California Mountains

Hello, happy Sunday!  Today we woke up to some real beautiful snow!  Buddy was pretty excited, we played snowball catch and he was in heaven!

It's a funny thing, we're in the mtns. so you can't expect warm, sunny weather every day....but the other people here....it's like they came just because of the snowfall!  7 am this morning tons of kids were running around screaming and laughing.  Seems they came prepared, they have been sledding on their boogie boards!  There's about 1-2 inches and these people are outside talking and wondering how they're going to get home!

It's really warm out, very sunny and blue skies, this stuff isn't going to last long!

As you know, Reyna's birthday was on Thursday, we had a little party.....every year since she was born N has bought her a dress, this year the dress was extra special.  Reyna found a Vintage 1950's dress at an antique store in Yucca Valley, she fell in love with it, we walked to the store and called every few days to see if it was still there, she just couldn't decide if she should buy it or not!  A day or two before we left N and I went to the store, he wanted to buy it for her.  So then I had to tell R that the store was closed on Sunday and that we could call them if she decided to buy it, and that they could send it to us.....AARGH.

Anyway, we kept it hidden pretty well, when she opened the gift her reaction was priceless!  Here are some 16th birthday photos!

Does she look happy?  The laughter turns to tears of joy!

Hello.....Reyna's 16th bday today!

Well, hello there.  What's new here?  Well Reyna woke up 16 today, I made her some pancakes with strawberries, whipped cream and blueberries.  We have a teeny tiny bit of maple syrup left, I brought 2 big bottles but I guess we've been having too many pancakes, not good.

What else, we went out for Mexican....not for Mexican People as my favorite brother says, but for Mexican food, it was delicious, don't usually eat out for lunch!

Reyna and I went for a haircut, she came out with a nice little trim....me, well let's say I had a very vigorous cut from a lady who seems to have forgotten that I told her I was GROWING my hair a bit.  But guess what, I now have a funky 'do' and I love it.  N is in for a shock though when he picks us up from Starbucks!

Next, we're off to the grocery store....we seriously have NO food in the camper...well, we have lettuce and some frozen, rotten bananas.  The main objective is to load up and find an AWESOME cake for Reyna!

................Then we're going to PARTY....gifts, cake and all!

Suppose you want some photos........I aim to please!

This is where we're camping right now, by Silverwood Lake

Love this tree, wish I knew what kind it was!

Haven't seen one yet, but according to N we have a werewolf....seems it stole the grill tool from him the other nigh, uh huh

Guess these loaded backward, this is en route from Yucca Valley to Silverwood

Reyna fell in love, does this horse look like Bailee or what?

Pioneer City, this 'fake' city was built by actors for the purpose of old time movies, they filmed 200 movies here!

Reyna's dream truck, a wee bit too spendy though

Greetings from nowhere!

yup, I know, I don't post a whole lot, but hey, unless you want to hear all about grocery shopping, dog poop and camper life don't complain!

Yeah, that's right DOG POOP.  Here's a tip, when you even remotely think you hear your dog do a little woof during the night, get up and check, that's right CHECK.

....or don't, and then you'll be pleasantly surprised when you open the camper door, look into the kennel and see a very sad, sorry look on your dogs' face.  Open the door, and EWWWWW goopy, gooey, sticky dog pooh everywhere.  Me thinks he had a tummy ache, and I really couldn't be mad since I of course didn't check out what I thought was only a 'woof' in my dreams.  Lots of water, a new bed, and some doggie barf later everything was much better.

So now, don't you wish you hadn't complained about me not updating this here blog????????

Went to Applebee's for our anniversary, I know, not a very exciting joint, but hey, we're in a bit of an old town here, have to go with what's available!  The antiques are great here and I did finally manage to hunt down a yarn store...still can't figure out how I missed it.

So that's the end of today's story, we're motivating to higher ground on Monday so I'm sure things will liven up then.  Oh, our excitement today consisted of seeing a road runner!

