Here we are, on the road: March 2014

March 30, 2014 Lorraine’s report

Hello everyone, thanks for stopping by. We moved this week, up to another Elks; in Oceanside, CA. Compared to the one in Chula Vista, this one is a lot nicer and the people are more friendly. Imagine that! And the sites are bigger, too.

So we’ve been enjoying this area, there is so much to see and do. I guess I really like this area, especially the ocean. Chuck took us down to the water, and we just enjoyed the water, walking in the surf and sand, It was especially nice to smell the water, after all the dry sand in Yuma. Now don’t get me wrong, I love the desert, but my heart belongs by the ocean.

I’m not sure where I would like to “Land” when we get off the road. I truly love the water, and I love the desert. I don’t hurt as much in the desert; no humidity, no hurt. But this area is so nice!

We got a new Costco mattress cover, and it is nice, but that first night it was hard to get used to the smell. The pad was wrapped up in a plastic cover, and the smell was pretty awful. We left it on the bed all day and made it up before bed, but the cover was almost unbearable for me. I had to take and allergy pill just to sleep on it. It’s finally better, not much smell.

One day we went up the road to LA and toured the Richard M. Nixon Library. One more thing off of our bucket list. I loved it! It was well worth all it and I can’t wait to go see Ronald Regan’s Library,

“Richard Nixon served as the 37th President of the United States from January 20, 1969, until August 9, 1974. Born in Yorba Linda, on January 9, 1913, Nixon was a lawyer, a naval officer in World War II, and a politician who was elected congressman, senator, vice president, and ultimately president. Nixon’s time in the White House was tumultuous, including both triumphs, such as the ending of the Vietnam War and the reopening of American contacts with China, and tragedies, most notably the controversies known as Watergate. Nixon became the only president to resign the office. He wrote his memoirs and several other bestselling books after leaving the White House and remained an active commentator on the international relations and American foreign policy. He died on April 22, 1994.” I thought he was a very great man!

One day we went to the Old Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, in Oceanside, CA. They were having noon mass, and then after they were having a funeral, but we still got to look through the various areas. This was nice tour. We have been to a bunch of different missions, and each time we go we learn more about the way things were. I just love our nation’s history.

Then there was the earthquake we felt here last night. Friday evening, a 5.1 earthquake, about 9:10 and it seemed to go on forever. I told Chuck the pictures I have up here in the rig were moving. It seemed to last forever, but must have been just a few seconds or so. At least it wasn’t like the one in Alaska, the Good Friday one. Now that was a BIG quake. You just can’t forget the really big ones like that, those leave something in your memory.

So that’s it for me. Only a few more weeks until we get to see Kaitlyn and Susy. Hope all is well with you both. Miss my girls. Until next time.

Hugs,

Lorraine

3/30/14 Chuck’s report

Another touristy type week for us. We are trying to explore the San Diego area but will have to come back again. Darn, what a tough thing to HAVE to do, return to this area, ha. We are getting a good start on seeing stuff but there is so much to see/do around here.

Sunday after posting our blog, I took Lorraine out for a brunch, we went to the Sycuan Casino and once we got there, I remembered we had been there before. Sure enough, when we got our player’s card, they said we had been there back in ‘08. We had a good meal but the slots sure were not good to us.

Monday Lorraine started doing laundry and we decided to buy a foam mattress cover from Costco that we’ve been told was a good accessory. This was probably the shortest trip into Costco we’ve ever done, in/out in less than 10 minutes. We got the cover back home and positioned it on the bed, it will take a couple of days for the smell to go away but otherwise it was good. It was a good fit and Lorraine said she likes it so guess we’ll keep it.

Tuesday was travel day for us, not far, just from Chula Vista to Oceanside or from South to North San Diego. We are staying at the Elks here and it’s a bit better than the one in Chula Vista, the sites are wide enough that we could park the car alongside the coach. The sites in Chula Vista were asphalt, here we’re on gravel. Both are 30 amp with water but no sewers at each site here.

After getting set up we took a drive to explore the area some, as usual when it’s available, we ended up at the ocean front. Our first trip to this portion of the beach and we both liked it, easy access and some free parking. The beaches are really nice plus it was a nice, sunny day. We returned to the rig and had dinner at the lodge, sirloin steak with all the fixings plus desert, yum.

