Golden Gate Bridge:

One of the negatives?  $12 for 4 axles!  Glad I don't have a triple axle.

We weaved through the Hwy 1 traffic through western SF.  That is a long thing to do.  We made it to the SF RV Resort and dropped the trailer.  We headed downtown to get Hannah and take her to dinner.  Hannah introduced us to Thai food.  We ate at Osha Thai.  I had the Volcano Beef:

Roxie had Shrimp Fried Rice:

Hannah had some plate that I don't remember:

The next day we took a short drive down Hwy 1 toward Half Moon Bay.  Roxie has been offered a new job and she had to get some information back and forth to her prospective employer.  That required 2 stops at different UPS stores.  However we did get to see some scenery and we stopped at a nice beach south of Pacifica.  I also got to see where they are building the tunnel and bridge to bypass the Devil's Slide.

We had Hannah hop on BART after her 3pm class and meet us in South San Francisco.  Since she got us going on Thai food the night before, we asked her if she was up to it again.  She agreed and we went to Original Thai BBQ.  This more mainstream Thai, I believe, instead of a more trendy Osha Thai.  I had the drunken noodles and I loved them!  I will now have to find them here somewhere.  We took Hannah back to her loft, said our goodbyes.  We went back to the trailer and watched "Fair Game".

The SF RV Resort is right on the bluffs of the ocean in Pacifica and we stayed there before.  However they have had a LOT more erosion since.  They had to move one of the walking paths due to this.  I don't know how much longer they will be able to be open.  About 20 more feet and the RV spots will be going in.  Here is a view of below the bluffs:

And from above:

Get there while you can!

The ground was covered in most places with a clover like plant called Redwood Sorrel.  Well, I thought it was clover and started, naturally, looking for a 4 leaf clover.  I looked up the odds of finding one (1:20000) and thought in this area it was pretty good.  We were heading down one of the trails and I got ahead of Roxie so I sat down.  I was constantly looking for one so I looked next to where I was sitting and saw this:

4 leaves!

Here is a picture of Roxie taking a short break:

We only had our cell phones so that is what we are taking these pictures with.

After the walking/hiking, it was time for lunch.  I checked out Yelp and found boon.  We thought we would try it.  Not this was not the type of food we normally eat.  This was from some type of Food Network show, a bit foreign to us.  So we ordered their cheeseburger and truffle fries.  Both were excellent!  The food there is recommended. 

On our way to the park we saw a shop that had a vintage Airstream sticking out of the door.  We went back to look and got a thorough tour of the works in progress and there is a lot of work.  The name is Russian River Vintage Trailers if you are interested.

What do you do when you get back to your trailer after a busy, semi-strenuous day?  You take a nap.  That is what we did until Bob knocked on the door and invited us to dinner at 5:30.  We readily agreed and our new friends Ken and Shannon joined us also.  We ate, talked, laughed and froze our BUTTS off!  We would have liked to talk more but the blood circulation forced a retirement to our warm trailers.  Sleep came soon and then day 6!

We got back and worked on his jack.  We did not find a switch and decided to bypass the limiter switch until he could find the right microswitch.  Success!  That started my repair list.  The next was to fix the crack.  I mixed up the epoxy solution and had 4 minutes to get it in place.  It took a bit of twisting to get in the right angle but I filled the crack within the time limit.  It had a wonderful aroma also.  On to the clock install.  We have an Airstream clock and I could not figure out a way to hang up.  I got some of those 3m removable velcro hooks.  That worked great!  Keep going.  Remove the water saving spigot from the kitchen sink, Roxie never liked it anyway.  I also replace the right screw of the step just for good measure.  We had lunch somewhere in that mess of things also.

A bit of rest then getting ready for the potluck at 6pm.  Roxie made a pan of brownies and cooked two tri-tips for it.  I took down one of our portable tables and looked around.  There were 12 tables that seated 8 each setup.  That is 96 people!  It was all packed!!  We have not been to one of these rallies with this many people.  It was great!  The food was good also.  We visited others around the trailers afterward and got some good ideas.  We are now back in the trailer and Roxie is snoring away!

Here are some pics that I took to day of the 33 trailers here!
 

How about this one?  Glad we weren't here in 1986!

Roxie had a voicemail and a call to make so she did so.  The only problem was she had to stand in the middle of the road to get 2 bars of signal!  We got back to the trailer and started talking with our friends.  This is one of the most fun aspects of getting together, a way to reconnect with old and new friends.  During this time I went into the trailer and the step broke.  Man!  A screw either broke or came loose.  It appeared to be a 'normal' screw and the rest of the parts looked good.

