Tag Archives: California

Day 155 – Sunday – On to Lodi

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Actually, we exited Highway 99 at Lodi and drove over to Woodbridge where we checked in to the Lodi Elks Lodge RV Park. Yes, the Lodi Elks Lodge is located in Woodbridge. I was a little confused, too, but got over it.

We planned to stay two nights, but the weather north of us is getting pretty bad so we are changing plans. Chico was in our sites for day after tomorrow, but the weather report for tomorrow will dictate our path.

Other than getting to the Lodi Elks safely, stopping in Turlock for fuel, and getting our holding tanks dumped, nothing has happened. So, let me share some photos I took at the Merced Elks RV Park.

First, the park is situated on somewhere between 20 and 75 acres. That’s as close as I can get by just eyeballing it. It’s a huge piece of property. Max and I walked to the fence line where I took a picture toward the left …

Straight across to the RV’s …

and to the right down the fence line.

Just ahead of us in the last photo are a few olive trees loaded with olives. Sorry I didn’t get a closeup photo for you.

While standing there, just looking around, a little brown chihuahua came running for Max from across the field.

We don’t know what his name is but he and Max acted like they were long lost friends. Since they were both off leash, they took advantage and ran all over the place. I did my best to keep up and wound up over by the orange trees by the laundry room.

The orange trees, 5 of them, are on the other side of those buildings. You’ll just have to use your imagination.

Another photo I got a kick out of was this one …

He likes to spend time outside, so we tether him to the RV. Since we spent so much time in Tucson where he had to walk on similar color-coded rocks, he chose to lay on the cement pad for the power connection. I suspect the pad was nice and warm and much better than laying on the rocks.

I’m struggling for things to add to this, so I just better quit and call it a day.

I’m done. Time to watch another Hallmark movie.

See you tomorrow.

Day 145 – Thursday – Calico Ghost Town

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Yup. We’re going on a field trip to this ghost town. You can see how excited Max is about that. He loves car rides, as you all know.

He’ll be more excited when he wakes up. Guess he wore himself out on that first walk this morning.

So far today I once again resurrected the bus’s furnace by resetting it. Doesn’t seem like I should have to do that every time, but I don’t mind as long as it keeps working. The inner temp was around 49 degrees when I got up at 0430 which I viewed as a good reason to go back to bed. Little Max weathers the cold temps nicely and I don’t know how. I guess it’s all that hair he hasn’t shared with us yet.

Just before lunch we loaded ourselves into the car and drove to Calico Ghost Town Regional Park so have a look around. It’s an interesting town that Walter Knott, Knott’s Berry Farm, purchased in the 1950’s and resurrected it. I know this is true because I saw a plaque up there, and I took a photo of it.

I actually took hundreds of photos but none of them will be any better than the ones you will see if you access the above link. I’ll add a few of my photos just for the fun of it.

We ate lunch in the Calico House Restaurant and the food was pretty good. Diane had a patty melt and I had a club sandwich. After that we let Max lead us around the main street where he made a bunch of new friends.

This photo op was built a little too close to the ground for us, but we gave it a college try.

There’s quite a bit of up and down elements to the ghost town so we took breaks often. Thankfully, there were lots of benches and chairs scattered around the town. From this one I took a hike to the top of the town where that teeny sign is in the distance.

Some of the stairs are visible behind Diane, but many of them are suggestions of stairs and could be very treacherous. Falling was a danger all the way up, and down, because there are no handrails to grab. Here’s what I saw.

From the top.

The structure where Diane rested was build of cement and bottles. Sadly, it wasn’t open for viewing, but I got a few photos of the interior through one of the windows.

After departing Calico, we stopped in Yermo where Diane found a Thrift Store. We looked around for a while, but Diane didn’t find anything she wanted which astounded me. It may be her first visit to a thrift store where she didn’t come home with something “new’.

An interesting thing about Yermo is that the base we’re on, Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow, stretches to the east far enough that Yermo claims part of it as their own. Specifically, they claim to be home for the Marine Corps Mounted Color Guard. Here’s proof in a Yermo mural.

We called it a day and headed home from Yermo to the safety of our trusty bus. Max was happy to be headed home.

Looking at a map it appears that Route 66 (I-40) transits right through the middle of the base so I suspect Nebo can claim a bit of ownership, too. Regardless, all the people around here love their Marines.

So do we.

