Author: daveleu

This morning we drove over to San Clemente to visit with Mary Margaret’s dear friend, Robin, and her sister, Pat.  In the past, when we lived on our sailboat, we would stay with Robin at her house for about a week and she would pamper us with great meals, strong, delicious coffee and wonderful wines and spirits.  We used Robins house as a base where we would run around for the week, fulfilling the various annual appointments we needed to keep.  However, now that we are back on land and have our own house on wheels, we went over to just spend the day.

After getting together and chatting, Mary Margaret and Robin went off together for a mani/pedi; enjoying their girl thing while I took our little Fiat and did a number of errands.  When we all returned to Robin’s house, Robin’s sister, Pat, came over and we all enjoyed a brunch of quiche, salad and fruits all paired with a wonderful dry rose’.  Ooooh, so good!  Robin and Pat are foodies like Mary Margaret and I and their skills at the epicurean side of the ledger are unmatched.

With our tummies full and smiles on our faces, we then hoped in our respective cars and drove over to our campsite in the Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness so Robin and Pat could see our new home.  When we arrived, they were rather shocked at how big LeuC was.  We have gotten used to this reaction by people who are just seeing LeuC for the very first time.  After all, she is 40 feet long, about 15 feet wide with the slides out, 13.5 feet high and weighs in at a trim 20 plus tons!  In other words, she is BIG!

They were a bit overwhelmed with how plush she is inside and the vision of the Leu’s “roughing it” in the wilderness quickly dissipated.  As the sun set over the western hills, they had to leave so avoid driving in the dark down the windy two-lane road that leads down from the mountains to the ocean.

It was so great seeing Robin and Pat again as we cherish their friendship and kindness.

We continued our travels this morning, heading west toward the California border, just 20 miles away.  As we crossed the Colorado River and passed from Arizona into California, we were greeted by the infamous California Agricultural Inspection Station.

All vehicles must pass through this inspection station, as the officers stand guard looking for foreign agriculture pests that could sneak into the state and decimate State’s key economic engine.  It brought memories of when we moved from Delaware to California back in 1984.  At that time, Mary Margaret and I and our three very young kids, passed through this same station driving our maxivan.  At that time, they stopped us and did an inspection looking for the nefarious east coast pine bark beetle.  They even ending up sending an inspector to our new home in Sacramento a week later to finish the inspection.  They were very serious about preventing bad bugs sneaking into the state.

Today…not so much.  Here we were with our big, long LeuC, pulling our little Fiat and our South Dakota license plate staring the inspector right in her face and she just smiled and waved us through!  Go figure!

We spent the rest of the morning driving down the freeways approaching and then passing through San Bernardino, Riverside, Anaheim, Santa Anna, Irvine, Lake Forest, Mission Viejo and finally, San Juan Capistrano.  For the last two hours the traffic was pretty impressive with drivers zipping in and out of their lanes at high speeds and then braking hard as parking lots of cars formed at key pinch points.  It was a hoot driving LeuC through this mess and maze of freeways.

We arrived at the Ortega Flats Campground which is nestled in the Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness that runs up and into the Santa Ana Mountains; with Saddleback Ridge and its twin mountains: Santiago Peak (the highest peak in the range and the highest point in the county at 5,689 feet) and Modjeska Peak (which is the second highest in this range of mountains at 5,496 feet).

The campground is lovely with lots of California Oak trees and Cottonwoods yielding lots of privacy.

Here Is A Photo Of LeuC Snuggled Amongst The Trees.

The sun was out and it was another beautiful day so we had our exterior shade canopy pulled out to keep LeuC cool.

Tomorrow, we will be spending the day with our good friend Robin and the rest of the week will be spent having appointments filled with our dentist for our annual checkups, financial advisor and CPA.  Between these meetings, we will be seeing old friends that we miss so much!  Whoo Hoo!  A fun week ahead to look forward to!

