We had to stop in Santa Barbara to do some repairs on the RV.  (Actually, the SF Blog next should be before this one but I screwed up.)

We happend to hit SB during their Spanish xxxxxx

And there was plenty of Dos Equis on the main street of SB.  The big thing seemed to be that you buy these “eggs” full of confetti and then on Friday there is a horse parade with floats, etc., and these eggs are thrown at everyone and there is confetti all over the street.

Along the freeway was the horse barn storage area and there were, it seemed like, thousands of horses there.  Lynn and I are not horse people so we decided not to attend the parade but we went down right after it ended.  On side streets that has “market streets” that sold anything Mexican.

As we walked around the streets ladies and girls were dressed in their Spanish best.  These two girls were so cute.

As we got tired we were going to leave and we ran into this Mariachi Band.  The fun thing was the guy watching that was singing along with the band.

We noticed that even though this was Old Spanish Days we couldn’t help to notice that most of the flags were Mexican.  I also spent some time in Harbor Freight getting some RV stuff and found all the signs were in spanish.  Seems that Southern California has a very strong Latino influence now, much more than I have experienced in the past.

 

I don’t do much food stuff on this blog but we stopped at the Hitching Post restaurant south of Santa Rosa on your way to SF and one of the side items they served was bar-b-qued artichokes, yup, that is what I said.  It appears that they boiled them nice and soft, cut them in half, cut out the “hair,” put some sort of bbq rub on them and then did the bbq thing and THEN put this little dish of special sauce.  Man, oh man, where they good!!!!!

So we headed to San Francisco to our condo, bug I already did this and it is out of order, but that’s okay.

We own a condo in Emeryville, CA, across the bay east of SF and we had a vacancy and had to stop and talk to the guys helping us with it.  This is a photo of the unit.  It is the second story unit in the middle of the picture.

Looking from inside, out.

It’s a very nice place but we have it rented.  Hmmmmm.

Anyway, the condo is on a peninsula near the Bay Bridge and if you go to the end of the peninsula there is a park and from the park you can see this.

From SF we moved north to the Sonoma Coast area about 6 miles north.

 

We passed through LA heading north.  It took us hours and hours in our “huge” RV.  Here we were going about 10 mph.

We took one short cut into Hollywood.  We had to experience the best of the best so we spent a little time on Rodeo Drive.

But finally, we passed LA and headed for Simi Valley where President Reagan’s Library resides.  We introduced ourselves to Ronny and Nancy and they invited us graciously in to visit their “house.”

We had a nice dinner and Ronny asked me if I wanted to see his plane.  I said sure!!!  He said he had a phone call to make but I should go to his hangar and check it out.

Anyway, they invited us down to their basement where they where the Vatican had sent sent them some of their treasured items.  The first was Pope Pius V’s “hat.”

And his “chair.”

Then they invited us to the Cistine Chapel for a quick tour.

(That is actually a painting! Can you believe that.)

Finally, Lynn and I have been reading the Bible every morning and it seems Peter always has something deep and blessed to say.  I always wondered what happened to him and this relief pretty much shows how he died.  The Romans crucified him the same as Christ but he said that he did not deserve to be crucified in the same position as Christ so he insisted be crucified upside down, and they did.

From here we headed north to Santa Barbara.

So Lynn needed a crown on two of her teeth so we made our way to Korea Town near Garden Grove, CA, south of LA.  We hooked up with her brother, Peter, and his wife for dinner.   Tons of bulgogi, duegi-gogi, octopus and other Korean delicacies.

On Sunday we went to Church at downtown Santa Ana found on Google Maps.  What we didn’t know was that it is a Latino church and that they had a special kids day in the un-aircondioned group hall and they had an hour and a half kids program …..

but after this kids performance there was a full Latino pastor sermon with english translation and it was 95 F.  Lynn got sick and almost passed out and we had to get up in the middle of his sermon and leave.  I hope that they didn’t think that this Gringo was not PC, after all, I am 1/16 Mexican!

After our recovery from the heat stroke, we went down to Huntington beach where they were having a surfing competition.

There were bikinis and surfers and beer all over.  An to show you that the upper end of society attends these things, we noticed 3 Lamborghini sports cars “cruising” down the beach front highway.  The sound of three 12 cylinder sports cars revving it up and playing with each other was AWESOME!

So Lynn got her two teeth ground down and a temporary crown set and we went off to San Diego for a few days while the crowns were being made.

