April 1- Brought us back to IL for a couple weeks. It was nice to see the kids & grandkids. We were also lucky enough to see my mom. She had come to IL to see everyone over Spring Break & for Easter. My sister in law, Lisa, had been nice enough to invite the whole clan for Easter. That was around 35 people. Everyone brought something & all of us had a great afternoon.
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| Easter Buffet |
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| My mom with daughters, granddaughters & great granddaughter |
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| Katie & Becca |
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| My mom, Becca & Danny |
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| Tyler, Katie & Ryan |
We also bought a new car while there. After our ending episode in Dec, Collins said he had had it with the tow dolly & we were buying a car we could flat tow. We bought a Chevy Equinox, which is a small SUV type car. It’s black – I wanted Red, but they couldn’t find the color I wanted with the features we wanted anywhere in 3 states.
It was nice to see everyone but on April 15th we were off to TX, where we had left the RV for the winter. Our wonderful friends, Sue & Dan, had picked up the RV from storage so we were able to enjoy a week with them while we got things ready for our journey.
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| Leaving TX for our 2012 Journey |
April 22 we left Sue & Dan’s to start our journey to the West Coast. This year we plan to see a lot of California, Oregon & maybe some of Washington. It took almost 3 days to reach our first stop, which was Phoenix, AZ. I was born there, one of my sisters, Linda, lives there, as do all my cousins. I also wanted to see our old neighborhood & visit my Dad’s gravesite.
As we were driving into Phoenix, we had stopped for something & noticed a burning rubbler smell from our car. We stopped at an RV place close by to have the brake hookup we’d had installed in TX checked out. The people at the RV place weren’t familiar with that system, but they did say the cable was too tight & pulling on the car brake, so they loosened that & we disconnected the car from the RV. As soon as we got settled at the RV park, we made arrangements to get the car checked out. The next day the Chevy dealer took a look at the car, while my sister drove us around to the places I wanted to see. We went to our old neighborhood where we lived before moving to California. Drove by the houses of my friends & where we went to grade school. It was fun driving around. We also made a stop at the cemetary to visit my Dad's gravesite. It was a little emotional since it was the first time I'd been there.
While we were out we got a call telling us the brakes & rotors on all 4 wheels were shot & had to be replaced! I felt sick! We then called the company who made the tow brake to make sure we didn’t have that problem again. Come to find out, it had been incorrectly installed & that was why we had a problem. He gave us the name of a company in the area who had installed a lot of them. We’re trying to get the money we had to spend on new brakes from the company who installed the brake incorrectly, but that is going to be a fight. While we were in Phoenix, we had lunch with two of my cousins, Kathy & Peggy. It was so nice to see them. We spent many hours together as kids. Kathy & I are 3 days apart in age. I also had a chance to see their mom, my Aunt Margie. After spending a week in Phoenix, which was rather hot in April, we headed to California.
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| Our Campsite in Phoenix |
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| Sister Linda, cousin Peggy, Aunt Margie & Me |
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| Cousin Kathy, Me, cousin Peggy, sister Linda |
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| Our view in San Onofre |
May 1 we arrived at the campground outside Camp Pendleton, San Onofre. We had a great view of the Ocean from our RV. Unfortunately, it was cool the whole time we were there – in the 60’s & windy every day. We never left the rig without a jacket. The beach there was very rocky so it wasn’t good walking there. Camp Pendleton was huge, it took us almost half an hour to get to the main gate. We were within half an hour from San Diego.
One day we went to the San Diego Safari Park. It was an interesting park with animals placed in habitats as close to their natural one as possible. It was a beautiful day & we enjoyed our visit.
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| This lion was separated from us by a thick piece of plexiglass |
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| Bald Eagle |
Another day we went to the San Diego Zoo. We always heard what a great zoo it was. We had a nice time, but didn’t think it was anything special. There were a couple of huge bird cages & we enjoyed that a lot. We saw a lot of birds we’ve never seen before & some very strange nests.
