We’re in Santa Maria, California

 

October 19, 2014                                                                                                                Lorraine’s report

Hello and thanks for stopping by.  Another week has flown by and before you know it, Christmas will be here.  So we have been just slowing down a bit, after our busy time in Las Vegas.  But oh what fun we had while we were there.  We went to 4 shows; the last show we had tickets was for “Sin City”, but the night we chose to go, (last evening in Vegas) the show didn’t start until 8:30, which meant it would last until after 10 pm; then the hassle of getting back home.  Chuck and I decided it was too late for us, since we would be leaving in the morning before 10 am.  I was happy we made it out of Vegas without any major incidents, it’s always hard to come out of that city.

So we made it to the Elks Lodge in West Covina.  Chuck had to fix several problems with the rig and worked on it until he completed it.  Afterwards we went to a restaurant in town that was owned and operated by a Mexican family.  And boy was the food good.  Hey Joe and Alice, remember that restaurant we went to in Palm Springs, this restaurant was like that, maybe a bit better.  It was excellent!!

The next day we went over to The Fairplex in Pomona to see the R V show.  While it was smaller than a FMCA Rally, they had tons of big rigs of every kind there.  We walked and walked through lots of them.  They had one rig that may, and I mean may, replace our rig.  We didn’t have time to drive it, but we watched the video on it and it seemed to maybe take the place of our bus.  When we go south this year, we’ll have to go and drive it. 

While the show didn’t have any entertainment for the evening, the price to get in didn’t warrant what it would cost to bring in a show.

The next day we were busy, had to get a battery and such.  So Chuck was able to find the battery at a Costco and was able to replace it himself.  Thank Goodness he is so handy.  And I got a flu shot.  Boy, did that hurt.  It has been swollen and such, not sure why it hurt so badly, but it did. 

Friday we left West Covina and headed north on the 101.  Boy is that road sure rough!  We pulled into Santa Maria, the Elks Lodge #1538.  We were lucky and it was a Friday, and the lodge had a full house of rigs pulling in. 

This time we met a couple of people, who we invited to eat with us for the BBQ.  It was good to meet Louise, Van and Chuck.  Nice to meet some of the people who are out doing what we are doing, and seem to be enjoying life, too.

Saturday we drove through town, stopped for a few groceries, then home to watch the WA Huskies lose, and then Stanford lose.   It was tough to see our guys lose these games. 

And now the Seahawks are losing to St. Louis.  But as I write this we are only down by one touchdown.  Hopefully, the Seahawks will come out okay.  So that is it for me.. 

I want to wish all our family and friends a happy week…Until next time…

Lorraine

 

10/19/14                                                                                                                                 Chuck’s report

Yep, back in California once again.  We spend a large portion of our time in this state this time of the year, all the way through the first of the year.  Have to spend the holiday with our grand daughter ya know. 

Last week we were in Las Vegas, we were there for 16 days, I think.  We managed to see some fine shows, toured some of the area, visited some of the casinos and generally had a good time.  We both lost overall on the slots but Lorraine had a good run of luck the last few days so neither of us lost a large amount, but whatever, losing is losing. 

Last Sunday we did manage to watch the Seattle Seahawks on TV but they lost to Dallas Cowboys.  This week we once again are able to watch them, in fact they are on right now, playing the St. Louis Rams.  Hope the Seahawks play better and get back on a winning streak. 

Monday we headed back to the strip, we had one more free buffet at the Flamingo Casino.  We sort of hung around the area for awhile but wanted to get out before the normal heavy traffic started.  We stopped at Wal-Mart on the way back and finally picked up Lorraine’s prescription.  We had been having a problem with them trying to fill this one, first they didn’t have any and would order some, next the order didn’t show up as expected, then it couldn’t be filled until three days later even though it was over the normal 30 days ?? (finally worked that out with the gal at the drop off counter and got it ordered again) and finally when we got there this time they went back to the can’t fill for two more days stuff until Lorraine told them we worked that out the day before.  What a hassle but we had to work with them in order to get it filled. 

Tuesday we headed out, boy is the traffic heavy in town.  But we were fine once we got a few miles out of town on the freeway, UNTIL – someone pulled up alongside and pointed to coach.  Not knowing what the issue was, we, of course, pulled over to check things out.  As soon as I got out of the door, I noticed one of the basement doors was opened.  Part of our normal routine when we are leaving is I check all the baggage doors, make sure they are closed before I lock them so I know it was closed when we left.  This was the baggage door for the battery compartment and I found the door lock was still closed and locked but the hardware with the striker bolt it attaches too had come loose from the coach.  Luckily, this hardware was still in the lock so I figured I could just reattach it but I didn’t have the correct bolts I needed.  But I do carry lots of duct tape so I just closed the door and duct taped it, good enough until we stopped. 

