Two Catalinas

We took our three day cruise to Catalina, California (the first Catalina) and Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico on January 18th thru the 22nd.  While the cruise was, indeed, a cruise, and it was better by far than any cruise I took while in the Navy, I can't say that it met our expectations as far as what we thought it would be like.  Katie wanted to know if she'd be able to take a cruise at all because she's prone to motion sickness, and she found out that with the help of Bonine and ginger tablets, she was able to ..."stomach" the rocking motions.  So with that bridge crossed, we'll set about figuring out if we're gonna take a cruise get to Alaska in the future.  Way in the future.

The ship we went on was Carnival's Imagination, an 855' long ship with a crew of 920, capable of carrying up to 2,634 passengers, with 14 decks.  A big ship!  Service aboard the ship was very good, with every crew member we met having a smile for us and wanting to do what they could to make our cruise as comfortable as possible.  And for the most part, they did a great job. 

We just didn't feel like it was the right scene for us though, kinda like we didn't quite fit in.  And our dinner food wasn't to our liking either, with the exception of our last night on board.  It looked nice though, so the appearance was good.  And the serving staff was great, and would've done anything to help us out, even bring us other food.  But we just couldn't see eating more that we weren't sure we'd like either.

We took excursions at each of the ports we visited (Catalina Island & Ensenada, Mexico) with the tour of Catalina being more exciting than Ensenada, two days later.  It was in a 50's Flxible bus so it was a little nostalgic, and the tour driver told us about the history of the company that made it.  As most of the island is mountainous, very shortly after we boarded the bus, it was taking us climbing up the steep hills on a narrow road that was built for stage coaches back when the Banning family owned the island.  The bus driver told us about them and how they fit into the history of the island and Los Angeles, along with the next owner of the island, the gum magnate William Wrigley, Jr., and now the current one, the Catalina Conservancy.  I didn't think that the tour would actually take more than an hour, but it filled up more than three hours easily as we meandered on the back roads of the island, taking us to the west side of the island, through the new winery that's being built by Jeff Rusack (he married Allison Wrigley, grand daughter of William Wrigley, Jr.), and finally to the Airport in the Sky. The tour ended with the bus going back down the road that we went up, which is lined with Eucalyptus trees on the cliff side.  The road winds around the hills with lots of sharp curves so the bus couldn't go very fast at all.  But you can see what that narrow, stage coach road looks like here,

and also in this video that was taken by someone going down the hill to Avalon on a bicycle.  We didn't go nearly as fast as this cyclist did.

On the day we went to Ensenada, we got off the ship twice.  The first time was just to go walk around the city to see what we could see.

There was a Catholic Church that we went to see because it was something we could see from the ship, that I didn't get a good picture of before I left the ship and this picture is of it when we're a couple of blocks away. 

By looking on the internet, I found out that it is the Our Lady of  Guadalupe Catholic Church.  Big on the outside, and pretty big on the inside as well.

After that, we just wandered around a little looking for the touristy shopping district after that, and on the way, we were in the mood for soft serve ice cream.  And being as we found the local, friendly, soft serve ice creamery, we stopped in to get some.  Yep, McDonalds.  Not as good as DQ, but it works still the same.

Ironically enough, they didn't want to take our $20 bill although they had the exchange rate posted on the wall, and the person in front of us used US dollars to pay for his fare.  Oh, well!  Can't say that I really needed the extra calories right then anyway.

We went back to the ship and enjoyed one of the hot tubs while the majority of the other passengers were off the ship, then headed out for the afternoon excursion, which was going to the blow hole, called La Bufadora by the locals.  The tour guide on the bus was very knowledgeable of the area and told us lots of facts, such as: fuel for cars and trucks is controlled by the government so shopping for the best price doesn't really mean anything; the area of Ensenada is three times the size of Mexico City, yet has a population of less than 1/2 a million while Mexico City's population is over 8 million; much of the vegetables that are eaten by the US are grown in Ensenada.  There were other facts that she told to everyone, but I just don't remember them all!  (Darn the bad luck!)

