It has been a little strange these last few days, knowing that we were so close to home and yet still planning to spend a few days to get there. California definitely had a familiar feeling to it - maybe it was the traffic.
On Wednesday we stopped to do some Christmas shopping and to take time for Greg & Mason to complete an RV project that had been in the works for some time: installing a retractable air hose reel behind an outside compartment (used for inflating tires etc...) It turned out great and will be a useful addition.
On Thursday we rented a few novelty bikes and cruised around in a brief window of sunshine. We had stayed in Ventura near the beach and so that was our next stop. The impending rain and cool air temperature did nothing to deter the die hard skim boarders. And I guess this beach replaced the former best ever skim boarding beach in Alabama, despite the cold water.
We then headed into Santa Barbara to visit Toni & Rich Hulme and family (Greg's sister). Originally we were trying to time this visit with a NASA rocket launch at Vandenburg AFB. However it had suffered delay after delay and finally moved beyond our ability to stick around, sadly. We left the kids to pizza and monopoly with their cousin Jenna, and we went to dinner with Toni and their oldest Chris & his wife Jen. We had a great time, topped off with a talent show after dinner (always inspiring to my kids).
Friday we headed up the coast and caught a tour at the Hearst Castle which was awesome. Our guide was really strange and probably gave us more child-rearing advice than information about the Castle, but the kids enjoyed it - especially the swimming pools. We found out that for a large enough donation you can have a swimming party in that pool - tempting. Greg & I went for a final "RV Date" at the Black Cat Bistro in Cambria. It was truly excellent food (and a great way to top off 3 months of what I like to call indiscriminate feasting with no commensurate physical activity to balance it out - yikes!).
No comments:
Post a Comment