We moved down the California
coast on Tuesday, February 4th from Oceanside to Coronado and the U.S.
Navy’s Fiddlers Cove RV park. The park has a great view of the Coronado Bridge
and the San Diego skyline across San Diego Bay.
The RV park is south of Coronado,
which is connected to the mainland (Imperial Beach) by a seven-mile strip of
land called the “Silver Strand”. The Pacific Ocean and beautiful sandy beaches
are on the west side of the Silver Strand and San Diego Bay is on the east
side.
We had a beautiful full
moon last week, rising above San Diego Bay.
We’ll be here in Coronado
for two more weeks and are just hanging out. We discovered another Navy base close
by in Imperial Beach. It’s easy to get to than driving
through tourist-congested Coronado to go to Navy’s North Island base.
Steve & Julie
Cornelius
We’ve been busy the past
couple of weeks, but not as busy as the young Marines we see every day training
here at Camp Pendleton. We see them go past in their diesel-powered amphibious
vehicles and head up the beach.
We met our friends Rob and
Janet, who live nearby in Oceanside, for lunch at Cold Beers &
Cheeseburgers in Carlsbad a week ago last Friday. It’s an Arizona-based sports
bar and grill chain with 12 locations near Phoenix and two locations in
California. I enjoyed a “Jucy Lucy”, a cheddar jack stuffed patty, with a
melted core of cheese!
Last Thursday evening,
Julie and I enjoyed another trip to the Wild Note Café and Belly Up Tavern in
Solano Beach, about 25-miles south of here. We went to see Big Head Todd and
the Monsters, who were on their Winter Tour 2020.
Big Head Todd and the
Monsters is a Colorado band that formed 30 years ago and hail from Boulder,
Colorado. This is at least the fourth time we’ve seen the band play: twice at
Red Rocks and now twice at Belly Up Tavern. They did sing some of my favorite
songs: “Bittersweet”; “Broken Hearted Savior”; “Circle”; “Please Don’t Tell Her”;
and “It’s Alright”. The highlight of the show was Hazel Miller who joined the
tour for two-weeks and I especially enjoy her powerful voice on “It’s
Alright”.
The Belly Up Tavern is a
smaller venue with a 600-person capacity while the open air Red Rocks
amphitheater west of Denver holds 9,525 fans.
We had a nice beach
campfire on Saturday night with Rob and Janet. Rob and I worked for different
companies but did the same kind of work in Colorado Springs back in the mid- to
late-2000s. They moved to Austin, Texas for five years, when Rob retired and
they moved here to Oceanside.
My Aunt Clara (my mother’s
youngest sister) and Uncle Earl, who live in Vista, had us over for dinner a
couple of weeks ago. We hadn’t seen them since our last visit here in November
2016 and we enjoyed catching up with them.
We invited them to our “home”
on the beach last Sunday afternoon. It was a little too cool to sit outside,
but we enjoyed dinner and had a nice visit inside our motorhome.
We plan to watch the Super
Bowl on Sunday and cheer on the Kansas City Chiefs (only because they’re
filling in for the Denver Broncos from the AFC)
Steve & Julie
Cornelius
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