So we continued on our way and got to our planned stop at West Covina Elks Lodge.   We got checked in then started setting up.  This place only has water and electric (50 amp) at each site with a dump station nearby.  Depending on what we have for hookups, I have to change our water supply inside the coach by turning a couple of valves.  This time, I needed to close the valve to the reverse osmosis filters and open the one that directs the water straight to the coach.  But the valve I needed to close didn’t work, the handle moved but the valve wasn’t operating.  I checked the GPS and found an ACE hardware store nearby so figured I would get a new valve and pick up the bolts I needed for the baggage door too. 

I couldn’t find the valve I needed but the clerk knew where they were and helped me out.  They also had a replacement valve for the other valve I need to move, this one had been getting harder to turn as of late so I returned to the coach, disconnected the second one and returned to the hardware store to get a replacement for it.  It only took a few minutes to get these replaced once I had all the parts I needed so now we should be set on these for awhile. 

Next I worked on the baggage door but found the bolts I had picked up wouldn’t work.  I always check the water level in all our batteries the first of every month and this month I noticed one of the batteries had one cell that was almost empty of water and there was lots of dried battery acid in the compartment.  I cleaned the mess up as best I could and refilled the cell with distilled water but when we moved, the same cell was empty and more dried acid was all over the compartment once again, shoot, a bad battery and these are less than two years old. 

With all the battery acid being in the compartment it had to run out somewhere and I think it ran out around the bolts holding the door post, allowing the door to come open while driving.  The bolts are screwed into a channel iron type and the holes were ate out too much from the acid so the bolts I had picked up didn’t have enough metal to hold, therefore they were too small.  I decided to work on this the next day, first I wanted to get a new battery and do all the work in that compartment at the same time. 

Next morning we headed out to see the California RV show in Pomona, the main reason we were in this area.  We were surprised to find this was almost all RV’s on display, only about 15 vendors selling normal RV stuff, nothing like a RV Rally.  I was hoping to talk to some battery guys and get prices but the ones here were only giving out info, didn’t have any batteries and wouldn’t have a mobile guy come to our coach to replace ours. 

We did go through lots of coaches while we were there, boy are there some nice ones out there.  But we didn’t find any that we wanted enough to change ours, we’re pretty happy with it even though some things are falling apart on us.  Now if we were to win a big lottery or something, maybe we would make a deal but without that happening, we’ll stay with ours.

Once we got back to our coach, I called a couple of battery shops that I knew of in the area.  One suggested we stop at one of their shops in Ventura, a town that would be along our planned route to here.  I called them and the shop manager told me they didn’t have any place for us to park our coach while they worked on it so that place was out of the picture.  I gave it up for the day and we went into the lodge for their dinner that night and talked about the RVs we had just seen. 

Next morning, Thursday, after thinking about this battery thing, we decided to get a battery and change it out myself.  So first off, I had to remove the old one and take it with us, I wanted to insure we got the same size/type replacement.  Costco said they didn’t have one until I asked if they happened to have any golf cart batteries and when we checked, it was an exact match, even by the same manufacture.  So I picked up one and dropped it off at the car while we finished the rest of our shopping there.  One thing we did pick up was two replacement pillows for our bed, we had bought some while in Quartzsite last winter and neither one was holding up well.  Lorraine commented after the first night that she slept much better with the new pillow, yea. 

While I had the batteries out, I cleaned up the area and drilled new holes for the striker plate that the door locks on to.  I used longer bolts that went all the way through the channel iron instead of just replacing the self-starting screws that were original.  This shouldn’t cause any more problems, I hope. 

I put the batteries back in place and hooked up all the cables, being careful to get them all back in the same place I removed them.  When I checked things out, I found the inverter wasn’t working, shoot now what.  I checked the circuit breaker and it wasn’t tripped then I checked the display panel and noticed it wasn’t even on.  All it took was to turn it back on, not sure why it shut down but must be a safety thing when there is no power from the batteries.  But anyway, everything worked after turning it back on so it must have been a successful remove/replace.

Friday morning we got everything ready for travel and headed out for our planned stop here at the Santa Maria Elks Lodge.  Once again we found the roads through LA to be in pretty bad shape, especially in the truck lanes we normally use.  And the traffic was pretty heavy for the first half hour or so but guess we were expecting that.  Otherwise it was an uneventful trip. 

