast that was attacked by armed gunmen and even though the park was full of other people, nobody could come out and help. It was just too dangerous. I know exactly how they felt.

The day had started out with us changing our minds about going to Death Valley. Instead we followed my parents up through Nevada, and settled in for the night midway between Las Vegas and Reno, in the tiny town of Tonopah.

We'd pinpointed two casinos in the town that allowed overnight parking, and since the first one had a lot that was all downhill, we settled on the Banq Club casino on the other end of town.

The casino was tiny and run-down, the lot was just a gravel pit with some tumble weeds, surrounded by scrub bushes and garbage, but it was a free place to park, and easy to get into and out of. Well, as long as you were careful coming in over the hump in the driveway. That one was a doozie! Good thing we were pre-warned about it. You could see the scrapes along the pavement of those who hadn't known.

We arrived about an hour after my parents had settled in, just before sunset. There were about 5 or 6 semi trucks and 4 or 5 RVs in there already. We pulled up beside my parent's RV and found the most level bit we could. Once we settled in, we went over to sit inside with my parents, where we shared some appies and premixed cocktails. After dinner, we settled in for an early night. It's not like there was anything to do in the town.

It was quite a few hours later, about 2 or 3 am that we first heard the banging on the door. It jarred us awake suddenly, and I was instantly afraid. Harold went to the door and opened it a bit. The guy outside started pulling on the door and Harold had to fight to pull it closed.

"Joe! Let me in Joe! It's cold out here!" he slurred through the door.

"There's no Joe here! Go away!" Harold called back.

"Come on man, let me in." He whined and wheedled, but eventually he went away and we laid back down again.

Five minutes later, I sat bolt upright as the wall beside our bed shuddered from the man's fists hitting the side.

"Let me in! Let me in!" He kept repeating. *BANG BANG BANG*

"Go away! I'm calling the police!" I yelled back.

"Is that you Lisa? Let me in! Let me in!" *BANG BANG BANG*

He wandered around the trailer, banging on every side, still repeating his whining mantra, "Let me in Lisa! C'mon, let me in! I'm cold!"

"I have a gun! Stay away!" I'm not sure if that was the right or wrong thing to say. To be honest, if I'd had a gun and he managed to get in, I think I might have pulled the trigger.

Instead I called the police. The dispatcher told me they'd already had calls from other people in the lot and would send out a policeman as soon as he was finished on his current call. I felt like she wasn't understanding just how much danger we were in, especially when she told me one of the truck drivers told her this was just a drunk guy, and not a big deal.

She didn't have this crazy drunk guy terrorizing her in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. I told her just how scared I was, and she was rather cold about it all. I gave up and called my Mother instead, who was right next door to us, but because of the perceived danger, felt miles away.

She had a similar story to tell. The drunk had banged on their door and she'd thought it must be me. They didn't make the same mistake Harold had though. They looked out the window but all they could see was a dark shape.

"Who's there?" she demanded.

All she could hear was mumbling, and she was now afraid that it was me and I was either drunk or something had happened to me. Yeah, because I regularly get drunk and sit outside their RV mumbling. But okay, alright, I'll try not to be offended at the low opinion of what I like to do in the middle of the night. Luckily, before she opened the door to the drunk mumbling mess that was NOT me, he spoke up louder and she realized it wasn't me at all. Yes, Mother, I am more mature than that!

We watched him through our darkened windows, as he made his way around the lot, banging on each door in turn, trying to get someone to let him in, to no avail. Eventually the police showed up, but by that time, he'd given up and run off. They scoured the area with big lights on the front of the car and spoke to people, but he had managed to disappear. I figured I'd never be able to get back to sleep, but eventually we managed to get a few more hours of sleep before daylight woke us up again.

"I swear Tracey! This has never happened to us before, in all the years we've been boondocking!" My mother told me the next day.

I guess it's just my dumb newbie luck.

Las Vegas always wins

We spent the next four days getting to know the real Las Vegas better. My parents met their friends, J&L, on a cruise many years ago and spend time with them every time they come through town. Four years ago, when we came to town to be married, we met them for the first time and they were our only guests at our wedding other than my parents, so we like to joke about them being Harold's Las Vegas parents.

