2018 Wrap-up

Wow! What a year! It's been up and it's been down, and sometimes sideways, but the year has always been interesting!

As you know by now, We left Northern California on Memorial Day, heading east toward Garfield, MN to pickup our new motorhome. That took care of the first 1,998.7 miles, which were also the last miles we enjoyed with our previous motorhome, Nessie. After meeting Nessie's new owners and taking possession of Nessie02, we hit the road again. OK, another 5,475.9 miles later, we pulled into our home once again, a little early this year, but still happy to be here. We've enjoyed the company of many friends and family, and have spent an awesome time in the upper southeast. WV and GA were spectacular! Bill and Diane, Debbie and Larry, Ted and Phyllis, Bill and Linda, Chuck and Jill, Bruce and Cara and Mom and my Sister....the list goes on and on. We are so blessed to have so many friends and family members.

On our way home last week we stopped in Southern California to visit my Mom and Sister. They live very near one of the most beautiful cities in the state, Santa Barbara. After thousands of years of occupation by Chumash tribes, Sebastian Vizcaino gave the name Santa Barbara to the ocean channel that runs between a series of off shore islands and the mainland in 1602. The first European residences were Spanish missionaries under Felipe de Neve, who came in 1762 to build a Presidio which fortified the area and prevented expansion by England and Russia. In 1786, on December 4, the tenth of the famous California missions was dedicated by Padre Fermin Lasuen, the successor to Padre Junipero Serra as the second president and founder of the California Franciscan Mission Chain. In 1812, a powerful earthquake destroyed the mission, which was rebuilt in a grander fashion, and stands today as the best preserved of the California missions and an active church. After passing into Mexican hands in 1833, the mission fell bloodlessly to a battalion of American soldiers under John C. Fremont on December 27, 1846, and in 1848 became part of the United States.

Santa Barbara enjoys a Mediterranean climate and is known as "The American Riviera", which brings a billion dollars of tourist money into the city each year. With exciting fiestas held at various times during the year, a vibrant art and performing culture, and the world-renowned surfing available in the area, Santa Barbara remains a diverse and lively place to live and visit. Surfing at The Point or at Rincon have an especially nostalgic meaning for Donna and I, since that's where we spent so many days of those "Endless Summer(s)".

California doesn't have as extensive a historical past as the eastern US, but there are nonetheless many interesting historical sites to visit in Santa Barbara, which has preserved and cherished its Spanish and Mexican heritage. The Rafael Gonzalez House is an adobe structure that served as the residence of the alcalde of Santa Barbara in the 1820's. A giant Moreton Bay Fig tree is 80 feet tall and has one of the largest total shaded areas of any tree in North America. The Covarrubias Adobe was built in 1817, and the Hastings Adobe was built in 1854, partially from material recovered from the wreck of the S.S. Winfield Scott. Of course, the offshore Channel Islands Marine Santuary and National Park should be on a visitors list.

We weren't able to visit all of these points of interest, partly due to the fact that we had done so many years ago, but also because my 98-year-old Mother uses a cane for walking and didn't want to "slow us down". We did, however, visit the Santa Barbara Mission because it was easy to get to.

Mom and I had a little fun with the "Friars" outside the Visitors Center!

The floor tiles are original to the very first Mission, almost 200 years ago! They show signs of wear and include some pebbles that were used in the clay/mud mix, but now, with modern care techniques, they are only moderately worn. Amazing.

Sis, Mom, and I took a break along a path through the courtyard.

Near the front of the Mission, a bent Palm tree and a unique cactus represent Southern California!

Leaving the Mission behind, we drove a short distance to the Pacific Ocean.

Leaving SoCal, we crossed over Grapevine Pass into the Great Central Valley of California. These Golden hills comprise most of the Tejon Ranch Company. Pronounced Tey-hone, the ranch (listed on the NYSE) is based in Lebec, California. It is one of the largest private landowners in California, having been incorporated in 1936 to organize the ownership of a large tract of land that was consolidated from four Mexican land grants acquired in the 1850's and 60's by ranch founder Edward Fitzgerald Beale. The company now owns over 270,000 acres in the southern San Joaquin Valley, Tehachapi mountain range, and the adjacent Antelope Valley. It is the largest contiguous piece of private property in the state. Tejon Ranch's agricultural operation primarily grows almonds, pistachios, and wine grapes, along with some alfalfa and the occasional row crop. Cattle leases cover about 250,000 acres, and up to 12,000head of cattle can be found grazing on the ranch.

