Day eleven - Needles California

^{From Visalia we contined south to Orange Grove RV Park at Bakersfield. A very well run park where you could pick your own oranges - up to a grocery bag full - which we did in about 15 minutes.
The next day we headed east and stopped for a coffee at Boron. One of the largest Borax mines in the world is located here. Who knows how much Boron or Borates are used in many products worldwide - glass for insulation, textile fiberglass, Pyrex, crystal, both liquid and powder detergents, bleaches, soaps, ceramics, enamels etc. etc. Here is a link to its health effects and benefits:http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-894-BORON.aspx?activeIngredientId=894&activeIngredientName=BORON
We stopped an Domingo's Mexican and Seafood restaurant in Boron and Domingo himself showed us the many pictures he had of astronauts and pilots from the nearby Edwards air base. We then visited an interesting air and space museum. They even had a picture of a Spitfire but the guide did not think that Spitfires had flown out of Edwards air base. We carried on East on Highway 40 and found a spot to stay two nights at Desert View RV Resort in Needles, California which is on the California / Arizona border. It has rained overnight but it is moderately warm 65 degrees F. To-morrow we will head for Lake Havasu City and have booked into Cat-tail Cove State Park for three nights. We will not have Wi-Fi during this time.}

History of California from 1825 onwards from Wikipedia

Starting about 1825 the Mission Indian population started decreasing rapidly, as Indian deaths far exceeded births. The various acquired diseases and abuse of the Mission Indian population caused them to decline from over 80,000 in 1820 to only a few thousand by 1846. This process was sped up when in 1834–1836 the Mexican government, responding to complaints that the Catholic Church owned too much land (over 90% of all settled land in California), secularized (dismantled) the Missions and essentially turned the Indians loose to survive on their own. Most of the Indians went from doing unpaid labor at the Missions to doing unpaid labor as servants in the pueblos or workers on the ranchos. Other Indians returned to small Indian settlements in the sparsely settled Central Valley and Sierra Mountains of California. As the Mission Indians rapidly declined in population and the Missions were dismantled, most of the agriculture, orchards, vineyards, etc. which had been raised by the Mission Indians rapidly declined. By 1850 the Hispanic (Spanish speaking) population had grown to about 9,000 with about 1,500-2,000 adult males. By 1846 there were about 2,000 emigrant non-Hispanics (nearly all adult men) with from 60,000 to 90,000 California Indians throughout the state. Beginning in about 1844 the California Trail was established and started bringing new settlers to California as its relative isolation started to break.
The Mexican–American War began in May 1846, and the few marines and bluejacket sailors of the Pacific Squadron and the California Battalion of volunteer militia had California under U. S. control by January 1847, as all the pueblos in California surrendered without firing a shot. In February 1848 the war was over, the 25 years of Mexican rule with over 40 different Mexican Presidents was over, and the boundary disputes with Texas and the territorial acquisition of what would become several new states were settled with a $15,000,000 payment agreed at the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
The California Gold Rush, beginning in January 1848, increased California's non Indian, non-Hispanic population to over 100,000 by 1850.This increased population and prosperity eventually led to the Congressional Compromise of 1850 which admitted California in 1850 as a free state—the 31st.

Day nine update

We are in a KOA camp site in Visalia, Southern California, near the Sequoia National Park. First time for internet for a few days. We have been taking our time and three nights ago we found a wonderful remote County Park called Westgate Landing near Lodi. We spent two nights there and were glad to wind down a little after the house clearing and first few days of this trip.  We were the only camper that had been to the Park since the beginning of the year. The site was behind one of the Levees which had been constructed in the Sacramento valley in the late 1800s to create large areas for agriculture. There were some great birds including Sandhill Cranes and white Egrets. The Levee was great for bike riding.
Now we will head along Highway 40 into Arizona with a view to visiting Lake Havasu and beyond.
Yours in pursuit of the Gypsy life,
Shaun, Penny and Lucy in "Lucy's Lair".

History of the Oregon Country

It was very interesting to visit the Willamette Heritage Center in Salem Oregon. The Methodist Missionaries first settled here in the 1830s having sailed around Cape Horn. 

