Welcome back to our story. Our last
chapter concluded on Sunday, April 7th, when we moved from
near Yuma, Arizona, to San Diego, California. We arrived in San
Diego in the early afternoon and got settled into the Sante Fe RV
Park, near Mission Bay, just off the I-5. Jackie's brother Dennis,
who lives here in San Diego, came over for a visit later in the
afternoon. We were pretty tired out from the travel day, so after
Dennis left we just watched TV until bedtime.
Monday, April 8th, was a
chores day. Jackie is finally feeling a hundred percent again after
her week with the stomach flu. We spent time in the morning doing
chores around the house and after lunch we did our laundry. This
park has a very nice, large laundry facility, so we didn't have to
leave the park to wash clothes. After we finished the laundry, about
2:30 or so, we went out on a grocery run. We ended up having to stop
at both Walmart and Albertson's because the closest Walmart wasn't a
super center and didn't have all the food stuffs we needed to buy.
We finally got back to the coach close to 5:00. We had our evening
cocktail and a nice pork roast for dinner, then watched TV until it
was time to go to bed. It is sure different to be here in San Diego,
where the high today was 63, compared to the low 90's in Yuma. It
even rained briefly today. No more shorts for a while.
Tuesday, April 9th, we awoke
to clear blue skies and very cool temps, in the mid-50's. We
left the coach around noon, after having lunch, to do some geocaching
in the area. This would be the first caching we have done in over a
week, since Jackie got sick last Monday. We cached fairly close to
the park, mostly in the Pacific Beach area. Pacific Beach, which is
actually just a neighborhood in the City of San Diego, is the area
that lies along the beach, between the recreational and resort area
of Mission Bay to the south, and the very upscale La Jolla to the
north. It runs from the beach east to Interstate 5. One interesting
thing about the area is that most of the east/west running streets in
the area are named after gemstones, garnet, agate, opal, etc.
We were able to get a dozen new finds
by about 3:30, all of which were within a couple miles of the RV
park. We also stopped at a hair salon in the neighborhood so Jackie
could get her hair cut. After our caching we made a stop at Kohl's
so Jackie could look for things she wanted. She didn't get anything,
but I ended up with a new pair of sweat pants for wear around the
house. I wore out my old pair and was having trouble finding them
anywhere now that the weather is turning warm. There was a pair in
my size on the clearance rack at Kohl's, so I got them for $5.
Bargain! After caching we went back to the coach for the rest of the
day.
Wednesday, April 10th, we
decided to do a relaxation day and just stay around the coach. After
lunch I did take the car down to the car wash for a good cleaning.
It has been a while since I had it done because we were in the sand
and dust of the desert. When you geocache in the desert you track in
a lot of dirt. Now the car looks shiny and new again. We also got
our mail today, which didn't hold any big surprises. Paid a couple
of bills and did some other administrative chores, while Jackie
completed a few of her to-do's as well.
About 7:30 or so Jackie's brother
Dennis came over for dinner. Jackie had made a batch of chicken
enchiladas for dinner. Dennis is a mostly vegetarian, which means he
occasionally will eat chicken and fish. He is vegetarian for
health's sake, not because he is opposed to animals as food. We had
a great dinner and some very nice conversation afterward. Dennis
left about 9:30 and we watched TV until bedtime.
Thursday, April 11th, we
left the coach around noon and drove to Old Town San Diego for lunch.
Old Town is the area where the original Spanish explorers founded
the town. There is a big historical park there with a bunch of
restored buildings from the Spanish period. The area around the park
is part residential and part tourist, with a lot of hotels and
restaurants. We were headed for a place called New Orleans Creole
Cafe, which had been recommended to us by someone. We had noticed
that the place had pretty high ratings on the ratings web sites, so
we decided we would give it a try.
