September 8, 2015 California/Nevada/Arizona/Utah

The adventure has begun!   We spent last night camped at the Mills A-OK campground!  Deluxe accomodations for sure and we were treated to a mighty nice dinner at Applebee's too.   We decided to start the journey a day early and get those LA miles under our belt on Labor Day - traffic was very light headed north.

We were in essence boondocking - meaning we had no hookups.  So it was a little warm with no air conditioner but we opened the windows and the desert cooled off nicely.   I didn't sleep (gee nothing new there) but we got up at 7 and were on the road by 7:40.  

Stopped at Lenwood/Flying J for gas and then back on the road.  An uneventful day of travel followed (that's what we like). MoHo did fantastically on the Baker Grade and all the other ups and downs we traversed today.   

We flew by LasVegas and were in Arizona for about 30 minutes, then beautiful Utah.  We are at the Willow Wind RV Park until Saturday.   We will be making the rounds, visiting Zion National Park and Bryce National Park and anything else that strikes our fancy.   This is a very nice RV Resort, we have FHU's, as well as cable TV and free WIFI!   I will post pics of the campground on another day.  

As I uploaded the pics from today, I had a few of my beautiful Lil Miss, so thought I'd include one here for your viewing pleasure.  

 There is a fire in the hills northwest of St. George Utah - see it in the middle of this pic

 Our location for the next few days

 The Virgin River is rust colored.   I'm wondering if that is because of the spill that happened in Colorado a while back?

Soccer Time!

Anyone who knows me, knows I am NOT a sports fan but I love watching "my people" play any sport they choose.  Little C is learning to play soccer and I love watching this little team learning and growing together. The coach has been kind and patient and I admire his willingness to take on this daunting task.   It is literally like herding cats most of the time.  A four year old has a very limited attention span and our little fella wants to decide when it's time for a water break and he wants to play "freeze tag" rather than "green light/red light" and he wants a snack.     I'm so proud of our lil man for getting out there and doing his best to kick that ball and just play.  Lil C's cousin Lo is playing on the same team.  

Learning soccer takes lots of concentration and lots of water breaks and snack breaks.  It is "exhausting" play and so so good for him.  

Lil Miss has tons of fun too, just running free in the field.  She has her own soccer ball and as I watch her kicking it around I think she'll be a fast learner that little one.  

LITTLES

C and his mama went to the OC Fair yesterday.   He had a full day, went to school in the morning, took the bus to the fair, then drove up to Fontana to meet his favorites - Aunty Mo, Uncle Bri and his Austy - I don't know if Cheater was there or not!  Little C is spending the weekend up there in the high desert.   Have fun little man.

Mimi and Pops got to keep the little miss for the day.  She is such a sweetie.   I just love her giggles and when she hears music she just can't NOT dance.   It's adorable beyond words and does my heart good to see it. 

This little guy is usually always this joyful!

 

What can I say? She melts my heart.

Being a little monkey

She loves watching videos of herself

 

Planning and Sewing

Hi there,
Have had some awesome feedback on the blog.  Thank you so much.   Your feedback helps me make things better hopefully.   First off - larger font!   Second I will try to use less abbreviations/acronyms.  I forget I don't just have seasoned RV'ers following along. 

Any-hoo here goes.  Yesterday we made a trip to AAA to get some tour books and maps.  But I have to say the maps are just not for me.  Can't read them without the magnifying glass and I just got new glasses.   We ordered a large laminated map from Amazon and it's hard to see unless I get up close. Jeez - getting old much?

So planning has begun for the trek east.  I'm very excited to get started, my other half, not so much.  It takes a bit of prodding to get him interested in starting the research.   He doesn't really like that part much.  The get in and go part he likes a lot.  

Our lil miss goes in for surgery tomorrow on her ears - tubes.  She's had a lot of ear infections in her first year.   So send good thoughts and prayers her way. 

I've gotten back to the sewing room and am committed to getting our lil miss her first year quilt done.  I don't particularly enjoy this first part, which is all the cutting.  I want to sit and sew - that's the part I love.      I have fabric left from our lil boy's first year and I understand he's outgrown his first quilt, so that is next up on my to do list.

NOTE:  

FHU - Full hook ups - these are the umbilical cords for the MoHo - electricity, water and sewer. 

Adios

Adjusting to being home!

Well we spent some time and cleaned up the MoHo and then returned her to the storage yard where before she's bedded down for a month or so she'll get a nice bath. 

We've spent some time with the grands.  We had the lil miss here today for a few hours.  She has developed quite a personality and is very good communicating with just a few words so far.  My sweet boy told me he missed me a lot and I believe him! Had lunch with my middle sis and nephew Austy.

