Death Valley March 7 - 12, 2013

We made it to Death Valley again without incident!  We were there for six days and had a great time!  We had four RV's and 7 people stayed in the Furnace Creek Ranch motel.  It was a fun group and we had lots of laughs!

We got there Thursday afternoon and we all gathered at Mike and Sandy's (former workmates of Della's) new RV.  After our tour of the new beautiful motor home, a fire was built and we sat outside catching up on the past year with appetizers and wine!  From there we went to the Forty-Niner Cafe at the Furnace Creek Ranch for dinner with Jim and Della (classmates of Ted) and Lynn and Bob (Lynn was Della's former workmate).  We took a look in the gift shop after dinner.

On Friday it was cold and rainy, a very good day to stay inside!  In the afternoon the rain cleared and we gathered at Mike and Sandy's and then headed to Jim and Della's for beef stroganoff, Ted's favorite!  We were joined by Kelli (former classmate of Ted and Jim and Della) who spent two nights with Jim and Della before heading to the motel.  Dinner was wonderful and it was fun getting together with them.

On Saturday the sun was out and it was a beautiful day!  Jim and Ted and I walked over to Furnace Creek Ranch to the art sale that was being held on the grounds.  There were jewelry artists, pottery artists, tie-dye artist, artists showing their paintings and a wood inlay artist.  His artwork was stunning.  He actually had a list of every type of wood and quanitity of wood used in each piece that you received when purchasing a piece.  His artwork was large and amazing.  After we walked around we decided we needed some lunch before heading back!  We gathered Friday evening with the group and then we had dinner at Jim and Della's; their famous spaghetti and meatball's.  Kelli was there as well.  Kelli had made home made applie pie that was delicious!  We were so full we could hardly waddle back to the RV!

An early morning view at our campground!

Jim & Ted stop to rest on the walk to the Ranch!

Walkway to Furnace Creek Ranch

Sunday was another beautiful day and we drove up to Aguereberry Point with Jim and Kelli.  Della is recovering from the flu and decided to relax at the campground.  The point is at 6,433 feet and there was a little bit of snow still up there!  It is a beautiful view of the valley!

Snow on Aguereberry Point!

The view of Death Valley from Aguereberry Point

Ted looking at the view (from a distance)!

Jim, Ted & Kelli at Aguereberry Point

Susan on the west side of the Point

Wish Kelli could learn to relax!

Jim at the point of the Point!

As we were leaving Aguereberry Point, we stopped to look at an abandoned mine and Jim's Escape let him know he had a low tire.  When we got to Stovepipe Wells we put air in and found a puncture.  We made it back to Furnace Creek and Jim tried to get the tire fixed at the gas station and ended up calling AAA to come and take care of it.  They had to come over from Pahrump but got it changed to the spare. 

Sunday afternoon we gathered at (yes, you guessed it) Mike and Sandy's!  Mike is sort of our Wagonmaster, reminding us every year that it is time to make our reservation for Death Valley!  I prepared dinner for Jim, Della and Kelli on Sunday night and for dessert we had strawberries with chocolate sauce!

Early on Monday morning Jim and Ted took off to Pahrump so that Jim could get a new tire for his car.  That done, we went to lunch with Jim, Della and Kelli at the Furnace Creek Inn.  For the four of us it is an annual tradition to have a lovely lunch with a view of Death Valley.  Kelli had not joined us before and I believe she enjoyed it as well.  They have a lovely gift shop that is always fun to look at and then we walked around the beautiful grounds, an oasis in the middle of Death Valley!

The driveway up to Furnace Creek Inn

Pictures after lunch

Ready to tour the grounds!

The view from the top floor at the Inn

Lilly pads in the pond

Monday evening we gathered for our last time around the campground fire!  We had appetizers and wine and a lovely evening topped off with a nice glass of Grand Marnier!  We had a great fire and a very enjoyable evening!

