SFinUS20

Feb 21, my parents’ wedding anniversary many decades ago! We are up at 7:30 for coffee and early breakfast and on the road by 10. It’s an easy drive on interstates most of the way, huge complex road systems like spaghetti all over the landscape, then out through nice hilly rural residential areas. Lots of green hills and palm trees give way to protected saguaro national wilderness areas, huge sand dunes and finally plain flat dry plan in Yuma. This is a huge snowboard destination, a few far hills but otherwise the sunniest spot in the US with nothing much to commend it.   This is huge agricultural land on the south part of the Imperial valley, a vast producer of crops and cattle.   We lose an hour going into Arizona which does not move to summer time.   With nothing much in the fridge yet, we find the local popular watering hole called Wheezy’s sports bar and enjoy a couple of margaritas and beers and a feast of ribs and other grub.   It’s now 28 so no problem s...

Our last day here, we had planned to go to the beach. The weather had other plans. We woke to fog and haze which proceeded to get worse as the day progressed. Ted had found Stone’s beer garden the previous day but it was too dark and cold to stop there on our Long Beach walk, back past the pier and along some older residential streets and again past huge condo buildings going up on the ocean. The baby boomers are on the move and its obvious everyone is getting ready to cash in on the bonanza.   Back to shore and change, we are off again at 4pm to the marina, this time back to Jolly Roger for happy hour with the 6 Calgarians for the lat time. The best margaritas, 2 beers, Caesar salad, Maui slider with peanut/lemon slaw, potato skins and Ted’s usual fish taco - $40 for dinner. A lovely way to say adieu to the Calgary contingent before we meet up there in April.   Back at 6pm after another stunning sunset, Ted gnaws on cheese and chocolate and we start to think about packing ...

Sunny and 22 today.   Since I’ve been down here, I’ve ordered a replacement for my favorite swimsuit and arranged for it to be delivered in S.Phoenix when we visit Bob & Pat. Fingers crossed...It’s fiendishly difficult to pay with Canadian credit card and get delivery in the US, Canada does not exist as a destination! I finally figured it out by making the addresses the same and the card went through!   I’ve decided we need to book ahead instead of just turning up looking for campsites this trip as it seems to be getting busier and busier each time we head south, especially as kids school breaks seem to cover the whole time we are on the road. But we still can’t get a booking for Saturday in Tucson so may have to stay in Yuma, just on the border of California, for 2 nights.   We are successful at finding a big RV car wash and Ted pays the manager $10 at a nice RV park to fill with fresh water and get rid of our antifreeze in all our pipes. Can’t drink that pink wa...

It’ a far cry from this time last year and the South African Safari but today we take a drive out to Escondido to the SD Zoo Safari, only an hour drive from here. WE’ve been there several times in the past but about 30 years ago now!. The little railway that circuses the whole valley has now gone, replaced by a tram trip, but with he long weekend crowds, not a good idea today.   It’ a lovely drive it through suburban settlements, hills and small rural homes.   Normally $50 per adult, February is free to seniors this year! So all we pay is the $20 for RV parking. Deal!   We walk all the paths and catch the many interesting exhibits, especially the bird show, with a clever little African Grey like Ticoh making noises similar to all the ones Tikal also makes! Some beautiful birds and animals there.   Back for a quick bath and change, we are invited by Kathy & Don for dinner and B&B are also there. So we have a very nice social evening together, 4 course din...

We take a drive down the coast to Carlsbad, where the attraction this morning is the outlet mall. I find replacement Ecco sandals and another pair of campsite thongs from Clarks for a ‘thong’ Ted says I have to throw some out to make way for these and I’m up for that.   WE head to Birch Aquarium at Scripps Oceanographic Institute for an interesting couple of hours looking at the interesting exhibits. Despite the long weekend, it’s not too crowded and we park close by with a bit of walking up and down hills to get there.   That evening Ushi/Dieter come by to fill us in with a few more bits of info we need and to share a quick drink and nibbles. After they leave, we decide we have enough food to keep us home. Watch another nice sunset. Ted finished some leftovers from the journey down, the wine and promptly fell asleep in his chair. And that’s OK.   I have downloaded some Peter May books to my ipad so reading in bed is easy, not so easy in bright sun. 

  It’s Presidents Day weekend here so very, very busy everywhere. Everyone wants to come to the beach it seems.Huge new condo buildings are going up all along the coast, but there are lots of funky little beach houses here too.   With our nice balcony we can wash and dry things in the sun. And we enjoyed a long walk along the busy beach, to the end of the pier where lots of people are fishing for minnows! Later we drive to the harbor and a nice little mom and pop fishhouse for fish, prawns and chips in paper plates and beer. Dinner $30.   Its now 21 here and we are enjoying the lovely sunshine, but far too cold for the pool. 

