Twenty-ten

We went with 1/2 a tree this year...lol!

Wow....it seems like it was just 1999. Then we were entering a new century, so a new decade does not seem as dramatic, however, the passing of another decade renews the realization that time keeps going faster. I'm pretty sure the last decade was really only 6 years long....have I done some inadvertant thing to interrupt the "space time continuim"?

One of our family traditions has been to see a movie Christmas afternoon. For the first time I took advantage of a "senior discount" yesterday to see the new Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes movie.....I saved 50 cents on each of our tickets! Yes, it was as good as I expected, but very intense. I can recommend it very highly.

On the other hand, a new decade means my wife and I are much closer to our goal of retiring, and fulltiming in our Newell....20 months to go!!


We had a very pleasant Christmas day.....all of the kids, and grandkids came for breakfast, and gift opening ceremonies. My oldest son gave me a set of wrenches to keep in the motorhome. These wrenches feature the ratcheting closed end....very cool!

One of my grandaughters

Chris and Elaine

The kids

Today, December 26th, Elaine and I decided we needed some exercise, so we loaded up the Cannondale tandem and headed down to the SART (Santa Ana River Trail). There is an entrance at about 12.5 miles north of Newport Beach near Angel Stadium (the baseball Angels). We arrived at the starting point around 12:30pm. Normally on individual bikes it takes us about an hour and fifteen minutes to ride the 12.5 miles down to Newport Beach, but on the tandem we can average around 17 mph, so it takes us around 45-50 minutes to do the same distance. The return trip is uphill and our miles per hour average suffers a little.

Repleat with our wired headsets...makes communication much easier!

Giving our posteriors a break..about 24 miles into the ride.

Total round trip ride time was 1 hour, 49 minutes....not bad for a couple of 60 year olds.

The Cannondale Tandem.....like our Newell, we found this beauty on Craigslist!

A short video for your enjoyment!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

96% of Americans celebrate Christmas, whether, or not they are Christians, so I know this salutation will possibly only offend a few narcissists who occupy the 4% of the remaining population. As Spock so famously said near the end of The Wrath of Kahn, "....the needs of the few are outweighed by the needs of the many...".

This is my favorite time of year....my attentnion is refocused on the meaning of this time of year and of life, things slow down at the office, and I am able to spend more time with family and friends. There is a sense of renewal and optimism in the air. Yes, even in spite of what I call "the religious left"and the fervor with which they are attempting to impose their religious belief upon a majority of the population who don't want what they are peddling. It takes an amazing act of faith for them to believe what they claim will be the outcome of their pending legislation. Especially when we examine the history of every single government program, and must acknowledge there is not one single instance, ever, of a government program saving money, reducing the deficit, and costing less than projected. The only way one could "believe" that the result of the Democrat healthcare/insurance reform will be a reduction in the deficit, reduction in healthcare costs, and the cost of health insurance is through an act of faith. There is no evidence whatsoever that any of what they believe will ever come to pass. The only thing the "evidence" and/or history shows us is the complete opposite result will occur. Nevertheless, I am optomistic for the future. This healthcare/insurance debate has brought the leftists out of the closet, and the majority of Americans see them, now, for what they are. The 2010 election cycle will provide the opportunity to undo what they have wrought.

We may be heading out on the road later next month, but it will be a short trip, like up to Ventura with my brother, Philip, and his family.

I recently have opened a Facebook account.....something I never thought I would do. If you are interested in what is happening in our life separate from exploring the U.S. in our Newell please check in there: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?ref=profile&id=100000569786506

Cleaning, and cleaning, and cleaning.....

All Clean again.....

Sunday turned out to be sunny, so I began to tackle some of the cleaning. The last time I had opened the engine bay doors I was mortified at how dirty the bay areas had become over the course of this trip. Of course, when you are driving through snow, slush, and rain day after day it does get dirty inside, and out. I wish I had taken pictures of what it looked like before I started, but these pictures will give you an idea of what it looks like when it is clean.


I, also, installed an additional reading light for the coach area that had come in the mail while we were gone.



Oil resevoir....

This door was filthy....

Integrity Mobile Detail will be coming to my home tomorrow morning to wash the exterior of the coach....they charge me $50 to wash and detail the exterior, and it takes them about 2 hours....it takes me most of the day....lol!!

Home!!!

I was up before Elaine, as usual...about 6:30am.....the coffee was done brewing, and its seductive aroma drew me to the kitchen. The tide was quite high...waves were breaking just a few feet in front of the coach. I poured a cup of coffee, and sat down to gaze at the sullen gray skies swallowed up at the horizon by the Pacific Ocean. Well, today we will definitely make it home...although there are a couple of RV parks between us and home....but, seriously, we will arrive home today for sure.

The diesel turned over easily and rumbled to life one more time....while the suspension system aired up to ride height I disconnected from the 50amp outlet one more time...the last time for a while. We eased out of site #22 at Faria Park, and climbed the short, steep hill to Rincon Parkway, and then south to merge with HWY 101 once again. As we approached cruising speed it began to rain.....it would rain every single mile home....fortunately the Saturday morning traffic was very light. We arrived home around Noon, and began to unpack in the rain......BUT it's 55 degrees....that's a heat wave for us!!

The last 22 days on the road living in our motor coach were wonderful. I can say it now.....we had NO mechanical issues....not one single one in over 3,400 miles many of which were travelled in freezing temperatures, even when it was sunny. Tomorrow I will begin to scrub 3 weeks of road grime off the exterior of our moving home, while dreamig of the next "voyage". When I wake up tomorrow morning I will probably be a little disoriented, and wishing we were still on the road.

