One Month Full timing and counting

This full timing is really fun, but also very demanding.  We have scheduled 3 rallies this first month, each with some responsibilities. We love attending the rallies because we are able to catch up with our friends that we have met over the years RV’ing.

We had a wonderful send off in the old Mervyns parking lot in Fresno. Mom, Jenny, Julie, Jamie, Jason, Olivia, Logan and Ryan all met us, piled in the RV and there were hugs and kisses all around.

We left Fresno and followed our friends, the Halls, to Boron. Why Boron? Many have asked us that question and the answer is Domingo’s. This is a special Mexican restaurant with a very interesting owner, Domingo.  To say that Domingo is friendly, accomplished, and interesting is an understatement. As a civilian, he has flown in a B-2 and has a plaque commemorating his Mock 4 ride as well as other air force mementos . All this because the pilots at Edwards AFB eat there and really like Domingo. We really like the food, too.

Then it was on to La Quinta to meet up with the Golden Spike Chapter that had parked in the abandoned Sam’s Club parking lot. The next day we caravanned to the Date Festival Fairgrounds in Indio.

 

It was a short ride, but somehow in pulling into the fairgrounds we got completely scrambled with another group and by the time we were parked we were so close there was only a little space to have our potlucks, happy hours, and evening fires. Thankfully 2 of our members pulled in their slides so we would have a little more space. Even with all that ‘closeness’ we had a wonderful time.

We did served at the Ice Cream Social, had a very special memorial for our friend, Tom Harrison, who was the Conductor of the Golden Spike Chapter for as long as we have been members. Now Tom (Westerfield) is the new Conductor – how did that happen? He was ‘railroaded’!!!

After a very successful rally we left for the Salton Sea SRA just south of Mecca. We love the peacefulness, the view and the terrific caching in this area.

We took a couple of short trips, one to attend church in Holtville and one to Salvation Mountain & Slab City. You just have to visit this phenomenon once. We stayed a week, ate out often, got a few more caches, and just relaxed.

We left on Jan 24 for Quartzsite, otherwise referred to as “Q”.  This is small town about 20 miles from the California border that grows to thousands upon thousands of RV’ers who park on BLM land for free or in the many RV parks located around Quartzsite. There are many rally events throughout the month of January and there is a large tent full of vendors that sell all things ‘RV’. You can buy food, equipment, insurance, space at resorts and Tom even bought a flag pole for our RV. That way we can find our way home if we loose the GPS. 

The first rally we attended was an Escapee Boomer rally. It was held about as far into BLM land east of “Q” as you could drive called Boomerville. We bounced down an unimproved dirt road in our RV and found a place to park near our friends, Sue & Ken Pace and Judy & Luke Rinehimer. We had potlucks, happy hours, evening shows on the Pace Theater (a projector shown on the side of Sue & Ken’s rig), and several informational talks throughout the week.

Then we moved north of Q to Plamoso Rd to the Escapee Geocaching BOF (Birds of a Feather) rally. This was a ‘no host’ rally that the unofficial hosts were Sue Pace, Cool Judy Rinehimer and me, Barbara. Each day we had a schedule of classes and cache runs. We had happy hours, and potlucks. It was so windy and cold we finally moved 3 rigs (ours on the right) into a wind break. Even though the weather didn’t cooperate, we had a great time.

I even got my computer hooked up to the HDTV in our rig and did 2 presentations. We maxed out the seating and had several people standing in the back and others sitting on the floor. One evening we had a Z-Circle get acquainted event where 3-4 couples rotate to 7 RV’s each time meeting other fellow cachers. This is always a fun and interesting mixer.

In my next blog I’ll tell all about a new-to-us town that was created in 1933. It was so interesting that we can’t wait to bring our Golden Spike friends there and show them all the sights we have discovered. Until then keep on caching as we are

On the road again, caching places that we’ve never been.  Barbara, Tom and Pansy

 

We are Alive and On the Road Permanently

Hello Everyone;  We are finally alive and well and on the road again… this time as Full Timers.

We’d like to get you caught up on our activities since last fall.  We have been so busy it is hard to believe we could pack so much activity into just a few months.

September:  The highlight of September was my (Barbara’s) High School Reunion http://rhs60reunion.myevent.com/.  I had been working on discovering our classmates with several wonderful classmates for 5 years.  The result was the largest reunion as well as the very best reunion ever.  Additionally, we had other events that we participated in such as the unearthing (or attempting to unearth) of the buried historical box from 1960. Unfortunately it is still missing. We also attended the Big-Little Game between Roosevelt and Fresno High in 2009 and 2010 and Roosevelt won both games. Woo Hoo!!!

September also saw us setting up the Floriculture Department in a new building, The Green House, with our daughter Jennifer, the Superintendent. It was a challenge, but an outstanding show. 

October: Big Fresno Fair.  Everyone loved the new display. The flowers were wonderful and Channel 30 even did a special story on our 3 generations, my Mom, Jennifer, and I, working at the Big Fresno Fair for over 20 years. http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/entertainment&id=7725962

For Halloween we went to the Long Beach to LA Golden Spike Rally and road the Angels Flight Train, the shortest slowest train west of the Mississippi.  We enjoyed Happy Hours, lots of good food and company, a visit to Travel Town at Griffith Park, and a wonderful time at the Griffith Park Planetarium with all our friends .

 

November:  The decision was made to go ‘full-time’ and start packing up everything in the house that we did not need or want.  We sent boxes and boxes of ‘stuff’ to the SPCA Thrift Store and filled the dumpster many times. We shredded CDE papers until we thought the shredder would burn up then packed up more boxes and took them to a commercial shredding company. I mean… how many computer bags do we really need?   FREEDOM from ‘stuff’; it felt good.

Thanksgiving time was great with the whole family; Mom, my sister, Jan & her husband, Patrick, Jenny & her family including future son-in-law, Claudio, Jason & his family and Tom’s sister, NanCy.

December:  Things are really moving out of the house now, yet keeping the essentials for Christmas at the Westerfield’s.  Tom is making special modification to the RV so living full time is going to quite comfortable; a new storage drawer for the back bay, wire shelving for the back closet, wire storage for the front of the generator drawer and lots of hooks and racks.

January, 2011:  Only 9 days before we leave. Tom measures the HD flat screen TV in the den (that Barbara has suggested we move into the RV for months and Tom says won’t fit) and it will fit with 1/2” to spare. Much better picture and it is the digital format not the analog as was the old TV on the left.

 

On the Sunday that we left DirectTV came and installed the new recording satellite unit and we were off on our new adventure. I hope to keep you up to date starting now. Look for the next installment on the Western FMCA Rally in Indio, our first stop, then Salton Sea. We are currently in Quartzsite, otherwise known as “Q” at Boomerville, a spot where the Escapee Boomers have claimed as their own for a long time.  I’ll fill you in on the details over the next few days. Until then thanks for checking in and for your patience waiting for this Blog.

Barbara, Tom and Pansy

Catching up on our summer

It has been a long time since we posted a blog; actually since we started home from Kansas City late in June.  We were in a hurry to get home to be at Jennifer's Fireworks Shows. We were able to help a little at the Wild Water July 3rd and 4th shows. I even got to wire some of the shots, and our daughter-in-law, Olivia, started to learn the choreographing of the show... cool.  Son, Jason, worked the show as did Tom. I guess you could say this was a family affair.

After the 4th of July Jennifer did a Grizzles Game Fireworks Show and we helped a little there too.

The month of July was pretty much filled with computer repairs... it is amazing how much can go wrong with friends' and family computers while we are on the road.   I really love working on computers when we are home. The other project that I am starting is the Roosevelt HS Fabulous 50th Reunion Booklet that I am producing. I think I have everyone's story and picture ready to add to the book. It is now just a matter of putting it all together and printing when we return from this trip.  Tom has been real busy in the shop working on the last of Jennifer's kitchen cabinets and a rat condo for Julie's rat and mice.
It has been real nice having Jason's family back in Fresno. The pool has been well used this summer with the family dinners and swimming parties almost every day.

Ryan, 2,  now jumps off the diving board and Logan, 8, swims like a fish. It has been so much fun to have all the grand kids over almost every day.
We are starting our August trip at Pismo Beach for the Westerfield Family Reunion. This year we had 48 family members from as far away as Longview, WA, southern California, Bakersfield, and Fresno.
We had our annual oyster bar-b-que with 14 dozen eaten by the very brave.

There were oysters, chicken, steaks, shrimp, salads, and lots of camaraderie.  It is great keeping in touch with 4 generations of cousins. This is a yearly event though not everyone can make it each year. This was our biggest reunion yet. It all started when 2 brothers married 2 sisters, one family in Bakersfield - one family in Fresno vacationed each August in cool Pismo Beach.

We walk on the beach, walk to the end of the pier, and fly kites. We stayed at the Oceano Elks before driving up Hwy-101, over Hwy-46, and north on I-5. We stayed overnight at Cal-Expo RV park, a very nice park, and then drove to Yreka.  We ate at Black Bear Diner last night and when leaving noticed a flyer saying the Sons of the San Joaquin would be appearing at the Siskiyou County Fair tonight.  We added one day to our stay in Yreka and visited the fair. We checked out the floriculture department as we will be setting up the new 'Green House' building at the Big Fresno Fair just after Labor Day.

We enjoyed The Sons this evening a treat for our 48th Anniversary.

That's about all for now. We head to our Golden Spike Rally in Portland, OR, tomorrow. We will be on the road for the next couple of days.
Thanks for checking in on us. We hope to get caching on the road again soon.

Kansas City then Heading Home

We checked in at the Jackson County, Fleming Park, Blue Springs Lake Campground on Sunday. If you try to locate this park on a GPS it just isn’t listed. We booked this campground 3 years ago and had to get the driving directions from the Parks & Recreation Office after getting lost. Apparently the locals all know about this very nice park and we make reservations early to get our favorite spot, #51.  We had just gotten set up and Jennifer & Jamie drove in. They unloaded their stuff and we went to the Salty Iguana, one of our favorite Mexican restaurants in the area, for a late lunch.

 

 

When driving into Kansas City we passed this very interesting vehicle. They patrol the highways and have all the tools and equipment needed to assist motorists. We wish we would see more of these on our travels.

 

 

We started our SkillsUSA week on Tuesday with the check-in of the Job Interview contestants.  After rearranging the chairs and drapes on the 4th floor of the Municipal Hall, we were ready at noon. We had about 26 Post-Secondary and 44 Secondary students. Other than one oversight on my part in not pulling extra PS student numbers everything went great. We went across the street to Bartle Hall, an enormous convention center with 388,800 square feet of contiguous, column-free space, Bartle Hall’s main exhibition hall covers an area the size of eight football fields! We definitely got our walking workout when going to the SkillsUSA Shop to buy a couple of shirts. Then we found a nifty clearance table and bought a couple of more shirts.

We went to the local Bandana’s restaurant and loved it. Jenny bought about 6 bottles of BBQ sauce and the cute server guy gave us a handful of BBQ sauce packets that have really come in handy in sprucing up our sandwiches.

Wednesday was our first day of judging. We had a wonderful group of volunteer judges from Lowes, Kohl's, Costco and state SKillsUSA staff. Tom was the Secondary receptionist judge. The next day we judged the 8 Post-Secondary finalists and 12 Secondary finalists. I was able to be a PS judge. These contestants are the cream of the crop. One of my fellow judges from Lowe’s said she would like to hire one of these students right on the spot.

 

Tom went over to Kemper Arena to see the Team Build contest. That contest builds a small room (service porch), over the coarse of 3 days starting from a presentation of how the team of a carpenter, plumber, electrician and bricklayer will schedule their build. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After finishing the finals for Job Interview, we walked over to the enormous Bartle Hall to see what contests were still running. Boy, some got done real early.

 

We ran into Jeff Sheline from Woodland HS watching his student in the carpentry contest (that we later found would win a Bronze medal). Also there was Chuck Felice from Salinas watching his Cabinetmaking student. Alas, no medal for him.  We are always amazed at the diversity of the contests at the National SkillsUSA Competition. Anyone reading this who has the opportunity to be near Kansas City the 3rd week in June should really try to see our nation’s best in over 90 competitions.

On our way back to the rig we wanted to try the restaurant,  Jack Stack, that was recommended. Well, you just never know where your GPS will bring you when you put in a destination. Our GPS, Mildred, is very literal. She took us to the closest Jack Stacks which was their corporate headquarters. But we found this mistake to be so interesting. We found ourselves in a very unique underground storage facility, Thermopolis. We thought we have found a secret bunker of some sort. Thankfully they put lots of signage underground and we were able to get out safely. Huge 18-wheelers were going in and out of this ‘cave’. Amazing.  The security guard just outside the ‘cave’ told us his favorite BBQ was just down the road at the Casino, Arthur Bryant’s. It had huge portions, but I personally liked the sauces at Bandana’s.

Friday was a free day so we all went to the WWI museum. This new part of the museum which is under the column was completed 3 years ago and is the only WWI National Museum in the US. It is truly amazing. One of the most interesting facts to me was the total collapse into war in just one week.

1914, July 29 Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia

1914, July 30 Russia mobilizes its troops in support of Serbia   

1914, Aug 1 Germany declares war on Russia

1914, Aug 1 France mobilizes in support of its Russian ally

1914, Aug 3 Germany declares war on France

1914, Aug 3 Germany invades Belgium

1914, Aug 4 Great Britten declares war on Germany

1914, Aug 6 Austria-Hungary declares war on Russia

1914, Aug 6 Serbia declares war on Germany

One week, like a house of cards, Europe is at war.

 

There is an interesting display where you can design a mural using the icons on the outside of the museum and then send it to any email. I sent one to Mom, myself and Golden Spikers, the Prices.

This is Jamie looking at one of the light pen activated interactive boards. One of the board was the mural display, another was Kansas City during the war, another was an interactive machine gun display. In addition to the usual museum pieces there are private rooms where you can listen to personal stories, poems, prose and music from WWI.

Two movies help to explain the uniqueness of this war: airplanes, trenches, world involvement.

 

 

 

 

 

This year we were there early enough to go up in the tower for a view of Kansas City, Union Station, and the beautiful skyline.  It was a warm ride in the elevator that held 7 people not counting the museum volunteer. We only stayed long enough to take pictures. The humidity was so high we thought we needed gills.

We also were able to visit the two original museums that sit on top on either side of the column. Before the new museum was built these buildings were just crammed with WWI ‘stuff’. After the new museum was built people have donated many important pieces. The mural is worth the trip. It has been shorted from the original and many famous Americans have been added to the piece which you can enlarge via a digital display in front of the mural.

 

That night was the Award Ceremony and Jennifer and Tom hung medals on the Job Interview Gold, Silver and Bronze Secondary & Post-Secondary winners.  Job Interview was quite late in the program and when we left California had 2 Gold and 9 Silver & Bronze medals. To put that in perspective: 90 contests, 3 medals per Secondary & Post-Secondary = 640 medals. California does not have contestants in all contests. Even so we were somewhat disappointed when we are one of the most populous states.

 

The next day Jennifer and Jamie left for Fresno and we went sight seeing and a little geocaching.  We tried to go to the Botanical Gardens, but they had a special event going on so we detoured over to the Truman Farm.  We noticed there was a geocache just the other side of the fence so we drove around.  There was a barricade across the old road, but because we were not going far we drove the Jeep over the curb, and across the field.  We were busy looking for Tru MAN nano when don’t you know 2 police cars drive up to the barricade. They got out and sauntered over. We greeting them with, “Have you ever heard of Geocaching?”. NO. They were just so nice when we explained, gave them our card, a card that helps them get started caching, and then they helped find the cache. What a cool experience. I guess not all police are like the one Nick ran into the other day.

On our way back to the park we tried to see the Missouri 1855 Town Museum, a living history outdoor display within Fleming Park. There are even Bison and Elk in the park. We were too late to see the 1855 Town but decided to get up early and see it in the morning. The next morning the weather had cooled just a little and it was quite pleasant walking the town.

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We left Kansas City on Sunday and drove to OK, TX, NM, & AZ on our way home to California.  As I write this we are in the Mojave Desert 3 hours from Fresno. We will be glad to see our family!!!

Thanks for coming along as we On the Road Again, Caching Places We’ve Never Been.

Hugs, Tom, Barbara & Pansy