Hi there, glad you're back. Our last
episode concluded on Monday, September 2nd, Labor Day. We
traveled a long 47 miles from the Fresno Elks Lodge to the Visalia
Elks Lodge. We were parked and set up before 1:00, after which we
went out and got one quick geocache to keep up our streak of caching
days and then went back to the coach to get out of the heat. For the
first time in a couple weeks we have 50 amp power and can run both
A/Cs in the coach. Yea, we can finally beat the heat. We spent the
rest of the day inside, doing a few chores and enjoying the day.
Tuesday we went out after lunch for our
bi-weekly laundry run. We found a laundromat down in the main
shopping area of Visalia and got things going. While the clothes
were drying we walked over to the Big Lots store in the same strip
mall and looked around. Jackie found a storage hutch that was just
the right size for where she wanted to put it, so we bought that. It
has four drawers so she can store junk out of sight. Nice thing, it
was only $35, it looks pretty nice, and it's light, so no big weight
penalty like we would get with a wooden unit.
After we finished with laundry we got
our one geocache for the day. It was just too hot and humid today to
do a lot of caching. It was humid, but there was no rain in the
valley where we are. However, you could see the thunderstorms
building over the mountains to the east. We also made a stop a Home
Depot to pick up a couple of things and then headed back to the coach
where it was cool. It took about 20 minutes for me to assemble the
new hutch and we had new storage. Yea! After that we just relaxed
the rest of the day in the coach.
Wednesday, September 4th, we
left the RV park after lunch to do some geocaching. We were able to
capture a half dozen new finds in about 90 minutes or so, along with
a DNF. We decided that was enough for a hot afternoon and drove to
the nearest Walmart to do some shopping. After Walmart we drove
around the area for a little sightseeing. We were driving around the
east and south fringes of the city and found a lot of fruit orchards
and vineyards. I suspect that these are table and/or raisin grapes
down here. We made a few more stops at some stores, Best Buy, Lowes,
and Michal’s looking for some specific stuff.
Jackie needs a new screen protector for
her phone and I needed some new wood platforms to use as jack blocks
for the coach. The leveler jacks on the coach don't have a real big
surface, only about a eight inch round metal foot, so I use two by
two squares of one inch plywood as platforms to spread the weight out
on soft ground or asphalt. The only time I don't put the platforms
down is when we are on concrete. The coach only has three jacks, two
in the back and one centered in the front behind the wheels. That
front jack carries a lot of weight and before I started using these
plywood platforms I punched a lot of holes with it.
After our shopping we went back to the
coach and relaxed for a bit before going over to the Visalia lodge
for a cocktail. The bar was pretty crowded, but nobody was very
outgoing. Everyone had conversations going on with other people and
even the bartender wasn't very friendly. We had one cocktail and
left, went back to the coach for dinner and watched TV the rest of
the night.
Thursday, September 5th, we
again went out after lunch to try and find some geocaches. In a
couple of hours we again had six new finds, but today we also had
three DNFs, the most we have had in one day in quite some time. I am
pretty sure at least two of them were actually missing in action, but
the third one we may have just missed. Once we had our six we
decided that was enough for a hot afternoon and made one more
shopping run, this time to Petco. We were trying to find a new
litter box for the cats. The one we have we bought when we moved
into the coach, back in 2005, so it is getting a little beat up. We
haven't been able to find anything we like, but we did find a nice
big box at Petco that we think we and the cats can live with. That
was the extent of our travels today and we spent the rest of the
evening in the coach.
Friday, September 6th,
another travel day. We were packed up and on the road by about 10:30
and were heading west and south to San Luis Obispo and the Elks Lodge
there. The trip was about 140 miles and mostly on two lane roads,
but even with the traffic it was pretty much an uneventful trip.
Although it is still warm, in the mid-80's, we are looking forward to
being back in the Central Coast area for a while and enjoying the
relative cool compared to what we have had for the last month.
We got into the SLO Elks about 1:00 and
found several spots open. As soon as we pulled in a lady came out of
one of the other rigs, a big Holiday Rambler coach, and told us that
they were having problems with the electric. She went on and on
about not even being able to watch TV, much less run the A/C or
microwave. I was concerned and checked the power at the post in the
spot we intended to use, and it was 114 volts. Not super, but
certainly adequate. We went ahead and parked and hooked up, but
before we put the slides out or anything else, I connected to the
power and turned on the air to check the voltage. When the air came
on the voltage dropped to 106, which is not good, but not critical
either. Regular readers will remember that we were fortunate enough
to find a great deal on a voltage boost unit a month or so ago in
Nevada City, so I dug that out and hooked it up and everything was
fine.
