Greetings Fellow Americans and Friendly Foreigners!

Debbie and I logged some more amazing miles on the Pacific Coast Highway today. We sojourned into the mountains for a day to visit Crater Lake National Park. It is the deepest lake in the country and fills the collapsed rim of an inactive volcano in the Cascade mountain range in southern Oregon. The rim is about 7,500 feet high. Very beautiful. Very eerie landscape. Very remote location.

This morning we woke up and decided where to head on our last day on the road before we head into Redding tomorrow. Our decision was to head southwest from Crater Lake--back to the coast and Highway 101.

So we crossed over the coastal range and drove into California. Immediately we both felt the difference from Oregon. So good to be back in California again. When we hit Route 101 we were on the section called "The Redwood Highway." That's right. This amazing highway runs for miles through the forest of massive giant redwoods that runs along the coast here. Many of the trees are just a couple feet off the side of the road.

There is no describing these trees. They have to be experienced to be believed. Massive grandeur and hundreds and thousands of them. No picture can capture them (besides I haven't uploaded any pictures yet).

Then the bonus. In one stretch along the highway there are several herds of elk just off the roadway. We stopped and made the acquaintance of a couple of the small herds--one was about fifteen feet from our vehicle. Elk--called 'Wapiti' by the Indians, which means 'big white rump.' Yep, they have that distinctive marker.

That's the report for this day. Tomorrow, Lord willing, we roll into Redding to set up shop in our new digs for the next six weeks. We will be staying at "Glory Mountain Retreat" just north of Redding.

Blessings,

RM