Bruce and Margie's Full Time Journey

Update

2011-08-21T07:59:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone!

I have received many emails with beautiful words and wishes for my family. I wanted to update you all to tell you thank you for your priceless words.

First, the good. The "beast" motorhome is gone. Unfortuantely it did not sell; however; through legal channels we were able to return it to the lender. It was very difficult to get rid of it, but we are in no way able to keep it in our life. It is not a motorhome for a family like ours to vacation in once a summer.

Second, the legal issues are still going forward in California. If you want you can check on-line to see, it is not something I like to talk about much.

Third and the hardest is that our loving Annie is no longer with us. She passed in April and I'm sure is in a happier place. She was miserable without mom & dad. We did our best to care for and love her, but with our busy lives we just couldn't be with her as much as mom & dad. Her health literally began failing immediately after we picked her up in San Luis Obispio. We hated to see her continue to lose weight and suffer. The "grands" miss her very much.

We will be ending our summer in Maui on a family vacation; where my parents took us many times. So lot's of happy memories watching my kids have fun in the same place my parents took Dennis & I.

Thanks to you all for your words of encouragement. I found this great picture that brings me happiness thinking of just how long my parents loved each other. I hope you enjoy it too.

The "Beast"

2011-01-10T12:32:00.001-08:00

Many of you have asked about my parents motorhome. Here is the location of where it is for sale.

Thanks to Kristi for the interest.

http://www.i-5rvs.com/
Under pre-owned
go under makes - choose Winnebago
it is the 2007 Winnebago Tour 40TD

They just put it on an internet special for the weekend.

Thanks to you all.

Happy New Year

2010-12-31T16:58:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! Thank you all for the warm wishes over the holidays. They were difficult, but, we spent time with very good friends that took us in there home like family. We enjoyed many moments together as a family and made the best of it.

The "grands" (as mom would call them) are doing well and staying busy. They still have lot's of questions and we do our best to work through them. They are drowning themselves in school, swimming lessons (for Zoey) and both in gymnastics.

Thanksgiving weekend in Victoria, Canada

A lot of you have asked about the "furry" baby. Annie is doing ok. She has had some kidney issues requiring some vet attention and extra medication. However, she is getting better and we are trying to make the most of our time with her. It is a huge adjustment with her living with us. She was so used to being with mom and dad 24/7. We are gone a lot during the day, but we try to spoil her when we can. Mackenzie has taken over a lot of her care. Annie gets very excited when Mackenzie comes home. She does sleep a lot, but the vet says that is normal.

sleeping on the couch

A lovely lady named Darlene told me that they are looking over the memorial site in Pismo Beach where mom and dad where. I thought it was so nice of her to send us pictures and she also gathered up the notes left behind and is sending them to us. Very sweet!

on Price Street
Sorry I don't know how to rotate picture.

Hope you all have a Happy New Year! Love your families! Stephanie

Love the economy!

2010-11-20T20:37:00.000-08:00

Anyone want to buy a motorhome???

Who would've thought it would be so difficult to get the "beast" a new home. Such a big, beautiful and well taken care of motorhome should be a steal of a deal for someone out there. I'm sure my dad is telling me to hang in there and the right person will come along.

Many of you have asked about Annie. She is still doing well and seems happy with the girls. She is having a culture shock living in a home with us and also that we are away from home a lot. She had quite the life with mom & dad. We are loving her as best we can and hope she is happy. Mackenzie has really stepped up and takes her for walks, feeds her and even gives her medicine. Grandma would be so proud.

I will try and post a picture of her as soon as I can.

Stephanie

put to rest

2010-11-06T07:26:00.000-07:00

Many of you have been emailing wondering how things are going. On Friday we were finally able to place my parents ashes into a beautiful rock in Tumwater. They had chosen this many years ago and I had never been there until yesterday. It was very peaceful and exactly where I would've picked had we had to make that decision for them.

Mackenzie was able to help them put the urn's into the cylinders and that made her very happy. Zoey opted not to help with that job. But as usual Mackenzie was always the one to help out grandma and papa when she was asked. In a couple months they will have bronze markers put in place and that will be a nice final touch. It is so nice to have one aspect of this "nightmare" resolved and know that they are together where they choose to be.

Now on to the difficulty of selling the "beast" of a motorhome. It is so unfortunate that we cannot keep this beautiful RV; but it is just not practical in our lives. Besides mom always said "just sell it." Hopefully, this economy will not make this too challenging.

Till next time . . . thanks for all your nice messages.

Stephanie

We're home . . .

2010-10-22T04:00:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to let you all know that we all made it home safe. Darin (always refered to as the SIL) drove that "big beast" of a motorhome all the way home for us. I know my dad would be so proud of him. I know it was very intemidating for him to drive something that large and knowing that my dad was the only one that drove it, but he did great.

Annie is home safe with us and adjusting to her new home that is not on wheels. She is beginning to eat and drink and "plump" back up. She adores laying with the girls and sleeps at the foot of our bed every nite. We are going to take her to get a hair cut and the vet for her shots this next week.

Many of you have asked about a funeral service. My parents wishes were spelled out for me very clearly and they do not want any kind of service. I so appreciate all the nice gestures of people that would've attended. However, they made it clear to me personally in years past and in a letter they left me that "you should go take the girls to Disney World instead." So in time we will do just that.

All of your words about my parents have been so generous and kind. We all appreciate it. My husband and I read them together and it does help. I will be taking one readers advice and turning there blog into a book for me and the girls to read someday. I think that will be a nice keep sake when they get older to remember things grandma talked about and stories she told. We always use to read it together when they traveled. They loved looking at the pictures grandma took.

Stephanie

"Is this Heaven?"

2010-10-19T19:59:00.000-07:00

I don't have much too add today; just an interpretation of my 5 year old Zoey.

As we were walking into the morturary in the Pismo Beach area Zoey simply asked "is this heaven?" "Are grandma and papa here" It made us all tear up.

Hugs to all for your nice words!

A big thank you . . .

2010-10-18T20:19:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to give a very big thank you to all of your loving thoughts. It has been so wonderful to hear stories and/or just know that my parents touched other people's lives. They were very kind big hearted people that would do anything they could for anyone. I know it would make my mom very happy to hear all your blog comments.

We arrived in Pismo Beach Sunday and have met some of the kindest people you will ever meet. Detective Steven Crawford took excellent care of my parents personal belongings, motorhome, car and most importantly Annie (the schanuzer). Detective Trimble who took time to come meet with us on Sunday when we arrived to just answer questions. The loving people at Pismo Coast Village, the SLO Animal Shelter and the County Victims Advocate. Everyone has been so gracious to us and all took care of everything to make it as easy as possible for us to handle the "details".

Again thank you all for your prayers!

from her family ~

2010-10-16T14:39:00.000-07:00

To those of you that read my mom's blog I am Stephanie, her daughter. I am writing on my mom's blog today to let you all know of a tragedy that has hit our family very hard. As most of you know both my parent's were avid walkers; they walked multiple miles a day and enjoyed there talks together very much.

This morning they were taking a typical walk in Pismo and someone driving a car struck them both down. Unfortunately, neither of them survived this tragic accident. We were contacted in Tumwater by the San Luis P.D. about this accident. The individual was attempting to commit suicide and struck them where they walked. The police are treating this as a homicide at this time.

This is all the information we have at this time. My brother, husband and I will be flying down to Pismo this week to take care of there affairs. And definitely to retrieve our beloved Annie.

I know that all of you she met in her travels ment a lot to her and she enjoyed communicating with all of you through various blogs. I will post more information when we return for our travels, as I know that is what my mom would want.

Don’t Look Now But The Sun Is Out !!

2010-10-15T14:28:00.001-07:00

I have no clue if the sun will stick around for the rest of the afternoon, or if the coastal marine layer will move back in blocking out the rays. The entire coast of California from us to San Diego has been covered by what they call here the “marine layer”. That is actually just light, high fog. Anything can happen weather-wise in Southern California during October. One day could be over 100F and a couple of days after that you could have this marine layer move in and cool things off.

I jumped over to see the pics Rick and Paulette posted on their blog this morning of the brand new 5th wheel they took delivery of Thursday. Ooooh, doggies! That is one fine RV. As I scrolled through the blog viewing the pics, I thought I could hear Rick singing……. (to the tune of Moving-On Up from the old TV sitcom The Jeffersons)

Hey, we’re moving on up…..

to the Big 5.

A deluxe RV is in our drive….

Yeah, we’re moving on up…..

to the Big 5.

Can’t wait to take this beauty for a ride!

I could be mistaken, but I thought that was Rick’s voice I heard. I’d be singing that way too, if that were my brand new rig. It’s always fun to get a new RV and especially fun when you get to use it! I don’t think that Rick will be painting a big eagle on his new rig like this motorhome is sporting. We saw it this morning in the RV park.

We’re all hoping the sunshine will last through the weekend here in Pismo. The 64th Annual Clam Festival kicks off tonight. The main activities start tomorrow morning and there is going to be a parade at 10:00. I think we’ll have to walk down and see that and then walk further to the pier area. Street parking will be a nightmare this weekend and that is another great thing about Pismo Coast Village where we stay, we can walk to everything from here.

This is one of the figures painted on The Splash Café downtown.

And another one…..

And still another one.

I don’t have much to share today. We’ve been sitting around waiting for the sun to come out. We have had a guy walk through out site two different times today, cutting through to his own site behind us and over a couple of places. How rude. I can’t figure out what is wrong with some people to have such little regard for another person’s space. It does happen here from time to time and I hate to say it (but it’s true) it is always the weekender’s that do it. Hellooooooo people! Have you no courtesy for other people?

Bruce did talk to the guy across from us yesterday. You remember….the guy with all the rugs spread out around his entire MH. He now has a FOR SALE sign in the RV window. If he can get a “good offer” he’s selling it to buy a 5th wheel. He has a mobile home in Oklahoma and wants to stay there half the year and take the 5th wheel someplace and leave it for the other half the year. The motorhome is a 2005 Fleetwood DP and I say good luck trying to sell in this present economy getting the good offer he wants to receive. Maybe he will. Bruce didn’t ask about all the rugs, darn it!

Hope you all have plans for a great weekend, wherever you are! Travel safe and enjoy the view.

Until next time…..so long for now!

Who Took The Sun???

2010-10-14T17:15:00.001-07:00

I’d like to welcome new “Followers” to my blog. Welcome Aboard and THANK YOU…

Ellen

Carol Kerr

I appreciate both of you signing on to join my group and I hope you find something of interest here. Feel free to leave comments whenever you’d like.

The Pismo Beach Clam Festival is coming up this weekend. It should be a whole bunch of fun for everyone….but somebody stole the sun!! It’s been cool, overcast and foggy for a couple of days. Today the fog is thicker than it was the past couple of days.

I know the ocean is out here somewhere.

On our walk this morning the nearby beach condos had no view of the beautiful Pacific Ocean at all. The central coast of California gets frequent fog banks moving in during the fall and winter months, so this is really not surprising.

And somebody paid extra for this ocean view room !!!

Before lunch Annie and I walked down to the dunes just out the gate from the RV park. I wanted to see if any of the fog had lifted from down at the pier. Annie was happy to trot along and check it out. At least I didn’t have to carry her for her “walk” today. If I do, then I guess I could say that I took her for a “carry” and not for a “walk”. Today she managed on her own power.

A quick look toward the pier showed me that the fog was still hanging around.

I left Annie so I could see the ducks for a quick photo.

There were a few out in the creek. Nothing special.

The Clam Festival is set and the RV’s are really moving into town. I’m sure when we take a walk tomorrow morning we’ll see that some of the local motels and hotels have already begun filling up. By Friday evening most everyone will be in town.

Fog or no fog, we’ll go down to the pier area Saturday and see what’s going on. It could be interesting.

Until next time…..so long for now!

You Get What You Don’t Pay For With These Funnies

2010-10-13T19:52:00.001-07:00

When we visit different towns I usually look out for those small free newspapers that are left around for tourists and visitors. You can normally see some interesting stuff if you give them a look-see. Sometimes they have restaurant coupons or ads for a car wash or something that we could use. Maybe a crossword puzzle. Sometimes not.

We found two of them the other day here in Pismo Beach. These had columns with “police logs” in them and I’m thinking the writer of these columns is a wanna-be comedian or something. It was very witty writing that was good for a few chuckles.

Boardwalk trail from Grand Avenue back toward our RV park.

Here are some of the funnies we read:

“Trespassing: police were called to a church to evict some sinner who’d trespassed against them, while pursuing the temptation of digging through their trash bin.”

“Squatter: police were called to a park on Third Street because there was someone in the bathroom. He’d been flushed before officers arrived.”

“Medical aid: police and paramedics were called at 11:30 pm for a fellow who was so drunk he couldn’t stand. He was conscious but unresponsive, also called plastered. He was taken to the hoosegow to sleep it off.”

View from the boardwalk.

“Cats: a real animal lover complained to police about a man feeding apparently stray cats.”

“Loitering: music critics on Blank Street complained to police about a man in his 60’s who was sitting outside a business playing a guitar for tips. The day before, presumably the same man was set up outside another business playing his guitar. Both times he hit the road…..Jack”

“Trespassing: police were called to the Social Security Office because a homeless taxpayer was sleeping by the back door.”

Peek-a-boo view of the beach and ocean.

“Arrest: police were called to a downtown street where some sot was chasing a woman around trying to bum cigarettes. He was shown to the no-smoking iron bar hotel to sleep it off.”

“Theft: police responded to a Catholic prep school where a theft was reported. The rascal better hope police find him before the nuns do.”

“Disturbance: police were called to Beach Street where a man was walking around and yelling…”It’s not fair.”…Well, duh buddy!”

Driftwood, dunes and trees.

You can probably tell we had a quiet day today. Bruce made a repair to our water filtration system and I worked on Zoey’s photo album. Gray and overcast skies again today so nothing new to take pics of. It was a wonderful and boring day at the beach.

I stuck almost 80 little flowers to this title page for the album.

Until next time…..so long for now!

An Empty Nest

2010-10-12T15:29:00.001-07:00

This morning the overcast and high fog hasn’t left the beach area. Up on the hill by the outlet mall and into Arroyo Grande the sun is shining brightly. We ate at McDonald’s and then went grocery shopping at Albertson’s and it was too warm up there in the sun. We got back here to the beach area and it was still cool and foggy.

We don’t mind the sun going away for a day or two. Fine by us. The hot sun is one reason I could never live full time in Florida or even stay there for a whole winter like many snowbirds prefer. Too much sun and heat for me. Florida is a great place to visit, and we have several times, but not a place for planting roots.

When we took a walk after lunch today, I didn’t take the camera because of the fog and poor visibility. I’ll stick some pics in here from walks we’ve taken over the past couple of weeks. Annie had us up at 5:30 this morning and when she was done with her walk, we took off for our 1-hour walk. It began in the dark since it was so early.

Ducks on Pismo Creek in the early hours last week.

