Well, what can I say, writing is not my strong point and we are coming up to the two-month mark since we left the central valley of California already! I must say so far life is great. As I start this blog entry I am sitting on the back porch area of our fifth wheel in Oakzanita Springs looking at the great view and watching the kids playing outside.

Will start the post with a disclaimer and warning as some of what I may write may upset a reader or two. But being an Australian I believe in saying what needs to be said. Some of you may be thinking, “But he hardly ever spoke!” Well, there may be a reason for this ha ha.

Just a quick run down from the beginning, we left our sticks and bricks home in Riverbank June 29^th and went to the Merced River RV Park in Delhi where we stayed until September 1^st. I stayed at work till August 7^th and was fair counting down the days till then. I was so glad for that date to come and leave my job. August 29^th we had a going away shindig at a park in Turlock. Everyone kept asking Jennie if we were going to do something for everyone to say goodbye to the kids and us before we hit the road. So Jennie decided to organize one. Well, about a week before the 29^th Jennie had about 75 plus people coming. It ended up being around 12 adults and a handful of kids. Within 5 days well over 50 people canceled. I must say this was disappointing for Jennie and I will be honest some of the reasons were just outright lame. But you do find out from these things who your true friends really are. To those who came, thanks! It was an enjoyable time had by all.

September 1^st arrived and we packed up and really headed off on our grand adventure. We headed off to Oceano which is of course down on the pacific coastline about half way between San Francisco and LA. We got there and had an added bonus that the sites were pull through so no backing of the trailer was needed. Still being new to this lifestyle it did cost us $100 and a lesson on how to unhook the trailer from the hitch. It was an expensive lesson to learn but one we definitely learned. The spots were really narrow and not a site we will go back to in the future. We went down to the coast to be close to Jennie’s best friend for a couple of weeks before we pushed off to the next area. Plus, we both love this area and have gone down at least once a year. Some of the sunsets in this area were great and it was nice to be in cooler weather at last. But for the money we paid for the site for two weeks I am not sure it was really worth the money for what we wanted to get out of this two weeks because once again it felt like people just did not want to take much time out of their schedules to see the kids or Jennie for the last time in what will be a very long time before we are back this way.

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September 15^th rolled around and we packed up the site and headed off to our next campsite called Wilderness Lakes in a small town called Menifee, about an hour and a half east of LA. Jennie was given the keys to the truck and drove us out. The plan was Jennie would drive part of the trip then I would take over after lunch. That plan never worked out as between Oceano and Wilderness Lake there was not one rest area or gas station big enough to take our truck and trailer. So Jennie drove non-stop for 5 hours before we did come to a gas station we could use. (This gas station was only 30 minutes from our destination.) Must say Jennie did a great job, and a bonus at the end of a long drive to the new destination was that we had again had a pull through site. We were there for three weeks and I think I can speak for the whole family that we had a good three weeks. We met another full time family and the kids all seemed to hit it off and started to play well with each other. It was also good to hook up early with another family who is living the same lifestyle as us and learn some of what will be happening in the future including safer roads to travel coming into winter.

One of the main reasons for the stop in this area was that Legoland was just over an hour away. We got a great deal of five days for the price of one which included the Legoland water park, Legoland aquarium and Legoland Park itself.  Ever since I was a kid I dreamed of going to Legoland and of course Jesse and David are both fair into their Legos as well. So I was looking forward to five days of checking this place out. The first day we just did Legoland itself and after just 2 hours there was a look of disappointment on not just my face but also the kids’ faces. Already Legoland was turning into a big let-down. And for Jesse to be let down just showed how disappointing the place was turning out to be as Jesse is a mad Lego freak who wants to even go and work for the Lego company. After lunch it got better as we hit Miniland USA. This is what I was expecting throughout the whole park not just a small section of it. The Star Wars section was great plus the area of major centers in the USA. We spent the afternoon checking out this area of the park. The next day we went to the aquarium which was kind of cool seeing Lego pieces in the tanks with the fish and sharks. The rest of the day was spent at the water park where the kids enjoyed getting wet, but even Jesse who is a water freak said it was not very good. The third and last day we went we checked out the rest of Legoland we never saw on day one. Yes, we only spent three of the five days there as we had already seen the whole park. Overall Legoland was a disappointment and is geared for kids under 10 years old. All the rides are tame and good for little kids, but that is it. So if you have kids under 10 it is maybe worth the time to go but otherwise, use the money you want to spend at Legoland and go to Disneyland instead.

Next stop on our trip was to Oakzanita Springs which is about an hour East of San Diego up in the hills. Most of the trip there was on nice two to four-lane freeways. The last 10 miles however, was on single lane, twisty road going up hills. We got to the campsite fine, taking it nice and slow and steady. The camp site is on the side of a hill and has no pull through sites so this time the trailer had to be backed in. Since we were on a side of a hill that meant we had to back it in going down a hill and then get it on the pad area. So the first time I have ever backed a trailer I had an added bonus of it being on a hill and a very uneven job of getting it where we wanted. After about 15 minutes with the great help of Jennie guiding me, we got the trailer where we wanted it. The park is very nice and quiet. We spent three relaxing weeks and also did a few day trips out around the area. We went down to San Diego a few times and did the Creation museum with our new friends we met at Wilderness Lakes. We also went with them to a pumpkin patch for the day. Now, I hate pumpkin so looking at 100s of pumpkins did nothing for me but the rest of the family enjoyed it so that’s what counts.

Also in our three weeks there we did the museum of natural history and the science museum. The science museum was fun as it was all hands on and the kids had a blast. Then I guess there was a school trip came in and well, that destroyed it for us. Why are kids so ill-mannered these days? If I behaved like these kids when I was a kid I would have got strung up and that would have been by the teacher let alone what my parents would have done to me when they found out.  Society today seems to think it acceptable to let kids do whatever they want. Sorry society, my kids do not and will not behave like this. We also went to this old town up in the hills called Julian. We went to a gold mine and went on a tour. It was good to walk through an old gold mine to just see what the conditions were like. Plus we got to pan for gold and learn the best way to do that.

Now as I finish writing this we are in Palm Springs; we will be here for two weeks. The land of the desert and palm trees and already had our first sand storm. We are hoping to get to a national park near here and do a couple of other things as well. Oh and Palm springs is well known for summer time in recording some of the hottest days in the USA, thankfully it is not summer now and the temps are not too bad now.