We are back on the California coast, home to The Beach Boys way of life and magnet for everyone in the eastern States it seems.  We are now in Oceanside News from home is not that good. My lovely bridesmaid Elizabeth has been going through some nasty treatment for a threatened cancer on her leg, and my sister Liz tells me our cousin Morag, same age as sister Mary, has just died, probably a heart attack. We are lucky to be on the road and enjoying our travels.   We have some unsuccessful searches in this new area for things we need - RV wash, someplace to de-winterize our RV, buy food, booze, etc. We miss our turn off the highway and have to drive about 10 miles past the huge Army camp here to turn around and are then in a stop and go traffic jam all the way back! Sheesh.   At least I found a nice crab and artichoke soup at a place on the marina for lunch!   At 4pm we drive over to the lovely North Shore Village where Ushi/Dieter, Kathy/Don and Barb/Bob are all ...

  Today I finally found a way to contact Telus, my internet provider, to cancel my service for 2 months. They make it so difficult to do anything and claim to be oh so easy! Yeah.   It’s Presidents Day weekend here so very, very busy everywhere. Breakfast at the hotel is a ZOE but we get on the road and find Shall diesel at $3.10/litre.   At Barstow there is an enormous accident with several trucks, cars all splayed across the road and a 5 mile traffic jam back from it. Fortunately we are going south. This is where our friends Donna/Gord had their car totaled on their way south a few years back. She has never recovered from the damage her back took. It seems half of California is off to Vegas for the weekend.   We pull into the nice beach resort of OCeanside at 4:15pm. the hotel is under renovation but our room with a big balcony looking towards the ocean is good.   After a quick wash we walk to the Barrel Republic brew pub. An amazing place with about 70-8...

WE are on familiar territory so it’s an easy run down through some spectacular scenery on the border of Utah/Arizona and Nevada. It’s a long hot sunny ride and we are peeling off our winter gear now. Into the hotel at 3:30pm Ted has time for a walk to stretch his back after 3 days driving and not much else.   We walk over to the nice G&B new pub and with our 10% discount coupon from the hotel order 4  beers and nice lobster/shrimp tacos.   We get wifi at most hotels but it’s often a lousy connection and my phone does not like that they are  unsecured. I am glad I have data to get on the internet when I need it.   My Garmin GPS serves us well most of the time on the road   Ushi has offered that we (and the other 4) will have a Feb 14 happy hour at our place when we arrive but we decide it’s not a good idea and postpone it to Saturday.   Watching TV everywhere, there is lots of anti-Trump sentiment in this part of the country but he is venturin...

It’s a very cold morning, especially since Ted turns off the room heating at night! There has been.a skiff of snow overnight. But we are fortified with omelets to order and breakfast and off at 9.4am. My swollen jaw is going down after the Sjogren’s flare up but I’m still popping pain killers and anti-inflammatory pills and rubbing on antibiotic salve.   Lots of cattle trucks and vast farmland through this area and into Orem, south of Salt Lake City, at 3pm. On our first foray we find Trader Joe’s and stock up on our favorite supplies, almond biscotti for our morning coffee.   We luck out at a nice small Thai restaurant but - no booze. We are in Utah now, home of the Mormons who frown on such sins.   I am in bed ready to go to sleep at 10pm when our sink in the bathroom begins to overflow! I call down and the young night manager comes rushing up but there is nothing for it but moving rooms. He says come down to the front desk and get another key. In my nightie and boo...

There’s a storm warning for this area of Montana, so we are up, breakfast and out by 8:30am. Yup I did it. It’s very windy but blue sky and we dodge the bullet by getting south of the storm system. Into capital Helena briefly to find AT&T, replace my SIM card in my phone and buy 1G data for he month for $3 (renewable automatically for $30 next month. Easy! My phone is now a Montana number and I pick an easy one to remember.   Today we whiz through temperatures from -1 to 11, up and down over mountain passes and hit some poor road conditions, which keep us at an even speed.  Blowing snow and ice make driving tricky but Ted is ever patient with the idiot drives trying to cut him off!   WEe are into Idaho Falls by the beautiful falls on the river in time to take a very cold walk to the Mexican place at the end of the road for $1.99  margaritas and beers and of course chiles rellenos and mole enchiladas. Dinner $30.

FEB 10 ITS -3 BUT CLEAR WE are finally on the road at 11am. As usual, Ted has too many last minute things to do, even go fill the RV with gas! It’s $1.20/litre and we are not gonna find diesel that cheap until we come home. We are through the border at Coutts in moments flat and with no food in the fridge, can happily say no to everything, especially firearms!   We are carrying a big freeze pack and must now keep Ted’s picky arthritis drug in the fridge or cool room temp the whole way, one of the reasons we are postponing the winter trip to Ecuador, the Galápagos Islands and Colombia until next year. He has good travel med coverage for us both for about $2500 and we can leave for another 2 months any time with a top up, about the same price as our current daily rate. We need $4million for the US!   The Coronavirus scare is all around and although the US has virtually closed its border to incoming Chinese flights and citizens from Wuhan, there is no sign of panic anywhere h...