2015

Winter 2015 – Southwest Safari

December 30, 2014 – 960 Clay St. has officially closed the 2014 holiday season. Most of the Christmas Stuff has been put away in their respective bins, lollipop tree taken back outside, and the house roughly restored to some sense of order.

Loading up food, clothes, dogs and ourselves into our MoHo we were ready to head south to maybe find some sunshine and warmth? First nights stop is Red Bluff, CA. We enjoy 3 nights at our regular “hang out” – Durango RV Park. We enjoyed a delicious feast of King Crab Legs for New Years Eve accompanied by some great cheese, bread and a good bottle of wine.  New Years 2015 was toasted at about 9:00pm (thinking New York, maybe) – old people just can’t party like they used too.  We enjoyed our next couple of days, watching the Rose Parade, some football, Karen Knitting on the baby blanket (and knitting and knitting), sitting and soaking up a bit of sunshine, playing some cut-throat dominoes, and washing/cleaning the MoHo and the car so we were ready for our next 6 weeks of adventures.

January 2-4, 2015 – We stayed at the Alameda Fair Grounds about 20 miles from Marq and Steph’s place in Lafayette. We got together with them and had a late family Christmas. Good times were had by all, the kids had decorated the house, and yard with real Wraight enthusiasm. Good to see that our craziness is contagious.  We spent Saturday wining tasting in the Napa area with our family experts – Marq and Steph. Sunday morning we had breakfast with them and chatted with Kris and Laura via Skype. Enjoyed having the family together!

January 5, 2015 – drove to Bakersfield, boon-docked at the Camping World there. In the morning we filled our propane, and did a bit of RV shopping.

January 6, 2015 – on to Southern California, and Casa de Wraights on Myrtle Ave. in Long Beach. We dropped the Boyz off at their spa in Pet Smart Pet Hotel where they resided for 5 days.  We had a nice afternoon and evening with the So Cal family. Met Mr. Tyler – what little cutie! Evening dinner with the 3 girls was Elena’s home made pasta and lots of red wine – oh my what a treat!

January 7-10, 2015  - Up EARLY, Steve took us to LAX to catch our flight back to the East Coast. We went to surprise Kristin. She was nominated and awarded a Forty under 40 Award – this acknowledged a lot of the work that she does in the City of New London, at the Women’s Prison in New London and of course her job with her agency Safe Futures. We had a fairly easy day of travel LAX – Chicago –Providence RI. Amby and Cristina picked us up, providing us with warm jackets, earmuffs, and gloves as it was COLD and delivered us to the girls’ house. Needless to say Kristin was VERY SURPRISED.

0 degrees the 1^st night we arrived, brrrrrrr! We stayed cuddled up in the house all morning. In the afternoon we joined a tour of the Safe Futures Offices and House. It was a great tour, lots of information and gave us a better picture of what the agency does for people in the New London Area. Everyone loves Kris and can’t say enough good things about her, makes us so proud. After the tour we joined Kris and a couple of her friends at the Dutch, a nice neighborhood bar.  We were stalling for time so that Laura could get home and set up another surprise for Kris, a party with 30+ friends and family to celebrate her award! It was a wonderful gathering of people who love the GIRLS.

Friday morning we awoke to cold and snow, definitely looked like January in Connecticut. We again snuggled in the house, reading, and watching snow while Kris and Laura went to work for a while. That evening we dressed up and got out in the snow to go to the Fox Woods Casino – quite a gathering of 500+ in attendance. We enjoyed a buffet dinner and visiting with friends and family. Kris was a star amongst the 39 other honorees – she always brings so much fun with her. After the award ceremony we enjoyed an hour dancing and entertaining ourselves. We were so glad that we could be there to honor her and see her get acknowledgements for all the good deeds she does.

Saturday morning Kris headed to New York City early for training. Laura drove us back up to Providence to fly back to the west coast; the weather has dried up, but still pretty chilly. Steve and Elena picked us up at the airport and we joined them at El Torrito for a couple of margaritas and a good Mexican dinner.

January 11, 2015 – Back on the road again. Picked up the BOYZ from their “Hotel”. They both had been good by reports, but Guinness seemed a bit bent out of shape J. With all 4 of us aboard the MoHo we headed south to Barstow, CA., there we met up with Carol and Eric for lunch.  We continued our travels together to Death Valley and camped at the Furnace Creek RV Resort.