The blowhole, La Bufadora, is a marine geyser, one of four such geysers in the world.  When we first got to the viewing platform, there wasn't much going on.  I mean we could hear it blowing, but there wasn't any water being shot up in the air.  Kinda like we could hear something BIG breathing.  Then it started getting more active, with more and more mist shooting up.  The tour guide said that once every seven "breaths" water would shoot up.  I didn't count, but I think that she was correct as water did shoot up about that often for the amount of time we were there.  If ya follow this link for La Bufadora, you can see bunches of pictures, which are probably better than what I took, which looks like below, or you can watch a youtube video here to see what it's like from the water.

I didn't enjoy the walk from the bus to the viewing platform and back as we were constantly badgered and harangued by the vendors along the way to buy their stuff.  Not that the stuff wasn't good, or that they wouldn't have made a good deal for us.  I just prefer to be left alone unless I'm needing help picking out what I want when I go shopping.  And I wasn't shopping then.  But it was like a swap meet - flea market kinda place, but with more aggressive vendors.  Then again, maybe I'm just getting old and don't wanna be bothered like that, ya think?

There was a big cat in one of the eateries along the way, and I snapped a picture before the owner told me not to.  But I'm glad that he had a leash on still the same.  Ya can't see it as it hidden behind the cat.

I didn't think to ask what it was, anyone know?  I'm thinking a Jaguar.  Seemed friendly enough, didn't pounce on me when I was about four feet in front of him getting ready to take my second picture. 

Shortly after arriving back at the ship just before 4 PM, it pulled out, bound for Long Beach, Ca.  Now one of the TV channels that the ship provided was different aspects of the ship, like a live view from the bridge of where we were going, what was happening on the Lido deck, a map of where we were, and other assorted pieces of information, with one of them being the speed of the ship.  Prior to that night, I watched it because there just wasn't much on that I wanted to watch.  And the speed that the ship would usually go at was about 6.2 knots, which equals about 7.13 mph.  You know, just a nice lazy pace as there was plenty of time to get to where the ship was going to next.  Well, as we had more than a few miles or so to go that night (Google Maps says 193 miles), I guess the boys and girls on the bridge found the gas pedal and really stepped on it.  We were doing as high as 13 knots (almost 15 mph!!!!) at times during the night so we'd be able to get to Long Beach at 6:20 the next morning, which was Thursday.  Not exactly break neck speed, but it was moving much faster than it had previously.  

We were able to depart the ship unannounced shortly after they put the gangway up to the third deck, sometime around 8:30 or so.  Katie's sister, Karen, picked us up a few minutes later.  There were many things to do that day, so we sped through getting the dogs from their kennel, having breakfast with Karen and her husband, Bill, driving to the moho and getting food to eat in the moho, and driving to the second Catalina, Catalina Spa & RV Resort in Desert Hot Springs, Ca.  After very little time, we found a spot near the edge of the resort so we could leave the resort easily to walk the dogs without leashes, and then just collapsed as we were both quite tired.  Katie from all the things that we'd been doing, and me from all the excitement of the ship going twice as fast as it had previously.  

Didn't even look for the hot tub until the next day, so ya know how tired we really were.  Now that we've been here six days, we're finding the resort to be very nice.  The pools are wonderful, the hot tub is very hot, and the folks here seem to be nice as well.  I might add that the pools and hot tubs have water supplied by a their mineral hot springs well at 130 degrees, and it eventually gets to the hot tubs where it is changed several times a day, and to the pool where the water is changed several times a week.  The water doesn't stink like water from other hot springs might, which adds to the enjoyment of being in it.  So far, there've been LOTS of adults in the adult pool about 100' away from us every night since we've been here.  I think that we'll be very happy staying here until Sunday.  If you click on the link above, you'll be able to see pictures of it, and if ya click the right buttons, even see a slide show of what it's like. I recommend this resort if you're wanting a good place to stay in this neck of the woods... er, desert I mean.

