We left Hacienda Heights on Wednesday, July 26th and drove to Stockton.  We spent Thursday out on the Sacramento Delta, putting about 60 miles on our boats. Lots of channels and areas of very rough water, at least it was warm! The GPS was invaluable, although it didn’t show us the route at least it showed us the direction and distance from the launch ramp.

Friday we drove to Chico and visited Mike and Meg Kaliczak and their friend, Bobbi visiting  from Canyon Country..  They fixed a great barbacue dinner and surprised Pete afterwards with a birthday cake.  They had not obtained the necessary fire permit, so the candles were limited to less than his age, way less.

Saturday was our introduction to Lake Oroville, what a place!  Mike and Meg took their boat and Rick and Holly Graham came down from Redding with theirs. The marine radio that Pete has on his life vest came in handy to communicate with Mike and Rick.

Sunday we went out to a different area of Lake Oroville. We saw a very large marina full of houseboats and even a floating campsite that can be rented for stays at (on?) the lake.

Monday we drove up to Redding and visited the Sundial Bridge.  Tuesday was spent exploring a small portion of Lake Shasta.  Another neat, warm, lake. We stopped at a marina on the lake for lunch.

Wednesday we drove to Medford, Oregon to visit Kerry and Sheri Provancha.  Kerry is an old ham friend of Pete’s from Santa Barbara. We enjoyed a nice dinner out with them and met their two Schipperke dogs and saw some really neat clocks that Kerry built from scratch.

Thursday we drove up to Salem, Oregon and took Pete’s sister, Cathy, out for a belated birthday celebration.  Friday we took her for her first Sea Doo ride out on the very cold (68 degree water) Willamette River that runs through Salem.

Also Friday we drove back down through Eugene trying to find Pete’s high school friend, Zall, who was due back from Italy the day before.  With no answer from Zall, we headed to the coast at Florence. We visited the Sea Lion caves just north of Florence (take a elevator down 200 feet to the side of the cave).

Saturday we drove down the Oregon coast and stopped at the wild animal park, petting zoo.  We then drove to Eureka for the night.

Sunday we headed down California, stopping to see the Redwoods on the Redwood Highway then hit heavy traffic at Santa Rosa.  We stopped there for the night and did our laundry (which had been piling up).

Monday we stayed on highway 101 over the Golden Gate Bridge and through downtown San Francisco. We boated on Lake Naciemento near Paso Robles and Pete’s friend from San Luis Obispo, Pete Lawn joined us for his first PWC ride. We had dinner with Pete at a rib place in Paso Robles (our table was in a jail cell (guess they thought we might stiff them for the bill).

Tuesday we drove to Buellton where we had a good visit with Margie Withrow, Pete’s long time friend. A required stop was made to give our donation to the slot machines at Solvang’s Indian Casino was made in the afternoon.   We had dinner with Katie’s friends Ned and Linda Oakly at the Firestone brewery.

Wednesday we drove to Santa Barbara and took Katie’s parents to the Brown Pelican beach restaurant to celebrate her father’s birthday. We then drove to Simi Valley where we visited Liberty and two month old Trevor.

At 6 PM Wednesday, we arrived back home to Mr. Beau, the dog, who was doing much better thanks to care from the Naysmyth’s and Laura.

Click on pictures at the left to see some of our travels