South Lake Tahoe, California-Tahoe Village Campground

February 15- 22, 2017

We had an amazingly fun time in South Lake Tahoe! I went into this trip VERY apprehensive since my last experience skiing in Tahoe was totally miserable. And had I not had kids, I would most likely never have returned. But I tried to stay optimistic hoping that Jacob and Jordan would have an incredible snow experience.

We debated whether the kids should take snowboarding or skiing lessons. Eventually, we decided that I would learn to ski and the kids would learn snowboarding. I signed up for a lesson and the kids went to an all day snowboarding school at Sierra at Lake Tahoe. They had a great time and I felt so much more confident in my abilities. I was able to get off the lift easily and go down the small green slope and snake slope for beginners without falling! Yay!

(ski school for the kids)

Then the question was “What now?” While the kids did have some basic skills, they had not made it out to either of the hills that I had been on and since Greg nor I snowboard, we couldn't help them in any way. So we decided the lessons could not stop there. It was actually cheaper for me to continue my lessons than to pay for a lift ticket and equipment rental so that was a no-brainer. For the kids, we chose to put them in private lessons together for an hour and a half each day. (We skied/snowboarded for 3 days). It was sooooo helpful. They LOVED their instructors and their skills definitely improved. Jacob loves snowboarding but while Jordan is quite good, she would like to try skiing next time.

(the powder was so deep, they struggled to get out!)

No one was injured except for some bruising and swelling to one of my knees after a fall that I have no idea how it even happened. So overall, it was a great success.

And when we weren't at the slopes, we drove around checking out some of the sights and went ice skating and tubing and sledding.

The kids were so proud of how well they were doing on the ice.

And the sledding was so fun with the saucers being so much more fun than the slower tubes. One day was at Adventure Mountain where it is well-groomed

(Jacob's run)

(Jordan's run)

and the other was just at a local free hill.

(Greg's run, Hahahaha)

They played in the snow at the campground as well, making snowcones,

 snowballs, and

a snowman.

The kids are already dreaming of when we can come back. They both have said this was the most fun they have had in the past four years. That means it even beat Disney World!

Since Tahoe was receiving large amounts of snowfall, it was tricky to get out. It snowed for DAYS and so the snow piles and below freezing temps presented us with new challenges. Never before have we had to clear snow to create a driving path, sweep 8 to 10" of snow off of the slide-outs, dig out our water line and electrical hose, clear off snow and ice from the truck bed cover so we could hitch up or remove ice to free up our front landing gear to raise them!! This all made for a much longer moving day in addition to just deciding when it would be safe enough for us to head out.

(Not getting out of here this day)

(Moving Day!)

When we did finally get out of there, we faced a mountain pass at 7000+ feet with some ice and pretty heavy snowfall. Needless to say, Greg has become very good at putting on tire chains! On our moving day, we had to put chains on the rear truck tires and all four wheels of the RV. Then one broke on the way out of town so we had to stop and replace it (it was already showing some wear from previous days so we weren't totally surprised by that). But we made it safely. Greg took his time on the roads and we made it through some slippery areas with only white knuckles!

(we hit snow again while heading through the pass)

Overall, it was a very enjoyable trip and we look forward to hitting the slopes again in the near future!

Pleasanton/San Francisco, California-Alameda County Fairgrounds

February 5-15, 2017

Greg worked in San Francisco for about a month a number of years back when we first married and I had the chance to fly out and explore the city with him. I loved it and so I looked forward to coming back. But much like the other weeks in California, we had A LOT of rain. It rained Monday through Thursday pretty steadily. After years of drought, now California is in trouble from flooding, mud slides and rock slides.

The good news for us is that the rain finally cleared up for Saturday, which was the beginning of Greg's two week vacation.

But first, I have to share that Jordan turned 8 years old! It's hard to believe especially since she was just 4 when we set out that first year in the RV. She loves American Girl (and Calico Critters and more recently Barbie) so it worked out great that we were close enough to an American Girl store to go browsing and have lunch.

(breakfast donut, of course!)

She also decorated her own cake this year.