We'd seen Pickleball played when we were in Wilderness Lakes in Menifee, Ca., some time ago, and I told Katie that I'd taken a Pickleball class when I was living in Portland, Oregon.  She was intrigued enough at what we saw that she bought a set of paddles and balls for it a couple of Christmas' ago, and we hadn't thought much about getting them used last year because we were so busy with work, and so far this year because we just hadn't gotten around to it.  However, a couple of nights ago, we met a woman in the pool who plays it daily at the courts here, and invited us to play.  I went last night and had a blast, and Katie went with me to the morning session and had fun as well.  I'm thinking we'll be doing it again since it's as much fun as it is.  Our biggest problem so far is that we keep thinking that the paddle and ball will have the same characteristics that racquetball stuff has: the paddle is shorter, and the ball isn't nearly as lively.  But I'm thinking that we'll get used to it if we play it often enough.

Ok, that's about it for now.  We'll be staying here until Sunday when we travel to Lake Havasu in Arizona.  Be blessed.

Bolsa Chica State Beach, here we come!

OK!  How y'all been?  Hoping well.  We're getting back into the swing of things in the moho again.  We had been feeling that it was odd not going to work everyday since we've been doing it since the end of April of last year.  So we were kinda lost at times in the last couple of weeks in that we just didn't quite know what to do with ourselves.  It's starting to pass though.  Whew!  I got some nifty wood working stuff for Christmas, and have started to use some of it, and doing some other things, hopefully this blog as well.  Gotta get some more pix still.  Darn the bad luck!

Wilderness Lakes was nice, not just for the hot tub and the water fowl that like to talk politics at weird hours, but there were a lot of good folks there, and we'd see them everyday when we'd walk around the park, which was about 1.2 miles.  We've decided to take part in a 5k or two, maybe more, later this year, and it was great way to start training.  For those of you who've done a 5k already, if you've got some hints or something along those lines on how to train an old man who hasn't run any distance for 30 years, please send them.  Thanks.

The campers and staff at Wilderness Lakes seemed quite nice for the most part.  Got to talk to our neighbors a little, and found out that one of them was gonna be a camp host at Harris Beach State Park in Oregon during the time that we're gonna be there.  So we'll connect up with them as well while we're there.  The other neighbor we didn't get to talk with much, but they had very friendly dogs and came to greet me when I was outside one time. 

As I said last week, we were backed up next to the a canal where there were ducks, geese, and other water fowl that I wasn't able to identify (not that I know those birds well anyway!).  One of those unidentified birds acted like he owned our campsite and the new neighbors.  In the picture below, it's the bird on the power pedestal, and from what I can tell it's a night heron.  This bird seemed to like to perch on the power pedestal, the neighbors picnic table, our picnic table, the neighbors tent, etc..., it was always in the area.  Sorry the picture is so bad, didn't quite have the nack for getting the good picture at that time.  Darn the bad luck!

After we dropped Jeff off at Teen Challenge Benedict Castle in Riverside the previous Saturday, we picked him up a week later to spend the day with him.  It was good to talk to him and find out about his first week of work, which he feels pretty good about.  We went to the Creation Museum in Santee, Ca., spending more than a couple hours there, then went to see my nephew, David, in San Diego spending several hours with him and having a great meal before traveling back to Riverside to drop Jeff off again.

Although the hot tub at Wilderness Lakes was hard to leave, we did so Sunday morning first to go to worship with Jeff at Benedict Castle, and then to travel the 75 miles to Bolsa Chica State Beach on the coast of California, getting here around 4 PM.  The drive wasn't as hairy as we've taken part in on other freeways of southern California, although there was more than enough traffic for us, as we prefer the back country roads with little traffic.  Upon getting here, we were able to pull into our spot and get set up with a minimal amount of trouble which was in the form of a puddle in the back of the space we pulled into.  This puddle precluded me from hooking up the water hose as I just didn't feel like stepping into the puddle and getting my feet wet.  Yes, you can color me a wimp as I'm at the beach now and should be ok with getting my feet wet, right?  Nope!  The puddle was from a storm that had gone through earlier Saturday, but was gone later Sunday night.  Not to worry, I connected the water hose Monday morning, although we had plenty of fresh water in our tank still the same.  

