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

April 13, 2014 Lorraine’s report

So this week was busy, been having a blast with Kaitlyn and Susy…Thanks for having us…been lots of fun…have a great week, I know we will enjoy our visit here. Hugs to all,

Lorraine

4/13/14 Chuck’s report

Yes, we are back near Susy’s place, spending time with her and Katie and getting my final yearly doctor visits completed too.

Last Sunday after posting our blog we took of on a tour of the area with no real destination in mind and guess what, we ended up at a casino. Can’t imagine how Lorraine made that happen but we did have a pretty good buffet there. And both of us ended up walking out with some of their money too, almost enough to pay for the buffet, ha, but it’s better than losing.

We liked the area around Santa Maria but it won’t make our short list of places to settle when we get off the road. But I think we will be returning to the area for more exploring some day and we want to try the BBQ at the Elks lodge too, sorry we were there the week they didn’t have it, bummer.

Monday was travel day for us, we were heading North on 101 vs I-5, it’s been years since we’ve taken this route and then it was in a car, not the motorhome. But it was no problem except for traffic in a couple of places and I think the road was in better shape than I-5 too. All in all, it was a good trip, we left about 10:30 and I paid special attention to the car when we checked lights/hookups and everything was good. I’m still not sure what the issue was when we left Simi Valley but being a new hookup, I will continue to check things over carefully. We got here about 2:30 and got set up.

We called the host here and told him we were coming and asked if the only 50 amp spot would be available, he said it would be and it was ours. We have power and water and a sewer dump close enough that we can run a hose over to dump our gray tank whenever but we will have to move the coach to dump the black tank after about a week or so. Seeing as how we will be here two weeks, we should only have to move and dump the black tank once.

Later Susy and Katie came by, we had a good time with them. Katie was complaining about here right ankle hurting but we couldn’t find anything wrong. Next morning Lorraine went with them to the doctor and they x-rayed her ankle. She had a bone spur on the end of a bone and it was chipped, that was what was causing her pain. They decided to put her in a leg cast for 5 or 6 weeks and I guess that was a big deal for Katie. Her birthday party was scheduled this weekend and it is at a trampoline place and the doctor told her she shouldn’t be jumping/running around. OH OH, this may just ruin her life! It wasn’t so much the cast as it was the party might have to be postponed and all her friends had made plans to come, how horrible.

They stopped off and did some shopping on the way back and when they got here I got to hear about how her life was ruined, maybe no birthday party, what the heck was she to do. And by now the cast was hurting some too. Lorraine had started dinner in the slow cooker so it was ready without a lot more preparation. After dinner they headed home and Susy was going to call the trampoline place the next morning to see if they had any leeway on the date for the party.

Wednesday Susy didn’t go to work, stayed home with Katie instead. By now her foot was swelling a bit and hurting a bit. They came by and Lorraine fixed brunch for us before we headed out for a short shopping trip. I put Katie in a basket and pushed her around the store, she didn’t really want to go where I did, imagine that. Later we had dinner at the Elks, a nice baked chicken dinner.

Thursday was my 65th birthday and we got some phone calls and emails wishing me Happy Birthday. Thanks to all who sent good wishes my way. I guess this is the one of the milestone birthday, I’m now covered by Medicare. I had to make a few decisions with that but everything is completed, now to see how it all works.

Later Lorraine, Susy and Katie took us to Black Angus for my birthday dinner. It wasn’t crowded, didn’t have to wait in line and it was good, thanks.

Friday morning was the first of three visits to the VA doctors, this one for hearing. First I had to have my ears irrigated, Lorraine had been putting in an ear cleaning solution every night so it went pretty well. I had time to stop by for my fasting blood draw before heading to the audio doctor. She checked things out but wanted to do a hearing test with me wearing my hearing aids and I didn’t have them with me. She checked her schedule and only has one opening before we leave so she set me up for a return visit this week.

Later we drove over to Katie at her school where she was having an Easter party along with an egg hunt. There were about 60 kids in her class and we got there just in time for her to go to the playground. She seemed to be getting along ok with her cast, sort of hopping on her good foot and limping on the cast. When they were lined up for the egg hunt the teacher gave her a two second head start before the rest of the kids started running. There were plenty of plastic eggs so everyone got lots. I did notice two of Katie’s friends giving her some eggs so they all had about the same number, nice. I’ve often said there is no meaner animal on earth than an eight year old boy, unless it was an eight year old girl and was pleased to see them play together so nicely.

After the egg hunt, the afterschool teacher had a pot luck type party for the kids, lots of junk food. available. The kids were still opening their plastic eggs to get to the surprise inside. There was lots of trading going on for the surprises too. Soon the older kids came in from their egg hunt and things started getting pretty noisy so we signed Katie out and came home. Mark stopped by and later Susy got off work and came by too. We ordered a pizza and Mark went by to pick it up and they all played games until it was time to head home.

Saturday morning Lorraine started cleaning out her closet, something she’s been wanting to do for awhile. Not to be left out, I cleaned out my side too, we ended up with three large garbage bags full of goodwill stuff. Later Susy stopped by and of course she pitched in to help too. Katie had gone with Mark to Great America, an amusement park nearby. She was looking forward to getting “head of the line privileges” due to her cast. After getting all the closet stuff taken care of, we headed out the dollar store to get a few last minute items for Katie’s birthday party. Then we all met at Chili's for dinner before calling it a night. Katie said her foot wasn’t hurting and she wasn’t limping on it either so guess she is getting used to it already, only four days, that’s good.

Today is Katie’s birthday party and she has certainly been looking forward to it. Susy has been putting together bags of stuff for the kids, planning activities and ordered the cake. She and Katie will coming by soon, finishing the last minute party stuff and then we’ll head out to the party. Not my idea of fun, lots of kids running around, having fun and making lots of noise, I’ll sort of hang in the background on this.

One side note, our car’s radio system has the ability to play external music sources. Our friends, Dave and Sandy in Minnesota, have a large music collection that we enjoy listening to whenever we are with them so I asked if he would be willing to share his collection. He told me he would attempt to get the songs loaded onto a thumb drive and send it to me. It got here and I immediately took it out to the car to try it. As soon as I plugged it in, the radio found it and started playing, it worked great. Thanks Dave and Sandy, we’ll think of you every time we use it.

Katie’s actual birthday is on Tuesday and she is on Spring Break this week so we will not have to wait until school is out before we pick her up. She is signed up for a day camp thing but we can pick her up whenever we want. The only other thing on our schedule is my doctor visits at the VA on Monday, Tuesday and Friday.

The weather has been really nice for most of the week, a couple of 80F days. We have turned on the air conditioners a couple of times but haven't needed the heaters hardly at all. The forecast is for slightly cooler temps with a slight chance of rain, they sure could use lots of rain around here, it’s been a draught for the past year and I’ve heard of water restrictions in places.

Our travel plans are pretty simple, we will leave here on Tuesday after Easter and head up to Washington. We will be stopping in Oregon to get new shocks and tires on the rig and also get our annual lube/oil/filter change at Speedco. Once we get to our spot at Joe and Alice’s, we will be there thru July, that’s as far as our long range plans are right now.

Guess I’ll go through the pictures we’ve taken this week and see if there are any to add here.

On the drive up 101, really liked the hills on the left.