RV Adventure – April 2019 – NNs On the Wind

April 18, 2019April 28, 2019 Kathleen Ennen

APR 4, 2019 – Washington, DC

Nearly everyone in DC this week will visit the Cherry Blossoms at the Tidal Basin. We timed our DC visit so well!!!! After lunch with a few former colleagues yesterday, we went to the Wharf, rode the free taxi to Haines Point, seeing a bit of the very familiar Fort McNair, and then walking along the channel up to the Tidal Basin. What a pretty day to see the nearly perfect cherry blossoms. Then to the mall before heading off to see another colleague. What a nice day!!!!

APR 9-16, 2019 – Bodega Bay, CA (drive from SFO)

In Bodega Bay – very small “Village” on the coast. Here for 3 nights surrounded by large pines and on top of a good sized hill. No views. Walked the bikes down through the woods and out an equestrian trail; came back on Rt 1, walking up the worst of it with the narrow sharp curves. Tomorrow we move down to the waterfront where a marina also has rv spots. And campfire rings. So west coast bay, on the water, with a campfire. Sounds like the best!!! Took a few photos on the drive north from SFO – didn’t stop so only a few….

APR 16-19, 2019 – Pt. Reyes National Seashore, CA

This post is my first blog post to auto post to Facebook. We’ll see!!!! For Facebook friends this is what I posted the other day. (this is a test!!!)

Drove from Bodega Bay to Inverness on 16Apr. Beautiful and unspoiled. We stopped for lunch in Pt Reyes Station; cute very small town. Pt Reyes is mostly NPS land with dairy farming. Before getting to our motel we drove out to the point; 45 min drive each way!!! Turns out the Pt Reyes lighthouse is undergoing renovation so we couldn’t get to it. Found some NPS photos of the lighthouse but took other photos along the drive. The NPS Pt Reyes brochure has a section on “Shifting Ground”. Turns out we are located only a few hundred feet from the San Andreas fault!!! We’re on the west side of Tomales Bay, which was formed by land shifts along the fault, which runs down the middle of the bay!!!! no tremors yet……

APR 17, 2019 – Inverness, CA

Beautiful day once more – bright and clear, temps in the 60s. The hill/mountain to get to the Tomales Bay park was too much, even when walking/pushing the bikes. We tried climbing up the hill for 15 minutes and found it too hot, and we didn’t bring enough water. new lesson for us….

But we did enjoy the views from the motel, the Tomales Bay Resort and Marina, right on the bay. Beautiful spot and very quiet. This is another place we’ve visited in California that we would’t want to be in during the height of the summer. I don’t think it would tolerate crowds well.

APR 18, 2019 – Inverness, CA

Another brilliant day….. We drove out to the end of the road on the north end of the Pt Reyes peninsula to walk as far as we can to the north. It’s a 4.7m trip each way which seemed a bit too much.

We were able to see Tule Elk on the reserve, large badger burrow holes, and the Pacific to the west and Tomales Bay to the east. The yellow flower we’ve been seeing for months is the California poppy and comes in several colors. It’s the state flower as well. Other wild flowers seem to be the Calla Lily and a small purple iris. The elk looked up at us but were generally not phased a bit.

We went to the Saltwater Oyster Depot for a wonderful dinner. This was recommended by my daughter Katie and was worth every penny, and there were many pennies involved. Excellent wine choices and the starter of the Preserved Lemon broiled oysters was one of the best I’ve had. Slightly warmed and wonderfully seasoned. Thom had the duck and I had the yellowtail. The full moon rose above the truck as we started!!!! Clear and bright.

We have traveled over the years and retired in 2017, when we started on a nine month long adventure departing in December 2017. In the past we’ve traveled to Sri Lanka, Africa (several times), Turkey, and made a number of trips to Europe, and St Lucia. Our 2015 trip to Turkey, took nearly 3 weeks to explore Istanbul, Cappadocia and the areas in proximity to Izmir.

This is a chronicle of our travels, past and present. We love to travel by trains, planes, ships, and cars – and love sailing whenever and wherever we can.

We retired from the US General Services Administration, the Federal Government’s landlord! Thom worked at planning and large scale program management of numerous projects and Kathleen, a registered professional civil engineer, was a project manager for many infrastructure and building renovation projects, including both design and construction aspects, in New England, Florida and the metro DC area. We lived in Washington DC for 12 years and upon retirement sold the house, putting a few things in a 5’x5’ storage unit and started traveling.

On return to the US in September 2018, after traveling to 21 countries, we bought a Class C RV – 2019 Thor Freedom Elite 24FE. We enjoyed our week long camping trip in New Zealand in a small converted van with few amenities, so this seemed liked a good way to tour the US. We hope to visit family along the way and as many US National Parks as possible.

UPDATE – the Covid pandemic made travel more difficult for us. We were abroad for several months when the pandemic started and returned to the US in July 2020. After several months in the RV to visit Utah and Albuquerque NM, we moved east, bought a house on the Northern Neck of Virginia, and sold the RV. For 2021 and 2022 we tended to our new house and cottage, gardens and various boats including a 18’ 1977 Marshall Sanderling catboat and a 25’ Steiger Craft Chesapeake fishing boat, and kayaks and a canoe. Hopefully travel will start again one day!!

May 2022