We headed into 'town' to get the part.  We decided to have lunch there also in Guerneville.  We ate at the River Inn Grill.  It was very good food but the booths must have been new since it took a herculean effort to slide into.  We then headed to the hardware store.  This was the most interesting store.  It was SOOO unlike a box store like Lowes.  This store snaked around all over, things were everywhere, even on the ceiling.  Very fun and they had the screw!  The step was fixed in about 10 minutes.

In the afternoon we went down the Russian River and sat by the river.  We watched ducks swim by, an Osprey in a tall tree (maybe the same one) and vultures soaring overhead.  Very idyllic.  We came back to the trailer and promptly fell asleep (well Roxie a bit more promptly than I).  Roxie told me later that I was snoring up a storm and since the door was open the whole park must have heard me.  I don't know how this happens since I don't snore!

Here is a picture of the Chen's trailer, the Morelli's trailer and ours:

Another shot of down the row with a few flags flying:

Around 6 the happy hour started.  I tried, unsuccessfully, to get Roxie to go with me but she was still tired so I went for a bit.  There were about 35 people there.  I talked to some people, some that I didn't know.  It was enjoyable but COLD!  I hung around the fire and watched some semblance of fog roll through the tall trees.  As I came back to the trailer I took a shot of our lights we hung up:

More to come tomorrow.

As is the norm, I have been researching and thinking about this trip for weeks and months.  I will figure out what path we are taking, where to stop, etc.  Casini is about 300 miles from Visalia.  This is a bit more than I am real comfortable driving in one day (really Roxie can't sit much longer than that in the passenger seat although I offer her the drivers seat).  I was looking for places to stop around Tracy or somewhere BEFORE we enter the bay area conglomeration.  All the WalMart's in the bay area do not allow overnight parking.  I thought about a truck stop but Roxie isn't ready for that just yet.  I remembered we investigated the Brannan Island State Recreation Area near Rio Vista at one time and that looked like the best bet.  That was the plan.

It changed a bit.  I am trying to be more flexible in our travels.  Not make binding reservations when I don't need to, etc.  Trying to get used to our retirement travels (less than 5 years!).  I researched the Rio Vista area (200 miles from Viisalia) and there were many RV parks, etc. that we could use if we needed to.  The place that I tried first was the Sandy Beach campground in a Solano County Park.  This just a mile or so south of Rio Vista and about 20% full.  No reservation needed.  It is right on the main slough here in the Sacramento Delta.  It has a launching ramp and a day use area.  Here is a shot of our spot and a view of the slough.

We left home about 1pm as we took it easy doing the packing and got here about 5pm.  We had about 6 raindrops around Modesto on the way.  A nice uneventful trip.  We ate at Lucy's Cafe for dinner as Yelp showed good reviews.  It was not bad or offensive but we have had better Italian food.  Everyone has their own opinions.

We are pretty tired and getting good TV channels (21 in digital) on our $40 flatscreen.  So I will be able to watch as Roxie snores away.

Tomorrow we meet up with George and Marsha, then off to Casini for 4 nights!

We made it to Wine Country RV around 2pm and setup the trailer.  We went around and met people from our San Joaquin unit and the Central Coast unit.  We then returned to the trailer for a bit to unwind.  That evening we went to eat in Paso and went to Good Ol’ Burgers.  We have been there many times over the years and have always enjoyed it.  Their onion rings are outrageous:

Coincidentally our son was also in Paso visiting a friend and they joined us there that evening.

We went back to the trailer and opened the door and something ran out of the door!!  It was one of our cats that had stowed away!  Now what do we do?  Damn cat!  Down to WalMart to get food, cat box, litter.  That put a damper on things for me.  Roxie thought it was hilarious.  All in all the cat did not do too bad.  The pathetic part was that we actually looked in the trailer for that cat before we left.  Grrrr…

Saturday we wanted to go see the Airstreams at Sky River RV, and I was also looking for a 12V lamp for the oven.  I went to the parts at Sky River and asked about the bulb.  They didn’t have one.  I also asked him about the Airstreams as there were NONE on the lot.  He told me they move them to a lot in San Luis Obispo.  We had nothing else to do and didn’t know what to do for lunch so it was off to SLO!

