The mass Exodus

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone. This place went from bursting at the seams full to about 20 sites occupied in 4 hours.
The Thanksgiving week was interesting. Tending to the hordes of kids and juvenal acting adults while entertaining guests of our own was a challenge, a challenge we concurred very well. For some dumb reason, maintenance decided this week would be a good week to bring in a number of dump truck loads of dirt. Well…every kid in the park with a bike saw it as a perfect motocross track. I played the part of “dirt police” all weekend trying my best to keep the kids from riding down the streets, across the handicap parking, over the dirt, up into the “closed for rehabilitation” area, then around the bathroom/showers, and back in line to go again, all with no helmets. Putting up barricades did nothing, they just ran them over. Talking to the parents did nothing, they didn’t want to deal with it. Noting it in the log book for the Rangers did nothing. And of course all the “No Skateboard” signs around the bathroom/showers ment nothing to the skateboarders. Even with all the policeing I did, I did get a thanks from some of the parents for being cool about the whole thing. They said the guy last year was on them about every little thing they did. I thanked them and told them, I just want everyone to have a good time.



Our grandson came to visit yesterday. Susan put her Host visor on him, we made him a junior ranger for the day, gave him a trash bag and put him to work. He had a ball picking up trash. We had to laugh as one person was heading for the beach with their dog and Landen yells out, “No dogs on the beach” and as one driver came zipping by he yells out, “Slow down”. This guy is only 4 years old and right on the ball.
Things are very quiet right now, Whew.

Cruisin

This little guy was cruising in style today. Today was a great day for cruising too. It was pushing 80 degrees and this evening is in the 70s. Is it really the middle of November?
I figured out that, if we were getting paid, we would be making about $11 an hour. Actually if you add up the time actually worked it would be double that. Not bad for a gig on the beach. Somebody Pinch me, I must be dreaming! To be honest though, I am already getting the itch to travel again.


Another killer sunset tonight. We are finally starting to get some cloud cover to make the sunsets look nice. Those surfers just don’t want to give up in fear that they might miss out on that last good wave. I noticed they all stop and enjoy the sunset also. I bet it looks totally awesome from their point of view.
This is going to be a busy week. Usually on Sundays this place clears out, but it actually filled up today and I suspect they are staying through Thanksgiving. We may just earn our keep this week.

Tide Pools

What a nice day. It got to about 80 degrees today. After our morning shift, we took a walk down to the beach. It was low tide and the tide pools were visible.

TPMS

I found time to install my TPMS (that’s Tire Pressure Monitor System) today. This thing is cool. It monitors the tire pressure in my motorhome and car tires. With a simple push of a button, I can check the pressure in all my tires without even going outside. The system will alert me, indicate which tire, and the air pressure if a tire pressure drops by 12.5% and REALLY alert me if it drops 25%. This is important because most blowouts begin with low tire pressure which heats the tire then BAM! It will also let me know if I have a flat on the toad (Saturn) while towing, which is nice because I would never know until the damage is done. I can even take the monitor with me in the car when we unhook by simply unplugging it from the motorhome and plugging it into the car. The system consists of a sensor for each tire and the monitor. It was a cinch to install and setup. I even inadvertently tested the system by not screwing a sensor on tight enough and the tire leaked down enough to alert me.


Things sure are slow around here. We are full on the weekends but during the week it is very quiet. Camp Hosting this time of year is a piece of cake. All I do is drive around in the golf cart and talk with the few campers that are here. Cool Gig!

Still no Sunset

The weather has just been to good to get a good sunset. We did have a little fog tonight that made the sunset look nice though. The surfers are enjoying this time of the evening too. One of my duties is to lock the gate to the park at sunset. I was told to wait until at least a hour after sunset because the surfers surf until the sun goes down and will have to walk all away around to get out if the gate is closed.

A few of the days photos

I caught a photo of this Blimp cruising the coast today. It must be owned by an old Hippy that owned a VW bus in the 60s.

This squirl couldn’t decide which trash can he wanted to raid first.

The recent storm, if that’s what you want to call it, has uprooted a lot of kelp and deposited it on our beach. What a mess.

I can’t believe I have been here at the beach for 2 weeks now and I still haven’t got any sunset shots.

