11/28/07 (Wednesday): I'm sorry I didn't post yesterday as promised. I'll make this one extra special to make up for it! I'm going to do a combination of pictures posted with the text and more pictures in a slideshow. Those of you who couldn't see the last slideshow may just need to wait and let it finish loading--it takes a long time, especially if you have dial-up! You can click on any of the pictures in the slideshow and see the pictures larger and control the show.

Today was a workday, but we finished up at noon, so I'm sitting in the RV admiring my little Christmas tree and listening to a CD as I type this. Wiley is out picking cans and bottles out of the dumpsters. He made $81 last week! It's amazing what campers throw out--there's a five cent deposit on every bottle and aluminum soda can!

Anyhow, I want to tell you about our great Thanksgiving week. It started the week before Thanksgiving with a visit with my sister, Jan, her husband, Jim, their son, Tim, Tim's wife, Rosie, and their baby son, Ben. This is Rosie with Ben and my sister, Jan. Ben is Jan's first grandchild, and he's a real cutie! Rosie is British--love her accent!




We met in Ojai at Jim's mother's house and then drove to a beach near Santa Barbara. We had a picnic lunch and a quick walk on the beach, then it was on to Solvang.








Solvang is a neat Danish town in the Santa Ynez Valley near Santa Barbara. The name is Danish for "sunny field." It was founded in 1911 by a group of Danish teachers who wanted to escape from the cold Midwest. The buildings are all old-style European and there are lots of flowers. Jan and I visited several of the shops while the rest had a beer in the pub.









We left the next morning on Amtrak for Mark and Heather's. We boarded a bus in Fillmore (about 18 miles from here) which went to the Bakersfield train station where we caught the train to a town near Walnut Creek and then the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) to Walnut Creek. We left at 8:30 AM and didn't arrive at Mark's until 6:00 PM, but it was very relaxing to be able to sit back and watch the scenery and not worry about traffic. We packed sandwiches and cold drinks, but next time I think we'll eat in the dining car--it wasn't expensive, and the food looked good (sandwiches and salads mostly).

Mark and Heather arrived home from Hawaii about 8:00 PM the same evening. We had decided in advance that we'd have our Thanksgiving feast on Friday, so on Thursday we had a laid back day. We played Monopoly, took a short hike (this picture was taken from the top of the hill behind Mark's house), watched a video and just chilled. We all pitched in and cooked on Friday--Turkey and gravy, stuffing with cranberries and apples, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green beans with prosciutta (sp?) and two kinds of pie for dessert. Yummo!

Now we're back at home, watching the hummingbirds on our feeder, visiting with our neighbors and enjoying life. I'll talk to you all again soon!

11/19/07 (Monday): I'm trying something new (again!) in this blog. If I do it right, you should be viewing a slideshow of Piru, Fillmore and Santa Paula scenes in the sidebar. Let me know if you like it!

Not a lot to talk about tonight. Yesterday was Wiley's 51st birthday and we went out to dinner with the other two Workamper couples. We had a very pleasant evening.

On Saturday, I got a call from my sister. She and her husband, Jim, were in Ojai at Jim's mother's house. Ojai is about 45 minutes from here. Since Jim had some work to do for his mother and Wiley wanted to go fishing, we arranged to meet at the Ventura pier. Wiley stayed on the pier to fish, Jim bought some stuff at the hardware store and went back to Ojai to work on his Mom's house, and Jan and I came back to Lake Piru. We had a wonderful afternoon--took a tour of the campground in the golf cart, crocheted, and talked and talked and talked! We picked Wiley up and drove Jan back to Ojai where we had pizza with Jim's mother (95 years young). It's so great to be able to have my sister drop in. She's lived overseas or across the country from me for so long.

Wiley and I worked today, then drove into Thousand Oaks, a big town across the mountains from us. It's where the Reagan Presidential Library is. We just needed to get some repairs made to our cell phone, get an oil change and explore a little. It was fun, but the traffic was horrendous (it's very close to Los Angeles). We might go back sometime and take a look at the Presidential Library.

Tomorrow we meet Jan and Jim and go to Santa Barbara and Solvang to explore. On Wednesday, Wiley and I catch a train to Emeryville to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with Mark and his family. I hope everyone has a great holiday.

11/13/07 (Tuesday): Greetings from sunny Southern California! We're having a blast. This is a beautiful part of our country, and very different from any place we've ever lived before. We're settling in very nicely and enjoying the company of some great people. Here's our casa, snuggled under a couple of olive trees with a hummingbird feeder that stays constantly busy.

