Coarsegold, California

We are now at SKP Park Sierra in Coarsegold, California where we plan to stay a month as long as the weather cooperates. So far it has been great with cool nights and sunny days with temps near 70. Our stay did not start off very well as after three days we were told the owners of the lot were returning and we would need to move. During the move I backed into a tree and cracked the rear cap of the motorhome so we will need to find a body shop to repair the damage and have it painted. Needless to say we were totally bummed:( All that said, this is a very nice park located about thirty miles from Yosemite. There are over five miles of internal hilly roads that are a great workout while walking. It is a great place to watch the wildlife with hundreds of birds and squirrels and even a few tarantulas. It must be a paradise for woodpeckers because they are everywhere.

BUMMER :( :( :( :(
Some of the critters we have seen and a tree with woodpecker holes with acorns stuffed into them.
We went to the Tarantula Festival that is a celebration of this local favorite. They had all the usual festival food, vendors and entertainment. There was one booth with a display of these creepy crawlers where they are trying to raise public awareness of how beneficial and harmless they are. I even got to let one crawl on my arm, but Nanc passed.

As you know we celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary while here and we thank you all for happy wishes. We had a wonderful home cooked meal of our favorite, linguine with clam sauce. This is the second year in a row we have stayed home to celebrate rather than going out for a fancy dinner. One of the great things about this lifestyle for me is getting to enjoy more of Nanc's cooking. She has always been a wonderful cook, but when we were working we ate out every day because it just took too much time to prepare a meal when getting home so late.

We went to Sierra National Forest to hike in the foothills. It was over eight miles and we only saw a couple people the entire time. The trail and old fire road lead to a fire tower that offered beautiful views of the surrounding mountains, lake and forest. Being in places during the off season gives us a chance to escape the crowds and enjoy nature.

Bass Lake in the Sierra foothills.

In Oakhurst we saw the teabag party bus on there cross country trip to take the country back to the 18th century. After taking the picture I did a u-turn and parked in front of them and blew the horn so they would see my Obama sticker. If I had remembered we still had our health care protest signs in the car we would have done a little on the spot demonstration. On Saturday I drove Nanc crazy by switching between football games and the House debate on C-SPAN as the Democrats passed the much needed health care legislation. This is only one step in the much needed left direction.