California Highways

We just completed a decent day of driving, as we drove from Big Sur to Lake Isabella and managed to book end our day with what I believe are like the two wildest paved roads in California. The first road, California Highway 1 south of Big Sur to Cambria was intentional, I had driven this road before, I just forgot what the road was like. The last time I drove that road was with my friend Chris. We were in ‘88 Pontiac Grand Prix, a far better handling vehicle than my Ford F-350 with a camper on back. We were also in our mid-20s and still believing we were indestructible (in hind sight, we were definitely crazy to do that drive, as the breaks in that Pontiac Grand Prix were rather sketchy).

California Highway 1, better known as the Pacific Coast Highway is one of the most beautiful stretches of highway in North America. Even though the speed limit is 55 mph for most of the stretch we drove from Half Moon Bay to Cambria, it’s impossible to drive it at 55 mph (especially in a truck and camper), because of how windy and narrow the road is, and because it’s almost impossible not to stop every few miles to take in the endless view points. The incredible vistas are endless and there are several opportunities for wildlife viewing, like Elephant Seal Vista Point. Heading from North to South the road seems to get more narrow, and windy to a point where I, the driver, was nearly getting car sick. It is the only stretch of highway where I didn't feel like California drivers were constantly trying to angrily pass me. In fact the only person I had to pull over and let by was a California Highway Patrol.

The Pacific Coast Highway, where you don't want to take your turns wide

Molting juvenile elephant seals at Elephant Seal Vista Point 

After we got off of Highway 1, our choice of roads was completely unintentional. We are currently making our way to visit friends who are spending their Spring Break in Zion National Park. So we found a place to stay near Lake Isabella which seemed like a good day's drive from Big Sur as we made our way towards Zion National Park. The stop it left us with the possibility of an easy detour to visit to Death Valley National Park. I plugged into GPS where we wanted to go at Lake Isabella and it returned us with a route that, at a quick glance, appeared to be the simplest route. The route took us along Highway 1 to Cambria, then east on Highway 46, eventually 46 turns to Granite Road a beautiful road winding through the hilly California country side, eventually we ended up on Highway 155. Highway 155 steeply twists its way up over 6000 feet into the Greenhorn Mountains. Along most of Highway 155 it is difficult to get your vehicle up to 30 mph, despite the speed limit being 55 mph. Eventually the highway drops steeply back down to Lake Isabella. A truly beautiful drive, but a bit of a white knuckle drive in a truck camper with rain pouring down.

A moment without rain on the climb up Greenhorn Mountain on Highway 155

On this trip we have never passed up the opportunity for an interesting stretch of road (such as Beartooth Pass in Montana which my brother-in-law Dan recommended). However, Highway 1 and Highway 155 are definitely the wildest stretches of paved road that we have driven on this trip, and definitely among the most beautiful stretches of road (but the views had to be left to the passengers). I highly recommend anyone who has the opportunity to experience these two stretches of highway to do so. However, I recommend not doing it in a RV or even a truck camper. Consider a Porsche, or some other car that is light, with great handling, low to the ground, and with excellent breaks.

What Do You Want To Do? Want Do You Want To Be?

I felt that after a visit to Google and Facebook (thank you Patrick and Jarred) that I should write something about my daughters comments about their future career plans. Not that Kathy or I expect either of our daughters to have the slightest clue what they want to be, nor should we expect them to have any idea what they want to be or do. However it got us all talking.

Now of course when we were visiting the head quarters two of the best know companies in the world where meals are all free, laundry is free, gym facilities are free, and there are free bikes for anyone to use when ever they want, it's hard for a visitor not to say, "I want to work here!" (For the record John and Gary, I personally never said out loud that I wanted to work at either Google or Facebook. Kathy will attest to this. Not that any jobs were offered...). However, when we got back to where we were staying for the night I asked both girls to talk about all the different jobs we've seen that people do during this trip. The first words out of their mouth were, "We don't have to write a paper about this, do we dad?" I said they didn't if we could have a good discussion.

We talked about all the different jobs that we've seen people do on this trip: Clem and his winery in Maine, Sophia and her pop up kitchen's in Tennessee, Martha at Mockingbird Hill Farm in Georgia, Chaz on the ranch in Texas, Bob the water source expert in Utah, and of course Patrick at Google and Jarred at Facebook (along with many, many others). When they considered everything they had seen and experienced their opinions changed a bit. Siena said she wants to be just like Bob, exploring the mountains and rivers around Salt Lake City and testing the water quality. Nadia said she wants to be just like Sophia, a cook! (Sophia does a lot more than just cook, but if you check out her Instagram  account, you'll see why Nadia wants to be a cook like Sophia. Granted, by later in the night, both of their future career goals had completely changed again.