For those of you who haven't been to Bolsa Chica, it's basically an asphalt parking lot for RVs as you can see in the picture below.  The hookups are for water and electric only, but the dump station is in another parking lot on the way out.

The view of the ocean out our front window looks like below.  Although we're about 100 yards away from the water, it's still a great place to be near to it, and Katie wanted to come here for that very reason.

If you look closely at the above picture, you should notice a wanna-be barricade pylon in the fence opening allowing you to get to a walkway, or to get to the beach.  When we got up Monday morning, we found road de-constructing machinery all over the place, and they took out the pavement of the walkway which the pylon is keeping folks from getting to.  Currently, it looks like the below picture.  I'm thinking they'll be putting asphalt down tomorrow and the walkway will be opened for public usage on Thursday (two days from today).  Not all of the 3.9 mile walkway is torn up right now, just the part in front of the campground and a couple of other parking lots south of where we're at right now.

Katie is spending time with her sister, Karen, today doing some shopping for our upcoming cruise starting on Sunday.  Having cruised in the Navy, I'm looking forward to all the things that my ship, the USS Wabash, didn't have.  I'm thinking it won't be hard to find many improvements in shipboard life from what I had in the Navy 30 years ago when it was a luxury to have the middle bunk of three bunks!

Not a whole lot else is happening right now, with the exception of folks waling by, or driving their rigs into the campground (parking lot, really, ok?).  Looks like our neighbor to the south is coming in and they're getting ready to park next to us.  I'm gonna watch.

Have a blessed day.

WOW!  In checking the last entry in my blog, I can see that it's been about a year since my last entry!  Betcher wonderin' why it's been so long, huh?  Lemme' see here...  Would ya believe that I've been busy?  How about would ya believe that I didn't have good internet access?  How about I just didn't feel like it because there were other things that I wanted to do more?  How about all of the above?  

The last post had us getting Katie's Dad, Ken, into a different care facility for him.  It was a good place with good folks in it, and Ken seemed fairly happy in it as well.  However, a couple of weeks after he got there, he fell out of bed and broke his hip.  He had the hip repaired, but his health had started to decline by then, and he passed away on April 16th.  Katie and I stayed at his place until the end of April when we had to leave for a job at Red Stone Cabins in Kodachrome Basin State Park, near Bryce National Park, in Utah.  We got most of his stuff sold or taken care of with help from Katie's brother, Ken, her sister, Karen, and her brother in law, Bill, so when we left there was very little remaining to be taken care of.  

The job that we went to was at Red Stone Cabins where we cleaned the six guest cabins, and worked in the camp store for both the guests there and the campers who were camping at Kodachrome Basin State Park campground.  It was a paying job that lasted for five months, which was a good point.  One of the bad points is that it was a 200 mile round trip to go to a grocery store like Smith's or Walmart.  There were closer markets, but I think we were spoiled for certain items and really wanted those things at times.  

While we were there, the town of Tropic, Utah, which was about 14 miles away from where we were staying, had its' first farmer's market.  Or it attempted to do so at least, as there were several other events going on in other places that took a lot of the folks away from Tropic.  What's more, it was held early enough that there was no produce that any farmers brought to the market.  As Katie's been painting for some time now, she finally decided to come out of the closet and try to sell her paintings.  Within the first ten minutes of the market being open, she'd sold two of her paintings, and had a commission for another painting!  As there were very few folks attending the market, it was a blessing that she sold what she did, but that was all she sold also.  Still the same, she's a professional artist now with business cards and a website (www.katiedickson-art.com), and hopefully some tax deductions as well.  