Whenever I hear the prices of Las Vegas real estate, I want to scream. Prices have gone up since 2008 and people have doubled their money selling homes that were foreclosed on back then, but prices are still very, very low, in comparison to back home. Of course, with Vancouver having the most expensive real estate in North America the same can be said for pretty much anywhere. We could buy 4-5 homes in Las Vegas for what our house is worth at home, and it can be so tempting to buy elsewhere, but to get out of the market back home would be crazy. It would mean that when we decide to come back, we'd be priced out of the market.

My favourite stores in the bigger cities of the US are the liquor superstores. They sell everything that can be attached to alcohol, from glassware and cool knick knacks, to gourmet foods. I have never seen so many types and brands and cool ideas all centred on alcohol. We'd been impressed by BevMo! but Total Wine & More just blew us away. I'm particularly enamoured by all the different flavours of pre-mixed drinks and shooters they have. I had to restrain myself from buying them all. After all, we only have so many days left to drink it and a border quota we're already over.

I used to wonder why anyone would want to live in Las Vegas, and figured only big gamblers or casino employees and entertainers would want to live there, but it's a really nice place to live, with lots of outdoor activities, great dog parks, the best shopping and entertainment, cheap real estate, and fantastic deals only available to locals. It's high on our list of places we could be tempted to live.

We were invited over for dinner at J&L's home our second night, and had a wonderful time, then headed back to the RV where we had an early night. The revelry from the night before was still taking a toll on me especially.

The third night we met everyone at the Palm's for the buffet. We arrived early, so we could play some video poker, and this is where things started going wrong. By the time we headed in for dinner, I was $60 down and Harold was $40 down. Usually losing doesn't bug me, I count on it, but I'd been seduced by the first night's win into thinking we had a chance.

The buffet at the Palm's includes all you can drink wine and beer and the women's side of our table (the non-designated drivers) got our money's worth.

For the first time since I was a teenager, I was disappointed to be too young for something. Everyone else in our group, even Harold, who just turned 50, got the senior discount, but I had to pay full price! It didn't seem fair, much like when all my other friends were getting into clubs when I was still 18.

After dinner, Harold and I headed to the strip to checkout the new properties that had gone in since we'd last been here. We made it from Caesar's to the Tropicana and then ran out of steam. It was time to head back to the RV and sleep off another night of excess.

Our last night we went to the same place we'd had our wedding dinner four years previously, at the Cortez Room at the Gold Coast. It's a great old style steakhouse with really good food, and really good prices. Back on Fremont street, we wandered through the same casinos we'd done so well in just days before, but now all we could do was lose. Vegas had turned on us. We left with me still up $100 and Harold up $40, so we took pleasure in knowing we were still ahead.

Las Vegas - Miracle In The Desert

We were told we couldn't check-in to the Main Street RV park until after 2pm, (don't fall for that, just pull-in to the RV lot and wait to check-in at 2) so we spent the morning in Primm doing laundry at the Truck Stop and working. We didn't have our stabilizers down and there were so many trucks coming through, the trailer was rocking back and forth. Then there was the wind that blew the sand all over the exterior of the truck and trailer. I have no idea how much filth was picked up yesterday along the highway and how much was thanks to this parking lot. Either way, we were pretty nasty looking.

On our way out of town, I saw the RV area at Buffalo Bills, and realized Harold had got it all wrong. It wasn't the deserted and wrecked parking lot we'd seen last night, it was off behind the building, in a much nicer area full of RVs. I resolved then and there to always make sure I'm the one to go in and get instructions, in the future. It's more my forte.

We arrived in Las Vegas early and had to drive around the downtown twice before we were able to find the driveway into the RV lot at Main Street Station. It's not much more than a parking lot alongside the highway, but at $16 per night, and a block from Fremont Street, it's a fantastic deal. We pulled into our designated spot and I walked around trying to find where to check-in. Unsuccessful, I went back to the trailer where we met our neighbours, a retired couple from Campbell River, BC. The wife brought us over some home made soup she'd made too much of, for lunch, and it was really good. She and her husband seemed hungry for hometown conversation, and seemed disappointed when we admitted we don't watch hockey.

It was well past 2pm and we'd still not seen anyone to check-in with so I asked our friendly neighbours and they told me I had to go into the hotel. D'oh! Of course. As I was heading out, I noticed another neighbour pounding a sign into the ground beside his RV. In big, red letters, it said:

"Pick up your dog shit! This is DISGUSTING!"