On Tuesday morning we were headed out.  There were three of us that were going to Valley of Fire in Nevada.  Kelli was going to join us and stay in our RV.  We got to Pahrump and I finally got through to them and the campground was full.  They only book on a first come, first served basis and we were pretty surprised.  Every one decided to head home so we came on in to Las Vegas.  Our Thousand Trails campground was full (we have a reservation starting Friday) so we came to Sam's Town Campground.  It's a nice campground and the weather here is lovely!

We had dinner at the casino and did a little gambling.  Yesterday we met Howard, a former co-worker of Ted's for lunch.  Today is catch up day!  Catch up on laundry, blog and get some groceries.  I think we are going to see Pi this afternoon!

A beautiful visit at Death Valley..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Moving on!

I forgot to tell you that Trent's team did win that exciting baseball game on Saturday.

Tomorrow we will be heading to Death Valley.  We are meeting a group of RVers there.  We have been joining this group for the last few years.  Jim and Della Crownover, from Ted's High School invited us to join them and their group of friends.

Some of them have jeeps and like to go four wheeling and there are a lot of places to do that.  We have joined in and seen a lot of the valley.  Not sure how much or little sightseeing we will do but we will have fun!  There's always good eating and some wine drinking to be done, nice toasty fires to warm us, some cards to be played and lots of laughs!

Heading to Death Valley..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Great baseball!

Yesterday we drove down to San Diego to watch Trent play baseball!  So far we are north when games are south and we are south when games are north!  Trent was playing on his North City team and not his travel team.   His first two times at bat he struck out.  Stach, his grandfather told him to wait for the ball to get to him.  On his travel team they pitch faster and he was too quick with his bat.  His last two at bats he hit two doubles!  Trent pitched the last two innings and that was when we could really tell the difference in the pitching speed.  The pitchers on both teams did well but Trent's pitches were so fast the kids were at best able to foul them off.  In two innings he struck out 4, had one that was like a bunt back to Trent that he threw to first for the out and one that was hit to first that the first baseman got out.  It was an exciting two innings and the crowd was hushed when Trent was pitching!  It was really nice when several people came up after the game and congratulated Trent on his pitching!  That was really cool!

Unfortunately my cold is back!  My head feels the size of a basketball so today we are hanging out at the RV.  I will make a shopping list for Death Valley after I pour through some cookbooks and will get some laundry done!  I took some allergy medicine which did nothing so may need to go get something for a cold yuck!  I'm not a good patient!

Watching Trent play baseball..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Road trip!

We finished up a fun week in San Diego and have started a short road trip!  From here we will be going over  to Death Valley.  We will spend five days there with a group of friends.  We will hang out, have a few happy hours, see a few sites and have fun!  We leave here on Thursday for Death Valley.

From there we plan to go into Nevada.  We are planning to visit the Valley of Fire with a couple of people  It is a beautiful State park full of beautiful red rocks.

Our  truck mirror got  fixed yesterday!  They just replaced the whole thing!

Today we plan to enjoy the sunshine here at the campground.  It is a beautiful day!

 Sunny days..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Colds and coughing!

Since my last post we've been running errands, hearing aid appointments, doctor appointments, nail appointments and of course, eating with friends!

We had dinner in La Mesa at Gingham's with friends Bill and Jany on Friday the 15th.  I worked with Bill for 18 years and I enjoy our continued friendship.  I had a lobster cake that was absolutely delicious!

And then, I got the dreaded cold!  We were supposed to drive up to Fountain Valley on Saturday to watch Trent play baseball but instead we were home for the weekend.  Finally on Monday we went out to get Ted's hearing checked.  His right ear needed to be adjusted as his hearing wasn't quite as good in that ear after a year.

Ted had lunch with Larry Salas, one of his former co-workers on Tuesday.  They had not seen each other for several years so he enjoyed connecting with Larry.  Larry invited him to a luncheon on Wednesday with three other guys that Ted had worked with at the County of San Diego.  They meet every third Wednesday and invited Ted to join in whenever he was in town.  He had a really good time reconnecting with the guys. 