Clem giving the girls a tour of his winery in Maine

Sophia teaching the girls about essential oils (Sophia does more than cook)

Siena feeding the goats on Mockingbird Hill Farm

Chaz showing the girls how to feed each cow by hand, which he does every day

Nadia learning how they take naps at Google

The girls updating THE Facebook Wall

One part of why I wanted to do this trip was to show the girls a wide sampling of the sort of things people do for a living across America. I personally had no idea of the vast different career choices there were out there when I finished college. I had great plans for how we would try and see as many different sorts of jobs that people do across the country. In the end, I was never organized enough to put together a proper educational tour of careers across America. However, we have met lots of interesting people and saw lots of different ways of making a living. Perhaps the girls will look back on this trip some day in the future and be able to use the memories of this experience to open up possibilities that they might not have otherwise considered. For right now at least, I'm just happy that Siena is open to ideas other than moving to Hawaii and becoming an shark trainer, and Nadia is no longer dead set on being Taylor Swift when she grows up.

Oregon Days and An End To Skiing (for now)

At the very tippy top of Mount Bachelor with Tom and Lisa

We finished up our skiing for this season with a beautiful bluebird spring skiing day at Mount Bachelor with our friends Tom and Lisa. Prior to that we spent 4 days skiing at Timberline, 2 days with our friends from Seattle Jen, Chris and Jaden and Lisa, Chris, and Zoe, and 2 of those days staying with just our family staying at Timberline Lodge. 

Skiing Timberline with Chris, Jen, Jaden, T-Bone, Lisa, and Zoe

It was great to see so many friends and difficult to spend so much time so close to home only to know we were going to turn around and head south again. However, it was several days of wet weather while staying west of Mount Hood that reminded me that summer most certainly had not come to the Pacific Northwest yet (not even sure that Spring had come yet). 

Frozen up at Timberline

While I did enjoy spending time camping with friends, it had been a very long time since we last found ourselves sitting around a campfire in the rain with umbrellas (which we did quite a few times at the start of this trip). It was that experience that got me to look through weather forecast maps of the western United States to try and find where the closest place was where I could find the warmest, driest weather after we left Oregon. What the long term forecasts were telling me was to head to California.

So as I write this Kathy is driving us to California. The plan is to make it south of San Francisco by Monday afternoon, and meet up with our friend April who we haven’t seen in quite a few years. After that we have a little over a week to get our gypsy wagon to Zion to meet up with more friends.

The skiing adventures this season have been incredible, and as much as I did miss my beloved Alpental, it will be difficult for our family to get used to Pacific Northwest skiing next season. Although we didn’t start skiing until February, we got 27 days of skiing in, we skied in 4 states, 11 ski areas, and we had very few overcast days or even snowy days. Our friends Brandon and Sabrina flew to New Mexico to spend a weekend skiing with us there. In Utah, my brother Alex skied with us at Snowbird, and we were joined by my brothers good friend Bob. And finally in Oregon we skied with all the friends I previously mentioned. Most of the skiing for us this season were beautiful bluebird days, and even several fresh powder bluebird days (as a Pacific Northwest skier this is something I had previously only heard of in legends). Despite the amazing 2 months of skiing, Kathy and I were sick of dealing with a family of 4 and all of our skis and ski gear piled into a tiny box on the back of a pickup truck. Every time we stopped for the night somewhere, all the ski gear had to be moved from the the piles covering our beds in the camper to filling up almost every inch of the cab of the truck. Luckily, our friends Tom and Lisa graciously agreed to store all of our ski gear for the last two months of our trip.

Now as I finish this post and we are just a few miles from the California border, I am starting to get excited by the realization that this adventure is going to transition back to the same type of adventures that we started this trip with: hiking and exploring the wild places of the west coast! With that said, next stop, San Francisco!

One final unrelated note, according to my trucks computer we’re currently averaging 11.9 miles per gallon, just thought I’d mention, because I get asked that a lot.

Mixed Feelings - Two more months on the road ...