There was an arrow pointing down to the ground where there was a pile of dog poop. I found it amusing that he spent all this time creating his perfect little sign, rather than just picking it up in two seconds, but I did understand his disgust at the laziness of whomever didn't pick up after their dog.

The maximum length of time you can stay at this RV park is 14 days. This is by city ordinance and is meant to stop people from living there full-time. So it amused me even more that he had decorated the outside area so perfectly around his RV. He had fans and flags and decorator bikes positioned just perfectly and his tow vehicle had been custom painted to match his RV, even with the swoopy racing stripe down both sides. Both gleamed with cleanliness. I can just imagine what he thought of our truck and trailer all grimy with desert grit and sand. I tried to work my charm on him and commiserate with his angst over the excrement but he was just an old grump and was having none of it.

The Main Street Station looks like an old hotel and saloon from the days of the wild west, but it was built in 1977 as the Holiday International Casino. It struggled financially and became the Park Hotel and Casino in 1987, then was bought by Boyd Gaming in 1991. Like the California hotel it is attached to by a skywalk, a large numver of the patrons are Hawaiian. Due to the similarity in name, I had always thought Main Street Station was part of the Station Casinos chain, but found out it has never been. It's also never been a train station.

Ellis Island is a small local's casino located a block off the strip, behind Bally's and Paris. With plans to meet my parent's and friends there, we arrived a little early so we went to the Player's Club desk to get points cards. The cashier told me we had to put a dollar in and when we'd gone through that we could get our perks from the Players Club machine. We were in a hurry to meet up with my parents so I picked the biggest, flashiest machine, planning to lose my $1 on the first pull. Much to my surprise, the machine started flashing and yelling at me to do something. I noticed there was a joystick flashing red and vibrating so I kind of knocked at it and finally noticed the bank of video screens over top of us with an underwater animation showing fish and my rod line that had just caught something and the machine yelled at me that I'd caught a big one! Well, it was $25 but to me, that's big. I cashed out and went to the machine to get my perks, but it wouldn't give them to me because I hadn't lost $1 yet.

We joined my parents along a wall of video poker machines, and put our money in to play and I just couldn't lose. After a few glasses of wine, the group was ready to go in for dinner, but I didn't want to leave my machine. I went to the Perks Machine, but couldn't get my dinner coupon because I STILL HADN'T LOST MY DOLLAR! Luckily, my parent's friends, who live in Las Vegas had extras.

Dinner at Ellis Island is such an amazing deal. For 8.99 (7.99 with our $1 off coupon) we had a decent size steak, choice of potatoes, garlic green beans, soup or salad, and a 20oz beer brewed in-house. We had a great dinner and then went back out to the row of video poker machines we'd been at before, and I still couldn't lose. By the time we were done, I was $60 ahead and I finally got my perks on the machine.

We decided to go back to the RV so we could let Toonie out and then walk over to Fremont Street. In the past, I've always been a table player, usually sticking to Pai Gow or Blackjack. With my recent success playing Video Poker and the easier time it is to find a machine over a seat at a table, we decided to keep playing the machines. Scouting the casinos, one by one, we'd find the Deuces Wild machines, plunk our cash in, have a free drink or two, then cash out when either of us either:

a) Lost $20 -or- b) Had a big win.

This worked great for us and by the time we headed back to the trailer, I was $200 up and Harold was $100 up. We were also quite inebriated from all the free wine, so we were fast asleep as soon as our heads hit our respective pillows.

Blew the budget on wine, so we're off to Nevada!

Only allowed to take 4 bottles of wine back into Canada, we already had 5 really good, more expensive bottles. We were feeling like we couldn't trust ourselves to only taste, and not buy, and we like to keep our better wines for times we can share them with people who will appreciate them as well. When we're on the road, in the trailer, in the U.S, there are so many good, drinkable wines that are so cheap, from places like Walmart, Trader Joe's, and BevMo, it seems wrong to drink the really good stuff from a plastic wine glass.

We'd planned to spend two days in Paso Robles, but when I couldn't get in touch with the second winery we wanted to stay at, we took it as a sign, even though I don't, in any way, believe in signs. It was now time to make up the day we were behind, and head to Nevada.

