Home for the Holidays

We flew home from Palm Springs on Dec. 13th that included an overnite diversion for Allegiant Air to Redmond, Oregon for the night due to no visibility at Bellingham Airport. Thanks to Colleen and Marlen we got a ride home from Bellingham the following day. The house was toasty warm for us as Vic had turned on the in floor heating system. The house was in great shape thanks to Gabby and Kris who took such good care of things while we were gone.

We wonder why we came home since now, it is December 23rd, and it has been snowing or freezing every day since we got home. We have enjoyed much of it and at the same time, we have been feeling a little confined at times. Thanks to my SUV we are able to get out of the house if we need to. I haven't been to Bellingham once since I've been home when I thought I would have been up there several times by now, visiting friends and family. It has been really unusual.

Justin made it safely over the pass even though he chose to drive in the blizzard, at night, to get here and Jessica, although she has had some trouble driving in snow, seems to be getting rides to and from work. Tash was supposed to fly home from a Honolulu trip on Sunday but her flight was cancelled due to the weather on this end. I think she may have made it home early this morning but we haven't heard yet. Dustin is staying in the apartment until fishing starts and then he'll be gone most of the time Dungeness Crab Fishing off the Washington Coast. It has been fun seeing him and his dog Mako.

Here are a few photos of some of the snow around here. They say it may snow some more today, and by the looks of it, I would agree. Off to do some last minute grocery shopping for the Christmas Eve Pot Luck with the Blackburn Family at our house tomorrow night. Merry Christmas one and All!

October 9, 10 & 11th in Palm Springs Area

HI Everyone, Claude and I spent the last three days hiking in Palm Springs. On Tuesday the 9th we found the Tahquitz Canyon which is near downtown P.S. and located on the Agua Caliente Reservation. We paid $12.50 each to have a tour guide take us on the hike, not knowing we could go on our own. It was fun with a stream and at the end a pool and waterfall. The guide talked about the history of the Indian people, the legends and stories and about all the plants they used to feed themselves. On Wednesday, the 10th, we met up with Claude's brother Tom and his friend Jason who are renting an apartment in P.S. until April. We thought they would like the hike so we took them there to walk with us again. We thought it would be free without the guide but, nope, nothing is free in California. We have included some photos of our hike, of Tom and Jason too. It was good to see Tom since we hadn't seen him for maybe two years???? Jason is a very nice guy and a joy to be with. We went to Tyler's for lunch in P.S. which was delicious and we were really hungry. If you haven't been to Tyler's, you're missing out on some good food. I like their sliders...they have really good potatoe salad and Jason had a delicious looking chicken salad sandwhich.

Tom and Jason told us about a hike they had done recently called the Murray Canyon Trail which we decided to do today, Thursday. It was exceptionally beautiful with very old Fan Palm Trees. Along this trail is a lot of water, streams and it is so soothing and quiet. Very few people too. They would describe this area an Oasis. It really is worth the hike if you love a good walk. We did the whole thing in about two hours and twenty minutes. They said it was six miles, but we don't think so.

Tomorrow we are looking forward to having Tom and Jason come see our RV site and then take them to Dell Web to see the Active Adult community here. We hope to go to dinner at the fresh fish place too. Today we found a new restaurant called Don Diego's. It is Mexican food and very good. A little more expensive than a typical Mexican restaurant, but worth it.

It was a good, physical day and we are worn out tonight. Check out these three videos. You might find them entertaining.

From Thanksgiving till today Dec. 8th, 2009

Yep, we're still here. A lot has been revealed since our last blog entry. We spent a week in San Diego and discovered that we may very well be choosing it as our second home site. At first I was resistant to the idea of city life, but once we began looking at some of the downtown condos and I was able to get a feel for what URBAN living might be like, we sort of began transforming our thoughts from the Active Adult Community living, to possibly living on the edge as Urbanites in downtown San Diego. It totally goes against both of our natural inclinations, but San Diego is not San Francisco, nor is it Seattle. San Diego has a city atmosphere but I would describe it as much less intense. The freeways don't appear to have traffic jams on them and the downtown area has several interesting neighborhoods that have unique personalities to them.

