Testing the New Cart

 

The morning broke bright and early. With a tee time of 9:39 there was time for coffee and Barb and I ventured to Peete's for some brew.

We ran into a coffee friend we have not seen since the lock down. He is Vietnamese and it allows me to practice my two words of Vietnamese. “Sin Chow!” is hello, it's different for a gal, so be careful!

It was cool and it's house painting week at the casa, so we parked off the block. I had packed the new push cart in the GTI and I loaded my clubs into the boot yesterday. At 8:30 I drove off to Calippi, which seems to be some sort of butterfly. I got a good parking place and pulled out the cart, unfolded it, placed my bag on it, attached straps, and off to the chipping area I went.

On the way, I had a couple of curbs to negotiate. That showed up some problems with my cart setup. Basically I needed to tighten a knob, which controlled the main handle position. The joints in the cart have modest teeth and when tightened create a mechanical lock to hold the front wheel and handle in place. But if the grip is not tight enough the cart will change orientation and you can feel and hear the clicking as the teeth slide over each other.

It was a warm day and by the time the round was over the car suggested it was 95 degrees. There was a modest breeze all day and it didn't feel too warm. Oh, I was sweating through my shirt and huffing and puffing up some of the hills, but it always seemed that it could have been worse.

There were a couple of things that I'm going to look into. The cart has a bit of a hook to it. It likes to run to the left at all times. This is not too much trouble, but it caught my attention all the time. Maybe there is a shim or something I can adjust to fix this.

Also the brake adjustment wasn't enough to hold the cart on some of the hills. I thought it wasn't working at all, but it will hold, just not enough. I'm not sure if the cable has stretched or I never had it tight enough. I'll tighten the cable and see what happens. The the problem that might arise is that the brake pads might drag and make it harder to push.

Speaking of pushing effort, I was surprised how much energy it took to move the cart along. A modest down hill is best, but too much and the cart will pull you along. On the flat it's not too bad, but it's pushing three wheels through wet, lush grass. Up hill was a workout, see huffing and puffing above. I looked for short cuts where I could leave the cart for the next hole and not go down hill then back up.

When the smoke cleared, I was very happy to have the cart. My back was sore all day and if I had to lift the bag 150 times or so, I would have been hurting a lot. I'm feeling ok right now, it's about an hour after we finished and I had a beer at the course and I'm working on a hard seltzer water now. But there seems to be little long lasting physical wear and tear. I probably won't know until tomorrow.

Thanks again to R2 for the cart1 I think I can give it some new life and few additional miles on various courses.

On Pins and Needles

I went off to the diving range to test the new swing changes.

I have great hope for this change, which was to get my hands over my shoulder where they should have been the last twenty years.  I was careful as I had some leg issues with my left leg.  It was feeling a weak as if the nerves were not firing properly.  The strength didn't feel that it was there and my tendency was to roll over the left foot.  That's not a good feeling.  I didn't hit golf balls for a week so that the issue went away..


So I wander to the range yesterday afternoon.  I spent some time chipping, which is normal for me.  If you can't hit a pitch, then you can't hit a full shot.  It's a good life motto and I've been using it for a while.  The pitching went well and even that type of shot allows me to practice getting hands on the proper plane. 

A guy on the hitting line leaves and he has left some golf balls to hit.  I'd not gotten a bucket already as I wanted to see how the pitching was going to go.  As it went well, I grabbed my bag of weapons and dashed over to claim the abandoned golf balls.  There were about six or so, but I scampered on the range to collect a couple of balls that had not been hit very far.  I don't feel that this is cheating the range too much as I feel I'm moving the balls out to an area of the range that allows for easier pickup.  So I'm really helping the range out, :-).

Normally I start with the 9 iron, then 6, then 3 wood, drop back to a sand wedge, then finish with the driver.  With just a few balls, I will normally skip the driver.  The new hand position is working well and I'm getting speed, direction, and solidity of strike.  It can't get better than this!  The 3 wood has a new sound to it.  It was not clear that the balls were going a lot further, but I was really happy with the strikes.

