We stopped at Lake Havasu City, Arizona for a couple of nights.

       

       

     

       

      

       

 

We also spent a couple of days in Quartzsite, Arizona.  Mom and Dad used to boondoggle there during the winter.   We found lots of sand and dust.   Thousands of rvs converge on Quartzsite during the winter.   They were starting to arrive while we were there.   We had a delicious pizza at Silly Sam’s Bar and Grill!

 

      

     

       

We added another National Park to our adventure!  Joshua Tree National Park, near Palm Springs, California, in the desert.

The Joshua Tree is native only to the Mojave Desert. Really not a tree, but a cactus. They only grow about 2″ per year. Look how big some are!

      

               

            

 

There is a rock climber in these pictures.

      

      

 

       

       

 

 

Our campground in the desert.  Lucky was hot and dug a hole in the sand under the picnic table.

 

      

           

 

Our Hollywood Tour with friends from our Grand West Coast Trip.

 

 

      

       

       

      

The Chinese Theater

 

      

 

The Dolby Theater where award shows are held.

     

      

   The stars on Hollywood Ave.

       

 

Other Hollywood pictures.

            

      

 

Justin Timberlake’s home.

     

 

 

This is another “been there, done that” moment that we don’t have to repeat!!   LA traffic is unbelievable!

This is our last stop…Newport Beach, California.  This has been an awesome adventure…much different than our other trips with Fantasy RV Tours.  It’s been much more relaxed than the other trips…shorter driving days, not quite so much planned for each day, a little more time for us to explore on our own.  We’ve really enjoyed it!  Ours was a much smaller group, only 15 rigs, instead of the normal 22-24.  The California fires caused a lot of people to cancel.  I’m really glad we didn’t!!  We’ve had so much fun and made several new friends that we are already keeping in contact with!!

 

So, now on to Newport Beach.  In order to get there, we had to drive through Los Angeles.   Now we can say we’ve been there and done that!! Thank goodness it was not rush hour, although you would think it was!  Lots of traffic and crazy drivers!!

While at Newport Beach, we had plenty of time to drive US 1.  Our main attraction as a group was the Queen Mary, the first ocean ship that crossed the Atlantic on a regular schedule.  It is docked just north of Newport Beach in Long Beach.

It was a very regal ship in its day!   There was 1st, 2nd and 3rd class passage.  3rd class was not shabby!  And 1st class was very ritzy!

Here is what she looked like!  There is an old, rusty submarine in front of it.  I know absolutely nothing about it!

 

    

   

    

     

 

This is a mural that shows what it was like while in operation.

 

The ship had a bend in the middle of it!  It went down in the middle, then back up!

    

There was awesome artwork and woodworking on this ship.

      

       

 

Here are some pictures of the bridge.

     

     

 

The air vent to the bridge.

 

And of the engine room with the massive prop.

       

        

 

Look at the choices you had when you took a shower!!

 

Here are pictures from outside the bridge.

     

        

 

The Queen Mary was turned into a troop transport during WWII.

 

This pretty much concludes our Grand West Coast Adventure!!  It was a great adventure.  And only by the grace of God were we able to experience it!

We stayed an extra day  and went to Hollywood with some friends that stayed an extra day, too.  We pretty much know we aren’t going to go back to the west coast any time soon, so we thought we’d better have one more adventure!  I’ll post pictures of this “adventure” in a few days.

 

Thanks for following us on our adventure.  I know there have been many prayers for us and for those, we are very grateful!  God has always been in control!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!!  God bless all of you!!

 

 

Today is Wednesday, October 24th.   We finished our “official” tour last Thursday and are currently in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.  We spent a few nights near Palm Springs, California and toured Joshua Tree National Park.  We are off to Quartzsite, Arizona tomorrow, where Mom and Dad used to boondock several years ago.  I will try to post pictures of these “adventures” after I get caught up with this “adventure”!   So,…off to Santa Barbara!

We took a drive to Solvang, which is a Norwegian little town.

     

 

We were on our own for Santa Barbara, so a group of us took a trolley/bus tour of the city.  Here are a few highlights.

 We were on this trolley.

   We hoped we could ride in this one!!

     

       

       

       

 

We drove to the top scenic drive and were able to get a couple  of good pictures.  Well, a couple of these shrubs and hedge!

     

 

Our drive along US 1.

      

       

         

   Oil rigs offshore.

       

 

We had lunch with our friends on the pier.  It was a perfect weather day!

      

       

   A sand sculpture.

 

Our wagon master’s sox!

