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

Monday Dec. 17, 2012 Lorraine’s Report

It’s the week before Christmas and I would like to say how sorry we are for all the young children who were gunned down back east. I can not imagine how all those people must feel; to take your children to school and then get a call that someone has shot them, in their classroom. Our hearts and our prayers go out to all of those people and all the pain they must be going through. I can not imagine this!!! When we saw Kaitlyn, all I could do was just hold her; Daddy too.

Until next time,

Lorraine

12/17/12 Chuck’s report

After a good time in Palm Springs, we headed back to be with our daughter and grand daughter back here in the Bay Area. We were only there for 10 days but it was nice to be in the sunshine and warmer weather. Plus we didn’t have to deal with the doctor and therapists so there was no stress of keeping a schedule with them.

While in Palm Springs we met with friends Tom/Dorothy. We met them at a rally back in the summer of ‘08 in Wisconsin, they traveled to Alaska with us a couple of years ago and we try to visit them whenever we can and of course, being this close we had to meet with them. We met at a restaurant and had a good visit, getting caught up with the changes in their lives and telling them about ours. Unfortunately due to their schedule and ours, we were only able to visit one time but hope to see them after the first of the year again.

Our friends Joe/Alice had to leave the 1000 Trails park but only moved to a county park about 15 miles away, close enough we could visit with them, meet them somewhere or they could come by our place. We managed to do all of the above over the week.

We also received a call from friends Steve/Sandy who said they were heading South and could stay in the area for two/three days if we could spare time to see them. These are our friends who own a lot at Baker Lake back in Washington and we’ve done quite a few things with them over the past 4 years. I managed to get them a spot in the 1000 Trails park and they found a site right next to us.

We were able to do a few things with them, convinced them to stay over the third day too. We asked Joe/Alice to meet us and all six of us headed out to see Christmas lights one night. We heard about a house in Palm Springs that won a national award in ‘10 for the best dancing light show to music. It lived up to its billing and can you believe we were able to park right across the street for three songs and most of the time there weren’t any other people there blocking our view. I don’t know when they start decorating but with all the lights and the computer program set to music, I would bet they start sometime around the first of November. They have a donation box in the front yard and all proceeds are donated to a charity. I actually saw a spot on the news about them the next day and they do give all the money to a charity.

Just around the way was a street with almost all the houses decorated for Christmas. We parked the car and walked a couple blocks each way, admiring the decorations. Lorraine and Sandy both took a lot of pictures and Sandy gave me a copy of the ones she had so I’ll have a bunch to go through and add some here. Like most times, the pictures don’t show the full effect but when we see them we can visualize the whole thing in our minds. After a couple of hours of looking at Christmas lights, we stopped off at In-n-Out for dinner, a good hamburger place.

Next morning Steve and I toured a few of the new coaches at the RV dealer next door to the park. We both were just looking and neither of us came anywhere near to buying a new one. Steve/Sandy also have a Tiffin, theirs is a year newer than ours and has the wider door we would like to have but I ain’t changing rigs just to have a wider door, ha.

After touring the coaches, in the rain no less, we decided to visit an oasis a few miles away. Lorraine and I have been there before, Joe/Alice had introduced us to the place about 3 years ago. It is located right on the San Andrea's fault line and has water coming out of the fault and flowing for a 1/2 mile or so. The palm trees in the area aren’t kept trimmed like most of the ones in people’s yards and such but allowed to hang down, sort of like a skirt. This makes a nice place for animals to live and with the water there are quite a few, although we haven’t seen anything except for lizards and birds in our trips there.

After the oasis, we continued driving just to tour the area. We stopped for lunch in Desert Hot Springs, then retuned back to the park. We got together later and played cards, visited and had a good time.

Next morning Steve/Sandy headed out to AZ. to be with their daughter and grand kids for Christmas. They have spent most of their winters since retiring in the Phoenix area and this year we may just meet them there for awhile. After they got ready, we wished them well and gave them our best wishes and safe travel.

It wasn’t too much later that we got a visit from Joe/Alice, they were returning to the park. They managed to find a site almost directly across the street from us and got set up. Later Lorraine fixed up some snacks and we went over to their coach for a couple of hours to visit. Once again, we enjoyed our time with these fine friends and will see them early next year as they will be in Hemet for the rest of the winter and we are planning on being back in Palm Springs, about 50 miles away. See you then Joe/Alice.

Saturday morning we got everything set for traveling and took off. We had planned on going a couple of hours past Bakersfield but by the time we got there, I was ready to stop for the night so once again we stopped overnight at the Orange Grove RV Park. I picked a few oranges and tangerines, they are ripe and ready to pick and very good.

Sunday we completed the trip to Santa Clara. A couple of hours before we got here we got a call from our Son-in-aw asking if we were set up yet, Kaitlyn was excited to see her Nana and wanted to come over. But we still had to drive a couple of hours and get set up first. When we got in, we called and told them to come over, boy was Kaitlyn excited when she saw Lorraine, came running up the stairs yelling “Nana, Nana, Nana” and gave her a big hug.

Lorraine and Kaitlyn had a good afternoon being together playing, drawing and coloring. Susy came by later (with dinner) and we all had a good evening until it was time for Kaitlyn to head home and get ready for bed.

Only thing about the trip over is the California roads need some work, they are falling apart. I already had a rant a few weeks ago about the stimulus package not being spent on roads and such and all that holds true even more after seeing the condition of the highways here.

The weather this past week hasn’t been anywhere as nice as the first part of our stay in Palm Springs. We’ve actually had some rain and temperatures about 15 F less than the 80s we were seeing. But the skies over there clear up soon after the rains, it doesn’t stay dark and gray long. We didn’t have any rain on our way over but the closer we got to the Bay area, the more clouds we had. It started raining last night and it’s still sprinkling this morning. The forecast is for rain this week, sort of like back in Washington. I would rather have the warmer weather and be wearing shorts instead of long pants.

Our plans have us staying here through most of this month, spending Christmas with Susy and Kaitlyn. Lorraine and I both have doctor’s appointments this week, here’s hoping for more good news on that front. We will be leaving for Pasadena the following Friday or Saturday, we haven’t decided exactly yet.

I’ll go thru the pictures Lorraine has taken the past week and add some here then get this posted.

Tom and Dorothy on the left, 1000 Trails park on right