A Very Merry Christmas!

 From all of us, to all of you............we wish you a very Merry Christmas!

There's some history here.  For years Ben and Sarah have taken a picture at the beach with Sarah on Ben's back.  There have been a few additions in recent years!

Family outing to Doran Beach

Serious Mario Kart Competition............Scooter can hardly contain his excitement!

This Christmas thing is a hair raising experience!

He said it was his best Christmas ever!

Once dad got the wrapping paper started she loved opening the presents as much as she did playing with them!

He's not a fair weather fan.......he's been cherring them on for a really long time!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Tomales Point and Abbotts Lagoon Trails............something old, something new!

Bull Elk along the Tomales Point Trail

We moved from Truckee, Ca to the Bay area a little over a week ago.  Although we are less than an hour from San Francisco, this area of California is rural, rolling ranch and farm land.  We're actually staying at a cozy “farm house" that is over 100 years old and is situated on a ranch.  The house has great wifi and cell service inside, but if I take five steps out the door all connectivity with the outside world is gone.......not necessarily a bad thing!

Other than visiting with Sarah and family, we're continuing our pandemic routine, including maintaining social distancing, which is made easy by our location.  California currently has restrictions throughout much of the state on both indoor and outdoor dining as well as many businesses deemed "non-essential" are closed.  Unfortunately many of these are small businesses that are struggling to survive.  Sadly we even heard on the news tonight that the iconic Cliff House Restaurant which originally opened in the mid-1800's and has survived two fires (1894 & 1907), the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918 and numerous other challenges through the years is closing it's doors permanently.  Although large and world renown, it was still a family owned restaurant that has fallen victim to the current situation.

The Cliff House Restaurant

In spite of the restrictions, outdoor activities such as parks, beaches and trails remain open and we've taken full advantage.  We've enjoyed revisiting some of our favorites including the Hamilton Wetlands Trail, Bodega Head and Sonoma Bike Path Trail.  We also discovered the Shollenberger Park Loop Trail in Petaluma, which is a nice flat trail that I'm sure we'll enjoy many more times in the future.

Today was a sunny day, with a temperature in the mid-fifties, perfect for venturing out towards the coast to enjoy a trail we discovered on a previous visit, the Tomales Point Trail, a part of Point Reyes National Seashore.  First of all, you don't just "happen upon" the Tomales Point Trail.  The trailhead is located at the end of a winding, bumpy road past Point Reyes Station, Inverness and Tomales Point State Park.  It takes a little effort to get there but you'll be rewarded with an amazing coastal trail.

Along the Tomales Point Trail

Point Reyes National Seashore

The maintained section of the trail is three miles in length.  There is another 1.7 miles of unmaintained trail that goes all the way to the Tomales Bay Inlet.  We've never hiked the unmaintained section of the trail but I'm sure the views along it and across to Dillon Beach are spectacular as well.  A unique feature of this trail is that it passes through an elk preserve.  The last time we were on the trail the elk were off in the distance.  Today there was a large herd grazing right beside the trail and at one point we sat on a rock and watch five bull elk casually graze about 30-40 yards away.  Elk grazing with waves crashing along the rocky shoreline of the Pacific Ocean makes for happy hikers.

In addition to elk, we ran across this coyote on the trail.  He didn't look like he had missed many meals........

Elk and Ocean!

He seemed as interested in us as we were in him.

On our way to the Tomales Point Trail we passed the Abbotts Lagoon Trailhead.  It looked interesting and we made a mental note to stop there on the way back.  It turned out to be a very pleasant 2.3 mile (each way) trail that passed by the Abbotts Lagoon and ended on a deserted stretch of sandy beach.  There was a "high surf" warning and a "king tide" today which made for some exceptionally large waves for us to enjoy before heading back.

Abbotts Lagoon Trail

This stretch of beach at the end of the Abbotts Lagoon Trail was deserted looking North....

and South!

I'd love to know the journey that this massive piece of driftwood (actually a whole tree trunk) took to reach this beach.

Our total distance covered today was around 8 miles.  While it wasn't exceptionally long, we covered more ground than we've been covering lately.  Our legs and feet were a little worn out, but the scenery and company along the journey made it well worth it.

 

Truckee and Donner Memorial State Park

Truckee's feeling the holiday spirit!