We haven’t been here to Pismo Beach in the fall since 2008. That was our first trip after going out as true full timers. It was a strange trip. We got here around the 7th of September and had planned to stay until the first week in November. Although I was fully prepared to join the ranks of full time RVer’s in 2008, the transition seemed weird. I felt like something was missing. What was it?

Foggy weather last week, too.

I sort of missed the family back in Tumwater, but it was more than that. I finally figured it out in early October that year. It was the empty nest feeling. Why empty nest you might ask since our kids had long since flown the coop.

What it boiled down to was no more responsibility of caring for our parents on a daily basis. It was like suddenly we had our own time. We could do what we wanted and when we wanted to do it. We didn’t have to consider anybody else’s needs except our own. My Dad had lived with us for a few years and traveled extensively with us for the last 2 years of his life. When we RV’d as the Three Musketeers (as I called us) we had to consider what he could do. If we wanted to go on some outing, could Dad do it? We had to make sure he got to a lab or clinic once a month for blood work. There were things that had to be done. He had passed away on November 2, 2007 and I was still feeling the loss a year later. After his passing, we had a busy time of getting our house ready for sale, getting it sold, and preparing for a full time lifestyle. It was all a whirlwind of events that moved fairly quickly. The empty nest feeling was because my Dad was no longer with us.

Joggers and walkers on the beach in the early hours.

Sitting down here in Pismo Beach that fall seemed lonely and empty. I wasn’t totally happy. I guess I was still grieving. Wise man that he is, Bruce suggested that we bail out early here in Pismo and head back up to Tumwater. He knew by being around the kids and Grands it would make me feel better and less empty. So we packed it up and left here around the 20th of October.

Gazebo at one of the hotels on the bluff above the beach.

That was all it took and, over the next couple of months that year, the empty nest feeling left. Time does heal most things. Our nest seems full enough now with just the two of us Musketeers remaining. Maybe Annie can fill in the third spot as a Musketeer. This year we won’t be leaving Pismo Beach until November 1, and there is no urge to bail out early!

This bikini clad lady was on the beach yesterday….NO, it is not me!

The foggy weather will probably clear up in a day or two. The town is gearing up for the Clam Festival coming up this weekend. The RV parks and all the hotels will be jam packed with visitors. Could be an opportunity for some great people watching.

The town is never at a shortage of surfers every day. Some old, some young….in foggy weather or sunny weather they will be here. We saw some yesterday on our walk. They were getting ready to leave the parking lot. They had their boards stowed on the roof racks and had wet suits hanging from the cars.

Mini vans and SUV’s seem to be the modern day “Woody” for these guys.

Hope everyone is having a good week so far. I’ll be checking out your blogs to see what’s going on in your neck of the woods!

Until next time…..so long for now!

Sunset With Margo Dodd

2010-10-11T15:53:00.001-07:00

Several days ago we did drive a couple of miles from our RV park just to watch the sunset. We stopped at Margo Dodd Park which is in the Shell Beach community. By the time we got there, several people were standing around or sitting on the park benches waiting for the same thing.

Just a few of the folks waiting for the daily event of a sunset.

This park is high on a bluff overlooking the ocean. There are homes across the street and they have unobstructed views of the Pacific. The park has a gazebo, playground, several benches, a walking path, restrooms and plenty of parking.

I took a look back toward the mountains above Pismo Beach.

The big fiery ball was dipping lower into the horizon.

Hard to see, but there are some birds flying across in front of the sun.

Pink color reflected in the water and in the sky was pretty.

Hey, it’s almost gone now!

A couple of seconds more and we’ll have to wait another 24 hours for a re-run.

With the usual breakfast at McDonald’s, scrapbooking work, and Bruce washing the rest of the roof, today was business as usual. Laundry got done and Annie got some walks and that’s the end of that for today!

Until next time…..so long for now!

Jalama Beach For A Picnic

2010-10-10T20:18:00.001-07:00

I’d like to welcome Jim and Sandie as new “Followers” to my blog. I appreciate you giving us a bit of your time and say THANK YOU for signing on! Hope you find some fun stuff about our RV lifestyle within these blog posts.

I try to keep us with new Followers but it can sometimes be tricky. If my total Followers number on my dashboard doesn’t change, I may miss seeing an addition to the group. Sometimes a Follower will take off and “Un-Follow” my blog and if that happens when a new Follower logs on…..the number stays the same. So, if you are a newer Follower and I haven’t welcomed you officially, I’m sorry. I try to catch every new person and let them know I appreciate them signing on.

Friday we got out of the RV park for a while and went on a little day trip. We had a few options on where to go and we settled on Jalama Beach County Park. We took Pacific Coast Highway, which is a right turn out of our RV park and headed South.

This route takes you through agricultural areas and some small towns like Guadalupe and Lompoc. After you go past Lompoc it is a short 4 or 5 mile to the Jalama Beach Road. This road winds through hilly terrain of agriculture and cattle lands.

Fields already harvested I assume.

These guys are eating their own lunch. Dry grass, yummy!

We were surprised on this small road how many cars and RV’s were driving in both directions. Since we had never been to Jalama Beach previously, we didn’t know exactly what we’d find out there. Heading out on a “mystery road” is always an adventure for us.

Jalama Beach is a Santa Barbara County Park

Some of this area was part of a settlement of the native Chumash Indians for centuries. Then as the surrounding area became more populated the local people began using Jalama for leisure time activities. This is a public park on land that was donated to Santa Barbara County by Atlantic Richfield Oil Company in 1943 (ARCO). All surrounding area is privately owned.

The view as we came upon the park from above was beautiful. There are campsites, showers, rest rooms, picnic areas, restaurant and store.

We saw all sorts of RV’s and campers here at Jalama Beach Park.

We stopped at the gate and paid a Day Use fee of $8.00. We found a parking area by some picnic tables on the beach. Dogs are allowed if they are kept on leash. It was a nice day and we enjoyed the ocean view while we ate our lunch.

You can’t beat this view with a stick!

We saw some surfers on this beach, as usual here along the coast.

After we finished eating, we got into the car and drove around the campsite areas looking things over. We saw a few 40-foot motorhomes here as well as small rigs and lots of tents. There are 117 dedicated campsites with some of them up on a bluff overlooking the ocean.

This is the view from the upper camp area.

This gull stood very close to me as I took his picture.

There are some water and electric sites at Jalama and there is a dump station on site. The cost for camping ranges from $20.00 for a basic no hook up site (off peak season) to $35.00 for a W/E site (peak season). As usual for beach front campgrounds, the sites are close together.

RV’s of all types and lengths were in residence on this day.

After driving around, it was time to leave. The Jalama Beach Road ends at the beach so you have no option but to return by the road you came in on. We saw a few RV’s passing us on our way out. I guess the new batch of weekenders were arriving. With miles of sandy beach to play on, surfing possibilities, seasonal whale watching, fishing and bird watching, it is a good place to spend a few days.

We passed some beautiful scenery on the way home, including a grape vineyard or two.

It was another great day, just scouting around in a new area. I keep an atlas where I highlight every new road we travel on either in the RV or in the car on a day trip. This trip gave me a new road to highlight in that atlas. We enjoy finding those new mystery roads when we travel.

Until next time…..so long for now!

Just An Ordinary Saturday

2010-10-09T15:29:00.001-07:00

We took a nice drive yesterday to a picnic spot, but I’ll save that post and pics for tomorrow perhaps. Today has just been an ordinary Saturday around here.

A lot of great comments were left after the post yesterday on “Top 5”. Seems like many of us have a few of the same places on our lists and it was fun to read about a few places we’d never heard of. Might have to check those out one of these days. I’d have to add Niagara Falls to my list as #6. I just couldn’t fit it in with only 5.

Many people out on the beach enjoying some sunshine.

I read in a post today that Rick and Paulette have become the proud owners of a brand new 5th wheel. And, WOW, it is really a beauty. I checked out the link Rick left on the website for the RV manufacturer and also inspected his pics on the blog, and I can see why they selected that one. Go and give it a look!

I also saw that Sam made it safely to Pennsylvania. He’ll be there for a month helping his sister, Wendy, recover from some upcoming surgery. I know Riggs will be missing him.

We see this fuzzy plant on our morning walks. Any ideas on what it is called?

Bruce did get back up on the MH roof this morning to do some minor cleaning. He thought it was time to get the road dirt, grime and gunk off. He finished half the job before calling it quits for today. He’ll finish the rest up next week.

Annie has been a bit lethargic the past 2 days. Since she can’t talk, we are left playing a guessing game. She ate her breakfast and took a couple of nice walks, so I think it is just a case of old-age this time. I know how she feels.

I caught up with Wild Blue Yonder and saw the pics posted about their recent trip to Las Vegas, Nevada. Looks like SD had a great time and the weather was cooperative. That’s always a good thing.

If it is the weekend, there will be plenty of surfers. (weekdays too)

If you have the desire to work hard at a pumpkin patch and maze, be sure to head on over to see what Kimberly and Jerry from Hit the Road Jack have been doing lately. They are working in California until the pumpkin job is over and then they are moving on. Sounds like a good idea to me.

This evening after dinner, we’re going to head on over to a park on the bluffs in nearby Shell Beach to wait for the sunset. Even if the sunset won’t be fantastically beautiful, it will still be a good one. In our opinion, every sunset you get to see…..is a good one!

Last week by the RV park, this guy was drinking some orange juice waiting for the sunset to arrive.

Even with an ordinary, non-blog-worthy day, I hope you enjoyed the pics. Ordinary photos on an ordinary day, must mean we are pretty ordinary people. Hope everyone else had a better than ordinary day. Take care!

Until next time……so long for now!

The Top “5”

2010-10-08T19:27:00.001-07:00

Most of us who travel by RV, as a part-timer or a full-timer, don’t want to sit in just one, single place for an entire year or more. That is, of course, unless you are working a job in that location. I’ve read some blogs that mention a “bucket list” from time to time.

It got me thinking about what were the “Top 5” places we have already been to and glad we didn’t miss. It also got me thinking about the “Top 5” we still have on our list of must-see places. We have a lot more than 5 places that could be put on both lists, but we have to set a limit for blog purposes.

Almost sunset on the path by our RV park.

So I’ll give your both of our lists and then maybe you can share with everyone a place or two that may be on your list, too.

Pismo Creek and dunes as sun begins sinking.

“Top 5” places we are glad we saw and did not miss:

1. Nova Scotia, Canada – We spent 7 weeks there in 2007 and it was phenomenal. We covered as much of the entire province that we could possibly see with my 82-year-old Dad with us, which was still a bunch! We did get to all the main areas from top to bottom and side to side. Cape Breton area and Halifax were probably our favorites.

2. Washington D.C. – As our nation’s capital, they have a lot of great stuff to see. The museums and the monuments are fantastic. It’s a great big, busy city, but worth the time. We went there with our kids in the 80’s and Bruce and I had even gone there again, with an RV, in January of 1994. Gee….the city was almost empty of tourists.

3. The Everglades in Florida - We finally got our chance to spend some time down in the Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve in 2009. It was terrific and I posted a lot of pics from those visits (archives May 2009). This is probably not a place where we would care to make a return visit, but are so glad we did see it. Lots of gators!

4. Maine – This is one of our favorite states of them all. We have visited many times and will certainly plan another trip in a couple of years. The remote state parks in 1997 and 1999 were our favorite camping areas. We only had a 30-foot MH at that time and it was easy to park in smaller sites. We took my parents on an RV trip to Maine in October of 2000 to see the fall foliage display. Mom had terminal cancer and it just seemed like a great idea! In our opinion, all of the areas in Maine are worth checking out.

5. Alaska – Need we say more? We took my Dad up there in 2006 and we spent 7 weeks in our biggest state. Alaska is so huge and the scenery is so beautiful it is almost indescribable. Too bad I wasn’t blogging back then. Our favorite 2 places in the state were Homer and Haines (although there was no disappointing place). Don’t know for sure if we will ever go back. It is awfully expensive up there, so, time will tell.

Cupola over the restaurant and clubhouse building at the RV park.

“Top 5” places we would like to visit, tour or just see:

1. Glacier National Park – This national park is very close to Washington State (our state of residence) and we have never been there. We had planned a car trip there with our parents in the summer of 2003, and that was when there were some wildfires in the area. We changed the plan and went up to B.C. and Alberta instead. So, it remains one of those “we must see it” places on our Top 5.

2. New York City – Yeah, I know this is just a great, humongous city with a zillion people but it is a place we have wanted to visit for a long time. I actually saw NYC in 1980 when I traveled to New Jersey to visit family and Bruce stayed home to work. We took a quick day trip over and the kids and I saw a couple of places in the city, plus a Yankees game, but not near enough. So, Bruce and I have this on our list and we want to see everything. Someday.

3. Churchill, Manitoba, Canada - We would like to go up to Churchill to see the polar bears in the wild. That would be more than awesome. This, like NYC, will have to wait until Annie is no longer traveling with us due to the logistics of getting to the area where the polar bears live.

4. Gaspe Peninsula, Quebec Province, Canada – In 1998 we took a 10-day cruise that went from Boston to Quebec City. We traveled on the St. Lawrence River to Quebec City and ever since then we have wanted to go back to see the area known as Gaspe Peninsula which is on the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It is a very rugged area and it just seemed like one of those places we want to see because it is there. Sort of like the answer for climbers when asked why they climbed the mountain….’because it was there’.

5. Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico – We had planned to take my Dad here in 2008, but he passed away before we could get him here. We would like to stay in the area for a few weeks and visit many of the pueblos in that part of New Mexico.

Lone duck on the creek.

Not a great sunset on this night, but I did see a couple of birds flying toward me.

It’s really difficult to only pick a “Top 5” for both of the lists. Whenever I look at the atlas I can pick out dozens of places we’d like to visit. I just hope we have time to get around to everything before we get too old to go there without a caretaker taking us.

So, what places are on your lists of favorites, most impressive, awesome or terrific? Give us all some inspiration on new places to experience and enjoy.

Until next time…..so long for now!

What Is It Worth?

2010-10-07T15:53:00.001-07:00

I read blogs, websites and the various forum sites during the evening hours. I can keep one eye on a TV program, if it is worth seeing, and one eye on the monitor to read stuff. And, boy, there is a lot of stuff out there.

Much of what I read pertains to a fulltime RV lifestyle, since that is of particular interest to me as a fellow fulltimer. I am always interested in people, their opinions, their particular outlook on FT living, the thoughts for their future, and how they are holding up in these tough economic times we are in.

Avila Beach on a recent trip (about 5 minutes from Pismo).

Some have given up their fulltime dream even before it got completely started and some have left the fulltime lifestyle after several years to settle back into a stix-n-brix. Some others are hanging onto their dream of this lifestyle in hopes of better times ahead.

Seems to me in most all of the stuff I’ve read, the folks are very realistic about their options. They seem to be content to forge ahead and follow their plan. The freedom of living a life in an RV with wheels to move them about is still of great importance to them. It is to us, as well.

