Good Night San Diego

And so after two enjoyable weeks we must say goodbye to San Diego and our family.  Tomorrow we will be traveling onward to the next chapter in this year's adventure-the start of work in Victorville, CA.  Victorville is northeast of our current location and we will be moving back toward the desert and warmer weather in eastern California.  The goal is to begin there before the extreme heat hits this area.  We learned that rule last year-the earlier the better to be in this location.  It is also nice to begin working in a familiar territory.  There is a certain comfort in returning to a known territory and remaking connections with people we worked with last year.

The day ended with a fabulous sunset over Mission Bay.  The salt air and balmy temperatures by the water combined with the colors of the setting sun were too hard to resist.  I was joined by several others from the park as we stood along the seawall boundary of the park
to take photographs of the glorious shades of light before it faded.

Eclipse Bar and Bistro

In the interest of maintaining tradition during our stay in San Diego, we made a return trip to the Eclipse Bar & Bistro for brunch.  Self-described as “eclectic cuisine featuring sweet and savory small plates infused with chocolate, vanilla or caramel”-the restaurant lives up to this description. 

The owner seated us and we had the opportunity to chat with him.  We have always enjoyed having a moment with him.  His enthusiasm and devotion to his business is a pleasure to experience-both his efforts to make his restaurant special and different and his concern for his patron’s satisfaction.  This is the kind of dedication to customer service that has made his restaurant successful for years. 

We enjoyed this outing with Jimmy’s sister.  Jim and I chose the Avocado Benedict with chile burnt caramel hollandaise sauce, which is served with either toast or polenta.  Awesome.  Teri took the Parmesan and tomato quiche with mole sauce.

Nothing could be better than adding “drinking chocolate” to this extravagant meal in one of three versions:  double dark cocoa (Jim), orange peel vanilla bean (Chris) or a double dark cocoa mocha (Teri) with a presentation that was divine.  

Going to Eclipse is about as close to heaven as a chocolate lover can get on this earth.  I can hardly wait until the next time.

Three Pounds and Counting

There are continuous opportunities to eat in San Diego.  We frequent "Cafe on Park"with family and friends on a regular basis (mainly for lunch) where I try to indulge in salads only.  In spite of this I am up three pounds since we arrived in this beautiful seaside city.

But what would a trip to San Diego be without a stop in "Little Italy" to wander around?  Today was nice with a perfect temperature of 78 degrees under sunny skies.  The Little Italy District is just a couple of blocks off the Trolley system and an easy walk from the train stop.  This was my first trip to this district also which made it doubly interesting because it was a new experience.  Plus there are multiple restaurants and shops to peruse once you get there.

While soaking in the ambiance, we were also busy searching for authentic Italian cuisine.  We couldn't resist.  So we stopped for an early dinner at Filippis Pizza Grotto which was established in 1950 to enjoy the best lasagna we have tasted lately.  We are not biased of course.  Almost every Italian restaurant we patronize becomes "the best" at the moment we visit it.  Honestly though, this meal was exceptionally good.  I think it is because they had an abundance of melted mozzarella cheese layered between the noodles.  There is also an awesome Italian market in the entry area which you pass through en route to the restaurant.  The restaurant is a temptation in and of itself that requires fortitude to get through coming and going without pausing to make a purchase.

And so we have had our second Italian experience in San Diego and the extra pounds are worth it!

Spring Flowers in San Diego

Everywhere we go in San Diego there are flowers this time of the year.  They are beautiful.  They don't require words:

The temperate climate here lends itself to flowers and gardens everywhere.  Front yards, flower boxes, patios, parks and everything in between create a photographic opportunity.

I hope you enjoyed your stroll through "Spring" in San Diego.

Flower Fields at Carlsbad Ranch

Today we drove north from where we are staying in San Diego’s Mission Bay RV Park about thirty miles to a Camping World to pick up a few items for the coach.  On the way back we saw Armstrong Garden Center’s “The Flower Fields at Carlsbad Ranch” near Carlsbad, CA. 

The seasonal, 50-acre field is planted with Giant Tecolote Ranunculus flowers and they are beautiful in the glorious sun we have today.  In Latin, ranunculus means “little frog” originating from the word “rana” and the flower is related to the buttercup with tooth shaped leaves.  It is native to Asia Minor.  The flowers are primarily grown for their bulbs, but the garden center also sells cut flowers.  Planted in rows to display their multitude of brilliant shades of color, the view reminds me of the tulip fields of La Conner in Washington State.

