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.

San Clemente, CA

February 25, 2011;
Gerri’s cold is worse. I went to the store for Nyquil and cough drops and to Walgreen’s to fill a prescription for cough syrup. Later in the afternoon I took Gerri’s car to her cousin Arlene’s house in Dana Point. We didn’t want it left on the street outside the campground. Bill followed me in the Jeep and brought me back to the campground. Gerri ask me to go to Costco, I ran a search and set the destination into the Garmin. Since I thought I knew the way I sat off with out looking at the GPS. When I turned off I-5 into Dana point the Gremlin tried to direct me back onto I-5. I thought maybe the store in Dana point was closed, that is until I saw it on the left. I had recently updated but the Costco never in Dana Point never showed up. The Gremlin strikes again.
Bill and Elaine had Glenna and I over for supper. Later Bill, Elaine and I played a game of Quidler. I had an usual run of luck and won easily.
Saturday was a slow day with some rain. Bill and I went caching. We found eight caches and DNF’ed one. Today, February 27 is Glenna’s 90th birthday. Jeannette called and the kids wished Glenna happy birth day. Later Dana called and Curtis and his children sang happy birthday to Glenna. Bill and Elaine invited Glenna and I over for supper again. They had champagne before dinner and a birthday cake afterward. After we had eaten Sean called from Utah. I told him it was his Great Grandmother’s birthday. He ask to talk to her and sang happy birthday to her.
I think Gerri is felling a little better, she ate and took a shower this evening.

Palm Springs, February 20-24, 2001

Summer before last we had Kevin Mallory replace the cellular blinds in our RV wit MCD duo shades. At that time he hadn’t been trained to install the shades across the windshield. Because of illness on my part I missed going to Quartzsite when he was there last year and when he was at the ACA Rally in Las Vegas he had to measure our coach because MCD wouldn’t ship with out exact measurements of the couch that the shade are to installed in. This year we were in Mexico most of the time that Kevin had shop set up in Quartzsite. This year He was a month in Quartzsite and a month in Palm Springs, so I arraigned for him to get the shades ther. He had taken the measurements in Las Vegas at the Rally.

I made reservations to stay at the Thousand Trails Preserve in Palm Desert and scheduled Kevin to come there. I brought the coach to the house on Thursday, planning to clean it up and loaded for the trip. The plan was for me to go to Palm springs and the meet Gerri and my mom at San Clemente State Beach. They will drive Gerri’s car to San Clemente so we will have a second vehicle when we have Kathleen and the kids there in March. I didn’t clean the outside of the RV because rain was predicted over the weekend. We didn’t get much loaded because we had Brandon and Vanessa while Curtis and Dana went to Texas.

I Left for Palm springs Sunday morning at about 9:30 AM. I went by way of I-15 to the Nipton turnoff to the Cima/Kelso road to Amboy and then on to Palm Springs via 29 Palms and Yucca Valley. I had rain a couple of times and there was snow on the mountains. There were spots of snow on the ground in Yucca Valley.

I got the Thousand Trails Park at about 3:30 PM and with the help of a neighbor I got backed into the space. Once parked the set up was quick. I talked to a few of the neighbors, including a couple with the same model coach as ours. They were Todd and Kay Hallawell from Virginia.

Kevin came on Monday the 21st and installed the new blinds across the windshield. I still have the side windows to do in the driver and passenger areas. On Tuesday morning he fixed the solar system. This finished all the work he could do this trip. I still have some things on my list for when we go east this summer besides the blinds. I didn’t do much on Tuesday afternoon.

On Wednesday the 23rd I went geocaching and managed to bag 14 and DNFed two.

Thursday the plan was to drive to San Clemente to meet Grri and my mom for our sometimes annual trip with Bill and Elaine Cavagnaro. The Gremlin (Garmin 7200 in the RV) routed me west on I-10 to CA60, to I-215 to I-15 to CA 76 west t I-5 and north to San Clemente. A little roundabout to suit me but I arrived at the campground at about 2 PM. The hard part was passing Nessie Burgers just of I-15 on CA76. What really kept me from stopping was the fact it was the lunch hour was under way both the eating area and parking lot were full to overflowing.

Our space at San Clemente was number 12. With trees along the drive I had a difficult time getting the coach i. I picked up a campground map and marked more desirable spots. I need to find the grounds keeper and have the tree by the exit of the space pruned back before I leave. Either that or do it myself, I really dislike limbs brushing the sides of the coach.

Gerri and Glenna arrived at about 3:40. I had talked the ranger at the gate into letting her drive the car in for unloading without paying the $15.00 for the extra vehicle. We had to park the Lincoln on the street. Until we can take it to Cousin Arlene’s in Dana Point.

Gerri had the starting of a cold and it got very bad during the night. The worst I have ever seen her.

Los Cabos 2011

2011 Cabo Trip


January 16 through February 8, 2011

This year my mother, Glenna, didn’t accompany us on or annual trip to Los Cabos. We made arrangements for Barbara Smith to fly in from Iowa to stay with her at the house. Barbara is Wendy Barnhart’s sister, gerri's sister-in-law. Barbara came to the house on Saturday the 15th and we briefed her on things around the house and Glenna’s routine.

I won’t be writing about what we did on some days since while in Los Cabos are pretty much the same routine. I will try to hit some highlights.

January 16;

This year we decided to fly to Los Cabos from San Diego. Almost any airport is preferable to McCarran. Gerri and I drove to San Diego, leaving home about 10:30 AM. Our plan was to take advantage of Montyne and John Connolly’s hospitality on their boat at Coronado Cays for the night before our flight. Montyne is Gerri’s sister and of course John is her brother-in-law. Montyne was off to Ireland or someplace, she is a flight attendant for Omni Airlines. San Diego is a straight drive from Las Vegas via I-15 to the I-5 and they intersect just south of Coronado. We got to the boat at about 5:30 PM. John grilled chicken breasts and Italian sausage. It was an excellent meal and good company. We slept well while being gently rocked by the boat’s movement.

