On South to California

We are continuing on our travel south ... California is our next destination. We will be in California from August 10th to October 10th. We have all types of fun planned and some nostalgia as well so here we go!

Our first stop was an overnight in Redding at the Redding Elks Lodge. It was clean, had a pool and a playground. This was just a stop on our way to the Thousand Trails Lake Minden RV Resort located in Nicolaus, CA.

Lake Minden RV Resort is a Thousand Trails that we will never visit again. It was dusty, the lake was green and gross they only had 30 amp electrical service and it was HOT! Like 108 degrees outside and 102 degrees inside! I hate to talk bad about Thousand Trails, because we love the program and have enjoyed most of the campgrounds we have stayed in, but not this one!

My Mom's birthday was the day we got there. She is in Holland and sent me a picture herself with some beautiful flowers she received for her birthday. Three days later my birthday came as well. I had a wonderful birthday! My lovely sister-in-love sent me roses and fruit and Brent and Grace got me the board games Catan and Ticket To Ride. Especially nice was that Grace and I got to meet up with my first step daughter, Nikki and her mom Dee Dee. They live about 2 hours from where we were staying so we met half way and had a nice lunch and catch up visit. Nikki has grown up into quite a wonderful young woman. She hasn't had it easy, but she is strong. She has a great job, a beautiful daughter and a nice relationship with her mother. I am so happy for all of them. Keep up the great work Nikki! You make me so proud!

The next day we left for Scotts Valley, CA. We stayed at the Santa Cruz Ranch RV park in Scotts Valley. We really enjoyed this park. The weather was a dream! The spaces were close together, but the park was clean, the staff was nice and the pool was a lot of fun.

Now what some of you won't know is when I was a teenager I lived in Almaden Valley in San Jose, CA. I went to college my first two years in Scotts Valley, CA at Bethany Bible College and I was married there at the chapel. The college unfortunately closed a few years ago. A conference center has been built there now. It is beautiful. It's amazing what money can do for a campus. My old dorm, Harp Hall, is still there ... but they have fixed it up. Scotts Valley is in the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains and Santa Cruz is just a few miles away. We took several trips down memory lane during the 8 nights we stayed there.

One of my friends from my time living in Scotts Valley as a young adult was Sam. I was there when her two sons were born. I babysat for the oldest one. She and I were able to reconnect and have breakfast while we were in Scotts Valley. We have been Facebook friends and have kept up with each other that way, but I haven't seen her in probably 30 years. We sure did have a nice time catching up. We will see each other again on this trip while we are in Morgan Hill. She is going to come over to meet Grace and Brent. I even get to meet her granddaughter who is just a year or so younger than Grace.

We went to San Jose. We had lunch at one of my mom and my favorite places, Taiwan Restaurant, in Willow Glen. It was amazing as usual. Only thing that seemed changed was they used to have these amazing tropical flower arrangements that they don't have anymore. Willow Glen is still the cute little town it has always been. From there we drove by the McDonald's that was my first "real" job at the corner of Meridian Ave and Blossom Hill Rd in Princeton Plaza. At some point, during the last 35 years, they tore down the original building and put up a new one ... so no photo was taken. Then our next stop was our home on Anjou Creek Circle in Almaden Valley, a drive by my high school, Leland High and back to Scotts Valley. The house looked the same ... so did the high school ... except they have these carport looking structures in the parking lot with solar panels on them. All in all it was a fun day.

A few days later we went to Los Gatos to visit with my college roommate Liz and her sweet family. She has 2 boys, Anthony and Will. We have gotten together a few times over the years. During the summer of  2020, they took an RV trip and we camped together a couple of nights in Washington. Anthony and Grace have kept in touch on Messenger Kids and the boys and Grace get along great. We had a nice visit and the kids even got a chance to swim together. Liz loves to cook. She made us yummy homemade pizza for lunch and a great salmon dinner.

Another adventure was to Capitola Beach. We went to Margaritaville and then drove back to Santa Cruz to look at a few more beaches from my past as well as for ice cream at Marianne's Ice Cream. Marianne's Ice Cream is pretty popular in the general area. They have lots of flavors. They even formulated the Garlic Ice Cream for the Gilroy Garlic Festival ... more to come on that when we get to Gilroy. LOL!

