Welcome home!

Although San Diego CA is not our "legal" home state, it is where we spent the last 40+ years (husband) and 55+ years for me.  So, every January we come here to visit friends and family and to "thaw out" from the last couple of months of the cold, damp weather of the north.

We don't usually drive an 8 hour day, not our style.  If you follow my blogs, you know it's all about enjoying the day, so usually we drive about 4 hours, settle in and see our surroundings.  Well, we were a bit anxious to get there, so we pushed it - 8 hours!  We were familiar with the drive, reminded of the traffic (ugh) and determined to get into town in time for the sunset.  We weren't disappointed - it was beautiful!  I didn't bother taking my camera, I just dashed to the water's edge (we always stay at Mission Bay RV Park) and just enjoyed it.  I leaned against the fence and said to myself "welcome home Marie".   It was warm, the sky was orange and for the first time in weeks all I had on that evening was a long sleeve shirt.  Lovely.

Don't get me wrong, Southern California isn't "perfect", it's crowded, over-priced, noisy, has crazy politics and probably a bunch of other problems, but...the weather is heaven!  After driving all over the country, enjoying low gas prices, "normal" traffic, reasonable food prices, etc, coming back into California, especially through Silicone Valley for three weeks, it was almost a shock to our system!  There were times when the traffic was so bad that I had to close my eyes for fear of screaming - and I'm the passenger!  My daughter told me to stop grimacing and scaring her, that this was "normal" here!  I'd forgotten how awful the drivers were here!  Last night, in San Diego, there were a couple of small accidents and all of the side roads, freeways, etc were bumper-to-bumper for hours! For hours!  I remember those days, yuck, no more, thank you.  Yep, it has lovely weather.  Keep reminding yourself of that. You don't even want me to get started on the price differences on food and gas!  ha ha

But...our wonderful friends and family live here, so we get the luxury of visiting and enjoying this great weather, in January when the rest of the world is freezing (I'm so sorry).  Seeing the Zoo, seeing how the progress is going on the San Salvador with the Blacksmiths, going to lunches and dinners, seeing all the changes in the city since last year (and in our previous jobs).  Then there's always the job of weeding all the "stuff" out that we've collected along the way (how does that happen?) and taking it to storage.  Good ol' spring cleaning!  Then...we're off for the next year's adventure!

We are so excited for 2014!  Several of our friends are getting back into RVing and I think that we will be seeing them more this year, which we are really looking forward to!  We've also made some new friends along the way, who are making plans on meeting up with us as well, so that will be great too.  It's always nice to have company!  After we leave the San Diego area we are heading to Quartzsite AZ to one of the largest RV shows there is.  About 150,000 folks converge on this tiny desert town for a week to see every possible thing that you could ever even think you might want for your rig, or maybe a brand new or a used rig to buy!  We are meeting 3 other couples there for the week!  I'm really excited - both for the experience of the show, but also for the first time of being with friends camping for the week!  Cool!

This is last year at Mission Bay, it always looks the same!

Our day at the Zoo!

Jack catching up with his Blacksmith buds at the San Salvador site

 See, 2014 is going to be a great year!  Glad you are coming along with us!

If you wish to view the rest of the photos from this trip, you can at my Flickr account at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/74905158@N04/   

Hello 2013!

Starting the new year off with long time friends, is the best way!  We left Northern California filled with family love that we hope will keep us warm throughout the next few months and traveled south to Los Angeles where we met up with our long time friends who now live in Beverly Hills.  What a sight we must have been...driving this 35' motorhome with our little Toyota truck toad through the posh streets of Beverly Hills!  We passed Mercedes, Jaguars, Bentley's, et al as we traversed the streets getting to the spot where we were going to be parking our rig while we stayed at what we lovingly call the "Venet Inn".  We love it there, as with all of our friends, it's like coming home again.  We don't do much of anything, and that's just the way we like it.  Soaking in the So Cal sun, relaxing, laughing and sharing stories.

We did take a couple of side trips, one to the Ronald Reagan Library.  Very nicely done.  Lots to see with stories to read and hear.  They even had a nice peace of the Berlin wall.  Ronald Reagan was good friends with Walt Disney, so they had a special exhibit that covered Disney's life as well.  They had the Presidential plane that we got to board as well, that was kind of fun, probably the only time we will ever be aboard one, so had our picture taken!

I always love to go shopping with Sheila when I'm there because she takes me to some fun, "Beverly Hills" stores that I can ooh and aah over.  Jack loves it, because he knows it's stuff I'll never buy, but get such a kick out of just looking!  We went to the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery to see where some of the famous stars are buried.  Marilyn Monroe had lots of flowers and kisses at her site, as did many others.  I'd been before, but it was new to Jack, so he had fun discovering some of his favorites like Natalie Woods & Bob Crane.  I personally loved one that wasn't famous, but had a great sense of humor of a psychic that did readings for $5!

Not to over-stay our welcome, we headed on down to San Diego.  I've always thought it would be so cool to stay at one of the campgrounds on Mission Bay, so we booked ourselves in for the week.  It was "cool" in more ways than one, but it was a great location for us to get to various Dr & Dentist apts. and see our SD friends.  No matter that you are on "an adventure" you still have to have the basic "stuff" attended to.  Oh well, it was all good, so that's now done for awhile at least!

 After a week in Mission Bay, we moved north to Escondido to catch up with all our friends at that end.  One of our dear friends opened up their guest house for us while we stayed here...so beautiful, I'm not sure I want to leave again!  Such generosity while our rv & truck get their tune ups! 

I've felt like a broken record as I've answered the same questions over and over again as we have had the joy of visiting our various friends and relatives.  I'm also going to have to go on a strong diet when we leave because of all the lunches, dinners and glasses of wine I've engaged in!  It's been a friend frenzy, but so great to see so many of our friends and family, to catch up, get hugs and carry the love of their friendship with us as we travel on.
There's just nothing like it and we are blessed to have it.

 

...kicking back in California,  Marie

If you wish to view the rest of the photos from this trip, you can at my Flickr account at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/74905158@N04/