Rincon Part II

Sunset Wednesday

We went to bed Wednesday grateful there had been no Santa Ana winds as had been predicted, BUT at 1:30am on Thursday we were awakened by strong winclds grabbing at the still deployed awning....well, that's not good. I woke Elaine (taking down the ZipDee awning is a two person job, especially in the wind!) telling her we needed to get the awning down quick. We threw on some clothes and jumped outside to save our awning. It was amazingly warm for 1:30 in the morning. It took us 3 minutes to put the awning down and put away anything that might blow away, and went back inside. I hate waking up like that...with a little adreniline burst, because I know it will take me time to go back to sleep. I think I fell asleep again around 2:30am, and woke up to bright sunshine around 8:30am....that is late for me!

Elaine enjoying the view on Wednesday afternoon.

The sky was crystal clear Thursday morning, and, thankfully, the wind had died down. The Channel Islands were clearly etched against the morning sky. After a quick breakfast we put on our bike clothes for our annual ride up the Ventura River bike trail to Ojai, CA. Ojai sits at about 750' above sea level, so the ride from Rincon (sea level) was mostly uphill. The round trip ride from space #119 on Rincon Parkway to Ojai and back was 36 miles. The the weather was perfect riding at 65 degrees. We left the coach around 10am, and arrived in Ojai around 11:30am. It was getting on time for lunch so we stopped at a Starbucks and ordered a couple of the hot Pannini sandwiches. After a nice lunch we began the downhill run back to Rincon.

Feeling mellow after the 36 mile bike ride........

We arrived back at the Newell around 2pm, took showers, and headed outside to sit in the lounge chairs. Since we hadn't had a fire Wednesday night we had a lot of wood left for this night. We started up the fire around 4pm, and sat there watching the evening overtake the day as the stars began to twinkle, and the lights of the distant oil platforms became visible. What a great way to end our stay on Rincon. Of course there was a bottle of wine involved, and some Frank Sinatra on Sirriusly Sinatra (XM/Sirrius) channel 71. Since rain was predicted for today, Friday, the clouds were rolling in big time. After dinner we put almost everything away, because we did not want to be loading up in the rain.

Cloud cover getting heavy...

First thing Friday morning it was still partly cloudy, but no rain, so, in order to speed up the rain I went outside to wash off the windshield...lol! Within 10 minutes it started to rain....works every time!

We departed Rincon as the intensity of the rain increased, and headed south on HWY 101 to HWY 126 which takes us through the Santa Paula Valley to I-5, and home. The rain quit as we hit Santa Paula, and it remained dry all the way home. We had barely backed the Newell into site 216 (our permanent site) when it started raining again. The rain continued the rest of the afternoon until around 4pm. Well, we avoided packing up in the rain, but got to unpack in the rain, so our day was complete. The temperature when we arrived "home" was in the low 50's.

Well, that's the rest of the story....thanks for stopping by!