One of the things we learned is that if we had a condo with a view, we would prefer it to face the Northwest. That would do a few things for us. It would save us from intense all day sunlight and it gives us/Claude a view of the San Diego airport and the planes landing there which is very interesting to watch. It also has a view of the water on the NW side and there is always something happening on the water. I did a little research and contacted a few realtors who specialize in Downtown Condo Real Estate. We chose one who will be working with us in January when we return home from the holidays in Washington. He has a great web site for those of you who like looking at things like that. Check him out at http://www.livingatthetop.com/ He is very knowledgeable about future development in San Diego's downtown area and one thing we know for sure is that we would want to have an idea of what sort of view blockage could occur with future buildings that may be built at various locations around the downtown area. San Diego has big plans for updating and making the downtown area more pedestrian friendly. It already has a good transit system to get around or to get up and down the coast. This would be important for Urban living. They are planning on having a park within 5 to 10 walking minutes of anyplace in the downtown area and a new pedestrian bridge that goes from the Harbor to the downtown area. It is really well planned and should be very nice when they get it done. We have looked at a few condo buildings. Some we didn't like and some we did. One we really liked is called the Sapphire Tower. It has a great NW condo that would be perfect for us and a visitor. We have not seen all the condos yet so we are not sure if we will go with that building or another. Most condos are rather small in square footage and we want to have enough room for ourselves and a couple of visitors at a time without feeling like we are squeezed together in a hotel room. We kind of like the 2000 s.f. range but we don't know how that will work for us in the long run. It may need to be smaller. But regardless, there will be a room for visitors since I can't think of one person I know who wouldn't like to visit San Diego in the middle of winter for a week. And that means you! We were thrilled to be reminded by my sister Colleen, that Allegiant Air flies direct to San Diego from Bellingham twice a week so there is no excuse not to come. Also the Amtrax drops off right down town so trains are a possibility as well. This is all still in the new thinking stage, but it feels pretty good to think about doing the downtown San Diego living now while we are not too old...and maybe the Active Adult community when we get a little older. We'll keep you informed on how it all goes.

After we went to San Diego, we came over to Indo/Palm Springs where we have our RV (Motorcoach) site. This is the third winter we have had it. We bought it before we even had our RV. The cart before the horse. I have two videos of where we park the motorhome for your viewing pleasure. It is really nice here and we like it a lot. I also have a picture of the entrance to the RV park. They like to plant lots of flowers (pink and red of all colors). I put a couple of photos of Claude and I on the couch in the motorhome and Claude reading in his chair. We have it pretty nice. Today we are putzing around, cleaning, catching up on things and just hanging out. Seems like we are always doing something or going somewhere trying to learn something new or discover something we need to discover. Isn't that what life is all about? We drove here from San Diego then within two days up and left for Phoenix. We had on our list several Adult Communities to check out in the Phoenix area. Once there, we realized it is not for us. I think we caught the Urban living bug in San Diego so that may be part of our lack of interest in lookiing further at Active Adult Comm. especiallly in Phoenix. We do the like Dell Web Shadow Hills here in Palm Springs area. We even have our favorite houseplan picked out now, so if we decide against San Diego, we will probably choose this area and Dell Web. It is very nice there and easyliving, organized, dependable etc... I think we still have a few good years left in us for some wild living. We'll see.

In Phoenix we went to the Greyhound Dog races. I had a photo of me but it got delete somehow. Here's one of Claude. We had fun at the races. I won several times and Claude did too but I made enough to pay my way. We bet "Across the Board" which means you choose a dog then if it wins, places or shows you win whatever they are paying. Once I won almost $50 dollars on one and I paid $6.00 for the Across the Board. The dogs love to run and race each other. Other than that, they are very mellow and tame. You would think they would be hyperactive but they sleep a lot they say. I sort of wondered if it was dog abuse but I haven't decided yet. I have it on my list of things to research. Also a couple photos of some art we saw at the Heard Museum. It was a museum that focused on the Native American Indians. I was sad to hear that they were taken from their parents as children and forced to attend Christian boarding schools, cut off their hair and given American names while stripping them of their native culture. I am so ignorant of what history has done to many cultures and this was heart breaking to learn about. I really do not appreciate any government intervention on the choices we have or want to make for our own selves including the right to choose life, gay marriage or any other right. It was only a few decades ago women were not allowed to vote so how insane was that thinking? Okay enough of that...

We are both very relieved and happy that Tash is doing so well. She is reporting to me her magnificent recovery and that she met with a medical intuitive and naturopathic doctor she really had a positive experience with. We are so pleased her body is healing and she is feeling happy and healthier. Now to get a little bit of a chubby cheek look on her since I'm sure she is very thin. I wonder what it would be like to worry about being to thin? Gosh, that has never crossed my mind in my whole life and certainly not after all the delicious eating we have been doing on this trip.

We are back here in Indio until Saturday the 13th when we fly home. Claude's brother Tom and his friend Jason are visiting in Palm Springs so we hope to connect with them. Also our friends Terrie and Ron Dupuis are on our list to connect with too. I look forward to seeing all or most of you soon when we come home. Love and Hugs to each of you. Here are the two videos below of our RV site in the Desert.

