Next phase

We are in the process of initiating the next phase of our lives. We are planning to list our home for sale after the 1^st of the year and will be moving into Colectiva as our permanent home – at least for a while – to see how much we like it (or how little).

So, step one is to store everything we can’t fit into Colectiva, but that we don’t want to part with. No furniture being stored, just memories. Here is our first 4 boxes of memories in the corner of our 10X10 foot unit. Hope it is big enough – we have an awful lot of memories!

I also learned what happens if you don’t pay your monthly rent. The round silver lock is the one that the unit renter puts on the unit to secure it. The red lock is the one that the owner of the rental facility puts on to prevent a delinquent renter from removing their stuff!

Talk to you soon!

I knew better!

I am back on Blogger now. Blogger didn’t work well on the Ipad, so when we were in Europe I used Wordpress. Wordpress at least worked acceptably on the Pad. But I won’t use it if I can get decent access to a laptop. Guess I am just a technological dinosaur!

Miraculously when we returned, I fired up the HP laptop and shazam! We were immediately connected to the good old Bougiegrnk wireless network – unbelievable we could be gone 6 months and our wireless network didn’t skip a beat!

So, in preparing the house for the market, I have been room by room getting it ready. The office was the room I attacked next, removing the desk and shelves and all other loose items. The room next door has a built in desk, so the office moved over there.

Seeming so simple, I ignored the nagging voice that told me not to do it as it would certainly result in disaster. I disconnected the wireless router and moved it next door. What was I thinking! Of course, when I hooked it back up, it’s deader than a doornail. I keep getting error messages that the IP address is incorrect, and of course, I have no idea how to fix that!

So, if you are reading this, it means that COX has been out and I soon will have paid for my bad judgment. I mean literally paid – I will have to write a big check. COX no longer does network maintenance unless you pay their people by the hour!

Oh, by the way. The Woman decided she needed a new dog – she misses Niko something awful. I suggested we maybe consider getting a different breed so we don’t constantly compare our new dog to Niko. Good news and bad news. Good – the Woman agreed. Bad – she has decided she needs a Cavachon – a mix of a Bichon (ala Niko) and a King Cavalier Spaniel. Holy crap are they expensive! He is named Kona in respect of Nick’s old buddy.

Here’s hoping to be back on the road again after the first of the year. Hope your holidays are great!

Talk to you soon!

Lombard

With the Woman on the Crown Princess I headed out to click on more off my bucket list.

On January 16,1942, TWA flight 3 crashed in

to 8,300 foot Double Up Peak trying to climb over Mount Potosi. All onboard were killed, includingCarole Lombard Gable and her mom. Unbelievably 75 years later debris from the wreckage still lies at the crash site.

The weather was glorious, breezy and cool. The elevation meant the wild flowers were still thick.

The changing colors and varieties kept me searching for more and more.

Because I no longer have the Jeep I couldn't get to the trailhead using the 4WD

roads. That ended up adding another 5 miles to the journey. But this hike had been on my bucket list for over 5 years, and the total experience was worth it.

After a nice picnic lunch overlooking the Strip, I called it a day.

Talk to you soon!

Wrapping Pomona

While biking around the Fairplex area I discovered another hidden gem. The Wally Parks National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Museum sits on the grounds and was luckily open on the day we were getting ready to move on.

Wally Parks was born in 1913 in Oklahoma, but later relocated to California. By the post-Depression era was he was an avid automobile hobbyist, active in modifying stock vehicles to enhance their performance. In the 1940’s he founded and became the first editor of Hot Rod Magazine, and was later instrumental in the founding of Motor Trend Magazine. He used these platforms to promote hot rodding safety, trying to get drag racing off the streets and onto organized tracks, launching Safety Safaris where he toured the country promoting organized racing as opposed to street racing. In 1951 he founded the NHRA, today the largest sanctioning organization in racing in the world.

The museum has a fantastic collection of vintage hot rods of many different kinds. Classic stock vehicles modified by their owners, full rail dragsters, some NASAR vehicles and several that set speed records on the Bonneville Salt Flats all grace the floor. I liked the collection of funny cars, bringing back childhood memories of the Mongoose and the Snake – driven by Tom McEwen and Don Prudhomme. I remember them more from the Hot Wheels than from actually watching them race however.

We found the most interesting part of the museum to be the huge display room dedicated to Gale Banks. We know Gale Banks because he and his company provide RV engine performance enhancement products, claiming to boost horsepower of both gasoline and diesel engines. Our good friends Ron and Teresa have Bank’s equipment in their RV and swear by it.

It makes sense now, but it turns out that Banks, born in 1942, got all his performance knowledge from modifying his family mobiles into hot rods when he was young. Over the decades that followed he set record after record for the world’s fastest vehicles of all sorts. He became so well known that in the late 70’s the Navy Seals sought him out to develop a turbo marine engine that could produce 535 HP and  ru

n on high octane “Battle Gas”.

We took one last pass around the Fairplex and found that spring had sprung. Flowers galore line the streets, and the fruit trees are full of lemons and oranges. However, everything we saw paled in comparison to the hedge of Bougainvillea.

