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Our travel has been curtailed somewhat by the Covid pandemic, but now that conditions have improved we’re beginning to move around again. Here is a summary of our past six months. We’ll probably have more frequent posts moving forward.

December began back in Sacramento so Carrie could have long-awaited knee replacement surgery. She had an excellent orthopedic surgeon at UC Davis and he used a minimally-invasive robotic technique. Hence, her recovery was quick and complete, and her surgery seems to have been a success. Within a couple of months she was largely back to normal and was free of the knee pain that has plagued her for the past several years.

We spent the winter and early spring in Sacramento and enjoyed frequent walks in the area. With the abundant rain in Northern California this year the rivers were flowing up to their banks. We also paid a short visit to Palo Alto and we were able to walk around the beautiful Stanford University campus. We had spent a couple of weeks in Palo Alto catsitting in 2021 but the central campus was closed at that time due to the pandemic so we appreciated the opportunity to see it this year.

The winter rains created quite an adventure for us! In early March we spent a couple of weeks catsitting for our friends, Sue and Leo, while they were on vacation. They live out in the mountains west of Paso Robles, CA, near Lake Nacimiento. On the night of March 10 a huge storm came through and washed out the only road between their house and Paso Robles, so we were stranded. Fortunately, we were able to get a boat ride across Lake Nacimiento on March 13 and we rented a car in Paso Robles and returned to Sacramento. But our car was stranded and we were not able to retrieve it until a road detour was completed on April 21.

Once we retrieved our car we began a leisurely three-week drive across the country, with the ultimate goal of arriving in Raleigh, NC, to dogsit for our friends, Chris and Reed, while they are on vacation. We began with short visits with family and friends in Las Vegas and Tucson. We then headed east into Texas and spent a couple of days in Big Bend National Park. Big Bend is one of the most isolated national parks in the lower 48 and the solitude and desert scenery are wonderful. Big Bend sits along the Rio Grande at the border with Mexico, and Mexico has created an adjacent national park to protect a huge piece of the Chihuahuan Desert.

We traveled eastward to Austin, Texas, to spend a week visiting Carrie’s brother and his wife, as well as our niece and nephew and their families, all of whom have relocated to Texas in recent years. One day we had lunch at the Salt Lick BBQ in Driftwood, TX, one of the great barbecue restaurants in the Austin area. We then spent the afternoon at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, a beautiful botanical garden operated by the University of Texas.

We traveled eastward again through northern Louisiana and we crossed the Mississippi River at Vicksburg, MS, where we spent most of a day at the Vicksburg National Military Park. Vicksburg was the site of an extended Civil War military campaign in 1862 and 1863 that resulted in a Union victory and complete control of the Mississippi River by Union forces. This victory freed up the river for Union commerce and effectively split the Confederacy in half east to west, ultimately leading to their downfall. General Ulysses S. Grant’s battle plan is considered to be one of the most ingenious in military history and it cemented his place in American lore. It is very interesting to tour the battlefield and realize how close the enemies were to one another. There was a great deal of gruesome hand-to-hand combat in the Civil War.

We’re now in Raleigh, NC, and we’re watching Kip, a delightful and playful Havanese dog. We’re in an older section of Raleigh, only about two miles north of downtown, and we’re enjoying walks through the tree-shaded neighborhood with lots of stately old homes. We’ll post more as we travel around.

We haven’t done a blog post in about eight months so this one will bring us up to date. We began the 2022 spring in Sacramento and enjoyed walks in the city and in the Effie Yeaw Nature Center. In late April we traveled to Tucson to house sit and pet sit for friends. On the way we spent a day in Joshua Tree National Park, near Palm Springs. We had enjoyed hiking in the park many years ago when we lived in Southern California so this visit brought back fond memories. Joshua Tree National Park has many spectacular rock formations as well as the namesake Joshua tree, the world’s largest Yucca. The day of our visit was chilly and windy, not uncommon for the high desert. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

At the end of April we arrived in Dove Mountain, just outside Tucson, to house sit and pet sit for Jim and Pam, the parents of Andy’s fiancee, Heather. We sat for them last year so we already knew their dog, Rox, and their cat, Trill. But now they also have a new kitten!

Tasha is a Russian Blue and she is full of kitten energy. She has learned a lot from her dog brother Rox, and runs to greet us at the door with him. Her best dog feature, though, is playing fetch with water bottle caps. She can do this for a long time and finds caps all over the house to continue the game. It was a pleasure to enjoy their pets for a month.