What is it?

It sits on the top of the motorhome. It twirls around in the wind. And it sucks.
I just installed 2 “Xtreme Vents” in place of the traditional holding tank vent caps. These little devices point in the direction of the wind and, using a venturi effect, creates a vacuum in the vent tube which sucks the odors out. Even if it doesn’t work, they still look cool swinging around up there in the wind. They are, however, guarantied to work and are guarantied for life.

Check out my new link “Why I Love America”. This was emailed to me by a good friend and made me think how fortunate I am to have experienced a lot of these scenes.

No rain yet

The weather keeps calling for rain but we haven’t seen any yet. Good thing I guess since I took a good look at our site and realized that if we get a good rain, the back of our site will fill up like a swimming pool. I will have to see about digging some drainage canals. As you can see in these photos, the sea is looking a bit stormy. It does make for a pretty sky as seen from our site.

We are still enjoying the heck out of this Camp Host thing. The work is a piece of cake and being the social kind of guy I am, I am meeting a lot of people. It takes me about 1 hour to do my rounds which should only take about 15 minutes because I have to stop and talk with everyone. We already signed up to do this gig again next year.

Busy Busy

We have been rather busy lately. We have had quite a few visitors, some that we have known for many years and some that have met us thought our website and travels. Also our Grandson came to visit for a couple of days. He helped Nana bake cookies.

He just loved visiting Nana and Papa at the beach. He got to go in the water with some friends while Nana sat on the beach, occupying herself with Video Poker. Where was I? Well I took the work duty so Susan can spend time with our friends. I had plenty of time, however to man the camera for a few shots.

The weekend around here was busy but quiet. I was rather surprised being we were full for the weekend. Next weekend will be a Holliday weekend so we will see what that brings.

This morning I caught a squirrel trying to enjoy a little snack while this bird was trying to steal a free meal. The squirrel won out and got his snack.

Well the weather is taking a turn for the worst. We haven’t seen too much of the sun in the last couple of days and they are calling for rain tomorrow, however, after that it is supposed to clear up again and be nice.

Beach creatures

For the next couple of months, you will most likely see a lot of beach shots. Does anyone know what the first photo is? I believe it is a Sea Slug. There are some pretty cool tide pools along this beach so all kinds of strange things can come crawling out of the sea. This guy was about 8” long.

By the way, this is our job. We strolled the beach this afternoon to make sure everyone was observing the rules. I know, it’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.

Life is rough

Well, today we moved into our winter home. We are in a Southern California State Park right on the beach as Camp Host for the rest of the year. The temperatures are in the high 70s during the days and in the high 50s at night so life is good right now. I am sure we will be getting some stormy weather as the next 2 months progress. But we are talking about Southern California storms so how bad can it get? The only down side, looks like I will have to be dragging my lazy body out of bed at 5:00a twice a week.

Class C on steroids

Thought you might get a kick out of this Class C on steroids.

The Grandson

This little guy is one of the main reasons we come back to Southern California. The other reason is, of course his sister.

Almost living in the Service Center

This morning, I had to get up at 7:00 in the middle of the night. I call it 7:00 in the middle of the night because I believe there is no such thing as 7:00 in the morning. There is 7 in the evening and 7 at night. Anyway we had a 8:00 appointment to get the brake recall done on the motorhome. This was supposed to be a 4 hour job. We waited all day for the call that our home was ready but it never came so at 4:00 we headed down to the service center to see what the deal was. The service writer informed me that they will have to set us up in the service center because it was not ready. I asked him why a 4 hour job has turned into a 8 hour job. I also asked him if he was going to pay for our reservation we had for tonight and tonight’s dinner. It just so happened as we were talking, the technician was done and taking it out for a test drive. So tonight we are back at the Pechanga RV Resort where we should be.

Back in Temecula

We arrived back in Temecula CA today. The Rexhall Rally was a blast. We can’t wait until the next one. We wanted to stay for the Good Sam Rally but we have an appointment at the Temecula RV Service Center for our brake recall. Tonight we are spending the night in the Pechanga Casino parking lot. The reason we are not in the RV park is because we need to be at the RV service center at 8:00a and figured for just an overnight we will hangout in the parking lot. Tomorrow after we get the motorhome back we will check into the RV park. We will hang out at Pechanga RV Resort until our Host jobs at San Elijo next week.

