Spending time with Adam

Yanks RV Resort
Greenfield, CA

Yesterday we went to church,

and were happy to see flowers

for our anniversary on the altar.

My Mom had signed up for them.

Afterwards we picked up my son Adam,

and took a drive to the coast.

Adam just got a new job as pastry chef

at the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur.

I wanted to see where his new job was,

so we took a ride down with him.

What a place!

We could never afford the $800+/night,

but Adam said he could get us the 

friends and family discount for half off  :-)

We decided to have a drink at the bar,

which had a commanding view of the ocean.

The fog was in, so didn't take any pictures.

Adam's new boss, Ben, came out and said hi,

and comped us a snack of fries.

They were very good!

It was very cool to have people come up 

to Adam to welcome him to his new job.

As we were leaving after having a couple rounds,

we found out that Ben had picked up the tab,

nice!

We drove back to Monterey,

stopping to take pictures of the view..

 I really love Big Sur!

We met up with Adam's girlfriend, Jennifer.

She works at Whole Foods and was working

until 5:30.

The 4 of us went to the Lalla Grill

for a nice dinner.

Today we're going up to Mom's to clean,

and hand out candy to whatever kids show up.

Happy Halloween!!

Some time by the sea

Yanks RV Resort
Greenfield, CA

Yesterday after spending the morning at church with Mom,

George and I decided to take a ride over to Monterey.

The weather was fantastic, sunny and a perfect temperature in the high 60's.

We parked in the lot by fisherman's wharf,

and strolled the wharf watching the boats come in.

There are a lot of whale watching cruises,

and the boats were full of tourists!

I love just standing on the wharf.

It is fun to watch the harbor seals looking for fish

scraps as they are dumped off the fishing boats.

It was a great day for the sailboats too..

As we pulled into the parking lot at the wharf,

someone was getting ready to leave,

and gave us their pass, which still had 4 hours left on it.

How nice was that!?

Since we didn't want to drive out,

we took the free trolley to Cannery Row.

It's just a short ride,

and we got off and strolled Cannery Row.

 It was a pretty busy day there,

lots of tourists from all over the world.

We enjoyed seeing the egrets standing out in the kelp..

 ..and always seagulls :-)

We grabbed lunch at El Torito,

which always has great Mexican food,

with nice views of the bay.

I just love it by the ocean!

Anniversary!

Yanks RV Resort
Greenfield, CA

Today we are celebrating our 5th anniversary!

For a lot of our new friends who don't know,

George and I have been friends for over 20 years.

We finally decided it was time to marry,

5 years ago today.

We've had some great times together!

We went to Mystic, CT 2007..

Mexico in 2008..

Atlantic City in 2009..

Wellesboro in 2011..

and before we knew it, we were living in our RV.

We've traveled a lot in the last 5 years!

Myrtle Beach

New Braunfels, TX

Silver Springs, FL

Jekyll Island

Santa Cruz, CA

What a great time we've had,

and more to come!

Time with a friend!

Yanks RV Resort
Greenfield, CA

George and I had a wonderful day on Saturday.

A fellow RVer who has since gone off the road,

is in the area for a few months.

Jill (Two Tools and a Dream) lives in Florida.

We got the privilege of spending a few days

at her beach house several years ago.

She's always done tutoring of students at her home,

but recently has done it internationally!

Jill was in Ibiza, Spain for 3 months tutoring a boy 

for a family there.

The family recently bought a house in Carmel, CA,

and asked if she would fly here and continue the job.

With much coaxing, she did, and we are so glad!

We met her for lunch at the Barnyard,

which is one of my favorite places to go.

I suggested the restaurant 'From Scratch',

so we got a table outside.

We really enjoyed having a great lunch and getting

caught up on what we've all been up to.

She had us laughing at her stories about the

charmed life she seems to lead.

George and I were so surprised when she said

we had permission to go to check out where she's staying.

It's a 7000 square foot house with a 1200 square foot guest house.

Our RV would fit in one of the 7 bathrooms!