From where we photographed the fields from a sidewalk above them, we had a great view of the colors and in the distance below us to the west the Pacific Ocean sparkled in the sun.  What an amazing find this is.  Jim says the fields have been here a long time, but this is the first time I have ever seen them.  The best time to view the blooms is from mid-March to mid-April so we are in on the beginning of their season.   

Butterfield Overland Mail

Just before you reach “Dateland” on Interstate-8, there is a rest stop with a very interesting historical display.  Take a look at it if you ever travel this route and stop at the rest stop just before Dateland. Did you know that a stagecoach line followed the same route as I-8 follows today?  The line began in St. Louis and Memphis, traveled through Texas and Tucson and ended in Los Angeles and San Francisco during the years from 1857 through 1878 along the route we traveled the last two days.

In 1858, John Butterfield started and operated for three years until 1861 the most efficient of the companies involved in moving mail and people along this route.  Using what was then the top-of-the-line vehicle called a Concord Coach, Butterfield Overland could accommodate twenty-one people at a time in each coach pulled by four to six horses or mules.  Nine people could travel cross-country inside the coach on upholstered benches while twelve others could sit on top of the coach.  The driver and an express messenger would sit in the driver’s box.  Suspended on thick leather straps that absorbed the bumps, the coach provided a comfortable, rocking motion ride for the travelers.  At a cost of $1,500, each handcrafted coach weighed over a ton and stood eight feet high.  The coach lines were subsidized by the U.S. Government at $600,000 per year and were operated 24 hours per day.

The journey took 24 days and cost each traveler $200.  Traveling non-stop over very rough roads, the patrons would have been unable to sleep.  Meals were served and the menu consisted of venison, mule meat, salt pork, beans, coffee, dried chilies and mustard.  When they coach did stop, the travelers would take turns sleeping and standing watch over each other, the coach and horses.  The indigenous people were Apache and generally left the stagecoaches alone but the travelers still worried about attacks.  The travelers also had to endure unpredictable weather.  All of this is so different for those of us who traverse the same route today in our own coaches.  I am grateful for the comforts of home we carry with us.  The time frame we incurred during our trip comprised half the time and included eight hours of sleep nightly in an air-conditioned vehicle that includes a bathroom and kitchen!    

Desert in Bloom

Before hitting the road, we shared breakfast with our friends Linda and Yogi from Palm Creek who now reside in Robson Ranch.  Again, it is such a pleasure to see friends and catch up on all their news and the news of our other long term location in Casa Grande-Palm Creek RV Resort.  Then we head out for the road and Yuma.

The desert is in bloom.  Yellow, deep blue, orange and white blossoms-all colors along the road and out among the saguaro cactus as if a paintbrush from heaven had been randomly drawn through the landscape.  The saguaro cacti are getting the fuzzy white tops that precede their blooms joined by the cholla cactus with their fuzzy white bouquet-looking tops.  Ocotillo cactus reach toward the sky with their now green, spiny stalks topped with scarlet flowers.  The desert is green from the highway to mountains in the distance with yellow-flowered paloverde shrubs and creosote bushes sporting green leaves.  This is the desert at its loveliest, mile after mile during our journey today.

We stop in Yuma for the night after a good drive.  The coach had no additional problems today and we are grateful.  It climbed the mountain ridge just before Yuma with ease.  Tonight there was a glorious sunset visible from our RV Park along a canal that forms the rear border of the park.  There is a wide path on either side of the canal and people are out enjoying a walk or bike ride beside the water as the sun sets.  Others are out strolling in the park as the warm afternoon recedes with the departing sun.  The air is dry and cools, as the desert is wont to do with the approaching nightfall, reminding me of the extremes you can experience in this environment.  

Tomorrow we will reach San Diego and settle in for two weeks preparing for work and doing some advance paperwork.  This will be a time to enjoy family and some of our favorite San Diego restaurants and sites as well.  Bon appetite as they say!    