The reason we wanted to get here on Friday was for their cook your own dinner they have every Friday.  We both had steak and I cooked them on their wood grill.  They have salad, potato and fixings back inside the lodge.  We had met a couple of folks while standing in line to pay and invited them to sit with us so we had a good dinner as well a good visit with some new friends.  They said they were expecting maybe 400 folks for dinner but I think there was less than 200 who were there before we left.  But they did have a band playing later that evening so maybe more folks showed up after we left. 

Yesterday we tried to find the farmer’s market we had found last time we were in town but it wasn’t there.  We did find a much smaller one and only bought a basket of raspberries.   We also toured a portion of town that we hadn’t been to yet, nothing exciting.

We’ve had another great week of weather, most days getting to the 80s with lots of blue skies and only dropping to the mid 60s at night.  Sure can’t complain about the weather we’ve had this summer and fall.  Only issue is they sure could use some rain, things are pretty dry as they are in the midst of a two year drought.  But for us, I’m just as happy not to have rain, ha. 

Our travel plans are pretty simple, we leave here either tomorrow or Tuesday and head back up to Santa Clara to spend some time with Susy and Katie.  Lorraine will be flying up to Alaska to be with our son the first of November so I’ll be playing bachelor for two weeks while she is gone.  I’m planning on moving the coach to Morgan Hill 1000 Trails park while she is gone as the Elks have changed their rules and I can’t stay there more than two weeks.  But I’ll be able to move back to the Elks when she returns and we’ll stay there for awhile while we make our future plans. 

I’ll go through the pictures Lorraine has taken this week, see which ones to add here and get this posted.   

Just watched the Seahawks lose another game, sure a different team than last year.  They did play better the second half but the first half was no fun for a Seahawk fan. 

Welcome to California, even with all the negatives it’s still not a bad place to visit/be.

  

Still lots of open spaces in this state but mostly desert or mountains.

  

That’s Los Angles in the distance on the right. 

  

Don’t see pickup loads of oranges back home, apples maybe but not oranges. 

  

Main office for ABC in LA.

 

Lorraine spotted this Jack-O-Lateran as we were driving.  

 

Lots of vegetables growing around Oxnard area. 

  

The Pacific ocean once again, never get tired of seeing it, especially in the sun shine. 

  

  

  

  

Another Jack-O-lantern, this one is a big balloon.

 

Guess that’s enough, will get this posted now.

 

Thanks   Chuck

215

We’re in Las Vegas

 

                                                                                                                                                           October 12, 2014                                                                                                   Lorraine’s Report

Hello and thank you for stopping by to see what we have been doing another week.  We are still in Las Vegas and today we packed up all the rig and moved it over to the Road Runner R V Park.  Not a bad place as far as I can see.  Chuck wanted us to be in this area for several more days, so we had to find a place for a bit. 

We have had a wonderful time here in Vegas.  We have seen 4 shows, all nice, but the two that stood out to me are the musicals.  I loved the “Jersey Boy’s” and I loved “Human Nature”.  Both were very good.  We had seen “Jersey Boys” the last time we came to Vegas, but I wanted to go again.  I grew up listening to the “Four Seasons”.  They were one of my all time favorites when I was younger.  I loved “Sherry; Walk Like a Man; Dawn, Go Away, I’m No Good For You”, and all the hits they put out.  As I said, they were one of the best groups and I loved them. 

And I loved a whole bunch of the Motown groups, and that was the show “Human Nature” put on.  By the end of that show, the group had everyone in the audience on their feet, singing and dancing to the hits they were singing.  Awesome to see everyone in the audience carrying on like they were.  And while I liked Mystique, the music made it for me.  Louis Anderson was okay, but he had several other acts who had me laughing harder than when he was on stage.  In fact, one of the performers showed us to our place in the theater, before the show.

All in all, well worth the time we took to go to the time shares. 

Forgot to mention, that last week my toaster died.  I went to plug it in, and it blew the fuse.  Chuck had to change it, and then we had to look for a new toaster.  I guess what I’m saying is that we just started on a new year of being “ON THE ROAD”.   When stuff I brought from home (my sticks & brick home) is starting to give up the ghost, WOW, we must have been gone a lotta years-8 in fact.  And while we are out here, we have been looking for a place to land, but so far nothing has grabbed us yet.  When it gets closer to coming off the road, maybe by then we will have found something.

So that’s it for me…Hugs to all….

Lorraine

 

10/12/14                                                                                                                                       Chuck’s report

We decided that staying around here for two more days fits our schedule best and I don’t want to fight the traffic getting out of town on Sunday.  When we came in two weeks ago we noticed the BAD traffic heading South so staying here might mean less traffic problems when we leave.

We’ve been to Las Vegas a few times over the years so we aren’t as wide eyed as some and don’t feel we have to be on the go all the time but it still has a WOW factor.  And we’ve sort of figured out our way around here too so when the traffic starts backing up on what ever street, we feel ok trying a different route on our own, haven’t gotten into trouble doing that this trip.