January 17;

We were up early because we had to be at the airport at 8 AM. John drove us and dropped us off in plenty of time to catch our 10 AM flight. Man I hate flying, empty your pockets remove your shoes and belt and still have to go through the scanner and just when we thought we had rid our suitcases of everything that wasn’t allowed in our carry on’s we were advised to open one of our carryon bags. At the last minute we had placed our stainless steel coffee cups and the scanner can’t see through the cups…so, after the agent swabbed our fingers and hands he checked out the cups and then we were able to proceed.. The flight to Cabo was smooth and uneventful. After deplaning we caught a shuttle to the Hacienda Del Mar arriving there at about 2:30 PM. As luck would have it our room was ready, which was unusual. Our room was a one bedroom with two baths, on the ground floor room 1411. We had a garden view with a nice backyard with a covered patio besides the one just outside our door.

After checking in and getting moved in we walked around the pool area of the Hacienda. We finally settled on supper at Tomatoes. It was Italian Buffet night. It was another great meal.

Internet access at the Hacienda Del Mar is about 18 USD, but we get 30 minutes free each day. Before leaving Las Vegas we had purchased a calling plan that gave us 700 minutes anywhere in North America. We didn’t want a repeat of our 2008 $600+ cell bill. Before leaving Las Vegas I inquired about the use of our broadband system in Mexico and was told if it could pick-up a cell tower it would work. I turned it on and retrieved e-mail. While we were walking to supper, I got a text message that we had incurred $50 in usage fee’s. Gerri quickly went to the room and turned off the MiFi unit.
January 18;

This was our first full day in Los Cabos. We started by doing nothing except reading. Before this trip was over I read ten novels. We did manage to make it to the pool for Mexican Bingo, Lotteria. We didn’t win any games.

January 19;

I rented a car for a week after the Mexican Bingo games. We still haven’t won a game.

January 20;

We drove to the airport in San Jose Del Cabo and picked up Gerri’s mother, Neva. We had supper at Pancho’s in downtown Cabo San Lucas after unloading Neva’s luggage.

January 21;

I did two caches in Cabo San Lucas today. I was checking around a pay phone outside Pancho’s when a man across the street motioned to me and said it was inside Pancho’s. A waiter pointed the container out. I met a couple of other cachers who had just signed the log and we talked for awhile. The funny thing was that the cache was about 12’ away from where we ate dinner yesterday.

January 23;

Moving day. Our first week which was an exchange through RCI was over. Our next week was our regular week at Hacienda Del Mar as owners. We were allowed to stay in our first room until the next unit was ready. At about noon we moved to a unit on the fourth floor of building 11, unit 1141. This was one of only two units on the top floor. The rest of the floor is occupied by a restaurant, Girasoles de la Hacienda.

January 25; We had to get up early today. We booked a whale watching trip and had to be at the marina at 8 AM. The trip started with an excellent breakfast. We saw a lot of whales, but I was only able to catch one whale tail with the camera. We got some great pictures off the arch and Lover’s Beach. There were a lot of boats out so it was difficult to get a picture without them between us and the whales and the arch, but we did manage a few.

January 26; Today we decided to do some shopping in Cabo San Lucas and have fish tacos at Solomon’s Landing. We also did some souvenir shopping and took pictures around the downtown area.

January 27;

Following our plan to dine a new to us restaurants, we ate at an Italian restaurant downtown called Doc. Excellent food, Gerri and Neva said the lasagna was the best they ever had.

January 28;

Unlike most of the days here in Cabo, there was no sun today. Of course that doesn’t stop our reading or the Lotteria games.

Both Gerri and I won a game of Mexican Bingo.

February 1;

This was another moving day, this time to the Club Regina in San Jose Del Cabo. While checking in we noticed that the Adult Pool where we spend the most of our time was closed for repairs.

February 4; We took a taxi into San Jose for shopping and lunch. We took pictures at the plaza and fountain and visited several shops. We had a late lunch at the El Herradero restaurant. This was another new place for us.

February 7;

Going home day. We checked out at 10 AM and settled up our bill. After that we took a taxi to the airport. We arrived before the Alaska Airline counter opened at 11:30 AM. Mexico searches all checked on luggage on out going fights. They have the usual security procedures before the boarding areas. Off with our shoes and belt, empty your pockets, put everything in bins and walk through the metal detector. After check in and going through security we still had almost two hours before our flight. We did get to board early since Neva had put on her ticket that she needed extra time to board, so we were among the first to board.

Another smooth flight, for some reason it takes longer to fly back to San Diego than it does going in the other direction. After going through US Customs and picking up our bags we contacted John to come pick us up. On the way back to the boat, John took us on a tour of Coronado. Neva had never been there before. We also drove further south to check out a nearby RV park and the town of Imperial Beach.

We had supper with John and Montyne at the Coronado Cays Yacht Club. It was an excellent dinner. For desert we had the last of the Christmas cake that John and Montyne had helped Neva make.

February 8;

We left San Diego after photos around the Yacht Club. We were underway at about 10:30 AM for the long drive to Las Vegas. We had planned to stop for a Nessie Burger in Escondido, but it was too early. We stopped for fuel and relief at the Costco in Victorville. We opted to eat at the IN and Out, Neva had never been to an In and Out. By the time we dropped Neva off at her house it was after dark. After we got home Wendy came to pick up Barbara.

This concluded our 2011 Mexican adventure. Gerri has posted several pictures on her facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=1616875321&aid=92552