Wednesday March 9 and Thursday March 10, 2011 San Clemente, CA

Our last day in San Clemente was uneventful. It was in the mid 70’s and the warmest day of the two weeks we have been here.

Gerri wanted to walk on the beach, so we went down the path from the campground. After the descent I wasn’t in any shape for much more walking. Gerri walked more to look for washed up glass or shells and I took another path back to the campground. This one was steeper than the one we went down.

We visited with Bill, Elaine and John until supper time.

On Thursday morning I heard Bill leave early. I got up at about eight and leisurely prepared the coach for travel. After the rain I had to clean up the power cord and hoses before putting them away.

We got underway at about 10:50 AM and after a couple of necessary stops we got home at about 5 PM. Gerri who drove her car back got home an hour or so sooner.

This was another great trip with no problems. We got to visit with friends and relatives that we don’t see too often.

Monday March 7 and Tuesday March 8, 2011 San Clemente State Beach, CA




Sunset Over Sata Catalina Island

 

The main order of business on Monday was to drop Kathleen and the girls off at John Wayne Airport for their flight home. We met them at the El Torrito restaurant and shared appetizers before the flight. After we saw them off Gerri and I drove the cars back to San Clemente. On the way I stopped and did a cache.

We had dinner with the Cavagnaros. Bill grilled a great roast; we had a jicama salad, green beans, mushrooms, baked potatoes and hot fresh bread. This was another great meal with great company.

My agenda for Tuesday was geocaching. I didn’t get up very early. Bill and John were out on their bike ride by the time I was moving around. I did four caches in the downtown area before Bill called and I picked him up at the RV Park. Bill and I did five more caches before going back to the RV Park. We were invited to dinner but decided to eat some of our own leftovers.

I went down to the end of the Park for sunset pictures. It was a clear day and I got some good pictures of the sunset over Santa Catalina Island.



Day is done, gone the sun

From the lakes, from the hills, from the sky

All is well, safely rest

God is near.

Fading light dims the sight

And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright

From afar, drawing near

Falls the night.

Thanks and praise for our days

Neath the sun, neath the stars, neath the sky

As we go, this we know

God is near.



Sunday March 6, 2011 San Clemente State Beach and Coronado Cays, CA

It's really going the other way

This morning Curtis and Brandon came by at about 8:30 to say goodbye and take one more trip to the beach.





At the Del



Kathleen and the girls came about 10 AM. Gerri took them to San Diego to visit John and Montyne on their boat. Before their arrival at the boat, they made a stop at the Hotel del Coronado.

The girls enjoyed running in the surf and afterwards warmed up with hot chocolate inside the hotel.

John gave everyone a tour of the yacht club, including taking the girls around the marina in his dingy. 



In John's dingy







At sea



















Saturday March 5, 2011 San Clemente State Beach, CA

Curtis and Brandon come over to the beach below the campground this morning. Curtis parked at the meters for a couple of hours. I drove down and spent some time with them.



Sonny's before the chaos



Today is the 90th birthday party for Glenna at Sonny’s. Gerri and Elaine had put party favors and flower arraignments for the tables. You need a program to know who the players are, but I will try to tell who all was there and who they are.





Wyatt and Emma



Todd and Jeannette Barker and their children; Emma and Wyatt came down from Long Beach. Todd is my oldest son and Glenna’s grandson. Jeannette’s father Walter Guefroy, joined us from San Diego. Emma made her great-grandmother a card, two bookmarks and wrote her a message in a small note book.



Brandon



Curtis Barker brought his son Brandon from Las Vegas. Curtis is our youngest son and of course is Glenna’s grandson.



Jeannette in the center, Lois to the left

 

Gerri, Kathleen, Neva, Shannon, Maddy and Melana



If you remember from yesterday’s blog, Kathleen Eagan and her daughters, Milana, Maddy and Shannon came down from Reno. Kathleen is our daughter. They are staying at a hotel in Anaheim. We loaned them the Jeep to get around in.

