North to Alaska (The beginning)

We are on the road, heading to Alaska now. We just spent a wonderful week with our friends, Earl & Debbie at their house in Placerville, CA. Nell & Dave also spent the week there with us (and Earl & Debbie too.) We spent most of the time eating. Debbie & Earl made sure that no more that 2-3 hours without feeding us. We did manage to do a little sightseeing while were there. We spent most of one day at the American River in Coloma. It is about 10 miles from Earl & Debbie's place. That is the site of "Sutter's Mill" where the gold was found that started the California Gold Rush. We panned for gold in the river and even found a couple of flakes (not enough to make us rich or even close) you have to look pretty hard to see it in the vial. Jan had purchased a gold pan and several 1 oz vials to store the gold in while we were in Quartzsite, AZ a few weeks ago. She is impatiently waiting to get to the streams in Alaska so she can find GOLD. I think she has the fever.

Our trip to Placerville was a reunion of terrific couples that we met last year in Kino Bay, MX. Paul & Carol live about 15 miles east in Shingle Springs. Pat & Dee live in Porterville, CA. That's about halfway between Fresno and Bakersfield (about 2 hours south of Placerville) They happened to be staying at an RV resort on the American River, about 2 miles from the Sutter's Mill site. We all met and spent the day there. We all met again another day and went shopping and had lunch in Folsum, CA. (Yes, Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison is there.)

It was sad to have to leave our friends, but Alaska is calling. We left yesterday (May 29) with Nell & Dave and drove thru Napa Valley on our way to Sonoma Co. Man, I have never seen so many "wine trees" in my life. Most people know them as grape vines, but..... well I guess I'm just a little wierd. We are staying in Cloverdale at a ROD park (Russian River) for 3 nights. Today, we did some shopping in the morning and then spent the afternoon at the "Pertified Forest." No, not in AZ. There's one here too, just about 30 miles S of where we are staying. It was OK. Worth the $6 entry fee, but any more & it would be overpriced. Tomorrow, we are driving to the Pacific to see the Point Arena Lighthouse. According to the guide, it's the closest point of land to Hawaii in the continental US.