Up to Thanksgiving Day

Hi Everyone

I've been out of touch with the blog since Nov. 15th. It's now Nov. 27th, the day after my son Dustin's 28th birthday. Claude and I have been here and there since my last entry in Ventura. We went to Apple Valley from Ventura and was not impressed. Neither were we all that impressed with Hemet or Beaumont which had three of the active communities we have been searching for. After we left the high dessert and the low dessert, we turned toward the west and Newport Beach. Neither of us knew much about Newport Beach but we could tell when we were driving through town toward the RV Park, that this was a NICE place. Big, beautiful, clean, wide streets and lots of nice buildings. Turns out Irvine is right there and the Univsersity district. We drove by some new impressive condos so as soon as we hooked up at the RV Park, we went there for a tour. They were very nice and quite expensive. Well, the cost of the condos weren't as much as the monthly homeowner's dues of about $1000 bucks. You wouldn't feel poor living in that building and the condo's themselves were very nice.

We took the next couple of days and discovered Dana Point, Laguna Beach, Balboa Island (too cute) and San Clemente. We discovered a superb biking trail connected to the RV Park we were in that looped around a huge estuary reserve. It was really pretty and made us like the area even more. John Wayne airport is just a hop, skip and a jump from there and you can see the big planes taking off regularly. It was very entertaining. There is nothing wrong with any of the areas we looked at along that part of the coast but we barely scratched the surface there.

We are now in San Diego and exploring Chula Vista, La Jolla, Del Mar, and beautiful and interesting downtown San Diego. It actually rained here last night and the night before which is a rare occurance here in southern CA.

While all of this was occuring this last week, Claude's daughter, Tash, was admitted to the hospital with a serious occurance of Crones disease which she has self-treated successfully for many years. She struggled through the first few days but improved and was released today with not only an improved physical condition but with a new outlook on life, a deeper understanding of how much she is loved and with a new and open mind that welcomes the best and most appropriate medical treatment for her ongoing recovery and continued health. We are blessed to know she is getting better and better.

Here are some photos of some of what we have done in the past several days for your viewing pleasure. We are grateful for each of you who are reading this and for each day that we have here on this beautiful earth and in this magnificent and free country we live in.

RELEASING MOM'S ASHES AT VENTURA HARBOR

One reason we are here is to visit with my Brother Jim and my Sister-in-Law Sherry. This is the weekend that Jim wanted to release my Mom's ashes. She passed away two years ago today. Jim, my little sister Cathy, my little brother Jack, along with my nephew Mark were together to release my Mom's ashes. We gathered some blue flowers (her favorite) and pink Gerberer Daisys and headed for the Ventura Harbor beach. It was a very simple release. Cathy and I went out into the water while Jim, Jack and Mark watched. Cathy threw flowers and I tossed the ashes. Here are a few photos.

Once we were finished, we got into Cathy's car and her music was playing "we are all angels" so we sang along with it and called my sister Colleen and sang to her on the cell phone. We felt Mom's presence and happiness to have this time to be able to say another good-bye although we know she is always in our hearts and her Spirit lives with the brightest of all lights for each of us at any given moment. We are blessed!

PISMO BEACH, GROVER BEACH, OCEANO, NIPOMO, SAN LUIS OBISPO, SANTA MARIA

I really LOVE this area. It's about a 20 mile strip of perfection and interest for me near HWY 1 and HWY 101. The pace of life here is much more relaxed and there are beautiful beaches, huge rolling sand dunes (right where we are staying) miles of fresh produce growing everywhere like more fresh strawberries, green and red peppers, huge heads of green and red cabbage, gobs of red ripe tomatoes, the richest, most creamiest avocados ever and more. I totally love to see all of this growing right by the side of the road. The hill sides to the east are covered with more grapes for wine, there are two nice size airports (One in San Luis Obispo and another in Santa Maria) both of which are perfect for Claude's plane(s).

Today we took a walk over the sand dunes. Our Motor home looks out over these dunes and it was so sunny and perfectly warm, we just had to check them out. We started walking but couldn't see the beach so didn't know how far it was. After just a few minutes you get the feeling you may never find your way out. We found a way to the beach and it was beautiful there. Vehicles are allowed on the beach and sand dune buggies on the dunes although we didn't see any on our walk. (Here are a few dune photos)

We have a very attractive living possibility in Nipomo. It is a community that is built by Trilogy. It is lovely. They have everything we could ever want there. Fantastic swimming, craft/painting/pottery studio, state of the art gym and workout equipment, tennis, golf, yoga, tai chi, etc.... it would be so fun here. The house we are attracted to is about 2000 sq. ft and yes, it has a spare guest room. There are lots of Eucalyptus trees here too which I grew up with in Ventura. It is a good feeling to be here both visually and energetically. The one thing that may be negative here is that it may not be quite warm enough in the middle of the winter. It looks like a 62 degree average in January which can feel a little cooler than what we were thinking we might want. We would like closer to 70 degrees. I really like it here but will try to keep an open mind for all the continuous searching we will be doing. After all, we still have the rest of California, Arizona and New Mexico.