We sometimes enjoy touring real estate open houses just to see the types of home design in the area. We visited the Sam Hughes neighborhood, an area of historic early 20th century homes just east of the University of Arizona near downtown Tucson. One house had several murals painted by Ted Degrazia, a famous Southwest artist.

We knew we would be spending a lot of time in Arizona this year so we purchased a membership to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum so we could go as often as we wanted. The museum is part museum, part botanical garden, and part zoo.  It is arguably the best attraction in the Tucson area. It is also adjacent to Saguaro National Park, which we also enjoyed in conjunction with our visits to the museum.

At the end of May we traveled back to Sacramento. In early June Carrie had hip surgery at UC Davis Hospital to repair a hip replacement that she had 22 years ago, now wearing out. Because it was a revision they did not have to cut any bones, just resurface the ball and socket. Hence, her recovery was quick, uneventful, and complete. We spent most of the summer in Sacramento, enjoying daily walks, usually in the morning before it got too hot. We were also able to visit Andy and Heather several times in Oakland, a fairly easy drive from Sacramento.

Late August saw us back in Tucson to house and pet sit once again while Jim and Pam’s younger daughter was married in Indiana. The weather was still hot but it was also the end of monsoon season so we got to enjoy several spectacular thunderstorms. Tuscon receives much of its rain through these summer thunderstorms, and the desert comes alive with seasonal greenery and fuzzy green grasses covering the hills. We had a break from house sitting in the middle of September so we went up to Flagstaff, Arizona, for a few days to explore and to enjoy the cooler weather in the mountains. Flagstaff has several nearby National Monuments and we visited Walnut Canyon (home to ancient cave dwellings) and Sunset Crater Volcano.

At the end of September we again traveled back to California, first with a brief stop in the Bay Area. We are spending much of the fall in Placerville, in the Sierra Nevada foothills about 50 miles east of Sacramento. Placerville is an old and historic gold rush town in a very scenic area, where the oak trees give way to evergreens. We enjoy walking on the bikeway/walkway that meanders through the nearby hills. Our house is very near Apple Hill, which is dotted with farms where you can pick your own apples. We are fortunate that this fall has been wildfire and smoke free.

Gold was discovered in 1848 in Coloma, only about ten miles from Placerville. We took a short day trip to the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, where you can see the actual spot of the first discovery as well as preserved historic buildings and mining tools from the gold rush era. On a longer day trip we went over to Lake Tahoe a couple of days after the first snowfall, once the roads were cleared. We enjoyed seeing the spectacular mountain scenery in the snow. Lake Tahoe is certainly a national treasure.

We left sunny Tucson in November 2021 and returned to California for the holidays. We had planned a number of holiday gatherings but with the omicron variant raging we limited our plans. We celebrated an early Christmas with Andy and Heather in Oakland and we visited friends near Paso Robles and family in Camarillo during December but otherwise we kept to ourselves and remained healthy.

During early December we stayed in a beautiful little craftsman bungalow in Martinez, along the Sacramento River delta near its exit into San Francisco Bay. Martinez is one of the older towns in California and it was once home to John Muir. We enjoyed walks around the old downtown and along the wetlands that border the delta. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

We traveled south for the Christmas and New Years holidays and did some petsitting for friends in Ventura while they were in Italy. We watched a little dog and two cats. We enjoyed the warm weather, the abundant palm trees, and walks along the beach path in Ventura. No matter how far we travel, Southern California always feels like home.

After the holidays we settled into a small house for the winter. It is in Citrus Heights, an eastern suburb of Sacramento. It is only about a year old and it is very comfortable and stylish. We are still being careful with Covid so we keep to ourselves for the most part, enjoying daily walks in the area. We are hopeful that Covid will subside soon and we can enjoy more travel later in the year.

We have visited Tucson many times and we were happy to return in October to petsit for friends who were going on vacation. Rox is a friendly little cockapoo who loves to go on walks and check out all the places where other dogs have been. Trill is a black cat with a white patch on her front. She got her name because she likes to be scratched while she eats and she makes a trilling purring sound while doing so. While in Tucson we also got to visit with friends and family, and we had an early Thanksgiving dinner in early November. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

We were in Tucson for Halloween and many of our neighbors decorated their homes and yards.

Our neighborhood was near the edge of the desert and there were lots of great walking spots nearby. Walks near the end of the day often featured spectacular desert sunsets. The fall weather was perfect for walking.

