Good Books and Great TV and A Little Bit Of Painting

I am generally a "home body" whether we are on the road or at our sticks and bricks home.  And if you have read many of my posts, you know that I am basically a couch potato.  I like the idea of hiking, and I like the idea of swimming, and I like the idea of walking hither and yon, but I rarely do it.  And yes, this makes me wonder if I will ever fit in with full time RVers, because from the blogs I read, you are a busy and physically active group.  Perhaps it is because those of you going and doing actually have something to blog about.  I, on the other hand, blog about couch potato activities, recipes and general musings, especially when we are not on the road.....which we are not now, not that I'm whining.  Okay, maybe I'm whining just a wee little bit.

When I find an author I enjoy, I tend to binge read all their books.  Then I get frustrated when I get caught up to the last (most recent) book.  I'm always on the look out for new authors and new series.  I prefer the mystery genre, and I love books that are set in cities with which I am familiar.  Books set in Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Nevada, Louisiana, California, Alabama, Hawaii and Florida, top my list as those are the areas I have visited.  I can picture in my mind the settings and surroundings that are described.  I've been catching up on some J A Jance books I had missed over the years.  I love all of her series, including Detective Beaumont, Ali Reynolds and Joanna Brady.  I did a binge reading marathon of books by Chelsea Cain, which take place in the Portland, Oregon area.  I'm so glad I discovered her.  I've always enjoyed John Grisham, and it appears that I have missed quite a few of his newer books.  That is where I am finding myself now.

On to TV......Well, Sons of Anarchy has aired its last episode.  I loved those characters.  I know those characters.  I was not enamored of the last season.  However, because it was so wonderfully written by Kurt Sutter and his team, what happened was exactly what should have happened.  I just did not want to say good-bye.

I have to ask though, what the heck is up with the "winter season finale" - at least I think that was the term they were using.  Apparently it is now common to develop an arc, insert a cliffhanger, and make you wait through the month of December to see what happens.  It's not the end of the season, but instead a 4-5 week waiting period.  And some shows only introduced a few episodes before they inserted the winter season cliffhanger.  Can't wait for How To Get Away With Murder to return.  I'm also waiting for new episodes of Scorpion, Madam Secretary and Stalker.  This will be the last season for Parenthood.  I've enjoyed this show in the past, but so far, I'm bored.  I will watch until the last episode, but I have to wonder if the writers have changed or if they just ran out of story line and are trying to wrap things up.  The Mentalist is in its last season as well.  And it is the same thing with the few episodes I've watched this season.  I've got my fingers crossed for the return of Justified, also in its final season.  I love the characters and the way they have been written.

Two shows I have enjoyed in the past, The Bridge and The Divide, I hear have not been renewed.

I hope they don't mess with The Blacklist and The Following!

When I'm not reading or watching TV, or doing the mundane things such as housework, laundry, dishes or cooking, I have been painting.  Here are a few of my recent projects.

What is up this week?  Cleaning off my desk is on the list.  It is usually in a state of organized chaos. Recently it has crossed the line into just plain chaos.  I'm not sure what else, but I'm sure it will include reading, watching TV and painting.  I love retirement!

Hemet, California

We headed off to Hemet this morning, primarily in search of Vanilla Nut Maxwell House International Coffee and my new favorite oatmeal from BetterOats called Lavish Dark Chocolate.  As long as we were there, we might as well stop at the bank.

The first topic of discussion was why Hemet was there.  Well, actually it started when we went through Winchester, just before Hemet, where we found an easy access post office to mail some post cards and bills I've been carrying around.  All we saw on the main street was the post office, a market,  a gas station and two restaurants.  This all brought on the question, why is this here?  Apparently, Winchester is primarily an agricultural community and services sprung up in response to needs of the community.  There is a population of approximately 2500 people.  And what about Hemet you ask?  Hemet has a population of 78,000+.  The four main industries are retail trade, health services, educational services and government.  The biggest employer is the school district.  I'd have to guess that this is generally a bedroom community that services bigger cities (with large industries) in San Diego and Riverside Counties.

At any rate, we found the post office in Winchester, and a Super Walmart and a US Bank in Hemet.  We also found a Polly's Pies.  Kim swears I plan all outings based on my stomach so that he is forced to buy me lunch.  With every kind of restaurant available, I picked one I'd never heard of.   It was a good choice.  Having my mind on pie, I ordered a half grilled ham and cheese sandwich and a cup of pea soup.

Kim chose the deluxe grilled cheese (4 different kinds of cheese) sandwich and fries.

