Azalea Campground #87

So thankful to God and the doctors He provided! John is cleared to go into the high altitude again and we are headed to the mountains! We decided to come up early for the Labor Day weekend and get 2 spots so that any of the kids that want to join us, can. There were plenty of sites open when we got here, but not a lot of them were together. We did get #87 for us and #77 for the kids. They are back to back and it will work just fine. #87 is a large site. #77 has awkward table and fire pit settings but we can just use #87 since there is plenty of room. The weather is wonderful; clear, sunny, a tiny breeze. We had a great week, which went by very quickly! Deb and Sam joined us Thursday-Monday. 

Bothe-Napa Valley State Park

June 23-26, 2018

The most traffic backup was going through San Francisco on Hwy 1/101. I knew there would be delays but I didn't think it would take as long as it did. The alternative would have been going east on Hwy 17 and then up I-580 through Oakland and many other Bay Area cities, so no regrets. We had a lovely drive along the coastal Hwy 1 route. The big regret it the outrageously hot temperatures in Napa! Once we got to Napa we stopped at Genova's to get some things for a nice dinner. I even got some Zinfandel wine in a can to have with it. It was highly rated, we'll see. 

By the time we got to Bothe it was 106! Oh brother! It really didn't take long to set up but we were both exhausted from the heat. I even felt quite weak and dizzy. John read his Kindle and sat in the shade with Tony. I had to lie down in the trailer with the ice pack I brought and cold compress. If it is like this tomorrow, we agreed we will leave early in the morning. I am happy to report that we got cold in the night and the rest of our stay only had temps up to the mid 80's. 

The next morning we went to the cemetery and put flowers on a few of the graves, including Mom's. She liked to do this and I took her there often. It was a little bit hard but knowing it would have made her happy helped a lot. After that we thought to try Rutherford Grill without a reservation. That left us the choice of the outside patio and appetizer menu only. It was shady so we chose to stay and had guacamole, artichoke-spinach dip, and grilled artichokes with a margarita to cool us off. Now that the sadder moments are past us I figured we might try to see Chuck if he is at Caymus today. If he is not there I will text him and try to see him tomorrow with some photos he might want. The surprise was, he was there, and met with us also giving us free wine tasting! I was thrilled that he had such an interest and indeed wanted the few photos I brought to him. If he only knew how many more I have! I will be sure to bring them to the Glos Family Reunion planned in early October. He will have a chance to decide about many photos, some he may want. Anyway, it was a nice visit and he gave us 2 6-pack bags of wine to take home with us! Such a generous and nice man. Our day was complete with our ravioli dinner, a bottle of Zinfandel from the gifted wine, and multiple card games. 

Today I contacted the St. Helena Historical Society to offer them the rest of the photos Chuck did not want, along with some baby shoes. To my surprise, they wanted everything and were quite thrilled to receive the items. I assured them I do have more and in time they will get it. This time John and I had reservations for Rutherford Grill so we had a nice table inside and I could order the beloved ribs for our lunch. John shared them with me because he wanted the guacamole again. With the ribs, coleslaw, and fries, we still could not eat it all but it made a nice snack this evening. We decided that tomorrow we will head home. We are tired and we both want to watch the next World Cup game the following day, which is Brasil vs. Serbia.  

Now home, safe and sound. Trailer is stored and all went well. No health issues. Thanking God for that! 

Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park

June 19-23, 2018

Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, site 7. What a lovely campground just a few miles from Santa Cruz, open seasonally April 1-Nov 1. The only negative is poison oak, and LOTS of it, around about half the campsites. Our campsite is spacious (ours would hold at least 5 tents!) and cleared of poison oak, but one must not wander off the trail or roads because it is everywhere. We are keeping Tony on a short leash. I see a lot of kids having a wonderful time playing in it --- I wonder how that will turn out for them? Anyway, as I said the campsites are nice, most are spacious with a large, sturdy table and a cupboard attached. Each site has the typical fire ring with grill. Most sites are shaded by a lovely canopy of trees, which is just beautiful, a few have full sun. If you are counting on solar power you would want to pick and choose one of the few sites that have sun when booking online. We are very happy with the filtered sunlight and cool weather. There are nice, hot, coin operated showers in two of the restrooms. Water faucets and trash containers are conveniently located to the campsites. I thought of Sierra and Matt because there are 14 hiking trails listed to explore from .3 to 3.3 miles in length, they enjoy hiking! One of the hikes is 45 minutes to the Redwood Grove. It is also a 5 minute drive. Guess which one we did? There are a lot of Rhododendron but not in bloom this time of year. There are 113 camps here with a variety of types. We drove around and noted our favorites. Notably but not comprehensive: 7, 35, 39, 42, 47, 96 - and double camps for the family would be 52 & 54 or 61 & 63.  

One day we drove the few miles to Felton and through the little town to get to the Redwood Grove. There is a one mile loop to walk with numbers and a little guide to read as you go. There is a small Visitors Center, gift shop I didn't go into, and some other facilities in the area. It was a nice outing.  You will find the Roaring Camp Railroad near Felton as well.  You can take this steam train on a narrated ride through the Redwood forest to Bear Mountain for some great views, then back. The other option is the Beach Train to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. You can catch this train in Felton, Roaring Camp, or at the Boardwalk, one way or round trip can be purchased. They advertise Ziplining but I didn't read much about it.

This would be a great family camp, but of course no beach for fishing close by. Now we are on our way to Bothe-Napa Valley. I should have thought this through better, departing on a Saturday and the emotional toll of returning to Napa. 

Morro Strand State Beach Campground

June 14-19, 2018

14-19: Morro Strand State Beach Campground, sites 75 & 76. This is our traditional trip to the coast with the family on Father's Day weekend. Jeff always has Miranda and he loves to fish, so this is the choice. Deb likes to hear the waves at night to sleep as well. The campsites are small and "not special" but the location is premium. We often get the ocean side but this time even trying 5 months in advance, we could only get the city side. It still works out fine. This time we had us, Julianne,  Deb, Sam, Spencer, Steven, and Saira. Julie had work on Monday so she went home with Steven and Saira on Sunday afternoon after watching the World Cup game and having shrimp tacos. During our time there is it also Sam's birthday. We celebrated at Schooner's in Cayucos - one of our favorites. We typically eat there at least once when on the coast. We also like House of JuJu and Giovanni's, we ate at both. We got fresh oysters Saturday night, Steven and Jeff grilled them on the fire and we had assorted sauces for our toppings. We are never that hungry after eating the big meal at Schooner's for lunch that day. The weather was great most of the time but the wind really kicked up Monday and actually drove us indoors for part of the time. It certainly was no weather to play Uno and even Yahtzee was hard to control. Sharon and her friend Sandy are bringing granddaughter's Rylee and Emery to see Hearst's Castle so they had a long drive but did stop to see us for a little bit before heading to their hotel.  Thankfully the wind died down by evening and was just starting to pick up when we departed on Tuesday morning. Deb wanted to stay and be sure we were hooked up and on our way before they left. After leaving Morro Strand we back tracked to Morro Bay State Campground to empty our waste tanks and replenished our water tans. Now we are on our way to Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park.

Another Change...

We'll get this figured out yet! Kaiser called and John's panel appt is going to be on July 2, so we changed things again!

Here is our updated schedule:

Itinerary: 

14-19 June     Morro Strand, #75      

19-23 June     Cowell Redwood, #07

23-28 June     Bothe-Napa, #03

28-June          Home

01-July            Head to SF

02-July            CT and appt, then head home.

Hopefully, this will be the last change. 

Summer Reservations

We changed our summer camping plans. After the Father's Day event in June at Morro Strand we are going to head north with a couple stays on the way to Napa and then over to the coast. 

