January 31st, 2012
We are still in CA! Paul is seeing dealers in Southern CA so we spent 3 nights in Simi Valley at the Elks which is a very nice setting for the RV. Thursday night we enjoyed a $3 cheese burger with beer! You can’t beat that and they were cooked to order.
Thursday night a big wind storm started. We have now experienced the Santa Ana winds. Wow! We were scheduled to leave Simi Valley Friday about 1 pm. The winds were so strong and we needed to head into the mountains to get through LA! Not excited about this but the winds were not suppose to stop until Saturday afternoon. We are pretty flexible so we planned to wait and then I get the bright idea to look at the map! Yep, we could backtrack about 20 miles and miss the core of the winds.
By the time we got ourselves on the road it was 2:15 pm Friday afternoon and we are heading right into Los Angeles! Ouch! 118 miles to Riverside and we arrived at 7pm. The good news is we have Saturday and Sunday to enjoy the park we chose for this stop and relax.
Rancho Jurupa Park is located near Riverside CA and a very nice, very busy county park. They have lots of family activities like pond fishing, horseshoes, miniture golf, several playgrounds and disk golf.
Saturday we took a trip to Newport Beach for lunch with a friend of Paul’s. It was such a beautiful day and there were so many people out enjoying the sunshine and fresh air. After lunch we drove north a bit and stopped at Balboa Island. This place is crazy! Such a cute community with lots of homes nestled together and then around the island is watersports of every type. I would love to spend a few weeks here someday.
Saturday night I was in bed early and woken up by the neighbors about 11 pm who definitely had been drinking for way too long! And then there was the fighting, throwing “F” bombs, screaming, etc. It was actually scary for a little while. Finally, Paul decided someone was going to get hurt so he got up and called the Sheriff! The operator says “are they hurting anyone? we have had calls that they are causing physical harm to each other!” Paul tells the person he has no idea, it is loud and really out of control. About 5 minutes later 2 sheriff cars show up! More screaming and about 15 minutes later Paul watches a girl that just would not shut up no matter what the sheriff said to her get handcuffed and put in the back seat! Her boyfriend (we presume that is who he was based on the conversation we were invited to listen to!) also was handcuffed and taken away!
Just another day in Paul & Denise’s life!!!! Love my neighborhood!
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January 24th, 2012
Avila Beach is the most awesome place along the California coast, set inside a small bay that is protected from the elements of the sea. We arrived here yesterday about 2, right after the skies dropped a huge load of wet stuff! The sky turned blue and it has been beautiful since. I even put on shorts today!
Avila Beach
The view from our windows is amazing and there is such an abundance of wildlife here to enjoy. I watch the sea lions fish along with sea gulls. I watched hummingbirds sucking from the new flowers along the shore today. Duke loves the beach and all its new smells!
Yesterday we took a walk on the beach and I spotted 3 vultures guarding a carcass. I steered Duke in the other direction however I forgot about the carcass on the walk back! Duke ran ahead of me and had at least 2 minutes of rolling himself in the sand surrounding the carcass before I could reach him and stop him!!! Gross! We had to bath him in our shower. The bad news is we are dry camping which means we cannot get more water or dump the water we have until we move. This just means Paul will be short a shower while we are here!!!
Sleeping here is very peaceful; all you hear is the waves crashing. However, we may sleep a little too soundly! Paul opened the compartments today to put the supplies we picked up in town away and was staring into the eyes of a very large raccoon!!! He yelled, I grabbed my camera but he disturbed it before I could get a shot. The raccoon ran out of the compartment and headed across the street; Paul started to put his stick away and here comes another one! Yeks! We are pretty sure they got in overnight because this am he locked the compartments before we left for town and we are pretty sure we didn’t bring them from our last stop because when the exited they headed right across the road and into a hole. Duke isn’t much of a guard dog! he didn’t even move from the car when they went running out.
A boat?
This is in the harbor right in front of our RV. We have been looking at it for 2 days and still not sure what it is! I guess it is a pontoon boat!
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January 20th, 2012
Cold it is! Today our water hose froze. For those that live in a “regular” home if your water hose freezes you wouldn’t even know but for us it is our source of water unless Paul remembers to fill our tanks. Inside the rig was about 40 degrees when I woke up! Yep it is time to head to warmer weather.
We are on our way south with a stop in King City California for a great square dance weekend. Today I worked in the check in booth which is as much fun as working in the RV parks checking people in. I got to see lots of faces that I haven’t seen in a really long time. We will dance with friends tomorrow and enjoy some great calling and lots of laughs.
Paul drives Duke greets!