The trip exceeded our expectations. We were concerened about weather on the Olympic Peninsuala, as well as the Oregon and California coasts, but were blessed to have 11 days of sunshine....who would have thought? Our decision to just make it up as we went worked out well....not one reservation was made. The only change we made was to continue going south past Crescent City on HWY 101, instead of northeast through Grants Pass over to HWY 395 and south along the eastern Sierra Nevada....we had had enough of snow, and sub freezing temperatures....although it was still cold along the California coast, it was pleasant and sunny, even it if was in the 40's most of the time.

OK...one more day on the road....

Friday morning at Pismo Coast Village

We left Pismo Beach around 9am and headed headed south on HWY 101, our last day on the road...about 248 miles to go. It rained on and off most of the night, but morning provided just heavy overcast, that is until I decided to dump the tanks one more time....then it started raining again...lol! The driving was mostly dry roads, and great views even with the heavy overcast. Around 11:30am we were approaching Rincon Parkway, just north of Ventura, CA and decided to exit to take a break, and make some sandwhiches, plus Elaine had a conference call in which she wanted to participate. While she started her conference call I walked down to Faria Park...a small county run RV park with full hookups....maybe a dozen sites right on the ocean....I mean 30 feet from the waves....I saw that there were about 8 spots open on a Friday....must be because of the weather. Elaine was just wrapping up her call when I got back.....I said...."you know, there really is no compelling reason why we have to be home on Friday....why not snag one of the open spots in Faria and spend the afternoon, and night?" Of course, she agreed, so we have stretched our trip 24 more hours. About the time we finished setting up it started raining, and I mean raining HARD.....it stopped about 30 minutes later and we had a little sun showing itself, so we took a walk north along the beach.

"We're just stopping for a snack...."

Snagged a spot!

Taking a walk while the sun is shinning!

Our view out the front windshield

After our walk it began to rain again, and rained most of the night......it was great waking up during the night and hearing the rain on the roof.....very soothing. We spent a few hours reading, and hit the sack around 11pm......only 128 miles home!

Rain again......

Well, our sunny disposition these past 11 days had a wet blanket thrown on it about 12:30pm today.....the rain started as we were exiting HWY 101 in Atascadero to have lunch at an In-&-Out Burger.....our first since the first day of our trip. It has continued to rain steadily, sometimes quite hard, and rains as I type this post at 4:30pm. We were planning to drive no further than San Luis Obispo, but the RV park options are quite limited in that fair city, so we pushed on another 15 miles to one of our favorite coastal cities, Pismo Beach, exiting at HWY 1 and pulling into the first RV park we came to, which ended up being Pismo Coast RV Village Resort, a little pricey at $44, but it's only money....LOL.....we are in a back-in spot right on the lagoon, with a view of the freakin' ocean...how great is that.?...even with the rain....what a nice last evening in our moving home....we're sitting here listening to "rain on the roof", and watching the angry ocean pound the coastline just a few hundred yards away.....life is surely good!

The drive south on HWY 101 was very pleasant....I really prefer travelling 101 as an alternatie to I-5. Easy driving.

We'll have some more of the great Chili Elaine made a few days ago....it's been aging for 5 days, and then settle into a little light reading.

Anyone for a bike ride?

Wednesday dawned clear, and cold....overnight temps got down to 29. About 11am I decided to get to cleaning the road grime off the bikes so we could take a ride through the wine country. When we finally started riding it was just 42 degrees, BUT the sun was out, which made it feel warmer....."honest, Honey, it does feel warmer than 42, doesn't it??" At any rate we headed off to Old Town Napa and found the visitor center. They provided us with an excellent map of all the wineries, and a second map of all the local bike paths, lanes, etc. We decided to head out Silverado Trail, north, and just stop in at a few wineries for some modest wine tasting. As we pedalled northward the clouds began to roll in, and the temperature began to drop. "Why can't I feel my toes?"

Just a few of the wineries we passed by

This is a family owned winery, and they only sell over the internet...we sampled 6 wines......5 of which I personally thought were unique.

We tasted 6 wines at Van der Heyden Vineyards Winery....Savignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Sirah, Rose, Cabernet Sagivnon, and a late harvest Cabernet Savignon. With the lone exception of the Cabernet, I loved the other 5. The late harvest Cab was almost like a Port, although unfortified. The Rose, really an early harvest Cab, was amazing. The Chardonnay had this surprising creamy aftertaste. This winery does not do retail sales through stores. They offer a wine club, which we will join.

We also sampled 4 wines at this winery...I was not too impressed.

After we finished our second wine tasting at Regusci Winery Elaine's toes were still numb from the cold...the temperature had dropped to 35 with the increasing cloud cover, so we turned back south to Napa Valley Expo RV Park.....about 10 miles back. We arrived back "home" around 4pm, and were very cold. Our total ride distance was around 20 miles.....with a little more sunshine we may have gone on, but, let's face it, wine tasting loses its luster when the temperatures get close to freezing and your mode of transporation is a bicycle....LOL! We were grateful for the much needed exercise. Only the second bike ride we have been able to take on this trip.

Later, around 5:30, I put on our last 2 filets and my wife, the chef, made some zuccini, summer squash, and broccili....man, that woman can cook vegatables!

We watched an interesting episode of CSI N.Y., and hit the sack at 11pm. Our plans for Thursday are evolving, but we are very sure we are not going to pound 450 miles home in one day....thinking about San Luis Obispo, which would leave around 200 miles home on Friday.....we'll see....