We had the discussion of whether or not to get pie to go; we were too full to eat anymore right then.  The Diet Angels won out, and we decided against pie - a decision we regretted at about 8pm that evening.

We have friends in the Seattle area that asked us to keep an eye out for a special top shelf tequila and a top shelf brandy.  Liquor prices are much much cheaper in California than they are in Seattle.  Interestingly, however, beer and wine prices are comparable to what we pay at home.  Anyway, we found a store called Mega Liquor (at least that was what the website was called - the store name might have been something else), where we found the brandy, but alas not the tequila.  What I loved was the sign above the front door:

I guess we passed the test as they most graciously served us, and went out of their way to see if they could find that tequila.

Because I was whining the other day about missing all the spring blooming flowers in our yard, my daughter sent a few pictures.  My daffodils are out.  The dogwood has not yet bloomed.  The grass is definitely greener (and longer) than when we left.

I wonder if the weeding angels will visit before we get home?  The flower beds need some cleaning up it appears.

Very happy to see some flowers on the forsythia as it had a major pruning last fall.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring........................

Saturday At Champagne Lakes RV Park

Kim was up and at 'em and out the door at 5am.  He has and appointment in Hemet to have a Ford Master Mechanic work on our truck's cooling system.  We are about an hour from Hemet, and then the truck has to sit for two hours to cool down before they can start work on it.  They figured it was about an 8 hour job, not including travel and cool down time.

This means a day by myself.  Score!  God forbid it could go smoothly.  Our relatively new Toastmaster Hot Water Pot quit working.  And shortly after that, the brand new heater wouldn't work.  Crap!  Then I noticed the refer had switched to propane.  What the heck was going on?  As I have mentioned before, the mechanic gene is missing from my family.  The only mechanic gene I knew was up in Hemet.  We have poor cell phone service at this park and I was afraid I wouldn't get through.  I had already figured out a breaker had tripped, but for the life of me, I couldn't get the panel open.  I got through to Kim who gave me instructions.  Hanging up, I had a "you are such a dork, Betsy" moment - saw the latch which was right in front of me all the time, opened it up, flipped the breaker, and voila - electricity in the galley and heat to my tootsies.

So much on my to-do list today.....and so little accomplished.  I should be used to it by now.  I am easily distracted.  I did spend time catching up on some RV blogs I've been following, and then explored some more.  I caught up on Facebook.  Yesterday we finally got the DirecTV Satellite to pick up the signal, so I had programs I had recorded before we left that I wanted to watch.  Checked those things off my list.  I was looking for an envelope to mail a check, and I stumbled on my sketch pad and colored pencils.  There went a couple of hours.

Next up, downloading a Nikon Coolpix S3300 manual, and trying to navigate it on screen.  Silly us, we remembered to bring the printer, but we forgot to bring paper.  Reading a manual on-line, sucks!  But the good news is that I did figure out how to move pictures from the camera into iPhoto.  Now I can share a few pictures from the park that I have taken.

Champagne Lakes RV Park is a 50 acre privately owned park.  It is about 10 miles north of Escondido, CA, just off old Hwy 395.  There are 139 large sites with 3 small catch and release lakes, a pool, laundry facilities, showers and restrooms.  Lots of trees and shade.

This is the new laundry facility.  Three washers ($1.50) and four dryers ($1.25 for 45 minutes).  I think there is another laundry somewhere on site, but I have not visited it as I was told that the one in this pictures was the one with newer and nice machines.

This is the new restroom facility (the women's side anyway) attached to the laundry.  Nice big shower with two toliets and a baby changing station.  These facilities are kept very clean.

The view out my back window, down to the creek.  Not much water running right now, but there is a little babble here and there, and not just from the birds.

And yesterday on a trip to Camping World for the replacement plug for the water heater, some how this made its way into the cart.  Most of the chaise lounges don't fit my short frame, but I do like to put my feet up.  This fits perfectly!

We are here for two weeks.  This allows us time to do a few things, see a few friends, and just veg out.  The weather this weekend and Monday is to be in the 80s.  That's a little warm for a Seattle girl, but we are down in a canyon with lots of trees, and so far, so good.