143 – Tuesday – Barstow, CA

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Here we are, level on a cement pad, safely tethered to power, sewer, and water at the Fam Camp on the Marine Corp Logistics Base Barstow. This facility is located just a little east of Barstow on I-40 (Route 66). Check the map here. There’s a ghost town a little further out of town that we plan to visit sometime during the week we plan to stay here.

Getting here was a breeze. As noted yesterday, I navigated the solution for allowing us to tow the car so we had each other to talk with. When Diane drove the car, however, she had the convenience of listening to satellite radio while all I had was the wind whistling on the driver’s window because I didn’t latch it. It was good to have company for the 2.5 hour trip, mostly uphill.

The uphill part, added to towing the car was an increased danger of the RV engine overheating. As it turned out, it wasn’t a problem. We went up and down a lot and the rig got along just fine. Jerrie is happy. I have new belief that replacing the leaking overflow tank will resolve the overheating problem for good. We may never know for sure because we hope to sell the RV when we get home and probably won’t be taking it on any more long trips. We’ll be taking short trips to the beach via other means.

There’s really not much to share about the trip to get here. Since I was driving the entire way, I couldn’t take photos. I think Diane may have taken one photo, but I haven’t seen it. I think I may have suggested that she take the shot, but don’t remember what it was. Oh wait. Here it is. It just magically showed up.

The reason for this photo is to let you know that 29 Palms has many, many barbers available along Adobe Dr., the road that takes you to the main gate at the base.

Max was happy for the short trip and we got to walk around a bit before dinner. Diane was the cook today and we had a pork loin, fresh beets, and baked potatoes. It was awesome. Should have taken a picture, right?

Oh, another thing we discovered is that the RV furnace works nicely. So far, the electric fireplace heater we have has been the only source of heat. Although it works Ok, it’s difficult to heat up the place when it’s 45 degrees inside, and 28 outside. We were a little leery about using it considering the dusty nature of our environment. We figured if it did work it would blow dust everywhere. That didn’t happen so that’s going to be my solution for the mornings. We’ve even agreed that we should have the furnace set to run at night to keep it from assuming the outside projected temps of 28 degrees. We figure 60 degrees at night is better for us than 45.

Right now it’s 1900 and we’re nice and warm inside. It’s 46 outside but will drop to around 27 tonight.

I’m sure talking about temperatures is very informative and entertaining for you. That’s a facetious statement so I think I’ll stop now before the hole gets any deeper.

I mentioned that Diane did our laundry yesterday. She does that once in a while. This time it was different because she had to compete with active-duty Marines to get a washer and dryer. She said the young male Marines were very accommodating, but the female Marines weren’t. She brought the clothes back all folded up, in the back of her car.

I can vouch for the willingness of young marines to help a young damsel in distress. When we stopped to get fuel before starting today’s journey, we were working at two pumps. Diane begged off reporting that she doesn’t refuel vehicles. The young man next to the bus immediately volunteered to get it going for her. She was pleased and grateful for his help. He was pleased, too.

See you tomorrow.

Day 139 – Friday – Palm Springs

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Today we took a trip off the base to visit Palm Springs. We stayed there for a couple of weeks years ago and found that we really like the city and the people. So, we were looking forward to visiting again.

We were concerned about smoke blowing in from the LA area and as we started down the road into the Palm Springs area, we could see it. Diane’s health was our primary concern for this trip, and we monitored each other as we got lower into the valley where Palm Springs lives. Good so far. No sign of smoke yet.

The closer we got, the more evident it was that the smoke had indeed made it to the city. At this point, however, we could not smell it, so we kept going.

The road took us north of the hundreds of wind turbines that cover a lot of acreage west of town, then took us down the middle of the array to the main road into town. All of the turbines were turning full blast, faster than we’ve seen them turn at other wind farms. You can see where the strong winds created havoc along the foothills which isn’t a good thing because much of Palm Springs is in that area.

We almost made it to the center of town before the smoke became heavy enough that we decided to turn around and head back “home”. The above photo looks OK, but the smell was in the air and Diane’s lungs started objecting. It was time to vacate the area. We stopped first, however, to let Max leave his markers. It was the right thing to do. It was a 3-hour round trip so we couldn’t just turn around and leave without doing something in town. No photos, of course because although he’s not shy about PIP*, he’s very concerned about his on-line image. I honor that as best as I can.