A main street in Avila Beach with shops and restaurants.

I can only speak for our situation and it may be different from other fulltimer’s goals and dreams. Like so many others, we’ve experienced diminished savings due to the recent recession and stock market disaster. The economic climate begs the question….”what is this lifestyle worth?” What is it worth to you to be able to keep going as you’ve been doing? How much are you willing to change to hold onto your dream? What can you give up? That is…of course….if any change is needed at all. There are many RVer’s with good pensions, savings and retirement benefits to carry them forward, which is all good. What to do, then, if a change is needed?

Workamping is an option a lot of people use as a way of meeting financial needs. The younger set of fulltimer’s I read about are using workamping to keep them afloat. Volunteer positions at state and national parks can get you a free campsite in exchange for your work. This helps with the rent budget. If you stay in one location to be a workamper or a campground volunteer you aren’t driving around burning up fuel, which is a savings.

Another beach view at Avila and many people enjoying the sunshine.

But what about the rest of it? Most of the fulltime RVer’s who are under the normal retirement age were tired of the rat race involved with a 40-hour work week. They searched out a new lifestyle. Perhaps it is a healthier lifestyle for themselves. A lifestyle that allows them to see the country while they follow a dream.

That can come with a price which is where my post title “What Is It Worth?” comes from. If you have elected to bail out early on the career path (as we did) there may be some compromise to be made at some point. In our case, in order to not have to go out and work for earned income, it means we rarely go out to a sit-down restaurant for a meal. We like to reserve that money for times when we meet a fellow blogger, or friends or family and go out for a meal. We have a very, very small entertainment budget, we don’t buy a lot of new tech-gadgets or gizmos (OK…NONE), we will drive our present car for many years, and we do not go to high-end RV parks as they are too expensive for our budget.

Restaurant with outdoor seating in Avila Beach.

If you’ve been used to playing golf twice a week, going out for restaurant meals 4 to 5 times a week, buying every new gadget and gizmo that comes out, going to the movies often, going to live concerts or theater productions, having his and hers vehicles in your parking spot, and staying on top of the fashion trends, are you willing to give any of this up? Would you be willing to put an end to any of these things in order to continue and maintain your fulltime lifestyle? Those can be some big decisions if any of those expenditures are very important to you.

If you are just struggling to put food on the table, pay your vehicle insurance, pay for medical insurance, and buy life’s necessities while you are living this dream, again, is it worth it? The stress of a difficult work week may now be replaced by the stress of keeping the dream together. This is a very tough decision that many people are facing right now. I am really wondering how it will all play out. Are any of them going to have to put the dream aside and settle down with a full-time job again? There is a high unemployment rate out there and good jobs may be difficult to find. Most of us with a fulltime RV dream have to compromise somewhere with something in these tough times. I am cheering on each and every fulltimer out there, as I sincerely hope you can hold on during these tough times.

Outdoor chess set at a small hotel in Avila Beach.

Fulltime RV living isn’t stress free or problem free, but it certainly has some great benefits that may, or may not be, tangible. I remember very well a blog post written by Al of the Bayfield Bunch several months ago. Part of what he wrote had to do with a “sack full of problems”. I can’t quote him directly but it was something about when we live in the stix-and-brix world we may have a sack full of problems to deal with relating to that home. If we move into an RV fulltime we exchange the previous sack of problems for another sack of problems. We still have a sack of problems, but it is just a different sack. Anyway, I thought it was a great post and I think about it often when we are faced with some problem or another.

The same theory can go along with being in the working world. We may have hated our corporate, or 40-hour plus workweek and decided to chuck it all, but we still have to find some sort of income to just be able to survive. That’s where I ask myself the question, “Is It Worth It?” For us, personally, the scrimping, cutting corners, being thrifty, having great limits on all spending is completely worth it.

NOTE: This post was intended to explain our philosophy about the fulltime lifestyle, the give and take of it, and is in no way intended to reflect an opinion on other people’s choices.

Until next time…..so long for now!

Bits and Pieces of Stuff

2010-10-06T15:55:00.001-07:00

It’s been raining now since yesterday. We’re from Washington state so this is no big deal to us. Besides that, California needs some rain so, unless it causes mudslides, it is a good thing. According to the weather page online the rain should end sometime before tomorrow morning. I have plenty to do inside the home on wheels to keep me busy.

Did you all hear the news? Congratulations are in order for Carol K. She and Dave are going to be first time grandparents in April. They’re pretty excited about the big news which is understandable.

Yesterday Me and My Dog left a comment asking what kind of camera I was using. It sure isn’t the best camera out there, but it is good enough for me at the moment. I use the Fujifilm Finepix S1500 Digital Camera. When I bought it I wanted a simple point and shoot camera without the need to change lenses. That stuff intimidates me. Having seen the pics on the blogs of Al of the Bayfield Bunch and Judy from Travels With Emma maybe a camera with individual lenses might be doable for me. Their photographs are AWESOME. Too late now, I have this camera and I cannot spend money to replace it. My Fujifilm camera has a 12x built-in zoom and is 10.0 mega pixels. Again, it’s not the best but it is good enough.

Couldn’t take a pic of the actual camera….I was using it.

Everyone knows you can see some interesting things out there in the RV and campground world. If nothing exciting or interesting is going on, just wait and in a day or two something will show up. Nothing real exciting around here, but some things that make me ponder a bit and ask “Why?”

For instance, the motorhome directly across the street from us pulled in a few days after we had arrived. First thing the guy did was put out 3 of those large patio carpet mats on his passenger side. No big deal there, lots of people have and use those. Then about a week later he got another carpet mat that looked more like beige indoor-outdoor stuff and he placed that in front of his MH toward where he parks the car. Then a couple of days ago we noticed he had cut runner pieces of that type of carpet to run along the driver side of his RV. The whole length of it. I took a couple of pics to show you.

3 patio mats laid out and then the addition of a large mat in front. Hmmmm.

The side runner pieces of carpet. What is the purpose I wonder?

This 5er is here every fall for about 3 months, and we’ve seen it many times before. They are not fulltime RVer’s but they bring all of these potted plants with them every time. They leave their 5er at the storage facility here in Pismo Beach so I guess they transport these with them from home.

A lot of heavy potted plants to drag over in your car.

OK, here’s another thing we see a lot of around here. The pirate flag. Many of the toy-hauler RV’s have these flying high, but a lot of the other RV’s seem to favor them. This week there aren’t too many in evidence, but on some trips here, we have seen a lot of them….maybe 20 or 25.

Arrrrrr! Shiver me timbers, matey!

The Pismo Coast Village has a lot of groups that come in for rallies. They stay for 2 or 3 days and then most of them move on or go back home. With 400 sites available, there is plenty of room for everyone. It is always fun to see how the various groups will decorate their rigs. Some get pretty elaborate and some add just a touch here and there. Last week the Rainbows were here and they had some of the best yard and rig decorations we’ve seen.

Lights, palm trees, flags and so much more.

We did see something here last week that we hadn’t seen anywhere else yet. It was a large 5th wheel with a full-body slide. We’ve seen this trend on motorhomes for the past couple of years, but most of the 5er’s have several smaller slides. Interesting and it must really feel roomy inside this baby!

Hard to see, but the end of the slide goes almost to the end cap of the 5er.

That’s the end of the Bits and Pieces for today. Slow blogging day as you can see. Maybe things have been more interesting where you are today. I’ll be checking out your blogs to find out what’s going on in your world. In the meantime, I’ll be on the look out for more stuff around here to show you. You never know since each day a new crop of campers come rolling in.

Until next time…..so long for now!

Pismo Beach, Our Winter Place

2010-10-05T16:45:00.001-07:00

We plan to return to our location here in Pismo Beach on January 2. Most RVer’s go further South during winter months and that’s good, but this town works for us. Even though we will not be leaving Pismo until November 1, we are already looking forward to returning for a couple of months. We’ll be in Tumwater, Washington for the holidays, a stay of about 7 1/2 weeks.

For those that don’t know exactly where Pismo Beach, California is I’ll tell you that it is on the Central Coast 188 miles North of Los Angeles and 243 miles South of San Francisco. The town’s population is about 9,000 and that gives it a small-town feeling we enjoy.

The beach area can be a bit crowded on weekends, but during the weekdays a lot of the visitor’s go home. In the winter months, the visiting population is even less than now…..and we like that!

On a September weekday, the downtown streets have few people walking around.

Even though this is not prime Snow Bird country, the winter temperatures aren’t bad. And they are sure a lot better than what we’d have up in Tumwater for January. Last winter when we stayed here we had about a week of rain showers, but mostly the weather was cool but dry.

The average Low temperature for January is: 43F

The average High temperature for January is: 65F

You can see some birds here year round, although I don’t know many of the varieties or the names. We did see some of these last night and I think they are Egrets.

Egrets, perhaps?

No matter what time of year we come here to stay, we can always walk on the beach. We just layer on more clothing in January. Surfers are always out in the water, nothing will hold them back!

No lifeguard on duty during the winter months.

Just a hunk of interesting seaweed (at least interesting to me).

We’ve seen a cool weather trend move in the past couple of days, but it is supposed to warm up into the mid 70’s again next week. The Clam Festival is gearing up for October 15 to 17 and the town will be bulging with temporary visitors again. No worry, they’ll go home again after the festival.

Checking out the sunset in the evening is a favorite past time for a lot of us here at the RV park. It’s not like Key West and the huge crowd that gathers for their sunset views, but we do have a fair number of folks that turn out daily to watch the sun dip below the horizon.

Yesterday I caught this view of the sun getting ready to slip below the cloud.

It’s always a good day for us in Pismo Beach. I hope all of you enjoyed your own good day!

Until next time…..so long for now!

No More “Miss Smarty-Pants”

2010-10-04T16:08:00.001-07:00

For about the past 10 months I’ve read some blog posts where mention was made of a monthly online usage limit of 5gb. What? We didn’t have that. We had signed up for unlimited usage several years ago, and when we checked into it (several times over the 10 months) we were always assured we still had the unlimited service. We have AT&T wireless and although many people claim better service with Verizon, we weren’t planning to change our service plan.

OK, you know what’s coming now, don’t you? Last week we got an e-mail from AT&T that said we were very close to going over our online usage limits. Bruce called the service number and talked with some idiot (aren’t most of them?). He didn’t get very good information, so he called again about 30 minutes later to get a new idiot on the line.

Bougainvillea shrub we see on our morning walks. This shrub grows well in warm, coastal areas.

This tech-support person was better informed. We learned that our 2-year contract was going to expire on October 2 (e-mail date was Sept. 30) and that they had now discontinued the “unlimited” usage plan. Up to Sept. 30 we had used 4gb of our 5gb limit, so it didn’t seem likely we’d use 1gb in one day until we got to our monthly roll-over date of Oct. 2.

Bougainvillea have thorny, woody vines and are used as ornamental plants.

My days of being a silent “Smarty-Pants” for the past 10 months are over. I’d been thinking we somehow had escaped the imposed usage limit for some reason….wrong! AT&T just waited patiently until our contract was up and then let the axe fall. Are we going to cancel AT&T and go with something else? No. They all seem to have usage limits now and we have a package with wireless/cell phone service that has been working fine for us. Our kids all have the AT&T cell phone service, so we can talk to them any time, any day for free. We don’t use the phone enough with other calls to go over our monthly calling minutes, plus roll-over minutes.

The flowers feel papery to the touch.

I don’t think we’ll have too much trouble staying within the 5gb usage limit. I don’t download videos on Youtube, via e-mails, etc. I think those use up a lot of that bandwidth stuff I don’t even totally understand. I Googled “what is bandwidth” and they explained it as a multi-lane highway with each of the lanes representing bandwidth. As you use up the bandwidth you lose lanes of usage bit by bit. If this explanation is incorrect, I’m sure there are enough techies out there to set me straight. Feel free.

The most annoying part is that when we check our account online it always shows “unlimited”. Every category listed says “unlimited”. And yet, it is not. Yep, it’s always something!

Until next time…..so long for now!

Sunday and The Amazing Race

2010-10-03T14:08:00.001-07:00

As a person who loves to travel, it is no wonder that The Amazing Race show is my favorite. We never miss it because we enjoy seeing the places around the world that we will never get to. I’m never going to get to India, Australia, Japan, or Europe so I live vicariously through the teams on this show and their adventures. Tonight it will be on again….can’t wait!

After church today I sorted Zoey’s birthday photos for the next occasion to document in her album. At lunchtime we decided to walk into town to the Subway restaurant for a sandwich. After a foggy start to the day, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day again. It was a nice walk and on the way we saw our fellow Pismo Coast RV friends, Ted and Claire, on a walk. They are staying a few rows away from our site at the park. Claire said to stop by sometime. We did on our way home but they weren’t outside their MH so we kept going.

Not many people at the Subway today. Most were at “real restaurants” probably.

We shared a foot-long ham without cheese, but with all the veggies. Yummy.

When we take our normal morning walks we always go past this small house on Dolliver Street. It is a pretty well worn house and has the tiniest yard. The owners have decorated their yard with all sorts of knick-knacks and some interesting plants, though. They also have a sign in this small yard that reads, “Don’t touch anything. We’re watching you.”

I didn’t touch anything, I just took a picture of it all.

There was this interesting burgundy colored plant that looked like a flower.

Green ones, too. I think they are in the succulent family.

Bruce has been watching a couple of NFL games on TV and we’ve been enjoying a laid-back Sunday afternoon. We’ve also been watching the weekender’s pull out and the new batch of campers arriving. Such a busy day of people and RV watching!

I hope everyone had a great weekend and got the chance to do something fun or interesting. Enjoy your week ahead, too.

Until next time…..so long for now!

Paint A Clam and Scrapbook Tools

2010-10-02T17:38:00.001-07:00

At the entrance to Pismo Coast Village RV Resort there is a large clam. It’s not real, of course. If it were, we’d need to get the people over at the Guinness Book of World Records out here….fast! There are about 3 of these ginormous clams in the town, but this one is at the RV park. Every season, holiday, or special occasion it gets painted to celebrate that occasion.

We have seen the clam shell painted like an Easter Bunny, Rudolph, Jack-o-lantern, and a Monarch butterfly. There may have been one or two others we’ve seen, but I’ve forgotten them. Yesterday Annie and I saw the lady painting the clam to celebrate the upcoming Clam Festival. I stopped to talk with her a minute because I saw the plate on her van said “Washington.” She and her husband have a home in nearby Shell Beach and they stay here most of the year now.

She took over the clam painting gig about a year ago.

The finished clam for the “Clam Festival” coming to Pismo Beach.

A couple of days ago a comment was left by Wayne and Roberta about how and where I store my supplies for my scrapbooking projects. When we lived in our stix-n-brix I had a whole room set aside for my scrapbook hobby. When it came time to move into the motorhome I needed to pare down my supplies. I bought 2 of these specialty bags from Creative Memories and loaded them both up.