Paso Robles, Cambria and Morro Bay

We are staying for a day in the Paso Robles area. It's a really pretty area of rolling hills with an abundance of wineries and acres of grapes as far as the eye can see. Today was quite windy but not too cold, about 60 degrees where we are staying. I wanted to see Cambria because I had heard so much about it. It is located on Hwy 1 to the West of Paso Robles about 30 miles. We drove there over Hwy. 46 which was a scenic ride through the country. Once in Cambria, we felt it was more or less a tourist destination but we did locate the Nit Wit house which is suppose to be a historic destination. Once there, we could see it was a collection of pieces of things that had been found and assembled into the resemblence of a house. Here's a picture.

From Cambria we went north just a short drive along the coast to see Hearst Castle at San Simeon. The sun was out, but it was breezy here too. We didn't do the tour of the castle but toured around the visitors center and read some of the history.

We headed south along the coast to Morro Bay. Morro Bay is in the vacinity of my old fishing grounds from when I was in my 20's and married to Dustin's Dad. We did commercial salmon fishing off the cost of California in the 70's and I believe we brought our boat into Morro Bay once to get out of the weather. I was hungry so we found a fresh fish market/galley to eat where we ordered our food at the outside window then ate it while sitting out on the deck with the Morro Bay Rock in the view, fishing boats bobbying around and sea gulls pooping and begging from all the tourists. It was extremely picturesque and brought back some old feelings of fishing and being glad to be in port when the wind was howling like it was today. There were many para-surfers in the waves and they were so entertaining. We enjoyed watching the Pelicans dive for their fish and the sea otters wrapped together in sea weed and floating along near the shore. Our lunch was so fresh and delicious. I had a cup of clam chowder and a dungeness crab cocktail. Claude ordered the Halibut and chips. Both were extremely fresh and I would say the best fish and chips I have ever eaten. See photos. It was windy and cool there but worth the discomfort for the experience.

Tomorrow we are getting serious about our house hunting. We are looking around San Luis Obispo, Nipomo, Arroyo Grande, Pismo Beach for our first serious possible second home location. We may be staying near the ocean as our base in an area called "Oceano". I am really excited to be getting more south where I think it is more likely the perfect home location will exist. Stay tuned.

YES WE CAN??? YES WE DID BIKE OVER THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE

One last adventure we wanted to do before moving south, is to bike across the Golden Gate Bridge. Today was a perfect day to do that. The weather was clear and about 72 degrees and very little wind. We loaded up the bikes and drove to a parking/lookout area just south of the bridge. Claude took down the bikes off the roof and we began the trip. There were hundreds of people of different age groups. Some walking, some riding bikes, but all in awe of being on the bridge. You could overhear people from all parts of the world, different languages and nationalities. One mother was expaining to her young child that people come from all over the world to see this bridge. It was a delightful ride although with all those people, we had to watch out not to run into others. I took a couple of videos above. One as I rode the bike and the other of the views we had from the railing.

On the other side we had to make the decision whether or not to ride down to Sausalito. When I say "down" that's what it is. About a two mile ride down the road and much of it without a real bike trail. Claude asked an older rider who was coming back about how difficult it was, and he said that it was okay if you take it slow. So, off we went to my hesitation. Claude takes off like a 12 year old down hills with no fear, and I do tend to be a little more cautious. We weaved our way down the hillside and found our favorite old restaurant FISH. and had our same favorite lunch. It was way yummy. I was pretty much adverse to the idea of biking back up the hill but although I hesitated we began our return trip. After the scenic flat part we started up our first hill. It was HARD I tell ya! I baulked at the idea of being able to make it and we had barely begun. Claude was a good coach. He said "don't think of the future just think of now" "Can you take one more step?" I said YES...barely and he said then right now you can do it. So we walked our bikes. (Don't get me wrong...Claude was huffing and puffing plenty himself) But I then got indignant and figured I would leave him in the dust. One good thing about he and I is that we pretty much are at the same physical level which means we wear out at the same time. That's really a good thing for us. With some walking of our bikes and some slow riding, we MADE IT. I was so happy he talked me into doing it so we could have that experience together. Here are some photos of the day. Do try at least walking across if you ever get a chance. It was a pristine and beautiful view everyone would appreciate.

Tomorrow we get to move from Morgan Hill to the south. Depending on how things go, we may spend a little more time in Carmel tomorrow or, if it doesn't work out, we will end up in Paso Robles for a couple of days. We are excited to move south. Enjoy! Oh yea...we took a photo of the Airship Zepplin that is new in this area for your viewing pleasure.