This is definitely a park and area we will come back to!

Finishing Up Our Seaside Visit

Wow! I am so far behind on my blog. Now it seems like an insurmountable task to get caught up … but I am going to break it up into smaller bites and individual blog posts that will be pretty close together!

Grace and I made the trip back to Moses Lake to be with our friends and celebrate the life of LuDeen Earl. The visit was fun! On Friday we got to see our friend Heather and go swimming in her pool. I went to my old office and saw Laura and Cindy. That was fun!

The viewing and the funeral were beautiful. We were so blessed to see so many friends and family of LuDeen and enjoyed hearing their stories about her and her life. We spent the time at Pat and Lori’s house and were surrounded by them, their kids and grandkids. It was nice to spend time with them and eat some of LuDeen’s special spaghetti sauce for dinner one night! Cassidy’s daughter, Haven, calls Grace her Baby … Grace is holding her in the pictures.

The weekend went fast for us but we knew we needed to get back to Brent and the dogs! Brent kept busy doing projects and taking care of the dogs while we were gone. We only had a few more days at Seaside and those were taken up with walks downtown and on the beach, gelato, seafood and other fun touristy things. We even fit in a trip to feed my Thai food cravings at Thai Me Up! It was so good even Grace and Brent who aren’t really Thai fans loved their food!

When we leave Seaside our trip is going to focus on family for about a week before we head south to California.

Seaside Oregon … Fun

We have been here is Seaside for about a week. Seaside holds so many memories for our family and we have made even more this week.

Grace was so excited when she got here to find some friends she had made in Long Beach here as well. They played together hard for days until the other family had to leave. There has been lots of swimming, walking dogs and a few trips to Warrenton for supplies.

We even drove back to Long Beach last Saturday for a fun visit to Sandsations - a sand castle building contest and another excuse to go to Dylan’s Cottage Bakery.

Grace has started doing a little light summer school work … mostly working on her penmanship and letter writing skills. We started reading a book together … Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. by Judy Blume. Anyone from my generation remember that book? LOL!

Grace got a cold, which she got over in like 1 day, that she passed on to me and I haven’t been so lucky. It has given me time to listen to my books, lay in my zero gravity chair and rest. All the stress of life has been reduced and now my body seems to want to be sick all the time. I need to build up my immune system. Anyone have ideas for that? 

I finished The Resistance Girl by Mandy Robotham. It was good. I sure wouldn’t have wanted to live during those WW2 times and not sure Norway would ever suit me. It sounds very pretty but very cold and harsh weather. I enjoyed the book and will read more of her books.

I also listened to an audio book called The Shut Away Sisters by Suzanne Goldring. It was set in England during WW1 and present. It was interesting and a good read. It would go back and forth between present time and WW1 time as a young woman was discovering details of her two Aunt’s lives during WW1 and discovering herself as well.

Brent seems happy in his element as caretaker encouraging me to rest and let him take care of me. He has been putting together some dressers we picked up at IKEA for Grace’s clothes, working on his invention, reorganizing the storage on the RV and PU and generally enjoying his retirement.

Sometimes when you don’t live near extended family you develop friends that become the family you choose for yourself. In Moses Lake I met Lori Earl, who has become my sis, and who introduced me to her mother in law, LuDeen Roylance Earl. LuDeen passed away July 19th and was 96 years old. I am sure there was a HUGE party on the other side of the veil as she was greeted by friends and family including her husband, who went before her in 2004, and their daughter, Tami.  LuDeen was an elect lady who loved Heavenly Father and all others around her. Her eyes would light up when you walked in the room and she would smile and invite you to sit with her. She loved to make scones for friends and family. Grace and I will drive back to Moses Lake this week for her funeral. She was such a special woman and was so loving and gracious to us.

Well … my laundry is about done … it’s time for me to go … I think I’ll take a walk on the beach! 

Wish you could all be with me! Have a GREAT day!