Wiley has picked a couple gallons of ripe olives and is processing them in a brine solution.






It's a fun place to take walks. We had heard that the famous California happy cows (from the commercial) lived on adjacent ranchland. We saw them one evening. They look very contented, but the green pastures in the commercial were nowhere to be seen!
The deer who wander the campground are also happy and laid back! They like to eat the olives.









This is some of the damage from the recent fires. They're the remains of outbuildings of the adjacent ranch. If it hadn't been for the lake, this whole area would be devastated.

On Sunday we went into Ventura (about 30 miles from here). We were having a light rain (very much needed), so we visited the old Mission San Buenaventura. It dates back to 1749, although it's been added to and reconstructed a number of times. This picture is from their website. We couldn't get to the front of the mission because of construction in the area.
We wandered the courtyard and beautiful gardens behind the mission and went in a small museum where there were vestments and historic items. It was very interesting.








Afterwards, it started clearing up, so we went to the Ventura Pier. It's very historic. The Chumash Indians launched their plank canoes, called “tomols” from this beach. They conducted a busy daily trade of fish, shell bead “money”, acorns and other goods with other villages along the coast and on the Channel Islands from this area.

In the 1860s, the primary form of transportation in the Ventura area was ships. But without a wharf the vessels had to anchor offshore, which made loading and unloading difficult. Then in 1871, a man who transported people and goods from the ships to the shore on barges proposed building a wharf. It was completed a few years later, and there's been a pier here ever since.

Yesterday was a gorgeous day, so we decided to take a drive through the Los Padres National Forest to the Bitter Creek Condor Sanctuary. We didn't see any condors, but it was a gorgeous drive. I have a couple of videos I was going to post, but my dial up connection is too slow, so I'll just put a couple of still pictures here. If you'd like to learn more about condors and the sanctuary, click on this link: Bitter Creek Condor Sanctuary.



Today we worked around camp, did a little grocery shopping and generally vegged out a little. Tomorrow is a workday. Wish you could all be here to share our adventure in person. We're having so much fun!

By the way, I put a counter on the blog so I'll have some idea how many people are viewing it. If I succeeded, you should be able to see it on the upper right side of the blog.

11/9/07 (Friday): This is my first blogging via dial-up internet experience. I hope it won't be too slow! We finally got our land line installed so that I can now access the internet at will (if somewhat slowly). We're isolated here, but there are some advantages to that. We have deer wandering the campground, lots of birds, and a gorgeous view of the mountains that are isolating us. I have lots to report, so I'll get right to it.

Last Thursday we made a spontaneous decision to drive up to Mark and Heather's for a few days. We packed up some camping gear and left Friday morning. We took the Pacific Coast Highway, stopping for one night on the way up and one night on the way back. We did loads of sightseeing. The Coastal Highway is magnificent--great views of the Pacific Ocean from the coastal mountains. Our first stop was the Hearst Castle, the vacation home of William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate.
Wiley wasn't interested in the tour, so he made use of the nearby fishing pier.

What a magnificent place. It had indoor and outdoor pools, a fabulous art collection, beautifully furnished rooms and three guest houses. The Hearst family still owns all the surrounding ranch land, where they mostly raise cattle. I was amused in the formal dining room to see the typical place settings that Hearst used. The ketsup and mustard, paper napkins and inexpensive blue willow reproduction china were apparently the norm.



We stopped every few miles along the way as the sights got more and more spectacular. The highway is an unbelievable engineering marvel. It clings to the mountains, crosses deep canyons with long bridges and traverses what must be some of the most incredible views in the world.






There were lots of places where you could access the shore, which ranged from sandy beaches, to rocky beaches, to high cliffs with crashing waves. At one of the pullouts, we saw these sea lions. They weren't more than 10-15 feet away from us! The big males seemed to be fighting. They'd raise up and bump chests while making this pig-like noise. It was really cool!




It was so good to see Mark and Heather and the boys again! It had been almost a year--the longest stretch I'd ever gone without seeing them. Heather had a bad cold, so I really appreciated her putting up with unexpected visitors. They've completely renovated their kitchen, and the house looked great.




On Saturday morning, we took the ferry to Angel Island and hiked all the way around the island (about 5 miles). I saw on the news yesterday that there's been an oil spill in San Francisco Bay near Angel Island. That's awful. It was a beautiful natural area, within sight of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge. We saw deer and all kinds of birds. I hate to think of all the animals that will be killed.


