12/25/15 Savannah GA, Park City UT and Pullman WA

Storing the truck and RV in San Diego, we're off on a 6 week odyssey flying to Savannah, Georgia for a two week visit with Deb's family over Thanksgiving, a week skiing with Zoe and Jack in Park City, Utah, then Christmas at Zoe's place in Pullman, and New Year's with John's cousin Meghan in Salem, Oregon.  Really feeling like gypsies again.

Dee and Sherrie in Savannah

Flying to Savannah on Thanksgiving Day was a great idea, lower fares and the airports were empty.  The gathering of Deb's brother and sisters was a fun event as usual but highlighted by Dennis proposing to Linda....YAHOO another YAYA added to the sisterhood!  Spent lots of time helping Dee and Stan downsize their house, had a great boat ride pulling crab traps, and ate Stan's delicious pizza made with cauliflower crust.  Two lovely warm, sunny weeks went by fast.

We meet up with Jack at the Salt Lake City, Utah airport where he presents Mom with a most beautiful, fragrant plumeria and orchid lei from Hawaii!  Having our priorities straight, we take a shuttle to the nearest hotel lounge to watch the NAVY football team beat up ARMY.   So cool to see Jack's ship pictured on the helmets of the Navy linebackers.  Unfortunately, Zoe didn't make it due to the stresses of her apartment flooding and preparing for the Africa trip. 

John and Jack Park City

Jack's Sled Park City Olympic Track

Our Park City condo has a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains, and there is just enough snow for really good skiing. We were one of the first skiers to ride the new gondola connecting Park City Resort to Canyons Resort.  Park City hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics and Jack gets an early Christmas present of a bobsled ride down the Olympic track, driven by Valerie Fleming, the 2006 Winter Games Silver Medalist.  IT WAS AWESOME, he says, feeling 3 G's of pressure as the sled goes up the sides of the ice as it speeds 66 mph down the track.  Ask to see the video :)

A most beautiful site when Zoe picks us up in Spokane and Jack gives her a lei as snow falls all around them! Oh yes, life is so so very good to us.  Air BnB sets us up in a great 2 bedroom apartment in Pullman.  Have lots of fun baking cookies and playing in the snow with Zoe's boyfriend, Gabe, and his two little girls who also join us for Christmas dinner along with Zoe's roommates Joy and Camille.  

Christmas Snowperson in Pullman

It snows a little every day in Pullman, but snows lots in the Cascades where an avalanche closes Snoqualmie Pass preventing our mail and 500 Amazon Prime packages from getting delivered by Christmas day.  This reminds John of Christmas in Malta when he was 8 years old (his father, Navy Civil Engineer Corp., was stationed at NATO Headquarters) when "Santa's plane" carrying mail/presents was diverted to a search and rescue mission, arriving the day after Christmas.

11/25/15 Navy Life and Wild Life

Jack Standing Left Front

 Jack Sailing By Coronado

As Jack finishes up Legal School, he gets news his ship, the USS Chung-Hoon DDG93, is stopping in San Diego to load weapons and can pick him up so we get to witness his first deployment!!!!!!!  Nice to meet several of his shipmates as he boards the skiff taking him out to his ship (Destroyer in background of skiff is similar to his).  We drive to Point Loma and watch the tugs back the ship off the dock and turn it around in the channel.  With lots of sailors (including Jack) on deck, we watch it sail around the Point and into the sunset.  HOW COOL IS THAT!!!  His ship was part of an exercise off southern California where people from California to Arizona saw or heard a missile fired from a U.S. submarine that prompted this comment in the LA Times: "Speculations were wide-ranging, including rumors of an otherworldly alien UFO visit. In fact, the streak was generated from the Trident missile’s rocket motor." Jack said it was AWESOME to watch the launch.  He loves his first deployment where he already moved up to the Communications Officer (COMMO) position. As an adjunct duty, he is also Legal Officer.

Missile Rattles Los Angeles

Zoe Handling Tranquilized Wolf

Zoe Aiming

Meantime Zoe sends great photos of her always interesting life. Here she is taking tranquilizer rifle and blow gun training at Wolf Haven outside Tacoma where she also performs checkups on endangered Mexican Wolves, the rarest subspecies of gray wolf in North America.  

Then we get a photo of a cougar in the trunk of her car and are not even shocked, since for her Masters Degree she would pickup up deer road kill and butcher them to produce bait for tracking fishers and bobcats in Western Maryland.  And last year she sent us a photo of her hiking away from a wolf kill with the head of a female Moose on her back.  Coming on the heels of the tranquilizer training photos, we assumed she tranquilized the cougar.  Jack's comment upon seeing it was something like, 'not the smartest thing you've ever done Zoe'. But upon further investigation we find out it is stuffed and being used as a prop for a presentation she is giving.  Pheww! 

