Sunday August 30, 2015 Morgan Hill, CA

We were up having our coffee in time to tune into the webcast of Bible study and then the worship services from Oakey Boulevard.  We saw Keith and Alice leave for breakfast and then come back.

Keith worked in the afternoon.  I went geocaching and found five caches.  No DNF's for a change.  I spotted a theme park near the RV park.  Maybe we will go there next time.











At six we went into Morgan Hill for dinner at the Sicilia In Bocca.  It was even better this time.  Keith had the Ribeye steak.  It was over two inches thick. More like a roast.  I had the rack of lamb and Gerri had Pasta Primivera.  Alice had swordfish.  All our meals were delicious and we had leftovers.

This was our last night at Morgan Hill with Keith and Alice.  We visited for awhile before retiring to our separate coaches.

A little TV and reading and we were in bed.

Saturday, August 29, 2015 Morgan Hill, CA

We had our coffee and caught up on computer stuff while having our coffee.  We took our coffee with us when we left for our day trip to Santa Cruz with Alice and Keith.

We went as passengers in Keith's truck.  The road through the vineyards and hills was curvy and many times had no shoulder.   On two occasions the road was one lane.  They had signal lights to stop traffic in those areas.  Even with those restrictions we encountered several cyclists.  Much of the trip was through heavy forest.  Occasionally we had panoramic views of valleys below, but they were fleeting.

Looking from the wharf toward the boardwalk

Eventually we came to CA-1, which in this area was 6 lane freeway with a lot of traffic going toward Santa Cruz.  Santa Cruz was bustling with weekend traffic.  After circling the area near the beach several times we finally choose to park on the wharf itself.  http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/visiting/santa-cruz-wharf

Looking from the wharf toward town

This wharf makes the piers in some other towns we have visited, Oceanside and Pismo Beach, seem small.  There was room for several hundred cars, even Keith's huge truck. We parked about midway out on the pier.  There were  a lot of people fishing off the wharf.  We stopped and watched several.  Everyone seemed to be catching.  The fish were mackerel and on the average they were probably about 10" long.  While we walked on the wharf, Keith and I fell behind looking for a geocache.  We found the bench where the cache was located.  It was piled up with the gear belonging to a couple of fishermen.  We had to get down on our knees to look under the bench.  A cursory search didn't produce the cache.  I started checking each individual bolt and screw.  I finally felt around crevices and corners and finally located the small magnetic container.




Alice and Gerri walked through some shops.  We finally decided on a restaurant for lunch.  We had a great view of a large portion of Monterrey Bay from our seats in the restaurant.  There were a few large sail boats coming and going that were obvious, judging from the number of passengers, tours of the bay.  There was one group of small sail boats That were sailing around almost always centered around a motorized inflatable.  As we watched they sailed in large and small circle making different maneuvers.  Eventually they all went through a capsize drill before sailing around the end of the wharf out of sight.

Keith and Alice Kerslake, Gerri and me

The restaurant we choose was the Riva Fish House. www.rivafishhouse.com Gerri and Alice both ordered the special of the day, mussels in a chili rojo broth.  The broth had peppers, potatoes, mushrooms, onions and tomatoes.  Great for dipping with the fresh bread they served.  Keith and I both had the fish and chips.  The fish was a very firm cod, I had a piece left over.

The Santa Cruz Lighthouse

After eating we drove to a nearby light house and took some pictures of the area.  The Santa Cruz Lighthouse was originally built in in the 1860's.  http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=87The current structure was built in 1967 and is now a museum.

Before getting on the highway back to the rv park Keith stopped for fuel.  I only bring this up to point out that at least in this area, diesel fuel is priced cheaper than regular gasoline. The gasoline is still in the $4 range, diesel was $2.61.

The wharf and bay view from the lighthouse

The drive back to Morgan Hill was of course a reverse of the trip to Santa Cruz.  It was faster because the heaviest traffic was still going toward the coast.