We came back via a more inland route, but we still camped on the ocean. California has beautiful campgrounds with access to the Pacific. We were tent camping, and it was pretty cold at night, but being able to walk across the dunes to a lovely beach was very nice. Pismo Beach, where we camped on the way back, has real firm sand and there were a lot of joggers, dog walkers and people riding bikes. I just sat and people watched until the sun went down. Wiley, of course, went fishing!





To end on a funny note, I just had to share this funny picture. This pelican is just so dopey looking--he makes me laugh every time I look at him!

Well, I've got to do laundry and a little house cleaning today (and maybe make a trip into town for some groceries), so I'll call it good and close now. Have a great day!

11/4/07 (Sunday): Well, I couldn't wait to do the blog about Sequoia, so I'm doing a second one in a day. (It's so nice to have internet access!)

First, I forgot to post a video of Lake Piru, so take a peek at this.

I also took this video of some of the deer at the campground. (This was actually meant to be a still shot, but the camera was still in video mode, but I'm posting it anyhow, because the deer looks like he's actually posing for the shot.)

Okay--now on to Sequoia National Park. We did this as a day trip because we were laboring under the delusion that it was about a 2-hour drive to get there. Turns out it took closer to 4 hours (each way). We saw the fog rolling in when we were still about 20 miles away.








The road into the park was under construction and they were letting folks through in one lane. We faced about a 45-minute wait, so we stopped at Hospital Rock. There are pictographs here made by Native Americans almost 800 years ago. You'll recall that pictographs are painted on rocks, whereas petroglyphs are carved.







By the time we got into the Sierra Nevada Mountains, we could barely see the Sequoias! These are some monster trees. It was like driving in a cathedral. The experience awed and silenced us. As we drove through the huge stands of trees, we didn't talk or play music--just stared in awe.













We saw a little crowd beside the road and stopped to see what they were looking at. I couldn't believe how close the people were standing to this VERY LARGE bear! I stood in the open door of the truck and used my telephoto lens to take this shot. I know that bears can move very fast when they want to, and although this one looked very laid back, I wasn't taking any chances!










As sunset approached, we climbed above the fog that had settled in the valley below us.











We were at about 10,000 feet now.













Wiley insisted That I post all 3 of my sunset photos. I like the one with the dead tree best. He likes the one with the sun behind the tree best. What's your favorite?










As we began our descent, we noticed there were patches of snow here and there. It got dark very early, and it was a l-o-o-o-n-g ride home in the dark, but we had enjoyed the day so much that it was worth it.









Okay--that's it for another day. Time for a bath and bed. We went to Angel Island (near San Francisco) today, so I have fodder for another blog as soon as I download my pictures.

11/4/07 (Sunday): We're in Walnut Creek, visiting my son, Mark, and his family. (Yay for family, yay for internet access!) I'm going to to make up for lost time over the next couple of days, starting with a tour of our new home area, then our trip to Sequoia National Park and I'll finish up with our drive up the Coast Highway.

To get to Lake Piru Recreation area from I-10, you get on I-5 and get off on California Rt. 126. the little town of Piru is attractive.











It's not big enough to have a grocery store, but it has two little general stores about the size of a convenience store. One of them is owned by a woman named Elva (my mother's name)! Of course, I had to go in and introduce myself and chat with her a bit.








Most of the houses are smaller, older homes, but this B&B is one of several beautiful old places.













Leaving Piru, you drive up (up, up) a narrow mountain road. There are some green patches on the barren mountainsides, including orange groves and a horse ranch. It looks really funny to see oranges growing on the sides of a hill. Piru and its neighboring towns, Fillmore and Santa Paula, are considered the heart of citrus country. There are vast groves of orange, grapefruit and lemon. They also grow avocado, pistachio, olives and garden crops like peppers.




You cross a fast-moving creek a couple of times, and then you look down on the dam and Lake Piru.











The campground is beautiful--it sits in a 100-year-old olive grove (which I didn't take a picture of for some reason). The black-tailed deer wander the campground day and night (this shot was taken through my kitchen window).









We don't have a view of the lake from our campsite, but it's an easy walk to get there. There's a marina and concession. You can see where the mountains burned in the recent fires. Everything is still so dry. It's kind of alarming, but the people here take it in stride. In fact, one woman joked with me that they call this part of the country "Shake and Bake."

That's it for this time. Next time (probably tomorrow) we'll tour Sequoia. When we get back to camp on Tuesday, we'll probably have a telephone and dial-up connection to the internet!