In the shadow of Mount Shasta...

The Glass Shop in Corning called and woke us at the Heritage RV park in Corning, Ca about 8 a.m. this morning to tell us our glass window was in. After the repair of the window, we started back north on I5 past Red Bluff where our window exploded. (see last blog entry) to Cottonwood. It was Cottonwood, where our friend Gary Goodell pastored his first church. While I was filling with gas I called Gary and checked on how he was doing since his last heart attack.

He said he felt good, but weak, and was doing a lot of things a little slower.

We stopped for awhile in Redding, while I tried my luck at the poker tables at an Indian Casino. Caren stayed out in the RV just to relax. However, between my bad cards today, and the major construction that was going on near the RV, we decided to keep moving on down the road after less then an hour in Redding.

North of Redding and all the way to the Oregon border the horizon is dominated by the presence of Mount Shasta.

No wonder the Indians considered it “sacred”. It seems to just watch over the land for a couple of hundred miles in every direction.

Since we were in no particular hurry we decided to get off the freeway and drive through every little town from Redding to the border. We visited Shasta Lake, Dunsmuir, Mount Shasta City, Weed, Edgewood, Grenada and Yreka.

One of the nice things about RV travel is you don’t have to wait for a town to have dinner. We pulled into a beautiful rest stop with a view of Mount Shasta. Then I opened a can of soup, added left-over chicken and vegetables that were in the RV frig. Carried it out to a nice picnic table under some large pine trees and “Voila”, a nice inexpensive meal, in a beautiful setting, for less then $2 and no tipping!

A while later as the sun began to hide behind the mountains to the west, we pulled into Medford, Oregon and stopped at a Win-Co supermarket to load up for the next couple of days of food supplies.
Our original plan was to make it to a new Casino in Canyonville, Oregon for the night, but when we stopped in Grants Pass, to take a little break, Caren saw a number of other RV’ers spending the night at the Super-Walmart. So we pulled in, shut the curtains and crawled into bed together and watched a DVD until it was time to go to sleep on a cold night with a full moon high overhead

Life is fragile like glass

Life is fragile like glass, enjoy the view while you can.

I always took my RV driver door window for granted. I viewed much of the United States through it. I saw much of the great beauty of our country through it. I have seen poverty and lack through it. My window would go down at the flick of a button to give me fresh air, or up to keep out the rain or cold.

Yesterday that all changed. I was driving down a main street in a picturesque little town and my driver door window spontaneously exploded into a million little pieces. (Yep, it happens more then you think, check the Internet.)

So this morning instead of waking up at a Casino after an enjoyable evening playing poker I am sitting in a back alley in a little town while two guys are installing a new window in my RV door.

Life is fragile. I was reminded of how fast things change and there is no way you see the change or loss coming.

A few months ago, my little best friend, who never leaves my side darted into a quiet residential street at the exact moment someone was driving like he was at the Indy 500. My little friend was gone in an instant.

We moved from San Diego last Sunday and on the way driving to Sacramento my best friend Gary, who we had just hugged and left in San Diego had his second heart attack before we even finished our 10 hour trip. (Thank God he is ok and still with us.)

And yesterday while driving slowly through a little town on sunny beautiful day my window just explodes. It changed our trip, it changed our life, not greatly but another event could and might.

I am planning on enjoying my new window and being grateful for everything I can see through it whether I like the view or not.

I guess life is little bit like that. It is always present for us, I take it for granted. I forget it allows me to see things I like and some I don’t. But, like my window today, I am going to enjoy the view today regardless of what I see through it.

You never know when it may just explode and be gone.

I left my son in San Francisco...

We spent our first week in Sacramento. We are living with our daughter and son-in-law while we decide, where in Sacramento we want to live? Carrie is having some serious health issues and needs an operation in the next few weeks.
Caren has been a great nurse to her as Carrie has been “bedridden” for the past few weeks and is experiencing some major pains and discomforts.

Our son Jonathan took the train up Friday and spent the evening on the couch. Saturday morning we took him and went for a visit to San Francisco. San Francisco is one of our favorite cities in the world.

I don’t think we would enjoy living there, but we sure enjoy visiting it. We went to China Town and then spent the afternoon at Japan Town. We planned on eating at Benihanna’s but they didn’t open until 3 p.m. so we had an hour to visit the shops before dinner.

After dinner Jonathan had always wanted to see Haight & Ashbury Streets where the hippie movement of the 60’s began so we drove over there. There were still some old hippies there but most of the newer ones wear designer clothes…lol

Then it was on to the tourist stops of “driving down Lombard Street”, visiting Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf and the Embarcadero. Then it was just a short drive across the Bay Bridge to Emeryville where Jonathan boarded the train to head back to San Jose, where he lives.

Then the drive back to Sacramento for Caren and I, appreciating that we have great kids, who enjoy being with us, and we can be with them more now that we are living closer.

Leaving and breaking hearts...

Caren and I flew back to San Diego for a final week to pack up the house. I had flown before with CoCo who is being trained as a therapy dog. I had no problems boarding and flying with her. This time I was hassled by a baggage checker and then onboard after we were seated and getting ready for the door to be shut for takeoff.

Finally, we took off and arrived in San Diego an hour and a half later.

Leaving San Diego is hard, but we are looking forward to being close to our children.

We are growing to appreciate all that Sacramento has to offer. I didn't know until we arrived there it is nicknamed "City of the Trees". Fall is certainly a beautiful time in Sacramento with all the leaves turning many shades of fall colors.






One of the things I appreciate about Sacramento is we are only an hour drive away from many great camping spots to enjoy in our RV.



Finally, it was time to leave San Diego for good. We packed up a u-haul truck. We had planned on towing Caren's car, but at the last moment I decided to make one more trip back and drive her car up on another trip. I will tell you why later, but it had some financial benefit for us to do it that way.

After 10 hours of driving we were less then an hour from our destination, when we got a phone call that my best friend Gary had a heart attack! We had just hugged him goodbye, when we drove away from San Diego a few hours ago in the rental truck!

We almost turned around and drove the entire way back, but Janie his wife assurred us we was fine, resting comfortably in the hospital and would be ok.

It turns out he got out two days later, it was his second heart attack and he has suffered no permanent damage to his heart. I flew down a few days later to see him, and bring Caren's car up, and he picked me up at the airport!

When I saw Janie that night she said humorously... your leaving San Diego broke Gary's heart! It was good to be able to laugh with them.

Red Bluff and Exploding Windows

Today we were on a trip toward Oregon in our RV.

We had left Sacramento mid-afternoon driving up Highway 99. We planned on stopping in Red Bluff to buy some groceries and then spend the night at a casino in Redding.

In the middle of downtown Red Bluff, while I was looking for a grocery store, driving about 30 miles an hour on the main street of town, my driver side window exploded all over me.

For a moment, I thought we had been crashed into on my driver side, but I realized my mirror was ok and the driver-side window, which had been rolled up, was in a million little pieces all over me!

Fortunately, it was “safety glass” and there were no jagged slivers. I immediately pulled over and checked myself and then checked in with Caren and Coco, who were on the passenger side. Beside, being “shook up” we were all ok.

I stopped at an auto parts store and asked where I could get this fixed and was referred to an auto glass shop on the next block. They were closing for the day and were going away tomorrow and referred me to a place in Corning, California which was 20 miles out of the way, but we headed there anyway to spend the night after making sure the glass repair shop would be able to repair it in the morning.

We checked into Heritage Park RV park in Corning about a mile from the glass repair shop.

I searched the web and found out this has happened to others.

For no apparent reason a window can just explode. Who would have thought?