Before I start, I wanted to say thanks for those that commented. I am not sure of the protocol and if I’m supposed to comment back publicly, but thank you for reading and enjoying.

As I said to Linda about 4 years ago, I need to find my wanderlust, and besides asking how much money it would cost, she has been totally onboard with the journey. My parents were nomadic and I remember moving from NY / NJ to California a number of times. Then, once I got my drivers license, I was gone.

OK – here’s a funny coincidence – I chatted with Dennis (of Dennis and Anastasia) last month and told him of my plans to visit the Susanville area and he said since I’m up there, I should go to a hot springs in the desert that was really special. So I did. Made a reservation at the Surprise Valley Mineral Wells. It’s a collection of rooms, all with hot tubs.

Turns out, Surprise Valley is 6 miles east of Cedarville, right by the Nevada border, and is the ‘staycation’ destination for Robin and Randy!

Each room has its own hot tub and control for temp. At night, the stargazing was pretty dang nice. The rooms were very nice with full kitchens and living rooms, which is important if you are up here for a few days, you need to fend for yourself. No resort services beyond a room. As an FYI, all rooms are heated by the hot springs, which in the winter is great since this place is busy year round. And, the well water that comes from here is really tasty.

The upper desert has had an abundance of rain this year, which is greening up everything and quite spectacular.

And, since rainfall is typically much less, it doesn’t take much to fill a dry lake bed. This might only be 6″ deep at the deep end!

You folks do know I love taking pictures of my bus, right!?

Think of it as reference for size. In my early commercial photo days, we used to shoot lots of little parts and connectors for an electronics client’s catalogs. For reference in the photos, the clients would have us put a pack of Marlboro cigs in the shot, so you could gauge size! The red box only (maybe they were using if for color matching as well).

This trip is also for a bit of recon as we’ll be leaving the bus in Portland. I have never been familiar with the country around Bend and the Sisters area, but would like to know more and ultimately fish it on a return trip with Linda in the not too distant future.

Thought this was interesting way up here!

Many of the lakes in the upper desert are alkaline, shallow and when they recede, they create new pasture land.

The road to Bend involved climbing out of the upper desert and back into the mountains.

Side Bar: throughout the mountains, up and down from San Francisco, over Donner and the Sierra’s and Cascades, I had to downshift into 3rd gear toward the tops, but my hill climbing speed never dropped below 40 MPH, and that was pretty cool.

Here’s a shot of the Sisters mountains outside of Bend – and not my shot 😉

Found a great campground near the Sisters in the Camp Sherman area.

Just past the fence line is the Metolius River, which is a fly fishing only river. A fellow I met mentioned it is an expert level stream, so my skills might not translate. However, I’d like to fish the Deschutes River on my next trip with a guide, and in a boat. In Oregon, I believe you cannot fish out of a boat on a river like you can in Montana, which is fine with me as I prefer to work a stream from standing in the stream or on the shoreline.

At dusk, the campground was very picturesque and worthy of another shot of my bus 👍

Salem, Oregon

Needed to take a day to write and clean up for putting the Westy away in Portland tomorrow, so I got a spot in the Premier RV Campground outside of Salem. Linda and I stayed in one of these ‘Premier RV’ campgrounds in Oregon a couple years ago and they certainly serve their purpose. Most RV campground bathrooms are pretty sketchy, but this place was like the Taj! Those are all showers on the left and there were an equal number of shitters on the other side! And, I never saw more than one person in the bathroom at any time, so I liked the chances of getting a clean stall 😳

And, just like many of the RV campgrounds I’ve visited, there were a number of folks living for extended periods in these parks. Chatted up a fellow named Tom, who is an Engineer and is living full time in this park with his wife, who works for the State of Oregon. Seems they sold their house and did not have the new one purchased so they had to buy a 5th wheel trailer and move in here until they find a new home. At that time, they will sell the 5th wheel. We discussed the opportunity of putting the 5th wheel on their new property and using it for Airbnb. Linda and I saw so many of these during our travels and believe it will continue to be a trend.