Last Sunday after we posted our blog we headed out to one of the Station Casinos for a short visit, wanted to watch some football and we got Subway for dinner there too. 

Monday we headed out to visit Freemont Experience or what we call “Old Vegas”.  This area isn’t anything like the strip, I don’t know what would compare with that, but a completely different experience.  They have blocked off traffic through the area and have covered the street with a canopy for about seven blocks.  And this canopy is made up of millions of LED lights where they put on quite a show every half hour after dark.  It’s billed as the worlds largest LED show and really draws the crowds outside of the many casinos to watch the show.  But this time we were there during the daylight hours and the LED show wasn’t happening.

We tried a few of the slots at a few of the casinos before we once again were offered some show tickets if we would sit through a different time share.  Once again we talked the guy into a few more items for us to give up our “valuable” time.  We called our friend Richard who had just been here a couple weeks ago and he suggested trying the hot dogs at the casino/hotel where he stayed so that’s what we had for supper before returning back home.

Tuesday afternoon we headed back to attend the time share presentation at the Plaza.  We did the time share thing, got our prizes and vouchers.  While there we played the slots for awhile too, in fact I won enough there that I’m still even for this trip, not bad. 

Wednesday we went to a shoe store, Sketchers outlet, to see what we could find.  I think we both got one pair of shoes and Lorraine found a couple of pairs for Katie too.  We had some time before we needed to leave for the show so on the way back to our place, we stopped by and checked out a couple of the RV parks nearby.  We are due to check out of 1000 Trails on Sunday and I didn’t want to fight the Sunday traffic so we were thinking of leaving on Saturday or moving to a different RV park and staying in the area for a couple more days.  Tough life, do we stay in Vegas for a few more days or not!

That afternoon we headed back to Freemont area to attend our show.  We got there in plenty of time to walk the area and see the LED light show.  Plus we were given some free slot play money and needed to spend that at Binion's Casino, the only place it was good.  We won a few $$ with our free slot play but managed to put it back in, plus a couple more out of our wallet.  Guess they know most folks will do that so it’s really not “free money” for most of us. 

We headed back to the Plaza to see the show we were given, a comedy show with Louis Anderson as the headliner.  They had two comedians on stage before he came on, the second one was the best.  We were surprised to see the the first one was one of the ushers who seated us.  Louie put on a good show but guess he isn’t one of our favorite but at least it was not X rated.  We enjoyed it but don’t think I need to do this one again. 

Thursday morning we headed back to the strip, wanted to see some of the big, glitzy casino/hotels.  We started at Paris and as we walked in, we were once again offered some show tickets if we would attend a time share presentation.  This time they offered two show tickets to “Jersey Boys”, the number one show on the strip.  We agreed to do yet another time share, this one was a little longer as they actually bussed us over to the presentation and then again to their complex to see what their place looked like.  Very nice but once again we decided it just wasn’t us, at least this time our life.  This was Wyndham where you purchase points and use them to stay in their properties around the world.  I think if we lived in a house instead of traveling in our motorhome we might have been interested in this one.  And of course, like most of these things, I think you can pick up used memberships from owners who want out.  After we got back to our place, we headed over to Arizona Charlie’s for dinner before calling it a night. 

Friday we just hung out, waiting to head back to the strip to see the Jersey Boys.  We planned on finding a place to eat before we went to the theater and ended up at a café for sandwiches instead of paying $75 for two buffets.  Boy are the prices on the strip a lot higher than the area where we are staying.  The prime rib buffet at Sam’s town is only $9.99/person Sunday thru Thursday. 

Then we waited in line for the show, they had a big bottleneck because they wanted to take pictures of everyone and sell them after the show.  But finally we got inside and directed to our seats.  We had good seats, the back row on the floor level but the gal sitting in front of Lorraine was very tall and big so she didn’t have an unobstructed view.  So we just moved over to a couple of empty seats and we enjoyed the show from there. 

This show is the story of the Four Seasons group, starting with two of the brothers before they formed the band.  These guys were regular Jersey boys from the street, some had spent some time in jail even.  But when they finally found the last guy for their band, they set out as the Four Seasons.  After a few years, two members dropped out and they picked up three more and became Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.  I had forgotten they were the Four Seasons before they became Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.  This is a good show and we would recommend it for anyone who would like to see a good show in Vegas, only thing is it doesn’t have all the glitzy stuff on stage but very good none the less. 

