After leaving Crater Lake, we spent the night in Bend, OR. We stopped by Peterson's rock garden on our way to Madras, enjoying some beautiful views of the Cascades along the way. Tomorrow, we will ride to Golden Dale and meet up with Patients father who is riding his new motorcycle down so we can all ride back together. This will be my last post for this blog as I will probably hightail it back to Phoenix as soon as Patience is returned safely home.

We left Redding, and made our way to Crater Lake. It really is a beautiful deep blue lake. Patience spent a lot of time watching all of the little information displays in the visitors center.

We didn't get five miles out of town before we stopped for miniture golf and a little arcade fun.

That evening my sis decided to fix Patience hair before we went to dinner. I think she liked how it turned out.

We stopped to visit my sister in Granite Bay. She wasn't home yet so we passed the time reading another page of Huck Finn.

Patience climbed into this employee transport vehicle and said "look, I'm a miner" and I said "yep, till yer 21". She gave me a quizzical look.

The mine was a stamp mill operation and the display of machinery is quite impressive. It really wouldn't take all that much to get this place running again. Just a squirt of oil or two......

The reflecting pool and the gardens were beautiful.

After spending the night in Nevada City, we visited the Empire Mine. The owners of the mine had this cottage built there for when they visited.

We rode to Lake Tahoe today for the flying trapeze lesson. They told me to call them the day before the lesson and when I did, they informed me that things didn't work out this year at Squaw Valley. I told them I drove a long way to get that news. To salvage the day, we decided to take a cruise on the lake. We drove to the marina, walked down to the pier only to find out that they had cancelled the cruise. Later on, we rode to the motel that we had booked in Nevada City. I chose this hotel because they have a narrow gauge railroad. Well guess what, it isn't running today or tomorrow. Oh well, a new friend and this bungie rig almost saved the day.

Some of the early settlers to Virginia City.

The largest crystaline nugget ever found resides here in Murphy's California. What surprised me was it was found in 1996.

I think by the end of this trip she will be wearing all of the latest styles.

Frogs are a big thing here in Calaveras County.

A shortl little side trip included seeing Mark Twains cabin on Jackass Hill. It was here that he wrote the "Jumping frogs of Calaveras County".

They even had a bowling alley.

We took a stage coach ride that came with the traditional hold up as well as some of the history of the area.

We are visiting Columbia today. It is a very well preserved gold rush town that has been added to the California State Parks system. Patience is enjoying her first "Sasperilla"

All in all, we had a good time at Yosemite. I think Patience was able to get really close to nature on this trip.

I told her there would be climbers on El Capitan. This guy kept me from being a liar !

We got up early today (yeah right) and headed into the park where the views were spectacular as ever even though there was a little haze left from all of the fires in California.

We stayed the night just outside of the Yosemite NP gates. It was a tough decision whether to take a dip in the river or the hot tub. You'll figure out which one we chose.

We had lunch at Foster's Bighorn. Good food, but don't think it was from any of his kills.

We took a tour of the Jelly Belly jelly bean factory and even kept it motorcycle related.

I thought about letting her stay in this motel for awhile, but she didn't like the pool.

Then it was off to the Cable Car museum and hop a ride on one of the cars.

Those are the actual cable drives that power all of the cable cares in San Fran. At the end of the track, the car operators have to turn the car around on this turntable.

After riding down Lombard St, we went to Pier 39 to see the seals/sea lions (not sure which they were), and pick up the necessary San Fran sweatshirt.

We finally made it to San Francisco. Lots of people were here trying to get a picture of the GGB.

Our plan was to do all three drive thru trees. This is the only one we made it too.

There were some interesting trees here.

We arrived at The Trees of Mystery where my lumberjack granddaughter is not quite a match for Paul and Babe, at least not in size.