Jason Lee was the first Missionary and was appointed by the Methodist Episcopal Church as a minister to the Indians. After about a year’s worth of fundraising and other preparations, Lee and four co-laborers (Cyrus Shepard, Courtney Walker, Philip Edwards, and nephew Daniel Lee) joined the second expedition of Nathaniel Wyeth when it left Independence, Missouri, for Oregon in April 1834. Following a journey of four and a half months, the Lee delegation arrived at Fort Vancouver on September 15, 1834. While originally sent to minister to the Flatheads, Lee found upon his arrival that “the real Flat Head Indians were few in number, and had no settled habitations.” Additionally, Dr. John McLoughlin, the Hudson’s Bay Co. (HBC) chief factor at the fort, recommended to the missionaries that they select a mission location close to Vancouver so that they could ensure protection in the event of an Indian attack. Accordingly, Lee decided to settle in Kalapuya country, about sixty miles south of Fort Vancouver, along the Willamette River, northwest of what is today the town of Brooks. Here, in fall 1834, the missionaries built a barn and the original mission house, which was used for schooling, church services, and“domestic purposes.” 

Some earlier history:

On November 18th 1805 the Lewis and Clark expedition arrived at the mouth of the Columbia river and established fort Clatsop.

David Thompson (for the North West Company)  explored the length of the Columbia River arriving at Fort Astoria in 1811.


Prior to 1810 the Oregon Country (otherwise known as the Columbia District) was occupied by British and French Canadian fur traders. It consisted of what is to-day British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and parts of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. 

In 1818 it was agreed that the Oregon Country would be shared between Britain and the United States.

In 1846 the Oregon treaty settled the dispute by establishing the 49th parallel as the boundary between British territory and the US.

The 1846 treaty was in part agreed because of the American settlement of the area and it appears that the Mission established by Jason Lee.

The museum and buildings brought alive this part of history. There is attached a museum of a wool mill that was established on the site.  

In 1859 Oregon became the 33rd US state.

An unusual event at lunch time on January 17th

We stopped for lunch and a rest at Woodburn, Oregon. We were trying to have a nap and then there was a lot of noise and voices and we found ourselves hemmed in by the US Army on manouvers - we felt very safe!

Victoria Harbour on January 16th 2013

This was the view of the Empress Hotel in Victoria Harbor as the homeless couple left on the Coho Ferry on January 16th!

We made it to Salem Oregon on Day Two of our travels

On Tuesday the movers took everything out of our house and are putting it in storage for three months. That evening we treated ourselves to dinner at Blighties Bistro on Oak Bay Avenue in Victoria. It was a much better meal than what we had experienced at Camille's on New Years Eve. Our bridge friends who have a tradition of meeting on NY Eve might consider Blighties in the future. 
After the dinner, we met many friends and listened to a great presentation titled "Glaciers, Grizzlies and Gumboots - three summers in SE Alaska by Tricia and Jim Bowen - the monthly meeting of the Bluewater Cruising Association. http://www.bluewatercruising.org/. Having been twice to SE Alaska on Polyandra this talk reinforced the idea of a third voyage - perhaps in 2014. The round trip from Victoria is at least 3500 NM and takes at least three months.
That evening we slept in the RV in the driveway! On Wednesday we completed the cleaning of the house and then went aboard the Coho ferry at 4 pm to Port Angeles in Washington State.
The Victoria Harbor looked splendid in the evening sun and the one and a half hour crossing (the same time it takes to cross the English Channel) was amazingly calm. 
We had supper at the Corner House Diner in Port Angeles (great seafood) and then did something that we had heard many RVers do - we spent the night in the Walmart parking lot (for free of course). It served the purpose and we left at 6 am this morning heading south via Olympia and Portland to Salem Oregon. As soon as we reached Oregon the foggy, cool weather cleared and it has been a very pleasant sunny afternoon after we checked into an RV park here in Salem. (Phoenix RV Park).

The technologies of RVing to-day.

