2/10/08 (Sunday): Believe it or not, this is my 195th posting since I first started blogging! And it's going to be a long one, so buckle up.

First the breaking news: we've accepted a position for summer '08 at the Boone KOA in Boone, NC. Here's a link to their site: Boone KOA. We're excited--it's exactly what we've been looking for. It'll be cool in the mountains, we'll be near Blue Ridge Parkway, Grandfather Mountain and a new Nature Conservancy property (Elk Knob). There's lots of hiking, the New River and all the Appalachian culture that we enjoy. So, there should be some good blogs this summer! We'll leave here March 31, which is the date we contracted for, and need to be there by April 25. That'll give us time to visit some of the things we missed on the trip out (the Grand Canyon, Painted Desert, Petrified Forest) and to have a short visit with the Dykes clan in Florida. I hate to leave here--we really love the area and the people we work with. But summers are brutal and very crowded here, so we think it's wise for us to leave while we're still loving it.

Now, on to our adventures over the last two weeks. After I worked 10 days in a row without a break, we took Sunday off and went downtown.





Our first stop (off the Metro) was Hollywood. We admired the Metro station and then walked along Hollywood and Vine checking out the stars.










In the same area is the historic Plantages Theater, which is currently showing the play "Wicked." It's about the witches in The Wizard of Oz." The web site says: "Long before Dorothy drops in, two other girls meet in the Land of Oz. One, born with emerald green skin, is smart, fiery and misunderstood. The other is beautiful, ambitious and very popular. Wicked follows these two unlikely friends and college roomates grow into very different women: The Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch." I'd have enjoyed seeing the play, but Wiley isn't into that kind of thing, and it's probably expensive. The theater is supposed to be fantastic inside--art deco.

According to Wikipedia.com, the Pantagaes theater "was designed by architect B. Marcus Priteca, it was the last theatre built for the impresario Alexander Pantages. The palatial Art Deco theatre opened on June 4th, 1930, as part of the Pantages Theatre Circuit. It was built mainly for vaudeville and later showed first-run movies . During the Great Depression, it was forced to economize and thereafter operated primarily as a movie theatre, though live entertainment was presented occasionally. Pantages sold the Hollywood landmark in 1932 to Fox West Coast Theaters. In 1949, Howard Hughes acquired the Pantages under his RKO Theatre Circuit and moved his personal offices to the building's second floor. From 1949 through 1959, the theatre hosted the American motion picture industry's annual Academy Award Ceremonies. It continued to be a major venue for Road show movies into the 1970s. From 1965, it was operated by Pacific Theatres. The Pantages closed as a movie theatre in January, 1977, and re-opened the following month with Bubbling Brown Sugar, the first of the many stage productions that have since become its regular fare."

Next stop was the LaBrea Tar Pits and Page Museum.








This was much cooler than I'd expected it to be. There's a big park in downtown L.A. where tar (it's actually asphalt, a form of crude oil) bubbles up out of the ground. The whole area floats on a sea of oil.





Native Americans used the oil in numerous ways, including coating the baskets with it to make them waterproof. As we got near the area, it smelled like they were paving a thousand streets--it actually made my eyes water!










The sticky tar trapped animals. Other animals came to prey on the trapped animals and became trapped themselves. Apparently, it's a misconception that the animals sank into the tar. It only takes an inch or two of tar over a large enough area to trap a big animal. Even today, they find many birds and small animals trapped in the tar. Many of the fossillized remains are on exhibit in the museum.

We were lucky enough to arrive just in time for a tour. We went to excavation pit 91, where you looked through a glass window down into a pit that was about 15 feet deep. There was a catwalk built over the tar (which is not hot, by the way--the bubbles that come up are escaping methane gas). The paleontologists lie on the boards and muck out the fossils. It's absolutely filthy, disgusting looking work. But it was fascinating to realize we were looking at the bones of animals that roamed the area up to 2,000,000 years ago!