A Flat and Friends

The day started out with a trial.  Traveling from Tucson to Casa Grande, we experienced our first tire issue-a blowout on one of the coach tires.  Luckily it was one of the rear tires and we were able to slow down and stop without further incident after hearing the “bang” sound a blowout produces.  But because it was an inside tire on the driver’s side (and that’s on the traffic side of the Interstate emergency lane) we could not really tell what had happened.  Luckily we were only half a mile from an exit and we were able to drive the coach off the Interstate and into a parking lot safely where we identified the problem.  We contacted a repair service and within an hour we were the proud owners of a new tire and alas relieved of several hundred dollars.  But to have experienced this without serious consequences is a good thing.  And for that we are grateful.  One of the greatest dangers it seems in driving a vehicle of this size is losing a front tire that can lead to being turned over on the side of the road.  We definitely don’t want to go through something like that. 

The day ended with a treasure-the treasure of friendship.  Spending a couple of hours with our friends at Ironwood was the highlight of the day.  Friendships forged over the three years we lived there are just as meaningful as ever and it feels like coming home again to be with our former neighbors.  It is awesome to see the community looking great and friends looking well.  At our collective ages, it is a relief to see so many who have not changed in our absence.  The only regret elicited during this delightful evening is that it had to come to an end.   But life moves on and so do we toward California and the beginning of our repeat adventure there.  I wish I had captured a photo of everyone there this evening, but we did not think of photos until long after almost everyone had left.  I suspect that too will prove to be a pleasure as we slip into familiar territory and then explore new roads to the north in Idaho.  Life is good and sure because we have friends and because we can still claim a growing edge in our lives.  And for all of this, we feel blessed. 

  

Las Cruces NM to Tucson AZ

Today’s trip covered the ground between Las Cruces and Tucson under slightly cloudy skies.  Two things were prevalent today.  The first was trains-lots of them.  We saw the parts of wind generators loaded onto one train traveling westerly and an Amtrak train going easterly.  Potential energy versus people all moving across the desert in opposite directions, interspersed with boxcar after boxcar of who knows what on other trains.  When you think of the amount of double-decker boxcars traversing mile after mile of track and then add in the trucks on the road, we have an amazing amount of transportation going on in this part of the country.  It is impressive and speaks to the improved economy I suspect.  Hurray for the U.S.A.

We saw cattle and horses being transported also.  Snoopy was particularly impressed with the horses while we were stopped next to their trailer for lunch.  I believe that is as close as he as ever been to them in his brief life covering an enormous number of miles on the road.  He also enjoyed sitting on the bottom step of the coach gazing out through the screen door this evening after we arrived in Tucson and opened all the windows and front door to bring in the delightful breeze and comfortable temperature.  It is nice to enjoy the world in just a T-shirt again.

About a half hour out from Tucson, where we stopped for lunch at a rest stop there are the most interesting rock formations.  I love what erosion has created and the colors revealed in these rocks.  These are the type of views in Arizona that make the desert beautiful to experience here.  The desert is somewhat green now and sprinkled with yellow flowers as we passed over the miles today.  Add to that the rugged mountains on our horizon in shades of gray and steel blue for most of the day and you have a painting in the making, even if it is only in your mind.

Another day traveled ending with a good dinner and a walk about the RV Park and now we are ready to turn in for the day.  Changing an hour a day with time zones and with Daylight Savings Time has our internal clocks really confused.  At seven p.m. we feel like it is time to go to bed.  Go figure!

Tomorrow will be a day with friends in Casa Grande and I can hardly wait.  This will be one of the highlights of crossing the country.  If only we could have beignets too! 

Ft Stockton to Las Cruces NM

Today was a mixture of interesting sights as we traveled the last portion of Texas and entered New Mexico.  The day started out with a huge roadrunner (a welcome statue for Fort Stockton.)  We went into town for a quick stop at a Walmart when we spied this fellow below:

Further down Interstate-10 we were detoured off the highway onto a frontage road to accommodate bridge construction up ahead of where they literally had us drive off the road, across the shoulder, down through a grass embankment and back up onto a frontage road in an impromptu detour the highway department created apparently on the spur of the moment.  Now picture everything in every cabinet shifting back and forth.  Awesome...

Just to keep things interesting, we passed what appeared to be a rocket wrapped in black plastic and identified as a "wide load" with the usual escort cars adorned with flashing lights twice today.  One was stopped at an on-ramp to the Interstate near Fort Stockton and then we spied another in a rest stop where we paused for lunch.  The whole story we don't know, but it was impressive.