Back at the RV park everyone took a break.  I reread the hint and logs on a nearby cache that I couldn't find a few days ago, and went to try it again.  It was much higher in the tree than I had searched before.  Even with my height I couldn't reach the original hiding spot.  I let the owner know that in my log.  This find brought me to 2 for the day.

Since we had eaten a late lunch, we only ate snacks as we visited during the early evening  It was really comfortable sitting outside.  The weather cools off about 30 degrees at night compared to the daytime highs.  The moon was almost full last night but it hadn't risen by the time we went in for the night.

Some TV, computer and reading took us to an 11 o'clock bedtime.

Friday August 28, 2015 Morgan Hill, CA

The first thing I did this morning was get the sewer connection ready for the pumping service that we had scheduled for today.  I did that at 7:30, the service came at about 8:30.  No sewer connection is the only thing bad about this park.  They do provide a dump station but that is inconvenient once you are set up in the site.

Uvas Reservoir looking at the dam

Uvas Reservoir looking away from the dam

Since I was up earlier, I was ready to go out caching earlier.  I had decided revisit the two caches near the park that I hadn't found a few days ago.  I had read other cacher's logs and on the first one I couldn't believe I had overlooked a container that was 2"x3".  I had, I found it deeper in a niche that I had checked before.  The second one I spotted easily this time.  With two previous DNFs out of the way I continued up into the hills.  My map showed a reservoir there.  The reservoir was down about 30 feet.  Unlike desert lakes, like Lake Mead, the wash mark left by the receding water isn't as prominent here.  That makes the shore line a little more attractive.


There were a few fishermen scattered around but no boats.  I did see a couple of no swimming signs.  There were also a couple of parking lots and nearby trail heads.

This small Uvas Creek fills it all and
then runs through our campground

I was struck by the number of very large homes scattered around the hills near the lake.  The road around the reservoir went past another small reservoir before running int the road that led to Morgan Hill.  I found a couple more caches near the lakes.



I found a total of 8 caches today with 3 DNFs.  My total now is 4985.  Even though I didn' hunt many in Oceanside and we have shortened our trip by a week, it looks like I might reach my 5000 goal before we get back to Las Vegas.

When I got back to the RV park, I helped Keith pack up their Ez-up shade tent to return to Amazon.  It seems that a strong gust of wind had picked it up and damaged it.  They had just got the shelter this week.  Alice got return authorization labels from Amazon, but Keith had thrown away the original box.  We pieced together two boxes that he had found in the trash.  They were for smaller shade units.  The result of our efforts will protect the shade in transit, but it was not pretty.We had a delicious chicken/sausage dish that Alice had prepared.  Visiting after dinner completed the day.

Back in our coach we watched some TV before bedtime.  Tomorrow we plan to go into Santa Cruz and act like the tourist that we are.

Thursday August 27, 2015 Morgan Hill, CA

Another beautiful morning here in Morgan Hill.  We had our coffee while catching up on e-mail and Facebook.  I also worked on some of the problems caused by Barclay issuing us new credit cards.  I also made the mistake of looking at some of our investment accounts. Ugly.

In the afternoon I went into Gilroy to try to find some geocaches. The owner of one of the caches I didn't find yesterday had e-mailed me with a new hint.  I went to that one first.  It eluded me as did 4 others during the day.  I found 5 caches, 4 of which were cleverly hidden.

After filling the Jeep's gas tanks I returned to the coach at about 4:45.  Gerri was busy with an online contest with her egg group.  I visited with Keith, Gerri and Alice joined us a little after 5.

Tonight for dinner Alice prepared some of our halibut, baked with a battered crust of pepita seeds. Gerri made a quinoa salad and brussel sprouts.  Along with Alice's coleslaw, it was another excellent meal.