The restaurant was actually inside of
another historical site called the Whaley House. The
Whaley House was designed and built in 1857 by Thomas Whaley. The
family only lived in the house for a year before moving to San
Francisco, however, ten years later the family came back to San Diego
and refurbished their old home, which had been left vacant for the
entire time. They lived in the home until 1887. During the time whe
Whaley family lived in the home parts of it were used at various
times as a theater, the San Diego courthouse and as a general store.
In 1960 it was purchased by a private foundation which restored the
property and founded the current museum. Two of the small
outbuildings on the property are leased to the restaurant.
One of the buildings, which are quite
small, serves as the kitchen, the other a small dining room. They
also have a small patio area next to the kitchen with four tables.
The only part open when we arrived was the patio, but it was a
pleasant day, so we decided to give it a try. The menu was not
extensive, but most of the typical New Orleans dishes were on it.
Jackie had the Jambalaya and I had the red beans and rice with
Andoulli sausage. Both of the dishes were good, but not very spicy,
certainly not like you would get in a restaurant in New Orleans. I
think they may be a little afraid of driving away customers not used
to the spicy style of cooking that is authentic.
The service was very slow because they
only had one cook and one waiter. Lunch took us over an hour, and
there were only four tables. It took fifteen minutes before we even
had our beverages. The place is very pricy also, with our meal being
close to $50 for lunch with just two entrees and a beer. It was a
place that I was glad I tried, the food was good, but I wouldn't go
back and couldn't recommend it unless you really, really like Creole
cooking. After lunch we did a little geocaching in the area, getting
six new finds in a little over an hour, along with one new DNF. We
then headed back to the coach where we stayed in for the rest of the
day.
Friday, April 12th, we had
lunch in the coach and then went out for some more local geocaching.
We got a couple of caches in some of the residential neighborhoods
just to the east of the RV park, but after being stymied on four
caches in a row with lack of parking, we got frustrated and drove
back down to Mission Bay to cache in the park there. We went out on
Fiesta Island, one of several islands in the bay that make up Mission
Bay Park, where there were a dozen caches or more hidden, and cached
there. Being a weekday the park was not real busy, so parking in the
area of the caches was a breeze. We quit about 4:30 with a dozen new
finds for the day. After caching we headed back to the RV park, had
happy hour, dinner and then watched TV until bed.
Saturday, April 13th, our
last full day in San Diego. We had lunch at the coach and about 1:00
left to take in a movie. While we enjoy going to the movies from
time to time, it has been a while since our last theater experience.
The last movie we saw was Lincoln, and that was back in December when
we were in Indio. When Jackie's brother Dennis was over the other
night he mentioned that he had seen a movie called A Place Beyond the
Pines, and that it was a very good movie that wasn't getting a lot of
buzz. It stars Ryan Gosling and Bradly Cooper, among others. I have
to concur that it was an excellent film. It is basically a story
that involves two families that have incidental contact with each
other over a period of fifteen years. The film is presented in three
distinctly separate vignettes which were very well done, and very
nicely integrated into a complete film. I was very happy that we
went to see it. After the movies we went back to the coach where I
spent a little time getting the outside ready for travel by putting
away the decorations and taking the shade screens down. We had
dinner and relaxed the rest of the evening.
Sunday, April 14th, another
travel day. We left the RV park at about 10:00 and started north on
Interstate 5, heading for Santa Barbara, California, about 216 miles
northwest. We have made this trip at least six times since starting
to full time RV and I never look forward to the day. The trip takes
us up the coast to Los Angeles, through downtown LA to the 101
freeway, and then west to Santa Barbara. Even on a Sunday, which is
the day we always try to make the trip, the traffic is bad, the lanes
narrow in the urban area, and there are no easy pull off areas. I
drove nonstop for a little over four hours and it was a little nerve
wracking, but we made it safely.
We pulled into the Santa Barbara Elks
Lodge, which is actually in neighboring Goleta, California, about
2:15 and got settled into our site quickly. Fortunately, this lodge
is one of the rare exceptions that will take reservations on RV
sites, and we had a reservation. The place was pretty full and there
were several rigs already waiting for an opening. After we got
parked and hooked up we just chilled the rest of the day and night.