So ends another summer trip in the United States of America. We will enjoy spending a bit of time here in Northern California, with the hope of hiding the road again in January, 2019, if the Good Lord is willing and the Creeks don't Rise!

Best to all and have a Happy Thanksgiving and a Wonderful and Merry Christmas!

Iron Butt

We're in Banning, CA, overnighting at the Morongo Casino parking lot. We're tired of driving.

The odometer has rolled up over 2,200 miles since we left Georgia two weeks ago. We have visited friends in Texas, New Mexico, and Tucson, but for the most part we've ridden this big ole horse west on the Interstates. We've decided that since Georgia has its Antebellum Trail, and Alabama has its Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, we should dub our route of the last few days "The DnG Iron Butt Trail!"

Our last stop in Tucson gave us a day to stock up on groceries, then it was onward to Quartzsite, AZ.

Interstate 8 took us around the Phoenix Metro and out to Gila Bend where we cut north to I10. Pretty desolate country out here! But we're getting used to that!

Nessie2 found herself in the Park Place RV Park off of Riggles Road in Quartzsite on Thursday night, in an otherwise deserted rv park. It seems that the Arizona desert is not a destination this time of year! We scored another half-price night, though, so the site was great, with full hookups and great cell reception, for $14 a night! That's just about a dollar an hour for the time we're spending here.

The next part of our journey takes us into Southern California. Having been born and raised there, we're somewhat familiar with the stereotypical traffic complaints, and decided to break our trip into two sections, hence the stop in Banning.

We left Arizona at the Colorado River and entered into California. Back again after all this time. Our first take-away? Instantly the freeway became clogged, and the price of fuel jumped by almost a $1 a gallon! Welcome to the Golden State! For whom, I'm not precisely sure.....

The Morongo Casino is a huge facility, with spas, outlet shopping, water parks, and, of course all kinds and manner of wagering. Fortunately, they also have set aside a large parking lot for visiting rv's. The entrance into the o'nite area for us was a bit confusing, what with a narrow traffic circle that needed to be negotiated and poor signage, but thanks to a casino employee who was on his lunch break and volunteered to lead us to the proper location, we made it!

The lot is listed as a campground, but..... What we found was a parking lot that slopes a good bit to the southwest, and a couple of painted lines defining a parking spot. Nonetheless, the price is right, and the view of the storms in the San Gorgonio mountain range is great! We'll take it!

Today was a short day, as tomorrow will be also, in terms of mileage, but not in terms of stress. We have an option of bypassing most of the eastern cities of the LA Basin, and the more I think about it, the more I believe that we'll take "the long way home".

After a few days visiting family in SoCal, we're heading north toward home about 550 miles to go. We're ready for a rest!

Friends in Las Cruces and a Rest Day in Tucson

After leaving Van Horn on Sunday, we passed through the nightmare traffic and construction of El Paso. I wish I could post some pics of the highway snarl, but had to focus on driving instead of sightseeing.

A few miles north of town, we crossed over into New Mexico.

Old friends Ted and Phyllis have been staying in Las Cruces for a week or so, and we decided to take a day to visit with them. We stayed at Hacienda RV Resort, site 127, and it was as expected from previous visits. The interior roads are paved but the sites are covered with a very fine gravel that gets into everything! The park is very near the interstate highway, so noise is a bit of an issue here, but overall it is a nice park.

The remnants of Hurricane Rosa hung over the mountains to the northeast, and even dropped a sprinkle or two of rain on Las Cruces.

We spent a great deal of time catching up on current happenings with our friends, but managed to squeeze in a couple of fantastic dinners at the Double Eagle in old town Mesilla. On our first visit, we indulged in a fancy steak dinner in the Double Eagle side of the restaurant. We've not tried that before, and found the food to be extraordinary! Both Donna and I had small fillets, aged in house to perfection, and prepared exactly as we ordered. With the dinner we ordered mushrooms, cheese stuffed chili rellenos, and Pesole soup. Delicious!

On Monday we returned to dine at the Peppers side of the Double Eagle, with a New Mexican style menu. That means lots of Hatch chilis! This time we ate in the more casual center courtyard of the 150 year old home.

This time it was seafood stuffed chili rellenos for D and I along with delicious salsa. Everything is made in house and is wonderful.

Continuing our run west, we were back on the road Tuesday morning, and two hundred sixty odd miles later rolled into Tucson, Arizona. The western New Mexico and eastern Arizona terrain is much the same.....flat!

Being the off-season, we were able to score a discounted rv site at our old friend, Rincon Country West. The pull through, patio sites come with a hefty premium between November and April, but we got a nice one for $30 a night!