Talk to you soon!

Pomona

We ended up making another change in plans. This time it was not Colectiva or Equinox related. The Woman wanted to get back to the Twin Cities to help her dad deal with some medical issues, and get organized for a move in his apartment. Her only sister, Barb, who lives near their dad, looked to be alone in this challenge. So Robin wanted to try to get back to see her dad, help with the move, and add any support her sister needed. The nearest airport with reasonable flight costs into Minneapolis was in Ontario, and Pomona is only about 10 miles from the Ontario airport.

I pick on California and LA a bunch, but I have to admit, when you spend some time here the attraction is clearly apparent. In Pomona I am less than 30 miles from the Pacific and the center of LA. And yet regardless of being in a densely populated residential area, probably less than a mile from a Walmart and an In and Out Burger, you are also in the midst of mountains, hiking trails and open spaces. While the official population of Pamona is only about 150,000 it is just essentially a suburb of LA. Out hiking a mile from Colectiva I saw this hillside of wildflowers with the snowcapped mountains in the distance.

A mile in a different direction I found a hiking trail to the top of a considerable mound that appeared to have several geocaches hidden on it. I made my way up to the top and discovered a radar transmitter for the local Pomona executive airport. Again, you wouldn’t expect to find this essentially remote hiking experience and these spectacular views in the midst of some 13 million people – more than 18 million if you consider the combined statistical area.

As I hiked down from this peak I began to see some things that looked entirely familiar to me. As I pushed on I found myself at the entrance to Frank Bonelli Park and the RV Park we had been at two months ago for the Rose Parade.  I guess this is another vortex to add to my list.

Biking back to Colectiva I wandered through some residential historic districts. I had always considered myself a pretty good dad when Nick and Karen were young sprouts. At least I thought I was pretty good in crafting some play forts both in our home in the Twin Cities and then in Vegas. But after spotting this fort, I guess I was pretty “meh” as a dad.

Talk to you soon!

Ventura

The Woman’s draw to the ocean brought us here. Our only plans was to park right next to the ocean, hope for decent weather so we could hike and bike and have a nightly campfire, and then let the thunder of the crashing waves lull us to sleep. We got lucky on the weather front and had several days doing exactly that.

Ventura County runs a long stretch of beach about 6 miles north of Ventura. Two small county parks, Hobson Beach and Faria Beach, each have day use parking and a limited number of camping spots, along with a small food shack. But what attracts us is what is between Hobson and Faria. The original Pacific Coast Highway runs between them, still just yards from the surf. The County has marked 127 45 foot long parking spaces where you can park a trailer or a motorhome – no services but you are so close to the ocean that when the surf is really active you can hear occasional spray hitting Colectiva!
 

The routine was pretty much the same daily but we absolutely loved it! Walk the length of the beach stopping at each of the small parks. Then bike along the Pacific Coast Bike Trail that runs along the water all the way from Ventura to Carpentaria.

On the bike path in Seacliff we found a small budget type inn that we had always ignored in the past. This time we noticed that they claimed to have a restaurant and we decided to stop and check it out. What a find! While the hotel was very modest, they were located on a point that jutted out into the Pacific. They used a good portion of that point as outdoor seating, and had a very nice menu, and a very nice selection of local wines. Except for having to keep an eye on your food due to the always aware and occasionally aggressive gulls, this was an absolute gem of a find. Bike in, dine outdoors on the ocean, and bike out!

The crashing waves this morning have been washing both Colectiva and the Equinox with blankets of waves. When locals see our Nevada plates many have said to us “don’t ever turn your back on the ocean!” I thought it just a clever phrase, like just a common greeting between folks on the coast. Having to change my wet clothes from being drenched as I was putting away some chairs – yes, with my back to the ocean – I decided it wasn’t just a casual greeting.

Talk to you soon!

The coast makes me smile!

So even if there is a sea wall and a whole mess of huge boulders between your yard and deck and that little bit of sand which shows itself only at low tide for a few minutes, it is nothing that a bunch of lumber and concrete can’t manage.

There have been two massive slides in La Conchita, one in 1995 and again in 2005. The 1995 slide damaged 9 homes. However, the slide in 2005 destroyed 13 homes, damaged another 18 and caused 10 deaths. So, what do you do in California? You put up a warning sign. You would think that a sign like this in a neighborhood would destroy property values. Not here. We saw a 2 bedroom 1,350 square foot home on 41 feet of ocean front footage - $2.5 million. Go figure.
 

It’s probably a good thing that lot in that home is way too small to put in a swimming pool. From what we can tell along the coast the humans don’t get much opportunity to use the pools. These guys seem to have them all to themselves.

Check out who’s driving this cute little motorhome. We have been walking by this rig several times a day but they never come out to chat. What a bunch of stiffs!
 

I am not sure that the Woman can keep her speed down in this curve on the bike path in order to comply with the warning sign. But I asked her extra special to try. We saw another sign indicating that speed was being monitored by radar, and I don’t want no speeding tickets!

Talk to you soon!