This large bag holds a lot of stuff.

Because we have a lot of outside storage space, I kept each of these bags in a large Rubbermaid container. Then when I wanted to work on albums for several days, I’d bring the bags inside. That was over 2 years ago and I have worked on a lot of album pages since then. This past summer, I reorganized (and purged) my supplies again and was able to get rid of one bag. I let Bruce have the storage space outside all to himself now, and I just keep this one bag back on the bed in the daytime. I’m hoping to be finished with all scrapbook projects in a year and I’ll get rid of everything then. I promised it to Mackenzie and Zoey.

I also have a lot of paper housed inside an acid-free cardboard storage box. This is kept on the floor of my closet across the back of the MH. Bruce has his own closet. I have every color in the rainbow of paper choices. When I get rid of this someday, I’ll have a lot more closet space. The box holds 12 x 12 size papers.

This box is sagging a lot, but still useable. Someday…out it goes!

I kept almost all of the tools that I used before fulltime RV days. I have several paper punches, trimmers, pens, stickers, size templates and cutters, idea books and more.

A small sampling of my tools. Some fit into their own organizers that go into the large bag.

When I’m done scrapbooking for a while, I just pack everything up into the large black bag or my closet storage box. I have a Cricut machine, too, that I keep on the closet shelf. I use that a lot to cut out letters or die cut shapes.

Blank album pages and finished pages can fit in here with some of the tools.

Since we bought our new dining table at IKEA last winter I have a lot of space to set out all of my stuff when I’m working on some pages. It’s been working out great.

A page of photos from last Christmas, ready to be put with the others.

I have enjoyed making these photo albums for the Grands. As I wrote previously, I have made 5 for Mackenzie including her Baby Book from birth thru 1st birthday. So, I have to get the same number of albums completed for Zoey before I am finished. Then I am retiring from this hobby. I began scrapbooking in 1993 and I have created over 30 albums. Family albums and vacation albums were the themes. I don’t take vacation pics to keep anymore. I take pics when we are in different places and they go into the blog. I don’t create web albums for myself. So far I don’t think I’ve gone back to early pics and pulled any up to put into a current post. Maybe when I finish with all of this scrapbook work, I may do that for myself. Right now I’m too busy to sort and organize them.

Our weather here in Pismo Beach took a turn toward fall yesterday. Today it has continued to be cool with some high fog. At least we haven’t gotten the heavy rain and lightning they are getting down in Southern California. The RV park is packed with those weekenders out having a grand time. By Monday morning they will all be gone. At least it isn’t noisy here with all of those campers in residence. That’s something to be thankful for! And we are.

Until next time…..so long for now!

Our Day Trip, Part 2

2010-10-01T19:24:00.001-07:00

When we last left our day trip up the central coast, we had just finished a walk on the pier at San Simeon Bay. Our final stop for the day was just 4 1/2 miles North of this location at the Piedras Blancas elephant seal colony. We made a trip up here last winter and enjoyed it, so we thought we’d take another look to see how many elephant seals were here this time. The trip to Piedras Blancas is 60 miles, one-way, from Pismo Beach. (Click any photo for a larger view.)

You can view the seals from above, which leaves you a safe distance from them.

In early fall (like now) the beach is sparsely populated. During September and October the young-of-the-year and juveniles haul out from the sea to rest and play. Many of these pups were the ones born here last winter, and others are from 1 to 4 years old.

The seals lie in the sand or play in the surf together.

The young seals that are resting here now are the survivors of the long journey they took to feed on fish and squid while avoiding great white shark and orcas attacks. The seals don’t live here on this beach, but they return for a few months each winter to give birth and mate again before setting out to sea. They also return for a few months during the summer to molt and rest. The adult males will spend 8 months at sea and 4 on land. Adult females and juveniles spend 10 months at sea and 2 on land. They are solitary travelers.

These juveniles “play fight” with each other at this time of the year.

Since no mating or birthing is going on in this season, the action is calm and quiet. Except for seeing some of them play-fight, many were just lying on the warm sand or playing in the surf.

No surf boards for these guys….they were just body surfing.

I liked this pic, it reminded me of that scene in the movie Gone With The Wind when Scarlett comes out of the makeshift hospital and she sees the hundreds (or thousands) of wounded or dead soldiers lying in the street as far as she could see.

At least all of these “soldiers” are alive!

When we come back to Pismo Beach in the winter, we may come back up to the elephant seal colony again. By that time the large adult males and the females will be on the beach. We will also be able to see a lot of the newborn pups. The peak birthing period is mid-January to the end of the month. The large adult males will make the 5,000 mile journey to the Aleutian Islands twice a year. The females and juveniles go North and Northwest but don’t usually travel as far as the oldest adult males.

You can see some high fog along the horizon, but the beach was clear and bright.

It was a nice day trip and the coastal views were excellent and beautiful when we were out of the fog pockets. Any wildlife viewing is also a plus, as far as we’re concerned. Annie like seeing the seals, too. There is a fence along the entire viewing area so children and dogs can’t get out onto the beach area.

When we had enough time gazing at the large creatures, we got back into the car and drove home. It was a good day.

Until next time…..so long for now!

Our Day Trip, part 1

2010-09-30T17:09:00.001-07:00

Today seemed like a good day for an outing. As I wrote yesterday, I’m working on a photo album for Zoey and I needed a break. I know actual photo albums are a thing of the past for many. Most people create their web albums and such. However, I began creating photo albums for Mackenzie when she was born and she now has 5. I cannot stop this creative endeavor for Zoey until she, also, has a total of 5. I like things even-Steven. So, outdated or old-fashioned, I still have to get to a total of 5. Then I will retire from that hobby.

We decided to take a trip North of Pismo Beach and go up California Coastal Highway 1. As you travel about 10 miles from here, in the center of San Luis Obispo, you will find the exit for Hwy. 1. It is well-marked and it would be difficult to miss. It will take you past the Cal Poly campus and into Morro Bay. We did not stop in Morro Bay but kept traveling.

We found Morro Bay fairly well socked in with fog. Hwy. 1 is a 2-lane road in most places and a bit winding, but not a bad road. We drove in and out of the pockets of fog for several miles until we reached the William Hearst State Park in San Simeon. This is a small park with land donated by W.H. Hearst to the State of California. Above the park and across the highway, high up on a hill, sits the famous Hearst Castle.

There are beautiful ocean views from the grounds of Hearst Castle.

We have been to Hearst Castle and didn’t plan to go back today. We did pull into the state park to set out our picnic lunch. We were lucky and there was no fog present. We found a table overlooking the ocean and enjoyed our tuna sandwiches.

An ocean view is always a treat.

Annie enjoyed a picnic, too. I brought some Cheerios along for her. After eating we wanted to walk out on the pier, so we had to put Annie in the car. No dogs allowed. We parked the car in the shade of a tree and put in the 2 window guards for her protection. This way we can keep the windows down for good ventilation, but nobody can stick their fingers or hands inside the car.

I got these from the Drs. Foster and Smith catalog a long time ago.

This gull was standing sentry at the pier entrance. He was standing on a sign warning of Danger. I think the only danger might have been if that gull flew over us and pooped on our heads. It’s happened before.

There were people fishing out on the pier and others, like us, just walking and taking photos. It isn’t a long pier. There is swimming allowed on the North side of the pier and a group of kids were there today. The pier juts out into San Simeon Bay.

School field trip? I have no idea but they were having fun.

San Simeon Bay

Sailboat anchored off the pier in San Simeon Bay.

From the pier Bruce looks back toward the little state park.

California Coastal Hwy. 1 will provide you with a beautiful journey.

The coast of California provides many scenic vistas in so many places from border to border. I can’t say we’ve seen them all, but over the past 45 years of travel and touring, we’ve seen a lot of them. We still like making a repeat visit to some of our favorites. I hope everyone reading this blog will someday get to see this area in California. Try it, you’ll like it.

Tomorrow’s post will finish our day trip with Part 2. Have a great day everyone.

Until next time…..so long for now!

No Clever Title Today

2010-09-29T20:08:00.001-07:00

I like clever post titles, but I really don’t have one most of the time and that goes especially for today. I could call this one “Hanging With My Buds” (meaning Bruce and Annie) or “See What I See In Pismo”….nothing much of interest with those, however.

After breakfast we drove up into the hills above the town to get a view of the beach front community. We found a nice little park at the top of one street so we parked and walked to the rocky overview.

Even though there was ocean haze, we could look toward the North and Avila Beach.

Way out in the distance is the Pismo Beach pier.

I spent some time on that continuing photo album project for our youngest Grand (will it ever be completed?). I’m caught up to last Christmas, so heck, I’ve only got 10 more months to go. I think my behind is growing to the chair at the table since it seems I never get up much during the day. Ah, well. This too shall pass and the albums will be finished someday.

I also wrote a couple of notes to some of my older lady friends back in Tumwater. One is going out to Dorothy, who is 94 years old. I’ve written about Dorothy before and she is my favorite older friend. I like to make my own note cards to send to people. When I take a photo that is a nice one, I print it out and then stick it on a blank note card I buy at Michael’s or Walmart. It’s like my own version of a postcard except it has one of my own photos on it and there is a lot more room to write content.

I just stuck on one of my beach photos for Dorothy.

I have a lot of beach photos and photos of the little beach community here in Pismo. So, I’ll stick a few on here with the end of this post.

Boardwalk area down by the pier.

Something we’ve never seen before…a large ship right off shore

Now these are really big dogs.

Thought about getting a “tat” or a piercing for a minute, but decided not to.

Well, there you have it….our fun-filled day of adventure. We are going to pack up a picnic tomorrow and drive somewhere. We haven’t where decided yet. We asked Annie which way she wanted to go and she just didn’t say a word. So, ya’ll come back now.

Until next time…..so long for now!

Hot, Hot, Hot and Costco

2010-09-28T19:22:00.001-07:00

WooHoo….2 new “Followers” today. I appreciate that you give my Blog about RV living your time and attention. So a big THANK YOU today to:

Cathouse Adventures

Cruizin2some

It was cooler here today along the Central Coast of California. A little bit at least. We stay right at the beach here in Pismo Beach in a part of the town that is lower than other places in town. We have some hills to the East and North of us and, actually, some to the South of us too. It gets much hotter up there. By the same token, in January when we are here, it can be cold and foggy at the beach and when we drive a short distance up to the Walmart or to Albertson’s, it will be sunny and bright and about 10 degrees warmer. It goes both ways.

I was interested in a comment left by “Anonymous” who apparently lives nearby. They were commenting on my remarks from yesterday’s post about the intense heat in this area and also down in Los Angeles. They wrote: “Two miles away from you, it was 110, regardless of what the newspaper reported. IT was darned hot. Stay cool by the beach today. Go to Costco early ‘cuz it’s going to be hotter there than where you are.”

I figure this Anonymous probably lived up in one of the hilly areas around here in Pismo or Arroyo Grande, and it was really, really hot where they lived. They probably felt a change in the weather today, but it was still pretty warm up there today.

Could be that these homes felt the heat a whole LOT more than we did by the sea.

After breakfast at McDonald’s we did drive right up to the Costco in San Luis Obispo. We had our usual breakfast of English muffins and coffee. When we got here a couple of weeks ago, the manager here at McD’s remembered us from last winter and welcomed us back. How nice they are here!

This is our favorite booth at this McDonald’s in Pismo Beach. Lots of light to read the paper.

After we ate and read the paper, we were on our way to Costco. In comments left yesterday Rick and Wayne and Roberta wrote that we would not get out of Costco for under $100. Were they correct? We had several items on our list and found everything except Green Tea Bags.

Yep! Correct assumption as we spent $106.00 today.

We would have been under except I remembered while we were there that I needed a bottle of vanilla. That was priced at $6.79 so it put us over the $100 mark. I bought 6 lbs. of fresh salmon, which was the main thing I wanted to get on this trip. I can cut it into serving sized portions and freeze it. So, Rick along with Wayne and Roberta win the prize for guessing correctly. Oops! I don’t have a prize to give you except to say…thanks for reading my blog and leaving fun comments.

We took an early walk on the beach a couple of days ago and we saw a young woman who seemed to be practicing her surfing techniques. Maybe she is a newbie, I couldn’t say for certain. She kept going back out to catch another wave or two. She wasn’t quick to give up.

There goes the Little Surfer Girl.

It was a beautiful day here at the beach!

If you are reading this blog and you live in some of the super-hot weather areas, I truly hope the high temperatures will break for you soon. Until then, try to stay out of the direct sun and drink a lot of water!

Until next time…..so long for now!

Hot Or Not, And Some Scrubbing

2010-09-27T19:25:00.001-07:00

When we took our walk this morning at 6:45 it was so warm we just wore T-shirt and shorts and left the jackets at home. Fortunately, the heat here at the beach didn’t build much higher. Up by the outlet mall and McDonald’s it gets a lot hotter since they are up the hill and further from the water. At least it wasn’t as hot as down in Los Angeles today, though. Did you all see the news?

Today at noon it was the hottest temperature ever recorded in downtown L.A. It was 113F which is amazing. That’s Palm Springs summer type heat and not Los Angeles September heat. We never saw heat like that when we lived down in that area, thank goodness. Oh, it was soooooo much cooler up here today!

Cool ocean breezes for us today.

Oh! That water was cold but there were still people swimming.

Today was Annie’s bath day, except she really has to have a shower since we don’t have a bathtub. She used to try to run and escape when we said it was bath time. Now after we remove her “necklace” as Zoey called it, she goes right into the bathroom and stands there waiting for Bruce to come in.

Maybe like people, she feels refreshed after a scrubbing.

While I worked on my photo album project, I could see the man behind us doing some repairs. It seemed he had some issues with his large awning since he had the thing taken apart for a while. He had tools spread out on a table. It was nice just watching from inside our RV. He seemed to do a good job of the repair work.

I zoomed in on him with my camera to catch the action.

After he finished the awning work he gave his 5er and the awning a really good scrubbing. He scrubbed the outside and the underside of his awning. It looked good when he was done.

We didn’t see anybody else working so hard today.

It was just another laid-back day for us in Pismo Beach. We were expecting some new friends to check-in yesterday and we saw their MH parked a couple of rows from us this afternoon. We met Ted and Claire last January here in Pismo Coast Village at the shareholder’s cocktail party before the annual meeting. We’ve kept in touch the past few months by e-mail. As we walked Annie by their MH today, Claire came out to greet us and we talked for quite a while. We’ll probably see them again while we are both here enjoying some good times!

Tomorrow we’ll be off to San Luis Obispo on a shopping trip to Costco. I need to get a few groceries and some fresh salmon. Sometimes these things just have to be done. That’s it for today.

Until next time…..so long for now!

Things We See Around The Beach And RV Park

2010-09-26T20:28:00.001-07:00

Somehow I missed a new “Follower” in recent weeks. I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome Shabana Shaheen and say THANK YOU for looking in on my blog about our RV lifestyle. I appreciate it.

