Calm Sunday

Not much happening today. John did some preliminary picking up of items in preparation of our move to Sacramento tomorrow. As we walked over to the grocery store to pick up a few items, we met up with the assistant managers, Bob and Micki, and chatted with them a while. Then Bill, the manager, came out and joined us. He told us that if we didn't want to move on, he would put us to work. That was a very nice offer and if the timing was different, we might have taken him up on his offer. We had told Melissa, family, and friends that we would be in town the month of December and we are sticking with the plan.

Later that evening, we indulged ourselves by spending some time in the spa on our last night here. John said the hot jets helped loosen up some pulled muscles he received when he put the flat tire in the bed of the truck yesterday. We got to watch the crew put the finishing touches on the Christmas tree in the Lodge. The park has put up holiday decorations everywhere that makes the place even prettier and very festive.

Battle Creek Wildlife Area

After speaking with our neighbor, Ted, we learned that he had a close encounter with a Bald Eagle in the Battle Creek Wildlife Area. This area is part of the Sacramento River Bend area we went to yesterday. Well, that was enough for us to go back up to the area to see if we could be so lucky.

Battle Creek is a spawning creek for those fish headed up to the Coleman Fish Hatchery that is a couple of miles up the road. Here is a shot of a drainage ditch in to Battle Creek.

Here's another shot of Battle Creek. There were a lot of Vultures and some other birds of prey but no Bald Eagle. Our elusive bird stays just that. One of these days, we will get our perfect shot of one in the wild.

We drove up to the Coleman Fish Hatchery but it didn't compare to the Bonneville Fish Hatchery in Washington. We were treated with a flyover from an Osprey. John says he saw a Bald Eagle circling along with Vultures and I did get a glimpse of a white tail so it must be. Not the sighting I was hoping to have.

We headed home with my request to stop in Red Bluff first as there was a store I wanted to stop at and pick up a few items for Christmas before we leave town. That is where our trouble began. John went to park next to the curb and the Pressure Pro sensor on the tire hit the curb and broke the valve stem off the tire. I heard this huge swooshing sound. I asked John "is that us?" He said he thought it was outside. Well, he was right about that. When we saw that we had a flat tire, we set about to change the tire. One problem was that we couldn't get the spare tire down from the bottom of the truck bed. I placed a call for towing assistance and advised them that Red Bluff's Christmas parade was starting at 5:30 and we were just off Main St. We were told it would be about 45 minutes or so but that they would stay in touch. So while John waited, I went shopping to get the items that I wanted. When I got back, John said that he was told a tow truck would be here in about 20 minutes. It wasn't long after when the tow truck showed up. I must say the tow truck driver was very nice and it wasn't long before the flat tire was replaced. Well, we now know how to lower the spare so at least something good came from the experience. John has to be at the tire store to get the new valve stem installed and the tire pumped up first thing Monday as we are heading for Sacramento later in the morning.

Below is a picture of a carriage that was giving rides around town up until the start of the parade. I wanted to get a picture of the horse wearing a Santa's cap (so cute!) but I guess in the parade that would be too girly.

Everyone from the town must have been there or so it seemed. We were torn about staying and watching the parade but we were starving and didn't want to deal with all the traffic so we left. Just getting around all of the incoming traffic was a chore. Who knew that there could be major traffic jams in Red Bluff.

As our time here in Red Bluff is winding down, we must say we have enjoyed the area very much. This admission comes as a surprise because we thought the five weeks would drag by but they haven't. We like the Durango RV Park and their workers very much and have enjoyed being in Red Bluff but the draw of being closer to Melissa is starting to pull. We also have a few doctor/dental appointments and some catching up with friends to do in the month of December. I'm sure the time will fly by there also.

Sacramento River Bend

After a late sleep-in, we decided on taking the drive up to what is known as the Sacramento River Bend area. The area sits between Redding and Red Bluff.

On of the first raptors we saw is this Red Shouldered Hawk (a first for us). It was most accommodating and let us get several pictures.

Here is a picture of a Red Tail Hawk that didn't like us taking pictures so it flew away. I like this shot because is shows the detail of his wings and the sun reflects of the red tail feathers.

Here is a shot of a Ferruginous Hawk (another first sighting for us). It was flying with a Red Tail Hawk and some other raptor that didn't stick around long enough for us to get a picture
Here is a shot of a young Osprey just hanging out on a beautiful afternoon.

