Coming Home!

The hot spell continued as we left Los Angeles area for our trip back to South Dakota. In fact, right away as we started up the Cajon Pass the truck temp gauge said we were overheating and we had to pull over a couple of times as we went up the hill. Then the fan finally engaged and the gauge stabilized, so I made an appointment at the St. George dealer for the next day. We camped at Zion National Park, and Katelynd and I toured the park on our bikes while Ron got the truck fixed. We loved the park, it was like we owned it. Everyone either had to ride a shuttle on the roads or ride their bikes, and we were the only ones biking that day. We put in about 18 miles on the bikes and 4 miles hiking to the little pools and dripping wall. The weather finally changed and got much, much, much colder. In fact, we ran into snow - see how close it is to the road? So instead of going into the snow on I-70, we opted to travel north to Provo, UT, and cross the Rockies on I-80. We stopped at Ft. Bridger at Lyman, WY. I got to tour the fort that evening, which really took me back in time to the 1800s and what life was like for the Oregon Trail pioneers. The next day we had evil weather again, what with hail icing up the road, snow, wind, rain and even tiny little funnel clouds by Casper, WY. We were really happy to get home, and had a wonderful time! I plan to keep blogging here, but maybe not as often. Maybe we'll be blessed again to have more trips in the future. Until then, stay tuned!

Biking, hiking, boating

Our last few days in the Los Angeles area were accompanied by very hot weather! But the beach provided a welcome relief. We biked north on the Huntington Beach bike trail up to Bolsa Chica State Beach and then back again. Then we were beach bums after checking out the tourist trap stores. The next day we took a very hot hike to a waterfall near our campground at Lytle Creek. The little stream that flowed from the waterfall provided some cool relief to the 100 plus temps, and the waterfall area was much cooler from the spray! Katelynd had a new experience on our boat trip the next day to Big Bear Lake - we toured the lake and said goodbye to Uncle Mark and Aunt Jan, who really made our LA trip so enjoyable!

LA

We have been enjoying Los Angeles area with Katelynd, our granddaughter. Her uncle Mark and us went deep sea fishing off Long Beach. You can see that they had a Titanic moment on the bow of the boat. What an awesome day - we had fantastic weather and caught 27 fish, including sculpin, salmon grouper and red snapper! Katelynd said she was ready for a cruise now, since she loved the boat ride and never got seasick! It's been hot, as you can see on the truck thermometer. We hit the beach and did a little kayaking around the harbor - lots of glamorous houses and boats. Grandpa took Katelynd out wave jumping and at the end of the day you can see Katelynd looking at the big wave! (Just kidding, its not a tsunami). More pictures to come, we have really been enjoying this!

Avila Beach

Avila Beach is a wonderful little beach town about 100 miles north of Los Angeles, where we stayed for a week. We found a beautiful bay where bootleggers dropped their liquor during Prohibition, thus called Pirates Cove. Seals made their home on the rocks and it was so funny to listen to their grunts and see how they sprawled over rocks in the sun. The area was typical Mediterranean California with spreading oaks, tall wind blown pines, flowers and the ever present poison oak, which I accidentally discovered the hard way. The kids on Pismo Beach were so proud of their sand sculptures. We then moved to the Los Angeles area where the flowers were so amazing! I’ve included a few of them from the National Forest and also from the gardens in town. I have no idea what they are. However, the most beautiful purple tree graces every boulevard and my relatives tell me it is a Jackaranda. The flowers drop off and mess up the yards then the leaves sprout later. Beautiful!

California Dreaming

Avila Beach, California is the home of the movie "California Dreaming," the soundtrack is the popular song by the Beach Boys. Anyhow, that's where we're staying this week, and its been so neat to see this part of the coast! We've been here before, but never for this long. We checked out Morro Rock and Cambria for moonstones. I've been enjoying the bike trails here. Also, San Luis Obispo has a big farmers market where they close down main street. Vendors sell everything you can imagine (organic things are big here). There is live music and dancing and the food guys are competing for the best BBQ. There are so many flowers that I gave up trying to take a picture of every one! Ron found 2 rings and a watch metal detecting here, one of them was from Tiffany's! So we've been having fun. Looks like it will be foggy in the mornings and 60 degrees during the day so we are cooling off! Looking forward to coming home the first part of June.