Wednesday night Ted and I had lunch with Jeri and Sherri.  Sherri was visiting from Arcada, California.  She used to live in San Diego as a kid and she and Jeri have been friends since grade school.  Sherri went on our ladies cruise a couple of years ago and Ted and I have visited Sherri and her husband in Arcada.  It was good to see her.

On Thursday Ted came down with the cold.  I tried hard not to give it to him.  I'm on the mend but he is still coughing and hacking!  So I took off with my friend Peggy.  It was her birthday and we had a fun ladies day.  We started off with aromatherapy massages.  Besides feeling really good, I think it helped me to start getting over my cold! 

Last night we had dinner with Jeri and Stach.  Jeri and I are going to go to the casino on Sunday.  She got free rooms so we are going to spend two nights!  We always have good girlfriend time!

On Wednesday we go back up to Menifee to our Wilderness Lakes campground.  The part is in for our truck mirror so will get that fixed.  We were planning to go to Lone Pine on Friday or Saturday, but our friends Jim and Della ended up with the flu and think its probably going to be too cold to go up there for us sickies!   We will go straight to Death Valley on March 7th.

Aromatherapy massages..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Happy day after Valentines Day!

Our drive down on Tuesday was uneventful...a good thing!  We stopped at South Coast RV and they greased all of the stuff on the underbelly of the coach.  We also had them fix the wall in the slide out where we put in the new sofa.  The old sofa was wall to wall so we didn't know that it wasn't tacked in right.  We were in and out in a couple of hours and we were on our way to Pio Pico.

We didn't find a spot and decided to park on the north side and cross over when a better space opened up.  We found a nice spot and Ted checked the power.  The electric pedestal is for two RV's side by side.  Our power didn't work so we plugged in to the other plug and it worked and we set up for the night.  When we left to grab a bite to eat we reported the power problem to the Ranger Station.  When we came back we no longer had power.  Apparently when they took a look at the power something happened.  So now at 5:00 we had to move!  Grrrr!

On Wednesday we got moved to the south side so we would have sewer hookups and got set up.  We met our friends Jeri and Stach for dinner and watched Survivor.  I wasn't interested in Survivor because they brought back a few people I didn't like very well.  But one night and I was hooked again!  LOL

Yesterday was a really fun day with my friend Peggy.  Ted dropped me off and went to lunch with his friend David Prime.  Us girls took off to Point Loma Seafood.  It was such a beautiful day and we shared a calamari sandwich...yummy!  When we were leaving we noticed this guy sunning himself in the shallows.  I've never seen a sea lion come in so close to shore and just sit there sunning his face!  He was drawing quite a crowd and he wasn't the least bit interested in any of us!

Next we went to Home Goods shopping.  We each found a couple of things to buy and Peggy had to try out the high back chair!   I think we have Peggy in Wonderland!

Next stop was Starbucks followed by a Pedicure.  Needless to say we were very relaxed with pretty toes by the end of the day!  Ted was home when I got there and we had a nice Valentine evening together!

Lunch, shopping, coffee and a pedicure..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Wilderness Lakes!

On Sunday we visited our friend Sally Black in Rainbow.  David Prime was there and another friend of Sally's, Arlen, stopped by for awhile.  Sally, David and Ted have known each other for over 30 years!  We all had a great visit, David made us a delicious dinner and we really had a good time. 

Today we took the truck back to the Ford dealership to have the brakes done and the side mirror fixed.  They got the brakes done but the part was not the correct one for the mirror.  We will have to come back when we come back up to Wilderness Lakes in a couple of weeks.

On the way to the Ford dealership we could see Big Bear and Mt. Baldy.  Both have snow and look beautiful!  Here is a picture of Big Bear Mountain from the 215 at March AFB!

Tomorrow we leave Wilderness and go back down to San Diego to Pio Pico.  We talked to our friend Della this morning and we are going to meet she and Jim at Lone Pine before we head over to Death Valley so we are going up to Wilderness on the 27th to make sure we get the mirror fixed before heading over to Lone Pine.