Nonetheless, we called the Santa Maria
Elks, which is our next stop, to see if they had any spots available
right now. Our original plan was to stay here in SLO for five days,
then move to Santa Maria. The SLO Elks only has 30 amp and water,
whereas the Santa Maria lodge has 50 amp and full hookups. The lady
in Santa Maria said they would have an opening on Sunday, so we
changed our reservation from Wednesday to Sunday. Santa Maria is one
of the few lodges that let you make advance reservations. So, we
will only be here in SLO for two nights, so even if the power is a
little iffy, we can make it work.
We continued with our setup, paid for
two nights, and got settled in. Once we were set up we went out and
got one quick geocache nearby to keep our consecutive days streak
going. We are now at 75 days in a row of caching. We then went back
to the coach and settled in for the night. We had put dinner in the
crockpot before we left Visalia, so we had some great Asian pork ribs
for dinner. Yum!
Saturday, September 7th, we
left the coach after lunch to drive to Jackie's Aunt Donna's house in
Pismo Beach. On the way we stopped and picked up one geocache, just
to keep our streak alive. We arrived at Donna's about 2:00 and spent
the afternoon visiting with Donna and her grandson Corey, who lives
with her as a caretaker. Donna is 88 years old and is getting a
little frail, but she can still take care of herself. Corey is just
there to help keep the house clean, keep an eye on her schedule, and
drive her around. She still has her license and car, she just got
her license renewed, but she chooses not to drive just to be safe.
We had a very nice visit and left to go
back to the coach about 6:00. We are going to be here in the Central
Coast for a couple weeks, so we set a tentative schedule for some of
the things we want to be sure to do with Donna and the rest of the
family while we are here. We probably filled two thirds of the days
we are here with activities. After our visit we went back to the
coach for the rest of the evening.
Sunday was another moving day.
Although the power at the SLO Elks has turned out to be OK and we
haven't had any problems, it is still just 30 amps and we know from
our phone call yesterday that we can into Santa Maria Elks and have
50 amp and sewer too. We didn't get in a hurry and finally had
everything packed up by 11:30. It is only 30 miles from SLO to Santa
Maria, so Jackie just drove the Jeep and followed behind me. We
pulled into Santa Maria a little after noon and were surprised to see
that there was a big lawn party going on at the lodge. There were
jump houses, a rock climb tower, tents and booths and even a fire
truck parked at the edge of the lawn. It turns out that today is the
lodge's annual Family Day picnic and party. They looked like they
had a couple of hundred people participating.
The Santa Maria Lodge has two RV
parking areas, the original parking, which is behind the lodge to the
north, has only water and electric. There are about ten of those
sites. They also have the newer full hookup sites to the south of
the lodge building, closer to the front parking lot. That is where
we wanted to park since we plan on being here for a while. There are
a dozen of those spots and when I first pulled into the lot it
appeared to me that they were still all occupied. I had to drive
around the back of the lodge to access the RV parking, so I left the
coach there in the back, near the old sites, and walked over to the
newer ones. I then saw that Jackie had located one open site and she
was motioning me to come on back. I went back to the coach and drove
around the building into the RV lot. When I got there she told me
that several other coaches were just ready to pull out, so we waited
a couple minutes and then parked in one of the empty slots.
We decided that the lawn party, which
was going on in the open area right behind our coach, was a little
too loud. They had music playing and an announcer that was very
loud, so we decided to get the basic setup done, utilities, leveling,
that sort of thing, and then leave to go get some lunch and do a
cache or two to get away from the noise. We would do the internal
setup later. By 1:00 we were in the car and off to find lunch.
We drove to the mall, which is only a
couple miles from the lodge, and found a Red Robin restaurant where
we stopped for lunch. The food and service were pretty good, but the
restaurant was in a mall space that was very industrial, a high open
ceiling and all hard surfaces, so it was very noisy, much more so
than I would expect in even a casual place like Red Robin. They need
something to attenuate the noise and I am going to mention that in my
Yelp review.