 

 

Our Tailgunners directing us into a campground.

 

One more campground stop, and this adventure will come to a close!!

On our drive to Morro Bay, California, it was obvious we were in wine country again.   Acres and acres of vegetable farming was replaced by grape vineyards.

 

We toured the Eberle Wine Caves and tasted wine, again!  Tough job!  They store and age their wine in a special man-made cave that has 17,000 sq. feet, 24 feet below grade.  It’s earthquake proof!

     

     

 

They hold wedding receptions and other functions in their cave.

 

Here they are aerating the grape juice before they put it into barrels.

      

 

The next tour was of the Hearst Castle.  William Randolph Hearst was a magazine, newspaper and movie mogul.  This house is pretty awesome.   Famous movie stars used to spend time there being wined and dined!  It was a very drizzly, wet, foggy day when we were there.

    

    

             

     

      

 

The outdoor pool…the Neptune Pool.

      

          

 

The interior of the house.

      

    

     

 

The indoor Pool.

     

      

 

One odd thing Hearst had was a collection of different wild animals.  Some of them have survived several generations.   As these zebras have…!!!

     

 

We took a drive along Highway 1.  We walked some beaches, saw elephant seals, had lunch…  As usual, the scenery was awesome!

      

      

       

       

        

 

Morro Rock at Morro Bay.

      

 

The elephant seals.

     

       

 

       

      

 

Here’s Lucky with some of his girlfriends!

        Lucky and Lady Bug

  Cupcake and Pandy

 

Off to Santa Barbara!

The drive from Yosemite was gorgeous!

     

    

 

We drove through a lot of California farm country.

 

Cotton is growing here.

     

 

 

We headed to Marina, California and stayed at Marina Dunes RV Resort, near Monterey.   We were just across the street from the dunes and Pacific Ocean!  The campground was not our favorite, but the atmosphere with the dunes was!

     

      

     

     

     

     

      

    

      

 

We saw more whales blow!  Look closely!!

     

 

One of our tours was of the Monterey Aquarium.   According to Mom, it used to be a cannery.  Sure doesn’t look like it now! We were told on our private tour that this is the best Aquarium in the US.  And I agree!

           

       

 

Downtown Monterey, on Cannery Row.

 

 

Mom lived in Pacific Grove during World War II.  She biked the 17 mile highway, which you now have to pay $10.75 to drive it!!  It is a beautiful drive!  We went on a bus tour that took us on it.  My grandpa, Daddy Doc, was in the Army and was stationed at Fort Ord.  The main barracks are in Monterey.  There’s a Fort Ord National Monument, so John and I drove out to find it and explore.   There’s not much there, except hiking trails!  And an area off-limits because of unexploded munitions.  What a disappointment!

     

 

 

I loved the aquarium!  We had private access to some of the behind-the-scenes of the aquarium.

 

     This is my friend Mary.  A lot of people thought we were sisters!!

               

            

     

      

     

      

   There is a halibut in the bottom of the sand.

      Penguins

Volunteer divers cleaning the glass inside the tank.

 

 

On our bus tour, that included the 17 mile drive, we took awesome pictures of the coast!  And stopped at the Pebble Beach Golf Course. None of the golfers on our tour golfed here as it costs $525.00 for a round.  Yikes!

    

     

     

      

      

      

     

      

    

     

 

     

    

    

     

 

 

We also took a drive on our own and went south on US 1.  It runs directly along the coastline.  It’s a little narrow for the motor home, so we took the truck.  What an awesome drive!  There was lots of ocean mist, which is why it looks foggy in some places.

      

      

      

        

        

        

          

 

 

We stopped for lunch at a restaurant with an awesome view of the Pacific!

       

      

        

         

      

       

  A chandelier made out of drift wood.

 

Off to more wine country!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our God is an Awesome God!!

What a wonder…Yosemite National Park!!  Another one of God’s wonders that can’t be put into words!!  It is absolutely gorgeous there!!  The rock climbers are crazy for climbing the walls of these “rocks”!

 

We started out our morning pretty early.  Too early.  In the dark, fog, curvy roads, going up in elevation, backseat, motion sickness.  But it was all worth it.  We got to see the sun come up!   Just the beginning of some of God’s wonders that day!

      

 

We had a bus tour around the park with plenty of time to stop and take pictures.  And that we did!!  So, here they are!

 

    

     

    

    

    

    

     

      

 

It was pretty foggy on and off throughout the day.  And got drizzly and rainy later on.

 

One stop was Glacier Point.