Surprise, Surprise; Zoe Has a A Cougar in Her Trunk

Here she is at Halloween as a character from Narnia. 

And if life isn't interesting enough, a water main break in front of her house flooded her basement apartment.  Quick thinking saved her stuff from significant damage.

Zoe's New Lake Front Property

11/21/15 San Diego Revisited

Being foot loose and fancy free, we head back to San Diego for a month to hang out with Jack whose stay has been extended as he is assigned to Legal School after finishing Division Officer School.  The Admiral Baker RV Park is in a canyon where we see coyotes and deer, John walks to the Golf Course and Deb makes new friends with Peggy and John from Snoqualmie, Washington.  

We capture Jack for several dinners and boogy board trips to Breakers Beach where the waves are awesome but just about more than we are willing to ride.  Deb LOVES to boogy board, screaming with glee as she rides the waves. 

Deb and Jack 

John's Shirt "Working On My Bucket List"

We meet up with young newlywed friends from Virginia, Kyle (Marine stationed in San Diego) and Erin for dinner, a fun afternoon exploring Balboa Park, and an evening volunteering at the USO to serve Thanksgiving Dinner to needy military families. Also caught up with JoeDe J. for a tour of Girl Scout Headquarters and a nice walk around Balboa Park.  

Mission Trails Park

A few minutes up the road is Mission Trails Park where we take wonderful sunset hikes on several of the peaks and where Deb takes a "tracker" hike and learned lots about wildlife signs on the trail.  We attend a Park concert of unusual instruments playing very beautiful music.  The instruments played are the Array mbira and handpan. 

La Jolla Shores

Driving the truck onto the La Jolla Shores Beach to launch the kayak was a site.  On a perfectly warm, calm day we kayak out to the sea caves.  Only days later a full moon "king tides" flooded this area with massive surf!  

Sea Cave La Jolla

10/22/2015 Checking Out Tucson, AZ

Agave Gulch FamCamp View

Small Portion of the Bone Yard

Having no plan at the moment, we check out Tucson as a possible place to winter. We fall in love with this desert city with it's pleasant weather and beauty surrounded by several different mountain ranges. Then we discover Davis-Monthan Air Force Base has a great RV park, Agave Gulch FamCamp.  It sits along side the bases famous aircraft "bone yard" where all branches of the military services park their retired crafts. This place is massive with over 4,200 air craft of all types either waiting to be called up again or waiting to be dismantled.  One of Jack's best friends, Gibby, recently flew his Army helicopter here to be retired.  

Larry, Missie and John in Tubac

So much fun to meet up with John's cousin Missie and husband Larry who live here along with Bob S., an old Navy/Sonalysts friend. Missie and Larry take us a little south of Tucson to the small artsy township of Tubac where we lunch at Shelby's and poke around the many shops.  

Some cool campers we have seen along the way.

10/15/15 Cochiti Lake Pueblo, Santa Fe New Mexico

Santa Fe

It's a short trip north from Albuquerque to a sparsely occupied campground 45 minutes outside Santa Fe in the high desert on Cochiti Lake. This Army Corp of Engineers manged site is near a dam they manage and the quiet is just what we need.  The night sky is littered with falling stars and a very prominent milky way.

Flamingo Dancer at Santa Fe Botanical Garden

During the week John has a meeting at the Santa Fe Institute, we tour the very cool artsy town and at sunset grab cheese and salami and picnic Italian style while attending a wonderful performance of flamingo dancers in the Botanical Park sculpture garden.  A reminder to always check the town's "what's going on today" website!  

Tent Rocks HooDoos from Canyon Trail

Another day we enjoy a fantastic hike through a slot canyon up to Kasha-Katuwe 
Tent Rocks 
National Monument and later tour nearby Cochii Pueblo where Deb had a nice chat with a delightful old Indian named Dan in his adobe home where he and his wife make

ceramic Story Tellers and other cultural pottery.  He tells her how much he appreciates outsiders showing

John Navigating the Slot Canyon

respect for his culture.    Each tribe has it's own style of pottery and Deb realizes the clay Story Teller she bought Zoe back in the 90's may have been from this Pueblo!  She also realizes the Ute Pottery she bought on a camping trip to Mesa Verde with John in the 70's while she was studying away from Connecticut College for a year at University of Denver, is worth a LOT more than she paid for it.  Too bad she just gave it to Good Will when we sold the Virginia house.  Oh well.....