Our neighborhood was located at the base of the Tortolita Mountains and we were a very short drive from the Tortolita Preserve. This 2,400 acre park has set aside a beautiful undisturbed habitat for native desert plants and wildlife. The Sonoran Desert is naturally verdant, with large stands of saguaro, cholla, palo verde, mesquite, and other desert plants. The preserve has an extensive trail system and Charlie enjoyed hiking there on many occasions.

Saguaro National Park has two separate units on the outskirts of Tucson, one on the east side and one on the west side of the city. Both preserve spectacular stands of saguaro cacti. We visited both the east and west units on separate days and enjoyed some of the trails through the beautiful desert.

Tohono Chul is a desert botanical garden on the north side of Tucson. We enjoyed walking through their desert gardens and we had brunch at their restaurant. We sat outside and the local bees were very interested in our food.

We left Grants Pass, Oregon, in mid-September en route to Walla Walla, Washington, for a couple of weeks of petsitting for a dog and a cat, arranged through TrustedHousesitters. But first we spent a couple of days around Portland to do some sightseeing. On our first day we crossed the Columbia River into Washington to visit Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, the site of a huge volcanic explosion in 1980. The area of destruction is impressive and we were fortunate to visit on a clear day when the entire devastated area was visible. On the drive to the mountain we passed through acres of Noble fir trees planted to replace those harvested in logging operations decades ago. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

On our second day around Portland we headed west along the Columbia River to Astoria, near the river’s mouth at the Pacific. There we visited Fort Clatsop, part of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Park. The Lewis and Clark expedition spent the winter of 1805-06 at the fort before they headed back east in the spring. A replica of their fort has been built at the site, and it is impressive to see how crowded and rough the living conditions were. Of particular interest was a salt production facility about 15 miles south on the Pacific shore. A small crew spent about two months at this location boiling and evaporating saltwater to harvest salt for the trip home.

We had never visited Walla Walla so it was an adventure to spend a couple of weeks getting to know this lovely town. If your image of Washington is of evergreens and temperate rain forests, well, Eastern Washington is nothing like that. The region consists of arid semi-desert but with ample water in the Columbia River Basin to support agriculture. Wheat has been a major crop over the years but during the past few decades a vibrant wine industry has emerged in the Walla Walla Valley. There are over a hundred small wineries in the region and it has become a wine destination. We didn’t do any wine tasting ourselves but we enjoyed taking drives in the countryside to see the vineyards and wineries.

We stayed in a house in one of the beautiful older neighborhoods in central Walla Walla, a great neighborhood for walking. The well-kept old homes and mature trees reminded us of our old neighborhood in Woodland. We were petsitting for a dog and a cat. Genji is a Shiba Inu, a Japanese breed known for their intelligence and independence. He is ten years old, around our age in dog years, and we got along splendidly. He enjoyed morning and afternoon walks in the neighborhood and he would make his presence known if we encountered another dog, making sure that our territory was protected. Tiger Lily is only a year old so she still has some of her playful kitten characteristics. One of her favorite tricks was to hide in the bushes and playfully pounce on Genji when he returned from his walk. Genji, for the most part, just ignored her.

Downtown Walla Walla has been rejuvenated in recent decades with the rise of the wine industry. It was featured by Sunset Magazine as one of the best small-town main streets in the West. It was fun to stroll around downtown and peer at the shops, restaurants, and tasting rooms that cater to the tourists. It seemed like there are at least two dozen tasting rooms in the downtown area, augmenting the tasting rooms at the wineries around the region.

Whitman College is a well-regarded liberal arts college in Walla Walla. It has an array of sculpture displayed throughout the beautiful campus. We spent part of an afternoon strolling around campus and admiring the sculpture.

Pioneer Park is Walla Walla’s main city park. It has a large aviary with a variety of birds from around the world. The aviary was very impressive for a small city like Walla Walla.

We made several short day trips around the Walla Walla region. Just outside of town is the Whitman Mission National Historic Site, a National Park Service facility documenting the history of a mission settled in 1836 by Marcus Whitman, a physician and Christian missionary. Whitman and his party made friends with the local Cayuse Tribe and for several years their outpost was a welcome stop for settlers traveling along the Oregon Trail. But by 1847 the Cayuse suspected that Whitman was trying to poison them and they killed him along with about a dozen of his group. The backlash to this killing among Americans in the eastern states led to immense cruelty toward Native Americans in the coming years, and also led to the establishment of the Oregon Territory to help the federal government control events in the Pacific Northwest.