After lunch we walked around in the
mall for a little while, then went out and found one geocache to keep
our streak going, now at over 75 days. We then went back to the
coach. The party was still going on, but it was winding down as we
heard them starting to give away the prizes and such. Within an hour
most everyone was gone and they were cleaning up and it was quiet
again. We spent an hour or so finishing our setup, putting stuff
inside the coach where it belongs. Once we were done with that we
settled in and relaxed for the rest of the day.
Monday, September 9th,
Jackie left just before lunch to go meet her Aunt Donna for pedicures
and lunch. I stayed home and worked on some chores that I have been
putting off, mostly because of the heat, and because I am just lazy.
I did manage to get about half of my to-do list cleaned up before
Jackie got home about 3:00. After she got home we went out because I
had to make a quick run to Home Depot for some parts. No to-do list
can be completed without at least one trip to the hardware store.
While we were out we also picked up one geocache, just to keep our
streak going. We got back to the coach and I worked for another hour
or so, finishing up a couple of big repair jobs, then I cleaned up
the mess and we relaxed with the TV the rest of the evening.
Tuesday, September 10th, we
left the coach about 9:45, that's a.m., and started north for a visit
to the Hearst Castle. I have known of the Hearst Castle since I was
in high school, and was familiar with some of the history, I have
never been there. I told
Jackie that since we were going to be in
the area for two weeks this trip, I wanted to set aside one day to
visit the Castle. She had been there once, dozens of years ago, and
thought that was a good idea.
We stopped on the way and picked up Corey, Donna's grandson, in Pismo Beach. The original plan was for Donna to go also, but she backed out, deciding that it would be a bit too strenuous for her. Corey had also been there many years ago and was looking forward to going back. It was 73 miles from Santa Maria to San Simeon, where the Castle is located, but it was an easy trip with nice scenery and only took about 90 minutes. Since we arrived before noon we decided to make a quick visit to the nearby elephant seal rookery at Piedras Blancas, just a few miles north of San Simeon. Elephant seals are one of the largest of the members of the seal branch of marine mammals, and the beaches near Piedras Blancas bay are one of a dozen or so established rookeries, places where the seals return to have pups. During certain times of the year the beaches are covered with seals to the extent that you cannot see the sand. There were only a couple hundred on the beach today, but they were still fun to watch, especially when the larger ones are coming out of the water, humping along the beach. The elephant seal was nearly hunted to extinction for their oil in the 1800's, but once hunting stopped the population started to come back. Now the animal is not even on the endangered list, although it is still protected under the Marine Mammal act in the U.S. They estimate there are more than 125 thousand northern elephant seals living along the Pacific coast of North America.
After visiting the seals we went back
to San Simeon and stopped at a local restaurant for lunch. We
stopped at the San Simeon Beach Bar and Grill, which had pretty good
food. It looked a little beachy and funky on the outside, but was
very nice inside. I had a grilled snapper sandwich that was
excellent and Corey and Jackie both enjoyed their burgers. It was a
little on the pricy side, but it is a tourist area. Once we were
done with lunch we drove to the Hearst Castle visitor's center to
begin our tour.
William Randolph Hearst was born in
1863 and was the only son of self made millionaire George Hearst.
George made his fortune in mining, but he spent much of his money
buying land, including a ranch along the Pacific Ocean south of San
Francisco comprising more than 500 square miles. William spent much
of his youth camping, working and exploring on this land and grew to
love it. The younger Hearst earned his fortune and became famous in
the newspaper publishing business and by the early 1900's was one of
the richest and most influential people in the United States.
Although he had many homes around the country, including San
Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles, he wanted to build something
spectacular and he chose the hilltop overlooking the ocean where he
spent so much time as a child.
Construction of Hearst Castle began in 1919. It was
overseen by Julia Morgan, one of the first and only female architect
and civil engineer of her time. Although the house was mostly
complete and in use by the family within a few years, it was always
under renovation and expansion and was never actually completed.
Work finally stopped in 1947 when Hearst became ill and stopped
coming to the estate. Hearst died in 1951. The castle has over
90,000 square feet of space and featured 56 bedrooms, 61 bathrooms,
19 sitting rooms, 127 acres of gardens, indoor and outdoor swimming
pools, tennis courts, a movie theater, and the world's largest
private zoo. There are also three large guest houses on the estate
and a private airfield down the hill closer to the ocean.