We actually weren't able to tour the house,

as the family wasn't home,

but property was beautiful.

I wasn't able to take pictures of the outside of the home,

to protect everyone's privacy,

but oh my!

 We sat outside and talked some more,

until the fog came in and drove us inside.

We ended up going back to the Barnyard to 

buy us all an ice cream cone :-)

It was so nice to see Jill again,

we hope to get together some more!

It has finally rained here in sunny CA!

We were surrounded by several rainbows

as we went up to church yesterday,

and after we came home.

Spending time up at Mom's a lot,

Tuesday is cleaning day there :-)

We've gotten into a good schedule,

meeting her needs, and spending time together.

What we've been up to

Yanks RV Resort
Greenfield, CA

9 days since I posted last, wow :-)

We have been busy, just nothing blog-worthy.

Sundays we drive up to my Mom's and attend church.

I have driven up and chauffeured my Mom to

hair appointments and doctor appointments.

George and I took a ride a couple days ago

to pick up his prescriptions,

and surprised my Mom with some mulch and a lemon tree

for her back patio.

I forgot to take pictures!

It turned out very nice,

and she was much appreciative of it.

Wednesday we took a ride up to our old

stomping grounds at Coyote Valley RV Resort.

We met up with our friends Greg & Connie.

It was nice seeing them again,

and we sat outside talking for quite awhile.

George got his Sweet Tomatoes fix,

as we went out to dinner with them there.

On the way there we stopped at Betabel RV Resort

to put in an application for a monthly stay there.

We've stayed there before, and the monthly rent 

is much more reasonable than Yanks.

There is a waiting list, however.

It is a bit closer to my Mom's,

so it would be more convenient.

We'll see.

George has put an application in with Home Depot.

He is bored :-)

They are hiring seasonal workers, so the extra cash 

would be good, and keep him busy!

We had some hope for rain here yesterday..

but woke up to dry ground.

Today we're taking a drive over to Carmel

to meet up with a friend, and former RVer.

Jill (from Two Tools and a Dream).

She's tutoring in the area for a couple months.

It will be great to see her, and see the ocean as well!

Life is still good!

A ride through the produce fields

Yanks RV Resort
Greenfield, CA

George and I have been enjoying not

having to 'work' this time around.

We're not being lazy, however.

George washed and waxed the truck 

the other day,

and one day we went up to my Mom's

to clean her whole apartment,

and get some things done on her 'honey-do' list.

I walked around and took a few pictures

of this lovely resort..

The view out our back window

The park is pretty empty in the rows behind us,

which is nice...I can see the mountains better.

The hills are brown due to lack of rain :-(

My Mom has let us use her car while we're here.

Yesterday we called her to see if she wanted

to go for a ride with us.

We were in search of some artichokes!

We picked her up and headed to The Farm.

The Farm is a great place to shop for some

beautiful organic produce.

 The fields are filled with colorful pumpkins..

Everything is decorated with fall color.

They have a cute small petting zoo

with rabbits, goats, ducks, and chickens.

We bought a few things, then drove through 

toward Castroville, 'the artichoke capital of the world'.

The Salinas area has just beautiful fields

filled with lettuce, cauliflower, cabbage,

and strawberries.

We stopped at Pezzini farms,

to buy some of their beautiful artichokes.

This field was picked already. 

George was looking for a stray one,

while the workers were tending to the field.

The weather has been just perfect here,

with mid 70's the norm,

bright, sunny skies,

and low humidity.

I'm ready to go over to the beach!

Year 4 Recap

Yanks RV Resort
Greenfield, CA

4 Year Recap

It seems like yesterday we took off from Pennsylvania

to see where the road would take us!

As we enter our 5th year on the road,

we wanted to recap some of the facts and figures.

Total miles towing this year:  5,470

Total miles driven this year: 14,580

This year we traveled in 10 states!

We workamped for the following:

Amazon in Kentucky

Gate Guarding in Oklahoma

Buffalo Ridge Camp Resort in Custer, SD

For the past fiscal year we spent:

Fuel $2462.92

Campground Fees $2814.25*

*had to pay our own campground fees

while gate guarding, plus time off

we stayed in nice places!