It’s time to pack it in on Saturday afternoon and catch a flight home. But before that, I did manage to clean up my baby for another day, secured a storage facility near the airport in Portland that is inside, and found a reputable air cooled VW shop as well. My Westy will be due for a valve adjustment and oil change before we head out for more road trippin.

Leave you with two items…

…first a great shot of Mount Hood while flying out of Portland…

…and second, a final comment on this trip.

I cannot begin to tell you how much fun this week was. While I wanted to have Linda with me to meet Rob, Marsha and Robin and Randy, she was on her annual Disney trip with Kenzie, our grandaughter, and her sister, Jane and Jane’s daughter, Biza. They have made this annual trip for about 15 or so years and I certainly can’t get in the way!

That said, this trip was really satisfying to finally bookend a 45 year absence of enjoying the company of people that were important in my life.

More to come, hopefully soon.

On Monday afternoon, I said goodbye to Marsha and Steve and headed toward Susanville. This 21 mile run is a really beautiful trip, and one we took most days either by a bus that was provided by the college, hitchhiking or driving (when we woke up too late for the other options).

You go past some beautiful meadows, and again, you can see Mount Lassen in the distance. Just across from this scene was a ski hill, where I learned to ski. It was a rope tow lift, driven by a 283 Chevy engine and you would burn through 3 or 4 pairs of choppers a season on the rope tow. It was seriously steep and icy for most of the season, so you learned fast!

Susanville

As you come down the east side of the Sierra Nevada range and into Susanville, the high desert is visible in the distance. Main Street businesses used to be at this end of town, but as with many small towns, new development went to the further end of town and much of it uninspiring.

View of the top of Main Street, where the road from Westwood drops you into Susanville.

Stopped in Susanville long enough to look for a fellow at the local hospital where I heard he was a nurse, but he had retired, so I gassed up and headed toward Alturas, about 115 miles north.

During my time in Susanville, I worked the graveyard shift at Jerry’s restaurant, the 24-hour cafe in town. They opened up Jerry’s restaurants around these parts in towns that were too small for a Denny’s. Otherwise same concept and, when you work the graveyard shift, you always get the bar rush. Aggies and hippies and passing carnies always provided lots of interesting moments for our crew and on more than one occasion, Lindan, a waitress and good friend, delivered a plate of food upside down on a patron for a lewd comment.

Lindan and Fred came up from the San Diego around the same time as the rest of us. They were a really sweet couple and Lindan was one of the happiest people I ever knew. Lindan and Fred got married out in a meadow outside of Susanville and it was a really cool moment, all hippied out in a beautiful white flowing dress, barefoot and a crown of flowers in her hair.

Fred was a GI home from Vietnam and while being a really sweet guy, he was also John Prine’s Sam Stone. We affectionately nicknamed him Fred Plus 2. If we had a beer, Fred would have 3. Take a toke of a joint, somehow Fred would be a couple ahead. You get the picture. We loved him, but even the marriage breaking up did not get him the help he needed. Heard he lived in his mom’s home and passed away there from Hep C about 15 years ago.

The map below will show the route. Heading to Cedarville in the upper right corner and you can see where Susanville, Westwood and Lake Almanor are in the lower left. Taking 139 up to Alturas, then Robin has given me directions through Cedarville and 17 more miles on to Eagleville, population 50 or so, and where she and Randy live.

Looking back at Susanville way in the distance as I climb into the high desert.

Was that really an insect or a small mammal?

Robin James Quick

When I met Robin, she was like, 14 or so, but she had a sophisticated wit far sharper than her years. This must have been from being the observer of the activities in her home and unable to participate in most of them.

Robin reminded me that she rode down to Los Angeles with me once and met my folks in their Bel Air home 😳 She was on the way to San Diego and would meet up with another ride in LA.