In the mid-50's the Hearst estate
donated the property on the hilltop containing the Castle and it's
associated buildings and gardens, along with some 30 miles of the
ranch's land along the coast, to the State of California. For the
donation the estate got about ten million in tax breaks and some
concessions and restrictions with regard to the property. Among the
restrictions were that the State can never sell or otherwise dispose
of the property, is required to maintain it for public visits and
use, and cannot make substantive changes to the property other than
for maintenance and safety purposes. This includes not being able to
complete the uncompleted service wing of the main house. The
California State Parks Department operates and maintains the property
with the assistance of the Friends of Hearst Castle private
foundation. The Hearst corporation still owns and operates the rest
of the huge ranch surrounding the Castle grounds.
The Foundation operates the visitor's
center, which is just off of Highway 1 at the base of the hill below
the castle. This is where we started our tour. The tickets for the
tour were pricey, $25 for each of the three standard tours of the
castle. One tour takes you through the main ground floor rooms,
another takes you upstairs to the living quarters, and a third takes
you through the kitchen and other service areas. There is another
tour which takes you through the three smaller guest houses. All of
the tours end with you being able to walk about the grounds and look
at the outside areas at your own speed.
We picked the downstairs tour, which
were basically the party rooms. The entrance hall and gathering
room, the refectory, or dining room, the billiard room and the
theater. These were the rooms where all the famous people hung out
and partied back in the 30's and 40's. They don't allow private
vehicles to climb the steep, narrow five mile long road that goes up
to the Castle, so after you get your ticket you have to get on a
shuttle bus. The bus drops you off at the main entrance steps where
a guide picked up the group. Our guide told us he had been working
there for over 30 years and he was quite knowledgeable and
entertaining. He had a lot of stories and examples of life at the
Castle back in the day. He also had an answer for every question
that was posed to him.
The actual time we spent inside the
Castle was about 40 minutes, but there were some pretty spectacular
rooms to look at. One of the things about the Castle is that it
really is a museum as well as a home. Unlike most collectors, who
buy art and historical items and put them on display, Hearst
collected architectural elements and actually used them in the
construction of the house. The ceilings in some of the rooms were
actual ceilings from 15th and 16th century
buildings. Parts of the walls in the assembly room and refectory
came from 14th century cathedrals. Original ancient Greek
and Roman columns are integrated into the structure of the place. It
is a fascinating place to look at when you learn the history of
Hearst and his dream for the house. After we were done inside we
spent about an hour walking around the gardens and terraces of the
property, looking at the guest houses, the tennis courts, and the
pools, all of which defy written description. I would just have to
urge anyone who hasn't been there to go see it if they ever get the
chance.
Once you are done wandering you can
catch one of the shuttle buses and return back to the visitor's
center for a walk through the obligatory gift shop. We finally left
the visitor's center about 4:30 and started the drive back to Santa
Maria. We picked up a geocache in the parking lot of the visitor's
center and we also had gotten two others in the area prior to going
on the tour. We dropped Corey off at home and we were back home by
6:30 and we just relaxed the rest of the night.
Wednesday, September 11th,
Patriot's Day and one of those days for which you will always
remember where you were and what happened. In our case we were in
our house in Indio and were getting ready for work. Jackie always
got up a half hour before me so she could have her two cups of coffee
and watch the news. When she woke me up she told me that a plane had
just crashed into one of the world trade center buildings and another
had hit the Pentagon. With the two incidents I was positive it was
no accident. By the time we left for work the second tower had been
struck and the fourth plane went down in Pennsylvania. I watched the
towers fall while I was at work. My boss sent everyone home early
that afternoon.
Today we just went out and got some
geocaches after lunch, finding four in under an hour, and then we did
some shopping at Walmart. We went back home after shopping and put
everything away and relaxed until about 4:30 when we left again to
go to dinner at the Oceano Elks Lodge. The Oceano Lodge always has
an all you can eat spaghetti dinner on Wednesdays, and they have
pretty good spaghetti. We always try to go there at least once
during each trip to this area. We used to stay at the Oceano Lodge
RV park, but they don't have sewer, only 30 amp service, and are
parked in a pretty tight, grass lot. For this they charge more than
Santa Maria, which has full hookup sites. Granted, the Oceano Lodge
is right next to the beach, but we don't go to the beach, so it's no
big deal for us.
We got to the lodge and met Donna,
Corey, Pia and Korby. We had cocktails and talked until 6:00 when
they served dinner. This time they had meatballs along with the
sauce,but the meatballs were only OK. The sauce was a good as
always. After dinner they had the 50/50 drawing and Jackie won,
collecting $77 for her ten dollar investment in tickets. Yea! We
all had another cocktail on her before leaving and heading back home
where we just watched TV the rest of the evening.