Yesterday we drove over to Sunset Station casino where we played on the slots of awhile and watched some football at their sports area.  I think they have over 20 TVs there but we couldn’t find the Washington Huskie game, shoot.  On the way back to our place, we stopped at Wal-Mart to see if Lorraine’s prescription had came in yet.  We’ve been by there three times now and still no prescription.  This time they promised Lorraine it would be ready in the morning and she just received a phone call telling us it was ready.  Sometimes its tough to do normal things when on the road but usually it works out, at least we are still in the area. 

This morning we got everything put away and headed out to a different RV park, the Road Runner, about a mile South of the 1000 Trails park where we have been staying.  I drove the rig and Lorraine followed in the car.  I did pull into the gas station to fill the rig up with diesel, at $3.49/gal it about the best price we’ve seen.  We got set up here and I started this blog. 

The weather this past week has been really nice, most days it gets to the low 90s and drops to the low 60s at night.  Both of our air conditioners run pretty much the whole day and we close the shade on the front windshield during the day to keep out some of the heat, that helps a lot.  We did have one day that was cloudy most of the day and more humidity, Lorraine said she should have worn long pants vs shorts as she was cold that day (it was in the 80s and she was cold, guess our blood has thinned out a bit).

We’ve firmed up our plans a bit, will leave here either Tuesday or Wednesday and head over to West Covina to the Elks Lodge there.  The California RV show is going on in Pomona and the Elks is not to far away.  We’ll probably attend the RV show one day but it’s pretty big so may go two days, we’ll see. 

We plan on leaving there and head up 101 to Santa Maria where we will once again stay at the Elks Lodge there.  This is the one that has the BBQ on Friday nights, feeding over 300 people each Friday.  We were there a couple of months ago and will try it again. 

Then we will head back to the Elks Lodge in Santa Clara for our two weeks with Susy and Katie.  I’ve got one doctor appointment with the VA and will try to get more while we are there, need to finish out my yearly exams and this may be as good a time as any, we’ll see. 

And now to add some pictures.  I don’t think we took too many this week so this shouldn’t take long. 

Lorraine in our booth at Louis Anderson show on the left.  Fremont street on the right and following pictures. 

   

   

  

Richard, there’s “the D”, recognize it?  The following are pictures of the LED lights on the canopy over Freemont street. 

  

  

 

  

 

One of the street performers but I must be getting old, the music is way too loud.  

 

This is a lamp inside the Plaza, a horse with a lampshade??

Ok, that’s all for now. 

 

Thanks   Chuck

 

126

We’re in Las Vegas, Nevada

 

October 5, 2014                                                                                                                    Lorraine’s report

Hello there and thanks for stopping by.  So it has been a nice couple of weeks for us.  On the 22nd of September, we had our 42nd anniversary.  Susy & Kaitlyn took us to dinner at the Black Angus Restaurant there in the bay area.  What a nice time we had with K and Susy. 

I had to dig out our “only one” picture of our wedding for Kaitlyn to see, we have more at home, but carry only one.   She was amazed with our little wedding, having been a flower girl at several other friends of theirs.  She asked why her Mommy wasn’t in the picture.  I told her that her Mommy wasn’t even a thought then, that it took a while before she even became a thought.  She seemed satisfied with that answer for now. Anyway many thanks to Susy for such a wonderful dinner and time together with you and K. We loved it!

After saying “Bye” to Susy & K, we headed over to Watsonville, CA.  We got in, set up the rig, then Chuck took us on a tour to Santa Cruz.  Santa Cruz is a nice “touristy” town with lots of fun things to do.  The next day we got up and went to tour Monterey Bay.  What a beautiful area!  I liked the area a whole lot, but I know the prices are a bit high. 

The 25th of September, it rained there in Watsonville.  They sure needed the rain, and tons more than it rained there.  I was trying to think of when we had rain, and it must have been in WA, when we were back home.  Not too sure though.  And I think that was when the hydro hot heater and the air conditioning started making that awful noise.  Anyhow, Chuck was up on top of the rig, trying to make it work, as well as the Hydro Hot. 

So he called one person who had worked on the rig and set up an appointment for the guy to work on the Hydro Hot heater.  It was for Monday, September 29 in Las Vegas. So we made plans to head over to LV, NV.  That way why we left CA, to be here in Vegas, to have the guy fix our Hydro Hot Heater. 

It is a two day trip for us to come to Vegas.  We stop at the Orange Grove RV Park in Bakersfield, CA.  The oranges there are still green, way to early to pick.  But by the end of this year, they should be ready for picking.  And are they ever good.  That is one of the things I love about this life style.  If you don’t like what ever, you just move on.

So Vegas is pretty amazing, overwhelming, and kind of hard to comprehend.  And it’s all about making the big bucks.  I think there is kind of a fever that comes over people as they arrive here.  And “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” looks to be it’s motto. 