Truckee is an incorporated town in Nevada County, California.  Around 17,000 people have the good fortune of calling this small town, which is surrounded by the Sierra Nevada Mountains and located just 29 miles northwest of South Lake Tahoe, home.  In the early days Truckee was known for it's logging and commercial ice manufacturing.  Now days it is a popular year round destination for outdoor enthusiasts.  There are plenty of trails in the area for hiking and biking during the late spring, summer and fall.  In the winter, Truckee is one of the snowiest cities in the US.  With an average of over 200 inches of snow, the trails become popular for cross country skiing and snowshoeing.  Additionally, there are several world class ski areas nearby for those seeking a more high speed adventure.  Truckee has an elevation of 6,000 feet, a respectable height but your breath is more likely to be taken away by the scenery than by the elevation. 

Truckee

The main commercial street in Truckee is Donner Pass Road.  It is lined with many small locally owned shops and restaurants that are trying to survive this very challenging year.  California has had some of the most restrictive regulations during the pandemic, which has certainly made for a challenging year across the state.  We were happy to see so many businesses opened as we walked along the historic downtown.   They're all operating at a very limited capacity (25%), but tighter restrictions are right around the corner.

Historic downtown Truckee at sunset

We enjoyed spending the morning exploring around Donner Lake.  The lake has a surface area of 1.31 miles and is a pretty impressive 238 feet deep at it's deepest point.  The Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental highway runs parallel to the north shore.  At the present time the mountains are covered with snow and there is some snow on the ground but they have yet to receive their first heavy snow of the season.

Donner Lake from the west end

On the east end of the lake is Donner Memorial State Park.  The 3,200 acre park offers camping, picnic areas, boating, fishing, water skiing, paddle boarding, hiking, biking, cross country skiing and snowshoeing depending on the time of year.  It is dedicated to the Donner Party, a 91 member emigrant party led by brothers George and Jacob Donner that came west from Illinois in 1846.  Like many of the emigrants of that time, they were drawn west by the prospects of a better life.  Unfortunately, like many others, their journey ended tragically.

Emigrants Memorial in Donner Memorial State Park

Donner Memorial State Park

Although they left Illinois in April, their start was considered "late" in order to make the difficult journey before the harsh winter.  They were accustomed to cold, snowy winters, but it appears that they underestimated the winters of this area.  Additionally they made several critical mistakes along their journey.  The most critical of their mistakes was listening to Ohio attorney Lansford W. Hastings.  

In 1845 Hastings had written "The Emigrants Guide to Oregon and California".  In the book he described a "short cut" that he said would save 300 miles (30-60 days) of difficult travel time.  Unfortunately the Donner Party didn't realize that at the time Hastings had never traveled that route.  Additionally they ignored warnings along the route left by Hastings, who was trying his "shortcut" for the first time to turn back because of the challenging conditions. 

In late October the Donner Party had made it to what is now known as Reno, Nv.  They chose to rest there for six days before proceeding towards the pass.  Unfortunately the harsh winter came early that year and once they restarted their journey their progress slowed to a snails pace.  In spite of a shortage of supplies and food they decided to settle in the area near Truckee for the winter.  They sent out small groups who tried unsuccessfully to reach help.  Finally in mid-February rescuers reached what was left of the group.  Only 45 of the original 91 member party survived.  It is believed that they survived partly by turning to cannibalism of their deceased fellow travelers.

The lake and pass have been renamed to honor the Donner party and the state park does a great job keeping the memory of not only the Donner party but all emigrants who attempted this long and dangerous journey.  We had the great fortune of meeting a very friendly and knowledgeable California park ranger who enthusiastically shared the story of the Donner party with us.  He was a great story teller who had the gift of being able to tell the story in such a manner that we were hanging on every word.  If you visit the park, make sure to stop by the visitors center.  If you see a friendly looking park ranger with slightly less hair than me ask him, "Can you tell me a little about the Donner Party".  You'll be glad you did.

  Below are a few pictures from the Lakeshore Trail in Donner Memorial State Park

In the afternoon we explored some of the north shore of Lake Tahoe.  We enjoyed some time at Kings Beach and Incline Village.  The north shore of Lake Tahoe is much quieter that the south shore which has numerous large hotels and casinos. 

Along the north shore of Lake Tahoe

Goodbye from Truckee!

Socially distancing on the Loneliest Road in America...........

 

As they say.........."it ain't bragging if it's true"!

Our plans are to celebrate Christmas and a couple of birthdays.  Then put this wacky year behind us and usher in what hopefully will be a more normal (whatever that means) 2021 in California.   If all goes as planned, our immediate family will all be together, which will make it a very special time.