This morning we bundled up LeuC and started driving down the road.  Our goal was the BLM land just north of Quartzite, AZ, near the AZ/CA border.  It was only 165 miles, so it was an easy 3 hour drive.  It included a stop at an Arco gas station where we filled up our fuel tank with diesel that cost only $2.65 a gallon.  We only needed 28 gallons, but we just had to fill up knowing that once we cross into California, the price will be much more.

The BLM land we are now camped on is known as dispersed camping land.  This means that one can camp anywhere on this area that is so designated.  We did have to check in with a camp host and fill out an information sheet, but there was no cost.

We are located about 5 miles north of the town of Quartzite, near the intersection of US 95 and Plomosa Rd.  There are a number of large pull out areas along Plomosa Rd, most of which are empty.  There are a few other RVs in the general area but they are far and few between.

Here Are A Few Shots Of Our Site And Area

This area is famous for a number of reasons but the one that we find the most interesting is that just a few miles east of us is a large Intaglio also known as a geoglyph or earth figure called the Bouse Fisherman.

Geoglyths are very large earth figures that were created generations ago by the indigenous people. The dark desert pavement stones were removed and the design dug deep into the light colored soil that is beneath.  This method is the same used in the Nazca Plain in Peru.  We visited the Nazca Plain back in 2009 while we were in the process of sailing around the world.  We rented a plane and flew over a number of the earth figures so we could view them well.

We will not have a chance to explore the Bouse Fisherman this time but hope to return on our way back to Tucson, either right before Thanksgiving or after the Christmas holidays.  Until then, I hope this aerial photo of the Blouse Fisherman will satisfy your curiosity. There are actually a number of these in this area.  A couple are across the Colorado River near Blythe, CA.

Here Is The Bouse Fisherman Enhanced For A Better View

 

Early tomorrow, we continue on our way to the Ortega Flats Campground within the Ronald W. Caspers Wildness area near San Juan Capistrano.  We will be there for 6 days seeing old friends, having our annual dental checkup and meeting with our financial advisor and CPA.  The drive should take about 6 hours.  We are hoping that the traffic around LA will not be too bad since it will be Saturday.

I usually enjoy writing the blog each morning because it is an opportunity to capture the neat things we do.  As Mary Margaret tells me, it’s a wonderful diary and a platform to remember what we have done, who we have seen, and where we have been.  She has a point, so I agreed to carry on this effort when we moved from our sailboat, Leu Cat, to our RV, LeuC.

However, when we do our “slug” imitation and just spend the day gorking the day away, it becomes a real challenge in writing something interesting or entertaining.  As an aside, I just looked up the word gork.  I used it perfectly as its slang definition is: “a terminal patient whose brain is nonfunctional and the rest of whose body can be kept functioning only by the extensive use of mechanical devices and nutrient solutions.”  Yep, that is me today!

 

In search of something meaningful to do today, I spent the bulk of the day puttering with my computer in an attempt to improve its communication with our wireless printer.  Not very exciting but by this evening, after hours and hours of fruitless effort, I was successful!  Yea!

So much for the exciting life of the Leu’s’…

We continued our “slug” imitation today by resting and playing cards.  It was a nice respite and we really enjoyed having the time off from the very busy schedule we have had for the last 7 weeks.  However, being the one with the “itchy” butt, by this evening I was cranking away on the ol’ computer doing research on our next two trips.

The first one is just in 10 days and it is going from San Juan Capistrano, CA to Carmichael, CA.  We are going there so we can park LeuC at our dear friends’ house (Carolyn and Joyce) while we attend the baptism of our new granddaughter, Molly, down in the Bay Area.  Carolyn and Joyce’s house is on a huge lot and they have plenty of room to house our 40 foot bus.

Normally, if we were driving just a car, we would make this trip in just one day. One can do it in about 7 or so hours.  However, that is just too long for us driving LeuC, especially since we do not drive her at a speed greater than 65 mph.  That speed restriction is due to a couple of factors.  First, our little Fiat’s manual recommends towing it at or under that speed, and secondly, LeuC really starts to guzzle the diesel above that speed.  Thus, even if we were to make this trip in just one day, it would take us over 9 hours in LeuC.  That is just too, too long, especially when we have to fight our way through 2 hours of stop and go LA traffic.  Ugh!

