California - 2

So, it’s been a while since I took the time to do any writing. Time keeps slipping away. We have dwibbled away the entire month of April here in California. When I left off last, we were still at Jojoba Hills and I was preparing for my trip to Minnesota.

I flew out of Palm Springs for 4 days at Greg and Peggy’s where I played with Edie and enjoyed some spring days. We went for bike rides and went to the beach where it was warm enough for Edie to play in the water. I was there for the opening day at Sea Salt Eatery at Minnehaha Park. Greg, Edie and I arrived early to get a place in line so that when Peggy got off work she could meet us there. It was a fine way to spend a splendid spring day. If you ever get to Minneapolis, I highly recommend this place. We arrived early and still waited in line for half an hour. Two hours later we left and the line was still circling the building. No one seemed to mind the wait since they could get a glass of beer and the weather was fine. Minnesotans really know to appreciate an exquisite April day. (I was overusing the word ‘fine’ to describe the weather so I went to the thesaurus to look for other words).  Lovely, splendid, gilt-edged…. All work to describe the weather that day. I also was lucky to catch Sister Kay at home on Saturday and we enjoyed lunch together at Byerly’s Grill. That night Edie and I enjoyed a mac & cheese dinner with broccoli and played wildly imaginative games of getting bats out of the house and rescuing baby dolls while her parents enjoyed a night out. My trip ended with dinner at Greg’s with brother Ludwig, sister Kay and nephew Kenny and and niece by marriage Lori. The weather changed and it was cool and rainy. Time to go home to California and Don.

Our camper has a top of the line system for providing heat and hot water called Aqua Hot. It runs on either electricity or diesel fuel (or both) depending on what is available to us. Before I left on vacation, it started not working. It flashes a series of codes to let us know what needs to be fixed. Don replaced the diesel nozzle and thought that fixed it but then it started a different code. While I was in Minnesota he continued to work on the project. It was flashing a different code so he ordered a high-temperature thermostat to replace one of those and was waiting for that part to be delivered. I had informed Don in no uncertain terms that I was not interested in becoming an Aqua Hot technician and thought that we should pay someone who was trained. As it turns out that might not be feasible as technicians are few and far between and the shop we were near was scheduled for weeks out and would need us to drop off our house for a few days… not very practical. So we continue to work on that for now.

We left Jojoba Hills on April 22^nd and boondocked (dry-camped) for 2 nights at a site we found through our membership at Harvest Hosts, Falkner’s Winery near Temecula. That was a beautiful place to stay. We met a woman named Maureen who lives fulltime in an RV and travels around. Maureen and I went to the wine-tasting. She had a glass of sangria while I did a wine-tasting and sampled 4 different kinds of red wine. While we were there, we picked up the Aqua Hot part and installed it. That didn’t solve the problem but we continued down the road. Fortunately the weather isn’t cold and with electricity we can have adequate hot water as long as we both don’t take long showers.

We left Falkners on April 24^th and came north getting around Los Angeles. We stayed for 2 nights in Pomona at the KOA. It was cool and rainy… actually misty. It never really rains here anymore. On Saturday we took the train into LA and used subways and buses to get around. We went to Hollywood and walked down Hollywood boulevard reading the names of stars under our feet. We saw lots of strange things and ate cream puffs for lunch at Papa Beards. Then we took a bus over to Beverly Hills where we walked down Rodeo Drive looking at lovely houses and expensive shops. We then took the bus and subway back to Union Station for the train trip back to Pomona. I will try to upload some pictures.

On Sunday, we came to the place where we are now, Valencia Travel Village near Santa Clarita. My friend Hillary lives there. Back in the 1980’s when Ronald Reagan was president, I worked with Hillary for the Illinois Legislature. She did science research when I was working for the Printing Unit. We had dinner with Hillary at the Newhall Refinery on the sidewalk and caught up on news. Amazingly, Hillary and I don’t look much different than we did in our 30’s and we had no problem recognizing each other. On Monday, we stayed around here. I made some granola, did laundry and cleaned up the place. Don continued to work on the Aqua Hot. An Allegro Bus pulled in next to us and we met a couple who have been on the road since 2008 and have had lots of experience with Aqua Hot.  Dennis and Elsa (see their blog at lettersfromabus.com) are their names. Dennis and Don talked Aqua Hot for a while and Dennis talked about their 8 months trouble shooting ultimately replacing the motor for $2500 which solved the problem and it has run fine ever since.  He had the name of a service tech in California that he gave to Don. Don went and got an Ohmmeter and tested circuits and so on. Last night he put the thing back together and put away the tools. It continues to flash the same code.

On Tuesday we took a drive into Santa Monica by way of Mullhollen Drive and were rewarded with even more fantastic vistas which California continues to provide. We walked down the Santa Monica pier and spent some time on the beach. We then began driving north down the 1 (Pacific Coast Highway). In California no one says Interstate 10 or Highway 126. It is the 10 or the 126. I am learning to speak the language. We stopped at Malibu beach for lunch at Paradise Cove overlooking the ocean. Since the misting stopped on Sunday, the weather has been unseasonably warm and sunny.We continued our drive and came upon several RV's that were camped along the beach at a state park. We stopped to talk to a young couple who were outside unraveling their kite string. They were there celebrating their 18th anniversary and said that they had been watching whales go by as they are migrating up to Alaska right now. We sttayed for a while in hopes of seeing a whale but were not so lucky. It didn't really matter sas it

The reason I brought up Ronald Reagan earlier is because yesterday in honor of Friend Dwight, we drove up to Simi Valley to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Museum. We expected to learn an alternative version of late 20^th century history and were not disappointed. As you can see by the picture that I hope to include, I was totally smitten by this movie star President. He saved the country from the depths of recession and inflation by cutting taxes and shifting government spending to the military.