The historic site also chronicles the life and culture of the Cayuse and other local tribes. The Cayuse were somewhat nomadic, moving every few months to take advantage of seasonal food supplies. A park ranger demonstrated how the Cayuse would erect their tipis at each new location.

Mill Creek runs through the center of Walla Walla and the city has established a network of bicycle and pedestrian trails that extend well out of town. We enjoyed walks along these trails, often seeing water birds along the way.

On several days we drove around the region and admired the beautiful vineyards and wineries. Most of the wineries are fairly new and many have tasting rooms with striking modern architecture. The local community college offers programs in viticulture and enology to supply an educated workforce for the local wine industry.

When we left Walla Walla we drove south through Eastern Oregon, one of the most sparsely populated regions in the United States. The drive south through Pendleton and Burns offers lots of beautiful scenery. We stopped at Lake Abert, near Klamath Falls, and we were struck by the low water level. Evidence of the continued drought is everywhere in the western states.

After spending over a year in California hiding from the pandemic we decided to head north to Southern Oregon in mid-August to spend a few weeks in Grants Pass. But first we set aside a day to visit Lassen Volcanic National Park near Redding, CA, a park that we had enjoyed on a visit about ten years ago. As luck would have it, however, Lassen was closed to visitors due to the massive Dixie Fire, so instead of heading east to Lassen we headed west into the Trinity Alps. We began with a stop in Redding to walk across the Sundial Bridge. This beautiful pedestrian bridge across the Sacramento River has an unusual single-tower suspension design. As with everywhere in Northern California that week, the sky was very smoky from multiple wildfires. After lunch we drove west into the mountains, stopping first at the Shasta State Historic Park. The park contains the ruins of the gold rush town of Shasta. We then drove around the nearby mountains and saw lots of beautiful scenery, somewhat obscured by smoke. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

We rented a house on the outskirts of Grants Pass, Oregon, on a small bluff overlooking the Rogue River. The house was spacious and comfortable, and it was very peaceful to see the river out our picture window every day. It was a perfect place to hide from the pandemic. The river is popular with tourists and every day we would see boaters, kayakers, and fishermen. Several times a day we also saw jet boats from Hellgate Jetboat Excursions, which departed from a dock in the center of Grants Pass about three miles upriver. We never rode in a jetboat ourselves but the folks in these fast boats looked like they were having a good time.

We enjoyed daily walks, as we do everywhere we go. There were beautiful walks around our semi-rural neighborhood, and we also enjoyed walking in Tussing Park near the center of Grants Pass. Tussing Park has a pedestrian bridge high over the Rogue River to connect the two shores. It was smoky for much of our time in Grants Pass so we especially enjoyed the rare clear days.

We took a day trip to Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park near Crescent City, about a two hour drive from Grants Pass and just across the California state line. This park is managed jointly by California State Parks and by the National Park Service as part of Redwood National Park. We enjoyed hiking in the beautiful, lush redwood forest and marveling at these huge, ancient trees.

 

We left Sacramento in May to spend a couple of weeks in Palo Alto watching a house and a little cat. We had signed up for TrustedHousesitters in 2019 and did two sits in Oregon just before Covid-19 struck, but this was our first sit since then. TrustedHousitters matches nomads like us with people who need someone to watch their homes and pets while they are away. We were in one of the most beautiful sections of Palo Alto and we enjoyed walks through the neighborhood and on the nearby Stanford University campus. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

We left Palo Alto to drive south down the coast. We stopped for lunch at the old pier in Santa Cruz, then toured the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum.

We spent a couple of nights in Monterey and took the opportunity to visit Pinnacles National Park, in the hills south of Salinas. The park preserves a scene of ancient volcanic uplifting along the San Andreas Fault. We had passed the Pinnacles turnoff on Highway 101 many times but we had never visited the park. It was an interesting and worthwhile outing.

We continued southward on Highway 1, which provided many scenic views of the rugged Pacific coast. We drove through Big Sur south to Cambria.

We then spent a couple of weeks near Paso Robles, house sitting and cat sitting for our friends Sue and Leo while they went on vacation. Their house is quite remote, about a 45 minute drive west of Paso Robles, so we enjoyed the peace and quiet. Leo is a winemaker with a beautiful vineyard just downhill from the house.

We kept on going southward to spend a few days with our friend Betsy in Ojai. We continued our cat odyssey with Betsy’s two friendly cats. We were also able to visit family in Camarillo while we were in the area.

