We left Tucson on
Thursday, January 2nd, and headed to Yuma, Arizona for a 3-night
stay. We lined up a mobile RV service while in Yuma to thoroughly wash and wax
our motorhome that Saturday. The crew did a much-needed oxidation removal on
our motorhome roof.
On Sunday, we left the RV
park at 7AM and went to the nearby truck stop to fill up with diesel fuel.
While the poor truckers were paying $3.35/gallon, the truck stop had a RV lane
where it was $2.95 and with my 8-cent Good Sam discount, I only paid
$2.87/gallon. We wanted to fill up our thirsty motorhome before we crossed into
California where fuel prices are much, much higher.
We arrived at Marine Corp
Base Camp Pendleton and the Del Mar RV park around 11AM and got set up. Julie’s
sister Cindy and brother-in-law Terry joined us an hour later for a 6-night
stay. We hadn’t seen them since last March in south Texas. They both retired in
April and are also full-time RVers. They’ve been traveling around the Pacific
Northwest this past summer and fall.
Our campsites are both on
the beach in the front row. We’ve had some awesome sunsets and enjoy campfires
almost every night.
On Wednesday we enjoyed
breakfast at Beach Break Café in Oceanside on Historic Highway 101. It was
really yummy.
We took Cindy and Terry
down to Solano Beach on Friday night for dinner at the Wild Note Café and a
concert next door at Belly Up Tavern.
After dinner we lined up to go into Belly
Up Tavern and grab some seats when the doors opened for the concert. The main
entrance for Belly Up Tavern is at the front of the venue, but dinner patrons
can enter from the side door.
We saw two bands: the Clay
Colton Band from San Diego and then Tusk, a Fleetwood Mac tribute band from New
Jersey. We really enjoyed both bands and the entire evening.
We said goodbye to Cindy
and Terry who left this morning for Arizona. We’re at Camp Pendleton for
another three weeks, just enjoying the beach and the awesome sunsets.
Steve & Julie
Cornelius
We spent Christmas with
Julie’s mom who is a resident at Blue Skies of Texas (formerly Air Force
Village) in San Antonio. Last Monday we attended a nice Christmas concert in
the main lobby of the facility. We also enjoyed Christmas cookies and some
glühwein during the concert.
Julie’s niece Rachel drove
down from Austin to San Antonio on Christmas Day. She joined us for the
delicious ham and scalloped potatoes dinner that Julie prepared. We hadn’t seen
Rachel in over a year and it was a nice visit.
We left Castroville the
day after Christmas and headed back to Kerrville. Our mobile RV repair
technician met us at the RV park around noon. He replaced the electronic
control board in our Aqua Hot and our heating system was fixed and finally
working right. I put our electric space heaters away that we used to stay warm
the past two weeks.
We left Kerrville on
Friday and headed west on I-10. We overnighted in Fort Stockton, then Las
Cruces, NM, and arrived in Tucson today for a four-night stay. We’re on our way
to Southern California to spend the winter on the West Coast this year.
Happy New Year!
Steve & Julie
Cornelius
After spending a week in
Kerrville, we headed up the road to Fredericksburg, Texas on Friday, December 6th.
Fredericksburg is a nice town of over 11,000 people and was settled by German
immigrants. It attracts many tourists, especially around Christmas and we
enjoyed seeing all the decorations.
Fredericksburg is the
birthplace of Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz. There’s an awesome National Museum
of the Pacific War in town.
We had to leave
Fredericksburg a few days earlier than planned because we had no heat in our
motorhome. We drove back to Kerrville and called a mobile RV technician who had
training and experience on our Aqua Hot hydronic (water-based) heating system.
The diesel burner would not ignite, so we did not have heat in our house.
The technician diagnosed
the problem as a defective electronic control board. I ordered and received one
so we’ll have it installed on December 26th when we go back to
Kerrville from Castroville where we’re currently at.
Julie and I have decided
to end our full-time RVing late next year. We’ve been at it since May 2013,
have visited all 50 states, and are ready to have a sticks and bricks home again. This year we have looked at 55+ communities near Hilton Head and Tucson.
We looked at model homes
at the new Latitude Margaritaville near Hilton Head and liked them. We also wanted to take a
look at the Latitude Margaritaville Daytona Beach community which opened in
2017. Last Tuesday, we flew from San Antonio to Orlando and rented a car to
drive up to Daytona Beach.