We have been spending the last few months traveling around the Rockies (Colorado), Wasatch (Utah) and Sierra (California) mountains to get our skiing in. We had a horrible ski season last year and this year has certainly made up for it. As I post this, we are camping in the Mt. Bachelor Ski Area parking lot, in order to get on the mountain first thing tomorrow morning and to take advantage of some cheap lodging. This morning we left LaPine State Park outside of Bend, OR.  Being in Oregon, the weather has definitely given us a good taste of home, we drove into Oregon through the pouring rain most of the day and woke up to a dusting of snow on the campground this morning, which was a fun treat as we are nestled among the tall evergreen trees.

Little dusting of snow at LaPine State Park

Over the next few days, we will make our way North to ski with good friends that will camp and ski with us at Mt. Hood Meadows and Timberline, then we will head back to Bend to ski with more friends at Mt. Bachelor again and eventually leave our ski and winter gear with them so we can head South again for some fun in the sun until we finally head home at the end of May. 

We are due back at the end of May and have confirmed our tenants will be there until then, so there is no coming back early at this point. A friend recently asked me if I had mixed feelings about coming home, and as I think about it more I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. Strangely, I feel like I have stayed connected pretty well, when we have internet service I can see what friends are doing on Facebook and Instagram, I am keeping up (for the most part) with the (crazy) political campaigns, half of our family is spread out all over the country right now, so calling, texting and FaceTime is the normal way of communicating, and we are teaching our kids about sending actual letters and reaching out that way. But of course, social media and letters can’t replace face to face dinners, talks and hugs. So we do look forward to seeing our loved ones in person.

Selfie at Squaw Valley 

Part of me does long for the normal routine, I can’t wait to have a bedroom of my own with a bed that I can walk around and a door (two upgrades we must have if when we ever get a new camper/trailer) and as I have mentioned in past blogs, I look forward to my normal running routes and running friends, going to yoga  in my neighborhood and having more than 2 pairs of pants to choose from. 

As mixed feelings go, I am also fearful of getting back into the normal routine. I love our carefree days, not always knowing where we are heading the next day. I love sleeping in on a Monday morning. I love exploring new places and living simply. I love watching my kids become each other’s best friends. Playing pretend and really getting into it, they have such vibrant imaginations, it is so fun to watch and listen to. I hope this doesn’t go away when we get home and back into the mix with friends and school and regular life.

Girls exploring the beach of Lake Tahoe

I do look forward to having more variety when grocery shopping and eating at home and having friends over for dinner again. I look forward to visiting our favorite spots in Ballard, but after so long on the road eating out is no longer a treat for us, it becomes a necessity when you are driving long distances and your camper is packed with gear you can’t get to the fridge.

I also look forward to having a dishwasher again. Although, doing dishes is relaxing and meditative for me, I love a clean kitchen, and in the camper the space is so small it is easier to achieve. I will also be happy to be doing laundry at home again. The only upside to doing laundry on the road is that when you are doing laundry in a laundromat you have to get it all done at one time. You can’t leave piles of clean clothes in a basket, you must fold and put everything away after its done. School work is also something I am looking forward to handing pack to the professionals. I am so grateful that we have had this time to learn how our kids learn and take in concepts and understand their challenges and strengths. This will help me help them down the road for sure, but they are certainly ready to get back to a classroom with peers and remember that the teacher is in charge – not them (that’s the challenge for us these days). 

Our whole family can also agree, we are all looking forward to our clean, private bathroom and shower at home. One thing I will NOT miss from this trip is walking to the bathroom to shower (and other business not allowed in the camper), I long for the day I can take a hot bath in my own bathroom. I look forward to showering in my shower without wearing flip flops and hauling all my clothes and shower essentials into the tiny shower stall. I also look forward to showering alone, and not alongside my two daughters who either bicker from their stalls for the shampoo and soap they share or just talk nonsense while showering (although the latter is sometimes amusing). Although, we have had some nice showers and the occasional bath in hotels here and there, we look forward to the comfort, familiarity and cleanliness of our bathroom at home. 

We have a little over 2 more months until we get back and we have more friends and family to visit in some sunny spots down South, so we don’t have to jump back into the normal routine just yet. Once we get home, the goal will be to try and bring some of our simple living habits into our big house and do our best to live in the moment and not get swept up into the busy, whirlwind that often comes with city living. One thing I know for sure, we will appreciate all our comforts of home. The girls will certainly love the fact they don’t have to make/transform their beds every morning and evening, Andrew and I will appreciate our privacy and we will all enjoy a little more indoor space to spread out in. And we will all appreciate our bathroom. 

