McGruers on the Road: September 2019

Hello Friends and Family!

We have created this blog for those of you who are interested in following along in our new adventures.

We moved all our furniture into storage in Flagstaff the last weekend in May. We loaded a 26' truck on Thursday, drove up to Flagstaff on Friday and started unloading. We finished unloading on Saturday by about noon, had a lovely lunch with Danielle and then drove back to Chula Vista. We got into our RV and drove out to Pio Pico in Jamul where we stayed for 3 weeks while we finished cleaning up and getting the house ready for sale. We put the house on the market on June 16.

Rex

We are traveling in our 39' motorhome with our two dogs, Martha and Rex.

Martha

After our 3 weeks at Pio Pico, we left for Arizona. We stayed at Cottonwood over the Fourth of July and Danielle came to visit. We had a lovely time wine tasting at the various vineyards in the area. After about 10 days in Cottonwood where the weather was warm/hot (Martha was not impressed as she didn't like walking on the blacktop and was continually seeking shade), we left for Flagstaff. As always when we are in Flagstaff, we enjoy time with Danielle. We cook dinner for her most nights, go shopping, and play games. Shopping in Flagstaff proved fruitful as Cherie needed a new dress and Graham needed to get some new black slacks and shoes for Browyn and Matthias' wedding which will be in August.

The end of July found us back at Pio Pico to check on the house, pick up leaves in the yard, clean the pool and doing small clean up things. We stayed for another 3 weeks, mainly so we could be the Matron of Honor and Best Man for Bronwyn and Matthias on August 3. The wedding was very lovely and we were honored to be a part of it. We had to go to some doctor appointments and used the time to visit friends and family. We celebrated Graham's birthday with a little party hosted at our friend's, Bob and Sharon' home. We enjoyed having dinner with Dave and Beth, celebrating both Dave's birthday and Graham's. We invited Amanda and Carson and the Angeli family over for a barbeque before we left. We got busted by the Pio Pico Park Ranger for having a fire in our fire pit but, not before everyone was able to get some S'mores.

Carson playing with Martha

We left Pio Pico on August 13 starting out on what we consider to be the real beginning of our adventure. We drove to the Naval Weapons Station at Seal Beach and spent a few days there going to the aquarium in Long Beach and enjoying a lunch at Bubba Gumps. Graham a Coronarita. Who knew that you could stick a beer in a margarita and it would taste good.

Next stop was Rancho Oso RV Park near Santa Barbara. We are Thousand Trails members, so you will see us mention many of their parks in our travels. We thought, great! we'll be by the beach! Not so, the campground is inland from Santa Barbara and is a horse RV camp which is interesting. It is a lovely park and we are enjoying it. We attended a small rodeo our first night here (Aug. 16).

We also attended a Candy Bingo game where Graham and I both scored a bingo.

Martha was introduced to horses and we would have loved to get a picture of her but left our phones in the RV since we don't have service in the park.

We visited Santa Barbara yesterday (August19) and went to their beautiful county courthouse and then down to Stearns Wharf. We saw this creative way for a homeless guy to make money. He had several tarps on the beach with different sayings and people would pitch money into the cups to determine how they would vote on a topic.

We had a delightful lunch at the Bluewater Grill and in a FB post found that our friend Jackie has been there and it was one of her favorite restaurants. :)

View from the Bluewater Grill

Tuesday found us in Solvang, a wonderful Danish town. We started our day by visiting the Santa Ines Mission.

We had sausages and sauerkraut for lunch, did some wine tasting and went into many of the eclectic shops. We also tasted the Danish dessert, Æbleskiver. These are delicious pancake balls served with powdered sugar and raspberry sauce. yum!

We went into the Wandering Dog for some wine tasting. The host had no personality and wasn't very congenial, so we left and continued our sightseeing.

The campsite we stayed at (San Benito) had wild pigs and their poop was everywhere adding to the fly problem. We cleaned our campsite at least twice while we were there. However, on the upside, there were lots of black tailed deer.

On to Pleasanton to help Reid and Janette at the Scotsfest, then to the Russian River. It was hot here, in the 90's. We took Rex and Martha for a walk down to the river. Rex went in and came back out, but Martha, our water dog, stayed in as long as possible.

Let's check things in the Cloverdale area. We went to the petrified forest. Very interesting 1/2 mile walk to see the petrified redwood trees.

Time for some wine tasting. We went to Bella Vineyards. It was a different ambiance for a tasting room as they built their own cave into the hill. Wines were very good.

Moving on up the coast, we found a very small campsite at Abrams Lake, 27 spots.

We spent the day investigating the area around Dunsmuir. The quaint town has about 2000 people and has a historical district. Sadly, much of the stores are closed.

Painted on the side of a building.

Dunsmuir is noted for Hedge Creek Falls. A small waterfall with a quick hike in and out. There was a small cave behind the waterfall so you could see it from the back side.

Here it is!

Catching waterdrops

We went past the waterfall and followed the creek a ways.

Graham loves to climb rocks and go places he necessarily shouldn't, I have dubbed him Goat Graham.

These small botanical gardens are nestled above the Sacramento River.

Slug outside our campsite. I think it was prehistoric.

Sacramento River

To end the day we went to Mt. Shasta City, walked around a bit and then had lunch at Burger Express.

We finally made it to Oregon and our first stop was at South Jetty (Thousand Trails Park) in Oregon. This campground was near Florence. We've had beautiful weather until here. It rained most of our stay, thankfully we were only here for 2 days. Then we went to Whalers Rest (Thousand Trails) near Newport and had a wonderful visit with our friends Kit and Joni. We took walks along the beach with the dogs. We all loved it!

Time to leave old friends and visit family. We stayed at Roamers Rest in Tualatin, OR. We were about 30 minutes away from Graham's Mom, Marilyn, and his brother Rory and wife Kerry. We had a great visit and went to an RV show with Rory and Kerry and to church with Mom.

On to Idaho! The drive along the Columbia River was beautiful. Our first stop is at Pendleton KOA. A very nice little "cowboy town". We just missed the big rodeo which was last weekend, which is ok, because all campsites and hotels were filled. Graham posted on FB that we were here and an old friend contacted him, so we were able to meet him for breakfast.

We found Idaho to be mostly flat land driving on the I-84, not necessarily very picturesque. We are making a stop in Wendell, the hub city of the magic valley. The camp office had a copy of their weekly newspaper and it said that there was a cowboy/western music festival on this weekend. So we stopped by and found a very small festival, but the music was good in the afternoon so we bought tickets to the evening concert.