We had a nice corn beef cooking in the crock pot during the trip, so
dinner was pretty much made. We will be here for three days before
moving onto our next stop, Santa Maria, California, up in the Central
Coast area.
Monday, April 15th, Happy
Tax Day and Happy Birthday to our old kitty, Smokey. We don't know
his actual birthday since he was a feral kitten when we adopted him
out of the wilds of Cathedral City, California. However, based on
the vet's estimate of his age, about five or six weeks, when we got
him, we calculated back and picked an easy to remember date that
would be pretty close. Our new cat, Benji, has the same birthday as
Jackie, May 15th, and we know that one for fact since he
was adopted out of a shelter that had his momma when he was born.
We left the coach after lunch to do
some geocaching in the area. It was a nice clear, sunny day, a
little cool, but otherwise very nice. We spent a couple of hours out
caching in the area around Golita and got a dozen caches before
heading back to the Elks lodge. We decided to go over to the Elks
for a cocktail at happy hour and while sitting at the bar watching TV
is when we first learned about the bombing at the Boston Marathon
earlier in the day. When we are out in the car we listen to
satellite radio, so we don't get any news. Clearly a terrorist
strike to me, but we will see how the investigation pans out.
We only had one drink at the lodge
because there wasn't anyone else there except the bartender, and he
wasn't too talkative. We went back to the coach for another cocktail
and then dinner. We then just hung around and watched TV until bed.
Tuesday, April 16th, we left
the coach about noon and went out for lunch in Santa Barbara, a
little exploring, and some more geocaching. We hit a couple of
caches on the way to Santa Barbara, which is a few miles east of
Golita, where the Elks Lodge is. We parked the car in old town Santa
Barbara and just went out and walked the streets for a little while
trying to decide where to eat. There are dozens of restaurants in
the area, but we finally settled on a Mexican place which was, oddly,
called Sandbar. The name struck us because there is a bar and
restaurant called the Sandbar in La Quinta, not too far from where
our house was. We went there once in a while.
The place was kind of kitschy, which is
not too surprising being in the touristy part of Old Town. Most of
the seating was outside on a covered patio, but we chose to sit in
the bar. The place had a nice comprehensive menu and the food was
surprisingly good, and plentiful. The service was a tad slow, but we
were in the bar and the bartender had to come out from behind the bar
to be our waiter too. All in all we were pretty pleased with our
choice, and we certainly got filled up.
After our late lunch we strolled around
the Old Town area for a while, did a little window shopping and
walked through the big Macy's department store. After that we got
the car and did a few more caches in the beach park area of Santa
Barbara. We had to bypass a number of caches because there was no
parking, but we still ended up with another four finds, giving us six
for the afternoon. The beach front area was busy as there was a
Princess Cruise ship anchored in the harbor just off shore for the
day. We talked to a couple of the passengers, including one
geocacher whom we met at a cache near the beach, and learned that the
ship was a five day cruise out of San Diego that went up to San
Francisco, then Santa Barbara, Catalina, Ensenada and then back to
San Diego. Sounds like a fun cruise. After our caching we headed
back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the evening.
Wednesday, April 17th,
another travel day. We left the Santa Barbara Elks about 10:30 or so
and drove north on Highway 101, headed for Santa Maria, about seventy
miles north. It only took about 90 minutes or so for us to arrive at
the Santa Maria Elks Lodge and get checked into their RV park. This
is a very big Lodge and the RV park has a number of full hookup, 50
amp sites and they take reservations. We made reservations a while
back and got a really nice site for our stay. It will be nice
because Jackie has an aunt and a cousin that live in the area and we
like to stay in the Central Coast area and visit. We will be here
nine days, which would have been tough if we had to stay in a spot
with no sewer.