Tootles!

PS to all you stalkers out there, and I know you're there.....a comment now and then would be lovely!

Happy Sunday....no time for the Super Bowl here!

Well Hello there.....while you were all sitting around at home watching the Super Bowl we were exploring the Joshua Tree National Park. We went in quite a way further today and actually came out the other side!

The Mojave Desert and the Colorado Desert meet in Joshua Tree Nt'l Park, as you'll see from the pictures we had fun! We did end up in a hairy situation or two, but we made it out alive and unharmed, physically at least!!! To put it mildly, it was like a super bowl between the truck and the rocks/mountains/trails.....

Adam had fun climbing these guys, they're not as soft as they look!

Really....not as perilous as it looks, but a Joshua tree stabbed me on the other side of this boulder!

Just hanging around like a monkey

On top of the world!

Couldn't budge the thing....

Here's Adam in the nostril of Skull Rock!

Cholla Gardens, this is where the Mojave and Colorado Desert meet, quite a site!

Ok...when you read this sign...does it come across that it may not be the best place for a ginormous truck to go?  Any clues here?

Yup...that's right, the truck doesn't fit, well, maybe if half of it were hanging off the side of the mtn.  What we won't do to see a ghost time, and this was tame, but we won't go there!

Ahhh, yes looks can be deceiving can't they?

Joshua Tree National Park

Yesterday we visited Joshua Tree National Park, it's just a jump away from where we're at right now, and it's in the Mojave Desert.  We got ambitious and decided to take a hike to Lost Horse Mine which is about half way into the park.  Did I mention it's uphill?  Up, up, up we went....there was a fire some time ago so we encountered quite a few charred Joshua trees and Cactus.  We went through a canyon, and the wind that whipped through the canyon made us remember why we're NOT in MN!  So, we got close to the mine and found it all fenced off, oh well, such is life.  So we hiked back down the mtn!  All in all we went 3.65 miles, it was pretty in a different kind of way...I have some photos for you!

Desert Sunset

These people must really love boulders, check out the artwork painted on their house, talk about camouflage!

The rock formations at Joshua Tree were incredible

Desert view from our hike

Joshua tree's

Buddy says 'hi'

...that's all for today folks, going out to eat tonight for N's birthday, it really doesn't take much to get us excited around here!  Off to collect my laundry.  Happy Ground Hog Day!

Lake Perris and a One-Night Stand!

...that's right, we had a one-night stand at Lake Perris.  On Sunday we packed up and excitedly headed out of San Clemente for the mountains and Lake Perris, a huge campground where we were 1 of about 5 campers, and none within close proximity at all.  Buddy was excited, Adam was excited...he had hiking and fishing plans.  Oh how quickly our hopes were dashed.  No phone service, no internet.  It's sad when you leave a campground due to lack of connection, what has happened to us?  ha, little difficult to run a business without it though.

So that's the sad saga of our Lake Perris visit.  I did take photos for your enjoyment and Adam did go on a hike...he found a Geo Cache on some poor soul's grave up the mountain.  Nathan saw a coyote and a skunk got a little too close to the camper, thank goodness he didn't spray.

Tomorrow when my eyeballs quit spinning I'll tell you all about Joshua Tree!

La Jolla ( La Hoya)

Today we did a bit of exploring.  Weird things are still happening.  Adam really wants a bike, so we thought we'd go to some garage sales, we pulled up a few that were posted on Craigs list yesterday......nothing there, doors closed up tight....hmmm.

Next, we decided to go to a Bohemian market in San Diego, I heard it on the news but nothing there.

Last on our list for today was to visit the tide pools that we were at during our last visit to San Diego several years ago, they seemed to have vanished as well...BUT we found some other great pools as well as awesome waves at La Jolla Cove!  I have never seen such huge waves and would not want to be caught in them.  We found a few neat shells and some sea glass.

We also drove by the Del Mar race track which is where Figment raced before he was retired!  His race name was Gadabout!