Jacqueline’s Jaunts

2023-09-16 Oregon Trip to Visit Family and Friends John Day Fossil Beds National Monument Ryan and Amanda's Place Steps – 9,006 Playing with our shadows Up early, packed a lunch, and was on the road by 7:30 AM. John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, here we come. It was a two-hour drive to the park. It is on the eastern side of Oregon—Tucker decided to go with us.  The road was through the mountains. This is a volcanic area that was once underwater. Volcanic rock is everywhere and looks desolate.  Our first stop was the Painted Hills. The hills have a different color for each period after the dinosaurs went extinct. The colors were gold, yellows, browns, and reds. We hiked three trails around the hills. Each hike was short, but we had better views of the painted hills.  We ate lunch in a nice picnic area with plenty of shade trees. I'm glad we got here early this morning. Today's temperature was around 97º and would have been too hot to hike. After lunch, we drove an hou...

Pacific Coast Village Site #382 JEEPS - 5 (Tuesday), 22 (Thursday) We left home on Monday, June 26th , for Pismo Beach. We are staying at Pismo Coast Village RV Resort for the first time. They have 400 sites. We made the reservations six months ago. We normally stay at Oceano State Beach RV Park, but we wanted to try this place. We are here with Jan & Ken Reynolds. This place does not let you choose a site; they will only tell you your site number the morning you check-in. This is also a place you can join for $50,000, and you get the first pick of sites...ridiculous. You can store your RV at the resort storage across the street. If you are a member, they will bring your RV to your site for you, one perk for the fifty grand. We checked in around 4:30 PM on Monday. The Reynolds are two sites from us and checked in about thirty minutes before us. Check-in time is 4:00 PM. We hooked up and headed to Old Juan's Cantina in Oceanside. We love this place, especially its huge margarit...

Beginning of Kaibab Trail Jeeps-7 “There are many paths to a meaningful sense of the natural world.” (Blackfoot Proverb)  We left for the visitor center around 10:00 AM. The main goal was to get our Passport cancellation stamps and stickers. We also bought sammies for our hike down Kaibab Trail. It is a steep downward hike with three levels .9 miles to Ooh Aah Point, .6 miles to Cedar Ridge, and 1.5 miles to Skeleton Point...then another four miles to the Colorado River. We only went to Ooh Aah Point., well...almost. The rest of the group went to Cedar Ridge. This was a challenging hike, serious stuff at 7,000 feet.  This is what the trail looks like from the top I was worried about how far I would make it, but I would do my best. Unfortunately, my damn hips were giving me problems again. We almost made it to Ooh Aah, but it was starting to get warm, and I do not hike well when it is warm. I also had to use my inhaler, and it helped. The walk back up was uphill with switchback...