Thursday, September 12th, we
finally had the opportunity to have a stay at home day, almost
anyway. We didn't leave the coach until about 4:30 to drive up to
San Luis Obispo for the Thursday night street fair and farmer's
market. We always try to go at least once whenever we are in the
area. We arrived and got parked about 5:30, a half hour before the
fair was even scheduled to be open, but most of the stores on the
street were open, so we just walked around and enjoyed the great
weather and watched everyone getting set up. A little before 7:00 we
were met by Ron Kopf, Jackie's cousin Stephanie's husband. When we
were in Fresno a week or so ago we made arrangements to meet Ron here
tonight for dinner. Ron is working on a big solar project near SLO
and stays down here during the week, only returning to Fresno on the
weekends.
The three of us went into McCormick's
steak house, which is right on the street where the booths are set
up, and had a nice dinner. McCormick's also has a booth outside, but
it is very popular and the line runs for a block. In addition, there
are few tables or places to eat, so you have to sit on the curb to
eat. Not my idea of a nice meal. We all had sandwiches and had a
very nice dinner and had a chance to spent some time with Ron that we
didn't get when we were up in Fresno. After we ate we all walked the
length of the street fair and looked at everything. We picked up a
few veggies for dinner tomorrow, but other than that didn't get
anything. We then walked back to the car, said goodbye to Ron, and
we drove back to Santa Maria. By the time we got home it was 9:30,
about the latest we have been out in a while.
Friday, September 13th, eek,
Friday the 13th! We left the coach after lunch and went
out to get our cache of the day which we did on the first try. We
are up over 80 consecutive days now. After that we did some
shopping, a few things at Von's that we couldn't get at Wally World
yesterday, and then a stocking up trip to Costco. It will be a month
or so before we are close to a Costco again, so we stocked up on
vodka and meat, two of the main things we shop at Costco for. After
shopping we went back home and relaxed for a while.
Saturday, September 14th, we
went out after lunch to do some geocaching in the area. We cached in
the town of Nipomo, which is the next small town north of Santa
Maria, and we were able to get six new caches in about an hour. Once
we had our caches we quit and drove to the town of Oceano, about
fifteen miles northwest, to pick up our tickets for the Oceano
melodrama theater. We made reservations for this coming Wednesday
night to see one of the shows with Jackie and I, Pia and Korby, and
Donna and Corey. In order to confirm our front row seats we had to
buy the tickets today, so we drove over there and got them in hand.
After that errand we drove to the
outlet mall in Pismo Beach, right off of Highway 101. Jackie had
some coupons from some of the outlet stores and we didn't want to let
them expire. We both got a few new pairs of underwear for next to
nothing after we factored in the coupons. We spent about ninety
minutes walking around the mall and looking in all the shops. We
each got one new shirt and I got a new pair of Skechers tennis shoes.
Once we were done with that shopping we headed home where we had the
chance to just relax all night for the first time in a while.
Sunday, we had our usual Sunday
morning, watching the news shows and reading the paper. After lunch
we went out and did one geocache just to keep our streak alive, the
returned to the coach and cleaned house. We are having Donna and
Corey over for dinner tonight. Ron, Stephanie's husband that we met
in SLO the other night is also coming over. Pia and Korby were
supposed to come, but they canceled because Korby had band practice
or something.
Everyone arrived around 4:00 or so and
we had a good time talking. Donna had never met Ron, even though she
is related by marriage to Stephanie. Like most families, the tree
branches out pretty far and not all the folks on some limbs know
everyone on the other limbs. We had our cocktails and about 6:00 had
dinner. Jackie made a big pot of risotto, with mushrooms, shrimp,
onions and asparagus, one of my favorite meals. Everyone enjoyed the
risotto, although both Corey and Ron picked out most of the
asparagus. I guess hey didn't like the green stuff. After dinner we
had another drink and talked for a while. Ron left about 7:30 and
Donna and Corey left about 8:00. After they left we cleaned up and
then relaxed the rest of the night.
Monday, September 16th, we
left the coach after lunch and drove to an urgent care place so I
could get my knee looked at. A month ago, when we were in Lodi, I
was dancing on the grass and stepped in a hole or something and
twisted my knee just a bit. Nothing major, I just felt a little pain
when we walked back to the coach. It pretty much stayed that way for
the next three weeks, never getting really bad, but never going away.