Wednesday we headed out to explore the area a bit more and of course we went to the beach/pier too. We were told the busy season here is in mid summer, that’s when folks from Arizona come over here to escape the heat. But we like this area, if it wasn’t so expensive it would be higher on our list of probable settling spots when we get off the road. This area has almost everything we would like but it’s pretty humid, we like the drier air in the desert.

Thursday we ran some errands, Lorraine needed to have her glasses adjusted at Sears and found out one of the lenses in her sun glasses was scratched and needs replaced. Lucky for us it will be covered by the 90 day warranty but we will get it done when we are back in the Bay area because we’ll be there long enough.

We then drove North to Yorba Linda to see the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. This place is near Disneyland in Los Angles so we wanted to wait until the morning rush hour was over before we left and we wanted to leave before the afternoon rush started.

We toured President Eisenhower and Clinton’s libraries before so wanted to check this one, only 9 more to go. It was nice, pretty laid back compared to Clinton’s. We learned lots about Nixon’s life before, during and after his presidency. They had lots of info about Watergate, didn’t hold anything back. We even got to “listen” to the missing 18 1/2 minutes on the tape recordings, of course, nothing but static but we heard it. We spent about 4 hours there and didn’t get to see everything but left around 3 trying to beat the traffic, almost made it but it did get slow before we got back. Sure wouldn’t want to make that trip everyday, that’s for sure.

Friday morning we got a later start because we weren’t planning on going into a heavy traffic area. We wanted to see one of the 21 Spanish Missions spread out from San Diego to San Francisco. This one is called Old Mission San Luis Rey De Francia and was founded in 1798. It was one of the last ones built but because of the area grew to be the biggest of all. It is located in an area that had plenty of water and rich soil so they grew lots of crops and had lots of livestock. There is a small charge to go through the museum but otherwise the rest of the grounds were free to explore. We did tour the museum and found it to be very interesting plus they gave us instructions and information about the grounds that aided us on our exploration. I doubt we will manage to see all 21 of these but will probably stop and see a couple more in the area.

And once again we had dinner at the Lodge, this time it was roast beef or chicken with all the fixin’s plus desert and there was a band playing ‘til 10 pm. We stayed around for some of the dancing but walked back to the rig about 8:30.

At 9:09, Lorraine said she felt the coach moving/rocking, earthquake!! I’ve said if we are ever in a quake that the coach would probably be the safest place to be. Sure enough, just a little rockin and rollin. The folks still inside the Lodge all headed outside, guess they didn’t know how bad it was yet. The center of the quake was about 40 miles North of us, it was recorded as 5.1 on the Richter scale. There was some damage in the epicenter but no damage around this area. I think it’s the strongest we’ve ever experienced though, don’t need to be in any stronger ones, thank you.

Saturday was a quiet day for us, we made a Wal-Mart run and spent the rest of the day/evening at the rig. Because we don’t have a sewer at the site, I borrowed the blue boy, a tank on wheels that we can use to dump our tanks and wheel over to the dump site near the lodge. We only needed to empty the grey tank, the black tank is good for a week and we’ll empty everything the day we leave. This is the first time in 7 1/2 years that we’ve been on the road that I’ve used a blue boy, sure glad we didn’t buy one and carry it with us all this time. But it ended up not being a big deal, would not hesitate to use one again if we needed too.

The temperature has dropped some here, back to normal they say. After being in Yuma with the 90F temps and low humidly it feels cool here on the coast. The daytime highs are fine, getting to the high 60s and even the low 70s with the nighttime lows dropping to the low 50s but compared to Yuma - - -, of course, compared to what hit the NE USA this week we can’t complain at all (sorry Brian and Sue).

Our travel plans aren’t too tough, we will work our way up the coast over the next week. We are thinking of trying an Elks lodge in Semi Valley North of Los Angles tomorrow for a couple of days, it’s the closest on to Ronald Regan’s Library. Then we’ll head over to Santa Barbara until we continue up to see Susy and Kaitlyn in the Bay area. We’ll be there sometime during the second week of April and stay for two/three weeks.

I know Lorraine took some pictures this week so I’ll go through them and pick out some to add here.

Another drive down a Palm tree lined street, sure are leggy trees though.