Tues July 23

Today we packed up, said goodbye to Bryan, leaving our still beautiful bouquet in the office for others to enjoy and drove towards Mt St Helen's. We kept a few blooms, and the basil plant we had picked up to use on sandwiches.

As upsetting as it is to see all the clear-cuts and logging evidence, the numerous lumber yards were a sobering reminder of how much wood we use.

We look forward to the day we can get one of these bumper stickers.

This is our 3rd or 4th trip back to her after the eruption. The first was 12 or 13 years after when everything looked like a moonscape for miles and miles. It has been interesting to see its recovery over the years, although areas still don't have much growth. Unfortunately, the mountain wasn't showing herself today, instead, it was shrouded in clouds.

But we were fascinated by this 3-foot hole.

And these growing on a vertical wall along the road.

And the wildflowers.

And were amused by this geological marker corrected for the post-1980 elevation.

And this.

Leaving the park Matthew found us a terrific spot to boondock on Riffe Lake. 

Walking down to the lake we met a young guy who was traveling for the year with his cat, Roger, in a GMC truck that he had converted. It had a lift on the back that he used as a back porch - very clever.

Our view for the night.

O'Neill Park and Santa Barbara - June 25

Woke up early to a woman yelling and banging on tents to annoy wake a group of campers who had evidently kept her awake too late with their noise. Charming. And then there was this sign in the women's bathroom 😲

But since we were up early we decided to go for a hike on the park trails while it was cool (actually it was chilly), although this sign was a little disconcerting.

But we decided to go on anyway. As you can see, the city has encroached on the wilderness and reduced the habitat of the lions.

Pretty sure this was a lion paw print!

But the views, the trees, and the flowers were pretty,

although these were oddly placed.

We headed up the coast after our hike, enjoying seeing familiar sights from our life here decades ago, like Cook's Corner from Matthew's childhood.

The views from PCH

And a favorite Corona del Mar date night spot of ours from 33 years ago.

We arrived in Santa Barbara with some time to kill before our friend, Sara Sauter, was available so we walked along the beach and down the pier.

And watched a fire department rescue of a drone up in the palms!

Matthew was surprised to see a childhood favorite was still around. Seems the name was a combination of parts of the two original owners names but people thought it was from the book Little Black Sambo so they capitalized on that. We thought it was a very weird anachronism, especially for a progressive place like southern California.

We met up with Sara at a bar and had a wonderful time catching up before heading over to her place to see Ron and chat more. We gratefully took her up on her offer of the driveway to park the camper for the night.

Southern California - June 20 -24

The remainder of our southern California trip was a delight of good food, good people, and ocean time.
On Friday we got Karen out on the water in Dana Point harbor.

Where we met this guy.

But the day was beautiful and the waters calm.

Matthew went to the end of the jetty

and up close to this beauty.

Saturday Cheryl met her Aunt Carol at the San Juan Capistrano train station and went for a great breakfast and then a brief stroll through the Mission. It was great to see her and catch up after so many years.

Meanwhile, Matthew, Rick, and Karen went kayaking in the Back Bay of Newport.

On Sunday Cheryl got to visit with Meagan again - there is never enough time.

Then we had a delicious dinner with Kevin Quinn and got to meet his family in Corona before spending our last night at Rick's house.

On Monday we said our tearful goodbyes and drove to the dealership to drop off cookies to thank them for the terrific service they gave us. Following a much-needed car wash, we went back to O'Neill Park to spend the night since we had so little time there last week. The ranger at the registration desk asked Matthew if he qualified for the "young person's discount'. Took him a second to figure out what she was trying to say; the discount was for those 60 and older. He told her he didn't qualify since he wouldn't be 60 for 3 more days but she gave it to him anyway. His first old man discount!

Dana Point Tidepools - June 19

We are camped on the street outside of Karen and Rick's house this week, giving us lots of time with these friends and offering us a local base to see others. We are so lucky to have friends who are flexible and accommodating! Bonus is the leftovers from Karen's catering business!

Wednesday we explored Dana Point Headlands Conservation Area and its tidepools.

The cliffs don't look like they can withstand anything since they look to be only a composite of rocks and sand.

But we were surprised to see it was more like cement. However, I would not trust it for this.

Cheryl loves tidepools and was happy to find this piece of tube snail colony,

and anemones,

and a muscle cuddling with a chiton,

and gooseneck barnacles

 and lots of crabs.

We also saw lots of other cool things such as this driftwood structure

and pelicans flying over

and lots of rocks

including this which was bored by piddock clams.

 Then there were the flowers.

Just a beautiful place on a beautiful day.