This is a picture of the Sacramento River in the foreground and Mt. Shasta in the background. John and I have commented that we remember the days when the air was so clear that in a picture like this, Mt. Shasta would be striking. How sad that our air, even on good days, is so hazy.

It was a good drive and we got to see a lot of different things. I'm sure in the springtime the drive would be a lot more attractive than it was now. Still, it offered us a lot of raptor viewings.

We returned to Red Bluff and took a drive over to see Red Bluff Lake and the diversion dam. We were told that when the salmon run, the Bald Eagles and Osprey are easily spotted as they help themselves to the fish buffet. Too bad we aren't going to be around then as we would really have enjoyed watching them. Below is a picture of the diversion dam.

After we stopped for dinner at Los Mariachi's (quite good and reasonably priced) in Red Bluff, I took this picture of the building in downtown Red Bluff that I find interesting. The clock tower chimes on the half-hour and plays music (now holiday).

It was a good day and we were ready to head it home and call it a day.

Thanksgiving

We were awake at 5 a.m. You get really spoiled with not having to wake up with an alarm. I probably didn't get to sleep until around midnight so it was a short night. Our trip to Sacramento was nice with just sections of fog that weren't bad at all.

Once again, Bonnie out did herself. There was more food than table space. We all ate more than we should have. Bonnie had us fill out slips about what we were thankful for on this day and she read them after dessert. I enjoyed hearing everyone's thanks; it was a nice touch.

We got home just before 8 p.m. and we piled into bed not too much later. We were both very tired.

This was a wonderful Thanksgiving and we hope yours was the same.

Special sighting

We were in the rig this morning, when John all of a sudden said I think I see a Bald Eagle and was out the door. I quickly followed him out the door to where he was at the truck getting the binoculars. We quickly noticed that it wasn't a Bald Eagle but rather an Osprey. The Osprey was cruising above the river so we hot footed it over to the river to get a better view. We were watching him cruising when John handed me the binoculars to get a better view of the bird. About that time, all of sudden the Osprey hovered, folded in his wings, and dove in to the river. It was only a second or two, when he came up with a fish between his talons with the fish pointed forward (better aerodynamics!). The fish wasn't a trout but had a more rounded body like a bass or perch. The Osprey then took off with his catch. We have seen Osprey's sitting on telephone poles and fence posts but this was the first time we saw one in action. We were excited to see this bird in action. All this excitement and where is the camera? Back in the trailer. Sheesh!

We chatted with a man and his son who were from Santa Rosa who had come up to spend the long Thanksgiving weekend here at the Durango RV Park. So many nice people that we meet in this lifestyle.

On our walk back to the trailer, we spoke with a service technician from Dan Gammel RV's of Redding (they have a motorhome here at the park on display). The technician recommended a couple of drives to us. We got back to the trailer and checked out the route on one of the drives. We decided to take the drive to see what, if any, wildlife we might see. On the way out of town, we saw where diesel was $2.49 a gallon! Darn, we just filled up yesterday and paid $2.59 a gallon. On our drive, we saw a Northern Harrier and a Kestrel and not much else. Still it was a nice drive.

We came home and went out for our walk around the RV park (gotta get those steps!). We spotted the Osprey doing his fishing from the sky again. Only this time, we didn't get to see him dive and catch a fish. There were a number of vultures that seemed to be hanging around him. We thought it was must have been annoying to him and soon lost sight of him.

Set the alarm clock for 5 a.m. (what!!!!) as we want to be on the road to Sacramento tomorrow by 7 a.m. Looking forward to Thanksgiving at Bonnie and Butch's where we get to see our extended family and Melissa. We send our blessings and wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Just hanging out

We made a few rounds of the rv park and spoke with the office staff for a while. They are all a great group of people. John went for a bike ride while I worked on our financial records. It was a beautiful day. When we went to the grocery store, we picked up a roasted chicken that I shredded. We had chicken tacos that I must say were quite yummy. After another walk around the park, we came back and settled in for TV for the night.

Revisiting the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge

After seeing so many flocks of Snow Geese heading south last week, we decided to take another trip down to the refuge to see what changes in the wildlife have occurred in the two weeks. We packed a lunch and this time, we stopped in at the visitor center before heading out on the auto tour. The visitor's center is small but they have some beautiful taxidermy mounts of the various wildlife that can be found at the refuge. We were a especially excited to learn that a Bald Eagle was spotted on the refuge just a few days ago . . . maybe we will be lucky to spot it. We ate our lunch so that we wouldn't be distracted before we headed out on the auto tour.