On the way out of Paso Robles, going east on Hwy 46, we went through the area where all the bigger wineries are. Next time through, we'll make sure to stop at some of those. We're finding that more than a day of wine sampling is often overkill, and prefer to do one day on, and one off. That's something to keep in mind for future trips.

This highway, built in the 1920s, and fully paved by 1930, stretches from Cambria, on the coast, to just north of Bakersfield, but we were planning to turn off when we hit I-5. The first part of the highway used to be known as "Blood Alley", for the high number of car crashes, especially head-on collisions that occurred on it. The junction, up where it hits Hwy 41, named the James Dean Memorial Junction, is where the actor was killed, September 30, 1955.

Further along, we came across a really ugly area known as the Lost Hills Oil Field. This is where the Bellevue blowout occurred on November 23, 1998, erupting into a huge gas fire that lasted 14 days, and was seen from 40 miles (60 km) away.
Once the fire was extinguished, there was still another 6 months of uncontrolled natural gas expulsion.

The whole area looks very messy, and low tech, with many, many smaller oil wells, almost one on top of the other. It has a nasty, 1920's oil field look to it, (kinda Steampunk, without the coolness factor) and makes me wonder if they aren't the very same wells originally installed there.

We stopped at the junction where we were to turn onto I-5, at a service area with 5 or 6 big trucker gas stations. Trying to make it out of California before refueling, due tocheaper prices across the line, we were instead looking for a quick lunch. We were unimpressed with the huge variety of fast food, and instead settled on the little Mexican food truck parked over outside a local business. The truck was run by 3 young Hispanic women, and all the patrons were also Hispanic, so we figured, it was probably a good choice, even though we could barely understand what we were ordering. We had choices of parts of the animal I don't even like to think about such as tripe, and organ meat. I'm not sure what parts of the animals we ended up with but we had some chicken parts and some cow parts in our tacos and they were just wonderful. Much better than we'd have had across the road at the Taco Bell.

We only had two more stops before hitting Nevada, for gas and groceries, and then it was a long, lonely drive across the Mojave desert, an area covered by nothing else but Joshua Trees. A type of Yucca, it was named by Mormons because it reminded them of a bible story of a man named Joshua, raising his hands up into the sky, in prayer.

Half way across the desert, I got a call from my daughter. Between the bad connection, the road noise, and the higher pitch of her upset voice, I couldn't understand what she was saying. In a panic, I told her I'd call her back on Skype, so I could wear my headphones, and hear her better. When I turned on my router, I noticed we had a text message from Verizon on there, so I opened it up to read we had now used up all our month's data (in 13 days time, mind you!) and would be charged extra if we went over. With no idea how much that would cost, I felt in a quandary over whether to just call her back on the phone, or use Skype. The decision was quickly removed however, when I realized we were in an area with no data coverage whatsoever. So I called her back, plugged one ear, made her calm down, and demanded she speak to me in a lower, more masculine voice. Sort of like she was channeling her inner man.

Before calling her back, I'd figured there were two reasons she'd be calling me so upset. One, she'd done something to her phone. I quickly discounted that since I could see she had called me on it. The second thing I could think of was something super bad had happened to her, and that terrified me. It had been very hard for me to leave her alone at home for a month. I've left her for a weekend before, but that's it. Once we'd left home however, all my worries had miraculously disappeared. Out of sight, out of worry. But now it looked like maybe my worst fears may have come true. I never should have left her.

Alternating my tones between stern and more cajoling, I was finally able to ferret the catastrophe out of her. She'd spent the Thanksgiving weekend at her father's and had come home to find fruit flies had invaded the garbage can. Yes, fruit flies. When she'd first told me the issue, I thought she meant black flies, which was so much grosser, and it was a relief when she told me they were just the tiny fruit kind. She had no idea how to deal with them, but had looked up some ideas on the Internet that weren't working quickly enough for her liking. She took out the garbage, put out some homemade vinegar traps, got out the fly swatter, and got to work. I told her to walk down to Subway to get dinner, and take a break, and was able to leave her feeling better. As I told her, being an adult means learning to deal with stuff like this. She responded that she doesn't want to grow up, and may end up living with me until she's 30. Yeah, right, over my dead body.