And then, once I was settled in Minneapolis in a brownstone on 19th and Stevens in 1973, she and a friend came by out of the blue on their way back from Ann Arbor. Problem was, I just came from a doctor and had both nostrils packed to the gills due to the nose bleeds I was having back then. Sorry kids for passing this down to a couple of you. For some reason, they looked at me and decided to keep going!!!

Robin and Randy met in 1976 at Lassen College and became Robin and Randy almost immediately. Randy got his teaching degree and they moved away from the excitement of the big cities of Susanville and Westwood for the peace and serenity of the small towns of Cedarville (population 500) and ultimately Eagleville (population about 50). Here they raised their family and taught at the school.

They live at the end of a road looking at Warner Mountain, Eagle Peak and the lower Cascade range.

Their home has multiple fruit trees (pear, apple, cherry) and this should be a bumper crop year!

An incredibly peaceful and beautiful place!

Brush with fame

Before Robin began working in the school system, she worked at the general store in Cedarville. I think it was 1991 and a fellow came into the general store wanting to buy hay. Robin asked him how much hay and he said lots! Robin connected him with some farmers and the fellow was able to get his hay for some event he was planning a bit further up the road from Eagleville – the town of Gerlach, Nevada. Larry Harvey, the founder of Burning Man, continued to buy his hay from Eagleville farmers for many years to come.

Being the enterprising type, Randy and Robin organized car washes for the school so when the Burning Man folks rolled through town on their way home, they could get their cars washed from the talcum powder type coating that covers all vehicles on the dry lake bed.

For a period of time, Robin’s dad lived in the trailer in the photo below. He was able to help with kids and they are glad they had that time with him. Now his ashes are in the field, beneath the tree in the center, along with Connie’s.

Couple quick notes:

When their kids Miles and Kevin graduated from Cedarville, there were 17 and 15 kids in the graduating class. Last year, there were 2. And this year, there would have been 2, except for the 3 exchange students from Germany, Japan and Vietnam!

Randy recently learned his cancer from a number of years ago is back and he has started chemo as part of the treatment process. Unfortunately, he needs to travel 165 miles each way for this treatment every 21 days.

Do well you two! Stay strong and hope you continue to grow old together.

Thanks for your hospitality and welcoming me into your home. It was a simply wonderful 24 hours together. See you in 2065 😉

Headed over the Donner Pass on Father’s Day just at the time Becca called to wish me a happy day. Imagine my delight at being able to tell a Dad Joke about going into restaurants around that area and we give the name of our party as ‘Donner’. Then we remind them that we are very hungry. Look it up if you don’t know about the Donner Party – kind of a happy ending (for some).

Out of Truckee I picked up Hwy 89, which runs up the Feather River Canyon. This is one of the prettiest drives around and it will take me straight into Lake Almanor 115 miles later.

Here is where Indian Creek joins the Feather River. It is a stunningly beautiful scene and there’s a lucky kid fishing it!

Found a great campground on Lake Almanor. Woman in the office said it was a lake view spot but if I didn’t like it because of the kayaks stacked up, I could move. I think I made the right decision to stay.

Sat out till near 10PM and hardly a mosquito.

Mount Lassen can be seen on the horizon.

Now, don’t expect the reverse angle to be as nice! Very nice family shows up and backs in like they should. Then they decide to have a fire, but instead of in front of their camper, they put it right behind my bus and it took them 30 minutes to get the frickin thing lit – it simply smoked away while they were doing something else.

Woke up on Monday ready to see who or what I might find in Westwood. It’s about 12 miles east of Lake Almanor and after Westwood, Susanville is another 21 miles east. The goal is to find someone in town that lived here when I did.

Not so sure this claim is accurate as I thought Minnesota claimed this fellow. Now, to be fair, Westwood was a lumber town and during its heyday, the mill ran 3 shifts and you shared housing accordingly. The homes were built by the mill and I don’t think ownership was possible.