Then these last couple of days it has really started hurting,
throbbing at night and making it hard to sleep, and really showing
signs of swelling. I wanted to get someone to look at it just to be
sure I didn't really do anything bad to the knee and give some hints
as to how to treat the soreness.
They took some xrays and the PA at the
center explained that she didn't see anything broken or especially
bad, other than some arthritis signs and the swelling. She said the
xrays didn't show the tendons or ligaments, so if it doesn't clear up
by the time we get to Pahrump I should go to an orthopedist so they
can do a cat scan or MRI. She recommended regular ibuprofen to
lessen the swelling and pain, ice for a while each day and then they
put on a very nice elastic knee splint that she said would take some
of the pressure off the knee structure. They also gave me copies of
the xrays for future use.
After we were done at the urgent care
we stopped and picked up one geocache and then went back to the coach
to rest. About 5:00 we left again to go to dinner at Jocko's in
Nipomo. Regular readers will know that every time we are in the
Central Coast area we have to go to Jocko's for dinner at least once.
It is, hands down, for the best steak house anywhere. It is not a
fancy place and the prices are not cheap, but certainly not Spencer's
or Ruth's Chris high either. They give you salad and a garnish
platter before the entree, potato and beans with it, and then coffee
and ice cream after. The biggest steak they have, the large Spencer,
is only $28 and it is at least 20 ounces. That is what I have and
they cooked it perfectly, blood rare. Everything is cooked over an
open wood fire. Jackie always has lamb chops, three big chops, for
$21. A great place to eat.
We met Donna and Corey there and had a
couple of drinks before going in for dinner. We had thought Pia and
Korby might come, but they other stuff going on. Donna ordered the
baby backs and got a full rack plus a few bones, also cooked over the
open fire. Dinner was outstanding, as always, and afterward Donna
and Corey went home and we went back to the coach to lounge for the
rest of the night.
Tuesday, September 17th, I
spent the early part of the day sitting with ice on my knee as
suggested by the PA at the urgent care. Since we are still trying to
keep up our challenge to extend our consecutive caching days as far
as possible we went out about 2:00 or so to get a cache. We drove a
few miles north, back to Nipomo where we were last night, and did
nine caches in about 90 minutes. My knee felt much better and the
brace they gave me provides support when I walk around, so we just
kept caching until we found all the ones in Nipomo. After caching we
went back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the day, working on
getting my knee back in shape.
Wednesday, September 18th,
we stayed in the coach, playing, doing a few chores and relaxing for
most of the day. I kept ice on my knee for several hours and tried
to baby it as much as possible. About 5:30 we left and headed for
Oceano, about 15 miles to the northeast, to attend the melodrama at
the community theater there. We had gone to what was the first
melodrama for me a few weeks ago when we were in Oakhurst, and I had
really enjoyed it. We are going to meet the rest of the family,
Donna, Corey, Pia and Korby, at the theater when they open at 6:30.
On the way to the theater we did some caching to keep our stats up
and ended up getting four in time to still be ten minutes early at
the theater, in time to get a good parking place.
The last show we went to had two short
plays, this was a longer one with a much larger cast. One of the
players was only 12 but has been acting since he was 7. He was a
great little actor too. There was not as much booing and cheering in
this one simply because the pace of the play was quicker and they
didn't pause as often for the audience participation. The acting was
better too. These were mostly professional actors as opposed to
local folks just doing it for fun like in Oakhurst. The play was
good and the acting very good. Not quite as much laugh out loud
humor as in the Oakhurst plays, but still pretty funny. At the
intermission I got another beer and a sandwich.
Thursday, September 19th, we
went out about 1:30 to do laundry. It has been over two weeks and
the pile of dirty clothes threatened to overwhelm the bedroom. After
laundry we stopped and picked up one geocache, just to have one for
the day, and then went on to Walmart for a few things. After Walmart
we headed home and spent the rest of the evening relaxing. My knee
is getting better, the swelling has gone down and it doesn't hurt as
much during the day. It still aches some at night, making sleeping
difficult, but I hope it will continue to improve.