So one day we left the rig and went to the Strip to find some tickets for shows.  We found it, and it so far have liked the shows we have seen.  “Human Nature” is a show, promoted by Smokey Robinson, is about 4 Australians that came over and put on a show for Smokey.  He liked the enough to backed them to be at the Venetian.  They do Motown, most of the big hits of the hits from that decade.  And the show was wonderful.  By the end of the time, the 4 guys had everyone on their feet, all singing the songs and dancing to the tunes; 500 people just enjoying their music.  The place was just charged, full of so much energy.  We were center, about 2/3 from the top row, and it was amazing to watch all the people just enjoying the music.  I loved it!

The second show was about acrobats and such.  It was good, but I love music, so the music was one I liked of the two. 

So we have been to 2 different buffets.  One was at Treasure Island.  It was good, but so was the one at Sam’s Town.  In fact, Chuck wanted to go back to Sam’s Town for the $9.99 buffet for prime rib. 

This week we will go and check out “Vegas, the Show” at Planet Hollywood.  Oh, forgot to say we saw Evelyn on the way back from seeing about tickets.  It was nice to see her and her friends from Bellingham.  Imagine, running into a former student, on vacation in Vegas.  It was nice..

So that is it for me.  Happy Birthday to Kerri on the 6th of October.  Bet you are having your party today.  Enjoy, time goes so fast!!!

Hugs to all,

Lorraine

10/5/14                                                                                                                                     Chuck’s report

Once again it’s been two weeks since our last blog, we were traveling last Sunday and didn’t get back to it later in the week.  Like it says, we are in Vegas and we usually keep busy when we are here.

We were near Susy two weeks ago and had our normal good time with Katie after school most days.  Our 42nd anniversary on Monday, the 22nd of September.  We had a nice day together, Lorraine had her hair done, we picked up Katie and after Susy got off work we had a nice dinner at Black Angus, thanks for that.  All in all, a very good day. 

Tuesday we left the area, we had planned on staying at the Santa Cruz Elks lodge but I forgot to call first and when we got there we found they had closed the RV parking and were planning on moving it next year to a different area.  No big problem, we usually have a plan B and this one was to continue around the bay to Watsonville Elks.  I called them from the Santa Cruz and they said they had plenty of room, come on down. 

Once we got to the Elks and found their RV parking area we walked inside to check in.  We were going to stay here for three nights just to check out the area some before moving on but found they had a BBQ Rib dinner on Friday so we signed up for four nights instead of three, its nice to be able to change our plans that easy.

After getting set up with 50 amp and water (sewer dump available) we took off in the car to see some of the area.  Watsonville is not on the coast but close enough so we checked Santa Cruz too. 

Next morning we took off to tour Monterey and the coast around there.  We’ve drove our car through here once before but we had more time to explore this time.  We stopped at a few overlooks and Lorraine once again walked into the Pacific ocean, she said it was cold as usual. 

Thursday we decided to have an “off” day and just stick close to the rig.  We watched a couple of movies and just chilled out.  By the way, we had the first day of rain we’ve seen since leaving Blaine, of course we were parked under a tree and the rig got lots of dirt from the tree and such but the area is so dry they were sure glad to see this rain. 

While sitting around on the rig and being on the computer, I saw that the guy that services our Hydro Hot was going to be in Las Vegas at a rally.  We had been having issues with ours, it has an electric heater and a diesel burner that heats the anti-freeze that is used to heat our domestic water and/or inside heat.  Our diesel burner had just stopped working and I couldn’t figure out why so I contacted John and he said he could look at it on Monday if we could get to Vegas by then.  Seeing as how we only staying here until the dinner on Friday evening, that worked just fine for our schedule.  So I told John we would see him in Vegas on Monday at 1000 Trails park. 

Friday we toured more of Watsonville.  I don’t think it fits our criteria for a place to land when we decide to get off the road.  But nearby Seaside and Pacific Grove are sure nice, not sure of home prices but seeing as how it is close to Monterey, my guess is they would be on the high side. 

Later we had dinner at the Elks, their BBQ.  We were surprised to find only about 15 people there for dinner, the Elks lodge in Santa Maria had about 300 for their BBQ.  The dinner was good but not as good as the one at Santa Maria but still, only 15 people.

Saturday we got ready for travel then moved over to dump our holding tanks at their dump area.  I did have to get on the roof to sweep the pine cones off the slides before we brought them in, didn’t want them to get caught in the slide awnings.  And like I said, the roof was sure dirty from the rain on Thursday. 