We were all moved in and set up in a
couple of hours. About 4:30 we left the coach and drove to the
Oceano Elks Lodge, about twenty miles north of Santa Maria, to meet
Jackie's aunt Donna and her cousin Pia, both of whom live here in the
area. Donna lives in Pismo Beach, in a very nice house up on the
side of the mountain overlooking the town, and Pia lives in G
We arrived at the Oceano Elks right at
5:00. This Elks Lodge, which is just steps from the Pacific Ocean,
adjacent to the Pismo State Beach, also has an RV park and we used to
stay here frequently. However, they have recently raised their rates
significantly and, since their sites do not have sewer connections,
they have lost their appeal to us. It is closer to where Jackie's
family lives, but we can stay longer at Santa Maria because the sites
have sewer hookups, and it is less expensive, which is important to
us “living on a fixed income” types. We did like to come to
their Wednesday all you can eat spaghetti nights, which is the reason
we suggested that everyone meet here.
Everyone arrived at the lodge and we
got a table for six in the dining room. It was Jackie and I, Donna
and Corey, and Pia and her new boyfriend Korby. We had cocktails and
chatted, catching up on everything going on in the last year since we
saw them. At 6:00 they served dinner and we all had a very nice
plate of spaghetti, two for me thank you! We all sat and talked
until about 7:30 when everyone decided to head for home. We drove
back to the coach and relaxed with the TV the rest of the evening.
Thursday, April 18th, we
left the coach around 11:00 or so and went out for lunch and some
shopping. We stopped at a Coco's restaurant so I could have lunch
and Jackie could still get breakfast. We do that fairly often when
we go out for lunch. After lunch we made several stops to shop, a
couple of craft stores so Jackie could try and find some materials
for a project she is working on, and Walmart for supplies. As is
with the case in a lot of small California towns, there is no big,
Walmart Super center in Santa Maria. A lot of these small towns
don't like the super centers. Walmart was smart though in that they
built a regular Walmart and then a few doors down, in the same
shopping center, they built a Walmart Neighborhood Store, which is
basically just a grocery store. They end up with the same effect as
a super center without actually building one. Clever.
After shopping we went back to the
coach and unloaded the groceries and then drove up to Pismo Beach to
visit Jackie's aunt Donna at her house. Jackie's cousin and her
boyfriend had gone out of town for a couple of days, so it was just
Donna and her grandson Corey who were at the house. We visited with
them for a couple of hours before leaving and driving back down to
Santa Maria. We went home via the “scenic route”, along the
coast rather than by the freeway.
Friday, April 19th, we went
out after lunch for some geocaching in the Santa Maria area. By 4:00
or so we had gathered fourteen new finds, along with three DNFs.
There doesn't seem to to be a lot of caching going on around this
area during the colder months as some of the caches had not been
found for many months. Although we found a couple that hadn't been
found in six months, a couple of our DNFs were also caches that
hadn't been found in a while. It could be that they have just
disappeared over the time period.
We did have a good time with the
caching, seeing some areas of Santa Maria that we were not familiar
with. We have only cached here once before, a couple of years back
when we came for the Elks Rodeo. After our caching we made a stop
for some groceries that we forgot to get yesterday, then went back to
the coach. I made a nice pot of chili for dinner and then we just
watched TV until bedtime.
Saturday, April 20th, the
sun was back in the morning and we were looking for temps in the high
70's today. We had lunch at the coach and then headed out to do some
more caching in the Santa Maria area. We cached for a couple of
hours and ended up with eight new finds, including number 5,200.
Yea! Unfortunately, we also got another four DNF's, some because
they like to do bush and tree hides here, which can sometimes be very
difficult to find, and some because they haven't been found in many
months and are probably gone.
About 2:30 we quit caching and went
back to the coach to get things ready for dinner. We are going over
to Donna's house tonight for dinner with us, Pia and Korby, and Donna
and Corey. We are making a bunch of Mexican food and are planning a
fiesta! Jackie made her chili rellano casserole, I made some meat
for tacos and we also had some tamales in the freezer. About 4:30 we
loaded everything up in the car and drove to Donna's. We joked when
we got there and unloaded everything that we were the “Holt
Catering Service” and were serving tonight.
