Monthly Archives: September 2012

4-San Francisco, CA, Places we Visit-Year 1

Fisherman’s Wharf and a WWII submarine tour

We walked through Fisherman’s Wharf and had some GREAT food – I had a crab sandwich on a real sourdough roll (YUM!) and Jeff had fish and chips.  At the pier where the marine historical society is at there was a WWII submarine open for tours so we went inside and was able to walk through it.  Boy, talk about cramped spaces!  Getting through the hatches was more difficult than I thought it would it – in movies you see the guys grabbing the top and swinging through it but as I’m not a very fit 20 year old I had to sort of crawl through.  Jeff too as he’s much taller than any real submariner would be!  Here are a few pictures we took:

 

4-San Francisco, CA, Places we Visit-Year 1

San Francisco pictures

Here are some misc. pictures we took while touring San Francisco:

One block of Lombard Street in the city is so steep that instead of just making it a steep street (many we saw are about 15% grade (note that you’ll see many warning signs and truck brake inspection places etc. when you get about an 8% grade) they had to put in switchbacks.  People actually live on that block and have little parking spots right along the switchbacks.  We saw pedestrians walking down the hill and they had to hang on it was so steep!  Notice in the pictures looking down there were hoards of tourists at the bottom taking pictures!

Also included in this photo gallery are pictures of the city from the highest point called “Twin Peaks” (910 ft!)

 

 

4-San Francisco, CA, Places we Visit-Year 1

Golden Gate Bridge

We’ve been across the Golden Gate Bridge twice, once in our truck and once in a bus.  Plus, there are views of the bridge from many parts of the city.  During our walking tour of Fishermans Wharf we noticed a heavy fog coming in – a couple of the pictures below show just a little bit of the bridge through a heavy fog!

4-San Francisco, CA, Places we Visit-Year 1

Marin County, just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco

We’re now in an RV park in Marin County, CA – just north of the Golden Gate bridge and San Francisco.  We’ve gone into the city twice, once in our truck to drive around, get our bearings and see parts of the city we can’t walk to, and then once by bus so we could walk around in Chinatown, Fisherman’s Wharf etc.

Our RV park, Marin RV Park, is just west across a small bay area from San Quentin.  When we walk Laddy along the estuary behind the park we are looking at the prison.  A little spooky!

See other posts from this area for pictures of the bridge and city!

3-Monterey Bay, CA, Places we Visit-Year 1

Monterey Aquarium – fabulous!

Morgan Hill isn’t too far from Monterey Bay and the city of Monterey, and we spent a day at the Monterey Aquarium.  It’s a great place!  Here are a few pictures that Jeff took while there:

 

3-Monterey Bay, CA, Places we Visit-Year 1

Big Sur – rocky cliffs along the ocean – it was a FABULOUS drive!

We took a day trip and drove down to the Big Sur region of the coast.  While it was quite foggy all morning, it did clear up around lunchtime enough so we could see the coastline and get some great pictures.  One place in particular was fascinating – at the Jula Pfieffer State Park there was a waterfall right on the beach!  No beach access but there was a trail along the cliffs with a great view of the waterfall for pictures.  Several of the pictures in the slide show below are of that waterfall, the rest are of various places where the cliffs along the beach were really breathtaking!

We took Laddy down to the beach in one area that he was allowed (no dogs allowed on State Park trails, but dogs ARE allowed on the trails in national park/forest areas) and we walked along the shore for a while with him.  One wave came in quite high and got about ankle deep for Laddy and for me – COLD water!!  After that he stayed away from the water, LOL

Enjoy the photos we took:

 

 

Full-Time RVing

A place for everything, and everything in it’s place

We decided a long time ago that we wouldn’t have a lot of “stuff” once we move into the trailer.  We had a few garage sales the last few years and really pared down our stuff.  Just before we moved into the trailer full-time we had a moving sale and everything that wasn’t going to be in the trailer with us got sold.

Once we sorted through our belongings, clothes, dishes, books, etc., and stacked it all up in the corner while we had the moving sale I was worried that it wouldn’t all fit into the trailer.  It was a pretty big stack!  But, it all fit and we even have extra room!  The difficulty we face at this point (still early days as a fulltime RV-er) is finding where we put certain items.  Especially Jeff since I’m the one that packed the trailer.