We don’t like to travel too far/long so we decided to stay in Bakersfield then move on to Vegas on Sunday.  So that’s what happened, no issues.  Unfortunately, the oranges don’t ripen until Dec/Jan time so we were unable to get fresh from the tree oranges.  On Sunday we continued our trip into Las Vegas and boy what a traffic issue there was leaving town on Sunday, I assume lots of folks heading for Los Angles.  It looked to be full traffic lanes with about 4 stop and go areas, sure glad we didn’t have to deal with that. 

We got here to 1000 Trails in Las Vegas by 3:00, got set up the decided to head to Sam’s Town for their prime rib buffet for dinner.  We were standing in line waiting to get in when we met a couple from BC and invited them to sit with us at the buffet.  We had a good visit with Al and Lorraine, sure glad we met them. 

Monday morning I got a call from John, the Hydro Hot repair guy wanting to know if he could come over earlier then 1:00 as scheduled.  That worked fine for us as we were only hanging around waiting for him anyway.  He got here about 11:00, asked a few questions then got out his troubleshooting gear.  He quickly found the main controller was not sending a signal to the diesel burner and it needed replaced, no repair on these things.  And it wasn’t cheap either but we needed it and he had a new one with him.  And good news, after he replaced the box, everything has worked just fine since, guess he got the right part replaced. 

After he finished up and we put everything back in our basement storage (where the Hydro Hot is located) we had some extra time so we went to Boulder Station casino for a couple of hours to try out luck, we had luck but it wasn’t good, Lorraine was down and I was up a few bucks, not a good way to recoup the money we spent on our repairs.    Just kidding, we don’t head to a casino with the idea we HAVE to win, it’s just nice when that happens. 

Tuesday morning we decided to head to the Strip, hoping it wouldn’t be too crowded.  We found a place to park and walked through a couple of the big casinos, WOW.  If you’ve never been to Vegas, it’s hard to describe how these places are set up and decorated, something you have to see.  One word of caution, it can be a long walk from one casino to the other and taxicabs are expensive.  We’ve found that we park in an area and check out the casinos on both sides of the Strip instead of trying to see all of them in one trip. 

While we were walking in front of Treasure Island Casino, we got stopped by some folks who offered us a free show if would sit through a 90 minute presentation.  Now we’ve sat though lots of time share presentations before, even here in Vegas and knew the drill.  I told them we would go but need more shows to compensate us for our time.  The guy offered two free tickets to Mystere Cirque Du Soleil and two free buffets.  I asked him to sweeten the pot a bit more and he gave us two tickets to Vegas, the Show.  I tried for more and he offered to sell us two tickets to Human Nature at a good discount.  After going back and forth with him, I realized that was about all we could get so decided to go with it.  Our presentation was scheduled for the next morning so we spent some time walking around, playing tourist before heading back to our place.  Later we headed back to Sam’s Town for their Prime Rib buffet, it was good the first night so we decided to give it another chance.  Once again we had a very good dinner, even met a couple from Oregon and had a good visit with them.

Wednesday our front air conditioner quit but I didn’t have time to check it out before we headed out to attend the presentation as scheduled at Treasure Island.  We got there a bit early and walked around some to check things out.  For anyone who’s ever seen the pirate ships battle at TI, that is a thing of the past.  The ships are still there but they are in separate pools and stationary, no more battle.  We found a couple other attractions that have changed since we were here last, Vegas just keeps growing and growing. 

Our salesman at the presentation was retired from the Air Force and had been doing this salesman thing for 4 years or so.  He said we were the first full timers he has dealt with and understood why we wouldn’t buy into this program as it was low prices for hotel rooms around the world.  We still had to sit there for the whole thing but we were released as soon as it was over, no attempt to hard sell.  And we got all our promised tickets too, not bad, three Las Vegas shows and two buffets.

After getting our vouchers, we headed over to the theater ticket office to schedule our schedule and check things out.  We decided to attend the show on Saturday night so set that up then walked over to check out the buffet in the same casino. 

We then walked over to the Venetian to do the same for our tickets to Human Nature.  This is a group of 4, white Australian guys who sing Motown  They were discovered and backed by Smoky Roberson and have been playing in Vegas for over two years.  We exchanged our vouchers for tickets for Thursday night at 7:00. 

Next we got the car and drove over to Planet Hollywood to schedule us for the Vegas, the Show.   Once we finally found the place they told us we could only schedule for the night we got our tickets so we put off getting them until sometime later this week. 