The second trip is from Carmichael, CA to Tucson, AZ.  We need to return to Tucson after the baptism to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with our daughter, Christina, and her family.  We will be there for two weeks.

In doing this research, I found another great trip planning site for campers and RVers.  It is called “Free Campsites” and its web address is: http://www.freecampsites.net. It has a trip planning routine that shows tons of potential camping locations which are not shown on most of the other websites that I have visited.  This was a great find for me since it originally looked like we were going to be having difficulty finding places to stay along these two routes.  Free Campsites includes lots of boondocking sites where one can get away from the maddening crowds found in RV parks.  Many of these sites are where one will be dry docking, which means that there is no power or water.  This will work with us, however, I must admit that we have been spoiled so far by staying mostly in state and regional parks.

 

Today was a rare “slug” day.  We just spent the day chillin’.

We have decided to extend our stay here at the Usery Mountain Regional Park for another 3 days.  Originally, we were going to leave tomorrow and drive over to the AZ/CA border and drydock on BLM land north of Quartzite, AZ.  However, since this park is just about empty during the week and we have the luxury of 50 amp power and unlimited water, we have decided to maximize our stay here and just do an overnight on the BLM land.  By doing this, we get to rest and relax here a bit longer while being hooked into the grid.  We will still spend a night on the BLM land but then move on to So Cal the next day.

Since it was a “slug” day, there really is not anything exciting to write about so today’s blog will be the shortest blog I have yet written.  See ya tomorrow!

After spending the morning driving around to resolve some Microsoft questions, we drove over to Scottsdale to see my cousin, Ken, his wonderful wife, Karen, and their friends, Pam and Laury.  Ken and Karen live along the Pacific coast of Washington, just north of the mouth of the Columbia River and are in Scottsdale visiting their great friends.  Laury and Ken have been best buds since middle school.  The four of them and other friends who will be arriving later this week have known each other for years and they get together around this time each year to play in a golf tournament they created called, “Old, Older and Oldest”. The age of the group is now between near 70 to 80 years old.  They all have birthdays in November, so they get together this time of the year to celebrate birthdays and play golf.  Sounds like a real hoot!

Pam and Laury have two houses: this one in Scottsdale and another one up in eastern Washington.  Their house here in Scottsdale is beautiful with a large pool in the backyard that is well landscaped.

Laury had spent 3 hours slow grilling three racks of BBQ ribs.  We lounged in the backyard, sipping wine and catching up, while smelling the smoky whiffs of the ribs were killer!

Pam and Karen had teamed up to make a number of remarkable side dishes and appetizers that made dinner a feast fit for kings and queens.  It was hard to stop eating such wonderful food.

We spent the late afternoon and then well into the evening swapping stories.  When you get three couples of our age together, there are a plethora of stories we each can tell.  It was a great!

It was hard to pull ourselves away from such gregarious and fun people but as the moon past over us, Mary Margaret and I knew it was time to go, especially with an hour drive starring at us.

We thoroughly enjoyed are visit and are thankful that Ken and Karen were down here visiting with their dear friends, so we could see them and meet their great friends.

Today we drove across the Phoenix valley over to the town of Surprise.  Allison’s (our daughter in law) parents,Pat and Phil, live there.  Ever since Allison and David Paul were engaged, Pat and Phil had invited us a number of times to come and visit them.  Up until now, there never was the opportunity for us to accept their kind invitation since we had been living on our sailboat and spending most of our time overseas.

However, since we were now only about 50 miles away, we thought that it would be a great time to see if they were home and to accept their invitation.  They, of course, said yes to our query, even though their house is in the middle of a major construction project.