Santa Maria to Escondido, CA

I'm pleased to say I set a record for myself for on time departure on Tuesday.  We usually try to be ready to hit the road by 9am.  We pulled out of the Santa Maria Pines RV Park at 9:02pm.  Most of our drive down Hwy 101 was very nice and relaxing......Most of it, that is.  Somewhere about 20 miles north of Santa Barbara, as we were cresting a hill, we hear a loud noise, somewhere between a pop and a boom.  I thought we had blown a tire.  And of course, we were on a section of highway with a sign that said "No Stopping".  Well, sorry, we had to pull over.  It turns out it was just the turbo hose that had popped off.  Kim was able to reattach the clamp .... or whatever the problem was.  I stayed in the comfort of the truck while he did something under the hood.  Ten minutes later, we were on our way.  Now, it is interesting to note that I come from a family with little mechanical knowledge, but we are excellent worriers, and always jump to the worst case scenarios.   To combat this (the worrying part, not the mechanical part which is a lost cause for me), I've studied New Thought metaphysics and the power of positive thinking for years.  I spent most of the rest of the trip down to Escondido muttering, "I strive for serenity in all situations" and surprisingly to Kim, I did manage to stay relatively calm throughout the worst driving day yet.  It rivaled my driving down I-5, towing a small U-Haul trailer and having to change lanes during rush hour in the middle of Los Angeles, but I digress as that was years ago.

Luckily we had no more problem with the hose, but the cooling system in the truck continues to be acting up.  We did have to pull off at the weigh station just south of Camarillo to let the engine cool.  Then it was on to more stressful traffic.  Now let me preface this with the fact that if we were driving a car, it would have been intense, but not particularly stressful.  I find that when you are pulling a 5th wheel that the average driver has no clue about what it takes to maneuver it, including that you can't stop on a dime when they cut you off trying to get on to or off the highway.  The route we ended up taking was from the 101 (which really was the worst of it) to the 134 to the 210 to the 57 to the 71 to the 91 and finally to the 15.  Yikes.  Now that we've driven it, it wouldn't be that bad to do it again.  Not sure that we will, but my stress level as the navigator would be significantly lower.

We arrived at Champagne Lakes RV Park about 2:45pm.   A nice park, about a mile off I-15, and about 10 miles north of Escondido, off old Hwy 395.  It's a nice park, with plenty of green.  Fairly large sites. Large cement pads.  There are what I would call big ponds (they call them lakes) with creeks running between them.   They do have catch and release fishing in the lakes.  It's pretty quiet, with very faint highway noises if you listen for them. Lots of birds chirping, along with a  fair number of ducks and geese.   I haven't taken any pictures yet, but I will today or tomorrow.

A few things came up.  First and most devastating to me, the TV addict, is that we have been unable to get our DirecTV dish to pick up a signal.  I pay for DNS (distant network services) so that I can receive both the East and West Coast feeds.  That way I can watch and record multiple programs and get them early enough to enjoy them before I fall asleep in my chair at 9pm.  I'm glad the park has at least minimal cable channels, so I was able to watch Criminal Minds and CSI Wednesday night, but I did miss American Idol.  If we can't find a signal today, I will resort to watching what I can on-line, and we may have to consider that the dish itself needs replacing.  It was working when we were up in San Juan Bautista, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we will find the signal today.

The other things that came up were the water heater drain plug was leaking (Kim wasn't sure he would be able to get a tight fit with the replacement plug as he didn't have the right sized socket).  It appears that problem has been resolved.  Then even with our extra sewer hose extension, we were short.  I am very blessed to have a friend in the area who chauffeured us around to Camping World, US Bank, the grocery store, and Fry's Electronics to pick up various and sundry items, the most important of which was more sewer hose so we could dump our now full gray water tanks.

We are here for two weeks.  I hope to finally kick back and relax.  One of these days, we will finally put out our new awning, get out the chairs, and go "Ahhhhhh."

Carmel Valley and The 17 Mile Drive

We leave Betabel RV Park here in San Juan Bautista (6 miles south of Gilroy) this morning and I should be packing up, but I wanted to post about our lovely day yesterday before I forget any of the details.  Kim would tell you that is a lost cause....my not forgetting....just we shall proceed with MY story!

We had a nice relaxing morning on Sunday...well, I did...reading blogs, watching videos of my grandsons, reading, playing Candy Crush and Pet Rescue Saga, while Kim did "guy stuff" like emptying the tanks in preparation for leaving today, made adjustments to the awning, and who knows what else.

Our friends, Janet and Winston, picked us up at 1pm.  The day was a bit overcast, but the temperature was just perfect for us, probably somewhere around 70 degrees.  Our first stop was at their favorite fruit and vegetable stand.  They were on the look out for brussel sprouts.  This stand was surrounded by fields of artichokes.  And we succumbed to the call.  So we picked up some honey tangerines, a bottle of White Pine hand lotion from Stonewall Kitchens, and these:

We will be trying it out tonight!