We went to the new Airstream lot and looked around.  We do want to get another Airstream in about 4 years but will always look when we get a chance.  They had numerous models but we really liked the 27FB Classic and the 30′ Classic.  We will see how it goes.

One thing we like to do when we go to Pismo Beach is Roxie eats clam chowder at Splash Cafe and I eat tri-tip at Mo’s Smokehouse BBQ.  Luckily they have them in SLO also so Roxie picked up her bread bowl with clam chowder and we both went to Mo’s.  I love the garlic fries but not so much with Roxie due to how long they remain.  That evening we went to a chinese buffet with the WBCCI units (17 people).

Sunday morning had a meeting regarding the state of the WBCCI and what can be done to help it out.  Essentially it is dying.  They are not getting younger people attracted to the club.  Joe tenBerge, Region 12 2nd vice president, was there to talk about the subject.  I told him about Airforums and there were many discussions about the WBCCI there.  He said he has seen them but they were very negative.  Well sometimes you have to swallow the negative to learn things.  He said he would look around there.  I was surprised how many from OUR unit have never heard of Airforums OR Airstream Life magazine.  I need to educate them.

We had a lunch of tri-tip sandwiches with the units and then in the PM, ice cream sundaes.  That evening we saw a couple of trailers from the Airforums Western Womens rally but did not meet any of them.  Monday was the trip home.

We are thinking about going to the Bass Lake rally in April and/or a rally in Tehachapi in May.  We will see.

Before we left we had a minor modification done to the trailer.  When we refloored our house with laminate flooring we got some extra for the trailer.  The installer (our neighbor) did the trailer for us also.  We no longer have the white carpet (well mostly white) and have a surface that is easier to clean.

Our reservations started on Monday and we had 3 nights there.  One plan was to leave early on Monday from home and get there later in the afternoon/evening for a total of 354 miles!  Roxie worked on Sunday but she had a plan.  Let’s leave Sunday night when she gets home.  I agreed that we could try and we would be able to do another first for us:

Wal-Mart!  This was the first time we have ever stayed overnight at a Wal-Mart.  This was in Palmdale and we got there about 11pm.  I checked with the security guard and he said we would park there no problem but no longer than 2 nights.  Suited us just fine.  All that I did was put down the tongue jack (remembering to park nosedown) to level it out and I unplugged the umbilical cable.  You can easily see why Wal-Mart likes this because we proceeded to spend $80 the next morning at the store.  The nice thing was that this evening trip essentially cut the remaining distance in half making a much more managable drive.

Our friends (Rich, Eleanor and Emma) had arrived a day earlier and were not around when we arrived.  We went through our normal procedures.  When we saw the Luhr’s, they introduced us to some other Airstreamers that met them there also.  Ken & Petey, Adam & Susan were introduced to us all and the Airstream bond was created.  On Tuesday we all got together and took a road/hiking trip.  We were lucky enough to go in style with Ken & Petey.  The first spot was the slot canyon.  This is where the flooding of Anza Borrego has created very narrow and interesting canyons that you can go hike in.  We weren’t concerned about flooding at this time.

The next stop were the wind caves.  Cavern type areas carved out by wind and rain.  This hike was a bit more strenuous than the first.  We had a steep climb to start then some up and down.  However it was well worth the hike.  The formations are very interesting and a lot of fun to scramble around on.  Here is Roxie in a cave:

We also stopped to see Font’s Point which gives you an overview of the badlands area.  You can go to my Flickr set of this trip for other photos that I took.

Wednesday we decided to take the hike to the Palm Canyon oasis.  I remember doing this when I was a child and the others had done it many times previously so we were on our own.  The first part was ranger led and there was a big emphasis on spotting some Bighorn Sheep (the park’s namesake).  Everyone was hoping to see some and started out with high spirits.  The day was a  bit warm, very little breeze and a constant uphill elevation change.  The ranger stayed with the group about half way but there were no sightings of Bighorn.  The ranger turned back but continued on to the oasis.  About 2/3′s of the way to the end (for us) we found a little cave that was in the shade and decided to take a bit of a break.  I thought I would scan the opposite mountains for any movement (I can pick up movement pretty good).  Looking up about 2000′ above us and I saw something.  It was a Bighorn.  So now I get to tell Roxie where it is.  Not an easy task to try to tell someone which rock(s) out of thousands they should look at to see something that was so minuscule.  However she was able to see it.  I tried to tell others as they passed by but they weren’t able to see it.  But I do have proof:

Look for the arrow and this was at maximum zoom on our camera.

