Here we are, on the road: We’re in Santa Clara, California

Sunday, November 21, 2010 Lorraine’s report

We want to wish all our family and friends a very Happy Thanksgiving. We are so fortunate to be living in this country, in spite of the many challenges this country faces today.

When you think back as to why the Pilgrims came here, seeking freedom to worship God as they felt was right, and not dictated by the rulers in England, then you wonder how America became “the hope of the world”, with everyone wanting to come here for what we as Americans have and taken for granted.

When we visited Jamestown this past summer, we saw how the first settlers lived and suffered through that long first winter. It was amazing to see. Over half of the men that came over perished. Without the friendly Native Americans, namely Squanto and another, that whole colony would have not have made it. The Pilgrims had a lot to be thankful for.

So now onto our week; we were with Barb & Dennis last Sunday. I woke up feeling ill and haven’t been back to normal since November 11^th. I’ve had nausea and the runs, a terrific headache, cough and a cold, and at times I can’t get warm. Since I got that flu shot in September before we left Bellingham, I’ve had one thing or another every month since then. It makes me wonder if it was worth it to get the flu shot.

Sunday, we were still in Pahrump, NV and we ran errands, came home, with me resting for the afternoon. We spent the afternoon watching football on TV. Barb had cooked a spaghetti dinner and invited us over to eat. We enjoyed our last evening together with them.

Monday Barb & Dennis came over to say goodbye. They left by 11-11:30 am or so and were headed into Las Vegas. We wished them well and said we’d see them down the road; many thanks for coming to see us in Laughlin and going with us to Pahrump. We enjoyed our visit with you two.

Afterwards, Chuck and I had more errands to run. We stopped at the two casinos we hadn’t been in to and found out that the Nugget had a great buffet dinner of Prime Rib and all for the price of two for $10.00, which we went to for dinner. Afterwards, we went home and packed up stuff around the coach.

Tuesday morning we were up and off by 9:45. We had to get diesel and Chuck waited to hook up the car since the station was not very friendly to a 40 foot RV and toad. Then we headed out into the desert again. It was pleasant, sunny, blue skies but windy off and on. We stopped at Bakersfield Orange Grove RV Park by 4 pm, enough driving for the day.

Wednesday we were on the road before 9:30 headed north to Santa Clara, the Elks back parking lot. We arrived by 2:15 pm, set up and I headed over to pick up Kaitlyn from day care while Chuck washed the bugs off the windshield.

Kaitlyn was so happy to see me, she flew into my arms when I picked her up from school. Her mother bought her a workbook from the educational store that reinforces what she is learning in her school. She feels she has to do that work before she does anything else. I have to say she is eating more and drinking more water, than she did when we were here before. She is hungry all the time now, and she may be gaining a little weight.

This past week, Kaitlyn’s school has been getting out early for teacher/parent conferences. We picked her up Thursday and Friday at 11:20. We’ve had errands to run after, and then we head home. I usually give her lunch, and then do her homework, we play, do art work and then I make sure she has her quiet time for over an hour or more.

I’ve been cooking dinner every night at home, and feeding her earlier than when she is there at school and day care; she’s there from before 8 am when Kindergarten starts until 6 pm or so, when either her mom or dad picks her up. That makes for a really long day for a five year old!

It’s been cooler here and wetter here than normal. I’m already tired of the cold, windy, wet and gray skies. Back home in Bellingham, it’s been down in the 20’s and 30’s with snow. And Mt. Baker is opening for snow skiing this weekend. At least here there’s no snow you have to drive in.

I love being here with my daughter and grand daughter. Mark will be taking Kaitlyn up to Seattle this next Friday after Thanksgiving to see his mother.

That’s it for me. Until next time.

Lorraine

Nov. 20, 2010 Chuck’s report

Ok, it’s time to get started writing our blog once again. First of all, this Thursday is Thanksgiving and I would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. Hope you get to spend some time with your family during your celebrations. We had hoped our son, Rich, would be able to come down from Alaska and join us all for Thanksgiving but it appears he will not be able to do that.

Last Sunday Lorraine woke up feeling poorly once again so we had to cancel our breakfast at Dennis/Barb’s rig, bummer. We took it pretty easy so Lorraine could rest up, went to Wal-Mart to pick up our prescriptions and some more cold medicine. Later we did go down to their rig for a spaghetti dinner, thanks Dennis and Barb for the food, drink and great company.

Monday morning we had to say our “see ya laters” to Dennis/Barb as they were heading off to Las Vegas. Dennis retired about three weeks ago and they decided to head South, wanted to visit Las Vegas and such. We heard they were in the area and had their phone number so Lorraine called them and they decided to meet us in Laughlin, postponing their scheduled trip to Vegas. We spent a week with them in Laughlin then we all decided to head to Pahrump for a few more days. They were getting their plans back in order, heading to Vegas as first planned. We enjoyed visiting with them, showing them the sights we knew about and exploring new areas with them too. Thanks for spending part of your first retired trip with us, see you two later.

After they headed out, Lorraine and I made a trip to town, wanted to check out a couple of places. Of course, we ended up checking out two casinos too. The first place we stopped was the Nugget, both Lorraine and I walked out with some of their money so we considered that a good stop. We then went down the street to check out Terribles, the one downtown, not the one where we were staying. We both played for awhile and didn’t loose too much before we decided to head back to the rig.

We rested up for a couple of hours then headed back to the Nugget to their buffet, it was a two-for-one and was the best we had in Pahrump. We didn’t gamble any before or after dinner, just returned back to the rig for a quiet evening.

