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Adventures in the Villa

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November 2018

2018-11-14 – Marie Terhorst – Birthday Number 97

November 13 was my mother’s 97th birthday. If I get my math right, this means she was born in 1921, the same year Aline Barnsdall fired Frank Lloyd Wright during the construction of her Hollyhock House in Hollywood…

She still lives independently in her cottage at the Artesia Christian Home, as she has for the past 13 years…

On Sunday and Monday this week she was visited by four of her great-grandchildren:

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At last count, she has 5 children, 4 grand children,  10 great-grandchildren, and 4 great-great-grandchildren (and maybe one in escrow?  I’m not trying to start rumors here, but I think that is what I was told…)  If I didn’t quite get these numbers right, forgive me – they told me there would be no math in retirement…

I stopped by on the 14th, because I was at the Happiest Place on Earth on the 13th…

We went to lunch at the place where Don Jose’s used to be…

I read her all the birthday cards she received…

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

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2018-11-13 – Disneyland and the happiest place on earth…

Today was Disneyland Day!

This required leaving the house at 7:30 am and fighting traffic to Anaheim, finding the way to the Toy Story parking lots, finding the Accessible parking stalls, getting John in his wheelchair out of the van and over to the shuttle bus, onto the bus and thus to the entrance to the park.  Everything went flawlessly and with no drama.

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The meet-up with Erin and her three oldest kids also went well and the day went off without a hitch…

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Waiting for the teacups…

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On the Teacups…

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Roisin even got to sit on the forward deck of the boat as they floated into the whale’s mouth…!

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The funny story about this photo is that shortly after this was taken, another little girl walked by, leaned over, and took a nice long slurp off George’s ice cream …!

This was George’s first trip to Disneyland.  He declared that his favorite ride was “Bungo” (or Dumbo) but we didn’t get any photos, so here is one from Small World.

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And what about “The Happiest Place on earth”?  Not at Disneyland – It was right here in Redlands, where I spent the day dog-sitting Yan…

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And an enjoyable time was definitely had by me and Yan…

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2018-11-11 – Returning home from Paso Robles – Day 11

Last day.  We packed up and hitched up early and hit the road…

Farewell, Record vineyards!

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We once again passed through the James Dean Memorial intersection on Highway 46… Lynda snapped this photo as we drove by…

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Soon we were enjoying the bleakness that is the Antelope Valley…

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We arrived safely home and began to adjust to living in a house for a while.  Next destination:  San Clemente State Beach on November 30.  But first, we’ll have a trip to Disneyland, my mother’s 97th birthday, Big Game, Thanksgiving, and the return of my repaired Eames chair…

Happy hours ensued on the front porch…

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And an enjoyable time was had by all…

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2018-11-10 – Paso Robles – Day 10

Once again it was very cold this morning… But we have our routine down by now…  On our morning walk in the vineyard we had a great view of the Villa:

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At 10:00 am we drove to Turley Vineyards for one of their “pick-up parties” – a fun time where people who have ordered wine on line can pick up their wines at the winery.  We were unsure of our plans at the time of the ordering, so we had our wines shipped (six bottles of Zinfandel from the Ueberroth vineyard…).

But we wanted to join the party since we were in the neighborhood…

The food was good, the band was good, the wine was free-flowing, and Lynda found strangers to talk to…

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After we had had enough fun we returned to the Record vineyard.  The party there was starting to begin.

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Lynda found more hanging grapes…

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Another good picture for my funeral…

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Tables were set up…

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The turkeys were pulled from the BBQ pit, and it was soon pulled and shredded…

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Soon the Friendsgiving was underway…

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As darkness fell we returned to the Villa and watched football!  CAL won a stunning victory over a semi-rival team and is now bowl-eligible!  Go Bears!

An enjoyable time was had by all…

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2018-11-09 – Paso Robles – Day 9

We awoke to a VERY cold morning.  It was 48 degrees inside the Airstream, and well under 30 degrees outside.  I turned on the furnace as soon as the sun was hitting the solar panels.  When it was warm enough to get dressed I went out and fired up the generators; fireplace was lit, TV was showing the morning news, coffee was soon ready, and the avocado toast was delicious!

We took a walk in the vineyards and enjoyed the views.  We were here in July and the vines were lush and green.  Now they are lying fallow and turning various shades of brown…

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We drove off about 11:00 am to visit a vineyard and winery recommended by friends.  Again the drive was lovely…

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We soon arrived at Nadeau Family Vintners…

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And this happened!

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Again we went to lunch in Paso Robles, this time at Park Avenue Grill…

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After lunch we again walked around the town for a while, then we returned to Record.