We’re trying to live by the motto “A place for everything and everything in it’s place”, but we’re not quite there yet.  Mostly we’re having to search cupboards and storage areas to find something we need that we’re sure we have somewhere, but we don’t know where it is.

The trailer came equipped with a TV mounted on the wall but we wanted to have our larger TV.  Jeff very carefully measured the space and announced that our larger TV would fit…just barely!  So, while we were in Three RIvers we bought a kit for mounting a TV to the wall and he dis-mounted the smaller TV and mounted our larger one.  Not that large – a 32″ but bigger than the 24″ that came with the trailer!

So now we have a larger TV, but where’s the remote?  I know I didn’t sell it, I would have put it with the other items to take with us into the trailer.  We looked and looked and looked again!  One day we spent two hours and went through every nook and cranny in the trailer (ha! It took only 2 hours!).  Not anywhere!  Since we need that remote to do a lot of the functions on this TV, we ordered a new one and figured we’d have to wait a few weeks for it to get shipped to Tx and then forwarded to us.

The very next day Jeff was going through the bag that contains the instructions manuals for all the devices in the trailer (stove, furnace, water heater, awning…there’s a lot of devices in here!) and lo-and-behold out fell the remote!  Dang, I’ve been into that bag over a dozen times and never felt around in the bottom of it.

Well, all’s well that ends well.  It’s a good lesson that in a small space where things must be stowed for travel, you need to REMEMBER where things  should be stored and make sure they always get put back in that exact space.  It also helps to store similar items in a similar place.  Our electronics get stored in the same place, our extra batteries are all in the same drawer.  Important papers are stored in one place, and papers we reference a lot (like those instructions for the devices of the trailer) get stored in an easy to reach place.  It’s also important to store things you use a lot in handy places to get at, while things we don’t use very much (like our winter coats while it’s in the 80s and above)  can be stored under the bed.

Living in a small space also means we have to be careful to not fill it up with new “stuff”.  We have another rule we’re trying to live by “if one thing comes in, one thing has to go out”.

 

About Us

Laddy goes athletic!

Because Laddy doesn’t have the ability to run around in a yard as he did (for a short time) in the house on Glenroy, we’ve been trying to find dog parks whereever we are.

There was one in Visalia that we took him to a few times.  He really enjoyed running with the other dogs, and there was one border collie that would “herd” Laddy.  It was fun to watch; Laddy wouldn’t know which way to turn as Peaches would be right there herding him backwards.

Now we’re in Morgan Hill, so one of the first things we did was find a local dog park. Morgan Hill has a real nice one as part of the community center (http://morganhilldog.org/).  It’s attached to a larger park; it has a pond with lots of ducks and gees, basketball courts and shade, picnic tables etc.  The dog park itself has a big dog and small dog section, and it’a BIG with lots of shade, benches scattered around and lots of buckets for water.

Laddy sure enjoys running around and meeting the other dogs.  He’s so friendly with everyone, dogs and people.  He’s starting to figure out that the purpose of us throwing the ball is for him to go fetch it and bring it back.  At first he would just run with the dogs chasing the ball, then he started to see the other dogs get the ball and run with it so he would do that too.  Today, for the first time, he brought the ball back to Jeff and me.  It took a couple of times of wrestling the ball from him mouth stating “Drop it” before he would do that but when he saw that we would throw it again he got better at it.

Here are a couple of pictures of Laddy enjoying himself at the dog park.

3-Monterey Bay, CA, Places we Visit-Year 1

From Three Rivers to Morgan Hill

Today was a travel day, so right after breakfast we started the process of stowing and readying our trailer for travel.  It was actually sprinkling as we were hooking up the trailer.  But, after several weeks of 90+ temperatures in Julian without A/C, and 100+ temperaturs in Three Rivers (at least we had A/C!) it was a very nice feeling to get a little wet and be cool!

 

Heading Out

So, off we go today from Three Rivers to Morgan Hill, which is south of San Jose/about 30 minutes from the Monterey Bay.  Here in Morgan Hill it’s about 73 degrees and our site is in full shade.  We’ll have to get our sweaters out LOL!

Here’s our new RV Park, Oak Dell RV Park.  Very pretty, quiet, shady, a lot of the people here appear to be “long time” residents in trailers and RVs.  Many of them have flowerpots, enclosed decks etc.  We’re just here for a week though.

Oak Dell RV Park