First crisis averted, now I had my own to deal with, our Verizon wifi plan. Lucky for us, the plan renewed in 2 days time, so it was a temporary problem, but the bigger question was how could we have gone through 5gb in just 13 days? I was able to narrow down the biggest problem - my tablet - which was downloading updates constantly, to a tune of 300mb daily. At that rate, 5gb gets gobbled up very quick. I have all my electronics set to download only over wifi, and never use data automatically, but of course, they were seeing the router as a wifi connection and downloading indiscriminately. My worst perpetrator was my blog download app. I have it set to update every 30 minutes at home, and download up to 4000 blog entries. Obviously, this was a newb issue and not one I'll ever repeat.

Our GPS told us the driving time between Paso Robles and the Nevada border was about 6 hours. Add in stops and our slightly slower speed, and it ends up a long driving day. We knew we'd get into Nevada at night, and I'd always wanted to try some of the smaller gambling towns along the way, so we stopped in Primm, Nevada at about 7:30pm.

Primm is more like a highway service stop than a town, made up of 3 casino-hotels, all owned by the same company, Primm Resorts. We stopped at Buffalo Bills first, as I'd read online it had the best RV parking area. We couldn't find the RV area, so Harold went inside to ask where it was, and was directed to a dark, dim, vacant lot right beside the highway. It would have been okay to sleep in, if we had no other choice, but I didn't feel good about leaving the truck and trailer, and especially Toonie, all alone out there.

We knew the Primm Valley Resort didn't allow overnight parking so we went over to Whiskey Petes instead and parked in line with all the trucks, knowing they might interfere with our sleep, but there was at least a perceived safety advantage with the well lit area and more people. After finding a fairly flat spot, we headed into the casino and got a Players Card. This one was good for all 3 casinos here and offered us only 1 small perk. Spinning a wheel on a computer, we both won 10% off at any restaurant within the casinos. I'm sure that's what 99.9999% of newbies win.


All 3 of the casinos were deserted, and all the restaurants were closed already, except the coffee shop so we spent our coupon there and shared a plate of nachos. The monorail that went between the casinos was broken, and we had no intention of waiting for a shuttle, so we walked back to the trailer, wondering how we'd still managed to come out reeking of smoke when there was nobody even around.

Over the hills and through the vineyards

It was so hard to pull ourselves away from the coast, but we had the vineyards of Paso Robles beckoning to us. The plan was to spend 2 days cruising the tasting rooms, and there are three vineyards in the area that allow free overnight parking to Harvest Hosts members. A general rule of the program is to spend no more than 24 hours at each place, so I planned to spend our first night at Stacked Stone Cellars on the west side of town.

We had phoned the day before and then again 30 minutes before we got there, so they'd know when we'd be arriving and could open the back gates for us. The road up to the winery is winding and narrow but perfectly fine for us to make our way. The winery is situated in a little valley in the middle of two steep hills and the front gate leads in through a more narrow road, so it made perfect sense to come in through the back.

The owners, Don & Maddy Thiessen came out to welcome us when we arrived, and made us feel very welcome from the moment we arrived. It turns out Maddy is originally from Vancouver, so we had a few moments of discussing home before Don lead us down the property, past horses, goats, long horned steers, pigeons, dogs, and cats to a little oasis under the trees right out in front of the tasting room. They told us to make ourselves at home, and to make use of the patio table and chairs right outside. When we asked if they'd mind us turning on our generator, Don showed us where we could plug our RV into their electrical outlet instead.

After lunch, we went into the tasting room to sample their wines. We particularly enjoyed their Zin Stone 2011, a blend of their Estate Zinfandel and Petite Syrah, and purchased a bottle. We were interested in the Rosetta 2011, what they called a Rose Zinfandel. I asked what the difference was between that and a White Zinfandel, and of course, it's the sweetness. The Rose was very dry.

The main reason I had wanted to visit Paso Robles was that I'd heard it was home to some of the best Zinfandels and Petite Syrahs and still had plenty of small, family run wineries where they have time to discuss the wine with you. Don didn't disappoint us. He has a big personality, and is full of humour and mischief. His politics and my own are definitely polar opposites, but it didn't matter much since he was so much fun to talk to.


Don told us, if we wanted to go wine tasting at some of the other wineries, we should drive further up Peachy Canyon Road, to the west. The countryside is so perfectly beautiful up there. It looks very Tuscan, with vineyards cascading over the rolling hills and the same tall, thin, bullet-shaped Italian Cypress trees. This time of year is when they are fully into their harvests, so the grapes are very plump and ripe, and the leaves are reddish brown.