Cochiti Ceramic Story Teller

10/11/15 Albuquerque International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta

New Mexico and another state sticker brings us to the biggest bucket list item of all for Deb.  When she made reservations in February to stay for 7 days, John said "really, what are we going to do for 7 days?" Well he was hooked the moment the first balloons went up and had the time of his life as well.  Our VIP West campsite was on the fiesta grounds, a two minute walk to the balloon launch area.  The grounds open at 5 a.m. and the fairway loaded with media, food and vendors of all sorts was packed with thousands of people by 6 a.m.  A half dozen Dawn Patrol

Atop Our RV

balloons ascend before sunrise to test the winds then between 7 and 8 a.m. 300 to 600 balloons ascend, EVERY DAY! When the wind was blowing south, they flew right over our heads as we sat on top of our RV. Some flew so low we had conversations with the pilots.

Lady Jester Balloon

                                   

Deb volunteered to crew for the Lady Jester Balloon Team for three days, one of the coolest things she has ever done.  Arriving at our spot on the field around 6:30 a.m., we unroll the tarp, then the balloon, turn on the fans to start to fill the balloon and then attach it to the gondola (basket the pilot/passengers ride in) and turn on the gas to fill it the rest of the way.  The referees signal when each balloon can ascend but it still feels like beautiful mass chaos on the field with hundreds of trucks, crew, referees and balloons along with thousands of spectators.  After Lady Juster rises and we see which direction the wind is taking her, we pile in the back of the pickup and follow.  When she lands we roll it all up, pack it in the trailer, go back to the fiesta field and tail-gate. Jester's owners and pilots, Sally and Robert, treat their crew royally.  It's now about 9:30 a.m. and today breakfast is delicious Frito Pie (chili poured into a small bag of Frito's with cheese and onions on top and of course the traditional ballooning beverage - champagne! Ah, yes, life is oh so very good.     

On the weekends, for The Night Glow, balloons are filled and lit up by the gas burners but do not ascend.  Helping to hold down the gondola attached to an eight story balloon filled with hot gas, on a windy evening, took muscles Deb didn't know she had.  The Glow is followed by the most fantastic ground and air fireworks we have ever seen!  So grateful to be walking home as stories abound of taking 2 hours just to get out of the parking lot after the fireworks. 

Holding The Jester During The Glow

We met some great new friends in the RV park, Marsha and Ralph, who live near Cape Cod, Massachusetts, about 2 hours from where we will live in Westerly!!  They are on a 4 month RV-about so we hope to hook up with them again before they head East in Spring.

By the way, this is NOT the last time we will come for the fiesta. Rent an RV and come with us next time!!!

Deb Waiving From Lady Jester Crew Truck

Photo While Holding Lady Jester As She Fills

9/28/15 Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, Nevada

A nice relaxing drive in our new truck to Lake Mead RV Village next to the Hoover Dam and another state sticker on the map. Although it's 107 degrees, it cools quickly to the 80's at dusk as we watch a coyote spring through the park.  We have seen so many

Coyote in Campground

magnificent sunsets on this trip but this one rates among the very best.  Decades of drought have taken the lake down well over 100 feet making the once lake front campground a half mile walk away from the water.

Next morning we scoot over to Hoover Dam and marvel at the technology needed in 1931-1936 to build this colossal structure. They say there is enough

concrete in the dam to pave a two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York. Standing atop it, it warms my heart to know that core samples tested in 1995 show no signs of deterioration.  Took 5 years to build which included first having to build tunnels to divert the raging Colorado River, and 2 coffer dams on each side of the construction site and then the dam itself.  Hummmm, that's about how long it is taking our builder to build two 3 story, 8 unit buildings and a club house....Sorry, just couldn't resist.

White Area Normal Level of Colorado River 

 Turbine Room At Bottom of Dam

Our Condo, Building Two

9/27/15 San Diego with Jack

Jack and Mom at Sweetwater Campground

As we pull into San Diego's Sweetwater Summit Campground, perched on a rolling hillside with a lovely valley view, our Camp Host neighbor says "glad you are here, wasn't sure you were going to make it for dinner".  Along with several Park Rangers and fellow Camp Hosts, we are invited to a freshly caught fish cookout including sticky rice, yummy fresh tuna jerky and Fireball Whisky to close the evening. Happy to have Jack join us, the gang of mostly Navy/Marine vets enjoyed listening to his plans and thanked him for his service.  We are SO very proud of him.