As we have been doing, we will continue to be as safe as possible.  We're armed with enough masks, gloves and hand sanitizer for a small army.  We will continue our practice of staying as socially distant as possible in everything we do.  We haven't seen our California family in close to half a year.  The decision to visit them at this time was not taken lightly. 

First up on the agenda, getting to California.  It doesn't take someone with a PhD in geography to know that there's a lot of real estate between Florida and California.  As usual for us, the journey is part of the adventure.

We had left our car (a.k.a. The Silver Bullet) in Denver back in late Oct when we returned to Florida.  We used a "Park, Sleep and Fly" package at a Denver Airport hotel that worked really well and was very affordable.  Earlier this week we flew back to Denver, picked up the Bullet and were on our way to California.  A short nineteen hour drive away!

We hit the road from Denver around 1:00 Tuesday afternoon with our goal for the first night being Grand Junction, Colorado.  We had made this part of the drive several times through the years and although it is along the interstate (I-70), it's incredibly scenic.  The weather was clear and cold, the mountain ranges covered with snow and we could see skiers making their way down the slopes as we passed Vail and numerous other ski slopes along the way.

We made it to Grand Junction just as the sun was setting.  We enjoyed a nice but short walk on the very festively decorated Main Street before heading to bed early.   We knew the next day would be a long travel day, but we didn't anticipate completely what was in store.

Downtown Grand Junction was decorated for the season.

Our plans were to leave Grand Junction around 6:00 AM. and be at Arches National Park in Utah by 8:00.  We planned to spend a few hours in Arches before heading on to our next stop of Great Basin National Park near Ely, Nevada.  But by 4:00 AM we were up, well rested and ready to hit the road.  The early departure caused us to scrap the side excursion to Arches.  We had been there before, hopefully we'll be there again sometime down the line.  Unfortunately Great Basin National Park was closed (even though their website said it was partially open).

Like the previous day, the weather was clear and cold..........at times REALLY COLD!.  We were out of Colorado fairly quickly and into some of the higher elevations of Utah.  We enjoyed watching the car thermometer hover in the single digits for a while.  Our mouths dropped open when the thermometer hit zero, but it didn't stop there.  The lowest temperature we saw was a subtropical -4!  Needless to say, we kept moving and kept the windows of the Bullet rolled up.

YIKES!

As the drive progressed we decided to make our destination for the day Truckee, Ca.  We had originally intended to spend Friday night in Truckee.  It's less than 30 minutes from Truckee to North Lake Tahoe, so one more day exploring the Truckee area made for a nice revision of our original plan.  We arrived in Truckee around 4:00.  With the one hour time change, our driving time was around thirteen hours.  A long day for sure but somehow we managed to keep our wits about us and were still speaking to each other when we arrived.  It was a long but interesting drive! 

We knew that a significant portion of this drive would be on US 50.  This transcontinental highway runs from Sacramento, California to Ocean City, Maryland.  We would be driving a portion of the Utah section and the entire Nevada section.  In 1986 Life Magazine dubbed this stretch of US 50 "The Loneliest Road in America"  Thirty Four years later, we can vouch for the fact that it is still lonely!  Especially when you do it all in one day.  

We were on this lonely stretch of highway for around 10 hours.  Occasionally we passed through a dusty little town.  Some of the bigger ones would have a few restaurants, hotels and of course the Nevada ones would have a casino or two.  Many of them more closely resembled ghost towns, especially now that interstate travel had reduced the number of people passing through them even more.  Speaking of cars, we'd meet one heading in the other direction ever so often.   There were winding sections through some of the mountain passes that would be followed by long straight sections where you could spot a car heading your direction.  You had several minutes before they passed, giving time to build up the excitement.  We think we may have passed 2-3 dozen cars along the way.  Social distancing wasn't a problem!

A few pictures from the Loneliest Road in America.......

While traveling the loneliest road in America we talked, sang old TV theme songs, modern songs and reminisced about past adventures.  Of course we also talked about how lonely of a road it is!  We also thought back to the short lived Pony Express.  It only operated for less than two years (April 1860-October 1861).  The thought of riders on horseback delivering messages, newspapers and mail from California to Missouri are legendary.  The Loneliest Road in America was built along part of the Pony Express Trail.  There are numerous historical markers and even a few of the relay stations still along the road.  Man, it's been a lonely road for a long time!

We made it to Truckee in time to catch this magnificent sunset!