Being careful of the left leg, I was happy to cut the session short and start back to the car.  Then I started to get a shooting, sparkling pain in my right big toe.  It is really painful and I have to stop a couple of times as I limp back to the car.  This is not fun and I'm a little worried about what it is.  Diabetes is supposed to create this kind of pain.  I consider gout too, but I think that's supposed to be in the joint and my pain is running up the bottom of the toe.  I can't suspect diabetes either as I've had so few carbs the last six months.

I get home, the driving wasn't too bad.  I've settled in my recliner and am about to put in a busy afternoon nap, which I feel I've earned at this point.  But I get up to get some water.  It's about 89 out and I've had two sweaty sessions between the golf and two hours of pickleball in the morning.  As I get out of the chair, the pain fires anew.  I mention it to Barb who is working in the recliner next to mine.  I tell her about the pains and how sharp they are and what it might mean.  I collapse into one of the kitchen table chairs and take off my shoe.  I'm expecting a very red, unhappy toe.  But what I find is a two inch sewing pin stuck into my big toe.  A pin that Barb dropped on the floor while doing her sewing, didn't find and I picked up in a sock as I was putting on my shoes.  One of the things that gives me the willies is the thought of a needle going into my foot. 

With the pin pulled out the pain was gone.  The fears of gout subsided.  I glared at Barb a bit.  Relief from multiple fronts came together.  I got my drink.  Went back to my recliner and napped the nap of the recently alarmed, but now recovered. 

Fort Bragg wrapup

I realized that I've not described the motor home and campground we were using.  So let me do that.

In the first picture we have our car and the motor home behind it.  Note the tall pines that border the MH.  That's where the squirrel was munching and dropping stuff on the roof.

This is Barb looking out the door.  It has a screen and everything.  The length is 19 long and then there are the pop out pieces that you can see on the rear.  The pop outs are also on both sides.  The pop out gives you about three feet per pop out.  The kitchen and living area expand about 6 feet sideways and the sleeping area, in the back, bumps out about three feet. It's roomy inside.  It's a lot like a boat in that all the upholstery is heavy vinyl.  Some of the cushions are cloth.  With the damp cool weather, it never felt wonderfully comfortable.  It needed more areas to stretch out.  We would fight for the couch, the loser would end up at the kitchen table, which required better posture than I have.

 

Note grill and picnic table and some chairs.  I spent a fair amount of time in the recliners, doing some reading.  There is a corn hole game there, but we didn't use it.  Note the grill, it was just the right size for Barb and me.

 

This picture is looking towards the back of our site.  The bushes in the background are filled with doves.  The quail are all over and I saw them as close as the picnic table in the middle ground.  Over last weekend those two sites were filled with a group of friends.  They brought motorcycles and riding during the day.  At night they would circle the chairs and chat a bit.  We never wandered over to meet them - ever wary of strangers!

The drive back consists of two parts.  One is the windy road between Fort Bragg and Willetts, which is about 25 miles.  Then you have 175 miles on freeway to get back home.  Not too much traffic.  We stopped for a quick bite in Willetts and ate as we drove.

The Fort Bragg area is quite pretty and worth a trip.  There are a lot of parks and beach and cliffs there.  It would have been better without the virus warping the population.

We ran into Mike again, the guy who spent a lot of time in Switzerland before moving back.  He rode up to the coffee shop on Thursday morning as we were heading out.  He was dressed for the mist/rain that greeted us that morning.  The rain didn't last.  We stopped at Safeway for the last time to get some ice as we have a few groceries to take home.  He was cheerful as ever and remembered us. 

One of the fun things we did that worked well was to purchase a Bluetooth speaker.  I have a player that would send music to the speaker and we used that when we were painting or reading for some background music.

So that is all I have to say about the trip.  It was a nice week.  And thanks to Denise and Bruce for lending us the motorhome.

Fort Bragg 7, Wednesday

This is/was our last full day in the area.  It's about 5 pm and we are going to get some Thai food for dinner. 