By now the traffic on the strip was getting pretty heavy so we decided to head back to our place.  Once we got back I got out a few tools and got on the roof to check out the air conditioner.  Does anyone know why I have to have almost the whole tool box out whenever I work on something, why can’t it just be a straight slot and Phillips screwdriver and a couple of pliers.  And why do I always have to make a trip to the store, this time it was to get some metal foil type duct tape.  But I did find the squirrel cage fan had dropped a bit off the shaft and the repair was fairly easy, loosen the clamp, move the fan back up the shaft and tighten the clamp.  The hardest part was taking the ductwork apart to get to the fan and then putting everything back together then taping all the seams with the new foil tape.  But now we have both air conditioners working once again, really a nice thing to have here in the desert. 

Thursday we just hung around the rig until it was time to head back out for our show, Human Nature.  We didn’t have the best seats in the house of course, seeing as how they were free, but not bad.  We were in the second section, just behind the sound booth with isle seats, not bad.  And the show was really nice, like I said, it was 4 Australian white guys singing Motown songs.  And they did a great job of it too, even with their accents.  This was a good show and would recommend it if you are looking for something to do when you are here. 

Friday we headed out to find a Costco.  When we got there, it was so busy that we just turned around and walked out.  There is a casino nearby, imagine that, Sunset Station Casino so we headed there for awhile.  We did go to their lunch buffet while we were there, not bad for $6 apiece. 

We made a stop at Wal-Mart on our way back and found it to be overcrowded as well.  The checkout gal also commented on how busy it was, she suggested it must be payday for welfare recipients or something as she was getting lots of EBT cards.  But whatever, it was too crowded for us so we just got what we needed then got out. 

Saturday morning I checked the water level in our batteries, same thing I do the first of every month.  I needed to add some water to one cell and found I didn’t have any distilled water so I needed to get some.  While Lorraine was making some toast in the morning, she found every time she plugged the toaster in, it tripped the circuit breaker.  I looked it over and found the wire had chafed enough to wear the insulation off and the bare wires were touching.  So we headed back out to Wal-Mart to pick up these two items. 

After finishing with the battery maintenance, we just waited around until it was time to head back to the Strip for our buffet and to see Mystere.  We figured a couple hours for the buffet before the show started so planned on plenty of time.  They had snow crab at the buffet so Lorraine really enjoyed it, I enjoyed the prime rib and such too.  We didn’t want to overeat knowing we would be at the theater for two hours right after and didn’t want to be too full.

Once we got to the theater and seated we once again started talking to the folks next to us and found them to be from Canada.  We had isle seats in the top section, front row but on the wall side, not the best seats.  But as soon as they turned down the lights, we moved to better seats in the section right in front of us, good seats and close to the action.  The usher actually came by and sat down near us on the steps and didn’t seem to mind. 

This show is a bunch of tumblers, acrobats and such.  It is very much a Vegas show, having been here for 30 years, I think.  There were two strong men who preformed a very good act where one supported the other while they did handstands and such, the best part of the show I thought.  They picked a couple of folks out of the audience and had them on stage and at one point the guy came over and talked with us, I was hoping he would pick Lorraine for a part but he didn’t.  I think I liked this show better than Human Nature but Lorraine said she liked HN better, different strokes. 

Today is once again going to be a quite day for us, we want to finish this blog then we might go out to watch some afternoon football at one of the casinos.  I’m sure Lorraine will watch a few minutes of TV then find a slot machine to entertain her until the game is over. 

The weather has been really nice the past two weeks, higher than normal we hear.  We did have one night/morning of rain but other than that it’s been clear skies with lots of sun.  We were seeing highs in the low 80s in California and more like the mid 90s here in Nevada but it does cool off at night enough to sit outside and enjoy the evening. 

Our travel plans, as usual, aren’t set yet for when we leave here.  We are scheduled to leave here on next Sunday but after seeing the traffic last Sunday, we will leave on either Friday or Saturday.  I found there is a large RV show in Los Angles, actually in Pomona, not too far from a nice Elks Lodge we’ve stayed at before.  We are considering heading there for a week and going to the RV show.

And now to go through the pictures Lorraine has taken this week and pick some to add here. 

Lots of vegetables growing around Watsonville, that’s boxes of lettuce on the left and fields of raspberries on the right.  

  

  

Sea lions sunning themselves at Monterey docks. 

  

  

A Coast Guard Cutter on the right for you, John. 

  

Some of the buildings downtown harbor area. 

  

Lorraine getting her feet in the water in Monterey. 

  

 

Notice the water difference with the wave action. 

 

  

 

At a roadside fruit/vegetable place.  Lorraine is holding a stalk of Brussels sprouts like the ones on the right.   

   

Oil wells, too bad they aren’t mine. 

  

Wide open spaces heading to Las Vegas. 

  

  

  

Some of the buildings in Vegas. 

  

  

 

 

Ok, guess that’s enough for now. 

 

Thanks   Chuck

 

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