We had cocktails and talked for a
while, watching the sun go down over the ocean. There is a great
view of the beach and ocean from Donna's house. About 6:30 dinner
was served and everyone enjoyed the fiesta. After we got things
cleaned up we talked for a while longer and finally left about 8:30
and drove back to Santa Maria. After we got the car unloaded and
everything put away we watched TV for a little bit and then went to
bed.
Sunday, April 21st, we left
the coach about 11:00 or so and drove to Nipomo, the next town north
of Santa Maria on Highway 101, to visit the big swap meet they have
there every weekend. We went there a couple of years ago when we
were here and it was fun. The place was packed and it took a little
while to get parked and get into the grounds. Once we did, however,
we were a little disappointed. Unlike a few years ago, it is now 90
percent imported Mexican crap, the same stuff you see in the Mexican
swap meets all over the Southwest. Although it is a big swap meet,
it only took us an hour to walk through the whole thing because there
wasn't much of interest to us. I did buy a cheap set of wireless
mikes for my karaoke stuff. Hopefully they will work, but if not,
they were cheap enough to just toss.
After the swap meet we went to a Carl's
Jr. for lunch and then went to the outlet mall in Arroyo Grande to
walk around. This was much more our style, and we spent a couple of
hours walking the mall. We bought a few things, nothing major, but
had a good time looking in all the stores. After shopping we did
some geocaching in the Arroyo Grande area, ending up with five new
finds. For the first time in a couple of trips we had no DNFs today.
Yea! After caching we went back to the coach and relaxed for the
rest of the afternoon and evening.
Monday, April 22nd, I woke
up about 7:30 and was greeted by fog when I opened the front
curtains. We had lunch at the coach and then loaded all our laundry
up in the car and headed out to find a decent laundromat for our
bi-weekly washing routine. We rejected the first, closest laundry as
too dirty, but found another just a mile or so down the road. We got
all our laundry done in a couple of hours and then headed back to the
coach. It was very cool and breezy today, at least ten or more
degrees cooler than yesterday.
One thing we did while waiting for the
clothes to dry is walk across the parking lot of the strip mall the
laundry was in to visit a local furniture store. One of our coach
remodel plans for this summer is to do away with one of our two
couches and put in a recliner. Jackie is OK sitting or lying on the
couch to watch TV, I want to have a nice recliner. We just wanted to
go into the store and check out what was currently available and get
some ideas of what kind of chair we want, and what the prices are.
We found a couple that were really comfortable, and affordable in the
five to six hundred dollar range, but none in the fabric or color we
prefer. At least now we have some idea what we might find when we
really go out looking.
After we got back to the coach we did a
little house cleaning before leaving again about 4:30 to go to dinner.
One of our “must do” things when we come to the area is to have
dinner at Jocko's restaurant in nearby Nipomo. In my opinion,
Jocko's is, hands down, the best steakhouse anywhere in the country.
We had reservations at 5:00 for dinner and were meeting Jackie's aunt
Donna, Corey, Pia and Korby. Everyone arrived right on time, except
Korby decided to bow out of dinner as he was not feeling well.
A little background on Jocko's
restaurant. The Knotts family has been in the restaurant and saloon
business in Nipomo since 1886. Emery Knotts, the founder of the
family's first saloon, had eight sons, one of whom was named Ralph,
but went by his nickname of Jocko. The current restaurant was built
in 1962 by Fred and George Knotts, two of Ralph's kids, and is now
operated by Fred's widow and their son Mike, the Great-Grandson of
Emory.
