Thursday, December 20, through Wednesday,  December 26, 2012:  Christmas Week:

We headed out for the 186-mile trek to Hesperia, California, at 9:45 AM, Thursday morning.  It was uneventful until our GPS missed a turn in Hesperia that took 15 minutes to correct.  Oh, well, we're retired, so we don't really care.  Our GPS has been making a few mistakes lately.  We may have to replace it and its voice, Samantha.

We are staying at the Desert Willow RV Resort.  It's a nice place.  We have a perfect site.  It's too bad we'll be here only one night on our way to Soledad Canyon.

It was an easy 50 miles on Friday to the Soledad Canyon Thousand Trails Resort.  (It used to be called a “preserve” but they changed the name to give it a more upscale sound. They didn’t upgrade the place, though.  Parts of it still look a little run down.)

We settled into one of the sites in our favorite part of the place.  We forgot how cold it was going to be Thursday night and did not act to prevent our outside water line from freezing.  The first thing I had to do Friday morning was to thaw it all out and switch to a backup hose. Then I decided to modify a fitting for one of our water hoses.  I was successful, but in the process I drove a drill bit into the middle finger on my right hand.  It’s not pretty, but it will heal.   On one of Ramsey's walks on Friday, Becky discovered another Dalmatian in the park.  It was a 7-month-old named Pongo.  He and Ramsey got along very well. 

Saturday, we spent some time in Palmdale, running errands.  The streets were jammed and the stores were full.  If all those people were buying, it looked good for the economy.  We had a late lunch/early dinner at the Panda Express, which has become our favorite fast food emporium.

Sunday’s highlight (in an otherwise boring day since we have no Internet access here) was playing Rummikub.  For the first time in months, I actually won the first two games.  Somehow, that ended the session.

Monday, we dropped Ramsey off at Hollywood Dog Training School in North Hollywood---very near the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank.  We've been using this place as a kennel since we had our first Dalmatian, Roxanne, trained there in 1989.  Then we headed for downtown Los Angeles to spend three days at The Jonathan Club.  We settled into our room---921---one of our favorites.  Looking at the guest book, Becky discovered that this was the sixth time we've been assigned this room.

We then had lunch at the Quizno's at the Union Bank Plaza.  Late in the afternoon, we headed for Pasadena to have cocktails at the home of Laurie Lloyd, a former neighbor of Becky's when she was growing up.  One of Laurie's three sisters, Christy, who lives in St. Helena, California, and their mother, Darlene, who lives nearby, were also there.  Becky's sister Wendy also came by.  The Lloyds and Sheltons had a very lively reunion.

The next day, Christmas, we slept in, then headed for Pasadena again, to celebrate with the family at Wendy's house.  Our daughter, Donna, and her family were in town from Park City, Utah, and they joined us all. 

It was the usual chaotic Shelton gathering, and, as usual, it was a lot of fun.

 

Wednesday, we had lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen in downtown LA, then headed to Hollywood to meet Barbara Coad at the Arclight Theater to see Lincoln.  It was excellent, though I didn't think it lived up to quite all of the hype.

After that, the three of us headed to The Jonathan Club for a delicious dinner.  We all had filet mignon.  Yum!