We're on our way! Day one

We left at 7:00 a.m. which is our about our usual start time when we have several hours to travel.  We're both morning people, so once we're up we just go ahead and do the required work and hit the road.  We usually have a target in mind, and we usually come pretty close.

We divided the trip from San Diego to Yellowstone  into 4 relatively leisurely drives.  Today ended up being six hours to the first stop in Las Vegas.  Our driveway in Lemon Grove, ready to go!

Somewhere near Temecula we saw three hot air balloons.  It was rather grey without a whisper of wind so they kind of went straight up and then down.  I've never been brave enough to fly in one so I don't know if that would be disappointing or not.  I prefer to appreciate their charms from the ground.

The ride was traffic free with the exception of one small backup after the 215 and 15 merged.  It's hot here, hovering between 95 and 99 all afternoon.  This made a dip in the pool quite refreshing.  We followed that with dinner out and then some downtime.  We want to arrive at the next destination, Holden Utah, pre lunch so we'll likely be taking off between 7:00 and 7:30 again for what looks like a 4 1/2 to 5 hour drive.

Poor Miss Maya has a new training regime.  She prefers to be cuddled next to me as close as possible.  Which means every time I want to get up I have to negotiate.....so she now has a bed on the floor, within two feet of me and I'm training her to use that instead of the couch.  She does get to sleep in our bed at night so she's not terribly mis treated.  Also since we are likely to encounter some rainy days in our travels, we'll keep the couches cleaner if she's not allowed up.  

We've found the majority of RV parks have dismal to non existent wifi and this one despite their pamphlet to the contrary is no exception.  We have a mifi so we can use that, but being data constrained is very limiting!

The interior

As we continue to prepare for our first long outing, I continue to fine tune what we'll take and how to keep things really simple.

Yesterday I described the benefit of the twin bed option we chose, so here you have a photo.  I love the way the eye travels the entire length of the trailer.  The rug is a new one that can be picked up to shake out.  Rugs we've learned are a magnet for campground dirt and really mostly in the way, but I do appreciate having one when I step out of the shower, so this one will likely be rolled up in the shower until it's needed.  The only other one that truly makes sense is a doormat size just inside the door to wipe feet.   I'm trying to initiate a no shoe zone once in the airstream but am being met with resistance.

These hooks are handy for the dog leash, dog bags, keys and….a hotel room key?  The gaskets on the windows tend to stick when they've been closed awhile.  Mark has treated them, but  they do still stick occasionally.  The best tool (I've been informed a knife is not an appropriate tool) is a credit card or hotel room key.  I found a generic, no advertising hotel room key and punched a hole in it so it will always be handy and we won't need to find purses or wallets to open a window.  Sometimes it's the little things.

 A little decorative Washi tape, an idea I adopted from one of my favorite airstream blog reads, just 5 more minutes.  

Three more days!  Food has been cooked and frozen, things that require packing are being staged in the dining room, important papers are being collected and organized and the excitement is building.

Rocky Mountain Preparations

We returned from two weeks in the redwoods with two weeks to get ready for our first Caravan and our longest trip to date.

Here we are parked in the Redwoods.  It's Santa Cruz RV redwood park and one of our favorites.  We have family, friends and grandchildren in Scotts Valley and Santa Cruz so it's a frequent destination for us.   This park feels like coming home and I love being in among the tall trees.

Mark plotted out our Rocky Mountain trip including stops, distances and driving times.  It's a caravan with 25 other air streamers and a first for us.  We had tried to join last year only to be told it was full.  When an  unexpected cancellation came up in May of this year we were asked if we were still interested.  It coincided well with my retirement plans and we had nothing on  Septembers schedule so we said yes.  I have never been to Yellowstone, Grand Junction or  Estes park but I know each will be incredibly beautiful.

