The Forests of Southern Oregon

Welcome back to our story. Our last chapter concluded on Thursday, May 9^th, when we left Redding, California and moved north into Oregon for the first time in almost three years. Our first stop was the Valley of the Rogue State Park, located about halfway between Medford and Grants Pass and only 45 miles from the California border. This is a beautiful park with lots of trees and grass and very nice sites. One of the best things is they have a number of full hookup pull-through sites, including sewer and 50 amp electric, and they are available on an online reservation system. We can go in months ahead of time, pick our site and make a reservation. The only downside is that they have a no refund policy, so if your plans change you are out of luck as far as the cost.

We didn't get into our site until about 2:00 in the afternoon and it took us a while to get hooked up and set up. We had to wiggle around in the site a little bit to get satellite signal, but we finally got everything working and we just settled in for the rest of the day. It was pretty warm here, well into the upper 80's, and the heat kind of wears you out when you are working at getting set up in a campsite.  The photo is from a couple of years ago, but was taken in the space right next to where we are now.

Friday was also supposed to be a warm day, but we decided that we needed to get out and do some geocaching in the local area. We left the coach after lunch and started caching in the nearby City of Rogue River. It's really more of a small town, but I guess they use the formal title to avoid being confused with the river or the recreational area that incorporates much of the surrounding land. The town has a population of just over 2,100 and an incorporated area of less than a square mile. We got five caches right in town and then continued to cache in the surrounding countryside, ending up with 16 new finds for the afternoon, a pretty respectable total. We also didn't get any new DNFs. One of the caches we found had not been found for 14 months, which is pretty unusual. Normally, a cache that goes unfound in an active caching area like this is gone and people are just not logging their DNFs. In this case, however, it was right where it was supposed to be, and actually pretty easy to spot.

After our caching we went back to the park and stayed around the coach the rest of the evening. I sat outside for an hour or so, enjoying the great weather and the nice views around the park. It was also interesting watching people coming into the park and getting set up in the camp sites. We don't usually spend a lot of time sitting outside the coach, in most RV parks it is not especially scenic, but this park is an exception. It is very enjoyable to spend a little time outside enjoying nature.

Saturday, May 11^th, was forecast to be another hot day, at least hot for this time of year in Oregon, the upper 80's, low 90's. We again left the coach after lunch and drove south through Medford to the city of Ashland, Oregon. Ashland is only about 15 miles north of the California border and is the home of Southern Oregon University, a liberal arts college that is part of Oregon's public university system. The city has a population of just over 20,000 and was founded in 1852 during the gold rush years. It is probably best known nationally for the annual Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which actually runs all summer long at local playhouses and the University. The University has a Shakespeare Studies curriculum as part of its arts programs.

We first “discovered” Ashland back in 2005 on our very first trip as full timers in our new motorhome. We stopped at an RV park just off the freeway, a few miles from Ashland, for a few days over the 4^th of July holiday. A couple of days prior to the 4^th we drove to Ashland to check out the Elks Lodge. The lodge is located in a big, old building right on the main street in downtown. The lodge was very friendly and the bartender told us about the big parade that they always have in Ashland on the 4^th and told us that if we wanted to come he would give us a card so we could get in the private Elks parking lot behind the building. He said otherwise we would have a hard time finding a parking place in town. We took him up on the offer and came for the parade. It was a great, old fashioned, small town parade and we really had a good time. We also enjoyed the town because downtown is still a vibrant shopping and eating area and is still the center of activity in town. Most of the buildings date back to the turn of the century, and it just a nice place to spend a few hours walking around.

Since that first time we have made it a point to visit Ashland at least once every time we come through Oregon. When we were last here in 2010 we were once again in the area over the 4^th of July holiday and again went to the Ashland parade. That one you can read about in the archive for this blog, since we were publishing our travels by that time.

Today we parked downtown and spent a couple of our walking around downtown, going into shops and just enjoying the nice environment of the town. We also walked around the Lithia Park, a very nice park downtown, and found one geocache.  The park is very pretty with a lot of colorful flowers.  After our shopping trip we stopped in at the Elks, which is still in the downtown building, and had a couple of cocktails. We also did a little gaming, since most Oregon Elks lodges have slot machines, provided and operated by the State. Jackie lost twenty, I won twenty, so it was a break even for us. Unfortunately, we won't be around the area for the parade this year.

We finally left the Ashland Elks about 4:30 and started back to the park, which is about 25 miles away. On the way we stopped at the grocery store for some supplies. After we got back to the coach we sat outside with another cocktail for about a half hour before going inside for dinner. A very fun day in a very nice area.

Sunday, May 12^th, Happy Mother's Day. Jackie never had children, so other than our “fur kids” she isn't a mother, and both of our mothers have passed away. Therefore, Mother's Day is not a big holiday for us other than remembering our mothers in the past. We headed out after lunch to take a drive to Medford. On the way to Ashland yesterday we drove through downtown Medford and noticed that they were having some kind of street fair or festival downtown. Several closed streets and lots of white tents. When I looked it up this morning I saw it was the annual Art in Bloom Festival. We like festivals, so we decided to go down and take a look.

