RECONNECTING….

I grew up in Freeport IL, where I was an orphan along with my 3 other brothers.  When I was six years old, I was adopted and lived with loving parents that took good care of me.  I knew of my other brothers and were told that they too eventually were adopted out.

Growing up I often wondered about my biological family.  What were my “real” parents like?  Do I look like any of them?  Do I have any other biological brothers or sisters and where were my Brothers?

In my teen age years I learned a little more about my 3 brothers.  One of them was fostered out and lived right there in Freeport while the other two were adopted and lived close by in the city of Rockford.  I finally got to meet my one brother, Randy.

As I got older and moved to Sioux Falls SD, Randy would call me and come for visits.  He also helped out on a few occasions…He would drive all the way to Sioux Falls, just to bring me back to Freeport so that I could visit my adopted parents, and then turn around and bring me back to Sioux Falls again…Randy with my oldest daughter, Becky

One day he called and said that he had found our biological mother and that we had two other sisters as well. Before I knew it I was united with my brothers and sisters…

  Randy and my other brother DannyDuane another Brother

My Younger sister, Kenna and me

My beautiful sister, Kay

Shortly after that visit, my sisters came for yet another visit, bringing along my biological mother.  It was an awkward moment, but one I will never forget…

I came to a point in my life that even though I wanted to know my biological family, I felt some kind of loyalty to those that adopted me and knew this would upset them greatly.  So at that point in my life-I lost all contact with my sisters and brothers.  Occasionally I would see Randy and we would have short visits-but yet I needed to get my own life in order and didn’t want the extra drama at that time. 

So I have let years and years go by…..

Recently I have had the time to do some serious soul searching.  With both of my adopted parents gone now and having the feeling of lost of family connection in my life, I decided to reconnect with Randy and two of my sisters once again.

Wow!  How the years have changed all of us!  Each of us have gone our own ways and raised beautiful children.  Kay and I are both grandparents while Kenna still has two daughters home with her yet.  And Randy, well, Randy will always be Randy and special in my heart.  He too has a son that has grown into what appears a fine looking young man. 

I did learn that we lost one of our brothers, Danny and that sadden my heart.  My biological mother is still going strong at the age of 75 and goes to South Padre Island in the winter time.  I haven’t communicate just yet with her, but in time I will.

I can’t wait to the day comes that we can be face to face and reunite once again.  But for now we will communicate via phone and FB!

I have learned to forgive the past and live for the present…..

LIVING OFF THE GRID

(NOTE:  This is an exceptionally LONG blog-so sit back and enjoy my story)

For well over a month and a half now we have lived nearly off the grid.  Cell phone and internet connection has been impossible to find.  Oh it was out there and could be found if one truly wanted it.  But we choose not to seek either of them out-for the most part.  So how did we do?

I find that I could easily go without cell phone and internet.  Brian I think missed it a bit more than I did.  He likes to check the weather on a daily basis.

Being off the grid meant that I lost all communication with my Facebook friends and family, and at one point we even forgot to take the time to check in with our daughter, Lissi. 

During this time it gave us the opportunity to do some serious soul searching and some looking back at our past.  It allowed me to decide whether I wanted to keep the connection going with Facebook and continue with my blogging.  At one point I think I was eager to give both up, it was sort of nice not worrying about finding that 3G Verizon tower to get connected or a Wi-Fi service.  But that wouldn’t be fair for those few that do follow us both on Facebook and through my blogging-so here I am-back at it again, and I have to honestly say: I do miss being connected with ALL of our Facebook Friends and Family after all!!

So here is what and where we have been during our time of “Living Of The Grid”:

After leaving Bass Lake and going in for some minor warranty work on our rig, we took this time and drove over to see the Golden Gate Bridge.  Now how can one say they  are touring California and not make a stop there?  So we did just that.  It was a fast track trip there and back with just the truck (leaving Leah back in a nice comfy environment).  It reminded me how much I hate city life and driving through the cities was pure crazy.  But worth the stop non-the-less. 