Friday we went out after lunch and
found three new geocaches. After caching we had to make another
Costco run because we realized that we had forgotten a couple of
things the last time. We probably won't be near another Costco for a
month or so. After Costco we went home for a while before leaving
about 3:30 or so for a last visit to Aunt Donna. Pia and Korby
arrived soon after we did and Corey made some pizzas for the six of
us. After we had our pizza we spent about 90 minutes playing the
game “Catch Phrase.” This is an electronic game, similar to
password except that what you have to have the others guess could be
a single word or a multi-word phrase. We had played this game with
this group the last time we were here and Pia called us before we
left the coach to remind us to make sure we brought it again. It is
really good for big groups and is a ton of laughs. About 9:00
everyone said their goodbyes and we headed back to the coach. We
will be back up here again in the spring of next year.
Saturday, September 21st,
our time to leave the Central Coast and begin the journey back to our
“home” town of Pahrump. It is about 400 miles from Santa Maria
to Pahrump, so we broke the trip up into three legs. Today's
destination was Bakersfield, about 130 miles east and over the
coastal range. We got out of Santa Maria about 10:00 and were in
Bakersfield about 1:30, after a brief fuel stop. We stopped at an RV
park we have used before, Bakersfield Palms RV Park. Most of the
park is kind of dumpy with mostly full time residents, however, on
one side they have built a very nice transient area with great pull
through spots. It is right next to the train yard, so it is a bit
noisy, but it is a good spot for a one or two night layover.
We only set up the very basic
necessities since we were only here for one night. We did have to
unhook the car because we needed to go get a cache for our cache of
the day. We couldn't find the first one we looked for, but had
better luck with the second and scored our COTD. After finding the
cache we found a nice Mexican restaurant called Red Pepper. Although
the food was just a little on the pricy side, the quality of the food
and the service were outstanding. Some of the best Mexican we have
had in a long time. The chili rellano I had was among the best I
have ever had. If you ever find yourself in Bakersfield, poor baby.
But if you do, be sure to visit the Red Pepper for great Mexican.
Sunday, September 22nd, we
were packed up and on the road again by 9:30, this time headed for
Barstow. This trip was about 140 miles and required us climbing the
Tehachapi Pass, a little over 4,000 elevation. Fortunately, it was
cool, so there were no overheating issues and the trip went without
any problems. We arrived in Barstow about 2:00, again after a fuel
stop. We had also stopped at a rest area on the road for lunch, and
while there found a geocache in the rest area. Since this gave us
our cache for the day, we didn't even have to unhook the car when we
parked.
We again stayed in an RV park we have
been in before. The Desert Springs RV park is actually in the town
of Yermo, just east of Barstow, and is right across the road from one
of the Marine Corps' major supply facilities. It is a pretty dumpy
park, all dirt and gravel, but it has pull through sites with full
hookups, so it is handy for a one night stay.
Monday, September 23rd, we
were out of Barstow (Yermo) by 10:15 and once again northeast bound
on I-15. Within an hour we had reached the little desert town of
Baker, California, home of the Mad Greek restaurant. We always make
it a point to stop here when we are traveling to or from Pahrump via
I-15. Jackie really likes Greek food, and I can always find
something I like, even though I don't care for lamb. They also have
a big truck parking lot, so parking the coach when we stop here is
never a problem either. Before we went into the restaurant we went
to find a geocache that we saw was hidden in a gas station right
across the street. This gave us our COTD, so we don't have to worry
about running out and getting one after we get to Pahrump.
We also found Robin, the activities
director at Indian Palms in Indio, another park we stay at every
year, was working the desk here in Pahrump. She is here for a while
training the new activities director for the Pahrump resort. Robin
is the one we have worked with and who booked us the New Year's Eve
entertainment last year and again this year. She keeps telling us
she is going to get us some compensation for our efforts. It didn't
happen last year, but she again said she was going to work to get our
stay at Indian Waters comped this year for our help with the
entertainment. We'll see.
We got parked and set up for our two
week stay here at the resort and were pretty much done by 4:00 or so.
Jackie made a quick run to the UPS store to pick up our mail, but
other than that we just stayed in and rested after our three day
quickie trek from Santa Maria to Home. We always consider our
arrival in Pahrump to be the transition from “summer” travels to
“winter” travels. It also makes a good cut off point for this
chapter of the blog. We will publish again in a few weeks. Until
then, remember to try and deal with life with as much ease and humor as possible. Try and remember that if
you're going to make every issue a matter of life or death, you're
going to have a lot of problems. For one thing, you'll be dead a
lot. Think about THAT! Bye.
