Long overdue post Seattle to Tucson

We left Bellingham and Seattle December 20th. First pic is of Joan and Steve Ellesworth standing in the kitchen of the little cabin we called home for two months. It is located on their Lake Samish farm. Next is some scenery on our way thru Oregon after visiting the Dan and Shon Schmidt's as well as Jessica and Josh and Nicole in Portland. We managed to hook up with Tamar and Paul of Xanadu in Grant's Pass (the night got down to 17 degrees, the coldest we have been on the entire trip) while we were passing through and they were house hunting. Their Xanadu is up for sale in San Francisco area. After the rendezvous with them, we headed to the coast where we were surprised to see how quickly Crescent City recovered from the Tsunami wreckage and rebuilt the docks.

Next we traveled through Eureka and had lunch at the Cookhouse in Samoa(an authentic logging camp spread--all you can eat family style--) and then toured the lost or forgotten coast south of there ---it was an extraordinary drive!! Afterwards we traveled through giant redwoods on our way back to the highway. From there we were able to endure the 3 hours of after work traffic in the San Francisco area to finally return to Tom and Ann's in Watsonville east of Santa Cruz. (more sailing friends)We had a wonderful Christmas celebration with them and their family and managed to take a paddle in our new Innova canoe/kayak while Tom and Ann paddled their canoe.

Leaving there, we visited Hubba and Helen in Manhattan Beach for a few days, took in the new movie the Artist, did some sightseeing and then were on our way to spend New Year's with Wayne and Tanya --Wayne is Diane's nephew. Then onwards to Joshua Tree where we hiked , and biked on our little folding bikes/toys. Another beautiful desert place loved by climbers. We met some great folks!! After a few days we headed to Lake Meade via Route 66 and visited nephew Jon Binder. Then onward to Arizona to visit Claire in Phoenix and Mimi and Gary in Tucson. Now we are touring southern Arizona while waiting for our VA appointments as followup to Ron's surgery......it is pleasantly warm here 60's and low 70's gets down to 36 at night, but we are enjoying it. More pics soon ---of our trip around southern Arizona ....