After that exciting day off, I went back to work on Sunday. We had a visit from the head of our company, and put together an outdoor lunch. It was fun to get all our new workers together and meet with the man who runs things. As we finished up, one of the rangers spotted five condors circling the campground. You non-birders out there can skip this part, but birders from all over the world come to this part of California hoping for a glimpse, and we had them flying right over our picnic table! They were so close that we could see the number tags on their wings! What a thrill. I happened to have my camera (but not my binocular camera) with me. It's not a great shot, but it's my record of a thrilling moment!

We took our guest on a tour of the campground, and I took this shot from the hill overlooking the campground where the water tower is. Julie mentioned that she'd like to see an overview of the campground, but it's so big that's not possible. This shot encompasses the whole campground, but it's hard to tell because of the trees. The building you see on the left is the bath house. Our RV is on the far right side of this picture, under the trees. We can't see the lake from our camper because it's down the hill.


I worked Sunday through Thursday, but we took off Friday, Saturday and Sunday this week. We took a drive up to Frazier Mountain to see the snow. It was shirt-sleeve weather, but the snow was everywhere above 4,000 feet. We had a lovely drive through the mountains.


Wiley and I celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary on February 7 with dinner at The Elephant bar, an African themed restaurant. We had a great meal and the atmosphere was quite nice.








Our anniversary present to each other was a trip to the Channel Islands. I think this blog has gotten long enough, though, so I'll blog about that another time. Talk to you again soon!

I JUST ADDED A LINK TO A NEWSPAPER ARTICLE, SO IF YOU'VE ALREADY READ THIS BLOG, CHECK OUT THE SECOND PARAGRAPH FOR A LINK TO A VENTURA STAR ARTICLE ABOUT WILEY.

1/31/08 (Wednesday): We've had a great week. I've been working hard setting up the office (again) in the manager's absence. We went out together and bought duplicates of all the supplies that were stolen. Then they left, and I got busy. Linda, my fellow Workamper and friend, has been helping me. We had to put together packets for all the new employees, put together new shelves and storage units, hand out tee shirts, set up the phone system, and organize files. So I've had a busy week, but it's been fun.

While I've worked, Wiley has taken advantage of the alone time to work on his garden and make a day trip to the Ventura Pier for a little crabbing. He caught 15 really large crabs and one lobster! The manager (Nita) and I had worked late in the office, so we decided to let the guys cook. The two other Workamper couples each made a side dish, I tossed a salad, and we all squeezed into our RV and had a feast! One of the guys doesn't eat seafood (and neither do I), so I also grilled some sausage with spinach and fontina cheese. It was a great, relaxing evening. It turns out a photographer from the Ventura newspaper took a picture of Wiley's crabs (and the hand that was holding them). It made today's paper. Here's a link to the story: Ventura Star article.

Julie asked me to pass on a little information about Piru, the closest town to where we live. Here's a link to a very informative website that you might like to visit: Piru, CA. There are about 1200 residents, mostly Hispanic, and although they live in modest houses, many of them are members of very wealthy ranching families. There's a very good restaurant, a Post Office, two convenience stores and a couple of liquor stores. The school appears almost new, there's a nice little park/playground, several churches and a mission school.

Today I finished up at the office around noon and we decided to take a hike. Val Verde is a little town about 10 miles east of us. We hike the fire road up two different mountains. (This is the view of the road we hiked from the top of the mountain.)









There was a 365 degree view from the top, including a view of the snow-covered mountains along the I-5 corridor (called the "Grapevine") and Mt. Frasier, where there are a number of ski resorts.









There were a few scattered wild flowers.













I hear it's really gorgeous in the Spring when the poppies bloom.












As we descended back into the little park where the trail begins, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. It was a bobcat! It's the first one I've ever seen! He froze just long enough for me to get this shot. It's not the best picture, but it's pretty clearly a bobcat!

I was downloading a nice video taken from the very top of the trail, but with my dial-up connection, it timed out. Sorry I can't share it with you--it was a great hike!