We had a relaxing afternoon after going up to San Luis Obispo to church this morning. I’ve been working on Zoey’s 4th photo album so I spent a few hours with that. Bruce watched several NFL games all at the same time by bouncing from channel to channel. That gives me a headache. We were glad to see the Seattle Seahawks won their game. Our son-in-law, Darin, has season tickets and was at the game today.

We’ve been out and about through the RV park and down to the beach several times and I always take my camera. We thought this first photo was pretty funny. We have never seen anything like this at any park or campground we’ve ever been to. The one camper didn’t want to look at his next-door neighbor’s utility hook-ups so he had a unique way to block his view.

A little tole painted screen hides the view. Classy! (I guess)

We sometimes see interesting opportunities for photos on our early morning walks. No woodsy paths or tree lined park because we’re in town. So you look for opportunities where you can find them. We don’t usually get a good sunrise here in Pismo. The sun just pops up over the hills to the east of us in a big bright ball. I did see a good shadowy outline of some trees by a house.

Typical trees here in California….the palm tree.

Sometimes if there are clouds we get a better sunset view. Could be better with this one.

We took a long walk on the beach later this afternoon and there were a lot of people swimming. It was a bit breezy but very sunny. As we walked back up to the gate for the RV park, we saw this couple enjoying the beach today…maybe.

They are covered up from head to toe!

Here’s one I know you will all jump on. We saw a house for sale. It is a large home with potential for 2 separate living areas. It has 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, office and den. It is right near the steps that lead to the beach. It has a roof deck with views of the ocean. The price was recently reduced. Go for it!

Price was: $2,590,000.00 and now is bargain priced at only $1,950,000.00.

Our fulltime RV journey doesn’t always take us to exciting places. I know we don’t always see exciting things where we “live,” but this lifestyle is exciting to us just because we enjoy it. We travel around so that we can experience living in different towns. Sometimes we act as tourists and sometimes we just live.

We got this moon view early Friday morning on our beach walk.

We enjoyed our weekend just living our RV life. I hope all of you enjoyed your weekends doing whatever it was you wanted to do. Hope you all have a great week ahead!

Until next time……so long for now!

Port San Luis and Harford Pier

2010-09-25T18:39:00.001-07:00

I installed a new header photo a couple of days ago and then I noticed it was a bit crooked. You could see that the horizon line was askew. I remembered reading on the Bayfield Bunch Blog a while ago that Al said he could spot those crooked horizon shots a mile away and was wishing he could tweak them just a bit to make them straight. So, I attempted several times to get it the way I wanted and then back again to the size I wanted. Finally made it right today (at least more right).

Friday we drove over to the Port San Luis area, which is just a few short miles north of Pismo Beach. We packed up our lunch to take with us. When we got there we pulled our chairs and table out of the car and set out our lunch. It was great to be out in the warm sunshine and be able to watch the boats and the folks on the beach.

Dog friendly, off-leash beach with some playful dogs enjoying the water.

Riggs would enjoy being here in the water with these guys!

There are several dry camping spots right along the road by the beach. You are fairly well crammed in together, but this is beach property in California….you’ll always be crammed in.

These RVer’s are probably fishing people and have boats bobbing in the water out there.

We walked over to Harford Pier after we finished our lunch and got tired of watching the dogs romp in the waves. Along with some fishing boats there were some nice looking sailboats to see. Any type of water view is appealing to me. I love the smell of the ocean and that probably goes back to my childhood when we’d visit my grandparents in Santa Barbara. My Dad would always go down to the pier and harbor and let me tag along. We’d walk around the pier watching the fishing boats go out. The sounds and the smells of those times at the harbor will never leave me.

This sailboat was a dandy!

As we continued our walk toward the end of the pier, we could see many Pelicans out in the water. Looking closer we saw some adults and many young with them. It looked like the adult Pelican would have each of the younger ones take a turn flying up over the water with them. I think it was a fishing lesson. The Mom or Dad (don’t know which) would fly around with the baby for a while and then dive-bomb to the surface of the water as if to see a fish to grab. The baby did the same thing and then the adult would do it again with a different baby.

The adult Pelican just after it landed back in the water and the young swim up close.

Getting ready to fly again.

Lesson was over and they just swam around for a while.

Throughout the whole area you could hear the barking of the sea lions. These must be great fishing grounds in the bay because whenever we come here, the sea lions are all over the place. Under the pier’s main level is a fishing deck and on this day you could see it was covered with many of the sea lions sunning themselves.

Hey, who’s got the sunscreen?

Hey, cutie. How about a date tonight?

We saw several people fishing and then we saw this woman who appeared to catch something. We waited for a minute to see if she reeled anything in, but it appeared to be a false alarm for her.

Two poles for her. Is that one for each hand?

We saw a sea lion in the water surrounded by some gulls. I think they were all fishing together. Every once in a while you could look out and see a sea lion’s head break the surface of the water. There were several of them out in their own fishing grounds. They were barking like they were happy about the situation. We also saw a man launch himself in a kayak. Hope he doesn’t fall in because that water might be cold!

There are a couple of restaurants on the pier and then a couple more out in the parking area. They were all busy with folks enjoying their lunches at the harbor. Cars can drive out on Harford Pier, but there is also a large parking lot before getting to the pier. Take your pick.

Harford Pier at Port San Luis.

Hope you enjoyed your trip to the pier today. It was just a simple day, but most of them are for us when we are around Pismo Beach.

Until next time…..so long for now!

Since You’ve Asked…..

2010-09-24T16:01:00.001-07:00

I appreciate all of the comments and interest shown in my post from yesterday. A few asked direct questions, and since I said I’d answer them I’ll do that here. I can only give information based upon our own personal experience with Pismo Coast Village RV Resort:

A question was asked by Karen and Al wondering if we were guaranteed a site at the resort and if we always get a particular site. ANSWER: You are not guaranteed a site, however, 1/2 of the 400 total sites are withheld for shareholder use only. The general public will only have access to 200 sites no matter what time of year. We do not always get the same site when we come here. We sometimes “request” a site when we make our reservation, but it cannot be guaranteed. If you don’t get the site you ask for when you arrive, we have been assigned one very near the one we requested. In our opinion, there are no bad sites here so we have always been happy.

We walked into town and went to the end of the pier.

Me and My Dog wanted to know if we knew of similar places like P.C.V. with shareholder opportunities. ANSWER: I do not know of any, but then we haven’t been looking for any either. This one is enough for us since we still want to wander around and visit other areas from time to time.

Karen In The Woods left a comment regarding her seeing the photo of the older travel trailer camped at P.C.V. She was glad to see that there is no age discrimination. This is one of the most appealing things to us about staying here. Let’s face it, all RV’s age. Unless you have deep pockets and can replace your rig every 5 to 6 years, it will get older. We find older RV’s here that folks have stored in town and just use it as their “beach house” for weekends and vacations. Works great for that purpose. Personally, I don’t want to patronize the parks that have an age restriction on RV’s or are labeled “Class A resorts only”. Sorry, but my opinion on that is that those park owners and guests may be a bit stuck up. JMHO.

We saw this great looking fellow eyeing the crowd carefully.

Those Freely Living Life folks asked if this was a family-friendly park or a 55+ park. ANSWER: Oops, I forgot to put that info in the original post, sorry! This is definitely a family friendly park…..and a dog friendly park. We even see a lot of family groups that come camping here. There are no defined group sites, but if you want to camp as a family group you can request sites side-by-side, or ones that back-up to each other. We see it all the time. There are kids with parents here on most weekends. During the week-days it is mostly us “old folks” that remain. During the summer, kids and families are here most all the time. I love to see families out camping. The playful noise of the kids doesn’t bother me, but during the daytime they are usually away from the campsite down at the pool, the beach, in town or at the State Park’s dunes riding ATV’s. You are allowed to have 3 dogs per RV at this resort. (There are some breed restrictions) This is another thing I love about this park….looking at all of the dogs. So many of the campers bring dogs with them and you see all kinds. It is always fun to stop somebody and ask a question about their dog. The owners eat it up and enjoy talking about their 4-legged kid. We do not hear a lot of barking noise, either. The dog owners seem to be a respectful lot and make sure their furry kids aren’t a nuisance.

We saw lots of pelicans on the pier doing their “people watching”.

This man just caught a fish….then he tossed it to the pelican waiting nearby….

….what part of “do not feed birds” did he not read?

The big question was asked by Judy, Dennis and Donna, and Pidge about how much a share in Pismo Coast Village will cost? ANSWER: All the shares are re-sales now. There are no new shares being sold and according to the bylaws, there never will be. It is being kept at 1,800 shares total. Some people (like us) own multiple shares. We decided to buy a second share in January of 2008 when we had come up here from a stay in Palm Springs. We declined the opportunity to buy a deeded lot down there and it dawned on us that a second share here at P.C.V. would be the perfect deal for us. We went to the Sales Office on property and found out that the price of one share was $29,295.00. There were 4 shares up for sale at that time, all the same price. In some years past there have a been long waiting list of folks wanting to purchase a share and none were available at that time. We were in luck then in 2008 and made our purchase. The buyer pays the commission which is 10%. Our total cost was: $32,550.00 which included commission and transfer fees. If we decide to sell our shares, the buyer will pay those costs. The share that we inherited was purchased by Bruce’s parents back in the early 1980’s and they paid a little less than $5,000.00 for it. We were told that in all of the 35 years of selling shares, the price only dipped lower than the previous price once. All other times, the shares sold for more. So, we paid full price for our second share….and nothing for the inherited share. We asked at the office when we checked-in this time and the woman there told us she thought the current re-sale price was about $35,000.00 now.

Our thinking in 2008 was that even if we don’t make any profit on the second share, we will almost certainly get our full money back when we sell it. Of course, any money we get on the inherited share is pure profit since we never paid for it. A purchased and deeded lot will most certainly appreciate in value for those types of RV parks (no guarantee, though) but we weren’t interested in owning property anymore. And since we have no fees, dues or assessments as shareholders, it is a good situation for us.

Owning the 2 shares give us the opportunity to stay here FREE for 90 days each calendar year. We can make reservations 6 months in advance of check-in date and have not had a problem getting a reservation ever. We do not come here during the busy summer months so I can’t say how that would go with a reservation. We choose to stay away due to the heavy crowds that are here and everywhere along the coastal area at that time.

I hope this answers any questions on the subject. I gave you as many details as I could possibly think of.

I wish everyone a great weekend! The weather here is fantastic and we are looking forward to a good weekend. Life’s a beach!!

Until next time…..so long for now!

Pismo Coast Village RV Resort–the return visit

2010-09-23T15:30:00.000-07:00

We stay here for free. I told you in yesterday’s post I’d explain that. It isn’t exactly free. Nothing in life is free. We do, however, pay NO daily fees while we stay here….for up to 90 days per year, every year. No fees of any kind.

Pismo Coast Village is a corporation owned by shareholders. We are shareholders. You can buy a share of “stock” which will then permit you to stay here for 45 days per calendar year, at no charge. According to the corporate bylaws you may purchase up to 3 shares of stock and you get 45 days…FREE….with each share. We own 2 shares, so we can stay here for 90 days each year.

All classes of RV’s are permitted to stay at P.C.V. Resort.

This corporation is governed by a Board of Directors elected by shareholders and served by shareholders. The bylaws also limit the number of shares that can be issued. I think the number is 1,800. That way the shares cannot be over-sold. The shares are completely transferable or you can sell them at any time. For instance, our first share was purchased by Bruce’s parents back in the early 1980’s and we inherited it when they passed away. Cost to us: nothing. In 2008, we purchased the second share. We can will these shares to our kids or grandkids and (if they were campers) they could come here for the rest of their lives without paying a single cent for that privilege.

Many large 5th wheels call this place a “temporary home.”

If, or when, you decide to sell a share it will sell for the going rate. We learned that, since 1974 when the park opened, the shares have only decreased in price once. Every year, other than the one, the price of a share has increased over what it was purchased at.

Older RV’s, as long as they are in good condition, are permitted to come here, too.

Even though this operates like a timeshare, there are no dues, no maintenance fees, no charges of ANY kind. We have never paid out one penny other than the purchase price for our one share. How do they do that? The park is not a members only park. Pismo Coast Village is open to the general public. Half of the 400 sites are reserved for shareholders and the other half are available to the general public…and they can also make reservations just like shareholders. So, the money that comes in from the general public camp fees, plus the money taken in from the store, laundry, arcade, RV storage fees, propane sales, restaurant and bike rentals covers operational expenses. Shareholders pay for things they buy here just like the general public campers do.

Plenty of room for the big guys, too.

This resort sits on 26 acres of oceanfront property developed for the use and enjoyment of its shareholders. The resort is owned, not leased, by shareholders and is free and clear of mortgages.

There are some smaller sites just waiting for the little guys.

So, here we are now in 2010. We have 2 shares in the corporation, only one of which we had to pay for. If we come here, great….we stay for free. If we do not come here, that’s fine too. There is no penalty for unused days but you cannot roll them over to the next year. If you don’t use them, you lose them. We went for about 7 years where we didn’t come here at all. No problem with that and no charges, dues or assessments either.

We do not expect to make a “killing” as an investment. Our thoughts are, if we get the money back that we paid for our share in 2008, that’s good enough. So far in checking on the current sales price of a share, we are up about $4,000. Of course, since we didn’t have to pay for the first share that will up the profit margin when we someday sell the 2 shares. We aren’t planning that for anytime in the near future. Even with the current recession, the share price has increased.

The average daily rate for non-prime time days (based on small increase for 2011) will be $44.00. So if we multiply that daily rate times our 90 days, we save $3,960.00 per year, not including the added city tax and lodging tax. That takes a chunk off of our yearly rent budget total.

The most important factor though, is that we really love it here. We enjoy the town of Pismo Beach and we enjoy the resort. We don’t snowbird down in the desert like most folks, we would rather come here for January and February. The weather is still good and the resort isn’t very crowded then either. It is a terrific place to hang out instead of those cold winter months we get up in Washington.

In 2008 we looked into buying a deeded lot down in Palm Springs. We didn’t think we wanted to be a desert snowbird, but wanted to explore an opportunity. We looked at a lovely park there that had lots for sale. The cost of those lots began at $49,900 (in 2008). Then we would have to improve our lot with landscaping, parking pad, etc. Some lots were done with minimal upgrades (a cost of approx. $5,000) and some lots were finished with fountains, storage sheds, extensive brick and patio work, etc. Plus, we would have a $200.00 per month (I think that was the figure) assessment. By paying out that much money, all combined, I know we would feel obligated by that investment to go there every year. Here at Pismo Coast Village we own nothing except that piece of paper as a shareholder…no deeded lot. That is what we decided we preferred. If we choose not to come here for a whole year, we don’t feel any pressure. Our investment here was a lot less than that lot down in Palm Springs, even though it was a beautiful resort park.