We found parking pretty quick and began walking around the festival. It really was an art festival and the vast majority of the booths were artists selling their paintings, sculpture and other art. There were also a few jewelry booths as jewelry is often considered art as well when it is handmade. The festival covered the streets along several square blocks of downtown, so it took us an hour or so to make the rounds. We also spent time in a couple of antique shops that happened to be open.

We actually ended up buying a couple of things, including a really neat hummingbird feeder made from copper wire and an old Absolute bottle. That caught our eye because Absolute is our vodka of choice. We couldn't not get an Absolute bird feeder! Jackie also got some gourmet granulated garlic from one of the booths and 2 sets of porcelain cup cake salt and pepper shakers from one of the antique stores. She got the cup cakes as a gift for her niece, Stephanie, who collects cup cake ketch. We left the street fair after checking out all the booths and thought about visiting the Medford Elks Lodge, which was located less than a block from where the street fair was. However, the lodge was not open, so we will have to visit there later.

We left the downtown area and decided to take drive to just south of Medford on the freeway where we had seen a Lazy Boy furniture store. As we have indicated, our next stop after the Rogue River Valley is Harrisburg, Oregon where we will spend a week or two at a coach shop getting some work done. We are having our floors replaced with a wood laminate, getting rid of most of the carpeting, getting some needed repairs and taking out one of our two couches. A part of our plans is to get a nice recliner so I have somewhere to sit to watch TV. Jackie will have her couch, I will have the recliner.

We have a pretty good idea what we want, a nice recliner, comfortable, but not too big, preferably in red leather. Jackie likes red accents and we have red things all over the coach. On the way into the area we spotted the Lazy Boy shop and we know they make good stuff. We figured we would check to see if they had any good sales. We had checked out some other brands in a couple of stores over the last few weeks and knew that you could get a pretty decent leather, or leather-look, recliner for around five or six hundred.

We were met in the store by a nice saleslady named Cindy who, after hearing what we were looking for, took us to the corner where most of the recliners were. We told her about living in the motorhome full time and that space was an issue, and we went around at sat in a number of chairs. There were some nice chairs, but all the leather ones were either brown or very dark burgundy, neither of which enthused Jackie. We talked briefly about custom ordering a chair just like the Lazy Boy that Peggy and Vernon just bought, and the prices were over a thousand dollars. Way over. The one like they have, rocker, swivel, red leather, was over $1,300. Kind of out of our league. In fact, almost all of the chairs on the floor were in the $900 to $1,000 range. We were getting discouraged and were about ready to leave, but Jackie needed to use the restroom. Cindy took Jackie in tow to guide her to the ladies room and I was left to walk around the floor on my own.

Low and behold, over on the side of the store, away from the corner where most of the other recliners were, was a medium sized, red leather recliner! Real red, not burgundy or dark red. I sat in it and it was very comfortable, and it was a rocker as well. I was shocked when I looked at the price tag and found that it was on sale for $599. I was still sitting in it when Jackie came back from the restroom. She immediately got as excited as I was, especially when she saw the price. It turns out the fabric was faux leather, a mix of fabric and leather pieces, but you couldn't tell the difference in feel or look. The original price of the chair was $1,100, but it had been marked down a couple of times because it was a discontinued item. Cindy almost had a look of, “gosh, I didn't know that was here,” but she came around and gave us the sales pitch anyway. I suspect she works on commission and didn't want to show us the “cheap” chair early on.

After a few minutes of discussion Jackie and I agreed this chair would work. It was the right look, the right color, the right brand, and the right price. We asked Cindy if we could put a deposit on the chair and have them hold it for us until the remodel is done in a few weeks. She said that was not a problem as they had a big warehouse in the back of the store. We paid a deposit on the chair, took some pictures and left the store very happy. Once the remodel is done we will drive back down here with the coach, minus the big couch now, and have the store load the new one in the coach. Yea, one less thing we have to look for with regard to the remodel.

With the paperwork for our new chair in hand we left the store very happy and headed back to the coach. We relaxed for a while before putting a couple of nice big steaks on the BBQ for dinner. After dinner we watched TV and congratulated ourselves on our shopping savvy.

Monday we decided we needed a stay at home day. Both of managed to get a whole slew of little chores done, chores that we both had been putting off for a while. Mine were mostly minor repairs to the coach and minor maintenance stuff. When I have one of those five minute jobs I have a tendency to just say, it won't take long, I'll do it later when I have time. Today I put about a dozen of those five minute jobs together and made an afternoon of it. Yea! Jackie did a lot of mending, cleaning and clothes alterations too. All in all a satisfying and productive day.

Tuesday, May 14^th, we left the coach around noon and drove into Medford to run some errands. Our first stop was the Tin Tin Chinese Buffet for lunch. We had seen this place the other day when we were in Medford and when we checked the Yelp reviews we found that it was very highly rated. I was hungry for Chinese, so we decided to give it a try today. The ratings are very well deserved. From the outside it doesn't look like much, a door in a strip mall with a big marquee sign. Inside it is quite large, very tastefully decorated, and remarkably clean. One of the things about Chinese buffets is that they tend to be a little grubby inside, lots of people walking around with plates of food dropping stuff on the floor. This place was spotless and the service was great.