The camp site is bordered by pine trees that have no branches until they are 50 feet up or so.  The squirrels are gray and one of them is in the tree above the camper and he is busy chewing through pine cones and dropping debris on the top of the camper.  He is quite energetic and they are hitting every few seconds.  It's loud.  I wonder what a rain storm would sound like. 

I mentioned in the last post that we were going to Jug Handle Reserve today.  We'll, we went to the Botanical Gardens first.  They have a lot of property and have covered most of it with flowers and other growing things.  Had to wear a mask for the most part.  But the plants were quite nice.  They had a Dalia garden that was well in bloom.  Lots of pictures there as the flowers are quite colorful and graphic:

They have a lot of trails too that wind from the gift shop out to the headlands and back.  Then a succulent garden and store and nursery.  We spent a couple of hours there.  Then headed back to the camper for a spot of lunch and a rest.  Then we went to Jug Handle.  

We walked the headlands path and then down to the beach.  Sat around there for a bit and then came back for a quiet afternoon.  

They also have a section of the plateaus that produce the stunted trees.  It was about a 2.4 mile hike to get there and we didn't have the energy to look.  Maybe next time. 

There are a lot of critters in the campground.  A mother deer and her twins came by, the doves have been flocking around and filling the bushes and then that squirrel...  He came down in a near tree and squacked at me for a time from about 20 feet.  The rest of his time has been spent in the upper tree areas and dropping his refuse. 

The weather has been pretty much a consistent, cloudy 67 degrees and no rain and the occasional fog that drifts in and out. It's comfortable, though I've not been out of my heavy fleece the entire time we've been here. 

This is the beach from Jug Handle. 

Here is Barb in the dahlias. 

Another shot of the botanical garden areas.  Very nice and worth the price if you get up here. 

I think that is about it.  We will probably not do too much tomorrow.  I'll see If I have the motivation to write up some kind of summary when I get home.  In any case, I hope you all have enjoyed this brief look at this portion of the California coast. 

Fort Bragg 6, Tuesday

There are state parks about every three miles up and down the coast in this area.  Of course I exaggerate, but there are a lot of them and they are close. 

Today we visited two of them.  The first is MacKarritch which is about two miles north of Fort Bragg.  This land was owned by MacKarritch who was Canadian and was in the lumber business.  Redwoods were felled near by and then transported to ships to be sent to San Francisco and other ports for milling and use.  

The park land runs along the ocean and there are a number of black gravel beaches.  We stopped at one and spent some time playing in the tide pools.  The we walked along a nice boardwalk that led to the headlands.  Shall we look at a couple of pictures? 

Black gravel Beach! 

Barb in the tide pool. 

Then we moved south of Fort Bragg and entered Russian Gulch state park.  They had the gall to charge us for the visit, but hey we are on vacation, so no big deal.  It was a modest $7 and that would have gotten us into any other state park today. 

We were hungry at this point and found a nice picnic spot just inside the park with an over look of the gulch.  No Russians in sight... 

This is the picnic area looking southwest to the ocean and points of land beyond it. 

Here is the view going back up the gulch and showing the bridge and beach below it.  We went down to the beach after a hike.  The view from the picnic area was more impressive. 

The picnic area led to the Headlands Trail and with some time to store our food, off we went.  The trail runs on the edge of the cliff and one could easily imagine a shift in the earth and then you were in for a long tumble.  The views were nice however and worth the life's risk:

The trail looped back to the car and was all of a quarter of a mile long.  As I said, we visited the beach next, but not too exciting and then headed out. 

Our next stop was Jughandle State Preserve, about two miles back towards Fort Bragg. This reserve also had some of the plateaued areas as seen in the Pygmy Forest.  Same causes, but they were claiming that this area was only about 300,000 years old versus the 500,000 to a million for the other forest. 

They didn't charge for this, so we are going to go back tomorrow and walk the loop and see the sights. 

We still have not found a good seafood meal, so that is on the docket for tonight.  

There are lot of quail in the campground.  Right now they are in the bushes and on the ground about two camp sites over.  Barb is working the camera.  They do a lot of flying from one spot to another and the wings make snapping sounds as they fly.  Covies of 30 or so.  Neat to see! 

OK, Jughandle tomorrow! 