Siena's Homework: Travel Advertisement

This was a homework assignment for Siena. Come up with a travel advertisement for one of the areas she visited. The goal is to sell that place as somewhere to visit to her friends and their parents.

My Travel Advertisement is for St. Augustine, Florida.

St. Augustine, Florida is an awesome place to visit and here’s why: First of all, St. Augustine, Florida is the oldest city in all of North America, also even in the chilly month of December it is warm enough so you can wear a t-shirt and shorts, and toasty enough so you can get a tan.

Now when you are visiting you’ll probably have some extra time on your hands, so here are some places you should see while you're there: First attraction is the alligator farm.

Alligator Farm alligator snoozing

At the alligator farm there’s not only alligators, there’s also monkeys, birds, turtles, etc. so all animal lovers can find something that they're interested in. Our next attraction is in St. Augustine is of course the beach. At the beach you will find more shells than you can hold (most of the time).

So many sea shells

It is even warm at the beach in December, so maybe you could go swimming in waves, or take a stroll on the miles of seemingly endless sand.

A bird enjoying the sandy beach

Now if you more into shopping the St. Augustine downtown area is the place for you, there’s so many cool shops and old looking buildings. Now that you know what to do in St. Augustine, how about I tell you what to bring.

Cool old building in St. Augustine

Here’s a list of some of the essentials you’ll need when you go to see St. Augustine:

• Sunglasses, sunscreen, and maybe a hat or two for the sunny weather
• Shorts, shirts, and sandals for some fun in the sun
• Camera or your phone (If it takes pictures) 
• Bag, purse, backpack, or all of the above
• Some nice clothes if you decide to go out to a fancy dinner
• Possibly an umbrella just in case of rain (hopefully it doesn't rain for you) 
• Money 

Now I’m not telling you that’s all you need to bring because you might want some other stuff but that is a good start. Now some of you are saying, “Wow! This St.Augustine place sounds awesome”. While others might be saying, “I’ve already scheduled my family vaca and I don’t know about this”.

Either way if you decide to go or not to go it is you choice and I’m only here to tell you why you should go. So keep that in mind when planning your next family vacation because young and old there’s something for everyone in St. Augustine.

Road Side Attractions

This Gorohoff Crew loves a good road side attraction - the weirder the better!  On this trip we have enjoyed Wall Drug in South Dakota and the super truck stop, Buc-ee's outside of Dallas. In years past, we've stopped at the quirky, cool Hole 'n the Rock outside of Moab, UT and the Little A'Le'Inn near Area 51 in New Mexico. So when I started to see the signs (many signs) for Little America as we are driving out of Wyoming on our way to Salt Lake City, I told Andrew we had to stop and check it out. The signs assured us there were fresh donuts, spotless restrooms and a playground! Since we just got on the road and had already made a Starbucks stop, Andrew agreed to stop if I agreed to write about our visit- deal! 

Little America did not come close to being as cool as the above mentioned spots but the restrooms were clean and there were lots of fun tchotchkes to check out and we were able to resupply our snacks for the rest of the trip.

I figure they paid so much for so many billboards, we should at least stop and support Little America (plus, the name made me think of Little Sebastion from Parks & Rec) Also, it's good to know this truck stop is here for the next time we're driving through - if we need a place we could camp & shower for free if necessary. 

Skiing Safari

I did a post of all the places we've stayed in the camper here which I try to keep updated as we travel, so I thought I would do a similar one for skiing. I'll try and add some comments about what we've learned about skiing at these ski areas, especially as it applies to staying in a RV.

• Feb 2 Taos Ski Valley, NM  
• This was our first day skiing and the day after a big snow dump at in the Southwest. Taos is one of the few ski areas I've been to that welcomes overnight RV camping for FREE. We naively thought it would be fun to stay the night. However, after a full day of skiing we were disappointed to find our batteries almost dead, our pipes frozen, and the weather too cold to run our generator. It was one VERY cold night.

  

  Our first day of skiing in 2016, and our first day at elevation

• Feb 3 Taos Ski Valley, NM
• After the previous night, we HAD to ski!

  

  Frozen up at Taos Ski Valley

• Feb 6 Ski Santa Fe, NM
•  We headed south with the hopes of slightly warmer weather (night time lows of -17 are a bit too cold). We stayed at an awesome RV park that was about a hour drive from the ski area.

