Santa Barbara to Menifee

We made it to Rancho Oso, a Thousand Trails campground in the mountains east of Santa Barbara. We spent Wednesday night and Thursday night there. The campground is set up and members who have horses they can bring them to ride in the hills or you can rent horses for trail rides with the wranglers hired by the campground. Max and I stumbled on the turkeys when we went for our early morning walk on Thursday and again this morning.

Ted and I decided to try lunch at the Paradise Store & Grill. A lot of locals hang out there and they are very interesting characters! The dogs are welcome and everybody just hangs out. We've noticed it's always crowded and we always thought that it was because it has a bar, they do sell beer and wine but there isn't a bar. You eat out on the porch and while we were eating our sandwich a "cowboy" with long grey hair comes up and starts getting ready to play music. What I didn't expect was that he would be play soft classical music and he was very good!

After lunch we went into Solvang and looked around, fueled up and stopped at the Chumash (pronounced shoemash) Casino. Ted and I were both lucky, doubled our money and enjoyed ourselves!

This morning we left Santa Barbara and are now in Menifee, California. We are east of Murietta and northeast of Hemet. We are in a Thousand Trails campground called Wilderness Lakes. We have great cell service, internet and satellite!

Great electronics..."Ain't Life Grand!"

No internet service!

Today we are heading south to a campground in the mountains by Santa Barbara. We will have no cell service and therefore no internet - boo :( we will resume service on August 1st! Where is the year going?????????

Having too much fun..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Time out for the driving range!

Today Ted and I took time out to go to the driving range in Gilroy, California! Instead of finding garlic in Gilroy, we hit golfballs! It has been a very long time since we have played/practiced golf. It was fun but think I'm going to be sore!

We took a drive around Gilroy. Looks like they are updating part of their downtown area. We found an Irish pub/restaurant and had some lunch. Lots of Irish food on the menu but the funny thing was, neither of us had anything Irish but we both had a great lunch!

Tomorrow we will head south to Santa Barbara area for a couple of days.

Enjoying hitting golfballs..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Susan's Birthday!

Yes, today is my birthday, #58! Yikes - scary! Had a great day anyway! Ted took me to Rosey's on the Beach for lunch. A cute restaurant in downtown Morgan Hill. It was fixed up to feel as though yu were at the beach (but no sand on the floor)! It was too hot to sit outside. I had a nice grilled halibut and Ted had a pot roast pasta with a marinara sauce. For my birthday dessert I had the soup spoon sundae! They put homemade whip cream on the plate and a soup spoon full of French Vanilla ice cream with another little bit of cream with chocolate sauce! So cute.

After I got a Starbucks, we went back to the Clos LaChance winery. Ted decided he wanted to try to see if they still had a "buttery" Chardonay. He tried a couple and liked one so we got it.

We came back to the RV then and decided to take a swim since most of the kids left after the weekend the pool wasn't so crowded. It felt wonderful since it was still in the 90's outside. It's a huge pool!

Pool & Campsite

After swimming we came back to the campsite and sat outside in our chairs, it was so pleasant.

Great birthdays..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Clos LaChance Winery

Today went to the Clos LaChance Winery and did some wine tasting. They were having a cellar sale so they were quite busy. Ted had visited the winery many years ago when they were working out of their garage. As you can probably tell in the pictures they have grown! They have 150 acres of vineyard and only buy grapes for their pinot's. When Ted was there they only had whites and mainly Chardonay, but a great Chardonay! Now they have a very wide selection of reds and whites. Unfortunately we didn't care for the wines we tasted today, a little dry for our tastes!

After wine tasting we ran some errands and took a drive through downtown Morgan Hill. It's a small but cute town with a few shops and sidewalk cafe's. Lot's of Starbucks around town so I was happy!

Touring the countryside..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Morgan Hill, California & a rant about Dish Network!

Yesterday we were "on the road again"! We left Cloverdale and headed south to Morgan Hill. We are south of San Jose about 35 miles. This is the first time at this campground. They have a huge olympic size pool and lots of trees. Only problem is that they have lots of burrs that Max is getting in his feet and in his long ears. Since he needs a haircut he has lots of hair to pick up burrs with!

We went to set up the Dish Satellite and again had problems. I'm really tired of dealing with Dish on the phone. Everyone is very pleasant but they don't seem to know anything and you get a different answer every time you call. We have the protection plan so I tried to arrange a service call. I was told that because we are in an RV we have to go to a local retailer. The local retailer said I have to call Dish to get a work order, Dish says the retailer has to call. Finally the retailer did a conference call. So the guy says he can set up a service call from his end. I tell him I'm an RV (for the 3rd or 4th time) and he still says he can do it. I give him our address at the campground so today the Dish tech showed up at Peggy's house (our mailing address)! I called and lambasted a "supervisor" and he actually gave us some other things to try. So he sends us to Radio Shack for a part and of course they really don't handle parts they just install set up packages. Anyway we got the part and it fixed part of the problem. We at least have TV in one room and we'll wait to get home before dealing with Dish again! I've spent hours and hours on the phone with these jokers! Thank you for letting me rant and rave!

Anyway..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Riu Santa Fe

Friends Sue and Jake are heading to Cabo in August. They are staying at the Riu Palace. Ted and I went with a group of "Red Lippers" in December of 2007 and stayed at the Riu Santa Fe (a step down from the Palace) which is right next door. Thought I'd show Sue some of our pictures. We had a great time! Sue we will look forward to seeing your pictures!

Fun in Cabo..."Ain't Life Grand!"