Going back up to Twentynine Palms was a relief as the air cleared quickly, but we could see the smoke being blown over the mountains to the west. The wind was blowing very hard from the west, just like the news folks said it would.

Heading for the hills the air looked much better.

We thought about stopping for a sandwich somewhere but decided to just go back to the bus and cook something. Then we got routed to the main gate which meant we would have to drive right by Carl’s Jr. on our way to Twilight Dunes. Stopping for another hamburger just seemed like the right thing to do, so we stopped. Turns out we really like their food.

We took our food home and had a good late lunch. Max had his, too. Before eating mine, I diced about 1/2 a pound of his new favorite refrigerator food. He still did his prairie dog trick for a couple of French fries, but he finished off all his food.

It was good to be back in the clean air but there was a moment when we were reminded that maybe we should have left Diane at home. Thankfully, she got past a coughing spell quickly.

Now I must quit before I get in trouble. Again.

*Poop In Public

Seventeenth Day – Point Loma

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This Cabrillo National Monument is located on Point Loma, one of the most iconic pieces of real estate for anyone who served in the Navy and sailed in or out of San Diego. Point Loma is the last land we saw when leaving port, and the first we saw when returning home. It’s an emotional thing. Some cruises when we returned, we’d get here too soon and would have to stand off Point Loma until daylight. Coming home had to be in the light of day. Sitting a mile offshore all night, sometimes, was tough knowing liberty was right there in front of us.

That’s the monument and behind it, in the distance, is Coronado which is located at the north end of the Silver Strand that begins at Imperial Beach.

This shows a little more of the Silver Strand. That spear sticking up is, I think, a yucca plant. I lined it up as best I could to point at the location of the RV park where we are currently living. If you can blow up the photo a little, you’ll actually see some multi-storied buildings.

Just north of the city of Coronado is, oddly enough, North Island Naval Air Station. It’s a large base and pretty handy for keeping track of aircraft for the aircraft carriers that tie up there on the bay side of the island. We’ve seen as many as 4 carriers tied up there. Today there are only 2 of them. I don’t know if they have changed home ports, or if they are working somewhere in the mid-east. While we were at the monument, 4 or 6 fighter jets took off from the airfield giving us a little more taste of the sound of freedom. Diane loves the jets. She swoons sometimes.

Max liked them, too …

A more somber aspect of Point Loma is the National Cemetery. It covers many, many acres of this prime real estate and the residents are heroes.

After leaving Point Loma Diane drove us to the Ocean Beach Dog Park where we spent a shaky few minutes watching Max run free amidst many strange dogs, totally ignoring us, wondering if he’s decided to just take off and not return. He wouldn’t come to me because I had the leash, but he finally found Diane and went to her. Good for him. Because of his good choice to stick with us I took him on an extra-long walk once we returned ‘home’.

Now, going back to Max’s dog fight, one of my injuries turned into an interesting profile of a swan. Or a long-necked duck. Either way, it’s an interesting shape for a scab, don’t you think.

For supper today we had pot roast that has been stewing in the crock pot pretty much all day. Diane assembled it before we left on our rare trip into the more populated areas of the San Diego area, and it kept cooking until 5 pm when she deemed it was done. Since I didn’t cook it, I thought it was way better than what I could have turned out. Delicious.

Diane has been waiting patiently for some of the ships across the harbor to be pulled away from their piers so they could hurry out to sea and today her vigilance paid off. Though watching them depart from Point Loma is better, it wasn’t until we were crossing the Bay Bridge that I spied the first ship out beyond the jetties. Better than nothing. Then, when we got ‘home’ she watch a couple of orange tugs launch 3 more ships and send then on their way, one every hour. Made her day.

Now I will quit. “Dancing With The Stars” is on. See you tomorrow.

Day 2 – Beale AFB, California

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We slept extraordinarily well last night, even though I failed (I failed) to pack the cord for my CPAP machine which caused concern for both of us. Me, because snoring gives me a sore throat, and Diane because she was fearful she’d have to keep kick-starting me all night long. Neither happened, so maybe it’s OK for me to start breathing fresh air at night once again.

It was interesting that our motel room was 111. Eleven is a number that shows up in our lives repeatedly, so we see it as a good omen.

