CA & AZ - JAN/FEB 2011

NOTE: Our travel blog is now replacing the albums Donna kept each year. They are too heavy and cumbersome to store in the RV. As such there may be more than you may want to know about our travels on this blog, but sometimes Donna thinks a thousand words is better than just a picture.


After an uneventful cross country trip, we arrived at Rancho Jurupa Park in Riverside CA on January 3rd. The sun shining on the snow in the San Gabriel Mountains was an awesome welcoming sight. Southern CA had just had a spell of torrential rain and snow.

Donna was here for a reunion with four of her teacher-friends. They were all part of the first faculty at the new Beckford Avenue School in Northridge back around 1967. They met at Sandy’s home in Claremont. The “women’s talk” at this reunion reminded Donna of all the inspiration she has gotten through the years from her women friends.

clockwise from upper left: Sandy, Michelle, Gayle, Donna & Trish

We drove up to Pasadena to spend the weekend visiting family and friends. Gene and Brian are great at entertaining and welcoming family. Here we are at dinner.

Jay and Linda

Rebecca and Martin give everyone a chance to amuse 4-month old, Ava and Connor.

Nick has a new job and new car. Ramon is organizing another seminar. We watch the Eagles go down in defeat.

We get to talk with Luke the dog while visiting Dick and Janice. JPL techies, Ann and Michael now have a cactus garden, a rose garden, an eating garden and a chicken coop in their yard.

After having “cabin fever” in Kentucky and then the hubbub of visiting, our spot at Lake Skinner near Temecula, offered a serene place to enjoy. We drove over the narrow twisting Ortega Highway that bikers love, to visit Pat and Lefty in Mission Viejo. Steve and Beth joined us there for a first-class steak dinner.

Steve and Beth's kids Jack & Tessa

We drove down to San Diego and spent much of the day roaming through Old Town San Diego State Historic Park. We were reminded of our trip here with Amy and Samantha three years ago. While in the 1865 Mason schoolhouse, Donna told some children there on a field trip about the coveted job of filling the ink wells, one of the classroom jobs students helped with. Another was using castanets to mark time for lines to march into the building. Mike pointed out the dunce cap that was used for bad behavior.

La Casa de Estudillo, a social and political center of San Diego during CA's Mexican period.

Woman making colorful artificial flowers

A quick drive along the harbor and through the heart of the downtown gave us enough of the flavor of San Diego for this visit.

Along Harbor Dr. in the Embarcadero is the "Star of India", the oldest active tall ship. Also in the background is a modern cruise ship and the aircraft carrier USS Midway.

The Gas Lamp Quarter - 100's of restaurants and shops.

On another beautiful day we drove to Oceanside. We had fish tacos at the harbor then walked out to the end of the city pier where we had a grand view of the hotels and condos along The Strand. The clean, wide sandy beaches were very accessible and had many surfers and people sunning themselves. AH! California in the winter.

We spotted these two apartments in a residential area.

Other day rides from Lake Skinner took us to see the old mission at San Ysibel, gliders at Warner Springs, the avocado-covered hills of Fallbrook, a cheese factory in Winchester, and the dramatic, steep, rocky descent down to Palm Desert on the way to visit with Dave and Cheryl. Some brave soul had managed to climb up a steep outcropping and paint a rock green to look like a frog .

Mission San Ysibel

YUMA, ARIZONA This was our 5th time in Yuma so we were challenged to discover some of its new as well as its familiar secrets. On the way we drove diagonally across the Anza-Borrego Desert on S2. We passed through what could only be described as Bad Lands yet somehow they have an eerie beauty. Our first night was spent alongside some of the Imperial Sand Dunes off of I-8 as our journey took longer than expected.. The sunset gave a wonderful color and glow to the sand. The shadows made the dunes look like a whipped topping.

The next night we were camped at the free BLM site next to the VFW on HWY 95, about 9 miles from central Yuma. More protected from the winds that blow out in other BLM camp sites, this one has the rumble of trains and traffic that pass next to it. Long trains going north and south went by almost every half-hour. Another noise on a few nights was from an unidentifiable flying object that made many passes over us. We surmised it was a border patrol drone. We recognized that a fellow Boondocker, Doc was parked near us. His rig is easily identified because of all the solar panels and aerials on the roof. He was traveling with a lady friend and now has a condo in Central America.

Can you find us and Doc?

Five engines means over 100 cars and sometimes there are one or two engines in the rear.

The familiar sight of the rugged brown mountains beyond green lettuce fields is still awesome.

At the Quartermaster Depot we learned more of the story of how Arizona was settled due to Colorado River traffic from the man that re-creates the character of steamboat entrepreneur, George Johnson.

The mission across what's left of the Colorado river. By the time the Colorado gets to Yuma, it has been sucked almost dry.

A visit across the border to Los Algodones, Baja California for new eyeglasses resulted in a 1½ hour wait in line to cross back into the US. No slow-down of tourists here! Algodones is touted as having the heaviest concentration of physicians, pharmacies, dentists, and opticians of any 4-block area on the planet. This year the vendors favored the sales pitch, “ How about something for you honeymooners?” This year the “newest” style of purses had flower-like shapes. Flower-jewel encrusted cuff bracelets were “new” too.

We have yet to discover a great place to eat in Algodones. However, on a tip from the Yuma Visitor’s Guide we had some interesting and delicious tacos from four different Taco Trucks located in the Foothills. If you go to mmm-yoso.typepad.com and search “Yuma Taco Trucks”, you will get mouth-watering descriptions and photos of what we experienced. Our favorites were the chipilones (asada meat with melted cheese and roasted green chili) at Taco El Cosistas and the chile rellenos at Tacos Durango. We drove out to the Boondocker Rendezvous on Ogilby Road to say hello but could not find anyone. A visit to the nearby Gold Rock Ranch resulted in a purchase at a yard sale with lots of interesting antique items for sale as well as looking around the museum that describes the Tumco Gold Mine and local history. We found the “Bridge To Nowhere” just up the road from our campsite. Purportedly the Golden Gate bridge was designed after it.

We saw part of a model plane air show taking place at the nearby RC field. A young man did a great show flying his helicopter. Another flier had his plane blow apart when it took on too many G’s. We saw a 3 point landing; a nose, a wing, and one wheel. There were some big planes, a Piper Club and a Russian test plane about 1/4 scale.

With our fuel transfer pump replaced (it started leaking) and an oil change we are off to Mesa, Arizona.