Below is a shot of snow geese as they begin to settle back down on the water after having been spooked. Keep in mind that these as just from one of the ponds!

There was a tractor that was working in the refuge that was stirring up the snow geese as it worked from pond to pond. The sound of their collective wing beats and honking was a thrill to experience.

As we were going down the road, two egrets were standing in the middle of the road. It appeared to be a mom and baby. They flew over in to the field. Who could resist a family shot?

We were lucky to have seen a couple of Golden Eagles at the refuge. Here is our best shot of this glorious bird.

One of the most frequent raptors seen at the refuge cruising the wetlands and tormenting the ducks is the Northern Harrier, easily identifiable by the white feathers at the base of their bodies before the tail feathers.

Not the closest of shots but below is a Red Tail Hawk.

Remember the mom and baby egret from an earlier shot? Well, they had moved farther through the refuge and we found them in a tree.

We had stopped to look at the waterfowl when across from us, I noticed a large bird in the tree. Well, we had to get a closer look and he/she was most accommodating. We had heard that immature Bald Eagles can look like Golden Eagles and immature Golden Eagles can look like Bald Eagles. Huh? So what did we have here?

Let's see, the bird has a white tail and if you look closely, the beak is turning yellow. The Bald Eagle has a yellow beak while the Golden Eagle does not. Looks like an immature Bald Eagle that in another year or so will have a beautiful white head and tail and will look truly majestic. Wow!

John and I sat and looked at his beautiful face through the binoculars for a long time and he had no problem in showing off his beauty.

What a wonderful day at the refuge ....... John and I feel like we hit the jackpot today :)

We returned home but first stopped at Applebees for dinner. Then we headed home and took our nightly walk up and down the driveways here at Durango RV Park. We ran into the Assistant Managers (Bob and Micki) in the Lodge and had a very nice conversation with them. They encouraged us to come in to the office tomorrow and fill out a job application that they could have on file in case we would be interested in a Workamper job next winter or some time in the future. How nice is that.

Blustery Day

Boy, it was a warm and very windy day here in Red Bluff. The sky was very clear and we had a beautiful view of Mt. Lassen even from the RV park. It was windy but warm. We got diesel and paid $2.69 . . . wow! We know this won't last but we are going to enjoy it was we can.

We are taking a drive down to Sacramento tomorrow to see the UC Davis Raptor Rehabilitation Center and will our beloved Melissa.

New Experience

We did laundry that took most of the day. I even took our blanket (yes Melissa, the one you love so much) to the laundry facilities of the Durango RV Park as their washers and dryers have a greater capacity than our compact washer and dryer.

We walked over to Round Table for their $6.99 buffet lunch. I must say they had a very nice salad bar. I overhead one of the locals say that it was the best salad bar in town. On our way home, we picked up a paper. We sat outside enjoying the sunshine and light breeze while reading the paper. Very nice.

While sitting outside, we noticed our neighbors, Fred and Lani, getting ready to play Boccie Ball. Fred had been reading up on the rules so he was prepared to give it a try. Curious, John and I went over to see what was involved and ended up playing the first game of Boccie Ball at the park. The balls were brand new. Thankfully, Fred had an idea of how to play. Actually, it is like a combination of croquet and bowling. We had a good time and shared numerous laughs. John and I won the inaugural game. Whoo Hoo! Pam from Durango RV Park took photos of us playing. We hope that we don't end up on their brochures or website. It would then be hard to deny that we ever played Boccie Ball. Ha Ha. Oops, I guess it will be hard to deny that fact now after this blog entry.

Shopping trip to Redding

John went out and got a haircut so he cleaned up his act. He actually had a first . . . a female barber. He was happy with his haircut. After his return home, we decided to take a trip to Redding to go shopping at Costco. What a zoo - the parking lot was packed. Where did all these people come from? I wanted to stock up on ground beef and chicken and a few other items. As always, we left with more than was on the list.

Before his haircut, John went to the office to inquire as to why the spa was locked at 8:20 p.m. He was told that if we wanted to use the spa after 8 p.m. to let the night person know and they would leave one of the gates unlocked. Now, that doesn't make sense when you have the pool/spa hours posted stating the hours were 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Whatever! We went to the spa around 6:45 p.m. and were able to enjoy the spa all by ourselves. Yea!