Fort Bragg 5

I'm at a picnic table, the sun is sinking and a cool breeze has come up. Reminds me of the long road trip on the other blog.  

We went down to the Pygmy Forest today.  It's on the south side of Mendocino by a couple of miles.  It's part of Van Damm Park, but not that you would know it.  You don't go into the park to get to the parking lot for the forest.  You go down to Little Rivers, the next town, and we are talking a minor bump on the road.  Then you look for the airport road and follow that up the hill.  In a couple of miles you'll see the first sign for the Pygmy forest.  Once you get there it's quite interesting.  It is an area that used to be sea floor.  Over the last million years an area has risen and the seas subsided to create a small plateau.  This plateau receives very little run off from the hills around it.  The soils have been leached due to a million years of rain and the lack of run off.  The soil is very acidic, and the ground is quite hard and contains little oxygen.  Anything that grows there will be stunted for those reasons. 

The park has a raised boardwalk made of wood that wonders through this plateau.  There are six signs that describe what you are looking at.  

See the above sign for some explanation of what the area produces.  

Here is a shot of Barb with the boardwalk and the trees all around. 

We also drove through Mendocino a bit.  We didn't stop.  The town is very quiet and the stores that are open have restricted entries and exits and the usual stuff about distancing and masks.  The town is still cute, but we didn't find it compelling enough to get out of the car. 

There is a nice beach just down from town and we stopped there for a bit.  Here is a shot of some of the rocks that are outside of the beach. 

There were a bunch of kyakers going out with their guides from a commercial establishment. 

And at that point we wandered back and down to the Yolo harbor area for lunch.  We were going to have clam chowder, but "It won't be ready for an hour."  So Barb had fish and chips with a diet Coke.  "We're out of diet Coke."  OK, then some lemonade.  I broke my Keto vows and had a Macadamia Nut Porter with my burger (no bun, no fries).  The meat was good and the porter was tasty.  The dark beers are probably what I miss most on this dietary transformation. 

We then wandered back to the camper and relaxed, had a snooze and read.  We are now heating some left overs for dinner.  Of course the lunch place gave me two burgers not the one I ordered.  I may have spoken too quickly and it might have been the mask...  Hard to say. 

It will probably be a quiet evening.  I do have a pinot grigio to try, though I'm not sure it's very cold at this point. 

Mendocino 4

It's Sunday and a lot of the folks in the campground have left.  We had folks both left and right and they are gone.  There are others on our back side and they have two sites with two motor homes and three motorcycles.  They are still here. 

Today we slept in until eight, made some coffee and then wandered out to the succulent gardens.  They had a nice selection of things and Barb bought five plants and some potting soil.  Succulents require some special dirt!  Here is a picture of some of the grounds:

The owner was a friendly gal and we chatted a bit.  Interestingly a lot of the businesses up here are cash only.  Not sure why, maybe don't want to share a couple of percent with the banks.  But we have been to the ATM a couple of times.  Here are a couple more of the interesting plants they have:

Then we went down to the Point Cabrillo light house.  There was a mile walk from the parking lot.  We'd been here before.  We'd had a vacation in Mendocino and came up to see the light house.  Not sure when that was.  Our memories are getting fuzzy.  It's a cute building and they have some houses you can rent if you want to vacation there. 

There are some coves that border the light house and some of the seals or sea lions were playing in the water.  Kind of rare as they seem to just lie on the beach for the most part. 

The ocean beyond the light house has some quasi-islands, probably underwater in high tide.  Here is one view, count the sea lions! 

Then we returned back to Fort Bragg and spent some time on the lookouts by the town.  It was windy with some spray in the air, but you got a different view of what the coast looks like:

We ate our stores for lunch and dinner.  Barb threatens clam chowder for dinner tomorrow.  It was a bit cooler today and we did get some sun as we played a couple of games of backgammon on the picnic table. 

We might go into Mendocino tomorrow.  Any rush of tourist might be lessened by then. 

I think that is about it.  Barb is doing a bit of watercolor painting with some success, but perhaps more questions than answers being produced.  It's all good!