Paul has the job of escorting rigs to places where they can park and hopefully get to some electricity and water. It is going to be a cold weekend so electricity is important!
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January 11th, 2012
Wow! That is all I can say. We loaded up all our belongings and hit the road 3 years ago today. So much has happened in the last 3 years and we have had such a journey. Best of all the 3 of us are still together and everyone is smiling!
Life is Sweet!
Before we started on this journey I thought of it more as a vacation from life that would end in awhile and we would come back home and return to everyday life. I was tired of living in San Jose while Paul commuted and lived in Stockton during the week. Both girls seemed to be on their way to making their own way and I was all alone in that really big house! So when Paul said lets take off and enjoy life I was all for it.
Over the past 3 years, our girls both graduated from College and to my surprise they both returned to San Jose ( Campbell & Willow Glen). That is a really good thing because San Jose is still one of my favorite places and when I come to visit my girls I can still see my friends, shop my favorite stores and just feel at home. We miss home but we also miss the road when we are home. I think that means we are settling into our new lifestyle.
I really can’t see us stopping this anytime soon as we have so much we haven’t seen or done yet. This year we are going to be traveling back to North Carolina in April and hope to spend more time in the deep south before it gets too warm. From there we will be traveling to the Northeast where we will attend the Oshkosh Fly In, in Oshkosh, WI. We will be adding several more states to states visited on our little map. And then who knows where we will be heading – stay tuned!
And, if you are traveling on the road make sure to stay in touch because even though Paul and Duke are great travel companions, I really need to see other familiar faces from time to time!
Life is a Dream and living it in my RV is Awesome! Thank you Paul for pushing us into this dream. And, thank you Amy & Stephanie who have had to make big family adjustments because we sold the home and ran away!
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January 5th, 2012
I’m cleaning the cupboards, ridding our home of the clutter and getting us ready to head south in about 2 weeks. Yesterday I painted my bicycle to cover up some of the rust it suffered in Westport, WA and today we gave the RV a bath. Tomorrow will be some wax on the rig and washing the windows. That will just about cover our early spring cleaning and then we are off!
Looks brand new!
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January 3rd, 2012
Wow, 65 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Is it really January 1, 2012? New Years Day seems like a bonus day to me; all the celebrating is done, the house is usually cleaned up from the holiday and no one has to work! This January 1 we decided that the weather could not be more spectacular so we headed to the ocean. My favorite place of anywhere.
We headed west from Calistoga towards Bodega Bay with a stop in Sebast0pol on the way. Paul was told we needed to go to Sebastopol and see the public art display on Florence Avenue. It was a really cool display just in the yards of about 2 blocks of this street. A local artist, Patrick Amiot created all these sculptures.
And Pauls personal favorite…
Surfin' Babe
And of course we loved this one…
The Dream!!!
Bodega Bay was beautiful. The wind was blowing as usual but that just makes the waves even more spectacular.
Northern California Coastline
The wind was whipping the waves, beautiful site
And of course you can’t have the coast without…
Seagulls
And then there is the unique photo of the day…
A Christmas Tree on the shack on the pier!
complete with lights!
Well we are off to a great start to the New Year. I can’t wait to see where we will go in 2012
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January 1st, 2012
Our 3rd Christmas on the road and it was great. We moved our home to San Jose for the Christmas Weekend and had a great time with the girls and friends. Christmas Day was just our family in our Mini Home, complete with plenty of gifts and Santa even stopped by to fill our stockings! And yes you can cook an amazing holiday dinner in the small space! We had Prime Rib (reminder to self! 3 ribs is enough for 5 adults!) I got a 4 rib Prime Rib and we barely ate 1/2 of it! It is awesome for sandwiches after but I could have saved $20 or more!
Christmas Tree 2011
On Monday after Christmas Paul headed back to Calistoga with our home and I headed to Hanford for a visit with my mom & dad and of course my brother and some of his kids. I think they had an awesome Christmas also because there were plenty of treats and leftovers that we didn’t have to cook dinner either night I was there!!!
New Years we spent at the RV Park which seemed quite lonely however there was a great group from Vacaville that invited us to their New Years Eve Potluck and Texas Hold’em Tournament. There were 15 of us all investing $5 where the top 3 took home the prizes. I was out pretty early, in the second round. Paul lasted to the final 5 and as he often does, he got bored and bet to go out! He was the final elimination and the next guy won $10! So we start 2012 $10 short in the gaming budget line item.