We settled in and watched TV for the rest of the evening.

Wildlife viewing

We decided to take a drive down to the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex that is located between Willows and Maxwell. Four refuges and one wildlife management area make up the refuge complex. These refuges were created to provide wintering habitat for waterfowl and other migratory birds and reduce crop damage. Approximately 44% of the Pacific Flyway's waterfowl population winters in the Sacramento Valley. Three million ducks and over one million geese migrate here every year.

The refuge is made up of several seasonal marshes, grasslands and permanent ponds. As a former duck hunter, John was well aware of what these refuges look like but even John was taken with the number and different types of waterfowl. He was naming off several different types while I recognized only a few.

Here is a picture of Snow Geese as they were coming in to land in one of the marshes.
Here is a better shot of some Snow Geese coming in for a landing - so very beautiful.

Here is a beautiful shot of the coastal mountains in the background and a mixture of waterfowl in just one of the many marshes.

We were driving on the auto route when John saw a Northern Harrier and wanted a picture. I told him we had a lot of Northern Harrier pictures so don't get crazy (forgot they were digital). Imagine our surprise when we got home and downloaded the pictures to the computer and discovered that the shot he took was not a Northern Harrier.

Instead of a Northern Harrier, John got a shot of a short-eared owl. Just click on the picture to enlarge the photo. We were thrilled with the surprise photo. Our bird books said that this owl is commonly mistaken as a Northern Harrier - no kidding!

While we were watching the waterfowl, we were treated to a couple of viewings of Golden Eagles. This is not the best shot but it does show the beautiful bird from its underside.

We spent a lot more time there than we had originally thought and we didn't even get to visit the Visitor's Center . . . . next time. We have already decided that we want to go back before we head for Sacramento because there will be even more waterfowl.

Later that evening, we tried to end the day with a dip in the spa but the gates were locked. What's up with that? The pool/spa area is suppose to be open until 9 p.m. and it was only 8:20 p.m. We headed back home disappointed. We've got to find out what is going on tomorrow.

Special visit

Melissa drove up for a visit and we were thrilled to see our girl. We gave Melissa a tour of our facility and she said that it was definitely a step up from Shingle Springs and Cal Expo. We couldn't have agreed more. After a lunch out, we returned home to settle in for an afternoon of conversation. Soon it was time for Melissa to head back to Sacramento. She no more had left when we started getting rain, lightning and thunder. We heard from the office the next day that the JC Penney's in Redding got hit by a lightning strike. Luckily, Melissa didn't have to deal with real bad weather on her way home.

Trip to see some snow

With the cold weather we had on Wednesday and the beautiful day we had today, we decided to take a trip to look at the mountains.

A trip up towards Mt. Shasta lead us to a depressing view of Lake Shasta. California is in the throes of a serious drought. We have seen Lake Shasta low but nothing like this view.

Here is a beautiful shot of Mt. Shasta. When we came down from Oregon two weeks ago, Mt. Shasta had snow only at the top. Quite a beautiful view, don't you think?

We also took a trip back up to Mt. Lassen in hopes that we could get a shot from Lake Manzanita. Well, the snow had the road to the boat ramp blocked so this was best shot we could get. Mt. Lassen is much prettier with snow than without.

Here is a pretty shot from the ranger station.

Here is a picture of John (yes, in shorts) with Mt. Lassen in the background. The temperature was rather mild in the sun but was very brisk in the shade.

It was a lovely but rather long day.

Burr . . . cold and rainy

Boy, it was biting cold and rained on and off all day. We can only imagine that the mountains are getting a far amount of snow. We are glad that we don't have any mountain passes to cross to get back to Sacramento.

It's over!

YEAH! The election is over and all the political ads have stopped. I don't know about you but it will be nice not being inundated with political ad after political ad.

It was a historic evening and we wish our new President-elect good luck because he will need it as our nation has big problems. If he can get Congress to put partisan politics aside so that real solutions to our nation's problems are made, then change will really have come to Washington. Hope is eternal. That is as political as I will get. Good night.

Storm blows in

Holy cow! We had one heck of a windy/blustery rainy day. We just pretty much hunkered down reading and watching TV. Some of the downpours we had during the evening hours were something else. Earlier in the day, I made some minestrone soup that went over very well for dinner. We had a nice chat with Melissa. All is well.