1/28/08 (Monday): It's been an exciting (and very wet) couple of days here in Piru. I finally finished setting up the temporary office night before last. Yesterday morning I went over to the office early to put the finishing touches on setting up the fax machine. I walked in, sat down to face the computer ... and there was no computer there! I didn't panic. I figured the managers had taken it out for some reason. But when I called them, they hadn't. We'd been robbed. I spent the morning talking to the sheriff and trying to figure out what was missing. Fortunately, I'd done an inventory (with prices and serial numbers) of everything purchased for the office. We lost the computer, flat panel monitor, keyboard, mouse, surge protector, all-in-one fax/copier/printer/scanner, and all our new office supplies. Probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $4,000 to $5,000, not to mention all the work that will have to be re-done. This is a heartbreaking introduction to California for our new managers. Plus, both their little dogs are very ill and had to go to the vet. The company is responding very quickly, sending us a new computer with everything loaded on it and they're hiring security guards for overnight hours.

The rest of this blog is kind of a mish-mash of things that have happened lately. This picture is for Julie, who commented recently that she didn't know I knew how to crochet. My grandson's requested sweaters and hats for their stuffed animals. I designed and made these for them. They were quite pleased to get them!





Remember the picture in a blog a couple of days ago about the commercial being filmed in our campground? Well here's a shot of the same area. Look at the snow in the background! The higher elevations have had several FEET of snow in the last week! I-5 (our closest highway) was closed off and on last week because of snow, ice and high winds. There's still snow on the higher peaks. It seems so funny to stand in the spring-green meadows in a sweatshirt and look at snow!

Speaking of green meadows, here's a shot of the town of Piru that I took today. The hills around us have really greened up! The "happy cows" are looking much happier now!

That's it for now. I'm on my own in the office for the next week while the managers take a few (well deserved) days off. Wish me luck!

1/24/08 (Thursday): We've got another wet week here, and despite the potential for flooding and/or mud and rock slides, almost everyone is celebrating. It looks like the two-year drought may be coming to an end. It is very dreary, though--we've already had three day of rain, and it's not expected to stop until next Tuesday! Last night there was snow on all the mountains and they closed I-5 (the interstate that's only about ten miles from us). There's no snow at the lower elevations, though.

I don't have any pictures today because I've been working every day since Wiley left for Florida. But I'm having the best time working for the new managers. They brought in a little construction office trailer and I set it up with a couple of desks, got the computers, fax machine and copier working yesterday. We're waiting for a phone line now. They've got big plans for the campground. They're completely gutting the maintenance barn and it will become new offices. They're turning the old snack bar near the lake (which hasn't been open since we were here) into a camp and marina store. It will have soft-serve ice cream, pizza and other snacks food, too. They're re-building the boat docks and floating toilets (you heard me right--there are port-a-potties out on the lake!) and hiring security as well as a lot more staff than has ever worked here before. They brought in a temporary crew from another one of their facilities to pick up all the litter. They constantly compliment and encourage the employees, too, and give us a lot of flexibility in choosing our hours and days. They have weekly "socials" where they treat us to a meal and encourage us to make suggestions and/or discuss any problems we've encountered. I'll take some pictures when the rain stops. I'm taking this weekend off even though it's raining. I don't want to get burned out!

We still some some deer in the campground, but since the grass on the nearby mountains has started greening up, they tend to only come in late in the day now. There are still olives falling off the trees, and the deer really like them. I also see humming birds every day. The wild rosemary is in bloom and it draws goldfinches. We have some pine trees near the new temporary office, and they are so fragrant! We also have a view of the lake, which is rapidly filling back up. There are white pelicans, osprey and coots on the lake. Wiley hasn't had much luck fishing yet (not for lack of trying), but he keeps working at it.

Speaking of Wiley, he's spending his free time turning the ugly little slope in front of our campsite into a rock garden. He already built steps down to the fire pit and put in a flagstone seating area. Now he's hauling rocks and arranging them in the hill. When he's done with the hardscape, we'll buy some plants and maybe put in some grass seed.

I've got to get ready for work now. I forgot to mention that the new managers are very generous with uniforms, too. I have nice looking golf shirts, a sweatshirt and a jacket. I'll include a picture in the next blog! Have a great week, everyone.