Today, we are moving the camper to Pismo Beach for a couple of days and after that we will start moving towards Yosemite. More about that later.

California

Where to begin. Where did I leave off before.  Arizona watching the NCAA tournament in the desert heat. Not my favorite stop.

We left Arizona on March 29 and made our way to the Coachella Valley in California. We were unable to get into the park of our choice and so spent a couple of days boondocking in the parking lot at the Morengo Casino in Cabazon, CA. Just down the road from Palm Springs. We then moved back to the Palm Springs Oasis RV Park in Cathedral City, CA where we stayed for a week…. long enough to get through the NCAA Championship.

California is an amazingly beautiful state…. and we have only seen a tiny bit of it so far. It’s easy to see why so many people have wanted to move here from the rest of the country. They’ve pulled water out of the ground and out of the Colorado river to turn the state into a paradise. Now with so many people needing water for their crop (dates, citrus, avocados, vegetables, hay and other stuff that I can’t identify), landscaping and golf courses they are straining the environment’s ability to meet the demand for water in drought times like this. Where we have been, water seems to be plentiful and good. It is coming from an aquifer but I’ve seen a couple of very low lakes.

While we were in the Palm Springs area we visited Joshua Tree National Park, took a tram ride to the top of a mountain at San Jacinto State Park, where we hiked around for some amazing views of the Coachella Valley and took a drive around the Salton Sea stopping at the State Park to learn about this lake’s history. Turns out that back in 1905 a couple of engineers got greedy and wanted more water in their irrigation canal from the Colorado River so they went south of the border and cut another branch into the river to connect to their canal. The Colorado River saw this as an opportunity to change course so when it was at flood stage it cut a new course for itself into the Salton valley which is 300 feet below sea level. It took the engineers 16 months to correct their mistake and get the river back where they thought it should go. In the meantime, the lake was formed. I’m sure that was terribly disruptive to the Indians, salt miners and farmers in the area but the lake became a center for recreation for people from the cities to the west and by the 1950’s there were boaters, water skiers, and excellent fishing. Unfortunately the lake has no source of regular fresh water except for runoff from the farms which also contains pesticides. The salt level continues to rise as the lake loses volume to evaporation. Now there is only one variety of fish that can tolerate the salt level which is higher than the Pacific. We were there on a Sunday afternoon and saw no one out enjoying the lake though like every day since we’ve been here, it was a warm sunny day.  The State of California passed legislation to save the lake but did not allocate any funds. Since the water is unusable and saving the lake would be a huge expense it seems pretty clear that sometime in the future they will be able to mine for salt here again. It goes to show that there wasn’t supposed to be a lake there to begin with and I’m not sure that the Colorado has the gumption any more to change course by the time it gets to Mexico.

On April 7, we moved farther south to Jojoba (hoh-hoh-bah) Hills SKP RV Resort near Aguanga, CA. (about 60 miles north of San Diego and 70 miles south of Palm Springs). We’ll stick around here until April 22 and then have plans to spend a couple of days boondocking at a Harvest Host site, Faulkner’s winery just down the road before we start to move north. FYI: the jojoba is a bush that makes nuts from which a curative oil is extracted. The other day we drove the winding mountain road up to Mt. Palomar Observatory to check it out.  On the way back we stopped at an old Spanish mission (San Antonio de Pala). Since I read Isabelle Allende’s novel, Zorro, I’ve wanted to visit one of these missions and think about the integral part the Padres played in California history. What audacity to think that their way of life was so superior to the people who were here first and think that changing their way of life was good for them.

The next day we went over to Temecula, CA and checked out the winery where we plan to stay. It was Sunday and this town is close enough for people from LA and San Diego to make a day trip for lunch in Old Town or do a wine tasting tour. Hard to believe that as recently as 50 years ago, this was just a dusty little outpost surrounded by a huge cattle ranch.

Next week I plan to take a break from this endless vacation and go back to Minneapolis for a taste of reality… maybe some rain and play with Edie for a few days.

Things haven’t all been peachy for me. At some point, I realized that drinking ½ a bottle of wine every day was taking a toll on my sleeping and my mood so I decided that for now I will abstain from drinking any wine. Of course like all people who enjoy alcohol, I believe that I can go back to stopping at one glass and not every day. Time will tell on that.

We learned about Harvest Hosts, the organization that I mentioned earlier while we were at the Escapade in Tucson. We decided to join Harvest Hosts at that time. They have made arrangements with wineries and farms all over the country to allow members to boondock at their place for free. Of course the expectation is that the RVers will purchase a bottle of wine or eat in their restaurant. That shouldn’t be too difficult. As we go through Napa Valley in a few weeks, we plan to take advantage of more opportunities. If it turns out that I can’t drink the wine, by the time I get to your house I may have a nice stock of quality wine to share with you.