 Tony Pauza, Todd’s half brother, and his son Lorenzo came down from Valencia. Tony was my step son and his grandmother was a good friend of Glenna’s.



Lorenzo, Tony, Travi, Todd and Curtis

 Todd’s other half brother Travis Edwards came from Las Vegas to be at the party. He is like a grandson to Glenna.



Bill and Elaine Cavagnaro and John Halsey joined us at the party. They are our friends from Las Vegas and are camped next door to us at San Clemente State Beach.









Montyne and John Connolly with John Halsey





Bill, Elaine and Neva



Jean and Neva



Glenna’s former neighbor Jean Legacy in Santa Ana, who now lives in Laguna Niguel came and brought her daughter, Melanie and her daughter, Lauren. Melanie and Todd were playmates for many years.



Melanie and Lauren



Gerri’s mother, Neva Barnhart, came over from Escondido with Gerri’s sister Montyne Connolly and her husband John. Neva is spending the week at a time share at the Lawrence Welk Resort in Escondido. Tyne and John live near San Diego at Coronado Cays.





Bll, Arlene, Phil, and Kathleen







The party was rounded out by Bill and Arlene Leady, Arlene is Gerri’s cousin who lives in Dana Point. They came with Arlene’s sister Lois Wall and her husband Phil. Glenna knows Bill and Arlene from other family functions. She met Lois and Phil one year ago at their 50th wedding anniversary.

After the party and lunch at Sonny’s, many family members went to the Holiday Inn Express where Curtis and Brandon are staying. We visited and the younger kids went in the pool.



After that part of the party broke up Curtis and Brandon came back to the campground. Curtis, Brandon and I walked down toward the beach. I didn’t make it all the way and waited on a bench for them to come back up.

After supper Curtis and Brandon went back to the motel and the visiting was over. A great day and tribute to my 90 year old mother, Glenna.





The birthday girl



Friday March 4, 2011 San Clemente State Beach, CA

Gerri went to Disneyland to meet Kathleen and the G people and planned to return at about dark.

Gerri and Kathleen

Milana, Shannon and Maddy

Eagans at Disneyland

I just hung out around the park. I walked down to the cliff a couple of times. The last trip was to try to catch some bright colors at sunset. I missed it by a few minutes. I did get some passable pictures but not great ones. I think Gerri’s new Canon G11 does a better job with sunsets than my Nikon SLR.

Curtis and Brandon came over about 8:30 Pm. There was still a ranger at the gate but Curtis got an hour pass. As they were leaving Gerri got home and talked to them a little while.




Sunset at San Clemente

 

Thursday March 3, 2011 San Clemente State Beach, CA

Our daughter and three of the granddaughters (Milana, Maddy and Shannon) flew in today from Reno. Gerri and I drove both the Jeep and the Lincoln to John Wayne Airport to meet them. They plan to spend Friday at Disneyland and come to San Clemente for the birthday party on Friday. We had lunch at the El Torrito across the street from the airport. After that Kathleen and the girls took the Jeep and checked into their hotel near Disneyland.

On the way back to San Clemente Gerri and I stopped at Sports Authority to buy me some long sleeve, light weight shirts. I am trying to wear long sleeves more of the time, both to protect and hide my arms.

We visited with the Cavagnaros for awhile and then had a supper of chicken enchiladas.

Elaine finished putting together the party favors for Saturday. They came out great.

I believe Gerri plans to meet Kathleen and the girls at Disneyland tomorrow.

Wednesday March 2, 2011 San Clemente, CA

We didn’t do much on Tuesday. Gerri still isn’t 100% over her cold. I did balance the checking account. I also printed labels for the party favors Gerri plans to give out Saturday. In the afternoon I planned to go caching. I turned on the TV for Glenna and a Gunsmoke episode was on and I watched it. When the show was over it was almost 5 PM. I visited with Bill and Elaine for awhile and decided to see if I could get a picture of the sunset. I walked down to the point at the end of the campground. I would have gotten a better shot, but didn’t remember the camera settings until the sun was almost gone.

