Coarsegold, Ca 9-8-07

This first picture is of the smoke from the Moonlight fire in Plumas/Lassen Forest that was raining ash down on us in Quincy. The fire was about 15 miles as the crow flies northish of us and is one of those wicked fires that grew really fast and changes direction. Until we left yesterday the smoke stayed above us, but yesterday it was sitting on the ground.

We pulled out of Quincy yesterday at 8:30 because we had a long day and our destination’s office closed at 4 and we needed to get there by then. We took highway 70 west out of Quincy and then caught 99 south. We are still amazed that with all the growth through the valley that highway 99 is still only 4 lanes south of Sac. We caught highway 145 out of Madera which hit 41 which goes into the south of Yosemite and we took it north to Sierra Park Escapees RV Park just a few miles from Coarsegold. Some of you may be more familiar with Oakhurst which is where highway 49 hits highway 41. We are just south of Yosemite. We traveled 327 miles yesterday and got in at 3:45.

It was in the 90’s when we got here and very smoky. The smoke from the Moonlight fire is all the way past Fresno the news was saying. We never did see the hills, much less the mountains…we know the Sierra’s are up there somewhere! We got checked in and shown to our site. I think it is the first time that we didn't have to do a bit of leveling or moving to get settled in once we had parked! We can see and hear highway 41 which is a busy two lane highway in the distance, but our site is perched on a little hill with a great view which outweighs the minor noise from the highway. This is a huge park, gated and quiet when you get over the hill from the highway. We have a neighbor on up the hill from us, but we can’t see them the hill is so steep. The “neighbors” I’m worried about are the scorpions, spiders, rattlesnakes and tarantulas that live in these parts. I know this because of the warning on the paper they gave us.

We are staying here a month. Being native Californians (well technically Lar was born in South Dakota) neither one of us have ever been to Yosemite, so we hope the smoke clears out one day and we’ll go check it out. We also aren’t far from Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Monument, but with our trip to Disneyland coming up we’ll see how much we actually get around to.

After we got settled in we drove on up the highway to check out Coarsegold, it is small so we kept on going to check out Oakhurst. It is a pretty little town nestled in a valley. I would have taken some pictures but the smoke just grayed everything up too bad.

We cruised through Oakhurst which is pretty good sized and Larry was getting ready to turn around and head back through town when we noticed we were in front of a Bar-b-que place and it was dinner time so we decided to check it out. Boy are we glad we did. Todd’s Cookhouse Bar-B-Que is the best BBQ we have ever had. It is on highway 41 in Oakhurst east of the highway 49 junction and if you are ever through here and like BBQ you should give it a try. Larry and I split a special which was smoked pulled pork, BBQ ribs, chili, coleslaw and hushpuppies. I’m o.k. with BBQ and Larry LOVES it and I’ve gotta say I loved this. You go to some places and it all tastes the same because they put the same sauce on it all, but this pork…you could taste the smoke and the ribs weren’t dry and had just the right amount of sauce and all the rest was equally good. The coleslaw was some of the best I’ve had and the hushpuppies were great too! We will be back to that place a few times before we leave!!! Even with splitting we still brought a couple ribs home. The owner, Todd, had won a Kraft Foods BBQ Sauce “Flavor Search Contest”. It became one of the fastest selling sauces in Kraft history. Todd opened his own place in Oakhurst…yum for us.

We stopped at Von’s on the way home and bought us an anniversary bouquet of flowers and anniversary chocolate cake. We sat outside after a stunning red sunset from the smoke having our chocolate cake and just gave thanks for being able to live the life we have with each other…aaahhhhhh.

These last pictures were taken along highway 70 along the Feather River. I still think this drive from Quincy to Oroville is one of the prettiest drives in the country. Gigantic granite boulders litter the river and some have the most interesting smooth holes worn into them from the eons of water and sand washing over them. Too much smoke to get any good pictures and we were on a time crunch. That piece takes about 2 hours and when we went down it in the spring (you may remember all the pictures) it took us 4 hours because I had to keep stopping and taking pictures of all the flowers!