1/18/08 (Friday): Well, I've had a busy and exciting week. Wiley is visiting his family back in Florida, and I started my new job responsibilities here in Piru. I'm having a blast! The people I'm working with are super. They're from the Gulfport, Mississippi area, where they lost a lovely home to Hurricane Katrina. She also almost lost her life in a narrow escape from a hotel that lost its roof. She saw some horrible things--almost unimaginable. They've turned their lives around, though, and seem to be really enjoying the Workamper lifestyle. I had dinner with them two nights ago and today she invited me and the other Workamper to go shopping and out to lunch with her. We had a great time choosing new items for the office and enjoyed a great Chinese meal. So far, I've cleaned bathrooms, washed uniforms, typed emails, set up office supplies and files and cleaned the gatehouse! Until we're all set up and all the camp hosts arrive (there will be five more couples for a total of seven), we're all pitching in and doing a little of everything. Tomorrow I'll be setting up the new computers in the gatehouse. They've brought in a trailer to serve as a temporary office while they renovate one of the big buildings to be the permanent office. They're also going to make some renovations to the marina and re-open the defunct restaurant as a camp store. They're bringing in 10 boats--five pontoon boats and 5 fishing boats--which the camp hosts will be able to use, too. I know Wiley will enjoy getting out onto the lake where the fishing is better!

We woke up on 1/7 to a beautiful, clear, not-too-cold day. I was surprised to see that the moutain peaks all around us had a lovely sprinkle of white on them! This is the view from the campground looking west, but all the peaks were covered. It had all melted away by the next morning. These peaks are only about 1100 feet.





As I mentioned in an earlier blog, a lot of commercials and TV shows are filmed here at Lake Piru Recreation Area. Just before Wiley left, we saw this filming of a Chevrolet commercial. We couldn't see much of the action, just the cameraman and the support vehicles (for costumes, food and restrooms). Then last week, they came to film a Mountain Dew commercial, and I got invited to join the crew for lunch. I asked if my co-Workampers could come, too, and they said "sure"! We had a great al fresco lunch of barbecue chicken, sea bass and steak with four kinds of salad, fresh fruit and a yummy almond cake. What fun! Later, the producer found me in the campground and asked if one of the actors could use the showers in the campground, because he'd gotten very muddy. We, of course, allowed him to do that. The next morning, the floor and one shower were absolutely covered with mud! I didn't mind cleaning up after them, though, because they'd given us such a nice treat.

Now I want to back up a little and show you some pictures from the weekend before Wiley left. We went to Long Beach on Saturday and to Malibu on Sunday. We took the train from Santa Clarita (about 20 miles from here) to Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. Then we took the Metro all the way to Long Beach at the south end of Los Angeles. Our main stop was the Aquarium of the Pacific, which is a really cool place. In addition to all the fish, they have seals and birds. I took a bunch of pictures, but I'll just post this one shot.


On Sunday, we hopped on the Pacific Coast Highway and went to Malibu. We had previously driven north of the Pacific Coast highway, but this piece of the highway goes south. The waves were pretty impressive!





We made a brief stop at Point Mugu, where there's an Air Force base. I thought the light was pretty spectacular.

We fished and crabbed off the Malibu pier.



There were a bunch of kids enjoying the day outdoors. Some of them had a good time helping us pull up the crab traps. The dad of a couple of the kids was very good looking and had a French accent. We chatted a bit with him, and it turns out he was filming a segment of Sex in the City. I'm not sure whether he was an actor or how he was involved in the production.

Back here in Piru Canyon, spring has sprung. The hills are starting to green up. It's very pretty, but it keeps reminding me of those cheap celluloid toys with the sprayed on hair (except the "hair" is green)!


Okay--that's all the news from here. Catch you later!

1/15/07 (Tuesday): We've got our phone back--yay!! Following a wait of almost two weeks, it took him all of two minutes to bring me back. With no further ado, here's a quick catch-up on our adventures.

We took a drive through Soledad Canyon into Antelope Valley early in the new year. It's very high and dry, with lots of interesting rock formations.

At one point, we looked down into this valley at this body of water. The sign said it's the California Aqueduct. Imagine my surprise (and alarm), when the sign went on to say that we were also looking at the San Andreas Fault! I can just imagine how the people who designed the aqueduct looked at the crevasse in the ground and thought: "Gee, what a great place to put the canal that transports the drinking water for most of Southern California!"