I had the hubs put together a  spreadsheet so we can track our expenses while on these wonderful adventures of ours.  I read a lot of other blogs and am amazed at how cheaply some people live full time in their RV's.   What I realize is a lot of them take advantage of boondocking opportunities (no fee camping and no hook ups)  and they spend time at Elks and Moose parking lots.   Prolly not something we are likely to do.  The bottom line for us is probably not going to be about the finances but more that we want to travel and see this country and don't want to stay in a different hotel/motel bed every night and I like having my own potty!  There I said it. 

Overall we would rate our first big trip a huge success.  We really enjoyed ourselves and are anxious to hit the road again.  We learned some things and had some things affirmed for us.   We know we need to do more research on the areas we are visiting before we visit, and decide what we want to see and do. 

This guy did a fantastic job driving!   It can be stressful but he took it all in stride and pushed through.

Aren't these two the cutest?

July 13/14 - The Journey Ends

Well folks the journey has ended.  We are safely back home.  Gary did an awesome job doing all the driving.   We had a marvelous time and really enjoyed ourselves.   Of course the traffic that greeted us as we neared LA was miserable and something we definitely did not miss.  

Here's our last stop, Flying Flags RV Resort in Buellton, which is near Solvang.   Very nice park, very large at 356 sites, but everything was well situated and we had a pleasant auto tour of Solvang and of course picked up some awesome Danish to take back to the MoHo with us.    And I couldn't possibly pass up split pea soup at Pea Soup Andersen's - it's a tradition!  

Tomorrow we will tackle the cleaning of the interior of our home on wheels.   Very dusty for sure.  She'll get a bath at the storage yard later this week.   I'm going to miss her.   We were very comfortable and she performed beautifully.   We had no problems climbing hills and going down those 6 and 7 % grades.  The transmission sounds like it's going to blow up at any time but that's normal and she got it done.  As I reflected on the trip overall I keep going back to  how grateful and blessed we feel to be having these grand adventures in our lives.   We are anxious to begin planning our next adventure for sure.  We have a lot more confidence in our home on wheels now.  We have also had lots of practice with the processes of plugging in her umbilical cords and unhooking them and all that is involved.   The car towing and the hooking/unhooking of the car we've had lots of practice now.  We travelled a little over 2000 miles.   Oregon is a beautiful state and we would readily go back.   We only used air conditioning twice, that's how nice the weather was. 

Here are a few pictures of our California coast near Ventura and Santa Barbara.  Thanks for following along with us.    I will be trying to keep the blog up with a post now and then, maybe once a week, until we hit the road again.   I'll let you all know for sure.  

July 12 / Monterey and Santa Cruz / Auto Tour Day

We are still hanging out in San Juan Bautista, beautiful weather, wonderful breeze everyday comes up over the hills from the ocean.   Fantastic!

Today we did an auto tour (that's what we'll call it when there is very little time out of the car!) First I have to whine just a little bit about traffic.  Yes people it is up here in this area big time and to make matters worse it is the weekend and the weather has been gorgeous so naturally all the peoples are out and about - yuck! 

On the way we again drove through beautiful fields of produce!   Lots and lots of good stuff growing here.   I don't see any complaints along the road about a lack of water like we did along the 5 but I don't think they have an overabundance here, just not complaining openly about it.  Lots of sprinklers going like crazy in all the fields.   I just wish I could identify what the plants are.   We saw sunflowers today and these plants growing on trellises - beans perhaps or some sort of berries?

Ok so we headed first to Santa Cruz.   Our destination was the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.  Neat place, a boardwalk with a full fledged amusement park with roller coasters and bumper cars and an arcade.  The whole nine yards.   But lots and lots of people!  We wandered quite a bit and if an open parking space presented itself we would have grabbed  it, but no such luck.  So we concluded our auto tour and hit the road for Monterey.

We then hit the road for Monterey.   Again of course lots of people - everywhere - so we trolled along the coast and the bay and made a few little stops.  Then used Yelp to find a good place for lunch.  Found a small little place on a golf course in Pacific Grove with a nice view of the bay.  It was good, we had meatball sandwiches, but nothing we'd go back for.   I'm starting to crave a really good home cooked meal.  Cooking in an RV has been a challenge for me and cooking on propane is not like regular gas or electricity.   I'm not especially known for being a good cook, but I hope to do some research and get some ideas for things to cook in an RV.    Anyway, I digress, here are a few pics from Monterey.   Some of the family should recognize some of these spots.