Back on the road

One of the reasons we went Fulltime is because we never wanted to leave (to go home). I thought by going Fulltime I would never again have to say I don’t want to leave but tonight was the last night of the Rexhall Rally and, I don’t want to leave. We had such a good time, as we always do, and have got to see our good friends we have made in the past and have meet so many more good friends. As with last year we have a new bunch of friends to stop and visit on our travels around the country. We got some good tips on places to visit next year and got invited to a couple more upcoming rallies, which I am sure we will take advantage of.

By attending the seminars, I have gained a little more knowledge about Rving and the Fulltime lifestyle and picked up a few more tips from our fellow Rexhallers. I even sat down with Mr. Rex, one on one at one of the dinners and had a short but good conversation and shared some tips with him. I am sure he gets this a lot though.

I got a chance to head on over to their service center and pick up some Rexhall specific items I needed for our coach. Now we are good to go for another year.

This rally was also good for the motorhome because staying the parking lot at the fairgrounds, we had no water or sewer hookups and limited amperage power so this gave me a chance to exercise the boondocking systems in our coach and make sure everything is still in working order. I am glad to report that everything works very well.

So tomorrow, it’s back on the road again.

Fun Rally

We are just having the best time here at the Rexhall Rally. Above is a picture of just some of the top notch entertainment that we have enjoyed here at the rally. I have taken in a lot of the seminars and have learned a thing or two, even though I thought I knew it all. One thing I learned was the AirCard offered by Verizon to access the internet has a larger coverage area than I though. I was using the Verizon High Speed network and was paying $79.99 a month for their unlimited usage plan. With the AirCard I can use their Broadband and where the Broadband is not available it used the same Verizon High Speed network I was using for only $59.99. That’s a $20 savings for faster internet. And I don’t have to tie up the cell phone anymore.

The Rexhall Rally

We did the big trip today. We traveled from the Lancaster Fairgrounds Campground into the Fairground for the Rexhall Rally. It took more time to bring in the slides and pull up the levelers than it did to make the drive. The turnout this year is really down because of the gas prices. Most all the rigs have California plates on them. The Rexhall Rallies are a lot of fun. The have RV accessories vendors (already spent $100), New Coach displays, Seminars, Breakfast, Social Hours, and Dinners. There is something going on all the time. We always make new friends every year. We have already been invited to other get togethers in the short time we have been here.

I got a chance to clean up the motorhome and car again so I am much happier now. I think we have driven in the rain maybe 3 times this year and it sure makes a big mess out of everything, especially the poor car being drug behind the motorhome. I did it with a bucket of water and a rag. Then I go over it with my bottle of spray detailer. You do what you have to.

Movin’ on to Lancaster CA

We arrived in Lancaster today about 11:00a. We are in Lancaster for a Raxhall Rally. Rexhall is the manufacturer of our motorhome and every year they sponsor a Homecoming Rally. It is always a whole lot of fun.

Last night was supposed to be a quiet night at the race track since most of the race crazies had gone home. However, the thunder showers were pretty noisy.

It rained all the way to Lancaster this morning and now my motorhome that I spent 3 weeks cleaning is all dirty again. The car is even worse. This campground will not let us wash it. At least I can run the car through a car wash in town. I will see if I can just give the motorhome a sponge bath later. We will be in the Lancaster County Fairground Campground for 2 nights then we move into the Fairgrounds for the rally on Wednesday, so my next trip will be about a ½ mile drive. For the next 2 days we will catch up on some laundry and shopping.

The rains came and so did the race

Well we woke to rain this morning. It was looking like the race was not going to happen. The California 100 was supposed to be the first race but the rains kept coming. Finally a break came and they started the Toyota 400 race. The ended up with enough time after the 400 to run the 100.


The rain kept a lot of fans from filling the stands.


The safety crew got in a quick nap before the race started.


We had a front row spot and the best place to catch the race was on the roof of the motorhome of course. Susan chose to watch the race through the windshield from inside because it was LOUD. She also had the luxury of having the TV on and got to see all the replays and close-ups of the wrecks.