More of California and high gas prices…
We left Joshua Tree on May 27th and headed to the San Diego area. We stayed in a nice regional park called Sweetwater located in Bonita, CA. It’s about 20 miles from downtown San Diego! We absolutely LOVE San Diego and if weren’t for the high cost of living, high gas prices, earthquakes, and too far from family and friends back east – we would live there! Just a few reasons we can’t live there, but all significant! The weather in San Diego is awesome year round and if you’ve never been, we encourage you to visit and explore. While there we visited new friends (met on the Greek trip in April); did some geocaching and much to Codey’s delight visited two or three dog beaches. Oh, that’s another awesome thing about San Diego – dog beaches. They are amazing. We visited Old Town San Diego, Balboa Park (where the planes coming in seem close enough to touch!), Coronado Island, and a very nice winery. We also met up Mike and Judy whom we met on the Greece tour and Mikes daughter Rose and her partner Susan. We had a grand time and feel these folks will be lifelong friends.
Los Angeles area
We left San Diego and headed to Los Angeles – we know what you are thinking – “HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND DRIVING A 30 FOOT TRAILER INTO LOS ANGELES”. Well, we were smart enough to get a campground outside of LA and not have to get into too much traffic getting to the campground. We stayed in Simi Valley/Tapo Canyon which is a beautiful area outside of LA. On the way to LA, we visited with another friend Jason and his daughter Lily. Believe it or not, Jane babysat Jason and his sister when she lived in Richmond, VA. We met in Fresno where they live. It was so awesome to see him but it did make Jane feel pretty old since she used to babysit him and now he has his own family with a 15 year old daughter!! Of course we drove into LA multiple times for various reasons. Our main purpose for coming to the LA area was to be at the finish line of the AIDs Lifecycle ride from San Francisco to LA. Our nephew Jason was riding in it and we wanted to support him in as many ways as we could and that meant being at the finish line when he finished. We are so proud of him for the funds he raised to fight AIDS/HIV and for the 545 mile bike ride. The good thing is when he finished the ride he could actually still walk and sit down! OUCH! That’s a long time on a little bike seat. He said that the trip was hard but a trip of a lifetime and he made new friends and feels he will do this every year for many years to come. We also visited another friend we met on the Greek trip – Beatrice. She had us over to her lovely home for dinner – it was so great to see her again and meet her family. As usual we did a great deal of exploring in the LA area as well. We went to the La Brea tar pits, the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab and we can’t leave an area without some geocaching. We also took the time to drive the Pacific Coast Highway which was surreal! The unfortunate thing was it was a cloudy, rainy and gloomy day – but we still saw the beauty of the ocean, the waves, the cliffs and the surfers! Another nephew Zach and his wife Vera live in Altadena and he works at the Jet Propulsion Lab as an engineer. Right now he is working on the Mars Rover that is set to head out in February 2020 on its way to Mars. It was so exciting to see the lab and know how awesome it is that Zach is a part of the making of the Mars Rover!! So proud of him as well.
Heading north…
After a week in the LA area we headed north to Yosemite National Park (our 12th national park to visit). This is one of those places just like San Diego, if you haven’t visited the park, you must make time to do so. Put it on your bucket list and go!!!! It’s truly amazing what God has done to make this country beautiful – seeing all these places takes our mind off the worries of all the not so good things happening in our country at this time. We were fortunate to hang out with Jeanne’s sister Becky and brother in law Joe for a day in Yosemite. They were in the area from North Carolina to see Jason (their youngest son) come across the finish line as well. The waterfalls and the river were rushing from all the snow melt. We were lucky the second day there that we saw rock climbers on El Capitan! We don’t need to say anything more about Yosemite, just look at the pictures to get an idea of the beauty!!
Further north we go…
We left Yosemite and headed up to Lassen Volcanic National Park (13th national park). We only stayed a couple of nights in this area as we were headed to Ashland, OR to Jeanne’s brothers house. We still explored as much of Lassen NP as we could. That means we could only drive in one mile of the park because they were still plowing the snow off the roads further up – in JUNE!! It was beautiful, nonetheless. Codey especially enjoyed rolling in the snow mounds. Right next to snow mounds were sulphur pits. On one side of the road was a 6 foot tall snow mound and on the other were sulfur pits boiling they were so hot. It was a bit confusing to see them so close to each other.
Ok, we continue to go north...
Now we are headed to Ashland, OR where Jeanne’s brother Carry and wife Linda live in a beautiful log cabin on several acres. We parked the RV there to store while we made our trek across country to spend about 6 weeks house and pet sitting for a friend, seeing doctors and most importantly visiting friends and family. While on our trek home we stopped in Winnemucca, NV; Salt Lake City, UT (visited the Mormon Tabernacle); Denver, CO (were we visited our other nephew Carl and girlfriend Jessica and some of Jeanne’s former colleagues from American Water Works Association & and Rocky Mountain National Park – 14th one); Salina, KS; St. Louis, MO; Lexington, VA and finally Fairfax, VA. We were able to drive through Rocky Mountain NP as they had completed the plowing; however there was still plenty of snow on the sides of the road. When we made it to the top (12,000 feet) it actually snowed in mid-June. Nothing like standing in a snow fall with shorts, t-shirt and sweatshirt on. LOL! It took us 7 days to travel across the country. Thankfully without pulling the trailer we could do the speed limits posted. We don’t take the trailer over 60 mph for safety while towing. Most of the pictures taken while riding across country were water towers, so we won’t bore you with those. But here are some pictures of interest from our travels.
While in the Fairfax area, we have experienced some issues we didn’t expect to including Jane having a kidney stone from HELL and needing to wait and see what the treatment will be before heading back across country; Jeanne and Jane’s significant back problems; and Jane’s need for an ankle replacement, just to name a few. We were excited to have good reports from the dermatologist and dentist!! Woohoo! While here we will attend Jane’s 40th high school reunion in Richmond (it’s so surprising it’s been 40 years – perhaps it’s from being a child prodigy – NOT!!). Our hopes are to head back across county around the 5th of August, pick up the RV and explore the pacific northwest and visit more friends along the way.
So far we have been to 28 states, put 36,000 miles on our truck and visited 14 National Parks. We celebrated our full first year as full time RVer’s! Looking back we have enjoyed ever minute of it and are grateful to have this opportunity. Life is too short, so get out there and explore this beautiful country!! Until next time….God Bless!
JBs Joyful Journey 