The food was also very tasty. Most of the entree's were chicken based, very little beef and almost no pork. The sauces were all good and the chicken dishes were real pieces of chicken, not bits and bites held together by breading. Jackie complained that the food was not quite hot enough for her, but there are limitations to the ability of a steam table to keep some dishes hot. We ate our fill and the price for lunch was only $8.95. I can really recommend this place if you find yourself in Medford, Oregon craving Chinese. It is on the north side of town, across the street from the big Fred Meyers store on Highway 62.

After lunch we did a little shopping for craft supplies. Jackie finally found some of the stuff she has been looking for in a local craft shop that was right next door to the chain store, Jo Anns. Once we were done with shopping we drove to the UPS Customer Service Center to pick up our mail. We had a pretty big box because among the things being forwarded were our replacement MiFi. You may recall that when we were in Santa Maria the battery in our old model had swollen up and Verizon couldn't provide a replacement for it. Since it was still under warranty they finally decided to just send us a newer model MiFi.

We unwrapped the various parts and drove to the nearby Verizon company store to have the folks there activate the device. I could have probably done it, but I know I would have been on the phone for an hour with customer service. As it was it took the professional at the store a half hour to finally get the changeover completed. Once we were done at the Verizon store we started back towards home, stopping along the way to pick up a few geocaches. We actually ended up with six new finds for the afternoon. We had done two in Medford while doing our errands and picked up four others, along with one DNF, on the way back to the park.

Once we got to the park we had fun opening the mail and checking out the new MiFi, which works great. Since we had such a big lunch we didn't bother with a formal dinner, just had snacks as we watched TV.

Wednesday, May 15^th, Happy Birthday to Jackie! We don't exchange gifts, but she got a nice card and a big birthday kiss. It is also Benji's birthday. Our new kitty is now a year old. I read somewhere recently that the second year of a cat's life is the equivalent of the teen years in a human. I hope he doesn't start to hate his parents, smoke, drink and stay out all night.

The morning was overcast with a slight threat of showers. It was still warm enough to wear shorts, low 70's, but just barely. I spent a little time in the morning taking down the outside attachments getting ready to travel tomorrow. We left the coach after lunch and drove to Grants Pass, about 15 miles west of the park. Originally we were going into Grants Pass to do laundry and maybe a few geocaches and some sightseeing. However, Jackie decided she wanted to visit an urgent care to check on some stomach pains that she has had, off and on, for a couple weeks now. She was getting a little concerned that the pains have not gone away. We found an urgent care that was well rated online and got Jackie checked in. She was there about two hours, but was relieved that the diagnosis was diverticulitis and an unrelated mild urinary tract infection. Diverticulitis is a fairly benign condition where little pouches or indentations develop in the intestine, usually the colon. Certain foods, especially hard things like nuts and seeds, get caught in these pouches and cause irritation, swelling and pain. Once Jackie heard the diagnosis she realized that she had been eating a lot of almonds lately and that likely caused the flareup. The treatment is basically stop eating things that irritate the condition and the inflammation will pass. She left the doctor feeling much better knowing that it was not serious. The doctor gave her a prescription for some antibiotics that would treat both the urinary infection and help with the diverticulitis.

After we got out of the urgent care we found the coin laundry we had selected from an internet search and did our laundry. By the time we finished our laundry is was about 4:00 and we still needed to stop at Walgreen's to pick up the prescription the doctor had phoned in. When we got there they had not even started to fill the script, which was kind of poor customer service. After a half hour we finally got out of Walgreen's and decided that we would stop and pick up a pizza for dinner.

Normally our favorite pizza is Round Table, and we had seen at least one in Medford, so we knew they were in Oregon. However, there was not one in Grants Pass. We settled on Abby's, which is a large chain in the Northwest and was rated pretty well online. There happened to be one in the same parking lot as the Walgreen's. We went in and ordered our pizza and were ready to head for home by about 5:00. We stopped and picked up one geocache, which was in the same parking lot, just so we would have at least one Grants Pass cache on the record. We then drove back to the coach and went in for dinner and TV until bedtime.

Thursday, May 16^th, another moving day. We packed up the coach and were on the road by about 10:00. We were headed for Harrisburg, Oregon, a small town just north of the city of Eugene, on Interstate 5. The trip was about 170 miles and we had off and on rain showers for much of the trip. The rain was not heavy, but enough to need the wipers from time to time. The truck traffic was very heavy and the trip went through a lot of low mountains with a lot of grades, so we were stuck behind slow trucks a lot. We made it to Harrisburg about 2:00 and got checked into the River Bend RV Resort. It was still raining, so we got the basics hooked up and got the inside of the coach settled.

We are here in Harrisburg for our long awaited coach remodel. Elite Coach Repair is just around the corner from the RV park and it is where we are going to have the work done. The company was recommended to us by Ray Babcock, who has had a lot of work done by them. The owners and primary technicians are three old Monaco employees who formed the company when Monaco went bankrupt a few years ago and closed most of their Oregon operations. Back in it's heyday, Monaco had headquarters in Coburg, Oregon, just down the road from Harrisburg, and had manufacturing facilities in Harrisburg, Coburg, and Junction City, all towns within a ten mile radius. The company still builds trailers at a plant in Harrisburg and has a service center in Coburg, but all the other facilities have been closed. There are several coach repair places in the area that have been opened by ex-Monaco employees since the company's problems.