I took a nap to make sure I could stay awake for the late evening festivities;  at 6:30 we joined the other campers (there are about 25 RVs parked around the vineyards…) to watch the bbq pit get lit, grill some hot dogs, and share a bottle of wine that each camper contributed… Although it was cold, we did have a nice time meeting a few new people and just hanging out together.  Finally we were too cold, so we returned to the Villa…

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

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2018-11-08 – Paso Robles – Day 8

Another cold morning.  But the solar panels keep up the batteries and in the morning we fired up the generator to get the news on TV, make coffee, and, today, make some great avocado toast…

Lynda even took some time to finish the impossible puzzle!

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But first we took a walk along the road fronting the winery…

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We hitched up and left our free camping site at this winery and set out to visit another free campsite in another vineyard…

We drove to Record Family Wines, where we will spend the next three days.  We are here to attend “Friendsgiving” – a Thanksgiving feast with 120 or so new and old friends set in the vineyards…

It is only about a 10 minute trip from Tobin James to Record, so soon we were parked along the (dry) creek by the vineyards…

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They have just finished harvest a week or so ago, and there was evidence amongst the vines…

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We drove into Paso Robles for lunch at Le Cosecha, a tapas and small plate Spanish restaurant… It faces onto the town square and we enjoyed it greatly!

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Our Old Fashioneds were excellent; Lynda had fish tacos and I had paella…

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After lunch we walked through the quaint town – much nicer than Cambria…

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Although we never could figure out what color they were painting this facade…

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We returned to the Villa.  We met up with some of the Record family and happy hours ensued…

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

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2018-11-07 – Paso Robles – Day 7

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We woke up this morning to a brilliant sunrise, and bitter cold.  It was 37 degrees outside, 52 degrees inside the Villa.  Finally, as the sun hit the solar panels, I turned on the furnace.  Once I warmed up a bit, I turned on the generator, we prepared our morning coffee, and we turned on the TV to see who had won and lost the election.

    Cynical quote of the day:  “If elections really have the power to change our government, do you really think they’d let us have them?”

We had a leisurely morning.  There’s not much to do in wine country before the tasting rooms open…  Lynda worked on her impossible puzzle and I read a book about the creation of Fallingwater…

At 10:30 or so we left and stopped to fuel the truck… Then we visited Villicana Winery and Re:Find Distillery…  We did buy a few bottles…

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We took the long route around to get to the ocean – we realized we had not seen the ocean since August 2!  The road was wonderful!

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We stopped for lunch outside Cambria at Moonstone Beach…

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After lunch we walked along the beach boardwalk… This is part of the California Coast Trail – 1,300 miles of planned oceanfront trails.  About 50% is currently complete…

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After enjoying the beach we drove into Cambria Village and saw restaurants and gift/jewelry/antique shops and… well, there really isn’t anything else…

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On our drive back to the Villa we stopped along the way to catch a view south to Morro Rock and the sun starting to set in the west…

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We returned to the Villa and had another quiet evening…

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

 

 

 

 

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2018-11-06 – Leaving Emerald Desert RV Resort, arriving Paso Robles – Day 6

Today is a travel day.  We left Palm Desert and headed towards Paso Robles.  Our route took us within 1/2 mile of our house in Redlands, but we rolled on without stopping…

For most of the drive it was relatively bleak – over the Cajon pass, and through the Antelope Valley…

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We continued west on Highway 46, past the James Dean Memorial Intersection… Here he is, as a giant painted plywood cutout.  Lynda snapped this as we drove by, there being no place to stop…

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Not much happening here, but the road is great and it was an easy drive…

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On the far eastern outskirts of Paso Robles we stopped at Tobin James Cellars… This will be our home for the next few days…

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(Lynda may or may not have her eyes closed, but the late afternoon sun was intense…)

We parked the Airstream across the street from the winery, all alone, in the wilderness…

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Well, we weren’t quite alone – there was another camper here as well…

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Actually it was just a giant dirt parking lot, used for employee parking and as a staging area for UPS trucks…

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img_0234But it was free!  Thank you, Harvest Hosts!

We did some wine tasting, bought a few bottles, and spent the evening in the Villa…

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

 

And today we celebrate National Redhead Day with our grandson, Ian:

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2018-11-05 – South Coast Airstream Club – Emerald Desert RV Resort – Day 5

We had a quiet morning… Most other Airstreamers are packing up and returning home today.

We had a few errands to run… Ralphs and Trader Joe’s were on the agenda…

We left for Wilsons’ condo at about 3:30 pm, and arrived in a few minutes – its about three miles away.  Happy hours ensued as we sat on the patio overlooking the golf course.

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We had a little wine…

Cabernets and Bordeaux for the steaks…

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Pinot Noirs for the appetizers and salads… (BTW, these 10 year old Pinots from Williams Selyem were spectacular!  Don’t drink them too young – you are missing out…!)

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For dinner we shared some charred animal flesh…

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And an enjoyable time was had by all…

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