At the motel, we ate a bit of breakfast, filled our coffee cups in the lobby, and took off. We crested the Siskyou Summit at 9:44 am, and crossed the border into California at 9:48. It’s now 9:54 and we’re coasting in to the border control station at Hornbrook so we can tell the guards that we are not trying to sneak non-California fruits into their state. That’s important to them.

Whew! We made it past the crossing guard station … she was a hottie in shorts.

At the moment, we’re grinding along behind an RV who, in turn, is grinding along behind a semi-truck because the lanes are restricted. They’re working on 2 miles of the downhill side and we’re going uphill. Dang.

During this pause, some of the quaint little place names we’ve passed ate flitting through my little head. One, in particular, reminds me of an old trucker song we used to hear all the time. It’s Wolf Creek Pass which is a little north of Grants Pass. Another favorite is Jump Off Joe Creek, near the bitty town of Wolf Creek, is a name that causes me to envision all kinds of goings on to cause a group of concerned people to christen the place with such a descriptor. Do you think his name was really Joe? Do you think he really jumped, or was he pushed? Or, was this a place where Sam was actually on Joe and the snap of a nearby twig startled them, causing Sam to nervously jump and Joe compounded the visual effect by pushing Sam up and away. Bill, an innocent bystander, the twig breaker, having followed Joe and Sam to this secluded location because of concerns he had for the sanctity of heterosexual activity, witnessed the event and, since not a lot happened in that area of the woods, rushed willy-nilly to the nearest saloon to report that he had just seen Sam Jump Off Joe down by the Creek. Kinda makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

It’s now 10:12 am and we’re cruising by exit 753 which is next to Mt. Shasta. The mountain is virtually naked … just a few spots of snow and ice are scattered sparsely around it’s tippy top.

I’m still think about Sam and Joe, and wonder if they were forced to flee Wolf Creek for warmer climes near San Francisco where they struck on the idea of starting a commune where they could spread the joy they found with each other to those seeking satisfaction in a similar manner. My search of the internet hasn’t revealed any concrete evidence to support this theory, but I think I’ve seen vague references about an obscure little rod and gun club that was opened in 1898 near the corner of Haight & Ashbury.

This, of course, is unfounded discourse,
making me wonder why
someone of my gender would
seek solace in another guy.

OK. That was a lame attempt at a bit of poetry and a disclaimer that what I’m sharing is pure figments. Still, there’s evidence throughout history that this kind of activity has been going on for pretty much ever. I’ve always thought it was one of God’s way to keep the population in check. One might wonder what the world would be like today if everyone had remained staunchly heterosexual throughout history. Just think about all that extra begetting that would have been going on. I suspect there’s a formula somewhere that could compute the difference in population density between the two different lifestyles.

Any guesses?

It’s 10:55 and we’re almost to Shasta Lake. First stop of this leg is Redding for gas and Gas (lunch).

Now I must pause and navigate before I get into trouble. Again.

Hey there … it’s 1:23 pm and we just left the Win River Casino in Redding where we had a very nice lunch. And we didn’t gamble even though we each received $5 on our Players cards so we could get the lunch special at a discount. We figure we made $18 with the free money and discounted lunch. That works.

It especially works because the gas tank lady was telling Diane it’s time to fill up so we stopped at the first station after leaving the freeway. I know, dumb thing to do, but we both thought the safe thing to do was fill up sooner than latter. As you may have guessed, we paid $4.30 a gallon instead of $4.00 had we waited a little bit.

It’s 90 degrees here. And mostly brown. Not pretty like home.

It’s 7:13pm, now. We’ve had a Subway supper and are ensconced in our Visiting Airmen barracks room on Beale AFB. We arrived about 4:00pm. It would have been about 3:30, but Diane let me drive for the last couple of hours and didn’t navigate me very well. The difference was that, instead of going around the right side of the base, to the main gate, I took a left at a sign that read Beale AFB, with a very distinct arrow pointing to the left. The Wazer program didn’t seem to object, except for a distinctive “BEEP”, so I thought everything was just fine. But, we had to drive all the way around the runway to a back gate.

Beale AFB is about the size of Vermont and is covered, mainly, with dried up fields that appear to have been cut and bailed. Very tidy. As we made our way across many miles to the correct side of the base, we watched high altitude spy planes landing. They look like gliders and are the modern day version of the U-2 Gary Powers was flying when he was shot down over Russia in 1960. At that time, the U-2 was running under CIA control. Perhaps they still are. I do not know. But, they are super quiet, and glide along slow as a bird.