After we got the coach set up we drove over to Elite to visit with Mark and Erik, two of the owners with whom we have been in contact by phone and email for the last couple months. Our service appointment is actually Monday, but we wanted to get in a few days early to get settled and to be able to pick out flooring materials before the work actually started. We had a little trouble finding the facility and actually had to call them for directions. It is only a half mile from the park, but it is tucked away behind some buildings and you can't see it from the road.

We were able to talk to Erik, Mark was not around. They didn't seem to be too busy, but they said they were. We got the information on where in Eugene to go to look at flooring and carpet and talked a little about Monday. It seems that Monday will probably be mostly inspection of the coach and clarifying what work we want done. We still need to work out the details. We really don't know how long we will be here, how many days we may not be able to stay in the coach, and how much of what we want done can be done with the amount of money we have to spend. I don't like all this uncertainty, but I guess a little bit can't be helped at this point. After our conversation with Erik we went back to the coach and just relaxed the rest of the night.

Although it has only been a week, I think this is a good place to close this chapter so I can concentrate on the remodel work in the next episode. This should be interesting. Until next time, remember that it's important to never do anything that you wouldn't want to have to explain to the paramedics. See ya next time.

North Through California - Again

Hello again friends and loyal readers. Our last episode concluded on Friday, April 26^th, when we made the trip from Santa Maria, California, in the Central Coast region, to Fresno, in the Central Valley area of California. Our original plan to stay at the Fresno Elks Lodge, which has a very nice RV park, was foiled by the unexpected presence of the annual Clovis Rodeo. Clovis is a suburb of Fresno and is located not too far from the Elks. It seems that the lodge had no vacancies for the weekend. After a bit of frantic web searching and phone calls by Jackie as we were driving, we finally got a spot in an old trailer park on the far west side of Fresno. Actually so far west it is not even in the city limits. The park is nicely kept and the staff is very nice, but the sites are sort of odd. Most of them are parallel to the road instead of at a diagonal or ninety degrees. You have to snake the coach into the spot between the power pole and the inside edge of the spot. 

We did it without too much trouble, but after seven years on the road we have a pretty good system for parking. I think a less experienced team might have more trouble. We actually had to work our way into two spots because the first one didn't work out because a tree was blocking our satellite reception and we don't like to not have our TV. We finally did get everything set up and working and settled in for our five day stay.

Later that afternoon we took a drive over to the other side of Fresno to visit with Jackie's second cousin, Stephanie and her kids. Stephanie actually calls her Aunt Jackie since her mom Sue, who was staying at Stephanie's house for a few days, is about the same age as Jackie. Stephanie and her family, her husband Ron and their three kids, have lived in Fresno for a few years and we visited them last year when we came through the area. Ron was out of town working a construction job, so we didn't get to see him.

We visited with the family for a while and then we all went out to a local Mexican restaurant for dinner and to celebrate Stephanie’s birthday, which was today. We had a great dinner and some nice conversation. Jackie has not seen Stephanie since we were here last year, and has not see Sue for about three years. After dinner we drove back to their house, visited for a little while longer, then drove back to the coach. We were pretty tired and watched TV until bedtime, an early bedtime.

Saturday, April 27^th, we had lunch at the coach and left about noon to drive back over to Stephanie's house. When we were here last year we took the family geocaching and Stephanie and the kids seemed to enjoy it. When we were talking about it last night Stephanie's mom Sue also seemed excited to give it a try. The kids were busy with other stuff, but Jackie and I took Stephanie and Sue out and we did some caching in the area around their house. We were out for about three hours and ended up with eleven new finds, along with four DNFs. That is a lot of DNFs for us, but a lot of these caches haven't been found in several months and could be gone.

We went back to Stephanie's house and visited for a while before leaving about 6:00 to meet some other friends at the Clovis Elks Lodge. We were meeting Jeannie and LeRoy Foote. Jeannie and Jackie went to Dorsey High School in Los Angeles together and up until about three years ago had not seen each other since graduation. 

About four years ago there was a 50^th reunion of Jackie's class. Although we were not able to go, it put Jackie back in communication with Jeannie after all the years. About a year after that we crossed paths with Jeannie and LeRoy in Las Vegas. They were visiting in town as we were passing through. Last year, when we were here in Fresno, Jackie got to see Jeannie very briefly, but we didn't get to spend much time. Jeannie had called Jackie when she learned we were back in town, and told her that some friends of her's were doing karaoke at the Clovis Elks Lodge tonight and she knew that I liked to sing. They live in Clovis, not too far from where Stephanie lives.

We arrived at the lodge and met Jeannie and LeRoy, along with a number of their friends who were at the same table. Their friends were actually the one's putting on the karaoke show. Jeannie and LeRoy bought our dinner, which was very nice of them. The lodge was having their steak night and when the dinner came I was impressed with the quality of the food. They put on a pretty nice spread. There were a lot of people at the lodge, probably because of the rodeo being in town. Lots of folks in western dress. Over the evening I got to sing four songs and listened to some pretty good karaoke singers. Most were country western types, but a few sang oldies like I do. We finally left a little after nine and headed back to the coach. We didn't want to be out too late because we are on the other side of town, and the area we are in is not the nicest. I wanted to be in the coach with the doors locked before it got too late.

