Christmas in Los Angeles

We traveled from our camp at Lake Havasu City to Lytle Creek, which is just outside the Los Angeles area for Christmas. The trip was a challenge, as you can see we had a flat on the trailer. Ron noticed smoke and bits of rubber flying off so he pulled over to the narrow shoulder on the interstate right away. The wind was blowing 50 mph with gusts that were higher and the traffic was heavy but despite those challenges he was able to get ‘er changed quickly and professionally while the highway patrol helped with traffic! We enjoyed each and every dinner which had plenty of food and good company! Our English crackers revealed cute hats, jokes and trinkets (mirrors, key chains, etc.) so we showed off our hats while we ate. Ron did some metal detecting by the beach and I got some bicycling in each day, while Rhonda accompanied me Sunday. Rhonda and I enjoyed taking a few pictures of the fall colors, which was strange to see at Christmas time! Only in California. And of course I found some beautiful flowers there. We really enjoyed our time with the family!

Thanksgiving

Rhonda came to visit us for Thanksgiving. Since we’re in the desert prospecting for gold, she stayed with us in the camper’s spare room. I think she really enjoyed driving the ATV since she’d never had a chance to do that before! We took her out to where Ron prospects for gold and we explored an old cowboy camp in the mountains. Lake Havasu City is known for its London Bridge, which was actually for sale in London and bought by the city. All along the island by the bridge are replicas of famous lighthouses – this is the replica of the Split Rock Lighthouse on Lake Superior. The next day we scoped out Oatman, an 1800’s gold town on Route 66. The old buildings are filled with touristy stuff and wild burros roam the streets in search of carrots from tourists. At high noon the town holds a mock shootout. A fun time was had by all! Then we drove over to Laughlin, NV (only 30-40 miles from our campsite) and took Rhonda to Christmas Tree Pass on the west side of the Colorado River. The Native Americas many eons ago drew petroglyphs on the rocks and filled some of the rocks up with their stories. Note the rock above Rhonda’s head and all its drawings. The weather was changing and the clouds and rocks had a beautiful color in the late afternoon. We had a wonderful weekend!

Charleston

Charleston, SC, is where David and Joanna are stationed. David is going to graduate from the Navy’s nuclear power school soon, and so I went out to visit. Joanna was my tour guide while David studied. We checked out the downtown area, saw an amazing bridge, two water fountains, walked through the marketplace downtown and bought Ron benne wafers (a Charleston specialty developed by the slaves, a very crunchy wafer cookie made of benne seeds which taste like seseme seeds to me.) I have always wanted to see a southern plantation, so we visited the Boone plantation. The live oak trees were planted in the 1750s and grow to be 400-800 years old. Our tour guide’s dress was made from indigo dye, another early 1700’s crop. A little alligator about a foot long swam past us! Awesome. I caught David with my camera when he came home from school in his dress blues – looks a little like a driver’s license photo, sorry David. He also gave me a picture of his graduating class – he’s on the third row, right side 2nd person. We took a trip Saturday to the Angel Oak, the oldest tree in South Carolina (I think it was 1000 years old?) It had all kinds of supports and guy wires holding it up, poor thing. Age certainly didn’t defy gravity. We exchanged pictures, and I even tortured Panda with my camera a little (she was feeling a little carsick at the time). The trip was great and I was so glad I was able to go. Congratulations on your graduation, David! Way to go!

Havasu and critters, oh my!

The Havasu Gold Seekers are a club near the Arizona town of Lake Havasu. After attending one of their events and getting a tour of the gold claims, we decided to join so we moved out to their claims last week. It’s a beautiful area with lots of rocks and washes to check out! The truck is still dinging and saying its overheating so we’re off to the dealer this week. Wish us luck! Our friends John and Jane went to Phoenix to be with their daughter, who was just diagnosed with breast cancer, 1^st stage. Say a prayer for her and the family. Another problem we’ve been faced with is ants, mice and maybe a cockroach (I know, I know, where there’s one, there’s more. . . ) The mice were really a bad deal – the ones in the camper were hungry for plastic, so they ate on the plastic handle on the can opener, the spatula, and unfortunately the wire coating to the water pump! The kangaroo mice (rats?) were a shocker – we drove to the gas station, stopped and they popped up from the engine compartment and ran across the windshield and back into the hot engine. They were nibbling on the insulation in there. Ron set up a whole trap line complete with peanut butter laced with Decon and sticky glue traps. After a week of this he finally caught them all. The ants we picked up at the Orange County Fairgrounds. They had a trail from the ground up the power cord and into the bedroom slideout. The ant poison seems to have taken care of them, because I haven’t had any in my hair lately. The roach is gross – I saw him in the cereal cupboard. I don’t think we’ve succeeded there, because the roach hotel is still empty. But Ron thinks I’m hallucinating, because neither of us have seen him since or any indication of him. Hmm. As I read this it sounds like we’re not having fun, but really we are! Just a few problems here and there. We’ve found some great people to hang out with, a nice campground, beautiful area – God is so good to us. His creation always amazes me, and here are a few pictures of his handiwork, a taste of what Heaven is like!

Los Angeles, Trigo Mountains

Orange County Fairgrounds was a fabulous place to camp. A short jaunt to the ocean and not too far from the family! When we were in the LA area, we visited an adobe house in Long Beach with the family and I took some pictures.

We had to get the truck into GMC in Cerritos to see why it says it overheats when it really wasn’t – we ended up replacing the fuel filter (again, when we just did it a few weeks ago, but it wasn’t a GMC approved filter). Alas, that didn’t solve the problem, we’re still dinging and overheating. So we’re off to Blythe tomorrow to see the GMC people. I also got the recumbent bicycle brakes working again, and hope to bike the 20 miles to Blythe! Here's a picture of the scary bridge over the Colorado – there’s no guard rail, just a skinny pipe or two along the sides, with metal grating for a road! We’re camped here by Cibola, AZ which is south of Blythe, CA with our friends John and Jane. Ron and I caught the wild burros just off the road – these are the guys that keep us up at night with their braying! I saw the rare bighorn sheep today; they make paths with the burros along the washes that are like superhighways for hikers. Ron found his first gold nugget yesterday, 1 gram. Its been really hot here, but will cool to the 80s and low 90s.

The Minnekahta Quilt Guild has a challenge this year to design a quilt using five fabrics and cutting them into squares and triangles. The challenge is to choose coordinating fabric and designing a pleasing quilt. We used special template rulers to cut our triangles which helped me sew accurate seams. I started with the printed orange batik fabric then shopped with the quilters for the other 4 fabrics. I wanted to have groups of triangles and squares that were the same colors, rather than alternating colors. So the outside design came together easily but the center was not quite so easy – I chose the pinwheel in the center because it reminds me of the tiling job I did in the basement of the house we just sold. I worked on this quilt while we were at Rye Patch, NV, and finished it just last week. It will be shown to the quilt guild and then at our guild’s Christmas in the Hills Show in Hot Springs, where it will be voted on by viewers. I think its one of the best sewing jobs I’ve ever done, as almost every triangle tip is right on and the center of the quilt matches. I spent a lot of time free motion quilting it, which you can’t see here but maybe you’ll get to see it in person! I’ll get the quilt back when I go back to South Dakota, probably in May.