Monday, December 9, 2013

The story line

OK, maybe we'll do three posts!  Here's the running commentary since our last post.  Please forgive the change from past to present tense and back again.  Too lazy to edit tonight...


We left Lake Minden RV park on Thursday, November 21st.  We drove to Tulare, CA and stayed at Sun and Fun RV park.  It was a Passport America park.  Both of these that we have stayed at so far have been mobile home parks with a few RV parking spots.  We had a very nice pull through concrete spot with full hookups.  It was a tight turn pulling out, and I wasn’t sure I could make the turn without backing up ( we still had the van on the tow dolly, since it fit in the pull through spot).  I turned tight, and failed to consider the tail swing and where that would put the tow dolly.  Trevor heard something and said, “Dad stop!”  I stopped and we went to look.  We were up against the dump pipe with the tire of the tow dolly, and were about to drive over the water pipe.  That would not have been good!  We unloaded the van, moved the tow dolly by hand, and were able to get out without further incident.

We drove from there to Banning, CA, but had to stop short for a time due to high winds.  We stopped in Rialto, CA and got Dominos pizza and ate in the parking lot of a church nearby.  We then drove on to Banning.  It was now dark, and it was a very windy road up to the Silent Valley RV park which was in the mountains.  Sheryll was very nervous during the drive up!  At one point, there were several cars behind me and I saw a sign for a turnout in ¼ mile.  As we came around a corner, there was the turnout that had been recently paved with pitch black asphalt.  We were angled away  from it due to the slope of the road, and it was very difficult to see it.  It looked like we were about to drop into a black abyss.  As I turned onto it, Sheryll was saying, “Oh Jesus, Jesus!”  Frankly, I was a little nervous myself!  But as we leveled out onto the turnout, we all breathed easier again.  The next day when we drove by in the daylight, we said, “There’s the abyss!”

The park here in the mountains is very nice.  It has a rugged, rocky beauty, not as many trees as in other areas.  It is very large (460 acres) and there’s not a lot of folks here.  So we found a spot close to bathrooms and a nice playground, and right next to the tennis courts.  The kids are having a lot of fun playing here.

We left  Silent Valley on Tuesday, November 26th and drove to Point Mugu, CA.  We got into our parking spot, from which we can see the ocean, and I went to VR-55 while Sheryll got the kids lunch.  I went to the exchange to get us some water, and Sheryll called and said the kids wanted to go in the water.  So we let them and they had a great time, but were numb with cold when they got out!  I was getting water because we couldn’t find the 3 gallons of water Tucker had put in the back seat that morning.  Turns out they were in the laundry basket with the dirty clothes.

On Wednesday, 27th we got up and drove north on the Pacific Coast Highway, and when we got back the kids when into the water again.

On Thursday, 28th we had a lazy morning, at breakfast, watched the Macy Thanksgiving day parade and a football game.  Then we went to Denny’s and had Thanksgiving dinner.  Everyone enjoyed their lunch, except those of us who ordered the turkey dinner.  It was not good.  But hey, at least we didn’t do any prep or dishes!  Then we went back to the motorhome and watched the evening game.
One of the huge benefits of staying at Point Mugu was the laundry was complimentary! 

On Friday, 29th we got up and went for a walk on the beach, checking out the seals that come into the estuary there.  In the afternoon we went to Port Hueneme and bowled. 

On Saturday, 30th we got up, ate breakfast and left for San Diego.  We stayed the K Q Ranch.  On Sunday December 1st we got up and drove to Escondido Christian Center (formerly Cathedral of the Valley) for church.  We saw Joel and Kathy Phillips and their children, Joel’s mom Mary, and Rochelle and Jody LeDuc.  After service we went to lunch with Joel and Kathy and had a great visit.  As we were loading up to go, Kathy opened up the back of their car.  They had some laundry inside, and Teddy started pointing at the pile.  It seemed like he was pointing at a towel, so Kathy picked it up and said, “This?”  Teddy said, "Yep!" and reached for it, so she gave it to him.  He took it into the restaurant where we ate, and then kept it.  After lunch we went past the house we lived in when Trevor was born, and the hospital where he was born.  As we were driving down the interstate, Courtney was texting Tyler what we were doing, and she asked, “So what road are we on?  I-15?” Timothy said, “No, we’re going down Memory Lane!” We came back to the RV, and cooked filet mignon steaks on the grill and fried potatoes on the griddle.  It was awesome.

We had been planning to leave from KQ Ranch for Knotts Berry Farm, but the road up here is so mountainous and curvy, and the Modders invited us over to dinner Monday night, so we decided to move to the parking lot of Joel and Kathy’s church so that we could avoid that drive late Monday night and early Tuesday morning .  The parking lot was on a hill, so we couldn’t get the RV level, so we all slept with our heads uphill as best as possible.

On the way to the Modder’s for dinner, we stopped and saw Molly Chassen and her son Tony.  We had a great visit.  We were good friends with Ben and Molly when we lived in SD, but had lost touch.  Ben was working so we didn’t get to see him.  Then we went to the Modders and had a great evening with them and Tara Roach and her children.  Tara is David Johnson’s sister, and Sheryll as known her since she was very young.  It was a great day/night!

Tuesday morning, Dec 3rd, we got up and drove to Knott’s Berry Farm.  We had a great time.  The crowd was small, so lines were short.  The Silver Bullet ride was closed, but that was the only down side.  We had a great day!  That night we stayed at the Anaheim RV park close to Disneyland.  After we were there for a bit, we released the older kids to go ride on their own, and we took the little kids to do rides.  After a while the big kids returned and told us they wanted us to go do some rides and get a treat and they were going to hang out with the little kids.  It was very sweet, and we took them up on it!
Wed morning, December 4th, we got up and drove to Steve and Donna Scheets house in Henderson, NV.  They have an RV shelter right beside their house that we parked in.  They are the parents of Jeana Mudd.  We did home church with the Mudds for two years in Minot.  Steve and Donna were so gracious to us!  What a blessing it was to have laundry/shower facilities to use.  We ate meals with them, visited and our older children slept in real beds!  We had a great time, visited the Hoover Dam, drove the strip and went to the park.

While we were there we got to visit with Alan and Ann Marie Beckiett, friends we knew from Oak Harbor, WA.  They were missionaries to the Ukraine for years.  We had a great visit with them.
Sunday after church, December 8th we left the Scheets house and drove south to an RV park in Fort Mojave, AZ.

Today we drove to an RV park in Lake Havasu City, AZ, and drove over the London Bridge.

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