We are attending the regular November Rally of the Airstream Club. All day Thursday and Friday the Airstreams pulled in to the RV park and we soon had about 35 rigs attending…
This is a nice park, with concrete pads and the weather is beautiful. Only downside is that this tree totally blocked my satellite dish, so I had to connect to park cable; this is always sub-optimal…
Mornings typically start with coffee provided by the rally host. mid-day we walked, chatted with neighbors, read, and, on Saturday, watched College Football!
Evenings found us gathered in the Rec Room for Happy Hours or Dinner…
But Monday eventually came, and we headed home…
It’s about 60 miles of driving through the desert still before we get back to civilization…
We arrived at the RV storage lot in Mentone Beach, parked the Airstream, loaded all our stuff into the truck and drove home to Redlands, where we unloaded all our stuff into the house…
After greeting our son and the dog the first thing I wanted to see was the wine cellar… The past 7 weeks were the busiest delivery season for the wine industry. Sixteen boxes awaited me. (and 7 more boxes arrived in the next 3 days…)
So we are home. 51 days and 5,700 miles…
An enjoyable time was had by all…
Next adventure: San Clemente State Beach, December 1-6…
We had a leisurely morning at the campground because we have a relatively short day today…
We pulled out at about 11:00 am and headed west on the 10 towards Arizona.
The desert here is rather bleak and unforgiving, but there are interesting views aplenty…
We crossed over into Arizona eventually…
Arizona views are not that much different than those in New Mexico…
We exited the freeway in Tucson. We are visiting old Airstream friends who we met in Chula Vista, CA. They used to be “full-timers”, but they sold their Airstream and moved to a lovely house in the hills above Tucson…
On our way up the hill we passed a military base. There were literally hundreds of moth-balled airplanes sitting adjacent to the road. This went on for about a mile…
We continued up into the hills… after sharing a bottle of wine in their home we went out to dinner at a local “foodie” restaurant…
After dinner we retired to the Villa for the night.
Thursday, November 3…
We have a long day today. We headed out at 5:05 am…
Yes, it was dark, and these Tucson roads are bumpy…
After passing through a torrential downpour that caused freeway traffic to slow to 30 mph, we finally saw the light…
Arizona’s famous Saguaro cactus… These cacti live to be over 100 years old BEFORE they grow their branches…
We soon arrived at the Promised Land…
The bridge over the Colorado river…
We continued across the desert…
It has been more than 7 weeks since we have eaten Mexican food… (We rarely ever go to a Mexican restaurant outside California… too many BAD experiences…) So we stopped at Carmelita’s in Borrego Springs…
After lunch we drove the two short miles to the RV park and met up with our Airstream Club friends.
Happy Hours ensued; an enjoyable time was had by all…
It was a day of mourning and rejoicing over yesterday’s sports results… Dodgers lost, Stanfurd won, Notre Dame lost, USC lost, Alabama lost, Tennessee won, TCU won, CAL lost…
So you are now treated with a picture of the McAnoy Grandchildren; they are at one of the oldest still-operating Bob’s Bigboy Restaurant, in Burbank/Toluca Lake, California…
Tonight we see another show: O Happy Day, a show of Gospel music, at The Hamner Variety Theater…
It’s a grand place…
Oh! Wait… It’s just a metal industrial building with a fake façade
But the show was fun… Gospel music and Hymns! What’s not to like…
We enjoyed the show a lot! I even bought a CD! Now I need to figure out if I have a CD player…
We returned to the Villa, and an enjoyable time was had by all…
We are off to the east for the first time since Summer 2021! We are joining the Airstream Club International (ACI) in Northern Arkansas for a caravan titled, “Sho’ Me The Ozarks”. We will spend about one month in Northern Arkansas and Southern Missouri.
First, to get your attention, here is Evelyn, our 4 1/2 year old grand-daughter, ready for her first time playing soccer…
We left Redlands at about 9:30 AM. The drive north on the 15 was uneventful and quite boring.
We stopped to stretch our legs, like we normally do about every 1-1 1/2 hours…
We crossed over into Nevada…
This is Primm, NV, just over the border…
We drove through Las Vegas on the interstate…
And arrived at Mesquite, Nevada. Unbeknownst to us, while our RV park was addressed in Mesquite, Nevada, it is actually in Arizona…
It was a basic, clean, RV park, with full hook-ups. We need the AC – its 98 degrees…!
I will elaborate more on our plans in the next blog post…
Last day of summer! (Even though school started three weeks ago – it’s still summer!)
Our grandchildren enjoyed a day at the beach!
We left Puyallop and headed south…
The Columbia River never ceases to please…
Remember when I said one barge on the Columbia River holds enough grain to fill 160 railroad cars? Here is where the barges offload the grain, where it is loaded into the railroad cars…
Portland has some great bridges…
And we are set up at a very nice RV Park in Salem, OR.
