A Reunion

 

During 8 hours of driving today we covered only 333 miles – another long enough day. We were on interstate 80 for an hour, and otherwise were on 2-lane winding highways that meandered through less elevation change than yesterday, but still made for slow going. Fortunately, the scenery was mostly beautiful!

The highlight of today’s drive was the west shore of Lake Tahoe which Bob had seen before, but was new territory for Cathryn. There was 3-5 feet of snow on the ground, but the road was bare and dry. One highway we’d planned to travel was still closed for the winter season due to snow, so we had to travel 40 miles out of our way on another road, but otherwise the trip was uneventful.

We were on a mission to get to Klamath Falls, Oregon today. For those of you who read our blog during our Baja travels a year ago, you may recall we met a couple, Jan and Jim from Penticton, British Columbia who we ended up traveling with quite a bit of the time because “there’s only one road!” and besides, we liked each other. Jan and Jim didn’t return to Baja this winter, as they spent time in New Zealand in the late Fall, then went to Arizona for the month of February.

Via email, we learned we were both traveling north through California in the same timeframe and vowed to meet up if possible. Yesterday as we were pulling out of Death Valley and finally got a cell signal again, there were two messages from Jan telling us they were in Redding, California and urging us to join them. We were on the west side of the Sierras instead, but agreed to meet in Klamath Falls this afternoon!

So, we arrived about 4pm to find they’d secured adjacent spots in the campground and spent the rest of today together, a very happy reunion. We talked and talked and talked over beer and appetizers outside our trailers for 3 hours, toured each other’s rigs (both new since last winter) and then went to: where else, but a Mexican restaurant for dinner! We returned to our trailer together for a pre-bedtime cup of tea and more talking, then finally at 9:45 declared it “Baja Midnight” and headed to bed. We had a wonderful time catching up, and agreed to visit them in Penticton on our way to Alaska in May!