Sunday, April 28^th, we were looking at a very hot day with temps in the low 90's. Certainly a change from last week along the coast when we had to wear jackets most of the day. About 1:00 Stephanie and Sue, along with Stephanie's daughter Madison, and one of Madison's girlfriends, came over to visit and see the coach. They had all seen the coach before, but it has been a while and they wanted to see the new kitty too. After a brief visit, during which the new kitty pretty much ignored them, we headed out to do some geocaching in the area around where the RV park is. We only did a couple close to the RV park, because, as I said, it is not the nicest neighborhood. When I went out at 7:30 a.m. to get the Sunday paper for Jackie there were already a couple of hookers on the street.

We took the two kids with us and Stephanie and Sue followed in Stephanie's car. We had a good caching run, getting a dozen new finds with only two new DNFs. The kids really had a great time and became very competitive in looking for the caches. They actually found about half the caches on their own. We had several finds on the campus of Fresno City College, which has a very nice campus a few miles from our RV park. Since it was a Sunday there was no one around the campus, which made caching much easier. About 3:30 or so Stephanie gathered up the kids and they returned to their house. Ron was home for the afternoon and they wanted to spend some time with him before he returned to San Luis Obispo where his job is currently.

We drove over to Clovis to do some shopping at Walmart. The only super center in the area was in Clovis, so that's why we drove back over there. We got our shopping done and then drove back to the coach where we had a quiet dinner and watched TV for the rest of the night.

Monday, April 29^th, we were again promised a very hot day. We thought about going out to walk around the mall or something, but finally just decided to stay at home for the day. We both spent the day on the computer and playing games. I got some admin work done, a few bills, renewing insurance, that sort of thing, but neither of us even walked outside the coach. When we went to bed at 10:45 I did my walk around and realized that we had not even unlatched the front door all day. Nice quiet, relaxing day.

Tuesday, April 30^th, another warm day in Fresno. We didn't have any plans for the day, so we decided to go the mall after lunch. We like to walk around the big malls, more for the exercise than the shopping. We walked the entire mall and the only thing bought was some cosmetics that Jackie needed. After the mall we did stop at a Sketchers shoe outlet that was near the mall and we both bought a new pair of sneakers. Just to kill some time we took a drive to downtown Fresno and did some sightseeing. Although we have been to Fresno a couple of times, we never made it downtown. We did get one geocache downtown, just so we could say we got one today. After our touring we went back to the coach, had cocktails and dinner and watched TV the rest of the day.

I did a very sad phone call today. Regular readers will remember our good friends Barry and Colleen Cohen, who live in Indio, not too far from where our old house is. Although they have lived in a motor home full time for the last eleven years, they haven't been able to travel much because Barry owned a business and couldn't get away for long periods. Last year he sold his business finally and this past winter they sold their expensive lot at an RV country club, thus freeing them up to finally get out and do some traveling.

I got a call from Barry today that Colleen has been diagnosed with cancer and it doesn't look good for her. It has spread beyond where they think any surgery would do any good. With chemo they can extend her life, but it still looks like a year or less. Both Jackie and I were very heartbroken to hear this sad news. We were looking forward to seeing our good friends on the road. Hang in there Colleen, we love you.

Wednesday, May 1^st, May Day! May Day! We packed up the coach and left our little RV park in Fresno about 10:00, en route to our next stop, Carmichael, California. Carmichael is a suburb of Sacramento, at the northeast edge of the city, about 175 miles northwest of Fresno. The trip was pretty simple, straight up the Highway 99 freeway to Sacramento. The 99 freeway is not a real nice road, it has a lot of truck traffic and is pretty torn up in a lot of places. However, one of the worst stretches, through the Modesto area, has been resurfaced and was far better than it was last year and the years before when we traveled this route. There were still some rough spots along the trip, but we got to Carmichael in one piece about 1:30 or so.

We found a spot at the Carmichael Elks Lodge, which has a dozen or so RV spots in the parking lot. They are water and electric only, with a dump station on the property. However, the electric is 50 amp and the price, $20 a night, is pretty nice. We will be here for five nights. After we got registered and parked we set up the coach and settled in. We always try to stop in the Sacramento area when we travel through California because Jackie has an old girlfriend and coworker, Kathy Yarbrough, who lives here with her husband Bill. Kathy's daughter Julie, and her granddaughter Bella, also live in Sacramento. In addition, we have some RV friends, Curt and Sharon Minard, who live just a few blocks from the Elks.

Unfortunately, everyone we knew in the area was busy tonight, so we didn't get to spend time tonight with any of our friends. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening relaxing in the coach and watching TV.

Thursday, May 2^nd, we left the coach after lunch and drove to North Sacramento to do a Costco run. When we got in the area of the store we took an hour or so to do some geocaches, just in case we didn't have time later. We wanted to have at least a couple of Sacramento area caches under our belt. We only did three caches before heading over to the Costco. One of the caches we did was located in a park near the Sacramento Police and Sheriff's Memorial. We arrived just as they were taking down the equipment from the annual Police Memorial Day services. There were still a number of law enforcement officers in the area, all dressed in their Class A uniforms. May 15 is the official National Peace Officers Memorial Day as set by the Federal government, and the week that date falls in is Peace Officer's Week nationally. However, different jurisdictions hold their celebrations all through the month of May. I was a Sheriff's Deputy in Phoenix for 27 years and the State of Arizona is having their memorial service on Monday, May 6^th.

