Our trip up Highway One and 101 from California to Whidbey Island Part 1, day one and two

First note about this trip, the bride planned everything out weeks in advance and put it all in a binder which I’m looking at for the first time.  She spent a week looking up directions, taking notes on what’s interesting everyplace along the drive and making reservations on the best spots to camp.  We planned on staying in a motel 2 nights but that ended up being 4 nights after a largish rainstorm and we were muddy and needed a bit off warmth.  Say what you want about Motel 6, but they gave us a military rate of 45 bucks a night and no arguments about two 50 pound dogs.  All of the campgrounds mentioned take dogs just make sure to clean up after them and keep them around you like a second skin.  So on with the journey.

We left out of San Jose on the morning of June 10^th, crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and drove up the 101 till it connected to the 128, which is also called the Tunnel of Tree’s when you get closer to the coast and we got to see our first redwoods of our journey north because like the name says, it was a tunnel of trees.  Very pretty and scenic, too bad I was driving or I would have taken more pictures. 

Our first night was at Mackerricher State Park which is located 5 or so miles north of Fort Bragg CA.  Basic campsite, running water and flush toilets but no showers.  A hundred yard walk to the beach and seals on the beach.  My first run in with wild life was here too, I was sitting roasting a marshmallow and a spotted skunk bumped into my leg as it stumbled by.  Glad the dogs were in the tent or it would could have been ugly, or is that smelly? 

this is a whale skeleton at the entrance to Mackerricher

To reserve a campsite online is 8 dollars and the fee for Mackerricher was 35 bucks which seems in line for most of the California campgrounds.  One thing I noticed was that Oregon campgrounds were cheaper and they all had showers which were free.  Camping in the Sierra Nevada’s last summer, none of those campgrounds had showers either.

Note 2: We’re driving in my 97 Toyota Tacoma with 270 thousand miles on him with a camper shell, his name is Neil, like the astronaut because he’s driven to the moon.  Our biggest problem is that we over packed and unloading and loading took up an hour or so each side of the day and my old knees feel it and there wasn’t much spare space, specially when you are married to a souvenirholic.  Our tent was a Colman Montana 8 which is easier putting up with 2 people but we could do it in 10 minutes by the end of the trip, we had a queen sized blow up mattress which we put a blanket on top of to keep sharp doggie feet from poking holes in it and 2 dog beds.  Note, always bring a patch kit with you when you have a blow up bed.

The next morning, I made breakfast of eggs, home fries and toast, we were off towards the Albee Creek Campground at Humboldt Redwoods State Park.   We drove north on Highway 1 till it connected again with the 101, but before we got on the 101 we went to see the Chandler Tree, a big redwood that someone had carved a hole that you could drive through and here’s Neil driving through it.

We then followed the 101 till the first exit of Avenue of the Giants and we followed that 20.8 miles, here is where the directions got tricky, you can’t really see the sign to turn so it’s important to turn left at exactly 20.8 miles, sure it would be quicker to take the 101 but you would miss one of the most beautiful drives I’ve ever been on.  Drive past the turn to Weott on Avenue of the Giants, drive over a bridge over a river which goes under the 101 and take a sharp left, the campground is 5 miles down that road. 

Albee Campground has coin operated showers, you can’t take dogs on the trails so we stayed in the area. I made dinner, we took showers and crashed. The next morning on the way out, we checked out the Rockefeller Grove and Bull Creek, some of the biggest trees you'll probably ever run into. It's late and I'm done with typing for tonight, expect more posts on this over the next few weeks.

Maybe the tide has turned?

Over the last 3 days, half a million people have moved out of their homes and headed for the beaches (and stadiums and hotels and friends couches). And so far the count of deaths is only 5 which is absolutely amazing, only one person from the fire (I think that number is going to go up as they search houses though). According to Cal Fire, 276,823 acres and 1300 homes of San Diego county have gone up in smoke since Sunday morning.