First up was Calcareous, a winery high up on a hill with gorgeous scenery all laid out below us. The winery was more like a large scale style, and very busy, so it was very hard to get anyone's attention, and wven when we had, it took forever to get served. It was definitely a beautiful setting, but the service and wines didn't really impress us much. We quickly moved on.

Next down the road was Nadeau Family Vintners, who had some Zinfandels, Petite Sirahs, and Grenaches, but they were all too delicate for me. What I love about Zins and Petite Sirahs is the dark, robust, heavy flavours. The owner was very nice and gracious, and welcomed us to pick some grapes on our way out. We were glad to, especially since they were so sweet and tasty. Wine grapes are not at all what I expected them to be.

Right across the road, and up the hill, was the fourth winery, Minassian Young Vineyard. This winery is run by a husband and wife, David and Amparo Young. It was Amparo who was running the tasting room that day, while her husband was busy with the harvest. She told us, harvest time is the best time to visit the wineries, as you are more likely to have the owners and winemakers around to answer questions. She had a lot of very interesting information.


We'd been hearing already from other owners that a lot of them use dry farming techniques like they do in Europe, meaning they rely entirely on natural rainfall with no supplemental irrigation. This makes the roots go deeper in search of water, and creates more more robust grapes. Minassian goes even further in their ideals of minimalism. I took this quote from their web site, but it's what she had also told us about their philosophy:

“Our winemaking philosophy is to produce wines in a consistent manner, where the differences between vintages arise only from variables we cannot control such as temperature and rainfall.  In addition, most wines are produced without blending fruit from multiple vineyards.  This minimalist approach ensures that every vintage is representative of the terroir for each vineyard.”

We really enjoyed their wine, especially their 2010 Junipero, a blend of 38% Tempranillo, 36% Grenache, 15% Mataro, and 11% Zinfandel, so went ahead and bought a bottle. It really wasn't what we'd come here to sample, but you just never know what your preference is until you try them all. That's my philosophy on pretty much everything in life!

Our last winery of the day, Michael Gill Cellars, ended up being a guilty indulgence in more than one way. Walking in, I noticed signs asking patrons to "Please don't touch the animals." I wondered why they'd not want us to touch them, and also if I'd even be capable. I have a hard time passing by the mangiest street cat or dog without trying to be friends. I'd find it impossible for whatever pets they had here unless they were dangerous. This made me start thinking of pets such as snakes, lizards, spiders etc, but would they classify those as animals?

We pushed open the doors to find a quite full bar area of wine tasters. My gaze swept the room to decide where to go and landed on the animals, one at a time, as my mind recoiled in horror. All the animals were dead in here, all the misbegotten products of a big game trophy hunter. I purposely did not take a picture, as I despise the whole idea of trophies and hunting, but there are photos of them on their web site, if that is your pleasure. In hindsight, I should have left the place right away. Sometimes, my good manners overshadow my more righteous, better judgement.

I hate to say it, but the wines here were just wonderful. Even worse, we purchased their priciest wine, a $65 bottle of utterly sublime, 2010 Tuxedo Syrah. Between very liberal pours and a taste I just couldn't get enough of, I forgot all about my distaste for the place and ended up contributing to their profits which end up funding trophy hunting trips. I'm very ashamed of myself.

When we went to pay, Harold found he'd left his credit card at the last winery, so we headed back there, to be told they'd sent it back down to Stacked Stone Cellars, as we'd told them we were staying there. By that time, it was almost 5pm, when most of the tasting rooms close, so we headed back down to our temporary home. We spent the evening drinking wine and enjoying the ambience of the vineyards.

Vengeance, Seals and Cliffhangers

Years ago I rented the dvd of Citizen Kane. On all the greatest movies lists, I had planned to see it for years. I really enjoyed the movie, but even better was what was on the second dvd. It was a documentary about Orsen Welles, called "The Battle Over Citizen Kane" which showed how making this movie, an obvious mockery of William Randolph Hearst, had been his downfall. 