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| Bull Ring on Border of Mexico & CA |
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| Tree in far left corner represents the Southwest Corner of the US |
We also went to a place called Border Patrol Field. It is the furthest Southwest corner of the US. Unfortunately, we were only allowed to take the car to a certain point, then we had to walk. There were huge muddy water puddles across the road in several places. We tried walking thru a couple of them, but we came to one that we were not going to walk thru. We didn’t want to walk in the fields because there are snakes there & we didn’t want to meet them. This point is right on the Mexico-US border. We could see the fencing between the 2 countries & the park where they held bull fights in Mexico. The tree in the background of the picture I’m in, is the point we were headed toward. That picture was the best we could do under the circumstances. We were disappointed we couldn’t get to the actual plaque.
Mother's Day occurred while we were in San Onofre. One of our neighbors invited us & another couple for dinner. We all brought something & had a great afternoon. They were parked right on the beach, so it was a little cooler, but a beautiful view.
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| Mother's Day Dinner on the Beach |
After leaving San Onofre, we to went to another beach RV Park north of Los Angeles, Point Mugu
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| Inside Farmer's Market |
Since I spent my teenage years in California, I wanted to see some of the places I used to visit. I also went back to my old neighborhood, grade school – where I met my best friend Sue in the 8th grade & our high school. We also went downtown to Olvera St & the Old Farmer’s Market.
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| Collins on Santa Monica Pier |
Another day, we went to Santa Monica Pier & the old Muscle Beach, where they have exercise bars & the guys used to work out there.
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| Muscle Beach at Santa Monica |
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| Pier at Santa Monica |
Our RV site was nice. We again had a nice view of the ocean. This had a nice beach for walking & we took Snuggles there a few times. Again, the weather was really cool & not what you’d call beach weather. We bought bikes while we were there, so we took some tours around the area.
There was an area off the main beach, where the sea lions liked to hang out & enjoy the sun. They looked like a bunch of rocks on the beach. We rode our bikes over there a few times to watch them.
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| Santa Barbara |
We also took a trip to Santa Barbara & Solvang. Santa Barbara is a very peaceful, pretty beach town. We then drove on to Solvang, which is a cute, Dutch town. We enjoyed browsing around.
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| Pier at Santa Barbara |
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| Solvang |
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| Solvang |
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| Rock at Morro Bay |
May 29th - After 2 weeks at Point Mugu, we went to San Luis Obispo. We weren’t on the beach this time but it was still cool – 60’s in the daytime & we were still wearing jackets. We spent 1 day checking out Morro Bay, which was close by. We wanted to drive thru a State Park close by, but twice we started to drive there & it was so fogged in, there was no view. Unfortunately, we never got thru that park.
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| Collins at Winery in San Luis Obispo |
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| Winery at San Luis Obispo |
Another day we visited a couple small, local wineries- didn’t find anything we really liked, but the views were so beautiful.
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| Hearst Castle |
We also went to Hearst Castle. The grounds & exterior were impressive. It sat on the top of a hill with beautiful views. The interior was more like a museum. We only saw a few of the first floor rooms. Collins & I liked the Biltmore in North Carolina so much better.
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| Guest House at Hearst Castle |
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| Hearst Castle - high on the hill |
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| Roman Pool at Hearst Castle |
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| Elephant Seals |
After we left Hearst Castle we drove a few more miles down the road to a place on the beach were elephant seals come to have babies & breed. Those things were huge. A baby is around 60 lbs when born & 500 lbs within a month. They get anywhere from 1000-5000 lbs.
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| Elephant Seals |
June 7th we were off to Sequoia National Park. We left the cool weather behind – it was in the 90’s when we arrived. We stayed in a RV park just outside the National Park. There was a family of quail living in the field across from us. There were 2 adults & about a dozen little tiny birds following them around. I didn't even think to take their picture.
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| View from our RV |
Although we were close to the park entrance, it was still an hour & a half drive to get to the main visitor’s center. The roads were very curvy & in the mountains. We really enjoyed our visit to the park. Those trees are huge & impressive. They get over 300ft high. It would take 21 people with their arms outstretched, to go around the tree called General Sherman.
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| General Sherman Tree in background |
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| Collins walking thru a fallen Sequoia |
By volume, it’s the largest living single stem tree in the world.
We took the park shuttle to enjoy the sites.
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| Base of General Sherman |
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| Cut section of Giant Sequoia |
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| Snuggles & Collins Sleeping - I couldn't resist taking this |
We only stayed in that park a week, then it was off to Yosemite.
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