We have been doing a lot
of research on the various floor plans, options offered, and available lot
locations. On Wednesday we learned that the lots had different build dates. We
picked a lot where the house will be finished sometime between November and
January and we would be ready to close and move in then.
We picked out the
“Coconut” floor plan, about 1700 square foot, two bedrooms, two full baths, den, great room, and a large
outdoor living area with screened enclosure. We’ve already picked out our
exterior color scheme, a shade of green.
We have to fly back in
late-April for our appointment in the design center where we pick out our
cabinets, flooring, tile, interior paint colors, etc.
Steve & Julie
Cornelius
We left Tucson on Friday,
November 22nd, and headed for Texas (and Central Standard Time). We
did our usual overnight stops in Las Cruces, NM, Fort Stockton and Kerrville,
Texas before settling in at Alsatian RV Resort outside of Castroville. We spent
three days there visiting Julie’s mom in San Antonio. On Thanksgiving Eve, we
enjoyed cocktails and dinner at Blue Skies of Texas West (formerly Air Force
Village) with Julie and her mom’s long-time friends Buzz, Ellen and Peggi.
We brought Julie’s mom to
our motorhome on Thursday to enjoy the wonderful Thanksgiving meal Julie had
prepared. We watched one of our favorite Thanksgiving themed movies, “Planes,
Trains and Automobiles” from 1987, with Steve Martin and John Candy, before the
meal.
We headed back to
Kerrville and Buckhorn Lake RV Resort on Friday, November 29th. The RV resort
had put up beautiful Christmas decorations and lights.
Last Tuesday morning we
went in to Kerrville with our motorhome to have our chassis batteries tested
and diagnose a “check engine” light. While we were there, the RV repair shop
offered to install our new “house” batteries that I had bought and had shipped
to them a few weeks before. We had an appointment on the following Friday, but
they had the time to do it on that Tuesday while we were there.
While we were waiting at
the RV repair shop, I noticed a Unity class B van had pulled in to the shop for
service. Later I noticed an older gentleman who was browsing the RV supplies next
to where we were sitting. I asked him if the Unity van was his and he said yes.
We got to chatting and it turned out he was Ken, the author of Big Rig Best
Bets, a book we have used since 2013, when doing our trip planning.
Big Rigs Best Bets list
campgrounds through the country that can accommodate RVs that are 40-foot or
longer. Ken and his wife Ellie visit or stay at every campground listed in their
book and actually measure the campsite lengths. They published a new edition of
their book every December.
I had corresponded several
times by email with Ken after we bought our first Big Rig Best Bets book in
2013. Ken and Ellie recently sold their business after 18 years.
Last Friday we left
Kerrville and drove 30-miles up the road to Fredericksburg, Texas where we’ll
spend a week.
Steve & Julie
Cornelius
We’ve been busy, just
living here day-to-day in Tucson. We celebrated our 38th wedding
anniversary on October 23rd with a nice dinner at Vivace Restaurant
on the north edge of Tucson, next to the foothills. It was a beautiful, warm evening
so we sat outside.
We extended our 21-day
stay at the Davis Monthan AFB Family Campground for another few weeks on
November 3rd. The campground has slowly filled up with snowbirds who
are staying here for three to five months.
We have been hiking around
the old golf course across the street from the campground. The base closed the
golf course on May 1, 2018 due to increased operating expenses (watering costs)
and decreased use. Blanchard Golf Course had been open for 56 years. Base
personnel now use any of the 5 public golf courses in Tucson.
We stopped several times
by one of our favorite places in Tucson, Roma Imports. The small Italian
business serves lunch and dinner. They make many different home-made, and then frozen,
Italian entrees for sale. We like to pick up a few meals for the road as
they’re easy to prepare when we overnight somewhere.
Another place we like to
go to is Bisbee Breakfast Club. The original café is in Bisbee, Arizona but now
there are five other locations in Arizona, including Phoenix, Mesa and several
in Tucson. It’s a great place for breakfast or lunch.
This past Monday we
visited the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. It is about 20-miles away in the mountains
west of Tucson near the Saguaro National Park. It is a botanical garden, earth
sciences center, natural history museum, zoo, and art gallery. Our favorite
exhibit is the hummingbird aviary. We last visited in March 2015 and saw a tiny
little hummingbird nest with babies.
We leave Tucson on Friday
and head towards Texas.
Steve & Julie
Cornelius