In our travels around the country I
have talked to a lot of RV'ers about their travels, and anytime the
talk involves travels in the Central Coast area, from Santa Maria to
San Luis Obispo, the people know of Jocko's and echo my sentiments,
that it is the best place for steak anywhere. It is not a fancy
place, in fact it is very casual and quite noisy. However, all of
their steaks, lamb, and ribs are cooked over a huge wood-fir
ed grill
in a shed behind the restaurant. They only have a few cuts of beef,
filet, top sirloin, or Spencer, which is a rib eye cut. You can get
the sirloin and Spencer cuts in either large or small. The large
Spencer, which I had, is about 20 ounces and two inches thick, and is
so tender you could almost cut it with a folk. I order mine “blue,”
which is blood rare, and it was cooked perfectly. Donna had the
small Spencer medium and it too was cooked to perfection.
Jackie and Corey both had lamb chops
and Jackie said her lamb was also cooked perfectly medium rare. They
give you three big chops on the order, way more than a normal person
can eat in one sitting. Pia had the spare ribs and got a full rack
of very thick ribs. All of the dinners come with garlic bread,
beans, salad, desert and coffee if you want it. Before dinner they
bring out a plate of pickles, peppers, carrot sticks and other
veggies to munch on. One cannot leave Jocko's hungry, and rarely
without a take out box of leftovers. Jackie and I both have enough
food left for tomorrow's dinner at home. It's not fancy, it's too
noisy for comfortable conversation, it's usually crowded, but if you
want great steak, you cannot beat it. After a great dinner we went
back to the coach for the rest of the night while everyone else went
home.
Tuesday, April 23rd, Jackie
left the coach about 11:30 to spend the afternoon with her aunt and
cousin. She drove up to Arroyo Grande and met them at a nail salon
where they had pedicures, then they went out to lunch. Jackie got
back to the coach in the late afternoon after a very nice day with
family. I just stayed around the coach, doing a few little things
and just relaxing. After Jackie got home we had cocktails and then
dinner with the leftovers from last night. The meat was just as
tasty the second day.
Wednesday, April 24th, we
went out after lunch to do a little shopping, but were only out for
about two hours. Around 4:00 Corey and Donna came over to the coach
for dinner. We had our mail, actually a UPS package, delivered to
Donna's house and it was delivered this afternoon. Corey had told us
that they would bring the package down to us because he wanted to see
our coach. Donna has been in the coach before, but Corey had never
seen it. We talked for a while and then Corey and I went out for a
KFC run. We picked up a big bucket of chicken for dinner and had a
very nice meal. Corey and Donna left about 7:30 or so and we relaxed
with the TV the rest of the night.
Thursday, April 25th, our
last full day in the Central Coast area. After lunch we took a drive
to San Luis Obispo (SLO), about 30 miles north of Santa Maria on
Highway 101, because we had to try and find a new battery for our
MiFi internet router. The MiFi is a Verizon telephone device that
lets us connect to the internet anywhere that we have phone service.
A
couple of days ago I noticed that the MiFi was acting a bit wonky,
shutting down and locking up frequently. The only way I could get it
reset was to pull the battery out. I finally noticed that the
battery had swollen and was puffy, which is not a good thing in these
nickel based batteries that phones use. Eventually they can overheat
and even catch fire. That is rare, but it does happen. None of the
Verizon stores in the area had the battery in stock, but the store in
SLO recommended we try a place called Batteries Plus in SLO. I
called them and they said they did have replacement batteries in
stock that would work. We are pretty much off the grid without our
MiFi, so we took a drive up there.
We got the battery and I put it in the
device and turned it on to be sure it worked. It did, so we left the
store and did a little geocaching. We found one cache in SLO, just
so we would have one in that city, then drove south into Pismo Beach
and Arroyo Grande, where we found nine more. We also got one DNF for
our troubles. About 4:00 we went to Donna's house for dinner and a
last visit before we leave the area. Corey made some pizzas and we
had a couple of cocktails and an nice, informal dinner with family.
We finally left about 7:30 or so and drove back down to the coach.
