California Cruisin'

I'm not saying this because I come from California, but California has to be the prettiest state in the country.

I haven't seen all of them. On this trip, we just entered our 14th (Oregon), but we've seen a nice sample already. California rules.

The last three days had us travelling up the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) from Morro Bay to Santa Cruz, then up the Central Valley to Redding, then right by Mount Shasta to the Oregon border.

On Saturday, we drove up the PCH, a mostly one-lane highway following the contours of a rugged coastline. At times, it's very windy and steep, but the views are breathtaking. I have to admit that one corner, I took a bit a very sharp corner a little to narrowly and cheated over the yellow median line and was greeted with an oncoming biker with an adament one-finger-salute. I made my peace with biker nation when I was given the regular five-finger-salute as I pulled over and let a whole convoy pass later on. You know me, I'm down with the bikers :)






On Saturday night, we spent with my friend Nasser (or as we called him when we were younger, "friend-father"). He lived with us when I was a young boy (from the ages 6 through 10) and had an fatherly influence in my life well beyond just those years. He knew my mother very well and it was nice for Margreet to learn about my mother a bit and get a picture of my life as a kid (as my recollection is quite hazy). We also went through a lot of old pictures of my childhood, many I don't even recall seeing. Nasser is one of those people who has an uplifting affect on other people, and I can say that I always feel I have more positive energy after I visit him, and this time was no exception. Noa had a field day in his house and learned to climb up and down the 3 wide steps from his living room to his dining room, and just generally running around the place. Thanks for the nice stay, Nasser.



The next day, we drove from Santa Cruz to Redding, a full 300 mile drive that wasn't too exciting. However, toward the end of the drive, as we approached Redding, we could see the snow-capped Mt. Shasta looming large over the other moutains. The next day's drive would have us driving right by it.

Today (Tuesday), we headed north and uphill. Immediately, we were surrounded by mountains and lakes. Just beautiful. Interstate 5 runs just 10-15 miles west of the summit Mt. Shasta, which stands at over 14,000 feet. There was snow covering the whole of Mt. Shasta and the tops of many other mountains in the area. In fact, it snowed a few times while we were driving through as well.









Tonight we pulled into an RV camp just north of Eugene, Oregon. Tomorrow, we will stay with my friends Tamara and Tim, who I haven't seen in ages, then on Thursday we'll stay with our friends John and Shauna in Victoria, British Columbia who we haven't seen since they left the Netherlands last year.