Next morning we finished packing up, flushed and drained all the holding tanks, drove to the gas station to fuel up and hook up the car. We headed out across the desert once again, this time heading West. We didn’t have to cross any high passes and made pretty good time. We knew we were going to stop for the night somewhere along the way and decided to head for Bakersfield once again. We pulled into the Orange Grove RV park, set up, washed the bugs of the windshield and ate dinner that Lorraine had fixed, didn’t even unhook the car.

Somewhere I managed to loose a day as I thought we had an extra day before we got back here. Lorraine told Kaitlyn we would be here on the 17th and I thought that was Thursday. I wasn’t in any hurry to get going on Wednesday morning, knowing we had an extra day and we might even stop for another night along the way, WRONG. It was pointed out to me that today was the 17th and we would be in Santa Clara to pick up our grand daughter just as we had promised.

So once again we headed out, heading for the Bay area. We got back to the Elk’s lodge here in Santa Clara, set up and Lorraine took off to pick up Kaitlyn from school while I stayed behind to clean the bugs off the front once again. We are sure doing our best to eliminate the bug population as we travel from place to place. I don’t like to let them sit on the front and cook in any longer than necessary; I try to wash them off when we stop.

Just before I finished, Lorraine returned with Kaitlyn in her child seat in the back. As soon as she was out of the car, she came running to Papa with her arms up. I was sure glad to see her too! She helped me finish spaying water on the front and she went inside with Lorraine while I dried the front.

The rest of our week we’ve spent as much time with Kaitlyn as possible, picking her up from school after their early dismissal due to parent/teacher conference week. We would pick her up, stop by stores as necessary then head for our rig. Once we got there, Nana (Lorraine to rest of us) would do her level best to feed Kaitlyn as if she hadn’t eaten for a week. They would play games, watch movies and just be together, such fun for both of them. Kaitlyn also has a book she works each afternoon after school, calls it her homework. She is in kindergarten and this book covers some of the stuff she is learning. She writes her letters, traces lines, draws pictures and such and she wants to do at least one page per day. One afternoon she wanted to do more than three but we told her to slow down, there was always tomorrow. She said but wait, you were gone for 14 days so she was that far behind and needed to catch up, ha. I hope she keeps that same attitude when she actually has real homework later in school.

Thursday afternoon turned out to be very nice, weather wise, so we decided to walk around the area where we are staying. We walked down the block and found a place where the leaves were falling and piling up, of course we had to crunch them and throw some at each other. I’m sure you could have heard Kaitlyn laughing a few blocks away, she had such fun.

We also had dinner with Susy each night, at the lodge one time, Lorraine fixed dinner the other days. Kaitlyn and Susy both put in their requests and Lorraine fixed what they had asked. Of course, there was some card playing and such before and after dinner too, Kaitlyn likes to play Go Fish and Old Maid, as long as I lose that is.

Friday we noticed the Washington Huskies were playing the UCLA Bruins that evening and would be on TV. We started watching in the second quarter and I watched the rest of the game. The Huskies won and if they could possibly win their two remaining games, they could actually go to a bowl game this season. And to think that two years ago they didn’t even win one game, they are playing much better football now.

Saturday Susy and Kaitlyn once again came over to our rig where Susy and I watched to Stanford Cardinal beat the California Bears. Stanford is already bowl eligible and are just waiting to see what bowl they get invited to. Lorraine once again played with Kaitlyn and fixed us a good dinner. And once again Kaitlyn managed to beat me in just about every game of Go Fish and Old Maid that we played, didn’t you hear her laughter??

The weather here has been a bit cooler than we had the past two weeks and yesterday we actually had a good rain storm, thunder and lighting and all. I heard the local ski area are expecting enough snow to open this weekend. I also heard that they are getting some snow back home in Washington and that Mount Baker ski area will be opening this weekend too. It isn’t unheard of for Mount Baker to open before Thanksgiving but they don’t do that every year, for sure. Its been cold and wet along the whole West coast this week, we are glad to be down here where all we have seen is rain with some wind, not too bad and I don’t have to shovel it.

We only have 30 amps electric service here at the lodge so we have to manage our electrical usage, we can’t run two big heat producers at the same time. For example, if we need to run the microwave, we have to turn off the heat pump. We can run our clothes drier but can’t use the microwave or the heater at the same time. We’ve been in the motorhome for over three years now and understand our systems much better but ever once in awhile we forget and trip the main circuit breaker by using to many amps, bummer. So I have to head over and reset the breaker, not a big deal but makes me feel like a newbie once again.

Our plans have us staying here for another week, until the first of December. I think we will continue with our new tradition of going out for dinner on Thanksgiving, that’s much easier on everyone plus we’ve had good food when we go out. And I won’t have to do dishes after dinner either.

So this week we will again spend as much time with Kaitlyn until her dad, Mark, takes her up to Seattle the day after Thanksgiving. He plans to spend the weekend with his mother, brother, sister and Kaitlyn’s cousins. Susy will be able to spend some time with us while Kaitlyn is with her dad so all will not be lost. I predict a couple trips to the mall and maybe even to the movie house for Lorraine and Susy. It’s been awhile since they’ve managed to have a couple of days to spend together with mother/daughter bonding so I’m sure they will have fun.

I just checked and it looks like we are scheduled to be in Palm Springs 1000 Trails starting on 12/2 which means we will leave here on the 1st. We are currently scheduled to stay there for two weeks and then return back here for two weeks over Christmas. But as usual, our plans are not commitments we have to make, after all, we are retired and don’t have to meet someone else’s schedule now, ha. Life is good!!

And now for some pictures. Lorraine didn’t take too many this week so I should finish up and get this posted soon.

Pictures before Dennis and Barb headed for Las Vegas.