I am sure we are not as technically fluent in to-day's world as some but it amazes me how technology and electronic communications will be assisting us in our RV travels for the next three months.

Firstly there will be weather forecasting and web cams. We are four days away from leaving and I can view the web cams on Interstate Highway 5 at Grant's pass - the pass between Oregon and California where we encountered a snow storm when we went to Disneyland with the family in the 1970s. At that time we had to drive out to the coast road to avoid the pass but our friends the Stott's who were travelling with us and were ahead of us were stuck in a snowdrift for several hours.

We will be able to connect to the internet to read news and Emails several times a day if needed because coffee shops along the route usually have Wi-Fi. This will not be the case when we are in remote "dry camping" sites in the desert in Arizona and New Mexico.  However we have to empty the holding tanks after a few days so that will mean going somewhere where we can connect.

When at a "dry camping" site we have a gas powered Honda generator (that I also use on the boat) that will provide us with 110V so that we can watch DVD's in the wilderness. (Another episode of Downton Abbey?!)

Other technologies on board include a TomTom GPS navigator. We found this invaluable last summer for finding addresses. One remarkable experience was finding our way through New Jersey to the RV site from where we could see the Statue of Liberty and from where we were a ten minute ferry ride to Manhattan Island.

Instead of carrying CD's to listen to while travelling we have many of them on an IPod which we can play through the RVs radio.  Talking books are great when underway. One particular one "The Anglo Files : a field guide to the British" by Sarah Lyall we particularly enjoyed and plan to listen to it again. Sarah Lyall was a journalist who used to write for a New York newspaper and married an Englishman and then moved to England. She very humorously describes many English habits, behaviors and customs that she had to adapt to. 

We will be taking less books because I have some on an IPad. Penny however still prefers hard backs.

I also now have a lap-top Mac Book Pro that I acquired as a family hand me down and will enjoy using that for writing and for internet access.

A year ago Penny was given her own IPad2 by the family when they moved to Ottawa. She has had this in the kitchen and she talks to the Grandchildren in Ottawa several times a week via Apple's Facetime (which is Apple's version of Skype).  Whether we can do this from the RV remains to be seen. Sometimes we have found that Wi-Fi connections in RV sites are slow and do not permit easy video communications.

Of course the RV itself has all sorts of technical things that need attention - a fridge and deep freeze that run on 110V and Propane, hot water heater that runs on 110V and propane, a Propane heater, Propane stove and oven, a microwave that only runs on 110V etc. 

You have to enjoy maintaining this sort of stuff if you are going RVing (or boating!). For me I call it "Occupational Therapy".

Getting ready to leave

We will probably leave in five days time on the ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles in Washington State.

It has been somewhat stressful but for relaxation we have been watching again the first and second series of Downton Abbey. We wanted to view them again before watching series three which has just started airing in North America. We will have to wait till we get home in April to watch series three which we have purchased from BBC America.

Why is Downton so enjoyable? Firstly the plots created within the series by Julian Fellowes are superb. The scenery of course is spectacular and reminds one so much of a lot of British History. The actors of which there are about 20 each have such unique characters which are so well played. The dramatisation of human interactions both "upstairs" and "dowstairs" seems so true to life. One can see it in to-day's social interactions without the label of being "upstairs" or "downstairs". And then there is of course Maggie Smith, the Dowager Duchess who says things which no-one else could say!

Selling ones house of 21 years, downsizing and getting rid of a lot of stuff, having the movers coming in the day before we leave to take all the boxes we have filled and put them in storage for nearly three months has taken a lot of time. Then there is all the legal and banking stuff to be looked after.

However five days before departure we think we are ready. There is of course quite a lot of last minute packing to do.

We will be well connected by cell phone, by Email and by postings on this Blog for the next three months although if we are out in the desert in Arizona or New Mexico we may be out of contact for up to a week. We will be leading a vagrant, nomadic, Gypsy life!

Who knows were our travels will take us but we are aiming for Southern California, Arizona and New Mexico.

To-night it is forecast to b -2C in Victoria and +3C to-morrow. We will be heading south until we find warmer weather!