After our caching we went to Costco and did some shopping. Our big goal was to stock up on vodka because we will be leaving California in a week or so and moving up into Oregon. Oregon has much more restrictive liquor laws, allowing the sales of alcohol only in State operated liquor stores, which means much higher prices. In most of the southwest states, Arizona, California, Nevada, and New Mexico, any grocery store or market can get a liquor sales license, which means competition and lower prices. There are Costco stores in Oregon and Washington, but none have liquor sales. We probably don't have enough to see us through our entire stay in Oregon, but we have enough now for a month or two.

After shopping we went back home, put everything away and rested for a while. About 6:00 we walked over to the Elks Lodge and met Curt and Sharon in the bar for cocktails. We had hoped that Kathy and Bill, who are also members of the Carmichael Lodge, would be able to join us, but Bill's dad is sick and they needed to be with him tonight. We had drinks with Curt and Sharon and then went in for a nice steak dinner in the dining room. We last saw the Minard's in Yuma back in February, so we had fun catching up with them. After dinner they came over to our coach for an hour or so to have another cocktail and talk some more. They also wanted to see the new kitty again. Benji was very outgoing with them, they must put off good cat vibes. Once they left we watched a little TV and then went to bed.

Friday, May 3^rd, we had lunch at the coach and then we packed up our laundry and went out to wash clothes. We hadn't quite met the two week mark, but our next stop is in Redding where we will be spending three days with Peggy and Vernon Bullock. We always stay busy when we are with Peggy and Vernon, so we didn't want to have to worry about doing laundry. We found a reasonably clean laundromat a couple miles from the Elks and within a couple of hours had our laundry finished. We went back to the coach, put away the clothes and made the bed, then relaxed for a few hours.

About 6:30 or so we left the coach and drove to a suburb across the river from downtown Sac, to have dinner with the Yarbrough clan. We went to Julie Yarbrough's house in West Sacramento where she lives with her boyfriend, Kevin and her daughter Bella. They have a very nice house in a really good neighborhood that is surrounded by not so good neighborhoods. You drive through what is almost a barrio and then get into an area that looks a lot like a country club. As a matter of fact, Julie's house backs up to a huge park that belongs to the homeowner's association and used to be a golf course before the developer came in and built the new homes. Both Kevin and Julie are in the mortgage industry, Kevin with a brokerage and Julie at a bank.

Also coming for dinner were Julie's mom, Kathy, Jackie's old friend from the Coachella Valley, and her husband Bill. We were met at the door by Bella, who is now four years old and much more friendly and outgoing than she was just a year ago when we were here. Last year she was really leery of me, tonight she was very easy to talk to. We had cocktails and I sat in the backyard, talking to Kevin and watching Bella play while the women were in the kitchen getting dinner ready and talking. Jackie doesn't have much contact with Julie or Kathy during the year, so she really enjoys spending some time with them when we come through town. Julie made a nice salad and some pizzas and we all had dinner out in the backyard after the sun went down.

Although the day had been hot, once the sun went down it got really nice outside. We had a very pleasant dinner and then spent a little time watching Bella as she did a “performance” of dance for us. She is really a bright kid for a four year old, Julie and Kevin are doing a good job as parents. We finally decided we needed to leave about 10:15 or so and drove back to the Elks lodge and home. By far the latest we had been out on the road in a long time.

Saturday, May 4^th, Happy Star Wars Day. Until last year I didn't know what that meant either. Turns out, it comes from “May the Fourth be with you.” We didn't have any social engagements scheduled for the day, so after lunch at the coach we went out to do some geocaching in the Carmichael area. We didn't seem to have a lot of luck this afternoon. Our first cache was a DNF, then we found one, then another DNF, and so on. We ended up with three finds and three DNFs. We were hoping that it was because the caches were missing, not that we had lost our touch.

We did stop at a jewelry repair shop that Jackie had spotted near the Elks yesterday. She had a couple of rings that needed some repairs and the sign in the window claimed same day service. We dropped off the rings and the owner told us that he could get them back to us at the end of the day. Since caching was not going well today, we decided to quit early and go do some shopping at Walmart. We drove to the Walmart in Citrus Heights, another suburb of Sacramento, because it was the closest super center. I read an article in the paper the other day about how hard California cities were fighting Walmart over super centers. Most of the push back is from the grocery unions because all the regular grocery stores, the Albertsons', Ralphs', Safeway's and the like, are unionized and Walmart isn't.

After our shopping we went back to the coach and when we called the jewelry shop about 45 minutes before closing time the owner told us the rings were ready. We went and picked them up. Jackie was happy because one of the rings was her wedding ring and the prongs holding the diamond in place were badly worn. She was afraid that the stone would fall out. Now she doesn't have to worry any more. The other was a ring that her Aunt Donna had given her last year. It was too small for anywhere but her pinky finger, so she had that one enlarged. The guy did a great job. We went back to the coach where we had dinner and watched TV until bedtime.

Sunday, May 5^th, Happy Cinco de Mayo! I read somewhere that May 5^th is more an American invention as an excuse to fiesta than it is a real Mexican holiday. Most Americans think it is Mexican Independence Day, but it's not. It commemorates the Mexican Army's victory over the French in the Battle of Pueblo in 1861. The Mexicans were considered the underdogs in the battle but they won. Although it provided a significant morale boost for the Mexican Army, it didn't alter the tide of the war. Within a year the French invasion succeeded conquering Mexico and installing Emperor Maximilian as ruler of Mexico. In Mexico Cinco de Mayo is really only a big deal in the State of Pueblo.