The powers that be lifted the ban on Scripps Ranch and I found my house was none the worse for wear and not a piece of scorched earth in sight (view blocked out by all of those big dry trees) and the sky was almost clear. I was actually prepared to lose everything to the fire, had good insurance, everything was packed and had a plan of attack of what I was going to do when it was all over (no I wasn't thinking big TV thoughts!) but it only seems like disasters only happen to you when you’re not prepared. I know a lot of people out there are hurting right now.

Being the cheap guy that I am, I think insurance is a waste of money till there’s a huge fire coming down my street. Believe me, in SoCal, it’s not a waste of money and I know if I didn’t have it, my house would be a gray cloud floating around on the Santa Anna winds out into the ocean. That’s just how my luck is.

It’s still not over but I think the worst might be behind us as the winds die down. While this could have been a madhouse, it seemed like the entire city pulled together to help each other out. I’ve always complained about how it seemed like a lot of folk out here didn’t know their neighbors but I can’t say that anymore. I'm impressed with all of the footage of fire fighters going into peoples houses getting out their belongings and the police that have been patrolling the roads, even though we are in the middle of a huge disaster, we're still keeping the rule of law. There isn't footage flying all over the internet of people looting buildings. Great job guys, this chaotic evolution went off like a well oiled machine.

I’m looking at the KPBS map and they’re saying that the Witch Fire (the one closest to me) is only 1 percent contained. Hopefully that doesn't flare up in the middle of the night.

Looking for information?
City of San Diego Offical Website has the latest offical updates (I can pay my parking ticket there too? Neat!)
You can find a list of San Diego houses destroyed by the fire here
And the Rancho Santa Fe homes here
Sign on San Diego Blog has hourly updates.
2-1-1 San Diego has some good info (if outdated but does have phone numbers)


Here’s a list of places to go to volunteer or give money

San Diego Red Cross
San Diego Volunteer
San Diego Food Bank

I wish you all the best, I'm going to try getting some shut eye in case I get pulled out to do craziness in the middle of the night. Take care all!

Update on the fire

Since I really don’t have anywhere to go and nothing to do, I have volunteered to take part in a rescue recovery team, I’ll be working the ambulances with some other corpsman doing whatever they want us to do. No word on my house yet but I see the sky glowing over there, hopefully it’s just streetlights shining in the smoke if not, then guess, I’ll have to start going over my insurance policy. Don't worry about me, lots of people have it much worse, I have places to stay, was planning on thinning down my load, might shed some tears over the books but it will give me a reason to start my collection again.

The team is on standby right now and I’m staying on base for the next few days with a cell phone next to my ear. No hero stuff yet but who knows what tonight and the next few days will bring, when I get back to my own internet, I’ll post the pictures from the Navy Ball.

Here’s pictures from my trip to Disneyland on Friday with my niece and Kevin the foreign exchange student. Well I'm going to go catch some shuteye while I can.

San Diego Fires

First off I’m safe and sound but can’t say the same for the rest of the area. I live over by Poway and according to this headline “Witch Fire roars across Poway, Rancho Bernardo” with hundreds of structures destroyed and so far, 250 thousand people evacuated and that number has probably gone up.

I got home last night and packed up all of the important things in my life, you know, clothes that I actually wear, my laptop, external hard drives, pictures, digital cameras, uniforms and shoes and went to bed and coughed all throughout the smoky night.

This morning with red blurry eyes, I woke up to a Mars like sky
smoke was everywhere and it felt like I had smoked 3 packs of cigarettes and I don’t even smoke anymore. But being an ex-smoker, I was probably better prepared for it then the average folk.

You can get fresh updates at the signonsandieog.com, KPBS, San Diego County Emergency Homepage and an excellent map of the fire here. Google News is worth a look if the other sites have been clogged from time to time.

I’m listening to the radio and it says that they’re even evacuating parts of Solana Beach, the fire has jumped the border into Mexico, sounds like they’re evacuating just about everything north of the 56 and east of the 5. Thats a huge area and his fire is moving fast.

Oh man, now they’re evacuating my neighborhood too.