It was a foggy morning and a bit on the chilly side.  Leaving the 90+ degree behind, we forgot to grab our sweatshirt.  So here we are in shorts and shirt and one long sleeve shirt, freezing our fannies off, and yet very determined to walk the mile long bridge from one end to the other and back again.

        

The fog did lift a bit at times, allowing me to shoot some pictures of San Francisco and Alcatraz and Angels Island.

 

Thank goodness for Ms. Garmin in her help in getting me through San Francisco!  What a confusing city it is!  Again I’m in total awe with how the streets and homes are built!  We saw a garbage truck that appeared to almost be on his nose-literally! 

 

After all that, we was totally ready to head out now to the boondocks and live off that grid!  We now headed towards Westport-Union State Beach.  We both wanted to spend time on the ocean and walk the beaches.

We had the most perfect campsite one could possibly ask for.  Our door faced the ocean and we had the constant sound of the waves hitting down below us.  Out of the 13 days we stayed there, I think less than half of it was fogged in.  But we did manage to have some nice sunny days.

There was only a short section of beach that we could actually walk on.  During low tides, one could walk about a mile, but only at low tide.  Only time the tide would be low enough to get around some very large rocks and boulders was early morning.  So one morning, we got up and did just that. 

I love exploring the tide pools and looking at the sea urchins that come in during this low tide. 

 

We did at one point had to decide if we wanted to turn back around, or continue on.  We got ourselves into literally piles and piles of soft kelp!  It stunk to high heaven and was gushy under our feet!  But turning around at this time really wasn’t the best idea, for the tides were already starting to come in and we didn’t’ think we could get around the large boulders.  So we plugged our nose and went for it-yuck!!

Each morning and evening we would walk with Leah a portion of old Hwy One that runs through the State Beach.  This section of what once use to be Hwy One, has literally fallen off into the ocean-mainly due to extreme high tides (winter months) and surprisingly little due to earthquakes.  Part of Hwy One had to be re-routed inland to keep it from all falling into the Pacific Ocean.  This walk was always peaceful and very enjoyable.

 

And of course the one and only morning, our last day there, we decided not to take Leah for her usual morning walk and headed into Fort Braggs to do our laundry and grocery shopping.  As I’m driving along, we notice something brown on the path that we normally took, at second glance and quickly pulling the truck over we realized it was a bear!

We watched him as he climbed the fence post as if it was nothing, heading behind our truck, taking his sweat time, he stops in the middle of the road, looking at me-deciding if I was interesting or not, I see from afar a car coming, so I start yelling at him and off he runs into the high grass and towards the nearby mountains.  One time I didn’t have the camera, and of course the phone cell phone wasn’t up (it takes 3 minutes for our cell phone to start up!). 

The best part of this particular campground was not only watching the ocean, but the sunsets that we did mange to get!

Now onto our next destination:  We were going to head into Kings Canyon Range, but soon discovered that we would not fit and they only allowed RV’s under 24 feet only.  Disappointing us greatly, and not knowing which direction to head-we again had to find what our next move would be.  At this time we choose to go deep into no man land: Six Rivers National Forest.  Here is literally “Living Of The Grid”!  No big towns nearby, no close neighbors parked on top of you, nothing but pure nature and serenity. (don’t ask how we came upon this-but we did and loved it).

Our first stop into Six Rivers National Forest is Aikens Creek.  Upon arrival, the campsites didn’t look to be used much and not sure if we would like it here or not.  But after parking and then walking farther back in we found us a nice secluded huge area to park.  We had the campground basically all to ourselves for the most part and what was really nice-no one could park near or on top of us.  And what a view we had from all directions!

 

At times it did feel a bit eerie, being the only ones back there.  We weren’t sure if we would feel comfortable being all by ourselves, with an occasional vehicle driving through to head down to the Klamath River to fish, but we stuck it out.  As we explored, we found yet another campground just across the road from us.  We would take Leah for daily walks over there and back. 