We left the coach about noon and drove to downtown Sacramento and the big shopping mall there. We met Julie, Kevin and Bella at the mall, which provided a handy place to park, and walked the quarter mile pedestrian tunnel under the freeway which leads to the Old Sacramento area. Old Sac is about a square mile of town right on the Sacramento River in which a lot of the old buildings have been restored. It is now a big tourist and party area with a lot of shops, restaurants and bars. After we got to Old Sac we were joined by Kathy and Bill, and Bill's brother Sarge, who was in town for a few days to see Bill and their dad, who is still in the hospital.

We tried to get into one Mexican place there, but we were trying to seat a party of eight and the wait was ridiculous. Our fault for trying to get into a Mexican restaurant on Cinco de Mayo. We eventually went across the street to a place called Ten Twenty Two where we got a nice table on the patio. The restaurant had a very pleasant ambiance and an interesting and eclectic menu. Lots of vegetarian and exotic choices. Both Jackie and I had the hamburger, which I have to say was wonderful. The only issue with the place was the service was a little slow and spotty, but we weren't in any hurry, so it was not a big deal.

We had a great lunch and good conversation. It was a lot of fun watching Bella. Jackie had picked up a kid's set of fruity scented cosmetics at Walmart and given it to Bella. She was going around the table doing everyone's nails. I narrowly avoided having pink nails when the food came to the table and she had to stop. She had done most everyone else at the table, including her grandpa Bill and his brother Sarge.

After dinner we walked around old town for an hour or so before saying goodbye to everyone and heading back to the mall to our car. We drove back to the Elks Lodge and just stayed in the rest of the afternoon and evening. We did stop on the way back to the coach to get one geocache, which was right down the street from the Elks Lodge. After the sun went down I went outside and took down the sun screens in preparation for our departure tomorrow.

Monday, May 6^th, another travel day. We packed up the coach and got out of our parking spot shortly after 9:30. Because we had been parked for five days with no sewer, we needed to stop at the dump station located at the lodge to dump the tanks. We will not have sewer in Redding either, so we needed to empty the waste tanks. By the time we got the tanks dumped and the car hooked up it was 10:00, our planned departure time. Our next stop is the Redding Elks Lodge in Redding, California, 170 miles northwest of Carmichael. Ninety five percent of the trip was freeway, so even with a lunch stop it only took three and a half hours or so to get there. We have never stayed at the Redding Elks, which has a nice RV lot with about twenty spots with water and 50 amp electric.

We had been watching the weather and knew that there was a storm front hanging over central California that was going to cause rainy weather for the next few days. The skies didn't disappoint and when we woke up we noticed that it had been raining lightly overnight and the skies were overcast. We had light rain for most of the trip, but nothing more than what the intermittent wipers could take care of.

We usually stay at the Red Bluff Elks, which is about 30 miles south and right off the freeway. It can be a little noisy, but it is convenient to the highway and we usually only stay two or three days as a stop over anyway. However, this time our good friends Peggy and Vernon Bullock asked us if we would stay at the Redding Elks, where they are associate members and where they occasionally stay with their coach. They have a home in the mountains about an hour west of Interstate 5, right near the entrance to Lassen National Park. They are at their house now and said that they would come down to the Elks with their coach and stay there for the three days that we will be there. We always enjoy spending time with the Bullocks, so we decided to stay in Redding.

We arrived just before 2:00 and got settled into a nice spot right next to the Bullocks. They were out shopping when we arrived, but came back shortly after as we were parking. We got parked and set up and then spent some time talking to Peggy and Vernon and playing with their little dog Belle. We later got together at their coach for cocktails and then dinner. Peggy cooked a chicken casserole dish for us, made from a recipe she got from Jackie. Dinner was wonderful and we had some great conversation, catching up on what's been going on since we last saw them in Yuma about six weeks ago.

They are still having major electrical problems with their coach and they finally decided that they are going to go to Oregon and the old Monaco factory service center near Eugene. It is now part of Navistar, the truck company that bought the old Monaco company, and they will be there the same time we will be in nearby Harrisburg getting our coach remodel done. We will only be about ten miles apart, so we will be able to spend time together up there too. After dinner we chatted for a while before going back to our coach to watch TV until bedtime.

Tuesday, May 7^th, another cloudy day. Storms in the forecast, but there really aren't any threatening looking clouds around. We left the coach about 1:00 or so to just go out and do a little exploring around Redding. It has been several years since we were here, so we wanted to check out the area. Peggy and Vernon were busy most of the day with appointments, so we were on our own until late afternoon. We drove around town for a while and captured a couple of geocaches while we were exploring. We stopped and checked out the Redding Moose Lodge, which is not too far from the Elks, and had a cocktail there. An older building, but very large. They have a really nice swimming pool out back, but their RV area has no hookups, so it wouldn't be a good place to stay with the coach.