We ended our employment at Red Stone Cabins in the end of September thinking that we'd be starting work at Amazon.com in Fernley, Nv., at the first of October for the Christmas season.  That didn't quite happen as business wasn't quite what they'd planned it to be, and they didn't need us until the 2nd half of October. With that much time available, Katie found out about an art festival in Escalante, Ut., which is about 43 miles NE on scenic hwy 12, and decided to take part in it by competing in the plein air competition.  While, she didn't win anything, her painting sold which was another feather in her cap.  While we were in Escalante, we stayed at the Shooting Star RV Park, which was an outstanding place to stay.  There are several (vintage?) Airstream travel trailers which the owners rent out, in addition to several RV spaces available to folks like us.  The biggest thing they have is a drive-in movie screen which is used three nights a week showing movies.  AND there are vintage cars that you can sit in to watch the movies for that extra nostalgia feeling.  Excellent place to stay if ya happen to be going to Escalante, or to the area.

We were due to be in Fernley, Nv., on the 19th of October, so between the time we left Escalante and needed to be in Fernley, we spent time with Amanda and her family.  We got to Fernley on the 19th to get ourselves all set up for which Amazon had no trouble paying for.  We had a week of training, and then started working for real.  While it was much harder work than just about anything we'd ever done previously, working for Amazon.com has many perks, among them paying for campground rent and getting good pay, and being treated fairly good also.  We walked several miles each day in a 500,000 square foot warehouse stowing items in bins that other folks would come along and take out so they could be sent to the Amazon.com shoppers.  Had to do stretching exercises every morning and after lunch, and also had to do mandatory overtime several weeks making for a work week of 50 hours.  Met some good people, most of whom were about our age or older, but there were a few that were much younger as well, all of them living in their RVs for the season.  Although it snowed in Fernley last year, it didn't snow this year while we were there, although it did get down to 9 degrees one night, and wasn't always a whole lot warmer.  

On the 18th of December, we left Fernley to travel almost 500 miles south to Redlands, Ca., so we could see Jeff graduate from Teen Challenge Ministry Institute, and move him to his new residence at Benedict Castle, in Riverside, Ca., on the 21st.  On the 22nd, we left southern California again traveling 700 miles north to spend the next two weeks with our daughter and her family north of Salt Lake City celebrating Christmas, New Year, and the 2nd birthday of our granddaughter, Aubrey.  On the 4th of January, we left Salt Lake City to take Jeff back to his new job, which he started on the 5th.  There was WAY to much traveling being done in the last month.  Glad to be in one spot again.

So we picked up the moho out of storage in Cherry Valley, and drove it about 30 miles to Menifee, Ca., ending up at Wilderness Lakes Campground, which we've been to several other times.  Wilderness Lakes has water ...for lack of a better term, ditches that run through a little of it, and it's stocked with fish, and is used by ducks, geese, and other birds (The website calls them canals... But they're really ...ditches, ok?)  We've never camped by the water, but thought about it this time because there was a couple of spots open by the water when we were picking out our spot.  

Let me back track a little here to say a little bit about the geese that are here, which are Canada geese.  When we hit the road in 2011, we worked at Adventureland amusement park in Altoona, Ia, which had several water features in the park, which attracted the geese as well as other water foul.  I hadn't thought much about them, but found out that they're more than a little vocal at times.  What's more, when they would be on the track of the park's train which circles one of the lakes, them geese would just sit on the track like they owned it, and then get up and out of the way only to make sounds which, to me, sounded much like someone muttering nasty little mutterings at the train driver ...which was me.  Strangely enough, even though three years have passed since we were exposed to them, those birds haven't changed at all, even though we're some 1700 miles away from Altoona, Ia, the same thing is still happening with those geese! 

We became reacquainted with how vocal those geese are on our first night at about 10 PM when they started holding several discussions on ...politics I'm thinking right next to our rig.  When one discussion would end, ducks would immediately quack as if they were saying "ha ha ha!", and this happened several times over the course of an hour or so.  I don't think that they solved any problems with their discussions though as when I got up the next morning, our political situation was still the same.  Since then, they haven't had those discussions near our rig, and I'm hoping that they've been holding them elsewhere, and they'll continue to hold them there.

Ok, so I've brought y'all up to date.  Don't know when I'll be blogging again, but as we're supposed to be doing more traveling this year, I'm hoping to keep myself busy with various projects, blogging included.  Have a blessed day.

Charley