The 162-mile trip to Morgan Hill, California, was uneventful---but a little stressful since we spent so much time driving in urban areas. Outside Oakland, we actually endured 8 miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic. We arrived at the Morgan Hill Thousand Trails RV Preserve at 2:00,
and found a nice 50-amp drive-thru site right next to the one we had when we were here three years ago. After setting up, Becky went to the store for our dinner fixings. We had decided that, since Monday was our 29th wedding anniversary, we should celebrate with filets mignon and a bottle of good wine. Which we did. I also sautéed onions and mushrooms as a delicious garnish. Yum!
At the moment, we plan to be here for 11 days, but we may leave early if that seems like a good idea. For one thing, they don't have sewer drains at the sites, which makes me nervous. And they charge $25 to send the honey wagon to your site. That makes me mad. Anyway, we'll see how it goes.
Tuesday was Veterans Day, of course, and, other than Becky's buying a new pair of reading glasses at Lenscrafters,
we celebrated by doing little or nothing all day. On Wednesday, I attacked a small project in our storage area. We can now hang our broom, rake, and other items with long handles horizontally from a pair of brackets attached to the wall. We also took our computers to the Family Lodge to use their free internet to update some functions. Yippee!
Our big adventure on Thursday was to go to the Costco in Gilroy. Our GPS routed us over the hills and through the woods for about 10 miles to Gilroy. Apparently, it saved about 100 yards over using US 101, which we took to get back---and that saved us about 10 minutes. It was fun roaming through Costco again. It had been a while.
Friday was set aside for a field trip with Ramsey and Kelsey to see Don and Pinky Eastman in Pebble Beach. It took us just over an hour to get there, including some terrible traffic along Highway 1 when the Caltrans crews just had to cut the road from three lanes to one lane. It's hard to believe the Eastmans have lived in Pebble Beach for 14 years. We hadn't seen them in three years, and it was fun catching up. Pinky made some quiches for lunch. Delicious.
On Saturday we met Barb and Michael Penna, friends of ours who live in Salinas, at the nearby Sarah's Vineyard. We had a nice picnic there. Becky first met Barb when they both lived in Germany in the '70s and were connected (through their then-husbands) with the U.S. military. Barb's son, Tim O'Kelley, is the assistant winemaker at Sarah's Vineyard. Barb and Michael are an interesting and fun couple. It was fun seeing them again.
After the picnic, we played bocce ball at the vineyard. (The boys won.)
Early on Sunday morning, we met Susan Garza and her friend Leather at the big dog park in Morgan Hill. We brought Ramsey and Kelsey and Susan brought her dogs, Ryder and Itsy. All the dogs are Dalmatians. Susan adopted Ryder at the same rescue place in Gardena where we adopted Kelsey a year ago. In fact, Ryder is Kelsey's brother!!!. (By tradition---in the absence of actual information---the adoption date is considered to be the dog's birthday, so Sunday was Kelsey's third birthday, and we celebrated accordingly.) Seeing the dogs together was a lot of fun, and it seemed to us that Kelsey and Ryder recognized each other.
Later on Sunday, Becky went to Pleasanton to have lunch with Lucy Daggett and her husband, Joe Friedman. Lucy was a high school classmate of Becky's. Her husband was an unexpected guest; that's why I wasn't invited.
While Becky was gone, I started a project to build a small platform in our storage compartment to hold two folding chairs so we won't have to remove them every time we want something out of storage there. (I didn't finish it until Monday because I had to buy more parts at the Ace Hardware, and Becky had the truck. I think the project turned out pretty well.)
The dogs didn't get their usual five miles of walks on Sunday, but they survived quite well. It's amazing how little they do besides sleep when Becky's not around.
Sunday night, Ramsey lunged at me unexpectedly and I reacted by dashing into the bathroom. But, I slipped and crashed into the toilet---knocking it loose from its connection plate and breaking the plate in the process. I also hurt my back somehow during the crash. Monday morning I went to the hardware store to get the necessary repair part, and reconnected the toilet.
The rest of Monday was dedicated to shopping---Wal-Mart, Trader Joe's, etc. We loaded up on great stuff.
On Tuesday, we ventured to Moss Landing, a 60-mile round trip, to see the Lady Washington, a "tall ship" that is visiting there for a short while. It was built in 1989 as a nearly-exact replica of one that was built in the 1700s. It was interesting to visit, but I wouldn't want to live on it. The crew consisted of what appeared to be some strange people.
And Moss Landing was a pit. There were many very decrepit boats in the marina.
We got back a little late to fix dinner so we went to Panda Express. Yum! (As usual.) Wednesday was a rainy day, so we laid low all day. The redbox movie was Begin Again, with Mark Ruffalo and Keira Knightly. Very good movie. Very different.
We had previously determined that our tire monitor was malfunctioning, and the manufacturer sent us a new one---which arrived on Tuesday and which I programmed on Thursday with the help of Mike, the tech at the company. The written instructions are gibberish, so it's impossible to program the monitor without real-time help over the phone. Since we are leaving for Morro Bay on Friday, it was important to get the monitor programmed so we could leave with the comfort of knowing our monitor would work. Otherwise, Thursday was drizzly, so we relaxed again, and prepared to leave for Morro Bay.
The redbox movie was Moms' Night Out, with Patricia Heaton and Sean Aston. It was so awful we turned it off less than halfway through. (My back still hurts from my crash into the toilet Sunday night, by the way.)
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