We stopped at PB …… oooops, that is Pacific Beach for those of you that didn’t have daughters that spent a good portion of their parents income paying for a college education at UC California at La Jolla where she lived at OB ….. oooops that is Ocean Beach and where we visited many times..  Anyway thought we would take a nice walk along the edge of the water along the PB beach but there were so many people that we soon gave up after tripping in several holes dug by kids and tripping over several sand castles built by dads.

So we abandoned idea and went to have a little adult drinkie poo at one of our favorite “lunch, etc.” restaurants with a view of SD’s …. That’s San Diego …  but you knew that.

I loved looking at the air craft carriers in the dry docs across the bay while Lynn loved the SD skyline.  You can see we didn’t get the best seats in the house today …. didn’t have any greenbacks in my hand as we were led to a table.  Oh well.

Finally, we had some time and spend 1/2 a day at the HUGE SD Zoo!  You need to go to!

Here are a series of photos as we walked around, and walked and walked.  An old Giraffe, but he was so cute.

The Hippo swam over toward Lynn like she knew her and her baby, which you can’t see here followed.

This Gorilla ignored the crowd by sitting facing away from them with his back against the  1 1/12 inch thick safety glass.

BUT, this Gorilla attacked the onlookers and provided quite a thrill for all of us.

From here we headed back to LA to crown Lynn.

My brother Dave, 2 1/2 years younger than I retired as a State Farm Insurance Broker and my brother Rick and I went up to celebrate with him in Spokane.  At Daves party, he got a little “happy”and volunteered to “perform” for us.

 

Well, I got into the act also while we were blowing up balloons preparing for the party.

Dave is an ardent single trail bike rider and he convinced Rick and I to galavant through the forest with him on bicycles, of all things.  Now us “boys” being 71, 68 and 65 you would think that we wouldn’t be so stupid as to take a chance and maybe break something but ….. we did it.  Here is a couple of quick photos of us being crazy.  It is easy to see who is the most handsome! Right?

I traded places with Dave, on the right, recently.  He used to be skinny and I used to be heavy, if you know what I mean.

 

So we sold our house in Florida after living there a little over 4 years.  Lynn and I were on an 8 month RV trip in 2011 when we stopped at the Villages and really like the place and the activities so we said lets try it out for 3 or 4 years.  We did and we liked it overall, me more than Lynn, but we miss the mountains and the desert and the WEST so we decided to move west again.

Here is the house that we really loved and you can see the big billowy Florida clouds getting ready to dump after 1:30 PM almost every day in the summer.

And here is a view out of our back porch, Lanai.

Another reason I liked this area is the golf.  Lynn and I spent many hours drinking beer and eating turkey dinners at the Belle Glade Country Club watching the beautiful golf course sites.  Here is the last time we were there the day before we left.  Maybe you can see a little wet spot in the corner of my eye!

Turns out Lynn had a little wet spot in her eye when the PODS guys came to load all of our furniture (well almost all cause some didn’t fit) as she took this movie of our furniture being moved to the long haul truck.  She said that it was like watching your child being shipped away.  The plan is to ship the PODS to Las Vegas and then leave it in a warehouse for 3 or 4 months while we take an RV vacation and then come back and look for a house.

 

At the Villages, there are three Town Centers and each Town Center has a band playing from 5 to 9 PM every night of the year.  We went down to listen and dance often. This video is of the night before we left Florida.  The “old people” of the Villages were line dancing as we took this video.

When we got back to Vegas we met Charley who had been watching out for our RV in the residential park we had parked it in while we were in Florida.  His Bill Clinton impersonation was pretty good! (A little risqué for some probably.)

 

Since our last post, we have been super busy because we were doing business while in Las Vegas and then flying back to Florida to load up our furniture and car to move back out to the Las Vegas area.  We finished packing and moving on July 15 and permanently left Florida and our beautiful house.  We have no house at all now.

Anyway here are some Las Vegas adventure photos and comments and a couple from Florida.

Here is a building we found in the “artsy fartsy part of Las Vegas.  Looks like something that I would have designed before I retired my engineering license.

Here is Lynn in front of the Beautiful Wynn Hotel Casino talking to one of her girl friends, I think in Korea.

I am trying to keep this blog un-political but I just had to include this photo!!

Lynn and I would try to exercise everyday at 24 Hour Fitness. She loves Zumba.  She had this one instructor who just blew her away.  She loved his class!!

Here is our digital  clock after 5 PM in Las Vegas.  The temperature in the lower left is the room temperature inside our RV with two AC’s going.  The temperature in the lower right corner is the temperature outside!!!  It was rough.