  

  Beautiful views at Ski Santa Fe

• Feb 7 Ski Santa Fe, NM

• Feb 11 Angle Fire, NM
• After Santa Fe we headed up to the family cabin which was about 30 minutes from Angle Fire. Angle Fire is very much beginner to intermediate ski area, but a fun little resort. So Kathy and I explored the ski area while the girls took a full day snowboard lesson, something they had been begging to do for some time.

  

  The girls learning to snowboard at Angle Fire

• Feb 13 Angel Fire, NM
• This was our first day skiing with our friends Brandon and Sabrina who flew in from Seattle over President's Weekend to ski with us. 

  

  Skiing with friends Brandon and Sabrina

• Feb 14 Taos Ski Valley, NM
• For the second day of skiing with Brandon and Sabrina we went to the much more challenging resort, Taos Ski Valley.

• Feb 18 Wolf Creek Ski Area, CO
• It took us a couple days to close up the and re-winterize the cabin, but it was time to head North for some Colorado skiing. Our first ski resort was Wolf Creek. They are one of the very few Colorado ski resorts that allow overnight camping in an RV. The catch to staying at Wolf Creek overnight is that if it snows, and they have to plow the lots, they will wake you up in the middle of the night and ask you to move your vehicle. With this in mind we decided not to stay the night, and instead headed a couple hours to Durango where we stayed in a Holiday Inn. 

  

  This is clearly where our camper belongs

• Feb 19 Purgatory, CO
• Purgatory was our first true Colorado Ski resort. It definitely didn't disappoint, and it was a short drive from Durango.

  

  Enjoying Purgatory Ski Resort

• Feb 22,  23, 24 Telluride Ski Resort, CO 
• Telluride is a place that more or less shuns people in RVs. RVs are only allowed to park in the town park, and there is no where that you are allowed to stay in your RV near the ski resort, so we decided to stay in a ski in ski out resort. The excellent resort we stayed in was The Peaks Resort and Spa, and they were more than happy to find safe parking for our camper.

  

  Loving Telluride

• Feb 29 Powder Horn, Colorado
• Powder Horn was a fun area just outside of Grand Junction, Colorado. It only has two main lifts, but also has nearly as much acreage as Purgatory.

  

  Quite the view from Powderhorn.

• Mar 2, 3 Steamboat Springs, Colorado
• Steamboat Springs was our first busy Colorado ski resort. Unlike Telluride, Steamboat Springs is relatively close to Denver at a little over a 3 hour drive. So even though we skied it on a Wednesday and Thursday it was pretty busy. The nice thing about the town of Steamboat is that there is free bus service throughout the town, so we were able to take the bus from the KOA we were staying at to the the ski resort every morning.

  

  Getting the Colorado big resort experience.

• Mar 7 Alta, Utah
• Our first real powder day! The night before our visit to Alta it snowed nearly a foot. This made for great skiing conditions, but it also caused nearly everyone in Salt Lake City to call in sick for the day. From the moment we got on the road that leads up Little Cottonwood Canyon we were in a line of slow moving cars heading up to the ski area.

  

  Kathy seeking out the fresh snow at Alta

• Mar 9 Solitude, Utah
• Solitude got 7" of new snow on March 6, then another 3" or snow on March 8, so we there were some great conditions, and Solitude lived up to it's name. Despite the great ski conditions the area was largely empty with no lines at any of the chairs.

  

  loving all the untouched fresh snow at Solitude!

• Mar 11, 12 Snowbird, Utah
• Our first day at Snowbird the snow was a bit heavy, but we followed my brother's good friend Bob (who grew up skiing at Snowbird) around the mountain to all the best snow. The next day it was just our group and Alex, but it was quite a bit warmer and so the snow softened up all over the mountain making for great spring corn snow everywhere.

  

  skiing with my brother Alex and his friend Bob at Snowbird

• Mar 16, 17 Squaw Valley Ski Resort, California
• With the hopes of more snow we headed west to the Sierra Nevada's. We chose Squaw Valley because they allowed overnight camping in your RV (unlike most other ski resorts we visited). We enjoyed two amazing days of warm sun and incredible Spring corn snow. On both days, the mountain warmed up enough by 1pm that you couldn't find any ice anywhere.

  

  finding the steeps on KT-22 at Squaw Valley

  
  

• Mar 25, 26, 28 and 29 Timberline Lodge, Oregon

• Apri 1 Mount Bachelor, Oregon

Thanks to Sabrina and Jarred for introducing me to this piece of truly great music...