Our first outing in this area, was to the Hayward Shoreline Interpretive Center. It was a pretty small little center but one of the employees talked to me about the wetlands and the reason to be concerned about their disappearance as well as an experimental horizontal levee coastal storm-surge barrier that is being tested nearby. Very interesting idea.

We looked at some of the fish they had on display and viewed some organisms under a microscope.

Then we strolled along a path through the wetlands and observed the many water fowl.

While in the area, we stayed at Alameda County Fairgrounds which was essentially just a parking lot but it was in Pleasanton which is very nice and quite close to the BART station. However, I cannot imagine living out this far and riding the BART 45 minutes one way into the city everyday. It's fun the first few times, but would get old really fast.

Our first day in San Francisco was spent just sightseeing. We rode the trolley,

had Dim Sum in Chinatown,

walked down Lombard Street,

and saw the house from the Mrs. Doubtfire movie.

The second day, we had lunch at Pier 39 and watched the Sea Lions

then we took a boat to Alcatraz.

The third day was the most fun. We took our bikes into town and road from the Embarcadero station along the waterline to the Golden Gate Bridge. 

Then we rode across the bridge and down into Sausalito. In all, it was about 13 miles and an uphill challenge in a few spots. 

We took the ferry back to Embarcadero and then road the BART home. The biggest challenge was trying to get all four of our bikes on the train when they are full of evening commuters!

Our last day was spent at Muir Woods National Monument. We saw beautifully tall redwoods (the tallest trees in the WORLD), listened to a short talk, and walked the trail.

We had a really good time and look forward to coming back in the future. We even got to spend Valentine's evening with our good friend, Eric, from Austin.  

If all goes well, we will get to experience real snow and skiing in South Lake Tahoe next!

Monterey, California-Monterey County Fairgrounds

January 29-February 5, 2017

While not what I would call WARM, the weather was warmer and more conducive to being outdoors. Unfortunately, it did get rainy and I came down with the flu or some equally awful illness. So, I did not get to check out this town as much as I would have liked. We definitely want to come back one day (when it's a little warmer) because there are definitely some beautiful areas and we can tell its just a fun place to be.

Here's what we were able to check out:

Cannery Row-Now a waterfront shopping and restaurant area, it was once the site of many sardine canning factories.

Hwy 1 Pacific Coast Highway-beautiful pullouts all along this highway.  Unfortunately, due to recent rains and floods, Big Sur was closed.

Monastery Beach-the kids had fun here but the sand is actually small pebbles and was tough on my tender-footed kiddos!

Carmel by the Sea-not far from Monastery Beach, this beach area is truly sand and has some amazing sunset views

Monterey Bay Aquarium-Wish I had felt well enough to go to this one!  The kids had so much to tell me about all of the great things they saw when they got back.

Onward we go!  We are making our way to the San Francisco area.

Acton, California-Soledad Canyon RV Resort

January 15-29, 2017

We began our next journey north and on our way stopped to have lunch in Mission Viejo with a family that used to belong to our church group in Austin.  We had a good lunch visit with James and Carol and Jordan made a fast new friend.  She and Evie are only about 6 months apart but because we went to different service times, they never really knew each other before their move to California.

From there, we made it into Acton, which is about an hour outside of LA.  I would be lying if I said that I had an awesome time here. I found myself asking “Why are we here?!” multiple times. It rained MANY days. The wind was often fierce. It sleeted and it snowed once. And it was ALWAYS cold, even when the sun decided to shine. Everyone was hibernating in their RVs so it felt lonely and there was really not all that much to do nearby that I found. 

(My sweet girl all bundled up to paint a picture.  Check out her apron "cape" flying in the wind!)

But to be positive, our next location is supposed to be a bit warmer. That will help a lot. And the campground here is actually pretty nice (and probably a lot of fun during the peak season). They have a fun pool area for the kids and I am sure more activities scheduled during warmer months. The best thing I can say about this campground is the beauty that surrounds it. We could easily see the mountains from our camp site and enjoyed seeing the snow covering the caps some days.

(You'll have to zoom in or just trust me on this one)

The cold and rain also made it difficult to get out and do our family outings but we did our best. Our first outing was to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

(replica of the oval office)

It was more entertaining than I expected. They had many interactive displays that kept the kids interested and occupied and it was enjoyable to learn a little more about Reagan.