Now, about our our barracks room … it’s really nice, actually, something I would expect for the Air Force. They always get the best housing while the Navy always got the best ships. That’s seems fair.

Our room is one of four access from a common area that is about the size of a large hotel room with a living room and a full kitchen. That’s where I’m currently sitting, watching the Seattle/Green Bay game, as I type. Two of the other rooms are occupied … one by a male sergeant, and the other by a female Lt. Colonel. The sleeping rooms are large, with their own TVs, with Dish Satellite. We can’t find anything wrong with the place and, it would be dumb to do so, because the room only cost us $34. Nice. There really is a benefit for spending half your life in the military.

Tomorrow I’ll keep another diary, whether or not you want me to, and finish it up from the Navy Lodge at Lemoore Naval Air Station. That’s going to cost more than tonight, I’m sure.

Changing Plans, a New Roof, and My Ditch

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Now I must be serious, at least for a short time. Most of you know that’s hard for me to do and will tolerate this diversion from the norm, so I only ask those of you who wound up here by mistake to please have patience while I make an attempt to shift some gears.

For some reason, at this point, speaking about gears, I’m compelled to insert a “vrooooooom” right here. Silly, I know, and it’s not going toward the serious side of things as I had intended.

The serious “stuff” is that Diane and I made a decision to remain on this side of the Rocky Mountains the remainder of this year. The original plan, as of this morning, was to drive to Charleston, SC to attend the annual USS Cleveland reunion, but some things got in the way of those plans, taking a trip east out of the plans. Therefore, we will miss seeing Charleston, as well as points north, as was our desire. To those of you in Connecticut, whom we love to pieces, we send our regrets. There will be another time, we promise.

Our roof is going to be replaced beginning next Thursday. From start to stop it’s going to be a 3-day event. Pretty amazing to me because it’s a total ripoff and replacement of 3 layers of shingles. Tons and tons of shingles. One of the biggest cost factors is disposal of the old material.

We’re extremely happy that Mark’s Custom Exteriors could rearrange their schedule to accommodate us before we have to head south on Sunday. Even though it’s cutting it close, we’ll be here to ensure every nail is hammered in properly. I’m going to do that be wandering around on the roof, putting a little “x” on each one of them with my handy magic marker. No nail gets covered up until I “x” it. Normally that would add 2-3 days to the job, but I’ve been practicing this and have devised a way to do it without all that bending over, or crawling around on my hands and knees. I’m simply going to pre-“x” them before they’re loaded into the nail gun. I know, it seems kind of pointless doesn’t it? But, just for fun I’m leaving some of the nails blank just to see if someone comes to get me to “x” it. I seriously doubt they will, and I will not complain because that would just be silly. Who would do something like that?

In a precious entry I reported that I was being allowed to rent a small excavator to enlarge the ditch I dug, manually, that’s intended to drain water away from our driveway, and keep it out of the garage. I know the ditch works but it needs to be deeper and I’m just flat out of the energy required to hammer my way through all those rocks and roots. As it is, I’ve succeeded in killing the tree whose roots I severed to reach the back yard, so it’s something I’ll have to address before the floods loosen it all up and it topples into the neighbor’s yard. It’s OK that I killed it, because I was going to cut it down anyway … it has a terrible knot-forming kind of disease that just doesn’t look good. The birds love it so Diane was kinda wanting to keep it, but I sood my manly ground and killed it anyway. Actually, I didn’t mean to kill it. It just kinda worked out that way. Apparently it’s OK because I’m still sleeping inside.

Weather … we haven’t had any measureable rain for the past 2 months. That’s unheard of in Oregon. We always have rain, right? Most people believe it rains in Oregon all the time. We get our share, for sure, but it’s a bit sparse this year. I think most of it was recently dumped on Louisiana and the surrounding area. The folks who moved here from California, and there are more than a few, think it’s just fine that we’re not having any rain because that’s what they’re used to. Real Oregonians, however, do not thrive well in dry weather. We get all wrinkly and it’s not pretty. We need moisture. Thankfully, Diane is an Avon representative so I have unlimited access to all kinds of moisturizers when I need them. Lots of them make me feel pretty, so I use them on rainy days, too.

I think it’s time to terminate, now, since I totally lost track of where I’m going with this. Truth is, I never had any certain direction in the first place. Just like normal.