P-ort-land

We made a haul up to Portland for Bivens and I to see some old friends. We stayed with one of my oldest friends emy while there and had a great dinner. Brian met up with his college roommate Jesse who was in Oregon for a windsurfing competition. B stayed out late and i went back and had some wine with Emy and our other friend Prentiss who came in for the weekend. I haven't seen Emy in probably 10 years, but it was like i saw her last week, so much fun. We loved Portland, so did Pinot, back to a big city, so he was pleased(we now call him Big City Peens)

I put up some random pics from the trip, we are heading south back to Cali now so it will be a few days in the RV till we are back somewhere awesome. I loved loved loved Oregon, would love to go back.

Acting out

We continued up the coast today. Stopped in a cool city called Coos bay for lunch. We hogged a bunch of crab legs and local beer for lunch. We drove lots today to try and get near Portland so we can meet up with some friends of Friday night. We came across the Oregon Dunes ATV area and swerved off the road with excitement. For $50 and a 10 min “safety” class you are free to four wheel all over the dunes. It was AWESOME. I was petrified, it was very steep, but beautiful and hilarious. it should be illegal, it was very dangerous.

That evening we stayed in Lincoln City, OR at yet another KOA. Bivens wants to run a KOA now, he thinks he could do it better. I’m not sure that is something I’d be interested in. I “cooked” for the first time tonight in the camper. Mac & Cheese, canned peas, and hot dogs, and a bottle of red. Needless to say I’m not going to be bathing suit ready when we get home. We also came across the world tallest totem pole, in the parking lots of the Safeway in Oregon...not sure if it's true but we got a pic

Also a pic of us driving through some tree in the redwoods, out rv wouldn't make it so we walked

I tried to post a video of us on the dunes, hope it works

Oregon Trail

We cruised through the Redwoods today and headed to Oregon. Took the pups out on Pistol River Beach which is where there are lots of windsurfing competitions, and then off to Bandon, OR. The coast is beautiful, we are tired from moving around so much. Thanks god there is a KOA there, with good free hot showers. I haven’t showered in our sink/toilette/shower combination yet, and I don’t plan to…

Also we have a hard core gin rummy tournament going on, the winner is going to get something real big, not sure what it is yet!

Fancy RV Park

We headed to Sonoma this morning. Very cute town, had a great lunch at Basque Bakery and walked the town square. We found a great cheese shop called Vella and loaded up on meat, cheese, and bread for snacks and vino drinking. We went to only one vineyard in the Russian River Valley, it was great, bought a couple of bottles and decided to head up the coast and not stay the night in Sonoma. We got to Ft. Bragg, CA and check into the lovely and exclusive Fort Bragg, KOA. From our previous nights accommodations this KOA was a major step up and we then decided we would only stay at a KOA’s.(this KOA was on the beach and very high end at 65 bucks a night, very very expensive in the camper world)

There are very interesting people at these parks. We, in our cruise America moving billboard are the bottom of the food chain. There was a RV that was the size of our house in Nashville with a flat screen the size of our RV, and a brand new BMW convertible down from us. These people really go all out. In this first park I saw,

1. a couple who had a large bird cage full of cockatiels

2. a family that had a wooden totem pole with carved images of the dogs that were traveling with them.
3. A full indoor/outdoor kitchen with outdoor refrigerator, and flat surface griddle.

Holiday Road

We got to Oakland around noon to pick up our RV. Cruise America was packed with people, but we seemed to be the only customers who were speaking English. According to the folks at the desk, 90% of their business is with Europeans. Germans are the majority, then french, the dutch. I have no idea how they are able to navigate our country as no one in America speaks any of those languages and they aren't able to speak much English. I asked the front desk how that works out and they said, "we don't' care what happens to the RV's as long as we have their credit cards"

We loaded up and headed to Napa. We found our first RV Park of the trip and it was interesting. We were in a “different” part of town but it worked. We went into Yountville and had lunch at Bouchon, on of Tom Keller of French Laundry fame restaurants. Very good, but I don’t understand what all the fuss is over Napa. It looks like Brentwood surrounded by a bunch of wineries. We left and drove out to St. Helena, which was fabulous, and what I had thought Napa would look like. Drank some wine and looked around. We had dinner at Gott’s diner on the way back into Napa. It was a gourmet burger joint with picnic tables and good wine. After that we headed to Mimi’s friends Cayce and Lucia’s house for a drink. They are living out there for the summer working at Robert Mondovi. It was great to see them and nice to have a locals perspective of the city.

San Fran-Pinot's kind of town...

Not sure how to blog yet, San Fran was perfect. We got here in one piece with 2 little dogs in 2 little bags.

Great food, walked a lot. Our hotel was really cute and a great location near union square, and many of san fran's finest crack heads.

Pinot loved San Fran, he was a different dog, no more being creepy and mental.. and then in dawned on up, he's with his people. we were stopped several times(like 5) by male couples who had many comments,

"what a gorgeous creature"

"he looks so soft"

"was someone mean to that precious dog, bless him"

these are but a few of the really off the wall things people said to us, and he loved it. we were really stunned, he was a normal dog for a few days.

First night we had a late dinner(10pm cause i took a nap) at Fino. A great Italian restaurant that was suggested to us cause the Obama's ate there last month. The next day we went on long long walk all over the city and then over to a BBQ over at my friend Prentiss' house and met a bunch of his friends from Berkly. A chef friend suggested a Moroccan restaurant called Azizza. 5 courses of some of the best food I've had, cool scene, but we were so stuffed we couldn't go out for a drink after. third day We took a open double decked bus tour, it was a great way to see the city. We went into the Haight area and a messed up hippie screamed "gremlin" at sprout. Had a great dinner and mucho sake at a sushi restaurant called Ryoko's that according to the locals is supposed to be the best sushi in town. We had after dinner drinks at the Clift Hotel(that's where the big chair pic was taken), which was a very cool scene, reminded me of south beach/LA style hip club. great time, perfect weather, and soon off the the RV...