I hope this explains everything to your satisfaction. If you have any further questions, just ask! This certainly isn’t the type of park/resort/campground everyone prefers. It does work beautifully for our way of fulltiming. You have to live somewhere, right?

Until next time…..so long for now!

RV PARK REVIEW: Pismo Coast Village in Pismo Beach, CA

2010-09-22T16:18:00.000-07:00

I have to say up front that this is our preference for a place to hang out for more than 2 or 3 weeks. Most of the time we’re ready to move on to a new town and a new RV park after 2 weeks. Here in Pismo Beach, we just enjoy the easy living and the atmosphere of the town and the park.

We came here for the very first time over Thanksgiving weekend in 1994. It was great. We came a few more times after that and then we had a long dry spell from 1997 until 2006 when we finally returned again. On this trip we will be staying at Pismo Coast Village RV Resort for 49 days. We also have a return reservation for January 4, 2011 and will stay for almost 2 months at that time.

The resort’s saying is: Forever Summer

There is a wide entry road with a check-in station before entering the park. When we arrived it was a quick process to get registered. Our reservation paperwork was all filled out and only required a signature before we were on our way to site #143. A very friendly lady behind the counter wished us a “happy stay” as we left.

PCV’s beautifully landscaped entry road and office.

There are 400 FHU sites here at Pismo Coast Village. 398 of the sites are back-ins. There are 2 sites on the north side of the park that are long pull-thrus on a corner. The interior roads are all paved and in great condition. They are wide enough to allow for backing in the longest rigs.

Wide two-lane roads with angled sites for easy back-ups.

We got ourselves backed into our assigned site with no difficulty. Each site has it’s own concrete fire ring and a large picnic table. The sites are gravel with grassy greenbelts behind each site dividing the rows. All 400 sites have full hook-ups and many are 50 amp. Most of the sites will accommodate big rigs. Each site has free cable TV and free WiFi that works great, although our AT&T works fine here as well.

Our site just after we had arrived and hooked-up.

This in an ocean front resort within short walking distance of Pismo Beach and the pier area. You have direct access to the state beach property, although there is no direct ocean view. The dunes break up the view of the ocean, but they also help stop the wind, too.

Gate to the beach and a fish cleaning station for guests to use.

The dunes that separate the resort from the ocean and beach.

RV sites on the far north end face out to Pismo Creek.

Pismo Coast Village has a lot to offer the guests. There is a restaurant on the property that serves breakfast-lunch-dinner meals (days vary). There is a very well-stocked General Store. You will find beach clothing, hats, toys, books, magazines, RV supplies, groceries, snacks, and much more. There is also an arcade for kids (and grown-ups too). There is a large meeting room available for group events. A pool and spa is near the General Store and arcade. We checked it out and it was sparkly clean…and heated!

Interior view of the restaurant.

There is a very large laundry facility near the pool. Plenty of room for many folks to do their laundry at the same time. It, too, was neat and clean.

Although we don’t use the park’s restrooms or showers, I did inspect one of the ladies rooms. There are actually 5 restroom buildings, counting the one by the pool. The one I inspected couldn’t have been any cleaner.

One of five restroom buildings, this is one for the ladies.

There are at least 3 play areas for kids and an area of horseshoe pits and a basketball court as well. You can also rent bikes on the property if you didn’t bring your own.

One of the park’s play areas.

A corner site near our motorhome.

You can get propane tanks refilled in the garage/service area of the park. Directly across the street from the resort is a full service RV repair facility that makes “house calls” if you need help with something.

This park is near the State Beach with ORV availability, so during the summer months this placed is packed every day. We choose not to come here during June, July and August and leave those months to the summer vacationers. Even in the remaining “good weather” months the weekends will find most sites taken. During the weekdays you can find many spaces go unused. We have stayed here on previous trips during: January, February, April, May, September, October and November.

Our rating (based upon 5 star system) = *****

Dates of current stay: Sept. 14 until Nov. 1

Daily rate: $40.00 to $49.00 in “prime time” (summer or holidays)

They also run a mid-week special during non-prime time dates – pay for 3 nights, get a 4th free

Our rate for the entire stay is FREE. How can we do this, you may ask. That’s because we are Pismo Coast Shareholders. I will explain all of that in a post for tomorrow.

I hope you enjoyed your tour of the Pismo Coast Village RV Resort. It is one of the least expensive private, beach-front RV parks we have found in California….and yet, one of the greatest!

Until next time…..so long for now!

Busy At The Beach

2010-09-21T16:08:00.001-07:00

(Pismo Beach, CA) – This is a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. I think all of the RVer’s (full-timers or part-timers) probably feel the same way. Somebody has to do it is right! I mean we have to be out here scouting things out around the country just to make sure everything is going well.

This morning it was our job to check out the beach on our early walk. We had to make sure it was still a good place to be! Again…somebody has to do it. Let me reassure you that things checked out A-OK.

We walked out of the park and up Dolliver Street, otherwise know as the Pacific Coast Hwy. (PCH, Hwy. 1) At 6:45 in the morning we see a few morning joggers, but mainly we see the trash truck emptying the dumpsters by the restaurants. We see it all the time as it is part of that early morning routine for them. We walked up to the Best Western, about a 30 minute walk, and then turned around to walk back home. We decided this time to go up one of the side streets where there is a beach access and walk home on the sand.

Bruce takes the lead so I can get his pic.

Looking back at the stairs we just came down.

The beach was wonderful during this early morning hour. The fog had mostly burned off but was lurking off shore. After we came down the stairs, I looked North toward Avila Beach to get a photo op. Then we turned South to walk home.

I will never tire of this view!

We walked under the city pier in Pismo and the water was so blue in the early morning light. The waves weren’t large, but I’m always amazed by the soft roar of the ocean as it “waves” to the beach. It’s nice to stop for a minute or two and just listen.

The beach was getting too crowded by now! The morning “strollers” were out.

After breakfast, Bruce had some chores to attend to. He washed the front and one side of the motorhome. He figures he’ll wash the back and the other side tomorrow. No need to rush into too much work!

Hey, I think you missed a spot up there.

The next job was to climb on top of the motorhome. He needed to remove the Maxx Air vent cover to clean underneath it. After a while there gets to be too much dust and dirt up there.

I’m not going up there! Good thing I don’t solo RV.

Housework even on the roof.

It was just a busy day at the beach for us. I did laundry and worked on the photo album for Zoey. We haven’t been doing much here so far in our first week’s stay. Right now, that suits us just fine. I hope your day was a good one too.

Until next time…..so long for now!

My Love Letter

2010-09-20T15:43:00.001-07:00

Dear Bloggers and Readers:

Mom and Dad have gone out to the grocery store so I wanted to try and get a blog post published all by myself. It is harder than I thought it would be. Mom makes it seem easy. I’m glad there is a spellcheck button.

I really appreciate all of the suggestions everyone left in their comments yesterday about my….um, delicate situation. Mom and Dad talked over the whole deal and came up with a couple of things to try for right now. Plus, Mom bought some of that Nature’s Miracle stuff. She forgot all about that stuff and was glad about the reminder of it. We used to have a bottle of that when I was a puppy.

I take a lot of medications already, as some of you may know because Mom is always blabbing all over the Blogosphere about it. Since I am not having an emergency situation, they aren’t going to take me to a local vet right now. He’ll want to do a lot of blood tests and things (since I have diagnosed heart disease and kidney problems) because I’d be a new patient, and I have to see Dr. Mitchell back in Olympia in November anyway. I can get a new medication then. As for possible kidney stones and surgery, unless the surgery would become an emergency, it’s best I don’t do that. Because of my heart condition, I could be getting to that Rainbow Bridge if I go under anesthesia. I’m not ready for that trip yet.

One of the medications I have to take is a diuretic, which hadn’t been causing problems. I guess it is now since I’m making wee-wee in my bed sometimes. Mom and Dad have decided to only give me the Lasix in the mornings now and not in the afternoon. They did that yesterday, and boy, did I have a good night’s sleep!

I used to walk on the beach a lot like these dog friends.

I haven’t actually piddled all over the motorhome carpets which is a good thing. My problems have mainly been confined to my 2 dog beds and my blankie. Mom has thoroughly washed those and they don’t smell yucky anymore. She got some absorbent pads and put those under the bedding too, to catch any “uh-oh’s”. She has Nature’s Miracle now in case I do make wee-wee on the floor.

I’m still having a great time here at Pismo Beach even though I don’t get out around the town as much as I used to. It’s all good though because I can still look out the low windows by the table and bark at dog friends walking by. Then I duck behind the table and they look but can’t see me! HeHe.

At least I didn’t have to have a shower outside like this St. Bernard!

I don’t have much of an appetite most days. Sometimes my food sits in my bowl for 10 hours before I even take one bite. Mom tries all sorts of stuff to get me to eat. She even warmed my canned food in the microwave so it wouldn’t be icy cold. She’s so good to me. I still don’t always eat it though. I do scarf up my Cheerios when they give me a potty treat after a walk. Those are really keeping me going.

I guess that is all for today. I just wanted to say how much I love all of you for being so kind and sending ideas and suggestion for helping me. You guys are the best! I’ll keep you posted on how things go.

Love,

Annie

Walk to McD’s and Update On Annie

2010-09-19T16:02:00.000-07:00

We woke up to a very foggy morning. The folks on the L.A. news channel said there was early morning fog all along the coast. Yeah, we could see that just by looking out our window.

The stairs from the RV park to the beach.

Looking south from the beach stairs.

We drove up to San Luis Obispo to go to church. We checked the website and it said they had a service at 10:00 and 11:00. We decided to go to the one at 10:00. We got up there and they had listed on their sign by the parking lot: Services at 8:50 and 11:00. OK, so we didn’t feel like waiting around for an hour and 15 minutes so we drove back home. Better luck next Sunday.

By the time we got back home the fog had cleared and the sun was shining. It’s Sunday and a lot of the weekenders are heading out of the park. The others will probably be leaving tomorrow morning. We decided to take a walk over to McDonald’s and get an ice cream. Last winter when we were here I received a comment from somebody who knows the area and they put us on to a short-cut. (thanks) We usually went the longer route so we thought we’d give this short-cut a try.

The short-cut means walking across the railroad tracks.

No sign of a train coming either direction today.

Looking back toward the tracks and the narrow path after we got to the far side.

When we got to McDonald’s we found out their ice cream machine wasn’t working. Dang it! So we went for the next best choice and got a Yogurt Parfait. Then we walked back home to see our little friend, Annie.

Among her other issues, seems Annie has a bit of an incontinence problem now. Great. Now we have to have the smell of dog pee in the motorhome. Just what we need. It isn’t a big problem yet, just some leakage while she sleeps in her various dog beds, but I fear it could become a larger issue. Especially since she sleeps a lot these days. What to do about this? Not sure. I’ve washed and washed again her dog bed covers and her “blankie” that she sleeps with. We stopped at Petco in San Luis this morning and bought her a new daytime bed with a vinyl bottom to keep anything from seeping down into the carpet. I saw they have Doggie Depends at the store, but is she ready for that yet? If we have to get the Depends I won’t have her wear them outdoors…..all the other dogs will laugh at her. By the way, don’t let on to Annie I told you all about this problem. She could get embarrassed about it and I wouldn’t want to do that to her.

Annie sleeps a lot these days. ZZzzzzzzzz.

Well, that’s all the excitement going on around here. Just a lack of ice cream, too much morning fog, and a bunch of dog pee. Wheee! Isn’t life exciting?

Until next time……so long for now!

Farmer’s Market in S.L.O. and Dinner

2010-09-18T19:06:00.001-07:00

Welcome Aboard to new “Follower” boomerpie. I’m happy to have you along for the ride and THANK YOU for signing on. I appreciate your interest.

Thursday evenings up in San Luis Obispo, which is about 10 miles north of Pismo Beach, there is a large Farmer’s Market. The city blocks off Higuera Street to motor traffic and local farmer’s drive in and set up stalls with their produce. Many local restaurants set up stalls or kitchens and prepare meals for sale. There are also stands with desserts, honey, flowers and so much more.

We decided to go this past Thursday mainly just to eat dinner from a market stand we really love. It is a huge outdoor kitchen set up right on the street by the F. McLintocks restaurant and they feature great BBQ.

They also have a great full-service restaurant in Pismo Beach.

San Luis Obispo is the home to the California Polytechnic State University. This time of year, since the weather is warm and the sun sets later, the place was jam packed with the university students. When we were here last January, the place was much less crowded. Of course, the weather was much cooler. Everyone was out enjoying the warm evening at the market.

This was the kind of crowd we faced this time at the market.

The Farmer’s Market is open from 6:00 to 9:00 pm. We parked in one of the public parking garages (75 cents) and walked over to Higuera Street. It was almost 6:00 so we decided we better get on down to the McLintocks BBQ restaurant. Holy Moley, the line was half way down the block already.

We got into the line along with everyone else. Proof that the food is great here.

To make the wait fun, the cooks sing and play along with the crowd. It takes your mind off the wait. In actuality we only waited 15 minutes for our turn to order. They bring in a huge BBQ grill on a wheeled cart and pretty much establish a whole outdoor kitchen. They sell tri-tip kabobs, beef ribs, pork munchies, sandwiches, corn on the cob, artichokes and a pile of other side dishes. Bruce and I ordered the tri-tip kabob and a pork munchie each.

A lot of good looking stuff is grilling up on that BBQ.

We got our two items each and after payment, we took our meal over to the curb and sat down to enjoy it. There were a very few tables around the corner from there, but the tables were all taken. We sat on the curb happily and did some people watching while we ate.

We poked along after eating and checked out some of the farmer’s stalls. Didn’t buy anything, just looked. This is a nice place to visit.

This farmer is setting up his stall.

Hummus and pita chips? Nah, we wanted BBQ!

It was a nice evening, but it was time to get back to Annie in Pismo Beach. We can come back here every Thursday night if we want to. Maybe we will.

Until next time…..so long for now!

Maybe A Temporary Solution

2010-09-17T15:10:00.001-07:00

More new “Followers” to thank today. Welcome aboard and a big THANK YOU to Renee and Lonnie. I appreciate the interest you are showing in my little blog about our fulltime lifestyle. I hope you like it.

I should have known. Yesterday’s blog topic was one of those hot-button issues that cannot be resolved easily. I should have just let it go by without mentioning the problem. I wasn’t thinking that way at the time, and I was just so shocked and frustrated by the health insurance situation, I put my thoughts into the blog. I wasn’t trying to open a political discussion really, as that is not my intention with this blog at all. And, more importantly, I was not trying to elicit pity for our situation. What’s usually on my mind is what comes out in the blog.

Bruce and I made the conscious decision 24 years ago to become “unemployed by choice” and that meant purchasing an Individual Health Insurance policy. That was our choice. Now we live by that choice and the consequences it can bring. We accept that.

