FEBRUARY (MOSTLY) IN CALIFORNIA

The first few days and the last few days were the only ones we spent near home. Weather was cold, a bit of snow, and some rain for the first week, but I did get in a few bike rides at least

One around a regular route I often do and a more open look at the high wheeler I have seen through the overgrown bushes in the past.

And I was able to round up Kathy and Jo for a somewhat sunny ride along the Burke Gilman Trail and a stop along Lake Washington.

A few more short neighborhood rides would have to do me as we packed up and headed to California. First destination was to Sarah and family and we found a little campground to spend our first night on the road. We had stayed here last year and Susan remembered that it made a good stop for a night. I wrote a Haiku for this one:

2/8

Moss covered fences

Ground covered in wet brown leaves

Life in the forest

Arriving at Sarah’s the following day, we would be staying for three days before heading on to San Diego for a Pleasure Way (manufacturers of our RV) Rally. I took a couple of my usual Elk Grove bike rides while we were here at Sarah’s as there was currently no rain, and some partially sunny days.

Wide open road.

I don’t recall ever seeing an actual Skunk so took the photo of this roadkill. Wrote a Haiku for this as well:

2/9

Polecats some call ‘em

This one squished crossing the road

No more stinky skunk

A more pleasant “wild life” sighting was the ‘siege’ of Heron that were feeding in the vineyard. There were two groups but I could only get one in my viewfinder. There has to be a rookery somewhere not too far away, but I did not see anything within eyeshot.

Final Haiku, I promise.

Heron in numbers

Must be a rookery near

Lunch in the vineyard

A few more scenes and sights before heading back to Sarah’s…

We stayed at Sarah’s long enough into the week to get to see Lucy playing in her basketball game, Kate taking her Karate lesson, and Jaydon playing his trombone in his school band’s competition. We don’t get to see them do their ‘things’ often enough so we’re happy we had this time to do just that. Now it was time to head south to San Diego before returning here for a full week.

Our first day out was quite fine, then my healthy self started to wane and I was sick! We tested twice because I had 102 temp and then 101.4 for two days. Both tests were negative for Covid and I soon enough was not feeling quite as bad except or a very deep and rumbling cough which has stayed with me for a long time. The cough and the lingering sickness was enough to sap my energy for much activity. That is always hard for me – curbing my activity!

Along the way to San Diego we stopped for two nights of camping and explored just a bit of our surroundings in San Clemente State Park.

Our evening sunset…

A short trip to the wide beach and for Susan to take a trek to the waves. Though I did the ride, I was not yet up to adding the extension of a walk in the sand, but enjoyed it from a distance.

Our next destination would be San Diego where we would join the Pleasure Way Rally. There would be about 170 people attending the Rally at ‘Sun Outdoors’ resort.

There was lots of room for each rig, a nice picnic table and relaxing fire ring and chairs at each site, but not much in the way of trees. The focus would be gatherings for talks about the rigs, and dinner each night as well as an ice cream social. In addition to the numerous campsites there were numerous cabins available in a very nice setting.

On our first full day at camp, Susan and I did our only bike ride of the outing. We rode along The Silver Strand which is a strip along a peninsula that routes to Coronado. I had ridden this a few years ago when we were here for a conference Susan attended. It is an “ok” ride that parallels the high way that has quite a bit of traffic, and this time we had a LOT of headwind to battle. Other than that, the weather was nice and the sky was blue ;’-).

The pedestrian/bike ferry brought us into San Diego where we quickly got a bit lost! No signage for the bike route is not good for us! Traffic was thick, and roads were in very poor condition with potholes and ripped up areas on the route we did find, and it finally brought us back to camp. It was an experience. ;’)

A few more random photos from camp. Our friends’ dog Missy tried playing Pickle Ball with Susan and Penelope and did more soccer playing as she chased from one side of the net to the other.

Another beautiful California sunset on our last evening at camp.

A fellow camper offered to take our photo after dinner and we said yes.

From left: our newly made friend from this outing, Linda, me, Susan, friends we made on an outing last year, Penelope and Barb.

The next day was departure day and this is where I think it prudent to end this post. Our trip is not over yet as we head to Sarah’s for a week and then home, but this post has gotten long enough so I will do a Part 2 at the end.

Thanks for following along with us.