Tucson, Arizona

We left San Antonio on Thursday, May 4^th, and headed towards Tucson. We stopped at a rest area along I-10 in Texas. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed a picnic lunch at a shaded picnic table.

We arrived in Tuscon at the Davis-Monthan AFB family campground and had our pick of campsites. We chose one adjacent to a nice cactus garden and a great view of the Air Force “boneyard.”

We spent our two weeks in Tucson just hanging out and fixing a couple of things on our motorhome. We noticed the morning we left from Las Cruces, NM for Tucson that our windshield wipers didn't work. Good thing it didn’t rain on the trip or we would have had to pull over. I checked a fuse, a circuit breaker and a relay associated with the windshield wipers and it turned out to be a bad relay.

Our big problem was our clothes dryer had stopped working. It had been broke for a couple of weeks. The dryer is under a one-year warranty and I had already contacted the service department and they had shipped me two new thermostats. They would also pay the labor to install the new parts.

We made arrangements for a mobile RV service to come to our motorhome to take a look. They charged $50 for a service call and $100/hour for labor to work on it. The big problem was the stackable washer & dryer were in a built-in hardwood cabinet that had to be taken apart in order to remove the dryer so it could be worked on. It took me an entire day to take that darn cabinet apart (to save $$ vs. paying the service technician). The problem turned out to be a faulty AC power cord which caused the thermostats to go bad.

We left Tucson on Saturday, May 20^th, and headed towards Las Cruces for an overnight stay. We drove to Albuquerque this past Sunday and the Kirtland AFB family campground for a two-week stay. We have a nice view of the mountains to the northeast.         

Steve & Julie Cornelius 

South Texas

We enjoyed our visit to the Rio Grande Valley with Julie’s sister Cindy and brother-in-law Terry. We got our house washed and waxed for $145, a bargain and less than half the price we paid to have it done in Southern California.

Friday night we went to a pool party at the RV resort. We enjoyed meeting other residents of the resort that are living there year round.

On Saturday we went out to dinner with Terry & Cindy and their friends Don & Claudia. Then we went to the McAllen Events Center to see the Broadway musical “Dirty Dancing”.

The six of us went to Progreso, Mexico on Sunday for lunch. It’s easy to park on the U.S. side of the border and simply walk across the bridge over the Rio Grande river to Progreso. It’s a small border town with restaurants, gift shops, many dentist offices, and pharmacies. After lunch we all went and got pedicures at a nail salon for $12. Men and women were in the salon getting manicures and pedicures.

We drove back to San Antonio on Monday and were lucky enough to get a campsite in the Lackland AFB FamCamp. We had a nice shady site and it is so convenient to see Julie’s mom at Blue Skies of Texas, only 3 miles away and the price was right too at only $20/night.

Yesterday we enjoyed visiting and dinner with old friends Buzz, Ellen and Peggy out at Blue Skies of Texas. We hadn’t seen them all in almost a year.

We left San Antonio this morning and are headed to Tucson to spend a couple of weeks. 

Steve & Julie Cornelius

On-the-Road Again

On Monday, April 10^th, we drove up to Folsom prison to visit the small museum. It was interesting, especially learning about the concerts that Johnny Cash gave there. No he was never jailed there.

We headed out of Sacramento the next day on our way to San Antonio. We overnighted in Bakersfield and Needles. It seemed odd to be leaving California after spending five months there, since we first arrived on November 1^st.  

We overnighted in Williams, AZ and then spent 3 nights in Camp Verde, AZ. We spent a day and drove over to visit Sedona from Camp Verde. It was our first visit to Sedona. The red rock formations were pretty but the bumper-to-bumper traffic was terrible as Sedona is a major vacation and tourist destination.

We left Camp Verde and headed south through the Phoenix area and on to Tucson. We really like Tucson. It is a university town and there are lots to see and do. We spent three nights at the Davis-Monthan AFB FamCamp. We got an awesome camp site with a nice patio and landscaping.      

While in Tucson, we made our usual trip to Roma Imports to pick up some home-made Italian dishes and desserts for quick meals on the road. We highly recommend lunch there or just stop by for some Italian food to go.

We drove to Las Cruces, NM from Tucson for an overnight. We enjoyed dinner down the road at La Posta, one of the best Mexican restaurants in the country. We’ve been there a few times before and the food is really, really good.