Hearst was, by all accounts, a nasty man who used his newspapers and political power to ruin those he disagreed with. During the McCarthy era, he branded others as communists, leading to their ruin. The character in the film, Charles Foster Kane, was also a newspaper baron who misused his power to ruin others.  He ends up dying alone, at his palatial private estate on a mountaintop. The fictional estate was based on the real home of Hearst's, Hearst Castle, which sits high up on a mountaintop looking out over the California coast at San Simeon.

So incensed about Citizen Kane, Hearst tried to get a studio chief to buy the original film and burn it, and applied pressure to make sure it didn't win the Oscar for best picture. He banned his papers from reviewing or even mentioning the film, and tarred Welles as a communist and coward, unwilling to fight for his country. Theatre chains refused to show the movie, and both Welles and Citizen Kane were booed at the 1942 Academy Awards. Once the darling of stage and screen, Welles' career was never able to rebound after this.

In March 2012, Hearst's surviving family allowed Citizen Kane to be shown at Hearst Castle for the first time ever. They were careful to make it known, they did not consider the film to be an accurate portrayal of their Grandfather. Welles himself wrote a press release in 1975, pointing out the glaring differences between the film, and reality. 

I've been to Hearst Castle before, but it is still as breathtaking as ever. We parked and bought our tickets at the bottom of the hill, then went into the theatre to watch a documentary on Hearst's life. This one was complimentary to Hearst about how he came to build the castle, high up in the hills of the 250,000 acres he inherited in 1919 from his father. 

It took them years, but by 1947, Hearst and Julia Morgan, an architect from San Francisco, had created an estate of 165 rooms and 127 acres of gardens, terraces, pools and walkways.

After we finished the movie, we were herded onto buses, that drove us up the windy, steep road to the castle. The view of it stuns the senses. It looks like a palace up there looking down on us. Once we got out, we toured through the home. I find the inside to be a disappointment. The rooms are crammed with furniture and it's all very claustrophobic. The dining hall especially, makes me think of the middle ages.

Our tour guide was very personable, but kept getting off track. He'd start to tell us about the room we were in, then segue to an anecdote about the goings on at the castle during Hearst's days, and then forget where he had been.

There was an impressive list of those who came to spend time at Heart Castle, including A-list celebrities, high ranking politicians, and very powerful tycoons. Hearst didn't like for anyone to drink much, so the drinks were notably watered down and very skimpy. He liked his guests to be out doing things, and not just lazing about, so there were many activities available from horseback riding to tennis, swimming, chess, and cards. Hearst was known to demand the actors put on skits for his pleasure.

"The movie people were always there. My favorite was Cary Grant. He stopped in on a couple of occasions to visit at the gatehouse with us. We'd talk about the movies, life-everything. He was great fun." - Wilfred Lyons. 

"One day Grant nearly got himself kicked off the property permanently when he and Will Jr. took a small plane up above the estate and, as a prank, bombarded the hanger's roof with sacks of flour. When they returned, Grant's bags were packed and waiting for him by the front door." - Deborah Franklin

Outside again, we were able to wander freely, walking through the gardens, around the guest houses, looking out at the amazing views. The most spectacular areas have to be both the outdoor Neptune pool, and indoor Roman pool. It was so tempting to just jump in.

Once we were done and back down the hill,  we drove up the coast a bit to visit the elephant seals. In 1990, there were less than two dozen on the beach, but the next Spring, there were more than 400. The population grew every year, and now there are about 17,000 who come to this beach. The best times to view them are January, April, and October, so we were lucky to be here this month.

The beach is fenced off, so while we're able to view the seals quite close up, they are protected from us. To be honest, with the size of them and their numbers it might be us who require the protecting.

It was so hard to pull ourselves away, but I wanted to take Harold for a drive up Big Sur. As I wrote the other day, this highway is very narrow and steep, with many switchbacks. I'm afraid of the cliffs,  but it has such gorgeous vistas I didn't want Harold to miss. 

All the way up I was feeling pretty good, even proud of how unafraid I was. But going north, you're driving on the inside, along the land. After turning around and heading back, we were now on the cliff side, looking down at the rocks and ocean way, way, down below. The road, in many places, especially on corners, seemed too small for anyone to pass our huge truck. I know, from experience, I can control my fear of heights and refuse to give into it, so I white knuckled it all the way back down.

I just couldn't cut the number of pictures we took down any more than this, so here are the adorable elephant seals, who speak for themselves: