FRIENDS

One of the things we really enjoy about traveling is the opportunity to visit with friends.  Unfortunately, we get visiting and we forget to take pictures!  While down here in the San Diego area we were fortunately enough to get to see three of our close friends.  We spent a whole afternoon and late evening with Chip and Vickie Fox.  Chip and Wayne were born a day apart and lived across the road from each other.  They have remained life long friends.  But, we got talking and it wasn't until the next day that we realized we did not take any pictures!  But Vickie took a couple and sent them to us, so here's one of the two old guys.  The matching shirts, compliments of Chip say, "NOT OLD Just delightfully retro".

Another day we had  good friends, Ron and Liz Peck (Pictured below) over for lunch and then went to their rig for some time and then out to dinner.  We literally spent the whole day together and it wasn't until after we had finished eating and were getting ready to do Bye-Byes that we remembered to get a picture!  Ron and Wayne taught together for many years at Talent Elementary. Ron and Liz are now are fellow full time RV'ers that happen to be spending the winter in the south too.

Tonight, Dec 29th, we are catching up with the ever busy Ed and Merle Lindstrom and one of their two wonderful daughters.  They live near us in Chula Vista.  Wayne and Ed went to school together from 1st grade through high school.  Hopefully we remember to take pictures.  If we do, we will add them here!
And here they are after an evening together sharing a scrumptious dinner.

We will spend New Years weekend with Luke and Bethany and crew up near Oxnard and then head east on Monday, Jan 3.
We are healthy, safe and happy.

DISNEYLAND!!

 Seeing as how we were not going to be with any of our kids or grandkids on Christmas, Ann decided that she wanted to spend Christmas day in "The Happy Place".  So, Dec 24th we drove up to Buena Vista and checked into a motel. 

Christmas day we arrived at the park at 8:00 AM and spent the whole day there. 

 It was beautiful blue sky weather, though a little cool through most of the day.

 It was all "Ann's Day".  So she plotted the course and decided what we would do.

Then towards evening it began to rain.  We were glad we had our umbrella and rain coats!  It got really cold! 

 This is where  the fun ended for Wayne.  Space Mountain!  Wayne got so sick that he was miserable and unstable on his feet for the rest of the day.  But he endured and Ann still had fun!

 This is the parade that happened while Ann went to get something to eat.

 After a few hours, Wayne was able to do gentle rides.  The Jungle Cruise is such a standard here.  How many times have we all seen this scene?

 The Haunted Mansion was disappointing as it took on a "Nightmare Before Christmas Theme".  We like the old version better.

 Nausea or not, we still had fun.  Ann did her best to stabilize Wayne's drunken unsteadiness. 

 At 10:45 PM we left the park and drove soakenly back to the motel.  It was a glorious Christmas for Ann.  Wayne was happy that she was happy.

JAMUL, CA

 On December 20th we hauled 150 miles to south east of San Diego to Pio Pico Thousand Trails Preserve near Jamul, CA.  it is a wonderful place.  The preserve is divided in half by the road.  We opted for the less populated half on the north side of the road.  There is no sewer hook ups there so less people stay there.  We like fewer people.  We are here from Dec. 20 - Jan 3, backed up against a lush creek.  Half our days here have been in serious flood creating rain and half the days have been beautiful!

 We took advantage of there being a temple near by on Dec 23 and spent our morning there.  It is a beautiful temple inside and out!

 Then we went to "Old Town San Diego" and visited the Mormon Battalion Visitors Center.  We spent a long time there.  The displays were amazing and the spirit was reminiscent of our mission time we spent in Oakland.  We loved being with the senior and sister missionaries there.

These 5 boys that accompanied us on a missionary led tour reminded us so much of when we were younger and traveled around with our 5 boys.  They were cute and very active, though well behaved.  Here they were getting outfitted to march with the Mormon Battalion.

 Wayne doing his pioneer impersonation.

 As you can see by the lateness of the hour, we stayed there a long time.

 The view out our front door. 

MORE PALM SPRINGS, CA

 On Dec. 11 we went to a Palm Springs Community Theater presentation of "Annie".  It was a cute rendition.  We walked around old town Palm Springs before and after.  We fell in love with the sidewalk cafe atmosphere.  We like the Christmas in short sleeve shirts style of things!

 For Family Home Evening on Dec. 13 we went to an area that is known for their community spirit in holiday outside lighting of their yards.  It was an amazing evening as we strolled through the neighborhood amongst all the other people out for a mid December evening stroll!

 This picture was for Cliff.  This whole yard was dedicated to a golfing Santa!

 On Dec. 17th we went to the Palm Springs Civic Center for a show put on by the world famous "Young Americans".  For you of our age think of "Up With People" but multiply the energy by 100!!!

 There were about 50 of these highly professional young people that kept us and about 800 other people completely entertained for about 90 minutes.

 It was a very fast paced and smooth program.

 They even had a tribute to various old rock stars and their interpretation of holiday cheer.  Here you see James Brown, ray Charles and Aretha Franklin strutting their Christmas Cheer.

 This was a cute presentation of 15 babies singing "I'm Gettin' Nuthin' For Christmas".

 A rather larger version of Dr. Seuss even paid us a visit.

Dec. 20th came and it was time to move on from our date palm preserve.  This was a pix from the night before taken from the roof of our 5th wheel.

PALM SPRINGS TT PRESERVE

 On Dec 6th we left Desert Hot Springs and drove a few miles further east (We took the back way on a very narrow desert road Ron!) to Palm Desert where we checked in to a Thousand Trails Preserve that we had looked at a year or two ago and thought we would like to spend some time here in the winter.  To say it is wonderful would be over doing it, but it is really nice.
  Here is what we saw as we pulled off I-10 to the entrance.

There are tons of palm trees through out the preserve.  The other day, Wayne went for an extensive walk and counted them.  There are 805!!!

 The preserve is packed with snow birds from the north.  Our rig is small and ancient compared to most of the rigs in here.  But we are just fine in our already paid for home!  We have our own two palm trees and a grapefruit tree.  Ann has eaten one of the grapefruits already.

It is strange to walk around the park at night in shorts and tee shirts, looking at all the Christmas decorations hanging on rigs and decorating sites.  We giggle that it should be freezing cold.  It doesn't feel like Christmas.  But, we are not complaining in the least.  We love the warm!  The pool is warm and the hot tub, warmer.  But a snowman next to the pool?  Interesting!  (This was taken about 4:00 PM.  Most of the old people here swim between 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM. Then they all hit the hot tub about 8:00 PM - 10:00 PM.)  We have spent all our lives being cold at Christmas.  This is nice!

We even have our own personal and friendly road runners that visit us daily.  We leave water out for them.

 

 We will be here through the 20th.  Ann has bought tickets for a "Young Americans Christmas Concert" and the stage musical "Annie".  Andy Williams also has a Christmas show in town too, but it was way too spendy for us.  Maybe we will see him in Branson?

Since we got here we have been busy paying bills, fixing Wayne's computer, washing the truck, watching a couple movies, reading, going for walks, swimming, taking a class on Digital Photography, catching up on blogs, scanning old photos, attending a workshop on Alaska Traveling (made us miss Alaska) and visiting people we meet.  We miss our brother's families and our son's.  But we are happy to be here.

DESERT HOT SPRINGS

On the day after we spent a day with wane's cousins we hitched up and hauled out to  Catalina Desert Hot Springs Spa and RV Resort.  We spent Dec. 2-6 there.  Oh how nice it was there!  This is the entrance.

  The place where we had to register.

The space in which we stayed.

The place was very up town and community oriented.  It was amazing how many snowbirds were there from Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.  This place is truly a place to hang out and spend the winter!  The pool is fed by hot springs and is a cool 85 degrees. I have no idea what the hot tub was, but we were only able to stay in it about 10 minutes.

 We spent time here in the pool, going to a salmon dinner, walking, going to church and just relaxing.  The weather here is awesome.  Wayne is finally warm and wears shorts, flip flops and a tee shirt all the time.