"Old" is when you stop complaining about your age and begin bragging about it.

This is our last day of real vacation. Tomorrow morning we’ll pack up camp and be on the road by 7 a.m., headed toward San Francisco. We’ll stop someplace north of the city (about 10 hours of driving), get a motel room for the night and then have Pam to the S.F. airport fairly early Sunday morning for her flight home. But right now, at 7 a.m. (Friday) Pam’s just crawling out of the tent (not her favorite activity) for the penultimate time so we can begin the day’s activities.

Warning: Do not buy a Vivitar “ViviCam 38” for anyone you care about, including your gerbil. Even at $39 it’s a piece of junk. Accordingly, the photos from yesterday, included below, are so bad as to be embarrassing. I use Photoshop Elements to edit pics, including the “Smart Fix” menu option. When I clicked on it I got a pop-up box that said, “Even we’re not smart enough to salvage this piece of optical crapola.”

After b’fast we hiked up to the lighthouse to get pics with the aforementioned cereal-box-quality “camera” to make up for what we couldn’t get the day before when our real camera died. On the way, a cool tree covered with moss,and some wildflowers in bloom.The small building in the foreground is one of two that stored the kerosene used to light the lamps prior to the electrification of the lighthouse in 1938. The keeper or one of two assistant keepers had to haul the kerosene up to the top of the lighthouse in 5 gallon cans, and do that every 10 hours.
The lighthouse keeper’s house is gone, sold for its lumber 50 years ago at the price of $10. This is the duplex that housed the two assistants and their families. It’s now a Bed & Breakfast with an incredible view.
Then we came back to our campsite and played some cribbage. We’re now all tied up in games won, and decided we’ll keep playing when we get home. We like cribbage.
After lunch we drove down the coast to Reedsport, about 30 miles south on a very twistie Hwy 101. One of the locals we talked to said it was a “nice little town” and the Wells Fargo website said they had a branch there.
Neither of those were particularly accurate. The Safeway had a Wells Fargo ATM...and wood floors, 8’ ceilings and cash registers with pull handles to register the numbers punched on the keys. OK, that last part isn’t true, but it’s the oldest Safeway on the planet.
I don’t think there are any dentists in Reedsport, but judging from the number of people we saw talking to the air they do have lots of invisible people living there.
We did our banking and drove back to Florence, stopping again at the Old Town Coffee House for a smoothie, a mocha and the internet. Then some more strolling through interesting shops. Back “home” for supper, cribbage, reading by the campfire and bed.

Why do people go “camping” in motor homes the size of a small motel? One older couple down in the main section of the campground has the biggest Class 1 rig I’ve ever seen, complete with pull-outs and towing a brand new GMC Denali. Really?

Addendum:
We're now back at the cafe for our afternoon drinks - Pam's mixed berry smoothie and my mocha. We stopped and did our laundry on the way into town. I had NO idea it costs a week's wages to use a laundromat's machines. Two weeks' worth of that and you could buy your own machines! But I couldn't continue to turn my underwear inside out.
I'm up a game in our cribbage tournament.
I've got another 20 pages to go before finishing To Kill a Mockingbird.
I miss my folks.
We both miss Al. Going home to the empty house will be a bit sad. We've looked at the Greyhound adoption site, but we'll take our time deciding if we want to do this again.

Tomorrow from central Cal.