Like the siren’s song of legends old, we have been lured in by the free parking, fantastic WiFi, great solar exposure, beautiful weather, and the onsite water spigot and trash can of the Lucky 7 casino.  We’ve been here three days and counting.  What more could one ask for?

To assuage our guilt, Trish went over last night and put $5 into the slots.  Thanks for taking one for the family, honey.

Trish and our son went to the beach to collect stones for an art project, proving that there’s no such thing as an activity that can’t be made to sound like a legitimate home schooling experience.  On the way back, they spied a snail:

Meanwhile, I was introducing the Scratch programming environment to our daughter.  Beachcombing it wasn’t, but we still had a great time:

After school, we continued working on the art project:

I went for an after-lunch bike ride north to Oregon:

Highway 101 is flat, but I found a couple of 25% grades (that’s seriously steep folks) to climb and get above the fog below:

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, our kids continued working on their ship:

In the afternoon, I took them for a walk at low tide and we found a fishing float.  It was encrusted with marine life, so we didn’t take it home:

Reminds me of the housing density along route 306 back home:

Have a great Shabbos, our first in a casino’s RV parking lot!

Today was the first day of LookBeforeYouLive photography school.  We brought along an old DSLR body for both of our kids, and put a 50mm lens on each.  The class was a big hit, and they’re already begging for the next installment.

Today I introduced aperture and its effect on depth of field. I asked them to photograph me at f/8 and f/1.8 and notice how the focus of the background changes:

I then talked about how using high aperture values results in long exposures, which in turn introduces motion blur:

Our son enjoyed experimenting with moving the camera while taking long exposures:

For the last few minutes, they went outside and had “free play” with their new cameras:

Our son did a lot of directing:

School over, we wandered down to the beach.  Oh, the tiresome crowds at the Nothern California coast:

Since it was low tide, we explored amongst the rocks for tidal pool critters:

The kids began a building project…

…While Trish surveyed the north side of the beach.

They built a ship:

Our daugther’s pet kelp, “kelpie”:

When we got down to true low tide, we could see starfish:

When we got back, I went to check in with the casino.  The security fellow said there was no need to check in, and that they have no stay limit.  Hmm, we could get used to “living” here!

Being that Elk Valley Casino has a 2 night stay limit, we packed up today after home school and headed into town to do the laundry.  While Trish was having her quiet time in the Laundromat, I was with the kids at a local park.  The chamber of commerce had a spigot, so I shuttled 16 gallons of fresh water into the RV via 2 trips with our two 4 gallon jerry cans.

Once the clean laundry was loaded into the RV, we stopped at Safeway for groceries and headed 19 miles North to the Lucky 7 Casino.  We’re in a holding pattern until the National Parks open again so we can visit Redwoods national park.

We got to Lucky 7 in time for a great sunset.  The casino is across the street from the beach:

We awoke to a beautiful day at the Elk Valley Casino, and the cows in the adjacent field were happy too:

Seems like we’re not here during the busy season:

We did a bit of pre-home-school scooter riding on the reservation.  I was on roller skates:

In the afternoon we rode up a gravel road towards the Stout Redwood Grove in Jedediah Smith State Park.  The ride started with a 430 foot vertical climb in the first 1.1 miles, with an average grade of 8%.  It was pretty tough, but one way or the other we all made it to the top.  Here’s our daughter doing her Statue of Liberty imitation with a monster mushroom she found laying uprooted by the side of the road:

Right after the crest, the Redwoods began appearing.  Their girth and height is simply beyond description:

They top out at about 370 feet tall, which is taller than the Statue of Liberty, pedestal and all.  They are the tallest living things on Earth.

Trish and the kids turned back early, and I continued on to the Stout Grove parking lot and back.  I didn’t go into the grove, as we will all come back and see it together.

This is where the Endor scenes from Return of the Jedi were filmed, and flying down a one lane dirt road winding between the trees, I felt like I was right there.

We stayed at Elk Valley Casino again tonight.

This morning we headed west and south towards the California coast.

Sadly, we’ve missed four National Parks and Monuments thanks to the government shutdown.  The National Forests are closed as well:

We spent some time looking for a dispersed campsite near the coast and found one marginal candidate.  We continued on to Crescent City on the coast of northern California:

We walked down to the beach and looked back at the RV:

The local playground has a maritime theme:

At low tide, we were able to walk out to the local lighthouse which is on an island except at low tide when it becomes a peninsula.  The lighthouse was unfortunately closed for tours but it was still neat to see the grounds:

We explored the tidal pools and found a wonderful collection of anemones, starfish, crabs, fish, and hermit crabs.  We pulled a handful of hermit crabs out of the pools and placed them on a rock to watch them come out of their shells and crawl back into the water.

Looking back towards the lighthouse:

Tonight we’re staying at the Elk Valley Casino near Crescent City.  Trish gave us all haircuts tonight and for me she “accidentally” used the #2 fitting on the shaver instead on the #4 fitting, so I’m now ready to try out as an extra in the next GI Joe movie.

  See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.