Not having done this kind of trip before and not entirely knowing what to expect we've been busy planning.  For me that means comforts and food!  I keep everything in Evernote so I created a menu plan in Word, saved it as a pdf and sent it to Evernote.  I then took photos of the recipes I wanted to use and sent them to Evernote as well.  The menu plan notes if the meal is to be made on the airstream or ahead of time and saved in food saver bags in the freezer for easy meals.  It also notes which fresh foods will be required so we can look for them when we are able to.  My ratio is about 1/2 and 1/2 so on longer travel days we can just thaw and heat and on leisurely days we will make a meal.  I've also left lots of holes in the menu plan for eating out when the opportunity presents itself.  This is vacation after all.

Onto create comforts……and bedding.  Airstream beds are oddly shaped due to the rounded corners.  We opted for the front twin beds which afford you three extra storage units, and a large space between the beds creates essentially a room where it's easy to stand to get dressed instead of the small space a walk around queen allows for.  I also love that visually one can see down the length of the airstream making it appear roomier.  

This all means I have two sets of twin sheets that don't fit well.  All the wrinkles and untucking made me crazy so I decided on a solution.  I went off to the local fabric notions store and purchased several garters and a heavy flat elastic.  I wrapped the mattress in the sheets and pulled them taut and measured the length across the opening.  I then cut the elastic and stitched each of the ends to hold the garters.  I used three per bed and it works perfectly.  Sheet is taut and stays in place.  Brilliant right?  Well apparently I could have gone to a store and purchased this solution!  There is a product called sheet garters.  Who knew?  Certainly not me.  I'm still happy with mine as they are custom fit.

So today is for cooking and freezing.  Tomorrow is fine tuning the storage solutions and checking our list.  We will experience a variety of climates during the month long trip so we need to plan accordingly.  We're also trying to fit in some extra walking to make sure we're ready for all the exploring we'll be doing.

Learning to cook Airstream style.

With our move to a bigger airstream which afforded us more fridge/freezer and storage space, and a move towards longer trips, we are learning what food works well.

On our trip from San Diego to Santa Cruz we spent one overnight with friends in Paso Robles.  Gardening friends......that was a good plan!  They had been harvesting some of their crops for days and had more than they could use so they shared their hard work and beautiful fruit and vegetables with us.

Here are two overflowing bowls of fresh figs and table grapes, both the best I've eaten. We also have wonderful peaches and plums.  There is no way to buy a peach in a store that comes close to these.

Here a  yellow squash and poblano pepper are sautéed.  These were stirred into a penne pasta and put in a shallow pan with a marina sauce and topped with small slices of fresh mozzarella.  I thought it was wonderful, Mark thought it was a bit too spicy.  I thought I was cutting up a sweet pepper and may not have been as diligent in scraping out all the seeds.  I suspect he got some seedy bites because I thought it was just perfect.

We'll be entertaining on Saturday.  My plan is for a Salmon Nicoise salad.  That way I can do all the work in the morning and visit with friends instead of cooking.  Dinner prep will then just take some arranging on plates.

We still have a lot of learning to see what works best.  Easy cleanup is kind of a key factor, as well as the smallest number of pans, and a good balance of fresh ingredients that work together with non perishables.  I really like the trader joe stuffed grape leaves (dolmas) which come in a can.  One cucumber, some tomatoes, a little feta cheese and some kalmata olives and dinner is served!

Santa Cruz and Baby Watch

When we heard we would be grandparents for the fourth time in mid August we decided that we would spend two weeks on either side of the due date.  We also decided that we would try a new campground.  There are not a lot of choices near Santa Cruz.  One a beautiful beach state park is only available six months in advance and generally sells out immediately as the date opens....so that was out.

There is the harbor where we've stayed before and it does have great beach access, but it's a parking lot.  Granted a parking lot with a view of boats, electric, water and sewer but no other amenities.  Given my husband's packrat nature, he had a key to the restrooms from when we moored a boat there 14 or so years ago...it still worked.  This time we decided not to go with a parking lot though.