We returned to Sacramento to spend a couple of months before heading to southern Oregon in August. We are at a house that we stayed in last summer near the Carmichael neighborhood. It is very spacious and has a backyard pool that is perfect on the hot Sacramento summer days. We are not far from Oakland so we have been able to visit Andy and Heather several times.

 

We haven’t posted to our blog since December so this post will update our (somewhat limited) activities over the winter and spring. An accompanying post describes some traveling that we were able to resume in May. Our last post was on December 16, Andy’s birthday! We weren’t able to celebrate in person due to Covid-19 but we had a Zoom visit. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

We spent the Christmas holidays at a guesthouse on the outskirts of Davis, described in our post last December.

We decorated the guesthouse for Christmas and made it look quite festive. We spent Christmas day alone but were able to visit with family and friends via Zoom.

We enjoyed walks around Davis and around our old neighborhood in nearby Woodland. Christmas decorations brightened our walks.

Our guesthouse was a short drive from UC Davis and we enjoyed walks around the UC Davis Arboretum and around the nearly deserted campus.

In January we moved to a cottage in the Arden Park district of Sacramento to spend the winter hiding from Covid-19. We had stayed at this cottage several times in the past and it is one of our favorites. The neighborhood is perfect for long walks and it is near the American River Parkway, another great walking destination.

We celebrated Charlie’s 70th birthday in April. We didn’t feel comfortable going out to a restaurant so we splurged on a beautiful prime rib roast that we cooked at home. Charlie got a fancy new meat thermometer for his birthday so the roast came out perfectly.

We got our Covid-19 vaccinations at the UC Davis Health System. The process was quick and efficient, kind of like a big assembly line.

We enjoyed occasional drives over to Woodland to walk around our old neighborhood. The central part of Woodland has homes dating back to the latter years of the 19th century.

One day in mid-winter we drove out to the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge, about an hour north of the city. Migratory birds spend the winter at this preserved wetland and they are spectacular to see.

We haven’t added a new post in four months so it seemed time to provide an update. We haven’t been able to travel due to the Covid-19 pandemic so we have been staying in and around Sacramento, California, since late July. We don’t go out much where we would encounter other people indoors, just grocery shopping about once a week and trips to medical appointments. But outdoors we enjoy daily walks, a good opportunity to get out for a while and to keep up with our exercise. Otherwise our days are taken up by reading, cooking, watching TV, keeping up with the news, and (for Carrie) knitting. To deal with our wanderlust, we have discovered several YouTube channels that just walk around places where we have previously traveled, like Paris, Amsterdam, and Edinburgh. They are current videos and the deserted streets due to the pandemic are eerie.

We spent the late summer and early fall in a house near Carmichael, a semi-rural area in Sacramento’s eastern suburbs. The area was quiet and safe for our daily walks, and there were about two dozen wild turkeys that roamed the neighborhood. We would see them every day, sometimes pecking around in our front yard. It was also a short drive to the American River Parkway, a bikeway and pedestrian path that goes along the river for 32 miles to the east of Sacramento. The house that we rented had a backyard pool which was great on hot summer days. We were able to use the pool through mid-October. The photo gallery below shows a few sights we encountered around Sacramento. Click on the first photo in each block to view the slideshow.

We are spending the holiday season in a beautiful little guesthouse out in the country between Davis and Winters, California. There is farmland all around and it is very serene. We are a short drive from Woodland, where we lived for many years, and we have enjoyed walks around our old neighborhood. We had hoped to host Andy and his girlfriend for Thanksgiving and Christmas but instead we are heeding the recommendations of the health professionals and spending the holidays alone, taking full advantage of Zoom when we can. We visited Andy briefly outside his building on Thanksgiving morning but we came home and had our feast by ourselves. We cheated and had a Costco chicken instead of cooking a turkey, and it was delicious! Here’s wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday season.

We spent four and a half months in Santa Fe beginning with the start of the COVID isolation in March, and at the end of July we returned to California. We are going to stay around Sacramento for a few months to take care of some medical appointments and to see how the pandemic evolves. It’s not a good time to travel as we usually do. Our time in Santa Fe was mostly uneventful, as we avoided public places during the pandemic. We enjoyed long walks around beautiful Santa Fe on most days, and we saw the flowers and trees transform as spring became summer. Santa Fe is a desert city but many residents have beautiful gardens. Hollyhocks, especially, are prominent all over town. The photo galleries below show sights we encountered around Santa Fe. Click on the first photo in each block to view the slideshow.

Picturesque Doors and Gates of Santa Fe

Flowers, Flowers, Flowers!

Sights around Santa Fe

On the Road to California