Quartzsite and San Clemente

John and Jane met us in Quartzsite, our first stop on our way to San Clemente from Lake Havasu. The moon was full and the night sky filled with mysterious clouds. The next morning had a cloudy sunrise then a wonderful rainbow spread out above our camper! What a sendoff to California! We hit the road and another rainbow met us in windy Palm Springs right over the wind turbine farm. The San Clemente pier featured a beautiful pelican surveying his territory. A few days after we set up at the campground for our new job as camp hosts, we met Mark and Jan and drove to Dana Point to check out the big sailing ships. We enjoyed Thanksgiving at Mark and Jan’s, as well as Ron detecting the beach and I rode my bike south through the San Onofre State Beach and Camp Pendleton. The next day after work we decided to show each other where we had gone the previous day, so we started over to San Onofre State Beach, and just happened to meet up with the ranger who had hired us, Ranger Martin. What a treat we had when he gave us a personal tour of the beach – we learned so much about the history, geology and nature of the area. We also got to see Surf Beach right by the San Onofre Nuclear Power Station, a unique area decorated by surfers which include a wind vane made out of a surf board! David and Joanna came up to visit this weekend too, and we checked out beaches again with them. It was wonderful to see them again, its been a whole year! So excited to be by them and hope to get together often!

Death Valley Trip and exciting news!

John and Elizabeth called to say they were going for a job interview in Nevada. We made plans to meet in Death Valley. Our first stop was in the Mohave National Preserve Visitor Center, an old railroad station. The trees were in bloom and the bees were busy! The Preserve featured rough granite mountains as well as sand dunes and volcanic cinder cones. The next stop was the China Ranch Date Farm, which was an oasis of date trees tucked down into a valley between desolate mountains. The trees had pajamas and other coverings on the ripening dates (I suppose to keep those pesky bees off). We foundered on the rich dates, they were so good! Finally we met up with John, Elizabeth and William in Death Valley. He is only 4 weeks old in these pictures and had grown so much! He has these little smiles that come so quickly and are gone! Beautiful Elizabeth is so good with him, he really has wonderful parents and he traveled fairly well for being so little. What a treat to see the little guy and his parents – thanks John and Elizabeth for going the extra mile to make that possible!

The exciting news is this: Ron and I will be camp hosts in San Mateo Campground, a campground in San Onofre State Beach by San Clemente, California! We start next week and will work there through the winter! We are so excited to be by the beach! Also, it will be wonderful to be close to David and Joanna as well as Ron’s sisters and family! So we’re hanging up the gold prospecting for a while. We are saying goodbye to our friends here by Lake Havasu and getting things prepared for our trip there. If you pass that way, be sure to look us up!