On the way back, we passed this llama farm--it was huge! There were probably 100 llamas grazing in the fields.






When we got back, we had to get ready for the big storms that were forecast. A previous shower had caused water to flow right through our campsite, so we spent some time filling sandbags and building a dike to divert water into the road. We were really glad we'd done all that work, because without it our RV would have been washed away! We had a lot of water in our site. Fortunately, our new site doesn't seem to be prone to flooding. The good thing about all the rain is that it's starting to green up around here!

I'm going to call that it for tonight. I need to download some more pictures.

1/14/07 (Monday): I apologize for the long delay in blogging. We weathered the storms and the move to the new campsite, but we still don't have our phone hooked up. Hopefully that will happen tomorrow. Without a phone, I have no internet connection. I'm using the computer in the ranger office now. I won't be able to post any pictures, but I'll bring you up to date.

We survived the storms quite well. We moved the RV to a nearby campsite that didn't flood. We like it almost as much as the first one. It gets a lot more sun, which is nice on the cold mornings here, and it doesn't have another campsite right beside it like the last one did, but it doesn't have quite as many trees.

The new company that's taking over management of the campground (Recreation Resource Management, or RRM for short) has hired me, but they probably won't be hiring Wiley. Wiley's okay with that because it's only for a few more months. They need me to do some office work and they don't have anything for Wiley right now. The really good news is that I'll be getting paid for all hours worked (about 18-20 per week), and we still don't have to pay for the campsite. So we'll be making a little money to pay for our trip home in the Spring! We're so glad that we not only get to stay here (we really love it), but we're also going to bring in a little income.

We've had a couple of fun outings recently, but I'll wait and blog about that when I can post the pictures.

Wiley heads for Orlando tomorrow morning and will be there until Sunday. I'll put in some extra hours working while he's gone. We've got a lot to do setting up new office space. So once again, life is good and getting better all the time! Take care, and I'll blog again soon.

1/5/07 (Saturday): Just a brief note to let everyone know we're fine this morning. We sandbagged and battened down the hatches. It was pretty hairy--we could not have driven out of the canyon once the rains started. But our sandbags held, and the rain finally stopped around midnight. There's another big storm coming in late this afternoon, so we've decided to move to another site that did not flood. I've got to get busy--we need to move before the rain starts again! I'll keep you posted.

10/30/07 (Sunday): We had a fantastic Christmas. Hope yours was special, too.

We headed out I-5 on the Friday before Christmas in the neat little Toyota Prius we rented. We decided to rent a car for the trip because we figured that even with the expense of the rental, we'd save money because the truck only gets 12-15 mpg. We averaged 45 mpg in the Prius, and it was a neat little car. We saw snow on the hilltops at Tejon Pass, about 20 miles from Piru. Fortunately, there was none on the road.

On Saturday, Mark and the boys took us to Muir Woods for a hike in the redwoods. Incredible! The trees are very old and very large.







The trail followed a gorgeous little creek. We hated to turn back, but we wanted to hit the beach before we headed back, so we turned back before we hit the end of the trail (much to Austin's displeasure).










He cheered up considerably when we reached Stinson Beach. It's a really big, beautiful Pacific beach. It was quite chilly, but Austin waded right in.







These young people were riding horses on the beach. It looked like so much fun!








The next day, Mark and Heather and the boys took us to San Francisco's Chinatown. It's bigger than Los Angeles' Chinatown, but I thought it was a little more tourist-y. This building was pretty authentic, though. It's an apartment house.

We went into this tea shop. It was fascinating. We got to taste several different kinds of tea, and the proper method of brewing tea was demonstrated. The tea was amazingly good, and each of the boys got to choose some tea to take home. I think this was their favorite part of the trip to Chinatown.







After Chinatown, we drove to San Francisco's Discovery Museum. The boys had a blast. The exhibits are fun and educational at the same time. Hudson got this bubble almost over his whole body!











Wiley and I skipped out on seeing the last of the Discovery Museum in order to hike this little stretch of trail along San Francisco Bay. That's Alcatraz Island in the background.

