Kristin Laura

When we arrived at our camp site yesterday, I thought “oh how pretty and secluded, look at all the beautiful ferns”.  Who was I kidding?  It is creepy.  It’s all dark and damp  and slimy vines hang from the trees and there are scary sounds coming from the bushes.  I’m just waiting for the twang of banjo notes. Shawn wasn’t feeling well, but I wanted to see the sun set over the ocean so I decide to venture out on my own at 6:15 PM.  The campground is dark and over grown.  Little paths veer off the road forming black tunnels of wet.  Ominous sounds from the gently rustling bushes make me fear a mountain lion will pounce at any moment.  I doubt clapping my hands and yelling “scat” will have the same effect on the mountain lion as it does on the neighbor’s cat who skulks through my backyard daily.  I reach the deserted parking lot where the wind is making the bathroom door creak reminiscent of a haunted house.  I consider turning ...

For my birthday last month, my 4-year old grandson, Malcolm, gave me a dinosaur.  He is about 3 inches tall and named Steve.  We usually see Malcolm a few times a week, so two weeks without seems like a long time.  I decided to bring Steve along on vacation so that we could share our adventures with Malcolm via texts and Snapchats.  Hence Steve’s debut in the blog today. It was a beautiful, clear, sunny morning at Patrick’s Point today.  We started out the day with a walk along Agate beach.  Not even the tsunami warning sign could deter us from our beach stroll.  It was an easy trail down to the beach, but I knew at some point I would have to hike back up the cliff.  The beach is covered with tiny to medium, polished rocks and drift wood.  Steve enjoyed collecting rocks, playing in the surf and running from seagulls. In the afternoon, we drove south to Trinidad and Arcata (home of Humboldt State).  Our first lucky find...

Everyone camps differently.  We used to be that family that tent camped, but we brought a lot of stuff to keep us comfortable and amused.  Now all that stuff is neatly tucked away in our camper.  At the Benbow KOA we had the extremes of camping on each side of us.  On one side were two couples crammed into an r-pod and a tiny tent; on the other side a class-A motorhome (you know the ones that look like buses) towing a full size truck.  The bus driver and his wife along with his brother-in-law had been traveling cross country for six weeks starting out in their home state of Florida.  He said he was too old for tent camping and was enjoying the comforts his RV offered, like heating and air.  He had done enough tent camping in his youth with his parents and nine siblings (5 boys and 5 girls).  I asked how his parents managed to take that many kids camping and he said they had a DeSoto and a station wagon. Today we travelled about 100 miles ...

We are going on our first real trip (not a BBQ competition) in our fifth wheel.  Fourteen days traveling from Sacramento up the coast through Northern California and Oregon over to Portland and then back home down I-5.  Being from Northern California, I do not refer to it as "The 5".  Packing for an RV trip is definitely different than packing for a month in New Zealand.  For the NZ trip I was very particular about what I brought.  Everything needed to serve multiple purposes.  For this trip I haphazardly threw things into the RV.  Six pairs of shoes?  Why not?  Three jackets: rain, warm and cute. Today is our longest day of driving: 234 miles from Sacramento to Garberville, CA.  We started out this morning full of excitement, only to hit traffic within 20 miles of home.  It turns out that when people are driving along the freeway and they see a sign for "Guinness Book of Records World's Largest Corn Maze" they must slow and ...