We even got to take a tour of Air Force One!! I have been so jealous of my Mom, Manuel, Aunt Judy and Uncle Mike since they took a tour last year that I just couldn't let them one-up me! Just kidding! We really did get to go on board but it was the one used by Reagan and not the currently operating one. So, while it was awesome, I am STILL of little jealous of them because the one they went on sounded pretty great.

(President's quarters)

Next, we went to the California Science Center. It was a GREAT science museum and FREE to the public. We paid $3 extra per person for tickets to the special exhibit of the space shuttle Endeavour. 

I'm always interested in how people live their daily lives in environments different from my own and so I most enjoyed the displays on eating and toileting. Haha. And it was also very cool to watch the time lapse video of the shuttle when they moved it through the city 12 miles from LAX to the science center. It took 68 hours!! I am totally amazed at their ability to maneuver this huge shuttle through the city streets.

The rest of the museum had plenty of fun things as well. We viewed different ecosystems, identified birds, recycled trash, watched a flash flood and the kids' favorite: learned about rot and decay and how maggots can be used to treat infected wounds. YUCK!

One evening, we made it to the Griffith Observatory.  We saw the Hollywood sign,

(It's there.  I promise!)

watched the sunset,  

saw the twinkling lights of the city 

and toured the museum inside where we looked a various planetary displays and got to make our own family-sized "earthquake" and view it on a seismograph (which was really cool since we had just read about them).

The best news is that we did finally have a day where we felt like we were really getting to experience LA. The bad news is that it was our last day. But it was fun. We started at the La Brea Tar Pits. Just by chance, we had just watched a Dirty Jobs episode about the tar pits which really helped the kids connect. They were like “Hey!  This is the pit we saw on TV!” And it was pretty interesting. It's asphalt, not really tar and they are shallow pools rather than pits but they are totally full of fossils! They have found over 3.5 million of them and they include columbian mammoths, dire wolves, short faced bears, saber-toothed tigers, mastodons, bison, camels, ground sloths, teratorns, vultures and so much more from the Ice Age! The majority were carnivores. The suspected reason was that the carnivores would attempt to take advantage of the situation when an herbivore or omnivore became entrapped in the asphalt that had been covered by dirt and leaves. And since many of the carnivores traveled in groups, that would also explain the higher numbers.

(This is Pit 91 from Dirty Jobs.  The flags are hard to see but are marking fossils waiting to be excavated.  Red is a Western horse, blue a ground sloth and green a saber-toothed cat)

 Inside, we toured the museum,

even getting the chance to try and free one of our limbs (a handle) from the asphalt.  It was pretty impossible.

In addition to exploring the museum and the asphalt pools, we watched a little program in the Encounters Theater. It was only about 15 minutes but pretty informative and had this person dressed up in a saber-tooth costume with a robotic head that looked and acted quite real. Fun but also a little scary!

After that, we had lunch at local restaurant. After sitting there a few minutes, I realized that one of the persons sitting in front of me was an ACTOR! I just couldn't remember what movie or show he had acted in. So I sneaked a picture of him just so I could use it later to help me look it up. But I finally remembered while we were still there. Greg says I should be totally embarassed. Ha Ha But I will tell you anyway. He is Scott Clifton from..... the Bold & the Beautiful soap opera! Hahahaha. I don't typically watch daytime soaps so I can only surmise that I saw him on the show when I was in college or when I was on maternity leave with Jacob and didn't have cable or streaming.

(There he is to the right of Jordan in the black shirt.  He is looking down at his phone and probably thinking "Woman, please don't take my picture!"  Hee hee)

Then we made our way over to Venice Beach. We had our bike so we took them off the truck and went for a ride. It was so fun to just watch all of the different people out there having a great time. There was shopping along the strip and so many opportunities for people watching. We watched the skateboarders and basketball players and then played around on some of the exercise equipment over at Muscle Beach. Then we headed back to the area where the truck was parked so that the kids could play on the beach, we could watch the surfers and see the sun go down.

 

After that, we went to a local ale house for dinner. It had a fun vibe and was a great way to end our LA adventure.