The park is nearly deserted right now, but the hustle and bustle will begin in a few weeks.

We don't have plans to return to Tucson in the winter as we have done for several years, so it's been nice to roll into a familiar place, relax, do a bit of shopping and such before we make our next move. Next stop: Quartzsite, AZ, then Banning, CA, then SoCal for a few days to visit my Mom and Sister, then home to NorCal.

It's been an interesting summer, and I will update soon.

Two more in Frisco, Two in West Texas

We had three days with our friends Mary and Roger, and enjoyed their company very much. They have just moved into a nice home in Frisco Lakes, a Del Webb community, and are settling in very nicely. Mary fixed us dinner the night we arrived and breakfast the next morning, Thank You, Mary!

Hidden Cove RV Park is on the southeastern shore of Lake Lewisville, northwest of Dallas Metro, and very close to the town of Frisco. A week of recent hard rain has raised the lake level significantly.

We had settled into our site, number 86, the only pull through in the privately owned park, and enjoyed a bright Texas day.

At night, the lights of The Colony were visible across the lake.

On Thursday, our last day in Frisco, we visited The Star. This is the Dallas Cowboys football teams new practice facility. It includes two full size football fields and dozens of shops and restaurants. Jerry Jones has outdid himself with this one!

Did I mention he found a lot of sponsors?

Donna and I practiced our football moves (albeit with her purse instead of a football!)

Is this a legal stance?

Baylor University has a huge sports medicine facility at The Star.

Which is needed by everyone in this picture!

Sidewalks in the multi-block area are decorated with tributes to famous Dallas Cowboy players and coaches.

Friday morning was a sad departure as we hit the road west once again. We worked our way through Denton and Fort Worth, and settled into a routine on I20 west.

Two hundred seventy nine miles later we slid into the Lone Wolf Creek RV park in Colorado City, Texas. This park is fairly minimal, but has good facilities for an overnight stop. It's mostly inhabited by working people that come and go early, so we used that to our advantage this morning when we were awakened just about sunrise.

Back on the road, we began to get bored and started to take pics of "landmarks" along the way...

Yeah, Texas will do that to you....

As we passed through the Patch (as in oil) near Midland and Odessa, we marveled at the price of diesel fuel....nearly $4.00 a gallon within sight of the refinery that makes it on the ground it comes out of. Go figure.

West Texas is about a whole lot of flat ground, and we struggled to stay focused while driving. Donna started singing at one point, and that drove any drowsiness completely out of my mind!

But eventually, I20 merged with I10 heading north and west.

And, two hundred twenty five miles west of Colorado City, we called it a day in the town of Van Horn. The Van Horn RV Park was at one time a KOA campground, but now is a well maintained quiet park just far enough off the interstate to be quiet and peaceful. The sites are large and long enough for our class A rig, and the power is very adequate. We have three air conditioners running, a washing machine and dryer, an electric cooktop and a convection oven, all at the same time! We've been some places where that simply wouldn't happen!

We're about the only rv in the park, it being after the summer rush season, so we've decided to do a bit of cleaning before we embark on the last 10 days of our summer journey, and relax a bit.

So, there you have it: a couple more days in Frisco, and then a couple of days working our way across Texas. We've driven over 1,650 miles in the last week!

Frisco, Texas

Leaving Vicksburg, we drove 225 +/- miles to Longview, Texas. We checked into the Fernbrook RV Park, just south of town. As we pulled into the park the rain that we had been "enjoying" driving through all day finally quit. This is a great park, with concrete rv pads, and a wonderful staff. Easy in and easy out, so no complaints. We will stay here again if we're in the area.

We had driven across the entire state of Louisiana, passing near the Duck Dynasty home of Monroe, LA. A few years ago, I asked a Louisiana native where Monroe was, and the answer was "across the river from West Monroe". OK.

Up early on Tuesday, the 24th, we hit I20 west toward Texas.

And settled into our site at Hidden Cove RV Park along the shores of a very large, and very full, Lake Lewisville. We're in the Frisco, Texas, area to visit some friends.

The Frisco area is growing like crazy. We last visited here two years ago, and thousands of acres of prime ranch land have been converted to residential development since then. Of course the infrastructure has blossomed to accommodate that, and, even with exceptionally good urban planning, there are thousands of commuters on the roads, shopping at thousands of stores.

We needed to take care of a few chores before we hit the road toward home, including a trip to Mars and Venus Nail Spa. In honor of past experiences with our granddaughter, a special Halloween creation....