The next day the traffic through El Paso, TX was congested with all the road construction. We stopped at a Texas rest area for lunch and saw this retired couple from Oregon.

We overnighted in Fort Stockton, TX, finally arriving in Castroville, just west of San Antonio last Saturday. We spent 4 nights in Castroville and visited Julie’s mom at Blue Skies of Texas (formerly Air Force Village). We celebrated Julie’s birthday last Monday with a movie and an early dinner.

We left Castroville on Wednesday and headed south to the Rio Grande Valley near McAllen. We are visiting Julie’s sister Cindy and brother-in-law Terry in Donna, TX for 5 days.

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Taiwan

We left for Taiwan on Thursday morning, March 30^th, and arrived on Friday evening, March 31^st, after a 13 ½ hour United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Taipei. Our son Paul, his wife Ying, and our new grandson, Connor met us at the airport. We overnighted at the nearby Novotel hotel.

On Saturday we took the metro into Taipei and then took a shuttle bus to the Grand Hotel to spend one night. We met Ying’s parents at their home and later enjoyed dinner with them and their relatives.

After breakfast on Sunday, the five of us took the high-speed rail (HSR) from Taipei to Kaohsiung, where Paul and Ying live. It only takes about an hour and a half with a couple of stops and the train going up to 300kph (186 mph) at times during the 217-mile trip.

We thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Paul and Ying and getting to know our new grandson this past week. On Tuesday, our nephew Jeremy from Lompoc, California came by to visit. He is back packing and traveling all over the world on his own.

We left Kaohsiung on Thursday and headed back to Taipei and the Novotel hotel at the airport. We flew back to San Francisco on Friday morning. We left Taipei at 9:50AM Friday morning and arrived in San Francisco at 5:45AM on Friday morning because we crossed the International Dateline. We are still recovering from the jet lag.

We leave Sacramento on Tuesday, headed towards San Antonio, about a two-week trip, with stops along the way.  

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Central California

After leaving Las Vegas on Monday morning, March 13^th, we overnighted in Bakersfield, and made our way to Morgan Hill where we spent a couple of nights. On Wednesday we drove to Monterey for lunch and to see Monterey Bay. We walked along Cannery Row, with its many shops and restaurants, but the best was seeing a sea otter floating in the bay.

We drove up the coast to Santa Cruz and then to Felton, a small town in the Santa Cruz Mountains. We enjoyed dinner and visiting with Julie’s cousin Jayne and husband Rich. Julie hadn’t seen her cousin in 40 years so it was a really nice visit.

Thursday we drove to Fairfield and checked into the FamCamp at Travis Air Force Base for 12 nights. We went to Sacramento the following Monday to see my sister Janet and her wife Nancy and enjoy dinner and a Netflix movie. We drove over again last Friday and enjoyed pizza at an old style Italian restaurant called Zelda’s near downtown Sacramento.

On Saturday, we headed to San Francisco for the day. We enjoyed seeing some things we had never seen before on many previous visits to “The City.” We had lunch at The Cliff House with its great view of the Pacific. We learned that years ago there had been a bath house / swimming pool called “Sutro Baths” next door.

We drove through Golden Gate Park and towards the Haight area of the city. It was an interesting area known for the 1967 Summer of Love. Many bands lived in the area including Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Country Joe & The Fish, and Country Joe McDonald.

 

Next, we drove up to Twin Peaks, two hills at 925-feet elevation with stunning views of the city, Golden Gate Bridge, and East Bay.

Then we headed to the North Beach District to go to the Club Fugazi theater to see “Beach Blanket Babylon.” The show, first started in 1974, has been showing for over 40 years. It is a zany, musical spoof of our pop culture and various celebrities. Julie and I didn’t quite know what to expect, but it was fun-filled and very good. We’d definitely recommend it if you ever visit San Francisco.

After the show we enjoyed dinner at The Stinking Rose, an Italian restaurant that specializes in garlic. The roasted garlic, spread on fresh sour dough bread was especially yummy. We last visited The Stinking Rose in 2002 and the food was as good as we’d remembered.

We moved back to Cal Expo RV Park today where we’ll park our house for two weeks. We fly to Taiwan this Thursday on a 9-day trip to see our son, daughter-in-law, and our new grandson. My sister Janet is going to look after our cat for us while we’re gone.      

Steve & Julie Cornelius