There was still a little light outside, so I spent a half hour
getting some stuff packed up for our travels tomorrow. We spent the
rest of the night watching TV and relaxing.
Friday, April 26th, a travel
day. Today we are moving to Fresno, California, located about 175
miles northeast of Santa Maria, in the central valley of California.
We got out of the campground at the Elks about 9:30, but really
didn't get on the road for over an hour. We were low on fuel in the
coach and one of the grocery stores in town, a couple miles from the
Elks, had diesel for $3.95, which is pretty cheap in California. It
is in a shopping center, which makes maneuvering the coach tricky if
the car is hooked up, so I drove the coach down there on my own to
get fuel. The original plan was to have Jackie follow me and then we
would hook up the car after I got fuel.
That all changed, however, when I
learned that the MiFi would not charge the new battery. The device
worked fine so long as the original charge held out, but when the
battery discharged and I went to charge it this morning, it would not
work. We decided that the best thing would be for Jackie to just go
ahead of me, drive up to San Luis Obispo to the battery store, and
see what the problem was. So she went up there and I got fuel. I
finally arrived in SLO about an hour later with a full tank of fuel
and stopped near the Elks Lodge up there, which is only across the
freeway from where the battery store was. Jackie was waiting and we
got the car hooked up and started the drive towards Fresno.
It turns out that the original battery
in the MiFi must have some kind of chip in it that allows the device
to charge the battery. Without the chip, no worky. I guess this is
a ploy to make sure that you can only use a genuine Samsung battery
as a replacement. Jackie got a refund on the battery that didn't
work and got our old, swollen battery back. It still works, we just
have to be careful and not leave it charging unattended.
We finally arrived in Fresno about 3:00
and found an RV park that had space. Our original plan had been to
stay at the Fresno Elks Lodge, which has a very nice RV park.
However, I called the day before and they had no open spaces. I
checked around and found another RV park nearby and we set our sights
on that one. However, on the way up Jackie called them and they
didn't have space either. It turns out that unbeknown to us, there
was a big rodeo in Clovis, a suburb of Fresno, and many of the parks
were full. This was probably why there were no sites at the Elks ,
as it is close to Clovis.
Jackie made some calls and finally
found a park on the west side of Fresno, actually outside the city
limits, what had a space for us, so that's where we went. We arrived
and found an older mobile home park that had a few empty spaces
available. It is not the nicest park, but it had good reviews and
they had space. The first spot we went into had a tree that blocked
our satellite, so the manager let us move across the road to another
empty spot that worked just fine.
We got the coach hooked up and set up
and then about 4:30 we left and drove over to Jackie's cousin's
house. Stephanie has lived in Fresno for a couple of years now with
her husband and three kids and we visited them last summer when we
came through the area. She calls Jackie “Aunt Jackie” and we
enjoy being around them. Regular readers may recall that we took the
family geocaching last year and the kids, who are ten and thirteen,
really enjoyed it.
We arrived at Stephanie's and spent
some time visiting with the family. Ron, her husband, is working out
of town, ironically in SLO. He is a commercial electrician and has
to follow the work. Stephanie's mom Sue, Jackie's first cousin, was
also at the house visiting Stephanie. After visiting for a little
while we all drove down to a local Mexican restaurant for dinner. It
was Stephanie's birthday, so we made it a birthday dinner. While we
were waiting to be seated Jackie took the rest of the crowd out to
find a geocache that was in the parking lot where the restaurant was
located. We had a great dinner and went back to the house for a
little while before finally heading back to the coach about 8:00.
We are going to be here in Fresno for
five days, so we will have time to do more caching and spend more
time with Stephanie and her family. It has been about three weeks
since we posted an episode, so our departure from the California
coast into the central valley marks a good place to close this
chapter and get it online. We will be in California for another
couple of weeks before moving into Oregon, at which time we will
probably publish again. Until next time, remember to enjoy every day
and don't let the little things get you down. See ya.