January 12-13. 2015 - Our Death Valley Experience.  We enjoyed a day of touring the interesting desert area with Eric and Carol. We took a nice walk up Titus Canyon, enjoying a pleasantly warm day, blue sky and wonderful landscapes. We took a tour of Scotty Castle – where the Chicago millionaire, Albert Johnson, built an interesting Spanish/Mediterranean style snowbird getaway home for himself and his wife. The property got it’s name Scotty’s castle from a friend of Albert’s (Walter Scott a wild west entertainer) who as a con –man and friend took a lead in hosting events on the property and providing Albert with a confidant and front man.

The next day aboard our rented red 4 x 4 Jeep we took the very “Rocky Road” drive out to the Raceway. Eric navigated us along the very slow 30-mile trip out to the dry lakebed. Along the way we stopped at Tea Kettle Junction. We left our contribution, a teakettle that Carol were willing to donate. After about a 3-hour bumpy, bumpy drive we arrived at the 3 X 1 mile playa. This was an amazing experience seeing the “sailing stones” that appear to scoot across the lakebed, leaving behind them a trail - this is the evidence that they move. No one has ever been able to capture the actual movement of the rocks.  It is always quite windy on the playa and scientists believe that the motion is caused on the silty surface by moisture from rain, ice from freezing temperatures, thawing, and the wind that gets these stones moving. Such an interesting phenomenon, glad that we made the trek out to the “TRACK” – one of those once in a lifetime experiences. The 4 of us really enjoyed our adventure.

January 14-16, 2015 – Fired up the two motorhomes and headed from Death Valley to Lake Havasu. Spent a long day driving, arriving at our RV Park after dark. Tired from a long drive we retired to our rigs for a good night’s sleep. We spent the next day running a few errands and relaxing. Friday morning we arose early and drove into the city, on the outskirts of the fairgrounds we were treated to a hot air balloon Rally. It was a great event – 70 or so crafts launched all around us. We stood and watched balloons of every shape and color inflate and fly in the still skies above. After the early morning Carol and Karen treated themselves to a pedicure, the guys did some repair projects on the rigs. We met for lunch at Barley’s Brew Pub, right at the London Bridge. That bridge is quite a feat, the movement and installation of that famous bridge over the Havasu waterway was an amazing task.  Mike’s and my afternoon was a pleasant walk along Lake Havasu where there were 100+ Volkswagen Buses that were on display for a VW Bus gathering called Buses on the Bay. VWs in every condition were there, (rust buckets to very spiffed up/ outfitted vans). As we walked, we reminisced about our 2 VW Bus experiences – some great memories. In the evening we enjoyed a campfire-in-a-can campout. At the RV park.

January 17-19, 2015 Quartzite AZ Experience. We camped with The Escapees’ – Boomers, a group that Eric and Carol belong to.  It was dry camping, out in the middle of a big dusty field. The campsites were large and we parked so we had a nice campfire area between out two rigs.

After setting up camp we headed into see what Quartzite is about. It is a little town in the southwest desert (between Lake Havasu and Yuma AZ). In the winter, when the weather is pleasant, over a million visitors, most driving some sort of recreation vehicle, converge to enjoy some sun, meet up with old and new friends and take advantage of one of the largest swap meets ever.  Shoppers can find anything and everything, the saying “shop till you drop” might have been invented here. Days and days can be spent looking at the huge selection of gems and minerals, antiques, household items, crafts, jewelry, auto, RV parts, and sporting goods. Karen and Carol’s favorite was the Readers Oasis Book Store, owner Paul Winer was present and displaying his love of nudity (wearing a sweatshirt because the desert was cooling down and a very colorful rainbow pouch over his “package”. What an interesting and talented individual; the store is a lot like its owner, very eclectic and diverse.  

Spent a few hours perusing a bit of the swap meet activity. We focused our looking in the Big Tent that looked like a county or state fair on steroids. The vendors that caught most or our attention and $ were the RV parts guys. We bought some new lighting parts that Mike and Eric installed.  Later we enjoyed a barbeque at our campsite, good outdoor fun.

A real highlight of the Quartzite area was our visit to the Desert Bar – a quirky place that a “broke, down on his luck-gold miner” started when about all that he had was a liquor license and thought what the heck.”  It is now open every weekend, operating with a huge solar installation, that provides all the power necessary to cool the beer, run the fans, lights, power 3 different snack bar restaurants, etc. We enjoyed a cold drinks and lunch, listening to a pretty good country band.

Quartzite ended up being a lot of fun, and much more interesting than we expected, glad we made the trip.

January 20-21, 2015 – Out of the sand and on into 29 Palms and Joshua Tree, CA. This was a new area for all of us. We really enjoyed the small little town of Joshua Tree – quite a bit like a small less developed Ashland, with even a bit more “hippy” influence. There were some interesting shops (many weren’t open) Found a good place to eat and enjoyed a great early birthday dinner for brother Eric.