With a beautiful sky…
Tuesday, September 7:
We left early – we have a long day… The fog was a nice relief from the heat…
Wait! That’s not fog – it’s smoke!
There are four wildfires to the east of us, just over the hills… The whole length of the state…
At a rest stop we couldn’t see the mountains…
We passed through the delightful little town of Jacksonville, OR, located about 20 miles off the 5, west of Medford… We found out camping spot for the night – Valley View Winery, part of the Harvest Host program…
Still a little smoky…
We were the gusts for dinner at old Airstream friends who live a few miles from the winery… They lave 7 acres and a lovely house overlooking the Applegate River…
Fiery sunset over the river…
After a lovely dinner we returned to the Villa…
Wednesday, September 8:
As we left the winey in the morning we found a few wild turkeys…
We soon returned to California! Yay!
We saw lots of evidence of last year’s fires…
And we had some more smoke as well…
But soon the skies cleared as we approached Clear Lake…
After a tortuous drive over Hwy 175 we arrived in Cloverdale in time for a lovely sunset sky…
Thursday, September 9:
We awoke to clear skies and headed down the road…
We crossed over the Richmond bridge and the San Francisco Bay…
Still a little smoggy, but we could see the Golden Gate Bridge…
Still a little smoggy, but we could make out the city skyline…
Oakland is noted for its giant cargo container cranes…
And downtown Oakland is looking good…
BART running past us… We love cities!
We arrived at our RV park in Marina, just outside Monterey…
We drove into Carmel to stroll the town before dinner…
The beach is lovely, but cold!
We had a delightful dinner at a “Contemporary Mexican Restaurant”. First Mexican food since we left California on July 23… (We don’t eat Mexican food outside California – way too many disappointing meals over the past years…)
Friday, September 10
As we headed out of Marina across the Salinas Valley we saw fields and fields of lettuce…
Soon we saw vineyards…
We arrive in Paso Robles and parked just outside downtown. And a lovely town it is…
We stopped in for a wine tasting, hosted by this charming fellow…
But we are on a tight schedule, so we head south again, arriving at Los Olivos at about 4:00 pm…
We enjoyed a little wine tasting on the front patio…
Plenty of parking in Los Olivos, even on a Friday afternoon…
We parked in the Saarloos vineyard for the night, and shared dinner with Airstream friends at Bell’s in Los Alamos…
Saturday, September 11:
We arrived home in Redlands, California…
We shared happy hours drinking beer on the front porch with our son…
And an enjoyable time was had by all…
Seven weeks and one day… twelve states… 7,000 miles.
We’re off again! This time we are going to retrace the path of the Oregon Trail, from Missouri to Oregon. To do this we must, again, drive through the California desert, drive through the Arizona desert, through the New Mexico desert, and on through a corner of the Texas desert, through a corner of the Oklahoma desert, then on into Kansas, and finally into Missouri. We will be retracing some of the same roads and places that we have been through before…
But first, here is an update of our grandchildren…
Roisin got to ride the big school bus to go off to beach and surf camp…
Ian visited The La Brea Tar Pits and stuck his finger into the tar…
George got a little dirty when he had a minor fall during a family hike…
Evelyn has found her calling as “Super Woman”…
They have enjoyed their summer, doing the many things that have been off limits over the past 15 months…
But back to out trip…
We had an uneventful day driving across California and Arizona…
Not the first time we have been in Arizona, but it is always fun to take a photo of the sign…
Arizona looks like this along this route…
We had a little rain, but nothing that delayed our trip. We headed north at Phoenix, and continuing to Camp Verde, located about one hour south of Sedona. Camp Verde is a sleepy little town that has the best restaurant in this part of Arizona. People drive the hour from Sedona because it is better than anything there…
Camp Verde looks like this… We are at about 3,200′ elevation…
We found the RV park. We are in, connected, and paid for…
So, after checking in to the RV park, we freshened up and headed to Moscato Italian Restaurant. We had a fabulous meal, with courses that were way too large – we brought home over half the food. (We drank all the wine…)
Next to our table was a group of six men, about our age, who were celebrating a birthday. They were having a great time, and on occasion we could hear someone mention their Airstream. Several times. We were not sure which man it was, so as we were leaving we stopped at their table and asked, “Which one owns an Airstream?” It turns out that four of them own Airstreams! They were all from Sedona, and, like I said, they drive the hour to Camp Verde to eat at Moscato. We had a fine discussion about Airstreams, diesel trucks, and the finer things of life, and we then left them to continue their celebrations.