Repairs to truck/RV $8,315.20*

*mostly new tires for truck, trailer, brake job, and

new extended warranty

Cell phones/internet/TV $4,140.19

Groceries/Entertainment/Dining Out $9,902.25

Insurance -

Truck/RV $1,710.00

Health $3,594.07

Medical Bills $4,691.16*

*half of this was finally paying off the kidney stone

I had in Montana!

We have other expenditures, but these are the major ones.

Fuel dropped substantially from last year,

both due to the price of diesel coming down,

and less miles driven.

We did spend quite a bit more in campground,

because we had to pay for fees while gate guarding.

We took some time off between jobs,

doing more sightseeing attributing to the increase.

I was happy to see that our food spending decreased :-)

Between Amazon, Gate Guarding, and Custer

we were able to get all our recurring payments paid off!

We continue to need to find paying jobs during the year,

as well as job for site.

George and I still love this lifestyle,

and we'll do what we can to continue!

Here's to the 5th year!!

Oh, the trouble we've seen

Yanks RV Resort
Greenfield, CA

Well the good news is we made it out of Amarillo

on Tuesday, September 27th.

We ended up staying an extra week to get all my doctor visits

out of the way.

All the results were fine except that I was diagnosed

with Type II diabetes.

Grrrrr...  ;-(

I'm sure our lifestyle didn't help,

all the eating out we do,

we're not as active as we should be.

Genetics played a part as well.

My Mom and Grandma were both Type II diabetic

later in life, so maybe it was inevitable, who knows.

All I know is it's a wake up call!

George and I left Amarillo early,

and spent the night in a Walmart in Albuquerque.

It was a noisy one, but it did the trick.

The next day we planned on staying at a Flying J

outside of Flagstaff, AZ, but since we got

such an early start from Albuquerque,

George wanted to push on, and we would stay in Barstow, CA.

The scenery was beautiful as we headed west..

Everything was going just fine,

but 60 miles east of Barstow,

on I-40 westbound 

our tire pressure monitoring system

started shrieking an alarm.

I literally had just checked all the pressures

for George, and bam, all of a sudden

the front passenger side tire on the trailer was at 33 psi.

Blowout!

George skillfully pulled to the side of the highway,

barely inside the solid line :-(

A blowout does a lot of damage!

We called Good Sam Roadside,

and 3 hours later, our spare on,

we were on our way again.

Pulling into the Flying J in Barstow at 9:30 pm

is no fun, for sure.

Good thing Denny's was open :-)

The next morning we pulled out bright and early,

and headed for Bakersfield.

My aunt and uncle live there,

and my uncle has some great connections.

He sent us to San Joaquin Tire and Wheel,

where we backed right in,

and got 4 new tires for Harvey.

If you ever need a great place with great service,

we highly recommend this place!

Since we were a day ahead of our destination,

we spent the night at River Run RV park.

We really like staying there when we're in the area.

George and I spent a few hours at my aunt and uncle's house

that night.

It's always nice to see them :-)

Our next adventure was to take the RV to Camping World

in San Martin, CA to get an estimate of the body work.

That took 3 hours as well!

We also had to drive the RV a mile away 

to a metal fabricator to give his estimate because..

Finally we were able to leave and make our way south,

to a new place for us..

Yanks RV Resort.

It's a lovely place!

All the sites are cement, with a side pad

with a picnic table,

and plenty of space for the truck.

Unfortunately they don't have a job for us here,

but will keep us in mind if something comes up.

Not sure how long we can stay at $972/month!

George may have to get a job at Lowe's :-)

The reason we are here is to help my Mom out some more.

She's doing a lot better, and looks fantastic!

She treated George and me, and my son Adam and his 

girlfriend Jennifer to dinner last night.

I've spent most of today catching up on blogs,

doing laundry,

and figuring out budget numbers.

Today is also our 4th anniversary of full-timing!

I'll be doing a recap of this last year in the next couple of days.