Itinerary: 

14-19 June     Morro Strand, #75      

19-23 June     Cowell Redwood, #07

23-28 June     Bothe-Napa, #03

28-02July       Russian Gulch, #14

02-July           Bothe-Napa, #3

03-July           Home

Awaiting news for the panel appointment for John's approval for the TAVR. Meanwhile, looking forward to escaping the heat of the valley a little bit. 

Pismo Trip

March 21-26, 2018

March 21: We know there will be rain for 1 or 2 days at Pismo but we are heading out just the same. Julie is going over with us. Deb, Sam, Spencer, and Soren will come over tomorrow. I think Matt and Sierra are coming tomorrow as well. Jeff, Miranda, Steven, and Saira will join us on Friday.

It rained most of the drive over, pretty hard at some points but we made it just fine. We arrived to North Beach Pismo about 1:15p and they advised  us to go ahead and find a site, then come back and we could register at 2p for our spots. We found a couple sites that looked like they would work. There is a lot of wet ground, ducks are swimming in ponds in some of the sites. On our way back toward the ranger station one of the ranger trucks came along and stopped us to say they were closing the campground! We were shocked. They said it was a mandatory closure. They said we could stay in some parking lot but of course there would be no way to set up a tent for Julie. We quickly headed to Oceano Campground only to find out that it was full. Next stop was the little county campground. There appeared to be open spaces but we called the number to check for sure. Yes, there are spots for tonight so we drove back to Pismo Coastal Dunes and paid for the one night. It is full hook ups and runs $53, which is a lot more than the state sites but we have little choice.

The rain is going strong again. We managed, with a lot of help from Julie, to unload the multiple things in the trailer and put them on the table, covered with a tarp. Then we set up the canopy so we could put her tent underneath. Then off to Old Juan's Cantina for dinner. We checked on Pismo North Beach again, the flooding has increased. It was absolutely pouring down rain when we got back to our camp. John dug a small trench around the one side of Jul's tent. It worked well, drained the large puddle forming, and she stayed dry all night. After that we all played cards, then John read and Julie and I continued to play cards. Finally we were all off to bed. We left the trailer unlocked so Jul could use our restroom in the night. It all worked out well though the rain continued pretty steady and hard all night. 

March 22: At least Jul was dry all night. Another visit to North Beach Pismo and we confirmed we would not be able to camp there. It is badly flooded and no hope of the flood water draining quickly. John took Jul to McDonald's for breakfast. We tried to secure 2 campsites for the long weekend there at the county campground but they will be full on the weekend. We began packing up, thankful it is not raining, but what a wet mess everything under the tarp turned out to be. Julie was a great help. I had to drape a dry tarp over our beds and the floor to put everything for transport. I caught my foot in the strap of my laptop case and took a fall. My knee is pretty so but I am not hurt. Finally the packing up was done and we headed to San Simeon State Park where there are openings and we can secure sites for the weekend. Since it is Matt's birthday we had told them all we would have dinner at Splash Café to celebrate. I called the café and was able to secure takeout for 9 for dinner tonight. I was very happy about that. Matt and sierra arrived then Deb, Sam, and the boys. The rain is gone and they were all able to set up without the rain factor. Matt and Sierra enjoyed the hammock we gave him for is birthday, they set it up in a couple different places to find a good fit. After the Splash chowder, a Hostess Cupcake was served with a candle to Matt (they all like Twinkies better!)

March 23: This morning we took a drive up to see the Elephant Seals. It isn't far from the campground and always interesting to see. I would love to come Dec-Feb when the males are here and birthing also takes place. On the way back from that we stopped at another little "scenic view" point and found some very interesting information about this area the last couple hundred years. I didn't know there were Chinese families that lived here and exported a favorite seaweed (sea lettuce) to China starting150 years ago! This practice lasted about 100 years, ending in 1970, it is now illegal to collect seaweed of any sort. This sea lettuce was dried and sent up to San Francisco from Avila, Cayucos, and San Simeon and then shipped to China. There were rocks with plaques depicting a variety of information about the area. Native American tribes and villages in this area were obliterated by the Spanish beginning in the 1700's as they were forced to move from the area to the missions, forced to speak Spanish and by 1810, there were no tribes or villages left. Their language was lost and it is speculation as to what their dialect was. I found the story of a letter postmarked July 1854, that traveled from San Francisco to Nicaragua, then across land to the Caribbean Sea, then traveled to NY, and on to England, arriving in France in August 1854 - all that for 27 cents! One day we might want to visit the Piedras Blancas Light Station build in 1875 to commemorate the loss of ships here in 1869. We were told it is an interesting visit. Not long after we were back to camp Steven and Saira arrived, followed by Jeff and Miranda. Now our group is complete!