We need to be in the Reno area after Las Vegas but we wanted to take a few days off.  We camped over night in Tohnapah, NV, or our way from LV we saw beautiful colored mountains,

an electric power plant that is a tower in the middle of the desert with mirrors surrounding it focusing their sun beam onto the very top of the tower (when we passed by last time the tower top was as bright as the sun but this time it looks like it may have been shut down),

and in Tonopah we had a drink and dinner in the Mizpah Hotel where so many famous stars have stayed over night (I think that Tonopah is 1/2 way between Lake Tahoe/Reno and Las Vegas so they stopped there), Debbie Reynolds, Sharon Stone, Julie Andrews, Lucial Ball, Jane Fonda, etc., etc. (That’s what they say with all the signed photos in the hallways, but seems kind of far fetched to me but whatever.)

We ended up staying at the Fallen Leaf Lake which is right next to Lake Tahoe.  Lynn and I are always awestruck when we walk over the small rise and see Fallen Leaf Lake for the first time in a while.  Here Lynn takes in the lake,

then playing with the little kids playing on the beach (not sure who is the kid!),

Then I sat down and got contemplative for a few minutes.

Thinking about a friend of mine that we met at his cabin at Donner Lake a few years ago who took me and showed me his private place:

We went for a walk down about a mile long trail just looking and sometimes staring at the wonders of the forest.  We stopped by this old cedar tree and contemplated what had passed it by in the past and whether we were worthy.  Lynn thought she was and I took this photo showing showing how big we feel but how puny we really  are.

We decided to go to Emerald Bay which is a small bay on Lake Tahoe on the beautiful west side of the lake.  What makes it special is the small island right in the middle of the bay, like a jewel God formed for us to enjoy as we pass through life.

After a mile long hike down about 1,000 feet in elevation we reached the beach as the little island sparkled in the afternoon sun for us.

On our way down Lynn took this photo of me walking by this beautiful granite edifice that makes big men like me look very small.

On our way up the 1,000 foot climb we stopped by a little water fall and overcame the high altitude’s heavy breathing and hearts pounding and smiled for posterity in front of this very small but very beautiful waterfall (Lynn splashed my back with that coooooold water and it felt sooooo good.  Look at the sneaky grin while she was planning that).

At the bottom of the trail next to the lake and in back of the photo of Emerald island is Vikingsholm that was built in the 1920s by a rich widow lady who lived there for years and passed away and it ended up as a CA state park.  It is really different and beautiful in its own way even with a broken window with bear snout marks all over it that had happened the night before!   Wow!

Then we relaxed in our campground.

Then we moved down to Gardnerville, NV, and at the Elks Lodge and this is the view we had each morning!  We love the east side of the Sierras.  If you wonder if there really is a God, just look at beauty and grandeur of these mountains!

Lynn and I finally went downtown (the strip) after being here over two weeks.  We are working on some real estate deals and are just too busy.  Anyway, it was our 47th wedding anniversary and we decided to step out.  We went to the Wynn Casino at The Lake Steakhouse where the cute greeter took this photo just before we sat down.  I had a nice Rib Eye and Lynn has a very nice bowl of Clam Chowder and a Vegetarian Pasta.

After supper we were presented with an nice desert: four Truffle balls, two black and two white.  I thought they were little ice cream balls and I couldn’t figure out how to eat them so I asked for two spoons.  When I pocked at them with the spoon I found out the were hard candy.  So I picked them up and had two of them.  Later, I laughed and told the waiter I thought they were ice cream and we needed a spoon which they hadn’t brought.  The waiter laughed and said he and his helper discussed why we wanted a spoon for the hard candy but finally said “if they want a spoon, give them a spoon.”  Of course, at this type of restaurant they brought the spoons on a silver tray with a very fine cloth trim.  Hmmmm.   You can tell I am a country boy.  Lynn just shook her head!  Here is Lynn with one of the truffles left on the very nicely done plate.

Finally, here are two photos of Lynn: overlooking the strip on the overpass between the Wynn and the very expensive shopping center across the street.  Luckily she was “tired” so didn’t spend much mon … time there.

Lynn in front of the Wynn Casino.

 

 

 

 

While at St George right next to our camp spot was a little 9 hole golf course.  It was inside a canyon where the mountains were bubbling caldrons of molten rock surrounded by earth.  The earth wore away and left the bubbly rock and this small beautiful canyon that photos just do not do justice to.  Anyway, here are two photos of this beautiful place.

The first photo is of hole #1 tucked into this little cul-de-sac.  Wish you could be there to see it like I did.

The second is me teeing up at a par 5.  All I could think about was pounding that ball and why body was wound up.  But, it went right, but I knew that when I pound them.  The reason I took the photo was to show the beautiful contrast of grass and mountains but photos just don’t do it.