Wrapping it All Up…LA, San Diego and a Long Ride Home

I have been very lax in posting. When last you heard we were in Paso Robles, at the end of September, enjoying a little more vino.  Here it is a month later, we are back in Florida, enjoying being in a full sized house again instead of the RV,  catching up with friends and local doings.  I don’t know what happened. Well, yes, I do know what happened. Our last two stops in LA and San Diego entailed fun-filled visits with old friends and left little time for blogging. Then there was the drive home.

The Getty, love the Architecture more than the art

In LA, I had plans to spend several days with an old college friend.  We had lost touch somewhere in the late 80’s and she moved to LA in the early 90’s and we had not seen or talked to each other since.  I had tracked her down a year or so ago (the internet is a great tool for finding long lost sorority sisters) and we promised to get together should I get out west. Well the time had come.  I have written about Hubby’s aversion to cities. Here we were in the city of all cites, LA. We camped on Lake Elsinore, a good 60 miles from Studio City where my friend lived. Hubby planned to fish while I was visiting and was willing to drive me there and back.  Driving there was not bad, an hour and a half, but it took him three and a half to get back to camp. What were we thinking. Friday afternoon in LA?  “Never again” is all I heard for days. Back in Studio City I had a great visit. Dinner’s out, nine holes of golf, a visit to the spectacular Getty Museum, a movie (Crash, it was great) and lots of laughing. Another college friend joined us for part of the weekend and it was like the years dropped away. That is the good thing about good friends; the connection you had is never really lost and is so easily remade.   So, no time for blogging in LA.

The fishing in Lake Elsinore was non existent, not even a bite in five days. The massive algae bloom may have have been the reason. Hubby was not a happy camper. Traffic jams, over population, urban sprawl and no fish, not a great combination. We headed to better times in San Diego.

Tour of the harbor

This time it was Hubby’s reunion with old friends from grammar school and little league.  They are spread all over the country — Georgia, Maryland, Texas, California, Florida — but  get together  at least once a year for an “Octoberfest.”  Same story, they drifted apart after high school, college, the Viet Nam war, and life in general, but they gradually reconnected. This years get-together was typical. Fours days of eating, drinking and reminiscing. We drove to Julian for apple pie, took a boat tour of San Diego harbor and caught several spectacular sunsets.  So, no time for blogging in San Diego either.

Dinner and a sunset. It couldn’t be better

So, five months on the road.  From Florida west through Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, north through the Canadian Rockies, across British Columbia, down through Vancouver Island and the entire Pacific Coast to San Diego. We saw so many beautiful places and had some great times, but we were done and wanted to be home.  We made a decision to not take our time, our usual mode of touring; we decided to drive straight home.  Tucson, El Paso,  San Antonio, Beaumont (three days to cross Texas, that state is too darn big, and pretty boring driving, to boot) one night on the Florida Panhandle then we were home.  We listened to books on discs and ate too much road food.  We hit wind storms in Arizona and torrential rain in Houston. We made it, but no time for blogging during that ride. We parked, ate dinner and zoned out.

The long, straight road home

Now, home, rested, RV parked in storage, we are back to the Florida lifestyle. I have my annual jaunt to Manhattan coming up.  Hubby heads to Myrtle Beach for some golf with some buddies from up north, the holidays approach and soon it will be 2014. We think our long road trips are done. Read back through the Diaries. Eight years of travel from the Everglades to British Columbia, from Newfoundland to Baja, Mexico and lots in between. We may just snowbird it in Florida and New Hampshire for a while.  So, I’m still deciding if there will be time for blogging.