Long Beach, WA - A Wonderful Place to Enjoy Birthdays … Grace’s 1/2 Birthday, Our Nation’s Birthday and Brent’s Birthday

We have been hanging out at the Thousand Trails Long Beach RV Resort located in Seaview, WA. We really love this campground. It has a quirky old style grouped utility system but it’s a short walk to the beach, has a nice pool and hot tub, activity center with games, laundry, and very nice staff. We have water, sewer and 50 amp power. 

The walk to the beach is clearly marked and easy to find from the beach to get back. We arrived on the 28th of June. Within a day or two the park had filled up … there were so many RVs and Tent Campers alike enjoying the park. It wasn’t overwhelming … the bathrooms stayed free for showers and clean by the staff.

We have had great clam chowder at Chowder Stop and Dylan’s Cottage Bakery, wonderful pastries from Dylan’s Cottage Bakery, Boba Lemonade from Beach Bubble Shop and steamer clams at The Depot. We have walk downtown and enjoyed the touristy things, attended church, celebrated birthdays and walked on the beach. We still have about 10 days left here so I am sure there will be much more to share. Let me give some details on a few of fun things we’ve been doing.

The fireworks … oh the fireworks! If you haven’t been to this area, you may not know you can drive out on the beach, set up and spend the day! That’s what a lot of people did all weekend. There were fireworks every night from Friday to Monday. Monday was the finale and boy was it amazing. The amount of money that went up in smoke on beach was amazing. It was beautiful and LOUD! The dogs were not thrilled with the fireworks. We did find some calming chews at Ace Hardware that actually worked well to help them calm down. I did stay in the RV with them while Brent and Grace went out to the fireworks.

Grace’s 1/2 birthday is on the 4th of July and ever since she was a little little we have celebrated it. She always dresses up in RED WHITE and BLUE. She used to think the fireworks were for her birthday … LOL! This year she got walkie talkies! Now she loves to talk on them … what did I do! A few days later it was time for Brent’s Birthday … new sunglasses and dinner out at The Depot were fun for him.

I have enjoyed my daily walks with Scarlett and Hank on the beach. The mosquitos are causing us some issues … I mean they love us all! If you know of any good products to try we would love you to comment below. Grace has made some friends … in the campground they come and go, but she loves playing at the playground walking Honey, swimming and of course her iPad.

What did you do to celebrate the 4th of July? Happy Birthday USA!

Thousand Trails Crescent Bar RV Resort - Quincy, WA

We left Moses Lake on Saturday to go a whole 42 miles to the Thousand Trails Crescent Bar RV Campground. It is a very pretty location down in the canyon with the Columbia River flowing by. The Grant Co PUD has a big park down here too with hiking/biking trails. It is beautiful looking up at the canyon walls and seeing the river. There was a lot of wind in the evenings.

The Thousand Trails park was really nice. There was a clubhouse really close to our spot and Grace loved going in there and playing pool, foosball, basketball toss, play kitchen, board games and more. There were two really nice patios that one could sit on and visit. There was a nice pool and also a hot tub. Of course there are the usual amenities like laundry room, bathrooms with showers and friendly staff.

We made the decision to upgrade our Thousand Trails membership to the Adventure Package. We met Richard Anderson and his wife. If you are thinking of a Thousand Trails membership at any level or have questions he was so great to answer all my questions and was very knowledgeable. He was not a pushy salesman either! His phone number is 541.901.9002 and his email is richard_anderson@equitylifestyle.com. Please tell him you heard about him from me.

Grace and I went up into Quincy Sunday and found the Quincy Ward Meetinghouse. The members were all so kind and gracious. We were greeted by so many and we enjoyed our Sunday Sacrament Meeting and Sunday School.

Brent’s been working on the RV as we still have a few updated and modifications needed to be done. Grace has been playing with kids and the dogs. We’ve been walking them each day around the park. The dogs are getting more used to the RV life.

I had to drive back to Moses Lake both Monday and Tuesday for different things that came up. Starting tomorrow that will not be possible. I did get to have lunch Monday with my very good friend Lori. We had a nice time visiting and hoping we can catch up with each other during this adventure.

So as we sit here tonight we are ready for the next leg of our journey. We will be staying in an RPI Park called Cascade Peaks Family Campground up on White Pass for 6 nights. It’s about 170 miles southwest of here.