I lived in the house below in ’71 or ’72 – rent was $75/mo for the whole house. Heated by a wood stove in the kitchen, which you also cooked on. Around that time, a house like this could be had for $2,000 to $4,000.

The house below, Dennis, Anastasia and I lived in before I got booted out after they had a baby. Dennis reminded me a couple weeks ago about the delivery room scene where there were 3 guys (father + 2) and the nurse asked why so many men. I told her we were waiting to find out who it looks like.

So, I’m taking photos around town and all these memories are coming back to me and this woman pulls up and says ‘Nice bus!’. I thank her and see that she might be a gatekeeper to others in this town.

Meet Rhonda! She’s been part of Westwood since 1976 – close enough for a town this size (that actually fits here!). We start chatting and sure enough, she knew some folks I did. Offered to have some coffee with her and chat, but she said that she had a play date with her dog. Fair enough. Then she offered to call Marsha James for me, but got no answer.

Marsha James

Marsha was one of the James girls in Westwood. Anyone coming to town that was ‘Good People’ as we used to call it, would know they needed to stop at the James home. You knew through someone who heard that if you ever go through there, you would have a safe place to land.

I think Marsha is the one in front in blue. The dark haired girl directly behind her is a cousin and don’t know how she got in there! There were 7 James girls – Alyssa and Matt, bet you could have bested this record the way you were going!

Mother James, Connie, but as everyone knew her, Ma James, was a wonderful, caring and freewheeling spirit. Her house was open to all and it was a central headquarters for whatever was going on in the, dare I say it, the hippy community.

Here’s a photo taken by Marsha and it includes two other James girls – Melody (behind Marsha in the photo above and below fellow standing below) and Margaret (Robin), the baby in the photo above and squished below on the right. This would have been 1970 and I was either 18 or 19 at the time, not looking like I just had my Bar Mitzvah!

My goal was to connect with Robin, but to see Marsha is extra nice!

Then all of a sudden, Marsha drives by and Rhonda flags her down. She has me wait back by my bus while she tells Marsha my story (small town protecting one another maybe?) Marsha gets out and she says ‘Gary Hendlin, with the hair?’, and we hug and start to get caught up. Rhonda can now leave for the play date!

We have the nicest time getting the shimmy and lowdown on lots of people. Marsha was my age, and for a while she was the oldest of the James girls living in the house. Older ones would stay, but my memory of them is a little foggy. I knew the three younger ones and Marsha was one that like to keep order as I remember.

In a conversation with Rob the day before, he told me that HepC took a bunch of people from up there. Susanville and Westwood certainly had a bit of pot and acid problems (opportunities?) in the early 70’s, but bad drugs would also come up from the Bay Area or LA with some not so ‘Good People’ and there was an interested audience with a bunch of GI’s coming home from Vietnam and the counterculture folks willing to try most anything. I was no angel, but needles scared me.

Back to Marsha. She and husband Steve raised their family in Westwood and are set there for the long term. One of their sons, Quinn, got his degree in Geology at UC Davis and spends his time mining by hand all around the mountains. Marsha and Steve help and also prepare the finds for sale on eBay. Check out one of their listings for Rainbow Obsidian

https://www.ebay.com/itm/4-RAINBOW-OBSIDIAN-ROUGH-STONES-Combined-Weight-12-lbs-/163699281979

They sell around the world and have given me a few stones to bring home, and they are beautiful!

Here’s a photo of Marsha and Steve. They are a really sweet couple. I am so glad I got to see them.

So now Robin know’s I’m headed her way to see she and Randy, her husband of a billion years or so. They live in Eagleville, next to Cedarville, way up from Susanville. Out of the Sierra Nevada mountain range and I’ll go north along the eastern side of the mountains, in the upper desert.

More shortly!

Saturday, June 15th

With little planning and high expectations, I’m picking up the bus on Treasure Island and heading into the north central portion of California.