When I’m in the car driving around I listen to old time radio, I don’t want to rot my mind with news programs. After seeing the Gunsmoke episode on TV I thought of the actress who played Miss Kitty on the radio, Georgia Ellis. Wanting to see a picture of her, I Googled the name and while searching I found a web site that has all the radio episodes of Gunsmoke and other radio shows. http://www.enteringthemindseye.com/gunsmoke.html

On Wednesday I took Glenna to a hair appointment and Gerri and I went grocery shopping. We went to pickup Gerri’s car and visited with Bill and Arlene in Dana Point.

Monday February 28, 2011, San Clemente State Beach

No rain today just blue skies with a cool breeze. The mud is drying up around the coach. I spent some time talking to a neighbor. It turns out he is a retired policeman from Riverside, CA. Bill and John Came back from their bike ride about noon. Bill had to go to Lowe’s and Gerri wanted to go to Staples or Office Max to look for items she wanted for party favors for Glenna’s 90th birthday party this Saturday. Elaine went with Gerri and I. Our first stop was Staples. I saw that there were two nearby caches so I dropped them off. The first cache was at the corner of the parking lot, when I got there I met two other cachers that had been unable to find the cache. After some conversation and a short search we found it. We then went to the next one and made short work of it. I picked up Geri and Elaine and after stops at Costco and Office Max we headed back to the RV park.

There was a nearby cache that Bill and Elaine had already found, so I went after it on my own. There was no parking near it so I had to walk several hundred yards. I had no problem finding the cache and soon was on my way home.

In the evening I turned on the TV hoping to watch an old western. The Encore Western Channel wouldn’t come on, a message on the screen said I wasn’t subscribed.. I thought that was odd since we had been watching it yesterday. We hadn’t watched TV in the Motor Home since September and earlier I notice that we were only getting the major network feeds from the west coast, we had been getting both east and west. I called DirecTV. They have this really annoying voice system that never seems to understand what I say. I finally got an agent on the phone. He told me that I didn’t subscribe to the Encore channels. I explained I had watched a movie on Encore Westerns until 12:45 this morning. His response was that was because I had taken a free offer in December for a package that included the Encore channels and that the package expired on March 2nd. I pointed out to him that today was February 28th and March 2nd was still three days away. I also pointed out to him that this system was in a RV and we hadn’t used it during December and would have had no reason to subscribe to additional service. Finally he transferred me to another agent who said the reason I had Encore yesterday and not today was because of a three day promotion that ended yesterday. Remember the old saying that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing? She told me the only way to the Encore channels is to subscribe to Starz movie channels. I explained I didn’t want the Starz channels, she insisted there was no other way to get Encore, She gave me some pricing information but for the question about distant network service (DNS) she had to transfer me to another department. I explained to that agent that we had been getting both east and west feeds for several years. Eventually he got around to telling me that the programming had changed (read that as a price increase) and that in November DirecTV had sent out mail about choosing one or both coasts under the new pricing and that I hadn’t responded. By my not responding I was assigned the west coast because of my billing address. I remember the card and know I call DirecTV at the time and inquired about the change. The agent had record of my call but said I hadn’t specified which coast I wanted. I told him I wanted both because we travel in the east. He said that couldn’t be done because of a law change now prevents customers from having feeds from both east and west coasts. I ask him about changing the DNS when we were in the east, he said I couldn’t do that because by address was in the west. I gave up after awhile, deciding to call back and deal with a different agent. I don’t know why they can’t sell you channels you want without packaging them with channels you aren’t interested in.

After a late supper, I checked my e-mail, finances and went to bed. Dealing with DirecTV is as exhausting as dealing with Verizon.