The four of us spent half a day driving through the spectacularly scenic Joshua Tree National Park. Lots of Joshua Trees, and many amazing piled up rock formations. We also enjoyed a few nice walking paths through out the park. The weather was beautiful, sunny and warm. Ahhh now that was what we had been looking for. Today is our last day of touring with Carol and Eric; they head back to Sacramento and work on Monday. It was fun having travel buddies with us.

January 22-25, 2015 – The beautiful Cochella Valley home of Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Indo and many other “exclusive” desert communities was our focus today. We found the Elks Lodge in Indio – they have a nice RV area for 50 or so rigs. We got settled and went out to do a bit of exploring in the local area. We had an afternoon snack at the Shields Date Farm: a date milk shake, quite the sweet treat! Mike remembered them fondly; his family had stopped there a few times and always enjoyed the cold date drink. The weather was perfect, in the 70’s, blue sky…… enjoyed sitting out in our lawn chairs and sipping a little bit of Happy Hour Beverage.

The San Jacinto, Palm Springs Aerial Tramway was our outing today. We got a nice early start and were up to the tram station not to long after they had opened. WOW – that was a great ride. The tramway is an engineering marvel featuring the world’s largest rotating tramcars, taking you up the 10 minute, 2-½ mile trip through several different scenic life zones. The tramcar rotates 360 degrees giving you an amazing view of the surrounding desert and mountains. Once we got up top we enjoyed the beautiful scenic wonderland of the San Jacinto State Park. There were several nice hiking trails and many different viewpoints. There was a movie that covered the initial, concepts, plans and building of this amazing system.  At over 8,000 feet elevation the temperatures were a bit chilly, luckily we had brought our jackets.

Day 3 of our Cochella Experience took us east through 30 miles of very abundant agriculture to see the Salton Sea. It is an interesting (and a bit stinky) place.  It really does resemble a sea, with sandy beaches, and small waves lapping at the shore. This is the largest lake in California, a very saline lake in the dry desert basin that sits directly over the San Andreas Fault. Water originally came from the Colorado River, in 1900, when engineers were trying to increase water flow to agriculture and flooded the area.  The Salton Sea primarily fills now with farming run off and rainfall. The lake provides habitat for thousands of birds throughout the year; with 424 different species have been documented around the lake and the surrounding valley. We returned to our nice campground and hired a very efficient and skilled crew to wash and wax the MoHo. We had watched them detail several other rigs in the park and were very impressed with their service. Quite a treat for Mike to sit in his lawn chair, with a beer and watch the team take care of his “baby”.

January 25 - We went to the Southwest Indio Arts Festival, which is held annually at the Polo Grounds in Indio. It had a large, very diverse display of artists: paintings, purses, sculptures, pottery, clothing, etc. All the exhibits were very well done and high priced. A bit out of our budget, but fun to look at.  After walking the polo grounds, we decided we needed lunch so we into Palm Springs. There we enjoyed strolling the streets named after famous residents: Frank Sinatra Boulevard, Bing Crosby Street, window shopping the main drag and finding a cute little cantina for lunch. The Blue Coyote Grill had excellent margaritas and fabulous shrimp fajitas.  We headed back to the MoHo and got a few things organized, readying ourselves to travel tomorrow to Temecula, California.

January 26-28, 2015 – We made our way to the Pechanga Resort, a short – easy drive. This casino complex is the largest Indian Casino in California. It was nice and relatively quiet, although they seemed to clump the RVs together into areas, leaving a lot of empty spaces.  We enjoyed a restful afternoon and then went over to the casino via the shuttle for “Happy Hour”. Not much in the way of bars with poker machines. But we did find our way to the Round Bar, drank our expensive (small) bourbons and played on the machines for about an hour, coming out a little ahead.

We spent Tuesday, 1/27/15 looking for a repair shop to appraise and possibly fix our tow dolly. Mike has been worrying about the braking system for some time and is afraid that she might not make it home L. Stopped at a couple of shops, but none of them seemed able to do what we think we need.  We will look for a Les Schwab when we get a bit further north. Temecula has a nice old town area. It is only about 3 blocks long, but has several cute stores and restaurants. We enjoyed lunch outside – good food, drinks and watching the passers by.  The casino called us back, with less luck than last night. It was quite entertaining to watch others around us win, loose …… Mike was frustrated with the machine he had, so he left it, only to have a woman sit down and win repeatedly! Damn!