We proceeded on through Monterey and on to the 17 Mile Drive.  I had been on this drive when I was  a young teenager.  I wasn't impressed at that time.  Things change as you get older.  What a beautiful area.  Lovely golf courses, not that I golf, but they were gorgeous.  Winston told us about the green fees, and I surmised that one really must enjoy golfing to want to pay those fees.  Yikes!  We spent time guessing prices on the homes we saw for sale.  A tad out of my price range.  We stopped to pick up a few flyers....prices ranging from $9 million to $22 million.  Even if I could afford it, I'm not sure I would want anything that big.  Maybe if I could rent a small piece of grass, pitch a tent and just spend the days looking at the views.

 This picture above is what happens when you can't really see what you are photographing because you can't wear your sunglasses and your reading glasses at the same time.  I was aiming for the mama seal and her two pups.  What I got was a big clump of kelp.  You can barely see the seals at the very top of the picture.

The 17 Mile Drive went faster than I expected, even though we stopped to look at many viewpoints and got out to look around the Pebble Beach Shopping Area and Resort.

Next stop:  Carmel Valley for wine tasting and dinner.

Cowgirl Winery offered up Cowgirl Blush (2012 Rose), Cowgirl White (2011 Chardonnay),  Hacienda (2011 Red Blend) and Cowgirl Red (2010 Cabernet Sauvignon.

Then we went next door to Talbott, where we sampled 9 different wines (I think - I kinda lot count there).  We all agreed, well that is the three of us who are wine drinkers, that our favorite was the Cowgirl Chardonnay.

We figured we should probably get some dinner, and while we were waiting for Cafe Rustica to open, we dropped into The Quail and Olive shop for some sampling of olive oil and balsamic vinegars.  What fun!  I feel in love with the basil and garlic olive oil blend, and the Tuscan Melody balsamic vinegar.

Then off to dinner at Cafe Rustica - let me just say yum, yum, yum squared!

I had the marinated lamb fillets with a glass of Hahn Syrah

Kim and Janet chose the petrale sole special, with Janet having the Hahn Cab and Kim opting for a Stella Artois.

And Winston chose pizza - I think it was the Dynamite Pizza with Italian Fennel Sausage, Black Forest Ham, Pepperoni, Mozzarella and red sauce.  It looked great! He also enjoyed a glass of the Hahn Cab with his meal.

Sad to say, we were all too stuffed for dessert.  What were we thinking, having a salad before our entrees?

We had such a wonderful time during our stay here in San Juan Bautista, and are very grateful to Janet and Winston, our good friends, and travel guides.  The weather was lovely, and the RV park very nice.  It was a great visit.

Next up:  Santa Maria, CA.  

Day 3 - California Here We Come

After a great night in Canyonville, we depared at 9am for Red Bluff, CA.  Very foggy in the morning, and made the drive from Canyonville to Ashland a little scary for me....not that I was doing the driving, but still.  At some points, we could not see a truck length in front of us.  After crossing the border into California, we stopped by the rest area at the Klamath River for a picnic lunch.  Blue skies and warmer weather - probably in the low 70s.  Warning, however, the picnic benches are made of marble or marble like material, and our behinders got quite chilled.  Good Verizon cell service, so I put in a call to our daughter in Snohomish with good reception.

Kim by the Klamath River at the Rest Stop just over the border into California

 

We had a beautiful view of Mt Shasta on the drive.  These pictures were taken from inside the truck while we were driving.

We stopped for fuel outside of Redding and were surprised to find that the cost of diesel was higher than regular gas.  Diesel has been less expensive in Washington and Oregon.

We arrived in Red Bluff about 3pm.  Another 5 star resort here at Durango RV Resort.  Easy access off I-5 (or as they say in California 'the' 5). You can see the freeway from the resort, but the traffic noise was not bad at all.  You can hear it if you pay attention.  There must a train track near by, because we heard the whistles at about 8pm and then again around 4:30am.  Re the early morning whistle - I was already awake so I heard it.  It's not loud, and I think I would have slept through it had I not already been up prepping for an early start.   Beautiful grassy lots with cement pads.  Nice big pool and smaller sized jacuzzi.  We were in a pull through space #116.  They have a nice club house with TV, books, games and a computer station.  Restrooms were immaculate.  I did not get a chance to check out the showers.  Maybe before we head out this morning.

There is a nice pathway down to a walk along the Sacramento River. 

Across the street, is the backside of a strip mall, so there is no heavy traffic.  In the strip mall is a large grocery store, a few restaurants, a Hallmark store, a beauty salon and manicure salon.  Gas/diesel is available nearby as well.

The resort is exactly as described on their website, http://www.durangorvresorts.com/

Today, we are off to Bakersfield where we will be spending 2 nights.