The tournament ended about 11:30 and as we find a lot everyone wanted to just go home. Being the party animals we are we decided to head downtown where there were having a giant bonfire. We arrived just before midnight and there was no one around and no fire. A nice big stack of really big lumber but nothing resembling a bonfire. So we enjoyed the noises of downtown and headed back to the Park.
The clock struck 12 and this is where we were! No champagne anywhere:(
HAPPY 2012 TO ALL OUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY! MAY WE ALL REAP SOME REWARDS.
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December 16th, 2011
Exploring is what this lifestyle is all about and Calistoga has some great back roads. We took a drive up the Howell Mountain Range working our way to Middletown and then down to Lake Berryessa. Another trip on a less than average road when I exclaimed to Paul that we need a 4-wheel drive Jeep for the roads he finds! We didn’t meet anyone along the way and it was a good thing cause this was not even a 1 lane road! In fact we wanted to find a nice place to picnic and I pointed out that we could just stop in the road because even if someone were coming along they couldn’t pass! That is exactly what we did, found a sunny spot in the road where we could see some of the valley, popped the trunk and had our lunch!
We did make it to Middletown where Paul found the Calpine Geysers Visitors Center and of course we had to stop! It is not a very big place but they had lots of displays and the lady at the desk was a wealth of information and was able to answer all of Paul’s questions! We did find out that during most of the year they offer tours of the actual area where they operate the Geysers and Paul has it on his calendar for our next visit to Northern California.
From Middletown we headed east again into the foothills and came across a really nice winery Langtry Estate Winery, where we had to stop in and see what they have. This is a really large property and they grow all the grapes for their wines on the property but only sell to wine club and in the tasting room. We tried several good ones but they are a bit on the pricey side, $40 for Cab! No worries, I did buy a bottle of Port. It was outstanding. I am running out of room for all the wine I am buying, guess we better drink up!!!!
Now, on to Lake Berryessa which was our destination when we left today! Driving along the countryside we happened across an unique fence and I asked Paul to stop for a picture. It turns out it is the Litto’s Hubcap Ranch, a California Landmark!
Hubcaps everywhere
We looked for an entrance and only found the monument. Darn, we were hoping for a tour! Anyway, on to Lake Berryessa.
We are driving and I am not really paying attention since Paul researched the road online and put the information into the gps. I am thinking we didn’t head far enough east but what do I know and who cares, we are seeing interesting stuff and it is a beautiful day. Suddenly we come upon a stoplight! There are not suppose to be stoplights out in the country and we should be getting close to the lake! Nope, Paul wasn’t paying attention to his little machine either and we end up coming back into town near Silverado Trail and the lake is behind us! We decide that we don’t want to go back since it is getting late and seeing the lake in the dark won’t be much fun so we will have to try again to get out and see the lake!!!
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December 15th, 2011
I love Christmas and shopping for my family and friends is usually something that I can’t wait to do and I am always excited to find just the right item. I am not sure what happened but Thanksgiving weekend I realized I hadn’t bought a single item and I had no idea what I was going to be buying. I spent several days questioning the girls about what they would like and shopping online to get ideas and then I hit the mall in San Jose. First Valley Fair and then Oakridge Shopping Center. In two days I had exactly 2 gifts and wasn’t even sure about them! Is this what is like to get older and out of touch with the newest trends? Well I went home and thought about it some more and finally decided on some things and hit the stores in Santa Rosa on Monday. I had to return again on Wednesday but I am happy to say my small Christmas shopping list is complete, everything is wrapped, the tree looks beautiful and now I have to wait 9 more days before I can see the happy faces of my family!!!
A Holiday Shopping sunset
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December 10th, 2011
Another bucket list item! Paul worked for a day at our friends Christmas Tree Farm in Lake County CA. He and Tony sold trees all day while Janet and I enjoyed our morning coffee in a champagne glass (OK it was champagne!) with a Hibiscus blossom floating in the bottom for some Christmas cheer. The Hibiscus blossom was pretty cool and they are edible. While the boys continued to sell trees through lunch we visited the egg farm for a dozen eggs and then back home to relax in the sunshine. Christmas trees in California are sold to people wearing t-shirts and shorts donning sunglasses with a Santa hat here and there.
Lady, are you sure you want me to cut it here?
Duke and Riley playing fetch among the Christmas Trees
Our favorite customer of the day was the guy who showed up on his minibike and wanted to find a tree for $19! The trees are $24 minimum so Tony found him one that he could afford and he tied it on the bike and rode off into the sunset!!!
Yep, that is a Christmas tree tied onto the back of a minibike
Like all of the jobs and things we have done since being on the road our favorite part is getting to see friends that have moved away and meeting people. We met some interesting ones in Lake County! We will be back next year!
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