Sunday, July 31, 2005

Slurp! Slurp!

Monday, we were going to head toward San Luis Obispo after a little looking around today. Lou and Don visited a couple of RV dealers and other stores. Don's brother Ernie called to say he was in Tracey and headed through Bakersfield late this afternoon, so we found other things to do in Bakersfield and met Ernie and a another friend Debbie for dinner at Milts. The visit included a slurp or two from his "friendly" dogs Wolfie and Walter.

Come On By!


We're sitting on the Bakersfield house again this weekend. The picture above right is the neighbor's backhoe. He really makes us look bad. It's well over 100 degrees outside and he's out painting the outside of his house and using the backhoe to dig holes for installation of a new cesspool and leach line for his sons cabin near Glenville. We, on the other had are hiding inside with the air conditioner straining. He's retired as well but seems to have missed a class or two. You must get used to the heat. When we lived here years ago, I guess we did things too, but now we're either smarter or totally out of condition.

Visited Home Base

Lou and Don returned to Palo Alto the week of 7/25 to escape the Bakersfield heat. Don visited the doctor for a check-up and work for a little final business. Don went to lunch with some former co-workers at PF Chang's in downtown San Jose. The food wasn't as good as I'm used too. Bill Lee's Bamboo Chopsticks restaurant in Bakersfield can't be beaten too easily. Lou and Dawn hit all the thrift stores. Don obtained a nice "second" laptop for Lou (and of course a backup for Don) It's a nice Averatec laptop/DVD player, 15.4" widescreen, 1.8ghz, 60GigHD, 512 Ram. It has a 6hr run time as a DVD player. Cheap with all the rebates. Dawn's laptop is an Averatec as well and it's been a nice performer. Both Averatec's were from Micro Center in Santa Clara.
We also enjoyed a visit to the Sunnyvale Framers Market. We've never been to it before and have obviously been missing something. We'll be back again sometime. Sorry, no pictures.

Friday, July 22, 2005

Back to the Heat

We returned to Bakersfield for more open house sitting over the weekend.
We really didn't want to leave the cool coastal climate in San Luis Obispo's El Churro Regional Park. We returned via Highway 166 through Santa Maria, Cuyuma, and Taft to Bakersfield. Nice drive.

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Ahhhh!!! Cool at last!

We left Bakersfield about 9am. Quite hot already. We took Highway 58 through Buttonwillow to Santa Margarita then down Highway 101 to San Luis Obispo. SLO was in the low 70's. We had lunch overlooking the river at the Network cafe. We then headed up Highway 1 to El Churro Regional Park. The park is almost empty today. You can’t get reservations for groups smaller than 10 sites which is good. The Renaissance Pleasure faire was last weekend so we couldn't have gotten in until possibly yesterday. The weather is so nice here. We stayed here last September. This location is close to SLO and Morro Bay and nice and cool but not cold like at Morro Bay today.

Above left, the required picture of the RV in the site. Above right our campsite. Just beyond the fence is an arbor where we'll have morning tea.


Pictures of the arboretum and the creek that runs just below the campsites.


Lots of flowers though not as many as last year. Possibly a result of the Renaissance Faire a couple of days previous.

Above left, Morro Rock in Morro Bay. Above right, a truck loading "Honey Pots". We watched a while to see if he loaded all eight on the truck that can carry six. he didn't. He loaded 7 of them. Retirement provides extra time for these kinds of studies.


Above left, Lou enjoying the arboretum. Above right, wild turkeys grazing next to our camp.

Monday, July 18, 2005

The Long Hot Summer

It’s been very hot here. 111 degrees in the RV, with just the vent fans. The AC in the RV can't keep up with the heat. The compressor shuts down when it gets too hot. With the fans, at least, it stays about at the outside temperature. We're in the house where it stays much nicer.
Even with the heat and the fact we only had signs on the street, no ads, we still had around 15 people stop by to see the house. One lady brought back here husband one time and her mother-in-law another time. She's very interested but can't afford our price. We'll keep her name, you never know what might happen?
Brother Ernie called. He was in Santa Maria and had a load to pickup in Buttonwillow at FritoLay. He'll be headed for Vancouver, Washington. We had dinner at the Roadhouse Saturday evening. I was up very late working on some computer stuff that had to be done ASAP. Sunday, we worked on getting his SkyFi radio working. The FM modulator/Power Supply was fried. A visit to Radio Shack for a power adapter and a cable fixed that. Ernie Left about 3pm to get his load. Buttonwillow is about 22 miles west of Bakersfield. Don took a nice nap to catch up on lost sleep. Afternoon naps seem to be part of getting older?
Today, Monday, Lou went with her friend Anita to look up some things at the County Recorders Office.
Tomorrow, Tuesday, we head for cooler climates. We are going to Morrow Bay where the high temperature is reportedly 70 degrees.