The moon came up before dark.  It is waxing and will soon be full.  The moon was like a bright light hanging in the sky. It didn't photograph very well, but I have attached a couple of what I thought were interesting shots.  In the first picture the camera doesn't catch much detail of the moon.  In the second the flash doesn't reach the moon but lights up the cedar tree in our campsite.

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 Alice made a berry cobbler for desert.  It was very good.  Unfortunately Gerri can't tolerate the seeds.  After some more conversation the party broke up and we all retired to our separate homes.

Some reading,and a couple of episodes of Judge Judy and Gunsmoke finished off the evening.

Tuesday August 25, 2015 Morgan Hill, CA

Typical morning for the Barkers.  Up checking on email and Facebook while having our coffee.

In the late morning Gerri and Alice went to Costco to stock up items for tonight's feast.  Keith was working.  I had my left overs from Sicilia In Bocca for lunch.

I went geocaching.  This was probably the worst day of caching I have had.  I looked for 11.  I only found 5.  I normally don't hunt for caches that have had a couple of cachers log a didn't find.  I also often do not hunt caches that haven't had a log for several months.  I did look for ones with old logs today, I think that is where I went wrong.  When there are nearby caches with recent logs it probably means that people aren't logging their DNFs on the ones that don't have recent logs.  One of the caches with several DNFs had no indications the cache owner had checked on them after the DNF logs.  Whine off.

Our Common area

It was hot today.  When I returned to the RV park, I cleaned up and joined Gerri, and the Kerslakes in our common area for refreshments, hor d'oeuvres and conversation before dinner.

For dinner Alice prepared some salmon that we had brought back from Alaska.  She had made popped potatoes.  The potatoes were kind of like baked potatoes but were sauteed whole in chicken stock until cooked , then flattened and browned on each side.  We also had salad.

We visited outside until about 8:30.  Back in the coach we caught up on computer stuff and watched a Judge Judy recording.  We were in bed by 10:00.

Monday August 24, 2015 Morgan Hill, CA

We relaxed with our coffee, computers and the morning TV shows most of the morning.  Tv here is all via DirecTV.  The OTA antenna only picks up one channel and that one is in Spanish.

We had a lunch of a small quiche each.  After lunch Gerri and Alice went to the grocery store.  Keith was working.  I went geocaching.  The two closest to the park I didn't find.  I found one other near the park.  The low fuel light came on, I went into town and filled it up.  I found four and looked for three others before heading back to the coach.

An areial view of the Thouand Trails Morgan Hill

We sat out with Keith and Alice until dinner time.  Actually a very late dinner, it was after 8 when we ate.  The crab cakes that Alice had served as hor d'oeuvres were filling.  For our dinner Gerri and I finished up the leftovers from Old Juan's and the meatball and salad.

It had seemed like a long day.  Gerri went to bed a little before 10.  I started updates on our account with Quicken, a program I use to track our spending.  I had noticed that the information hadn't been downloading from the credit card we use the most, it didn' again tonight.  Even though it was late I decided to call Barclay Card about it.  I noticed on line my account showed a different number than the card I was carrying.  After an hour on the phone with three different agents I was told that my card is being replaced because of  security breach.  No one could or would explain what that meant, only that a new card was issued and I needed to activate that card because the one I carry would stop working during the first week of September.  They told me a letter had been sent explaining that and a new card had been sent.  It took quite awhile for them to understand we were not home and would not be until mid September.   I got nowhere talking to them for most of the time.  Finally they did agree to send me new cards via FedeX here to the RV park in Morgan Hill.  Those cards will arrive on Wednesday.  I don't understand why they can notify me by text when there is a questionable charge and by e-mail when my bill is due but they use snail mail to tell me something as important as my card being replaced.  After I get the new cards I will have to spend a considerable amount of time notifying my recurring automatic billers of the new card number.  I guess as long as there are idiots out there trying to breach every security this is the price honest people pay.