A KOA in Watsonville seemed at first glance to be worth exploring and we booked it for the two weeks.  Arriving on Sunday night I was not enamored of the aesthetic, and while kid friendly, which was good for my grand children was also kind of frenetic with bike riding and enthusiastic mid schoolers everywhere.  I didn't want to be the naysayer so I quietly settled in and then, no internet access, no cell service at all.  Remember that we were waiting on a grand baby, no cell service was just not going to work.  The front office was less than empathetic and we decided it was not going to be a fit.  When we woke up in the morning, already having made the decision, we were in fog so thick as to be almost rain, and really damp and grey.

We went off in search of cell service to a starbucks a few miles away and made calls to a few that we had looked up.  First one to answer was RV redwood park where we've stayed before....yes they could accommodate us!  Yay....we would have to move within park a couple of times but they got creative and found us space.  We pulled into to brilliant sunshine and the cool shade of the redwoods.  Heaven.

Just in time....we got moved Monday morning and Monday evening we got THE text, baby Isabella was on her way.  Off we went, arriving at 4:00 a.m. and waiting through the hours until she arrived!


Here is our new spot in the redwoods.

Here's my rocket surgeon

and baby Isabella with her sister Sam our first grandchild!

This is where I spent the day beading.....

I think in the future this will be our Santa Cruz park of choice!

Our second big outing

We picked up our new 25 foot Flying Cloud in April and one week later went off to Borego Springs.  I wasn't sure how challenged I would feel pulling a bigger airstream and through some narrow windy roads.  Our hostess was kind enough to research some alternate routes instead of the scary (to me) mountain pass.  She fortunately remembered her early trailering days and knew I might be skittish.

I found the best linen baskets to hold onto our dishes and tuck away up in the over sink storage.  They came from Home goods and the first store had one set so I traipsed off to the second store across town and found the same set, enough for all my nooks and crannies to contain our various bits that we travel with.

Here is view of the desert sky.  Days were definitely hotter then I would like but I can see a return trip sometime in February or early March.

Our new shiny airstream with a desert backdrop.

The desert was beautiful and hot, very hot.  A morning walk took us halfway to our destination when we both fortunately were wise enough to not tough it out and decided on turning back.  It was also the first time Maya ever got lost.  She has always been a 'need to be close to her people' dog and has never wandered.   We suspect that when Mark went back to the rig to retrieve something, she left looking for me and got disoriented.  This is so not like her but at 12 I guess we need to be more diligent about keeping track of her.   Her reflexes, sight, hearing and most likely sense of smell are all somewhat diminished.  Luckily someone spotted her and put her on a leash and walked the park until a neighbor of ours recognized her and we were reunited.  This could have been tragic if not for that kind soul, as coyotes are prevalent and the desert was very hot.

What I most loved about our stay was the desert sky and the wind.  I am a fan of wind, it always makes me feel so alive.  It was a warm but relentless wind, probably around 20 knots.  I had forgotten the beauty of the stars at night with that level of darkness.

We are currently in Santa Cruz and I'll tell you more about that trip in the next post.

It's here!

Yesterday we picked up  our new 25 foot Flying Cloud and we love it!  I fretted( because that's what I do), that the extra width was going to be hard to see around.  With a little airstream forum research, we bought the perfect extension mirror and installed them and now we see better, meaning further straight back then we did with the narrower 22 foot.

So I fretted for nothing, but I wasn't done, because next up I was pretty sure it just wasn't going to go down the long narrow driveway with a ten foot retaining wall on one side….but it did.  The bottom bit was challenging and took a lot of pulling forward, and inching backwards to get it positioned correctly, but we did it!  Well Mark did it, but I did the navigator thing with hands held wide and narrowing down as he got closer.  I 'm getting pretty good at that part of the job.

I had planned for champagne and a light easy dinner so we could enjoy the time in the new airstream.   While I set a nice table and fluffed and arranged toss pillows, Mark got out the drill to see if he could indeed lower the stabilizer with a socket and drill.  He can…..although I think it will annoy the neighbors and is not really of that much value, a few cranks and it can be done silently.  The 22ft hid the stabilizer crank shaft way underneath and it was a nuisance.  These are in plain sight, easy to reach, and I guess even easier with a drill!