We returned to The Villa. An enjoyable time was had by all…
The day dawned beautifully. It was warm, but not too warm to walk about the park.
At about 11:00 we set up our lounge chairs on the beach… The river was quiet still, with a few water skiers and very few racing jet skis and motorboats…
But it was hot. Sitting in the shade only lasted about 20 minutes before we had to go dip ourselves in the water to cool off. It was refreshing…
We had lunch in the coolest part of the restaurant, then returned to the beach. But it was hot. We decided to go back to the Villa and relax in the coolness of the AC, but it was hot.
How hot was it?
We decided to head for home early. We quickly packed up the Villa and we were off at about 5:15… About 30 minutes we were back in California. Also, interestingly, we were also back in San Bernardino County, the county in which we live. We will drive through San Bernardino County for the entirety of the trip, another 3 1/2 to 4 hours…
Lots of interesting mountains to see through this stretch of desert wilderness…
Near Desert Center we came across these palm tree farms…
Finally, at 9:10 we pulled into the storage spot in Mentone Beach…
We off-loaded the Villa into the truck, arriving home just after 10:00 pm.
And an enjoyable time was had by all…
PS: Next blog begins July 23, when we head to Missouri to participate in the Oregon Trail Caravan…!
We had a leisurely morning with time to walk around the park. It is a huge park, with a variety of types of sites and amenities…
We left Las Vegas about 9:30 and headed south through Nevada…
We continues south through Nevada…
Outside Las Vegas there were these very impressive solar farms…
We are headed down through the tiny southern point of Nevada. We stopped in Searchlight to stretch our legs…
And we continued south through Nevada…
We briefly re-entered California at the 40, as we continued on to Needles…
And we continued southeast through California…
There is an exit at Needles to drive along the historic Route 66…
And then we crossed the Colorado River once again and entered Arizona…
California and Arizona have plenty of interesting mountains…
As we headed south on AZ 95 towards Parker we saw smoke ahead…
We never figured out what this was – how does the desert burn like this? But we did hear later that Arizona did close all their State-owned public lands due to the many fires…
We eventually found the Colorado River again…
We found this nice little enclave of vacation homes in the middle of nowhere…
We suffered through the traffic that is Lake Havasu City, and finally arrived at the Pirates Den RV Resort. This place has seen better days… as have all the “resorts” and trailer parks and campgrounds along the river…
When we tried to check in to our site the manager told us that it was not yet available. The current occupants had truck trouble, and were just now started to pack up. We went into the restaurant to wait – it was 110 degrees outside – and, since we finally had internet access we could check our phones…
The resort has many waterfront sites, with private beach cabanas. We didn’t have one of these…
But it is great fun to watch the boat traffic in the river…
We wanted to beat the traffic entering Yellowstone, so we pulled out at 6:45 am. We headed from the RV Park in Montana, into Wyoming, and through the Roosevelt Arch…
The early morning drive through Yellowstone was beautiful, but, other than the elk that was standing in the Roosevelt Arch, which delayed our drive for a few minutes, we saw no wildlife…
That isn’t to say that there was no excitement today… Back in Burbank our two older grandchildren boarded the big yellow school bus for the first time… They are heading to Beach Camp! We expect them to return tired, sandy, and sunburned (just a little…).
So we continued through the park. Believe it or not, this is the fastest route from Gardiner, MT to California…
We came upon some geothermal activity. This was bigger than any similar sulfur-smelling steam venting we had seen in all our time here…
But we continued on, traveling south, then heading west, exiting the park at the west entrance…
It took about one hour to travel the park. As we left we saw the lines of cars trying to get into the park. This line of traffic is still 3-4 miles from the park entrance…
So we passed on out of Wyoming, back into Montana, and on through to Idaho.
Somewhere in Idaho we stopped to stretch our legs and eat a snack. We pulled off an anonymous offramp and parked between the Potato Growers of Idaho Association and a FedEx Distribution center…
Back on the freeway we continued south…
We ate lunch at a nice rest stop somewhere in southern Idaho…
We passed over into Utah, and on the Tremonton, where we found a very nice RV Resort…
Aspen Grove RV Resort, Tremonton, Utah. Large sites, concrete pads, full hook-ups. Come back in 5 years – they have planted a tree at each site – in five years we won’t be able to use our satellite TV…
There was another Airstream in the park – pulled by a Porsche Cayenne… We had an interesting chat about tow-vehicles, hithes, and Airstreams in general…
Another interesting feature of the RV Park is that several sites have Electric Vehicle charging stations…!
For our 47th wedding anniversary dinner we selected the finest restaurant in Tremonton… It is a diner at the bowling alley…
We tried to have a toast, but this being Utah, there was no wine…
After a fairly unremarkable dinner we returned to the Villa…
Adventures in the Villa 