Here’s the quote;

“10-22-07 2:11 p.m. Mandatory evacuations have been ordered for Scripps Ranch south of Scripps Parkway, north of MCAS Miramar, west of Hwy 67 and east of Interstate15”

Fallbrook is under mandatory evacuation orders now too, telling people to go though Camp Pendleton to the Orange County Beaches because the 15 is closed. The main evacuation point for San Diego is Qualcomm Stadium, Del Mar Fair Grounds is full and they've filled up the 1800 horse stalls already. Military personal who are evacuating should contact a military housing facility for lodging, if you leave a comment, I can send you the email on that.

My house is located in an oasis of dry eucalyptus trees stretching as far as eye can see (not far because there are so many trees).

Glad I grabbed my guinea pig Daisy, even though she’s a loud and smelly little beast, she’s been my companion while I was lonely and I would miss her. Everything else at my house can be replaced (I have renters insurance which I feel no guilt about using). Trying to look at the bright side of things, at least I won’t have to move everything into storage in a couple of weeks when I move out of housing.

Well I was planning on starting with a clean slate in life after my wife left, guess it might be even cleaner then I thought. My life is beginning to sound like a sad contry song, lost my wife, my dog and maybe soon my house at least I have my laptop and guinea pig.

Arizona trip with my Cali family

My half sister might be relocating in Arizona so we went out there so I could show them around the area. If anything, I do know all of the secret spots, might as well share them with the fam.

One of our stops was on the way home to the sand dunes at Glamis, something you don’t see everyday, here’s the video I took.

KCET Milblogger Podcast

A couple of months ago, KCET’s Juan Devis, left a comment on my blog, he’s the producer of KCET/PBS Television’s New Media division of Southern California. He does a show called Web Stories “KCET’s multimedia webzine exploring the stories , culture, and attitudes of the people who live here”. This months project was on how new media technologies had changed how the war was being covered. The focus was on the local Southern California Milbloggers and the stories we had to tell.

He was requesting an interview for a podcast, so one afternoon, with approval from the PAO, he and I had a talk that lasted for a half hour or so and the fruits of that conversation can be found here.

Juan also got interviews from Lex, Army Girl and Colby Buzzell.

On that page, Holly Willis writes about Milblogs and compares and contrasts the difference between Michael Herr’s “Dispatches” about the Vietnam war and the phenomenon of Milblogging. One of the clearest essay’s I’ve seen on the subject, definitely a smart lady.

New Driving Fines for 2007

Has everyone got this email forwarded to them? I even got it forwarded to me by official military channels. As with any email forward I get looks to be taking over the world, I like to fact check it. Usually the first stop is Snopes where they say it's totally false. The original email is below and here’s the link to what Snopes says and this is the link to the real laws from the DMV website that go into affect on the 1st of July 2007, I've added my comments in the red italics.

Since I don't like the idea of people driving slower then they already are, I'm sharing it with all of my readers. Remember, fact check before you forward!

1. Carpool lane - 1st time $1068.50 starting 7/1/07 (The $271 posted on the highway is old). Don't do it again because 2nd time is going to be double. 3rd time triple, and 4th time license suspended. (The real fines are $376-386 depending on the country, I wonder if the guy who wrote this is even from California? Figures from SFGate article)

2. Incorrect lane change - $380. Don't cross the lane on solid lines or intersections. (inflated over the real (another one not mentioned and also inflated)

3. Block intersection - $485 (not mentioned)

4. Driving on the shoulder - $450 (not mentioned either)

5. Cell phone use in the construction zone. - Double fine as of 07/01/07. Cell phone use must be "hands free" while driving. (just states that hands free devices will be used by 1 Jul 08, no fines stated)

6. Passengers over 18 not in their seatbelts - both passengers and drivers get tickets (not mentioned but what was mentioned was driver and passenger would get fined if they knowingly let someone ride in the trunk).

7. Speeders can only drive 3 miles above the limit (nothing said about this).

8. DUI = JAIL (Stays on your driving record for 10 years!) (it says that there is an increase of the mandatory driver license suspension of 10 months if you get a DUI with a alcohol concentration of .20% or greater and if you are under 21 you get a fined for BAC over .01%)

9. As of 07/01/07 cell phone use must be "hands free" while driving. Ticket is $285. They will be looking for this like crazy - easy money for police department (look at number 5)