Huntington Beach, CA (Jan 1st - 5th), 2011

We ventured towards Huntington Beach to camp near the ocean since that is where Kelsey wanted to be. Plus the fact an Pro-Am Surf Competition was going to take place that weekend. It was more Am than Pro's. We didn't know that until we got there. We set up camp at Sunset Vista which was just a city parking lot converted into an campground  during the off-season right on the ocean.  We had electric and water hookups but we paid a price.  You could just not beat the view.  We celebrated Darlene's birthday at BJ's Brewery and received a nice $48 parking ticket.  Can you imagine feeding the meters on a Saturday night?  Well it was dark and little misty, they were not labeled so Mike put a couple of quarters in the meter not knowing how long we really had.  The downtown Huntington Beach area was nice but you had to park somewhere.  Our first day it rained and was cloudy.  The second day it was a little cool so we went to an area mall and saw the movie, The Little Fockers and then we walked the pier to have dinner at Ruby's Diner at the end of the pier.It's an Great burger,soda, and floats 50's 60's era kind of place.  The 3rd day was a nice sunny day  and down the beach about a mile or so we saw they actually had a dog beach. So of course we had to walk Buddy down to play in the sand and the waves and chase the other dogs.  He was in dog heaven again for sure. You can't beat the city's beach paved walk which is great for just about anything that you can imagine. So I had to bike on it to Newport Beach one sunny afternoon. That was an nice ride while the ladies walked along the beach, but the water was still cool in the 50's. That didn't stop the surfers out there in wetsuits. I caught up with them and had an late lunch at Zack's on the beach where you  can eat, take surf lessons or rent just about anything or shop the little gift store. On Wednesday, Kelsey had to fly out from the airport nearby and we had to depart the campground.  We decided to head further south along the Pacific Highway to San Diego where we had hoped it would be a little bit warmer.  P.S.  I filled out a claim form to dispute the parking ticket because we were celebrating my birthday and they did waive it for me, so it didn't hurt to try. That was Nice!!!

Pasadena, CA (Dec 30th - Jan 1st), 2011

Leaving Palm Springs, we stopped at a KOA in Fairplex, CA overnight before continuing on to Pasadena for the Rose Bowl Parade.  We had a little incident along Route 66 as we turned in a busy intersection with traffic in all directions.  One of our compartments on the camper came open as we made the turn.  Mike's complete toolbox and a couple of their drawers flew out onto the intersection along with other items that were in the compartment.  Traffic froze as we quickly pulled over and all jumped out to clean up the roadway.  Our hearts were a pounding and thankfully all the traffic just stopped or drove around us.  It didn't take us too long with the four of us cleaning it up and causing no accidents.  We just moved on quietly out of the area.  We had reserved a parking spot along the parade route so we just camped overnight in our motorhome.  New Year's Eve was spent walking along the route, listening to various music, watching various acts, and dodging the silly string.  It was so funny to see all the cars driving by that were bombarded with silly string and shaving cream.  But security was tight through the whole area.  People were camping everywhere -- some in just sleeping bags along the sidewalks.  We set our chairs along the route as did everyone hoping they would be there the next  morning.  At last, on a bright and sunny cool morning the parade started.  How magnificent the floats were.  So detailed and beautiful.  Close to 200 entries to this parade and it lasted a couple of hours.  But it was worth every minute.  Time to move out and head to the ocean. Here's an few of our 200 photos of the parade.

Palm Desert, CA (December 23rd - Dec. 29th), 2010

 

Christmas without the white stuff was different.  But once we strolled down Christmas Tree Lane not shivering and freezing, it was nice to see all the beautifully decorated houses in Cathedral City.  Plus since we were tied up with the Christmas Tree Lot through the 23rd, we shopped at an outlet mall in Palm Springs on Christmas Eve.  So many stores; so many people.  We then ended Christmas Eve with mass at a very nice church where there was lots of singing the good ole traditional Christmas songs.  Christmas was a very beautiful day and Kelsey and Darlene spent it by the pool side.  Shaun was unable to join us in sunny California but was missed by all.  It was just a nice quiet day at our campsite with a great Honey-baked Christmas dinner.  After Christmas day,  we rode the Aerial Tram Ride up San Jacinto Mountain in Palm Springs only to find 2 feet of snow.  You could go sledding or walk the trails but since we got their a little later in the day, we missed that part.  Darn!!!  It sure was nice to take the tram down and leave the snow behind (like those frozen winters in Michigan).  We also played a round of Best ball at the Ivey Golf Course just down the street from our campground.  It was Kelsey's first time at golf and she has a pretty good swing.