At the same rest stop we saw a truck loaded with wheels for railroad cars.  They appeared to be new and it goes to show what a variety of items travel down the road in and on trucks.  When you think of the Fedex and UPS and US Mail Trucks that passed us today, it is clear what we saw is just the tip of the transportation iceberg we witnessed today.

As the day wore on today, we climbed in elevation from mere hundreds of feet above sea level to as much as 4,600 feet of elevation at times.  Mountains appeared on the horizon and we passed between several ranges of mountains, buttes and more mesas.  It was nice to be back in the mountains after a winter in the southeast.

We passed through El Paso and saw the border with Mexico beyond to the south.  The city is always busy when we have traveled through it.  Today was no different.  We also passed the cattle yards here that perpetually frustrate me.  Necessary or not, I hate to see the animals penned up standing in their own excrement.  To me it seems inhumane and I'll always feel that way knowing there are green pasture alternatives within our country.  Pecan trees in neat rows and still waiting to sprout leaves are along the road here too.

By three p.m. we were across the State border into New Mexico and arrived at Hacienda RV Resort, one of our favorites along this part of Interstate-10.  The weather is mild and sunny and we soak it all in after dinner with a walk about the park.  It is hard to believe how fast this trip across the country has progressed.  We are now on Mountain Daylight Savings Time.  Tomorrow we will reach Tucson in Arizona.    

Ft. Stockton, Texas

Today we entered the world of sun and warm weather.  How wonderful it is to experience their magic on one’s psyche after several days of rain and cold.  At the end of our journey today, I retrieved one of our outdoor easy chairs from the “basement” of the coach and sat basking in the sun to soak up as much vitamin D as I possibly could.  For half an hour I did absolutely nothing but listen to birds singing all around me.

Tonight we are staying in a park we visited last year on the journey to California-Fort Stockton RV Park.  It is the only park halfway between San Antonio, Texas and Las Cruces, New Mexico.  We are not alone.  Coach after coach is following us into the park as I sit outside watching them pass by en route to the office to check-in.  

The trip today on Interstate-10 began in Texas hill country and ended in Texas desert. The change is so gradual as you make your way west, it is hardly discernible except for the decreasing size of the trees that eventually become shrubs and then disappear for the most part replaced by cacti.  The further west we travel, the greater the number of mesa we see along the horizon, the greater the distance you can see ahead of the coach from every rise in the road and the further it is between
towns.

It causes me to wonder how the early settlers ever had the courage and fortitude to make the same trip.  We are spoiled traveling three times the distance they could cover in a day in a mere hour surrounded by air conditioned comfort while sipping ice water and snacking on mini-Mars bars.  That’s not to mention a baked potato and Texas BBQ ribs we purchased at Buckhorn Lake RV Resort this morning that we’re having for dinner.  I’ve been looking forward to them all day!

As the sun sets over the desert creating shadows along the edge of the mesa we can see from our coach windows, I am reminded of how marvelous it is to be on the road with an ever-changing view daily as we cross the country.  As Americans, we are lucky to have so much beauty and so many opportunities right in our collective backyards.

Buckhorn Lake RV Resort

We left Port Aransas and crossed over the causeway to the mainland in the rain this morning to drive northwest all day until we were an hour past San Antonio.  The size of Texas is amazing and it will take us all day tomorrow and most of the following day to reach Las Cruces, New Mexico.

According to the news tonight, Corpus Christi collected three more inches of rain after we departed.  I believe it because we drove through rain for the entire day.  The news reported this huge rainstorm stretched today from San Antonio all the way east through Mississippi.  We were glad to get in tonight.  It was a long drive.

Tonight we are staying in Buckhorn Lake RV Resort, near Kerrville. That being said, this park is delightful.  It has Texas personality from the moment you drive in through the entry gate.  In addition to beautiful asphalt roads and concrete paved spaces that have perfect hookup amenities, the park has a common area that would draw anyone into the theme this park exudes. 

There are spring flowers, a waterfall, a pond with live ducks and fish, an outdoor BBQ pit with a bar, a great camp store and even lots with casitas that have room for the owners to park their own RVs right next to their custom built house.  Pardon me for going on and on, but this is a delightful end to a long hard drive.