We became fast friends with the lonely camp host at E-Nu-Nuck.  We would have moved over to that campground-but all the sites were completely shaded and where we were at, our solar worked great.  As the friendship grew, we soon were taking supper meals with him, and let me tell you-the man could cook!  Being in Salmon country-we enjoyed meals like fried salmon, clam salmon soup, and just plain smoked salmon.  On a few occasion-I did the cooking while Brian and John played cards.

Every Saturday he made his specialty- Chili Verde with beans and topping it off with a good Marguerita (or two).  Any campers in the campground all was invited.

While here we learned the history of Aikens Creek.  There is a portion of the campground that is completely been closed off.  And what I mean by closed off, is they literally took and built a huge berm, and then the gate so that no one can get back there-unless on foot.  Apparently many years ago, the local native Americans discovered a cave just adjacent to this part of the campground and found some artifacts.  They wanted the campground shut down to save this sacred part of the land.  Well, the head ranger in charge at the time was married to a local Native woman, and instead of going through proper channels and procedure, he took it upon himself to close the campground completely down.  This causing a ruckus among both locals and the fisherman that loved to come here-he retired and that portion of the campground would remain closed. 

So as we explored what once use to be a really nice campground-is now run by skunk and other wildlife.  In fact that skunk let us know that he was still in charge of the area by leaving his lovely fragrance one wee hour of the morning.

Also while there, we got a very unusual 4 days of heavy clouds and rain.  By that 4th day and going stir crazy-we decided to take a drive; ending over a 100 miles away to Redding, CA.  We went from being cold and wet, to hot and sticky.  It gave us a chance to see what Whiskey-Town was like for that was going to a stop down the road-eventually.

As the days went by, it started to heat up.  Being out in the sun was great for the solar, but getting too toasty with little shade upon us.  As much as we did enjoy the camp host, John, we also notice that we were putting on weight-that we didn’t need.  It was time to move on….

Next stop is still in the Six Rivers National Forest, but now closer to the small town of Willow Creek.  This campground is now called Boise Creek and is much more civilized.  The sites are defined with a camp host on premises.  We found a wonderful site with a huge area.  The temps are still toasty-but with lots of shade it was tolerable.  The downfall to it all was that we were right off of Hwy 299 and we could hear the constant roar of the vehicles and the J-Brakes of the semis. 

Taking a drive the next day, we discovered another campground just a few miles up the road that actually would accommodate our rig.  and the best part-it was farther off the Hwy so we didn’t hear the traffic.  It was no brainer-we moved to East Fork Campground and stayed there for another 13 days. 

This campground was very rustic in comparison to Boise Creek and although there were campers-no one was piled on top of another and we all lived in unison of each other.

As the temps were reaching into the upper 90’s six miles away in the town of Willow Creek, we stayed mainly in the 80’s with shade.  The solar would get a few hours of mid morning sun but by afternoon (when it was the hottest), we would be in all shade with a nice breeze.  We would go to bed at night with the sound of the creek running very close to our site. 

Once again we got to meet the camp host and soon became friends.  They are in the process of building their dream home just out of  the town of Willow Creek.  They took us to their property where she has a garden going.  It was nice that they shared their dream with us.

Oh, and did I mention all the time that we were spending here in the Six Rivers National Forest that we are also in Big Foot (Sasquatch) country?  No, never heard their calls at night, nor did we find a foot print-other than at the museum.

                     

So now it’s time to get back to civilization and our next destination into the Redwoods National Park; where we have reservations. 

We did enjoy living off that grid-with no worries or much to care about.  As I mention earlier-we could have found that internet connection-it was out there.  But it was also nice not firing up the computer all the time and living with all the electronics that we so much seem to depend on these days.  It makes one do appreciate for what they do have…..