     

    

    

    

    

     

    

    

    

    

     

    

     

 

 

More pics…a tunnel, a waterfall…

    

          

 

     

     

 

This is the view the hotel guests have.

 

 

Yosemite National Park was closed for quite awhile the later part of this summer.  We could see why.  A forest fire roared through the park and had blocked off the road.  The devastation here is unbelievable.  The habitat will eventually thrive.  They are hoping for some rain, but not torrential, as landslides will occur.  It’s pretty obvious that could happen.

 

      

      

      

      

 

In our way down from Yosemite, we stopped at a Sequoia grove, the Mariposa Grove.  These trees are massive, too!   But different from the redwoods.  The base of the trunk is much thicker, wider.  They are amazing!

            

          

     

      

     

         

          

     

 

These pictures are of a root of a sequoia that had fallen over.

     

      

 

The pine cones of a sequoia can get up to 12″ long!!  Just think of the yellow pollen coming out of them!!

 

Next, the Monterey and Pacific Grove area, where Mom lived during WWII!!

Alcatraz…home to many popular criminals…Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly, Doc Barker, just to name a few.   This place is not a nice place to be incarcerated.   Cold and damp in the winter.  Hot in the summer.  It’s about a mile off the coast of San Francisco.  Well within viewing the beautiful city from a distance, but not able to get there.  There were only 14 escape attempts.  It appears no one succeeded, because they call them attempts!

 

 

 

We took a ferry over and spent several hours there.

   

 

    

 

    

 

In 1963 the prison was closed.   William Baker wrote a book about his experiences there.  He was somewhere on site when we were there signing his book, but we never found him!

 

Here are more pictures of Alcatraz…

     

 

     

 

    

 

    

 

    

 

    

 

 

I found one suspicious character behind the bars!!

             

 

Our bus driver took us closer to the Golden Gate bridge from another viewpoint.  What an engineering feat!

    

 

    

 

            

 

 

     

 

 

San Francisco was starting to get socked in with fog.

    

 

This machine is called a zipper.   It picks up the concrete middle barriers and moves them to a different lane to control the traffic flow.

    

 

Next…Yosemite National Park!

 

 

More wine country!!  We went on a wine train with a gourmet lunch.  It was first class and delicious!

 

 

We had to wait quite awhile before we boarded the bus.  Look at how good most of our husbands were being!

 

 

A pretty fancy lunch!

   

      

       

       

 

 

We rode past several different wineries on our train trip.  It’s amazing how many wineries there are.  Some big.  Many smaller.

     

 

One night we had supper from a gourmet food truck that catered just to us!  What fun!  And yummy food!

         

 

          

 

 

 

Off to San Francisco!!  We spent almost 2 full days there.  Now we can say we’ve “been there and done that”!

 

Our first stop was the Farmers Market down on the pier near the Ferry Terminal.  What an interesting market!   All different nationalities had their baked goods, fruits, veggies, and other assorted things.

    

 

One mode of transportation in San Francisco is the electric trolley cars.

     

 

And the cable cars.  No, we didn’t get to ride one…oh, well!

     

 

And the new electric car you can rent!

 

San Francisco is VERY hilly!  And the view is awesome no matter where you are at!

   

 

     

 

    

 

 

We walked up to the infamous Lombard street, then down the “Crookedest Street” part of it.   Whew!  Walking up to it was pretty difficult, but going down was quite the adventure!  Traffic was backed up for miles with cars waiting to drive down this street.

      

     

 

    

          

      

These cars parked at a 90 degree angle on Lombard Street!

 

Our tour of San Francisco went through China Town several times.

  

 

We stopped at an old Episcopal Church.  The front doors were beautiful!  And the stained glass windows!  The organ had pipes in the back of the church, in the front, and along the side of the front of the church.

    

    

 

Here are some pictures from one of our stops.

  

   

   

 

We got our first look at the Golden Gate Bridge.  It is amazing!  We toured Fort Point, which is under part of the bridge.

              

   

 

   

      

 

 

Fleet Week was starting the day after we were in San Francisco.  We were fortunate enough to see the modern version of the Iwo Jima, the America.  The Iwo Jima was the amphibious ship Chuck was on during Desert Storm.  It was very impressive.  The first pictures are from near the Golden Gate Bridge.  The last one is from Pier 39.

 

  

 

        

 

We stopped at the Palace of Fine Arts.

John is standing next to these pillars!!

    

 

More pictures of San Francisco from our first day.

 

Whew!!  No wonder we were pooped!

 

Next is Alcatraz!