Back in 1994 when we moved to the state of Washington from California, we checked around for an insurance company that offered individual policies. We had a choice of 12 companies at that time and we selected the one that gave us the best policy for the money. Fast forward about 6 years from then and we had incurred a couple of hefty premium hikes. We began checking out those options with the other companies to find that by then there were only 2 companies left that would sell us an individual policy. The company we already had was one, and the other choice had lousy policies to offer us. So, we had to stick with what we had. We were able to adjust our deductible to a higher amount and it saved us some money.

About three years ago we had another hefty premium hike and we, once again, started looking at the possibility of another option. That was when we applied to Group Health, a cooperative type of insurance company like Kaiser. They rejected us because of pre-existing conditions. Yesterday a comment was left about this issue. The comment read that the new health reform legislation doesn’t go fully into effect until 2014 and at that time the pre-existing conditions problem will go away. TRUE, and we know this. Problem is….this is 2010 and the problem exists NOW.

We were also told via a comment that we were getting a “bait and switch” deal. I don’t think so and here’s why. The policy we have was discontinued to new members in the mid-90’s. We have been allowed to keep the policy through a “grandfather clause”. So, no new members have been added to that plan and no more money from new policy holders fund that policy. The new plan we were being offered is a far reaching policy that includes folks from all age groups, it is not just all us old folks. The risk to the company, therefore, is lower than the risk from our current policy.

Today we have taken the option offered for the new policy. The coverage is quite similar and we raised our deductible to $7,500 per year. The only issue that isn’t as good as the old policy is the prescription coverage which we will work with. Our monthly premium with the new policy will be $860.00 when the coverage begins on October 1st. Even with a $500.00 deductible for non-generic prescriptions we will save a good bit of money. Right now Bruce only has one drug that is non-generic so that is good.

I’m sure many fulltimers out there have a cheaper health insurance policy. We are not willing to change our domicile in order to open the door to more options. Again, this is our choice. We wish to stay residents of Washington state. Also, you can call it fear or whatever else you like, but I am not interested in going over to a “Joe Schmo” insurance company that is small. If we leave the company we’ve been dealing with since 1994 and go to another and are not satisfied, we cannot go back again. The door will be closed due to those pre-existing conditions. At least until 2014 and Bruce will be on Medicare by then.

In the meantime this could be a temporary solution while we do research to see if there are any other companies that would suit our needs. It buys us time since we will still be covered fully and not have to pay over $1,000 per month for coverage.

Also in a comment about raising our deductible: We could not raise the deductible on our old policy any more because everything in that policy was “frozen” due to the fact that it was no longer offered for sale. In reality, we know they are hoping all of us in that policy group would just give up and go away so they can just close it out completely. Well, it worked for us this time! Mission accomplished for them.

This will end any further discussion (on my part) about our health care situation. I don’t want to get into any back and forth political discussions about the health care reform bill or anything else. I'm uncomfortable with that as it is not the focus of my blog, and as I wrote at the top….I should have known better.

I just wanted to clarify final details and let you know of our Temporary Solution. Thanks for listening.

Until next time…..so long for now!

Camp Fees (a bit more) and Health Insurance…GRRRRRRR

2010-09-16T15:29:00.000-07:00

I saw more new “Followers” this morning and I sure do appreciate you tagging along with me on this incredible journey. So, Welcome aboard to Judy and John and also to Tom. THANK YOU to everyone for giving my blog the opportunity to inform or entertain you.

I received several comments regarding yesterday’s post about camping fees here in California where we are at the moment. First of all, those “whopper parks” I mentioned with fees as high as $400 are not the norm. They are real, they exist…..but they do not reflect the majority of parks in California. I guess I didn’t make that very clear, sorry.

I did post some information on places where the daily rate is as low as $27 for FHU. OK now…this was also meant to reflect the daily rate and not a monthly rate. I think we know that if you can spend a month in one park you will usually qualify for the cheaper monthly rate. The original question posted by Judy led me to think she was questioning the daily rate fees. Most folks that are RVing on a vacation don’t always spend a month in one spot and so that daily rate may be more of what they will be facing. Also…California has a lot of trendy or touristy locations (near vacation hot spots) and those rates are hefty. If you stay in the more rural, or small town areas in California, you can find lower rates.

I didn’t mention the super-low daily rates at the membership parks because everyone doesn’t belong to a campground membership program. That is a whole different kettle of fish and I’ve posted, in great detail, information on that already. I hope this clarifies any lingering questions or debate on California dreamin’.

A view looking toward the town of Pismo Beach.

What a surprise we had this morning when Bruce did some online checking on our bank account! Not a good surprise either. He always looks to see when a planned automatic payment comes out of the account to make sure that it did, in fact, get taken and there hasn’t been a bank error that would leave us with a late payment. Today was his day to check to see if our auto-pay for our health insurance premium was taken. It was! That’s the good news. The bad new is that he saw a monthly premium increase of $154.00. That would make our total monthly premium for us being $1,093.00. That sort of put me into a bad mood right away.

And I thought the great health-care debate and new legislation passed was supposed to “help me” not screw me over with higher premiums. See what I know! Thanks for making things better for me now!

He is looking pretty happy. Guess he doesn’t worry about health care.

After breakfast Bruce did get on the phone to our insurance company to see what we could do to help ourselves. We already have a $5,000 deductible, but do have some prescription coverage which is helpful. We can no longer raise our deductible he was told. The rate increase was due to a federal mandate to cover the new things that the law made necessary….covering adult children in your home until the age of 26, different and better maternity coverage, etc. All stuff that no longer applies to our situation, but it is all lumped into the whole plan.

What Bruce did find out was that we were eligible for a different policy within the same company (so pre-existing conditions don’t matter) and we are looking into that today. If the new policy looks to be a good deal for us, we may make the switch and it could save us about $175.00 per month over the increased rate on our current policy. Sounds too good to be true (and it probably is).

Before I get comments on this: we have over the years applied to other insurance companies and groups. In Washington we have a plan called Group Health, which is like Kaiser in a lot of places. We applied. REJECTED. Those pre-existing conditions knock us out of the ballgame every time. Once you’ve had a heart attack and bypass surgery that puts a black mark against you. Bruce will be eligible for Medicare and a health supplement in a couple of years. That may help.

Looking at the ocean gives me a more peaceful, hopeful attitude. I’m going to look a lot today!

I hope everyone has been having a good day. Summer is almost over and fall is approaching. You snowbirds out there are probably looking closely at the calendar for your own “blast off” day. Hope it comes for you soon!

Until next time…..so long for now!

Camping Costs In California and Happy Birthday

2010-09-15T16:14:00.001-07:00

Welcome Aboard! I just noticed 2 new “Followers” and I would like to extend a big THANK YOU to Dave and Remi. I appreciate the interest you are showing in my RV lifestyle blog. I hope you enjoy it.

Recently I wrote an RV park review for a California park and stated that the cost for camping there was $38 to $42. In a comment left by Judy from Travels With Emma, she asked if all the parks in California were that expensive. So, in this post I thought I’d give a very few examples of the differing costs depending on where you go and what you are looking for. There are literally thousands and thousands of parks and campgrounds here in California and I’m only give you a few examples. I’m not giving park names….just towns and costs. You can do the leg work by looking in the T.L. Directory or similar places for the RV park suitable for your needs.

It also happens to be Annie’s 13th birthday today. What a trooper. 13 months ago we weren’t sure if she’d still be here with us. She is!

A birthday walk on the beach in Pismo.

Let’s start with a few of the pricey ones just for fun. I think most everyone knows that when you stay in, or near, a large metropolitan area you’ll pay higher nightly rates. San Francisco is certainly no exception. In the past, we have stayed just south of S.F. in the town of Pacifica. You can have a site on the bluffs with an ocean view or in an area with no view. Price range: $50 to $82 per night. Sad to admit, but we’d still stay here the next time we want to visit San Francisco. We’ll just have to save for a while, I guess. North of the city, along Hwy. 101, is another option at $55 per night.

Annie checks out the birds wishing she could chase them.

If you want to stay down in Anaheim, near Disneyland, you’ll pay a hefty price there, too. In the last 4 years we’ve had reason to be in Anaheim 3 different times and stayed at a different RV park each time. The price ranges for all of those parks: $45 to $75 per night.

If you want to stay in Long Beach down by the Queen Mary and the shore you can stay for $50 to $62 per night. Down in Huntington Beach there is a choice of a private park with rates from $55 to $80 per night.

There are some “resort parks” in the Palm Springs area that can run up to $95 per night, and others that are as low as $35 per night and they are still “resorts” in every way! It just depends on what you are looking for.

A couple of the real “whopper parks” in my opinion, can be found in Newport Beach and in the San Diego (Mission Bay) area. In Newport Beach you can stay at one park where the nightly rate can run from $55 to $280. In San Diego’s Mission Bay area there is a park with rates from $35 to $400 per night….YES….you are reading that correctly.

Annie knows she needs to take time to “smell the flowers” because time can be fleeting.

OK, we’ve had fun looking at those dream RV parks so let’s get down to reality. There are still plenty of affordable RV parks and campgrounds, not to mention the California State Parks, to choose from. Let’s look at a few areas for that type of budget.

Also in the greater San Diego area (leaving the Mission Bay area), I saw a public country park with a rate as low as $19 with no hook-ups. Other private parks, a bit out of the city, have rates as low as $35 with FHU sites. There are also a few more county parks with hook-ups starting at $26 per night.

Let’s get away from the big cities and see what there is to offer the camper in California. The Golden State has a lot of National Forest parks, no hook-ups for as low as $10 per night. It seems that the California State Parks and Beaches with camp sites have had some rate hikes over the past couple of years, and some rates are up to $35 per night. Some of the parks have hook-ups while others do not. Some of the state parks up along the Redwood Coast range from $15 to $20 with no hook-ups.

Here are 3 different areas in California for comparing:

* Near Mammoth Lakes and Bishop I saw an ad for a private park with rate of $20 per night with hook-ups.

* In Bakersfield you can get FHU sites at a number of parks as low as $27.

* In Crescent City you can get FHU sites also beginning at $17.

Again, this is just a smattering of areas in California and a small sampling of RV park or campground options. I know there are probably many others with low rates and FHU’s but I could not possibly include them all in a blog post. In the past couple of years during our two cross country travels we found few (if any) private RV parks with FHU’s for less than $25 per night.

An old, sick “birthday girl” gets a helping hand making it back to the motorhome.

Hopefully, this will give you all just a bit of information on what it may cost for campsite fees if you are planning a trip to California. The smaller your rig, the more options you will have at the public campgrounds, but that is the same in any state. Check it out online or in the large campground directories for places you like and will meet your budget!

Until next time…..so long for now!

Isleton to Pismo Beach

2010-09-14T19:04:00.001-07:00

We left Isleton this morning before 8:00 and made our way east on CA 12 to get to I-5 in Lodi. We stopped for diesel and propane at the Flying J and then headed south on the interstate. We used to go all the way down to Pismo Beach by staying over in the Bay Area and going through near Oakland and San Jose but there is just so much traffic there. Plus, when you get on Hwy. 101 south of the Oakland area there are precious few places to pull off the highway and park a large rig for a lunch break or potty walk for Annie.

Interstate 5 going south – hazy sunshine by the mountains.

This time of year the hills are all a soft brown color.

So we take I-5 now and avoid the Bay Area. Then we go back over to Hwy. 101 via CA 41 at Kettleman City. This route takes us directly over to Hwy. 101 at Paso Robles. From there it is a straight shot down to Pismo Beach.

CA 41 was a good road and the traffic was light.

Soon enough we were on 101….the last leg of this trip. Just south of the turn off to Avila Beach, the road made a turn and we got a full view of the Pacific Ocean. WooHoo, we were almost there. Just another couple of miles and there was the turn off we needed.

We pulled in to our RV park for the next 49 days….Pismo Coast Village RV Resort. There is a lot to say and show here at our “home” for a while, and I’ll do that over the next 49 days. Our check-in was swift and we were assigned to site #143. We had requested #145 but apparently there is somebody already there and they aren’t planning to leave for a while. That’s OK. Our site is still great. I will also do a RV Park Review in a few days.

Bruce got the window screens on and the satellite dish up and running.

We got the tire covers on, walked Annie, hooked up the computer and that was that!

It feels good to be here and settled in for a while. I’ve got a lot more scrapbook pages to get to for Zoey’s next 2 albums, blogs to write, places to see, things to do, and a lot of rest to catch up on. It will all start tomorrow morning when we head off to our second favorite McDonald’s for English Muffins and coffee! Life is good.

Until next time…..so long for now!

RV PARK REVIEW: Lighthouse Resort and Marina in Isleton, California

2010-09-13T13:10:00.001-07:00

This is another of our ROD member parks (Resorts of Distinction) and we chose to try this park to see if we’d want to return in December. It is located in the Sacramento Delta Region between San Francisco and Lodi. Lodi is just north of Stockton.

The Lighthouse Resort and Marina is located just 3 miles off of CA Hwy. 12. You follow the levee road until you get to the park on the right. The address is 151 Brannan Island Road, Isleton.

The road follows the Mokolumne River on the Delta Loop.

Entry road and guardhouse for check-in.

We were met at the gate by a very friendly woman who had our reservation in her computer and after the usual check-in procedures we were allowed to drive in and select our own site. There were two 50 amp. sites left and several 30 amp. sites. We drove to the 50 amp. area and selected one of those.

The full hook-up sites here are all on grass and are still fairly close together. They are level back-in sites and we were into our selected site easily. While Bruce got things organized, I drove back up to the guardhouse to report our site number to the woman there.

Long sites for big rigs, but still a bit close together.

When I got to the guardhouse the woman was no longer there and a man was present. I gave him our site number and he said, “Did she tell you there was a $4.00 per night charge for the 50 amp sites?” I told him that she had forgotten to mention that but it was no problem. He must have apologized about 6 times for the woman forgetting to tell us that. She was a lunch time fill-in and did not normally do the guardhouse job. Then he proceeded to tell us that they only get $13.00 per night from ROD so they have to charge the electric fee. I assured him that it was no problem and that it was common practice for all the ROD parks to impose a little surcharge. Still, he must have apologized for the whole deal about 4 more times. What a difference in approach from the guy up in Klamath! This guy couldn’t have been nicer or more friendly.

I drove back to the motorhome to help with the set-up and to get things inside organized for our 2-night stay. After doing that, I took the camera for a walk to take a few photos. There is a mini-golf game, horseshoe pits, basketball court and a pool here. There was a sign posted by the pool announcing that they will be building a brand new pool area soon. (When? I don’t know….but soon)

Current pool which was small but sparkly clean.

Some of the sites are fully into the shade. When we arrived there were some tents in that area, which must be nice for them since they are not air conditioned like RV’s. You can still park RV’s in this area, but satellite dishes may be a problem here. The next morning when I took the photo of this area, the tenters were all gone.

RV sites across the street from our space.

I checked out the ladies restroom and found it to be very clean. They even had a small stool in front of one of the sinks for kids to use. I thought that was a nice touch.

