Rewind...

We've been gone from SoCal for just over a month as of Tuesday, and it was time to return, if only for a week.  The RV park where we resided the past two days has two storage areas, and one of them (the one just a few hundred yards from our site) has 30 amp electrical hookups available.  As you know we do have solar panels, but the next 8 days will have a lot of cloudiness and rain in the Cottonwood/Camp Verde region, so since we were not going to shut the coach down (empty and turn off the fridge, etc.) the odds were the batteries would be not be at 100% when we returned.  The only way to guaranty our batteries would be close to 100% would be to shut everything down, and completely isolate all four batteries.  We have four switches that can be turned off to accomplish just that.  However, for $37 we were able to plug the coach in for 8 days while we are gone, and leave the DVR on so when we return we will have a fridge full of food, fully charged batteries, and all of our favorite shows recorded.

After the deluge of the prior 36 hours we had mostly clear blue skies Tuesday morning with a little snow showing itself on the nearby mountains.

We had the coach and trailer tucked away in the storage yard by 9:50 am, and were on our way back to SoCal for TLE's college reunion.  The 399 mile drive was completely uneventful, and even with the time change we arrived in Riverside just after 3:30 pm.  TLE and I took turns driving 100 miles at a time to break up the drive....in all we stopped three times to use the restroom (we're old and drink too much coffee), once for fuel where we also had lunch.

Since the reunion does not start until Friday we will be spending a couple of days at my daughter's home in Riverside before continuing on to Pasadena on Thursday afternoon.  Of course, this gives us an opportunity to see all of our kids, and get a bunch more hugs and kisses thrown in for good measure.

We managed to get all five kids, their significant others (as the case may be), and a couple of grandkids to all meet at Tio's Tacos on Mission Inn Ave. in Riverside at 6:30.  Most of their seating is outdoors (the indoors just has a few booths that would only seat 4 each) and we had a party of 14 so we ate outside on the patio.  I was concerned that it might be too cool outside, but this is SoCal, right?  It ended up being just fine until about 8 pm when it began to cool off quickly so we bid adieu to all, involving many more hugs, and headed for home .

La Familia

As I look at this picture I am struck by the fact that without Elaine and I the rest of this picture of all these happy people would not exist.  Our hearts are full, our smiles are large, and we know we are blessed beyond measure.

Thanks for stopping by!