We were able to complete our hike but we were pretty beat.  It was very warm at the end.  We had just purchased some water backpacks and were depleted also.  We went back to the trailer and rested a bit.  The next day we took our requisite trip to Julian.  It was about the same as it was before but we always enjoy going there.

You can see Rich Luhr’s account of their Anza Borrego trip at his blog.

Here is a shot of our trailer at Anza Borrego and a shot of my parents trailer many years ago.  Same campground but a different spot.

Now it is time to leave.  Do we go straight home in one day?  My birth grandmother lives in Riverside and we haven’t seen her for 4 years so we will see where we can stay for the evening.  Riverside does not have too many places to camp and a weekend is coming up.  So we try for another first and see if we can take advantage of some courtesy parking.  The WBCCI has a listing for that in the membership roster book but Airforums also has a place to list such.  We looked for someone in Riverside and found Towster!  We had met Vince and Virginia at some other rallies but did not know they lived in Riverside and we contacted them about parking for one evening.  They graciously agreed and even moved their trailer so we had room for ours:

We attempted to repay them for their kindness by taking them out to eat that evening.  It was nice to visit with them and get to know them better.  Sometimes it is hard to talk to people at the rallies since there are so many people.  We were able to visit my grandmother twice while we were there and then we pushed on home on Saturday.

A good trip, not rushed, a couple of firsts for us and new Airstream friends (Ken, Petey, Adam, Susan, Vince and Virginia).

The ‘northern’ group had a trip to the Jackson Rancheria RV park planned for the second weekend in October.  That is only about 200 miles from us and we have not explored that area too much so we got reservations and made plans to go.  The ‘southern’ group had a trip to Kernville at the Rivernook Campground for the very next weekend.  This one was only 124 miles away so made reservations there also.

Jackson:  We have been in the Gold Country a bit but have not really spent any time there.  This was a good opportunity for some exploration.  We got there fairly late on Thursday and planned to leave Monday.  The spot we were initially assigned did not have enough nights available and we would have had to move for Sunday night.  We were able to switch with another Airstreamer that was leaving on Sunday.  We were able to get around to see Black Chasm Caverns with its amazing collection of helictites.  We always enjoy stopping at any caves/caverns we can.  We also got to look at the Indian Grinding Rock SHP.  It is difficult to imagine living the way the original inhabitants of these areas did.  We topped off that day with a stroll through the town of Jackson.  They were having a old pipe organ festival at that time.

We visited in the evening with the other Airstreamers.  We had the obligatory potluck on Sunday night (friday night a lot of us snuck off to the Casino’s buffet) and the weather was FREEZING!  Luckily ‘doorgunner’ brought his hellish propane fire pit.  Due to the high fire danger, no wood or charcoal fires were allowed.  However propane was fine and the Rancheria fire department came by a few times to check on us but the pit was legal (you can see us on the left of this picture).

That Sunday night at the casino they had a concert.  The performer was Don Felder, one of the founders of the Eagles.  The tickets were inexpensive, $20 each, so we thought we would attend.  The concert was very entertaining, he played mostly Eagles songs, on SRV song, and one original song.  He must have played 6 different types of guitars.  There were only about 200 people in the audience, it was a flat floor with an elevated stage.  Very similar to when we saw Steely Dan at Table Mountain Casino near home.  The only drawback was all the cigarette smoke in the casino.  I am very glad we went.

Kernville:  I had 3 days at work, then we turned around and headed to Kernville.  It didn’t break my heart.  We have friends in both groups and there was one other couple that made it to both as we did.  It is interesting that each group has so many differences but I won’t go into them here.

The Rivernook campground was a stark difference from the Jackson Rancheria RV park.  The Rancheria park was neat as a pin, paved, grass everywhere, new.  The Rivernook had its’ own charm.  It actually felt like a campground, once you got past all the permanent RV’s, you could see tenters, tent trailers, trailers, very few 40′ bus’.  No two sites were alike, some had hookups, some didn’t.  Plus there were many creeks that ran through it along with the Kern river.  Our group took an entire row and some others were dispersed around.

The weather was very different this weekend, as this photo will attest:

We spent part of Saturday walking around Kernville and going through the consignment and antique stores.  It wouldn’t take more than 4 hours since there weren’t too many of them.

All in all it was nice to go somewhere we haven’t before but it was a bit much to do two weekends with work sandwiched in there.