After the Moose Lodge we stopped and the grocery store and then headed back to the coach. Later in the afternoon we got together with Peggy and Vernon for happy hour and Jackie made dinner. We had her chili rellano casserole at Peggy's special request. We chatted until about 8:30 when they went back to their coach and we watched TV until bed.

Wednesday, May 8^th, we stayed around the coach and relaxed for most of the day. At about 6:00 we left with the Bullocks in our car and drove into town to a restaurant called Nello's. Peggy and Vernon have lived in the Redding area for a very long time and told us that they have been coming to this Italian eatery since they opened over 30 years ago. It is their favorite place to eat, as Peggy told us, their version of our Cactus Jack's in Indio.

The restaurant is in a strip mall and is rather unassuming on the outside as well as inside. The wait staff was mostly male and dressed in the usual black slacks and vest, white shirt and black tie. Very elegant. We got a nice corner booth for the four of us and ordered cocktails. Peggy and Vernon knew all the wait staff as well as the owners and chefs and were telling us stories about many of them. They had told us that Nello's was a fine dining place and that it was not inexpensive and that dinner was an experience rather than an eat and run situation. The waiter was very pleasant and explained the specials for the day then left us alone for a while. They brought a couple of small plates of antipasto to the table for us to nibble on while we talked. We ordered appetizers, two orders of escargot and a plate of fried calamari. Peggy said they love their escargot and wanted Jackie, who likes the dish, to try it. I don't care for the escargot, but I do like the garlic butter sauce to dip bread in.

When the escargot came the three who ate it said the snails were good, but everyone thought the sauce was very mild, with very little garlic or butter taste. The waiter even brought extra for me to dip bread in, but it was pretty blah. When we mentioned it to the waiter he came back with another dish of sauce which he said he added garlic to. It was better, but still not nearly as good as the sauce Jackie makes when she does escargot.

The next course was soup or salad. I was the only one who had the minestrone and everyone else missed out. Their salads were kind of plain, lettuce with dressing, but my soup was outstanding. Very spicy with a lot of veggies and noodles. The next course that came was a small dish of either Cannelloni or Manicotti. The Cannelloni was stuffed with veal, chicken and cheese, the Manicotti was stuffed with ricotta cheese and prescuito. I had the Manicotti, which was excellent, and everyone else had the Cannelloni and also enjoyed it. Both came with a standard, red marinara sauce.

Then came the main dishes. I had the seafood platter, which was scampi, scallops and sole. The scallops and sole were very lightly breaded with flour and butter and grilled. There were three scampi shrimp, three medium size scallops, and a small piece of sole. All of the items were outstanding as far as flavor, however, the portions were a bit skimpy for a nearly $30 entree, even with the other courses included. The sole was some of the best I have ever had and I would have liked more. Jackie and Peggy both had veal picatta with scampi and both said it was outstanding. Vernon had the special for the day, a chicken dish, and he seemed to enjoy his meal as well. Their potions were a bit larger and more in line with the pricing. For desert they served an excellent dish of spumoni and coffee if you wanted it.

For Jackie and I dinner for two, including drinks was just under $100, which was pricy, but given the ambiance, service and quality of food, not far out of line. Cactus Jacks is also expensive, so it's what you like and want, not the price, that's important. This was Peggy and Vernon's favorite restaurant and we appreciated them wanting to share the experience with us. After dinner we drove back to the coach and watched TV until bed.

Thursday, May 9^th, another moving day. We had the coach packed up and ready to go by about 10:00 and we departed Redding heading north on Interstate 5 to Gold Hill, Oregon, about 165 mile trip. We are actually going to the Valley of Rogue State Park, which is located just off I-5 between Medford and Grants Pass, Oregon. We have stayed in this park on every one of our trips into Oregon and like it very much. It has full hookup sites and is very pretty, plus you can pick your site and make reservations on line so you don't have to worry about not getting a site when you arrive.

The trip was uneventful with mostly clear skies and sunshine. We made a fuel stop and a lunch stop and arrived at the park just before 2:00. Our spot was waiting for us and we pulled in and started to get set up. We had to wiggle and maneuver a little in the spot, trying to maximize our satellite reception while finding the level spot in the parking area. There are a lot of trees in the area, so satellite reception can be iffy if not in the right spot. We finally got the right balance, we had satellite and we were pretty level, so we got our house set up for our week stay.

This is our first foray into Oregon in over two years and we are looking forward to our couple of months up here. Our arrival in Oregon marks the ideal place to close out this episode and get it published. We will be here for a week before moving on to Harrisburg, Oregon for our remodeling experience. We will probably publish again when we leave the Valley of the Rogue. Until the next time, remember that arguing about whether the glass is half full or half empty misses the point, which is this:   the bartender cheated you. Bye.

Up The Southern California Coast

Welcome back to our story. Our last chapter concluded on Sunday, April 7^th, 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 8^th, 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 9^th, 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 10^th, 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 11^th, 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 12^th, 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 13^th, 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 14^th, 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 15^th, 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 15^th, 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 16^th, 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 17^th, 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

rover Beach, another of the many small coastal towns in the area. Donna is nearly 88 years old and was married to Jackie's mother's brother until he died a few years ago. She now has one of her grandsons, Corey, living with her to help her out.

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 18^th, 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 19^th, 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 20^th, 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 21^st, 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 22^nd, 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 23^rd, 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 24^th, 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 25^th, 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 26^th, 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.