March 24: Since Jeff only caught one fish, we had to go into Cambria for some shopping, we needed a few other things as well. Before going shopping we stopped for wine/beer tasting at Fermentations. That was a nice little stop. The rest of the day we relaxed around camp and enjoyed family time.

March 25: Today Steven and Saira along with Matt and Sierra will head home. Julie will go with Steven and Saira because she has work tomorrow. Soren will go with Sierra and Matt since he has school also. Once they were on their way it was pretty quiet. We took everyone else out for an early dinner at  El Chorlito Mexican Restaurant. This way, no one will have to cook tonight. We did get a little bit hungry later and roasted some hotdogs over the fire, those were delicious.

March 26: We thought about staying a few more days but John really isn't feeling well and we decided we would just come home. It seemed to take forever to get packed up. We stopped with Deb, Sam, and Spencer to eat at In N Out in Kettleman City. By the time we got home and started to unpack, John began to have chest pain. I called 911 and to the hospital he went in the ambulance. I closed up everything on the trailer and took it along with me to Kaiser Hospital. I really can't put it back in storage by myself. Sam did that for me the next evening. We are thankful to be home even though John is in the hospital. 

Pismo, We're Coming!

Tomorrow we will head to Pismo North Beach Campground. We are taking the chance that we will get a couple spots together for our family for a long weekend. Julianne will go with us. Deb, Sam, Spencer, Soren, Sierra, and Matt will join us Thursday. Steven and Saira will arrive Friday, as will Jeff and Miranda. We will celebrate Matt's birthday at Splash Cafe on Thursday but I am feeling pretty certain we will make another trip back with the others for another clam chowder or steamers "fix"! It's supposed to be raining when we get there, no problem! In fact, maybe that is a good thing so there will be some prime spaces available for us!

Millerton Lake Getaway

January 12-15, 2018: It was just 3 nights but it was nice to get away and see trees, water, and the great outdoors. Since it is only 45 minutes away, it is a quick drive up and back. Deb and Sam stayed the same amount of time we did. Sierra and Matt came up Friday night and left Sunday afternoon. Jeff and Miranda came up Saturday morning and went home Sunday afternoon. Spencer came with Deb and Sam and went home Sunday with Jeff and Miranda. It was the first time Sierra and Matt used the new tent we gave them for Christmas. They had a good time and successfully set up and took down the tent. They also hiked a little on the Pincushion Trail. One night when we were sleeping a gaze of raccoons passed through the campsites. They dumped over Deb and Sam's trash can but went on their way when Sam shined the lights on them. Jeff, Miranda, and Spencer went fishing from the shore with no luck. We enjoyed time around the campfire, Yahtzee, Rummikub, and of course delicious food. We we camped with hookups because Deb and Sam wanted to use their electric heater. Because of the electricity Deb made a wonderful breakfast casserole in the crock pot. It was simple and turned out really great. Sam did tritip on the grill along with fresh veggies consisting of squash, onion, eggplant, mushrooms. I made a couple of boxes of Rice-a-Roni, which was really pretty good as we haven't had that in a long time. We had sweet peppers to add to the veggies but we had more than enough without using those too. Since we didn't stay long and didn't pack much, it was a relatively cleanup when arriving home. We used the dump station in the park, which is much nicer than the one we have at Derrel's for no charge. 

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