Pat and Phil live in a large, beautiful house that sits on a golf course with a wonderful view of a waterfall across the fairway which greets you as you step through their front door.  They have torn out walls, built a fireplace, and made a smaller living room into an expansive Great Room with views to die for.  They are in the finally stages of the current project, which is expanding the master bath.  Pat is contemplating redoing the second bathroom, but that may be saved for another day.

They generously insisted on taking us out for lunch at a local eatery that also sits on a golf course.  The food and time spent with Pat and Phil was very enjoyable.  We are looking forward to seeing them again.

Tomorrow, we will be driving over to Scottsdale where my cousin, Ken, and his wife, Karen, are staying with friends.  They have invited us over for dinner.  They live in Washington and the last time we saw them was in 2015 when we visited them at their house along the Pacific Ocean.  Who would have thought that our time near Phoenix would be spending great times with relatives!

I love college football and, with it being Saturday, I plopped myself in front of the TV and was a couch potato all day.  It has been years since I have done this, and it was nice getting my “fix” of football.

We did try to contact Allison’s parents and will be driving over to Surprise, Arizona tomorrow to visit them.  Allison is our daughter-in-law and our son’s, David Paul, wife.

We also tried to hook up with my cousin, Ken and his wife, Karen.  We discovered that they are now visiting friends in Scottsdale, which is near where we are at.  We have been playing phone tag, so we will continue to try tomorrow.

Since we did not do much today, I will just post some more of the photos I took which exploring Tombstone earlier this week.

The Bird Cage Theater survived the various fires that distroyed most of the original buildings of Tombstone.  It was an unusually place as it combined theatrical productions with gambling and prostitution.  The photos below show the boxes that were actually prostitute cribs where the ladies of the evening would service their clients.  The theater obtained its name from these “birdcages”.

There was a continuous poker game that lasted over 8 years, going 24/7, down in the basement.

The theater’s clients enjoyed a rip-roaring time and would fire off their six shooters into the air to express their enjoyment or displeasure.  There are over 47 bullet holes in the ceiling and walls.  Here are a few of them.

I have also posted photos of the famous people who performed here in the early 1880s.

We took another step closer to So Cal today when we left Tucson in our rear-view monitor (LeuC does not have a rear view mirror since she does not have a rear window; instead she uses a camera to show what is behind her) and drove northwest to the Usery Mountains Regional Park, northeast of Mesa, Arizona.  It was just a 2.5 hour drive which included a stop to pump in 57 gallons of diesel at the Pilot Triple J truck stop.

LeuC has been averaging about 8 to 9 miles a gallon which is not too bad since she is towing our little Fiat behind her.  Towing a car drops one’s mileage by about 4 mpg due to the extra friction of its four wheels and added weight.  We had been told that the Allegro Bus, with its 450 HP Cummings diesel engine, gets between 12 and 15 mpg without towing depending on how heavily loaded it is.  Thus, we are getting the diesel mileage we had expected.

We have decided to stay put in this campsite for a few days, so we can rest up a bit before reaching So Cal.  We will have one more stop, next to the AZ/CA border before we arrive at our Ronald W. Casper Wilderness Park near San Juan Capistrano in about a week.

So far, we have been able to find lots of campgrounds which can accommodate a 40 foot RV bus and which have electrical and water hookups.  That was a concern to us before we started out.  Initially, we had read that the bigger the RV, the fewer the options one has.  However, as we did more research, we discovered that only 20% or so of the campgrounds around the US could not take us.  So far, our length just has not been a significant issue regarding finding camping options.  We just scratch our heads wondering why private RV parks are so popular.  We have researched a number of them only to find that they typically cram the RVs in very close and yield little privacy.  Plus, we have talked to a number of RVers who surprised us by saying that the people staying in RV parks tend not to be very social.  I guess it is just a case of different strokes for different folks.  I just prefer the more roomy and private camping sites that public campgrounds offer.

Here are some pictures of our campsite here at the Usery Mountains Regional Park just to show you what I mean regarding how much space we have.