 

 Time to move on to our next destination -- Pasadena here we come!!!!

Cathedral City Sand Lot (Nov 20th - Dec 23rd), 2010

Since we cannot make it home for the holidays, Mike ran across an ad looking for a couple with an RV to sell Christmas trees.  It was free camping and we would receive 15% of the sales.  We decided two reasons that we would do this:  1) Give Jason some work and earnings; and 2) with our portion of the earnings we would purchase airline tickets for Kelsey and Shaun to fly out and spend Christmas with us.   Plus since it was a happy season of the year, the people would be in a good mood to deal with.  Our inventory would be around 400 trees, plus stands, wreaths etc.  So we arrived on Nov 20th to our designated sand lot.  We received water and electric from a neighboring house; and a large tent would be set up with a giant snowman and a pay booth.  However, the trailer of goods got broken into while being stored elsewhere so the set up could not be completed this date.  However, the actual trees would not be arriving until Thanksgiving Day so we had a few days yet.  Woody (our boss) didn't seem too upset about the setback so hopefully this isn't a bad note to start on our new adventure.
We concluded our season with some very nice balmy weather and all 410 trees were sold and a couple donated by December 23rd.  It was much more work then we thought it would be.   The lot had to be set up, the trees unloaded and inventoried when they were delivered (2 separate deliveries); Mike had to do all the electricity for lighting, drill, saw, snowman, etc.  We were open 9 to 9 seven days per week.  Doesn't mean we were busy all day waiting on customers, but someone had to be there all during the open hours -- better to have 2 people there all the time.  Each tree sold had to be netted (at customers wish); and every tree had to have a fresh cut and then loaded or tied to the customer's vehicle.  Trees ranged from 5 ft to 15 foot and at times were very heavy to put up in stands, tie down from the wind and prepare them for the customer.  But we survived and Kelsey flew in on the tail end of this adventure (20th) while we would down.  Still couldn't beat the sunny, warm days in the desert!!!
On to Palm Desert for Christmas.

1000 Trails Palm Springs, CA (Nov. 16th - 20th)

This was another 1000 Trails campground under our membership.  This was a great campground.  The weather was pretty nice too.  80's during the day; 50's in the evenings.  Well kept, many activities and many palm trees.  Darlene took part in the water aerobics classes that were offered and Mike attended a maintaining brake seminar.  It was a good place to clean the motorhome once again after the ocean salts covered it when we stayed on the beach.  The only drawback was that highway 10 ran adjacent to it, but we parked way in the back corner and it was not as noisy as the front of the park was.   So many dogs.  I would bet that 75% of campers owned dogs -- mainly smaller ones but Buddy liked them too.  The hot tub was enjoyed in the evening hours as the air cooled down into the 60's.  We would say this was the best park over the other member parks we had stayed at.  We would be back.  Could of stayed longer, but we have to head to our Christmas Tree lot in Cathedral City, CA.  That is our next adventure -- selling Christmas trees!!!!  Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!!!

Wilderness Lake, Menifee, CA (Nov 15th - 16), 2010

Wilderness Lake Campground.  We arrived in the evening so we chose the first empty available campsite.  The next morning we toured around the park and what did we discover?  Very nice park.  Clean, well-maintained, nice pool etc.  However, on one side of this campground there were 1,000 cattle.  The wind was not blowing our way so at least we did not smell anything too harsh.  By 3:00 p.m. we were being invaded by flies -- hundreds of thousands of them.  All over our camper, our awning, inside our car.  We never saw so many.  We were supposed to stay another 4 days, but we packed up and were out of there in 1/2 hour.  We went to another sister park in Palm Desert, CA.    After arriving to Palm Desert we were still killing flies -- there were probably another 100 in our camper.  Jason came up with the great idea of sucking them up in our vacuum cleaner -- and that worked great!!!!  We would not be returning to Wilderness Lakes again.

Soledad Canyon, Acton, CA (Nov 11th - 15th, 2010)

Since we are 1000 Trail Members and we can camp free at their member parks, we returned to Soledad Canyon to give Jason more opportunity to take the train to LA for job hunting since this was the closest we could get to LA in a campground.  We decided to ride the train to LA and we visited Mexican town, China town and the Union Station which was where you boarded the metrolink and/or the amtrak trains.  The train ride was very smooth and we enjoyed our journey through the canyons and the small towns enroute to LA.  We met up with the friends we made from our previous visit and our stay was nice and short.  Onward to another one of the 1000 Trail parks in Menifee, CA called Wilderness Lakes.