From 1970 to 1973, I attended Lassen College, a 2-year Forestry, Liberal Arts and Gunsmithing college in Susanville. You math majors may have caught the disparity but it took me this long to get both the AA degree and all the personal exploration I needed to do. Actually, if it were for not being inducted in the military for overstaying at a 2-year college, I might still be there!

During this time, I met some genuinely wonderful people. And, given the state of the world in the late ’60’s and early 70’s, escaping to a town of 4,000 was a welcome change from Los Angeles. Seems quite a few similarly minded individuals made their way to Susanville and Westwood (population about 1,200) from all over the country.

Over the next few days, I’m trying to connect with two peeps from the past, but have only reconnected with one so far. Rob Lee was a fellow I met early on in 1970 and we’ve stayed somewhat in touch – the last time was 10 years ago or so. I reached him on Friday and asked if I could come over and play on Saturday afternoon! He was so surprised and accepted.

But first, STEPH!

So this journey begins Saturday, June 15th. I pick up the bus on Treasure Island and head for a brunch with Steph!

Food and company were excellent at Nido’s in Oakland. Mexican restaurant that’s been around since the 80’s and really delicious.

Steph is so dang cute in her miniature automobile!

Jared was coaching a game or practice or getting ready for his summer baseball camp he and Steph run, so it was just Steph and me for brunch.

Thanks again Steph and Jared for covering my bus in the bay – and Jared finding a baseball was so excellent and must be a sign of something!

Rob Lee

I met Rob in 1970 at the old Lassen College. The new campus was opening later in the year so classes were in part of the high school.

Being a New Yorker, Rob tried college first at St Lawrence University, but was having too much fun too early and ultimately found his way to Susanville. He was working toward a Forestry major and ultimately graduated from UC Davis with his degree in Landscape Design.

I was immediately drawn to Rob’s infectious smile and outgoing nature. Always felt we had many common beliefs. Now, sitting with him and seeing the parallels over the past 45 years, we had lots of catching up to do.

After school and some travels, Rob and his wife, Dawn, returned to Westwood to raise a family and start a business. He, with Bill Adams, started a landscape design / build business and after 30 or so years, he and Bill retired.

This has allowed Rob and Dawn to return to Placerville, where Rob’s parents had purchased a ranch in the early 70’s. The ranch is outside of Placerville and this area was the epicenter for the Gold Rush. They even have two abandoned mines on the property. Lots of really cool history here. The main house is now occupied by their daughter, son-in-law and grandbaby and Rob has built an off the grid home for he and Dawn.

Talking constantly for 4 hours and we figured we needed some dinner. I offered to take Rob into Placerville for dinner, but he had a better idea…The El Dorado County Fair. Dandy time – great people watching and we got to catch a set of a CCR cover band.

Here’s where the laughter stops

It’s almost midnight when we made our way back to the ranch. Just as we hit the gravel road, a truck suddenly pulls out and we immediately see a dog chasing the vehicle. Problem is, the animal went wide and right into our path – we hit the poor thing straight on and could hear it thumping underneath. It was Rob’s daughters dog – fuck!!!

We got out and were able to get Coop from under the car. He hardly made a peep as we got him in the car and back to the house. Felt his legs, body, head – again no peep from him, only panting. Got him in a kennel and looked for the nearest open vet. It would have been over 50 miles and Coop wasn’t showing signs of pain so Rob kept an eye on him and would take him in around 7AM.

In the morning, Coop was still doing OK, so it was time to head to a vet. We said goodbye and I began my push north to Susanville. Rob said he’d keep me posted.

Update on Coop – he has a dislocated hip, which the doctor reset and hopes that holds or surgery might be needed. No internal injuries. That is one tough young pup. By the way, he’s a Pit, which might explain a few things.

Heading over the Donner Pass and up the Feather River Canyon to camp on Lake Almanor. I took a winter semester off college to read Lord of the Rings at a home on this lake that was rented by Bill Adams and Bill Green. I’ve never been known to be a fast reader.

More later – this is starting out to be a great trip, except of course, poor Coop.