A river runs through it.  Ok, it's just a creek

After all that time on the phone I finally got to bed at about 11:30.  Of course all this had kept Gerri awake too.

The day was good, the evening slightly less good.  Tomorrow will be great.  We plan dinner with the Kerslake's.  Gerri already has the salmon from Alaska out.  I can almost taste it now, these ladies put together great meals.

Sunday August 23, 2015 Morgan Hill, CA

We were up at 7.  I made the coffee.  I started drinking the coffee as I made a quick check of Facebook and e-mail.  I then started getting the things outside ready to travel. I made sure the waste tanks were empty and put away the hoses and got the shore power and water hoses unhooked and stowed.  A few minutes hooking up the Jeep and I was finished outside.  Gerri got the inside ready to travel. Carpets and coffee table put in their travel places.  The slides came in and the jacks came up. After my customary walk around inspection, we were moving out at 8:30.

Knowing that we wanted to go north on 101, I ignored the initial instructions from the GPS unit.  We drove through Oceano, Grover Beach and Pismo Beach for the last time on this trip.  We entered the 101 Freeway and headed north toward Morgan Hill.  US-101 was our route until we were near Morgan Hill.  101 isn't freeway all the way, it is still a good highway but occasionally there were cross roads.  There was only one steep grade., the Cuesta Grade.  One of the three lanes on the grade was still closed to allow free movement for fire equipment fighting the Cuesta Fire.  We were down to 30 MPH for much of the grade.  We didn't have much traffic until we approached Gilroy.

We arrived at the Thousand Trails in Morgan Hill at about 12:30.  It has been about 12 years since we were here last, so not much looked familiar.  The fire danger dial was on "Extreme" and this area, like most that we traveled through today, looked tinder dry.

Since we expected our friends, Keith and Alice Kerslake, to arrive in a couple of hours we looked for two pull through sites that put our entry doors facing each other.  We found two such sites but they were in the section that has been upgraded to 50 amp service and has an extra daily fee.  They may have up graded the power supply but this park doesn't have sewer connections at the sites.  They have dump stations and a pumping service.  The pumping service is an extra fee.  We will probably use the service toward the end of the week.  That way we avoid the task of unhooking and closing everything up to drive to the dump.

Alice and Keith arrived at about 2.  They have a fifth wheel trailer and were set up pretty quickly.  We got right to the visiting.  We saw them last in April in Lake Havasu City.  Because of watering restrictions the grass between our sites is dead.  We put out carpets to make a patio type area and hold down the dust and dead grass being tracked around.

One of the park employees came around checking who was in which sites as we hadn't taken that information to the ranger station.  He gave us some restaurant recommendations in Morgan Hill.  We drove into town but the restaurant we had choosen seemed to be closed.  We spotted another place next door that seemed to be busy.  We found a parking place on the street.  I forgot to say that we had driven into town in Keith's new truck which is a 4 door daully and very large.  This restaurant was Italian and reminded us of Chicago Joe's in Las Vegas.  It was a small old house converted to a restaurant with a deck in front for outside dining.  We choose to eat inside.

Our dining experience at Sicilia in Bocca was beyond great.  Our waiter, who I think was the owner, was friendly, attentive, helpful and accommodating.  The food?  Well the food was extraordinary.  Brocchetta for appetizers, and fresh warm bread served with the dinners.  Slight changes in the menu were no problem.  Gerri asked for a little more sauce on her pasta.  The waiter brought out a tomato sauce that was freshly made.  The only ingredients were Roma tomatoes, olive oil and onion cooked and then pureed.  When we waiting for our leftovers to be boxed the waiter brought out a sample of their freshly made marinara sauce.  Too bad we couldn't eat more.  We didn't even ask about desserts.  One of the best meals we have had recently.  That is saying a lot after our recent experiences at The Old Custom House, and Old Juan's.

Back at the park we went to our separate units.  Everyone was very tired after a long day.  We were in bed with the lights out by 10:30.