Ford 350 Crew Cab Long Bed

Truck issues finally force us to buy a new one and the process took 4 LONG DAYS! Day 1 is paperwork.  Day 2 is driving 220 miles round-trip to Riverside to get a new hitch base, get it installed, then drive 350 miles round-trip to Yuma, Arizona to take delivery of said truck (the dealer's recommendation to avoid California sales tax since we are not residents).   Our old truck practically died pulling into the Lowe's parking lot where we met with a Yuma notary who verifies we took possession outside California. We swap trucks with the Ford Dealer's driver, put on our old Montana license plates, drive back to San Diego in our new unregistered truck (no dealer plates or have to pay $4,000 sales tax), and are luckily waived through the California Border Patrol check point.  Day 3 is spent correcting the new truck title that had the old truck's odometer reading on it.  Day 4 is getting it accessorized including running boards so Deb doesn't need a ladder to get in.  Love the bigger, stronger, longer truck but hard to park!

We learn the hard way why many RVs have circled their rigs with all sorts of chemicals to keep ants out.  We get ants and do what is recommended on the internet, put liquid borax traps (Walmart) around the room.  Do you believe everything you read on the internet???  Well a few hundred tiny ants turn into THOUSANDS and they are climbing the walls everywhere.  The borax worked in that they were all gone the next day but how about next time putting the traps outside near the RV and not draw them in???

Seems like we have been in stressful situations for months and so it continues. Chili just had a  8.3 earthquake generating a tsunami warning up the southern California coast and a thunderstorm in Utah led to flash floods in Zion National Park (our next stop) killing 17 hikers.  We are fried, and having already seen soooo many beautiful places in this country, we skip the planned trip to Utah's Zion, Bryce, and Monument National Parks and settle down here for 8 more days and then go direct to the Grand Canyon.  We have gotten to the point where we are not appreciating these magnificent sites so will save Utah for another trip.

USS Midway Museum

Jack takes us on a tour of the surface fleet and we go aboard the aircraft carrier Midway.  This was the first ship Grandpa French served on as a Seaman Recruit in 1950! We  have a fantastic walk around Cabrillo National Park and visit to Mission San Diego.  Mid-week we catch a Padres game with Jack, and spend time hanging around Hotel Del Coronado with

Hotel Del Coronado

Virginia friends John and Vicki who are here vacationing.  Next weekend, with Jack we hike around Torrey Pines and boogie board, watch ECU beat VA Tech at Jack's Coronado apartment, and experience the blood moon eclipse overlooking the ocean on the deck of the Hotel Del with John and Vicki.  So hard to leave after visiting with either one of our kids.

Jack's Coronado Apartment View

9/15/15 Point Mugu, California

Towed Off Point Mugu Beach

 Today was not for the faint of heart but one that tests our positivity skills and our commitment to continue this Freedom Folly. The truck acts like it has had enough of 14 months of towing us around the country so we plan to buy a new one when we get to San Diego. 

We arrive at Point Mugu State Park, near Malibu California, where the beach is the only thing on this sliver of land surrounded by a crescent of large steep hills.  We park parallel to the beach so our feet step into the sand at the bottom of the RV steps.  Life is good!

Then realize – the RV battery is so low the slides won’t open.

Then realize – the fridge has an ignition default signal which probably ran the RV battery down.

Then realize – can’t start generator to charge battery because need a little juice from the battery.

Then realize – although we see truck tires in the sand, John tries to pull our monster truck beside the RV to charge the battery and it sinks 6 inches into the sand.

AW JEEZE!  We go from the height of ecstasy to the pit of despair in 15 minutes.  Good thing Deb’s reading The 10^th Insight by James Redfield (of The Celestine Prophecy fame) as we look at each other, smile, and say “THINK LOVING THOUGHTS SO THIS NEGATIVITY WILL STOP!” 
Immediately, a fellow camper watching this fiasco unfold offers to tow us out of the sand – no problem.

The truck battery cables just reach the generator and the jump works - no problem.

The RV slides open and the fridge default signal miraculously goes off, food is still cold – no problem.

YAHOO - We grab the boogie boards, hit the waves, drink lots of wine, watch an amazing sunset in front of the RV with our feet in the sand and gleefully acknowledge, as Deb’s sister Sherrie jokingly puts it …..it sucks to be us ;)

Yet another of John's cousins, Jim, came by for a wonderful visit getting to know each other after 50 years.  We then tear ourselves off the beach and drive 1.5 hours to Hollywood to visit with John's best high school buddy, Lee and wife Melanie.  It is great catching up with them and hearing about their current play and screen writing projects.  We arrive at the campground well after curfew and the gate is locked with no Ranger in sight.  John "MacGyver's" (1980's TV show hero can fix anything with a pocketknive) a wood platform over the exit-only spike strip and Deb gingerly drives over; no shredded tires and no arrests!

Relaxing on Point Mugu