The trail, next to the river, was lined with berry bushes. The berries are ripe this time of year and they taste very good. I found that I had walked from one side of the campground on past the other side, so I figured I probably should get back to our motorhome and finish with the preparations to break camp.

We were on the road shortly after 8 o’clock this morning with Harry in the lead followed by Wally. I fell in behind Wally with Tom taking the last position in our caravan. We drove a few miles to a truck stop, near Exit 24, to refuel our vehicles. This is the place where Tom caught up with us last year after he had been left behind by our caravan in Canyonville. After leaving the truck stop it was a short distance to California.

Smokey haze from California fire

Along the way I took pictures while I was driving. The scenery on this route is always pretty. Since we left camp this morning, the scenery has been covered with a haze of smoke; the result of forest fires in Northern California. As we traveled south, Mt. Shasta began to grow in the distance. We really had to get close, this trip, before I could see the details of the structure of the mountain because of the thick veil of smoke.

Mt. Shasta obscured by smoke

When we were close enough to see the mountain details, our view was obscured by a close in ridge. This was the case for a while, then suddenly the Mt. Shasta was off to our left side. It took driving down the Interstate for some distance for the mountain to show up in the rearview mirror.

I'm talking to Tom as we travel

Tom called on the CB radio to make arrangements to have lunch at the next Roadside Rest Area. Harry was far enough ahead of us that he was out of range of Tom’s CB, so apparently he didn’t hear all of Tom’s message. When we finally arrived at the rest area, Harry wasn't there. Wally thought that Harry might have missed the turn-off and was going to come back to where we were, but Harry never showed up.

Bridge over arm of Lake Shasta

In the rest area parking lot, we saw a collection of 18-wheelers and RVs. One of the RVs was a trailer with two United States maps on the side; the type of map people use to show how many states they have visited. One of the maps first appeared to be completely filled while the other map was only partly full. It looked as if the trailer was on its second trip around the country. I called Tom's attention to the maps, so he asked the owner about the maps.

The owner said that one map was minus only North Dakota and the map represented all the states he and his wife had ever visited. The other map was all the states visited this year. The states filled in, on the second map, roughly formed a kind of circular pattern around the United States with the no states in the middle of the country. Of course this map also was missing North Dakota.

On the back of the trailer were several bumper stickers, many of them funny. One such humorous bumper sticker that stuck in my mind read as follows: "Visualize Whirled Peas." Think about it.

The six of us put together lunches and ate together at a picnic table under a cover that provided relief from the glare of the sun. A small cloud of buzzing yellow jackets looking for a handout visited us. Nora put a small piece of sacrificial meat at one end of the table. It worked fairly well; many of the pests went for the meat leaving us alone.

After lunch, we said our good-byes to Wally and Cathie because they would be leaving us down the road before we would stop again. While driving down I-5, I drove by the next Roadside Rest Area. As we passed by we all looked for Harry and Shirley's motorhome, but it wasn’t there. Wally called on the CB radio with no response. After another twenty-some miles, we again came across another rest area and there was Harry and Shirley’s motorhome. We saw it after we had already passed the exit to the rest area, so we continued on our way.

I was in the lead ahead of Tom as we drove south on I-5. Tom likes to ride quite a way back from the motorhome he is following. Shortly after passing the Campers Inn at Dunnigan, I turned on the radio to get the traffic report for I-80. This distracted me and I drove right by our turnoff to I-505. At the same time, Tom was trying to pass a car in time to be able to turnoff on I-505. He just made it in time; when he looked ahead, he didn’t see our motorhome. So, he called on the CB radio and that was when I realized that I missed my turnoff. So I had to continue on down I-5 to Highway 113 to cut over to I-80 at Davis, California. This meant Tom would be too far ahead of us for me to be able to catch up with Tom and Nora.

When we finally reached 113, I turned off I-5 and headed south through farm fields and vineyards. A short distance down the road, we saw three fire trucks up on an overpass. Smoke was coming from burning grass around the overpass as well as from the other side. When we finally got to the other side of the overpass, we could see the source of a lot of the smoke.

A semi-trailer was parked up on the on-ramp to 113, with a load of burning bales of old newspapers. Firemen with fire hoses had beaten down the flames. There were a couple of firemen pouring water on some burning grass as well as the bales of paper. The driver of the tractor-trailer rig had enough time to disconnect the tractor from the semi-trailer and move the tractor to a safe distance from the burning trailer.

It looked as if the cargo caught fire while on the highway. The driver must have discovered the fire and drove off the freeway up to the overpass. (When I told this story to Tom later, he said the driver probably tossed a cigarette out the window of the truck. The wind blew the burning butt into the paper cargo and a fire resulted.)

When we reached I-80, I drove a few miles before I stopped to refuel our motorhome. With motorhome’s tank full, we were on our way to deliver the boat we were towing to Tom and Nora’s house. It would be a bit more difficult because we did not know how to get to Tom and Nora’s house from I-680. So, when I was driving on I-680, I continued on to I-580 where I turned toward the Bay Area. I turned off I-580 at the Hayward exit and drove in the general direction of Tom and Nora's house. I was going to see if I could drive until I recognized a street name or landmark. I was disappointed to find that the first big street did not have a street name sign on any corner.

So I continued on to the next really busy street and again, there were no street signs. I turned onto the street anyway because it "felt" as if it was going in the correct direction. Then Kay noticed a railroad track on our GPS receiver. Once I saw the tracks on the GPS receiver (I never really saw the railroad tracks), I knew approximately where we were. So I kept going in the same direction. A few blocks down I found that we were on Mission Street. Then I saw an intersecting street I recognized; I then knew how to find Tom and Nora’s house. It then took only a few minutes to get to their place to deliver the boat.

When we arrived, Tom was unloading his cargo of fresh crabs. He said they had been there for only 15 or 20 minutes. So we disconnected the boat from our motorhome and Tom, Nora, and I rolled the boat trailer down the driveway to the boat's parking place.

Sunset as seen from our front yard