The last four days, and 700 miles......

6:53 am - Sunday - December 1st - TWW - 30° F, humidity 45%, wind 6 mph out of the east by southeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 61° F.  On this date in 2021 TLE and I were dining alfresco at Los Jilbertos in Borrego Springs, CA....one of our favorite 'hole in the wall' Mexican places.....great tacos.....

Well, I've been away from the blogosphere since Thursday.  I haven't written about Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday, so there is a lot of ground to be covered in this one single missive.  Time to get started!

Our goal Wednesday was to be on the road in the VW no later than 9 am for the 4.5 hour drive to SoCal, and Thanksgiving with our kids.  Why the VW, and not the Expedition?  I would have preferred to avoid that now 30 minute, 7 mile drive to pavement in the VW, but she gets way, way better gas mileage than the Expedition.  We managed to depart TWW by 8:30 am, and by 9 am had transitioned to US-66 westbound.  The first time we went to Kingman a few weeks ago we spied an early 80's Newell Classic parked on the northside of US-66 just as we had entered the town limits, but had never stopped to take a picture.  On this date I decided we would stop, and TLE got a couple of pictures....

It appears it is being used, and is not abandoned, which makes us happy.  Hoping to catch someone 'at home' next time and find out a little more about her

.....I drove to a Rest Area somewhere west of the Colorado River where TLE took over the driving duties until Barstow. I took a couple of pictures of the vast, long, big views along the way....

....we had planned our departure from TWW so that we would arrive in Rancho Cucamonga around 2:30 pm, however, we did not take into account the 1 hour time difference between Arizona and California, arriving at our hotel at 1:30 pm where the check in time was 4 pm, however, our room was ready so we checked in, and unpacked our suitcases.  The upside to arriving an hour earlier than planned was I was able to take a nice hour long nap before we headed over to my daughter's (Sharon) home to spend time with her family, and Kate's family....

Kate, TLE and Sharon (left to right)

Levi and Jolene, two of Kate's kids (her oldest son, Elijah, is in Japan for two weeks, and Charlise was at the Ontario Mills mall shopping for Christmas)

....we headed over to Sharon's home around 3:30 pm, and were there in less than 10 minutes, which is precisely why we opted to stay at the Holiday Inn Express in Rancho Cucamonga.  Why did we stay in a hotel, and not with one of our kids?  Well, we're getting old, and really need our own space more than ever to recharge our batteries after each day, and it really worked out quite well.

Rod, Sharon's husband, brought home pizza for dinner, and soon there after Kate, and her husband Nick arrived with two of their four kids.....Jolene and Levi.  We had a great evening filled with lots of great conversation, and pizza!  We bid our adieus around 7:30 pm, and headed back to the hotel for the night.

Thursday, of course, was Thanksgiving, which was held at the home of Nick's parents, Jack and Nancy, whom we adore....in fact, we actually adore all of our kids in-laws.  Around 12 pm we headed down the I-15 to Corona where Jack and Nancy live, arriving there 30 minutes later....the traffic on the southbound I-15 was terrible, but it has always been terrible.  There are just too many people living in too small a geographical area here in SoCal, and that is the primary reason we spend very little time in SoCal...

Sharon, Rod and Brayden

Jack and Nancy have a heated Jacuzzi, so you can guess where the grand kids ended up after Thanksgiving dinner....lol!

That's Jack in the background

....one of our sons, Tim, lives in Woodstock, GA with his wife and children, so we 'Facetimed' with them while we were at Jack and Nancy's home...

...we miss them a lot, and their two children, Crosby and Bowie, are growing so fast!

There were around 20+ people on hand for Thanksgiving, and I neglected to get a group picture.  Nevertheless, we had a wonderful meal filled with lots of great conversation and Thanksgiving food.  TLE and I were on our way back to the hotel around 5 pm.

Friday we had no plans with the kids until the afternoon, so we took a long walk around the local area, doing a little Black Friday window shopping....we did not buy anything.  The Ontario Mills Mall, which is right across the street from the hotel, was wall to wall people, so all we did was walk around the 1 mile interior walkway.  Most stores had long lines formed with hundreds of people awaiting their turn to enter....it was quite the 'jungle', if you know what I mean.  

Around 1:30 pm we drove over to Haven City Market, which is a large food court with a dozen, or so eateries, to meet our kids for a late lunch......

....we hung out for about 90 minutes before they headed for their homes, and we back to our hotel.  This would be our last time together before heading back to TWW early Saturday mornings, so we all got in our last hugs, and 'until next times' before heading home.  It was quite the whirlwind, and I'm sure it will take us a couple of days to recharge our batteries....lol!

We were on the road Saturday morning by 6 am....we headed a few blocks east on Foothill Blvd. to the local COSTCO fuel station where we topped off the Beetle tank, and then hopped on I-15 northbound to Barstow where we picked up I-40 eastbound back to TWW.  Our son Chris, and his wife Rochelle (The Amazing Rochelle) had celebrated Thanksgiving with  family, and extended family at Stoddard Wells (a popular winter, offroad destination), so we exited I-40 to spend an hour with them.  I completely forgot to take any pictures, so the following were taken from Instagram....

Chris and Rochelle in front of their Fleetwood Expedition 30', Class A, diesel pusher motorhome

Chris (background) and Rochelle (foreground) with their daughter, Cynthia, and two grandsons, Jameson, and Daniel (left to right)

.....we arrived at their campsite around 7:30 am, and were back on the road around 8:30 am.  Fortunately, they were only 5 minutes off the Interstate, so it was an 'easy off' and 'easy on' stop.

We stopped one more time in Kingman a the local Maverick fuel station to refill our tank, at which time TLE took over the driving duties until we reached the beginning of the dirt road to TWW.  Within another half hour we arrived back at the Newell, just after 2 pm Arizona time.  We are thankful for the time spent with our kids, and for a completely uneventful 700 mile roundtrip drive to SoCal!

Thanks for stopping by!