Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree National Park is absolutely fantastic! It has eight hundred thousand acres of wilderness with the most amazing rock formations and exotic Joshua Trees covering the northern landscape. The trees are just starting to bloom and we hope that at some point we will see hundreds covered in the creamy white blossoms. They aren’t really trees, but in the Yucca family.

We explored the park for three days with Bob’s sister Tammy who drove out from the coast. One evening, we went into the park and spent a few hours surrounded by boulders in the moonlight. It was very bright and silent that evening. Bob brought his spotting scope so we could look at the moon. We loved driving through the whole park and getting to know the cholla, barrel and ocotillo cactus.

There are no hookups in the park, so we opted to stay in an RV park in Twentynine Palms. Next time, we would skip the towns surrounding Joshua Tree and spend all our time in the park.

Happy Birthday Bob

We're celebrating Bob's birthday today. Here he is relaxing at a Palm Oasis after a good hike.

Into the Desert

Wow, we LOVE Borrego Springs. What a fabulous desert valley surrounded by mountains. Our RV park is bordered by the San Ysidro Mountains which often had rainbows above it, and the Anza Borrego State Desert Park. The park is 600,000 acres of wilderness and there are lots of places to hike and camp away from it all. We drove up into the mountains and hiked at Culp and Blair Valleys, where we got caught in some rain and the temperature dropped to 40 degrees. Mary wasn’t prepared for that, when it was 70 when we left our little house.

The desert is starting to bloom and there are so many interesting cactus and new plants to explore. We hiked up Palm Canyon to an oasis with a large creek flowing and several varieties of palm trees. We looked and looked for the Peninsular Big Horned Sheep, but they eluded us. There were jack rabbits and road runners and a few lizards and every evening we heard the calls of the coyotes.

We are really enjoying this new and diverse environment and may spend more time in the desert than we planned. It's quiet and the buzz of the city is a distant memory now.

San Diego

We spent the last three days in San Diego. Had a great bike ride (close to 20 miles) circumnavigating Mission Bay and Fiesta Island with Bob’s sister Chyril. Also had dinner one evening with Bob’s step-brother and family and another evening with a nephew and his family.

Bob and I went sea kayaking in La Jolla and managed to stay upright through the surf. Saw lots of sea lions and bird life. Later we visited the harbor seal haul out on a public beach. Lots of new pups to watch.

Mary is tired of the city and looking forward to getting away from the southern California coast, even though the weather has been fabulous.

Newport Beach Sunshine

We had a lovely drive down the coast past Malibu on our way to Newport Beach but then we finished it up with 50 miles on LA freeways. Now the energy is really high and it’s quite something to keep an eye on all those people merging when you’re 52 feet long. It’s amazing how many people don’t even look until they are ready to swing into our lane, and it’s hard to move over when you’re that long in city traffic.

We checked into the Newport Dunes RV Resort and there were lots of empty spaces, but on Friday it filled up for the holiday weekend. We finally had our first meal at a picnic table! All these weeks it has been too cold or wet to eat outside. There is a wonderful lagoon here with a marina and a great trail to walk or ride around the lagoon. And there are palm trees everywhere!! Mary’s favorite. We spent some time riding bikes, driving up and down the coast, sitting in the hot tub, and laying by the pool while our clothes were in the washer and dryer. That’s the way I like to do laundry. Bob and I have been enjoying the Olympics on TV in the evenings. We have a good cable hookup here.

Mary got to see some old friends while in Newport, and we visited a cousin she hadn’t seen since high school. We had a lovely afternoon and evening with him and his parents, good friends of Mary’s folks. Watched a gorgeous sunset over Santa Catalina. Photo of Mary and her friend Elizabeth and little Maya who is in training to be a guide dog. This is the first stop on our trip where we haven't had rain.

Ventura Family

The energy really shifted as we came through Gaviota Pass on our way into Santa Barbara, leaving the green hillsides behind for hills covered with houses. It’s gorgeous here, but the traffic is getting worse and the density is much higher. Bob and I enjoyed our trip to the Santa Barbara Mission and exploring some neighborhoods high on the hill. We found some monks that looked a lot like us!

We spent the last four days in an RV park in Ventura. We had gotten used to the sound of the ocean in Pismo, now we have the hum of Hwy. 101. It’s not so bad, except when a large truck or motorcycle goes by. We’re surprised how much the two sound alike. We had sunny skies all but one day, when it really poured and we had thunder and lightening in Ojai while we were having lunch on Tuesday. There are great bike trails nearby so we’ve had a good time riding down to the Ventura harbor along the coast and also north along the water.

Bob’s sister Tammy lives nearby, so we spent a lot of time with her and an evening with her son and his partner. We’re looking forward to getting together with them in the desert in a few weeks. Bob also took Mary on a drive to one of his favorite places, through Hidden Valley, near Thousand Oaks where they film lots of car commercials. It was so green and lush with many horse ranches.

Pismo Beach, CA

This is the 5th and last night that we’ll spend on the coast in Pismo Beach. We’re in a large RV park with 400 sites where we can hear the surf all night. (See photo of the RV park taken from the pier in town.) This is the first place we’ve stayed that has palm trees in the park!! It’s been fun having lots of mallards and coots wandering around the grounds. (Photo of coots hanging out behind our 5th wheel.)

There have been some sunny days (finally) and of course some rain too. We toured around this whole area during our stay and especially liked San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles and Arroyo Grande. There seems to be everything you need without all the traffic and high vibration of the larger cities. It was relaxing to walk on the beach in the morning, but it wasn’t very easy to ride the bikes down there. We did go to the state park next door where the Monarch butterflies winter. There were still about 1000 flying around.

Here’s a photo of Morro Rock in Morro Bay, near San Luis Obispo.

Dry Camping

We just spent three nights at New Brighton Beach State Park in Capitola (Santa Cruz County). What a fabulous spot. The campground has lots of trees, plenty of room and sits on a cliff overlooking Monterey Bay. We had fun exploring the beach and fossils in the cliffs at low tide.

The only problem with this place was that we couldn’t get a site with hookups. When you don’t have hookups (water, sewer and electric) that’s called dry camping. We filled up our water tank at my friend Jane’s house, and used our battery. This was our first experience of living without the amenities. Water and sewer are not an issue at all, but we ran out of electricity the first night. It seems that our propane furnace uses a lot of juice to run the fan, and it was in the 40s at night. We ran the generator to recharge the battery, but you can only do that during certain daylight hours, so we were pretty cold in the morning. We’re finding that CA State parks have limited spots with hookups for a trailer our size and that they are booked months in advance. So instead of staying at a lovely park location, we are having to stay in RV parks.

Pt Lobos, just south of Carmel was a highlight of this stop. We hiked on the bluffs and saw gray whales, dolphins, sea otters, elephant seals, harbor seals and sea lions in about two hours. The scenery was gorgeous and the water so emerald and teal. (See photos.) We also got lots of visiting in with Jane and Bob, Mary’s friends from the 70s. It was also sunny, or at least not raining for two whole days!