Across the street from the entrance to the RV Resort is the Lighthouse Marina and Restaurant. It looked very nice and it has live entertainment on weekends. Bruce checked out the menu and they had steak dinners for under $20.00, and some seafood choices, plus a variety of sandwiches and hamburgers. They allow well behaved dogs to join you at your table if you sit in the outdoor seating area.

Restaurant’s outdoor seating area with views of the river and marina.

One of our neighbors left Monday morning so we now have a bit more room, that is until a new neighbor checks in. Right now the park is only about 25% filled. Summer vacations are over for the family guests and it’s just us “old folks” here now.

Overall the park is great. The interior roads are either paved or dirt/gravel and are in good condition. The areas we checked out were clean and appeared to be well maintained. If you have a boat you can launch it across the street by the marina and leave your boat trailer parked here in the resort.

The resort is open year-round for members or affiliate members only. No general public sites are available. In additional to ROD, they accept Coast to Coast and RPI (Resort Parks International). We paid nothing for our site except the $4.00 per day electric surcharge. We stayed here on September 12 and 13th.

They have 120 full hook-up sites and 56 partial hook-up sites. There is a laundry on the grounds, but I did not see it for inspection. There is a small store which was fairly well stocked with the usual supplies of groceries and RV needs.

Our AT&T was extremely sluggish here. We asked about the WiFi, which is not the park’s system, but it was $9.95 PER DAY. No thanks. After I write this we’re going up to the McDonald’s in Rio Vista to get online.

We were impressed enough to be planning a return visit here in December when we make our snowbird trip down to Pismo Beach for January and February. That’s the plan today….we always reserve the right to change our minds, as we often do.

Our rating, based upon 5 star system: ***

Sunrise over the river this morning.

Until next time…..so long for now!

Redwoods to Vineyards

2010-09-12T20:05:00.001-07:00

I would like to welcome a new “Follower” to my blog. THANK YOU to Stephanie Lane for signing on to be part of my group. I appreciate your interest very much. Let me know what your thoughts are.

We left Klamath early on Saturday morning on our final trip through those forests of towering Redwood trees. That is until December when we come through this way again.

Parts of Hwy. 101 have been rerouted and a larger and faster highway was built. This may sound like a bad thing, but part of the reason was to save those trees. The pollution of the cars and trucks was doing damage to the health of the Redwoods. Over the past 40 years or so changes were made that keep the traffic further away from the National and State parks. You can still take the Avenue of the Giants or other roads that will take you right through those parks, but mainly you bypass most of it….except for the area at the Richardson Grove State Park (south of Garberville). Here, you still follow the old road that has been there for ages. The road is narrow and only 2 lanes wide.

More of the giant Redwoods just before Richardson Grove State Park.

This is right smack in the middle of Richardson Grove State Park on Hwy. 101.

After leaving Redwood country we continued to our destination for the night. We had planned to stay in the parking lot at the Coyote Valley Casino in Redwood Valley (north of Ukiah). We stayed there one other time about 2 years ago and it was fine and dandy. We found the place in our Casino Camping book. Some casinos have genuine RV parks with full hook-ups and some others allow self-contained RV’s to stay overnight in their lot, and yet many have no over-night parking at all.

Here we are parked and ready for the night.

The cost was FREE and all we had to do was go in and let the folks at the casino’s security desk know we were out there. We did not go in to gamble, and we did not go in to eat a meal. Bruce and I are not big on the whole gambling thing. We usually stay at a casino just for the free parking opportunity. Sometimes we will go in and eat a meal at the buffet, but sometimes we don’t. Last night we enjoyed a quiet night’s sleep!

Early this morning we were on our way south again. Bruce found a new route for us to take when he checked out the map. Yeah, we use paper maps. Just a couple of miles south of where we got back on the highway, was the turn off toward Clear Lake on Hwy. 20-East. We’d never seen Clear Lake, so we thought, why not? We would follow Hwy. 20 for 42 miles until we got to Hwy. 53-South.

We found a Rest Area next to the lake, and we pulled in to fix breakfast.

After eating we drove on further to reach Hwy. 53. The landscape here was typical California stuff…rolling hills dotted with trees. My Dad always called them “scrub oaks” but I don’t know if that is accurate or not.

This time of year the hills are covered with dry, brown grass.

Hwy. 53 took us then to connect with Hwy. 29 heading toward Calistoga. This stretch of highway soon climbed up into the mountains where it became a winding road with tight curves. As we began the descent on the other side, it was a bit of white knuckle time for me. Bruce was doing fine with the 7% grade for 6 miles. He managed to drive the big rig over the mountain and down the other side perfectly. Well….I’m here writing this post so there is the proof of that!

This photo doesn’t really do justice to the curves that followed.

This part of the road was a cinch. Most curves had 15 mph signs posted.

The road soon opened up to the valley and vineyards below.

The route we took today was slow….so slow, but also worth it for the beautiful scenery we found. It isn’t a route we’d take often, especially NOT in the winter months since that mountain road is so winding. Today it was fun.

We got to the town of Calistoga, which is in the heart of California’s wine country. Since it was a nice sunny weekend day, the town was packed with folks out for the day. Good thing we were just passing through. It would have been impossible to find someplace to park the motorhome on these streets.

Busy town, but it looked like a great one to explore someday.

The world famous Napa Valley in California.

We ended our day in the small town of Isleton, which is in the Sacramento Delta Region. We will be here for 2 nights. We have no plans for this area and we just want to sit and do nothing! The weather was fantastic when we arrived. It was about 83 degrees. YeeHaw!

Until next time…..so long for now!

RV PARK REVIEW: Klamath River RV in Klamath, California

2010-09-11T16:28:00.000-07:00

We’d never stayed in this little town of Klamath before. Since we have a membership park in the area we decided to make a 2-night stop this time. The town of Klamath isn’t much really….a gas ‘n sip, casino, and a few miscellaneous stores. The tourist trap “Trees of Mystery” are just north of the small town. We’ve made the stop there twice over the past 40 years and that is enough.

Our RV park of choice this time was the Klamath River RV Park which is located just south of the town and off of Hwy. 101 at exit #768. We made reservations through our Coast to Coast program. It is also open to the public and has a listing in the Trailer Life book as a Good Sam park.

To enter the park a very sharp right turn is required. It was easy enough for our 40 footer we just had to swing real wide to make the turn. This park is located directly on the banks of the Klamath River and has nice views.

This is the entry road to the RV park after the turn.

We stopped at the office and were greeted by a man (presumably the owner or manager) who was less than friendly. In fact, he was almost rude and we were not impressed at all. I said, “this park sure is beautiful.” Nothing. No answer, no thank you. Nothing. He did have our reservation in his system so that was not an issue. We paid $10.00 per night with our Coast to Coast booking. As usual with parks these days, there was a $3.00 per day surcharge for electric. There was a prominent sign on the counter that read, “we accept cash, checks and MC or VISA debit cards.” Since we try to conserve our cash reserves when we travel, Bruce pulled out our debit card and put it on the counter. He tersely says, “No. No way. Not for only $6.00.” Bruce quietly took back the debit card and forked over the $6.00 cash. No place on the sign or anywhere else in the office could we see anything that listed a minimum dollar amount for using debit cards. OK…whatever, you big jerk.

The office where the “jerk” hung out.

The guy in the office asked us if we wanted a “premium site” facing the river for an additional $5.00 per night. Nope, we’re happy with a regular site. We didn’t buy his cable TV service either. WiFi was $2.00 per night and we didn’t get that for our first night. I was just so ticked off at his attitude I didn’t want to give him an extra $2.00. The second night of our stay we did go and pay the $2.00 for a WiFi connection. The service is as slow as molasses! No AT&T service for cell phone or wireless.

Even though we paid $3.00 for electric surcharge, and they only had 30 amp service, we were told we could not use electric heat. Plus, you cannot use your rig’s washer/dryer. Nope…not allowed due to the soap going into the septic system. They have a laundry here so I was wondering where the soap goes from those washers???

Sites are rather close together, but long enough for big rigs.

There is a small clubhouse with a library rack, tables for social gatherings and games. The laundry room was spotless and nicely done. The ladies restroom wasn’t anything special, but it was very clean.

Clubhouse building and small playground next to it.

The sites are all grass but no patios and very little space between RV’s. The interior roads are in good condition and are part gravel and part paved. There are a total of 104 sites and all are fairly level. We had no problem getting our MH leveled. Some sites have views of the Klamath River and that is nice.

Chairs by the river for relaxing are very nice.

There is good salmon fishing in the Klamath River.

There is a ramp for your fishing boat and a dock. There are picnic tables in a large area by the lake for use by guests. You can find horseshoe pits by the river. You can’t beat the beautiful views here and the park is also very quiet. You hear very little, if any, noise from the road.

If you stay here with the public rates you will pay $38.00 to $42.00 per night. There is probably no electric surcharge with the public rates, but you will still pay for the WiFi service. Good Sam card will get you a 10% discount.

We stayed here on September 9th and 10th.

Dogs are allowed with the usual restrictions you find everywhere: leashed, clean up after them.

Our rating based upon 5 star system = ***

Once we got past the jerk at check-in our stay here was nice. However, he made such a bad impression on us that we will elect NOT to stay here again. The sites are close together and we can’t use our own washer. If we come back to this area, we’ll look elsewhere. We’d probably opt to stay 19 miles north of here in the town of Crescent City.

Until next time…..so long for now!

Exploring Part Of The Redwood Coast in California

2010-09-10T18:52:00.000-07:00

This morning we decided to pack up a lunch and explore a bit of the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. We started just a mile west of our RV park in Klamath by taking the Coastal Drive. This is a narrow, scenic, partially paved road that takes you on an 8-mile drive high above the Pacific Ocean. Although the sky above was clear and blue, there was a heavy fog bank lying low. It covered up any view of the ocean.

If the fog wasn’t there, the view would be wonderful.

The Coastal Drive is so narrow that sometimes 2 cars cannot pass. We had to pull over several times to allow another car to go past. Even though we could not see the ocean, it was fun to drive along and enjoy the forest. This coastal fog is one of the things that have helped the giant Redwood trees thrive in this area.

This part of the road is paved with a pull-out.

The sun shot it’s beams down onto the road.

Once we got to the end of the Coastal Drive we picked up the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway. This is a fully paved road that takes you through the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park in the Coast Mountain Range. There are numerous hiking opportunities here. We did pull off the road to check out a short trail. No dogs allowed so we left Annie in the car, which was why we didn’t take a longer trail into the forest.

Majestic Redwood trees hug the roadway.

There were a few people out for these short hikes today. These trails are not good for the disabled as there are many tree roots sticking up, elevation shifts and uneven terrain. One of the best parts of being off the road and inside the forest is the total quiet. All you can hear is a light wind rustling the tree tops and the occasional bird chirping.

The sun was streaming in through the tall trees.

This large burl on a Redwood looked like a face.

Bruce and I took turns posing for a pic with these giant trees. Like Bruce said today, “no matter how many times we come here, these trees are totally amazing to see.” It’s true. We never get tired of returning to this coastal area of California.

Bruce took his turn first.

Next it was my turn with a different group of trees.

After returning to our car and Annie, we drove on down to the end of the Drury Parkway and the Prairie Creek Visitor Center. This is by the viewing area for the Roosevelt Elk which are the most commonly seen mammals in this park area. Not today! The elk were not to be seen. That’s OK since we’ve seen them here many times.

We drove on down to the Elk Meadow area and got out our picnic lunch. It was a beautiful day and just a little on the cool side. After eating we drove out toward Gold Bluffs Beach. This is reached by driving west on Davison Road. Davison Road is another narrow, unpaved road through the forest. Trailers and RV’s are not allowed because this is such a bad road. There is a campground at the end of the road but we did not explore that. It is suitable for tents and small RV’s like truck campers. We got to the end of our part of the road to find Gold Bluffs Beach shrouded in a bit of fog and gray skies overhead.

More coastal fog.

A lot of driftwood on this beach.

This pretty much concluded our touring day. We got the WiFi at our RV park today so we could get this post and the one before it posted onto the blog. I’ll be planning an RV park review of this place in a day or two. Tomorrow will be another travel day for us.

Until next time…..so long for now!

Hwy. 101 ~ Scenic Byway

2010-09-10T14:44:00.001-07:00

No AT&T service at our RV park Thursday night. I typed this up for posting later:

We enjoy traveling on the many scenic byways in our country, but the Pacific Coast Scenic Byway (Hwy. 101) is our favorite and the one we’ve traveled on the most. I’ve lost count on the number of times we’ve driven this highway but I know our first trip was in June of 1969. We love it.

It is a more winding, curvy road than going south on I-5, but it gives you so much more in the views along the way. We plan to take this same route in December when we leave Tumwater after Christmas to head to Pismo Beach again. This way we will not have to be so concerned about snow or road closures over the Siskiyou Mountains.

We had a good night’s sleep in the dry camping area at The Mill Casino in North Bend, OR. After we took an hour walk and then showered, we got ready to leave. Even when we dry camp, we have take our morning showers. Can’t get my day started without a warm shower and a cup of Joe!

Bruce started with a window washing job before leaving.

The drive south from Coos Bay to California on Hwy. 101 takes you past small towns, resort areas and some beautiful ocean views. The Oregon Coast is famous for it’s scenery, although the most spectacular views are north of Coos Bay toward the town of Astoria. Still, the views on this southern trip aren’t bad.

There was light morning fog on our whole journey down to California.

Speed limits on this Scenic Byway range from 35 mph to 55 mph since it is so curvy. So if you are in a big hurry this may not be the route for you. We know other RVer’s that will not take this route because of the tight curves and the slower speeds. It works for us, though.

Caution: curves ahead!

We made a pit stop for Annie and enjoyed the view while we were at it.

We did experience a few delays with Flaggers for road construction, but it wasn’t bad. You also have to be very mindful of the many bicyclists on this highway. We must have passed about 25 of them on our journey today.

Once we got into California we pulled away from the ocean views. We drove through some rolling hills terrain for a while. You get back to the extreme coastal area, with ocean views, in Crescent City. From Crescent City we only had another 19 miles to our RV park. This stretch of the highway took us through some of the tall Coastal Redwoods, new growth and old growth forests. They are always amazing to see.

The forest comes so close to the highway….be careful!

The first time I ever drove a large Class A motorhome with a toad was on this very same highway. What an initiation to Class A driving! I made it successfully. Here in California today, we had a bit of fog on the highway in spots, but it wasn’t bad.

Today’s drive was 180 miles. On a road like this, that is plenty. There are some areas with sparse population, but getting gasoline or diesel fuel is no problem. You can get diesel in Coos Bay easily but we stopped in Brookings, Oregon to fuel up before heading into California. There were several stations selling diesel.

We are staying 2 nights in Klamath, California before continuing our southward journey. I hope everyone gets the opportunity to travel on this wonderful Scenic Byway someday. You won’t be disappointed.

Until next time…..so long for now!