Our last day in Temecula we took a nice drive around the outskirts.  This is a very nice rural area, with a lot of large homes, lots with horse/animal property. Most of the communities are very “planned”.  The neighborhoods look a lot alike, color, design, landscaping, etc. nice appearances but a bit boring. The evening saw us trying out luck one more time at the Round Bar – must be our mojo, even less successful attempts than the last two nights. Oh well “easy come-easy go”? Luckily neither one of us is a big gambler.

January 29-31, 2015 – We traveled north back to Steve and Elena’s place in Long Beach. A smooth drive with very little in the way of traffic for California, that is. We enjoyed a quite afternoon, and had a nice evening with the family.

Mike has caught a bit of a cold, so he is laying low today. The girls (Marina, Mia, Morgan, Elena, Tyler our token male and I) headed out for some retail therapy, we did a Costco run, then stopped by World Plus and enjoyed a good Mexican lunch. Chuck & Terri have been down in Southern California visiting friends, so they joined us for a nice afternoon and dinner. Steve manned the barbeque and the girls and Elena completed the grilled steak menu with a great salad and potatoes.

A wonderful evening together.

Saturday morning Elena and I attended a Zen Tangle Workshop in Santa Ana. The group of 12 or so women had such great energy and creativity, made me wish we lived closer so that I could attend more of their classes. In the afternoon we enjoyed some great patio time sipping some good margaritas and a good sushi dinner at a local Japanese restaurant.

February 1, 2015 _ Bakersfield was our destination today. L.A. traffic was amazingly civil, no slow downs and almost easy. We arrived at our favorite “boondock” Camping World. There was bit of shopping to do, got that completed and settled into watch the Super Bowl – Go Patriots!

February 2-3, 2015 – We found the new Les Schwab in Bakersfield. They were able to look at our tow dolly and determine that yes; we REALLY did need new brakes! Not an easy or cheap fix, but necessary. They had to order our parts and have them sent to them for our installation. Hopefully they will be in tomorrow.

We boondocked at Les Schwab. The parts finally arrived about 1:00pm. The guys were able to get it all back together by about 4:00 pm. We were very happy to have the work done and carrying our little Prius safely again.  The pocket book is a bit lighter, but one of those things one has to do to keep the RV on the road.

February 3-4, 2015 – We headed north to Coalinga for the night. It was about 100 miles, and we were glad to make our way closer to home. We found a really good price for diesel fuel, and a campground right next door. After the stress of the dolly repair, we were ready to unwind a bit.

February 5-7, 2015 – We were back at the Alameda County Fair Grounds in Pleasanton, California. We are taking another couple of days to visit Marq and Steph.

We spent the next day taking it easy, staying inside, cuz we were having some very strong rain on and off. Met up with the kids in the evening for a good dinner at the Blackhawk Grill, one of their favorite restaurants in Danville. The gps was pretty helpful, but the extremely rainy night made it a bit difficult navigating.

Saturday morning we met back in Lafayette and went wine tasting. Our first stop of the day was at Larsen Family Winery in Napa. It was a small winery, in a barn, a bit drafty and cool, and wines that were ok, but not wonderful. Did buy one of their 3 Lab Cabs – dog lovers that we are.  Our next stop changed all that; we went to the Buena Vista Winery. It is the oldest winery in California and had WONDERFUL wines, nice tasting room and very friendly and knowledgeable staff. Wow if $ were no object we would have bought several cases. The kids joined their wine club, so we splurged and bought 3 bottles of their delicious red & a bottle of amazing champagne. YUM! We drove on to Sonoma where we stopped for lunch. Took a short stroll around the square admiring the shops and the pleasantly warming and dry weather.

The next day Mike and I went into old downtown Danville for the afternoon, we had a bit of trouble finding it –

not easily gps – able, but we did finally stumble on to it. We enjoyed a brief walk along the main drag, stopping to buy a couple of boxes of Girl Scout Cookies from the cute little peddlers’. The rains came back so we did the only logical thing; ran into a local pub to dry out.  With a couple of beverages and a small happy hour we waited out the storm.  We made it back  to Lafayette to have dinner with the kids. We had a nice evening, Steph made a great lasagna (her grandmother’s recipe) – wonderful dinner and as always so good to visit with them.

February 8-9, 2015 – We are back in Rancho Cordova, CA – parked in the Elks lot for the night. We arranged with Carol to meet them for dinner. Eric’s birthday is tomorrow. It wasn’t quite the surprise we had hoped for, Eric saw the little Prius in the parking lot, still a nice evening. We got to catch up and visit a bit with Kate and Russ over dinner.

February 9, 2015 – We arrived safely back to Ashland. Got the MoHo back in her birth and got mostly unpacked before we collapsed in our comfy bed.

Another great expedition in our motorhome, seeing many new things, visiting family and friends and experiencing a wonderful winter get away.