This is the Golden Gate Bridge, of course. We didn't drive over it this time, but it was interesting to see it from this perspective. There's a lighthouse at the base of the bridge (on the left side of this picture), but we didn't get close enough to really see it.








Christmas came at last, and it was a great day. The boys took most of the morning to open their presents. Then Mark and Heather prepared a wonderful meal of prime rib and Yorkshire pudding and all the trimmings. I'm not sure whether Wiley liked that or the Dungenness crab we had for Christmas Eve better. What a great day!


The day after Christmas, we drove up to my sister's house in Magalia, CA. It's north of Sacramento, about 3 hours from the Oregon border. They built a lovely home a couple of years ago on a magnificent piece of property high on a hill overlooking a forest of ponderosa pine. We walked down to the creek at the bottom of their property. Absolutely gorgeous. We felt like we were in a premier mountain lodge.






The next day we toured the area. Magalia is at about 2,000-3,000 feet. The mountains are greener and have more trees than the ones in Southern California where we are. The town is on the Feather River, where one of the biggest gold nuggets was found during the gold rush. We went to a gold rush museum and learned a lot about that interesting period in California history.

Wiley was hoping to see snow (and I was hoping I wouldn't have to drive the rental car in snow), but Wiley's wish won out. We woke up to about 2-1/2 inches of the cold, white stuff. Fortunately, Jim was able to take us out via a route that avoided the worst hills, and by the time we got off the mountain they live on, there was no more snow. We had a great time, Jan and Jim--thanks for your hospitality!



We made it back safely last Friday, returned the rental car Saturday, and worked for a couple of hours today. We took a great drive into Soledad Canyon this afternoon, but that's another blog. Have a safe and happy New Year's, everyone!

12/17/07 (Monday): Is everyone ready for Christmas? We're nicely settled in and enjoying the holiday season.

Check out the cute ornament that Mag got us--it looks just like our 5th wheel, even the slide!




The little towns of Piru, Fillmore and Santa Paula (collectively called "Heritage Valley") are all decked out for the holidays. The small town atmosphere here feels so comfortable and festive--we're really enjoying it!

We tried to get reservations on the Christmas train, a historic train that runs 20 miles each way between Santa Paula and Santa Clarita, but they were all booked up. We'll probably do the Chinese New Year's train instead.

We found out last week that United Water (the company that hired us) has contracted out the management of the campground to a company called Recreation Resources Management. They will be hiring more workampers and investing lots of resources in improving the campground. United Water has indicated that they will honor our contract or we can apply to work for RRM, which pays all its workampers. We signed up for interviews on Wednesday. Wish us luck! We'll be okay either way.

Last week we drove to North Hollywood (see the sign on the hill in the background of the picture?)








and caught the Metro (subway) into the Chinatown part of downtown Los Angeles. What fun! The subway ends at Union Station, which was beautifully renovated. It first opened in 1939 and is sometimes called the last great train station. Many movies have been filmed here. In addition to Metro, Amtrak runs trains out of this station, so it's a real transportation hub.

I've been to Chinatowns in several big cities, but the one in Los Angeles has to be one of the prettiest (and least tourist-y) of any I've ever been to. We wandered through many shops that had lots of inexpensive stuff for sale. It appeared that most of the shops had people living in the upstairs.

We had a great lunch for $4.75 (really!). Wiley had a whole fish (sole) that had been fried until it was crispy. It came with rice and vegetables. I had a tofu dish in a yummy brown sauce with rice and vegetables. Wiley drooled over the huge dungeness crabs in the tank at the restaurant. He really wants to catch some for himself! There were all kinds of food on the menu that we didn't recognize. It seemed very authentic--most of the patrons were Chinese! A great experience!!

We finished up with a stroll down Wilshire Blvd. We'll be going back to L.A. again soon.












One final cheerful note: Wiley has started physical therapy for the posture problems caused by his Parkinson's Disease at a local clinic. Look how much straighter he is after just 3 visits! I'm so proud of him--he's really working at it!


The next blog will probably be when we get back from our Christmas visit to my son's. Have a great holiday everyone!