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Open House

Yesterday, we held the first open house here in Bakersfield. We're hoping to find someone interested in a wonderful house.
For Sale, Like New 1975 home, 3 Bedrooms, 1.75 Bathrooms, New Flooring Throughout, New Oven and Dishwasher, New Paint Throughout Interior.
Asking $349,900



Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Another Birthday

Happy Birthday to my brother Ernie!

Lou arrived back in Bakersfield. She has completed her retirement paperwork and can now join me as one of the idle poor. Our current, current plan is to take some short trips here in the west, within a couple of days return trip to home. We'll have to enjoy the fall colors here this year. If we headed east, we'd arrive at least half way through the best fall color viewing period, even if we raced there. Racing isn't part of our travel plan. We might get to Texas in the Fall to see Lou's sister.

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Here Comes The Heat

We've had a cool spell the past week here in Bakersfield, highs in the mid 90's. Today it is supposed to be the mid 100's, as in possibly 106 degrees (not possibly 150 degrees, just to clarify).
I received the Hughes Autoformer that I ordered last week. I plugged it in and it works as expected. It boosts the voltage to the RV by 17 volts if it drops below 115 volts. The RV is at the end of more than 100 feet of #10 extension cords. The voltage without the AC running was about 105 volts, with AC down to 92 volts. This was how it was in the heat of the day (hot cable). Needless to say that isn't good for the AC, so it hasn't been used in over a week. The voltage inside now is 110 with the AC running. I should have gotten the Autoformer long ago.
I've been tinkering with the lawn sprinklers. New valves, new heads, and other adjustments. It looks like the rear lawn may become green again. It's nice to get wet testing and adjusting the sprinklers when it's hot. (Anything above 80 degrees is defined as hot)

Wednesday, July 6, 2005

Visitation Map


Here is a map of the states we have visited in our RV. Green states are more recent visits in our SeaBreeze RV. Yellow states were visited in our VW camper van, mostly in 1979. Blue states haven't been visited. In between the older visits and the more recent visits we tent camped mostly on the west coast pretty much matching the green areas.
If the rule is we must sleep in each state then the above is accurate. If we must camp in each state in order to count it then some yellow states shouldn't be counted. We traveled 14,000 miles in 6 weeks in 1979 and often one person drove while the other was sleeping.

Don visited 40 states. Don's to visit: AK, LA, ME, MI, MN, NH, ND, VT, WI
Lou visited 38 states.Lou's to visit: AK, LA, ME, MI, MN, NH, ND, VT, WI, NC, SC
12 States visited in Class A RV.
38 States visited in Vw.

A Birthday

Lou and Dawn departed for Palo Alto. Dawn needs to return to school for a project and Lou has other business. Don tinkered on the house and started clean up, touch-up after the flooring installation.
Dinner was a birthday party for cousin Samantha, daughter of Aunt Helen's son Jay.
It is rather warm here during the day. Fortunately, it cools off comfortably in the evening.

Monday, July 4, 2005

Tut II

The manager at the Tutankhaman Exhibition emailed Saturday and invited us down to see the exhibit anytime.
I was beginning to fear that they had forgotton us.


On Sunday, we went to the Ranch Market again for breakfast of Huevos Rancheros on our way out of Bakersfield.
We drove down to LA, asked to see the manager at LACMA and got tickets for the next entrance group for Tut. It was about 1 pm. It took us more than two hours to see the remainder of the exhibit. When we were here last time, we had only seen three of the 12 galleries before they started rushing us out due to the private party following us. We spent a little over an hour on that visit. They seem to think you're supposed to only require one hour to see it all. It actually takes more like 3-4 hours if you really look. Dawn really looks.
We then used our ticket stubs to go into the LACMA Modern and Contemporary Art Museum to see old furniture, pottery, weapons, sculptures and paintings. Very interesting and will require another visit some time. The La Brea Tar Pits are on the grounds as well and there is another museum on the grounds about it. Again, something for another time. This is all blocks away from Hollywood, Rodeo Drive and the like. Again, more for another visit.
We dropped by to see Dawn's friends Dawn and Courtney at UCLA and then headed home.