And away we go!

As the end of July approached, we spent most of our time trying to think of everything that needed to be done before we had to leave on the trip. As the days progressed, we did our chores in no specific order but the list was dwindling and that was good. We took a day off on Thursday to take the kids to see “Wicked”, the untold story of the witches of Oz. Actually, Claudia took a day off on Thursday to take the kids and me to see “Wicked”. I am not a musical kind of guy, as in “Let’s all go and see a musical” (said loudly with mirth and glee). I would much rather go see a good movie like “Quigley Down Under”, “Clear and Present Danger” or “The Hunt for Red October”. However, the six of us jumped on the Coaster and rode down to the Santa Fe station in San Diego. The highlight of the trip was when I spotted a deer just south of Sorrento Valley. Rachael saw me leering at it and mentioned that I would go to jail for shooting a deer within city limits. Hmmm…what a decision! Venison and a few days in jail or a musical. Had to think about that one for a second or two! Anyway, when we arrived at the downtown Santa Fe station, we walked the eight blocks to the Civic Theater, stopping midway to split three sub sandwiches before the show.

The show was good and, admittedly, enjoyable. The two female stars of the show portrayed a “good witch” and a “bad witch”. The bad witch was actually damn good and had a great set of pipes. Her singing had “zip”! When she hit and held her last note, it was like a crescendo that set you back in your seat.

After the “zipping”, we hustled back to the Coaster and headed back north to meet Alisa at Leucadia Pizzaria. After stuffing our pie holes with pizza, linguini, tortellini and a couple of other “…ini’s”, we came home. The kids packed up their gear and headed home with Alisa. Claudia and I started to tackle the cleaning of the downstairs half of the condo until sheer exhaustion took over and we slammed into bed.

Friday came very early for Claudia and slightly early for me and Gizmo. We were even up and working before the trash truck came…a feat of almost unknown historical happenstance. The trash bins were at 110% capacity but the cleaning was all but done…just a quick vacuum, floor wash and top dust to go. After Claudia proclaimed “done”, we loaded the refrigerated and frozen food into the motorhome and hooked up the car. It always amazes me how most of the food in the BIG home freezer fits into the tiny freezer on the motorhome. I would have bet against it…and given good odds…but I got it all in. We left nothing behind.

We pulled out at 1:00 pm, heading for a three-day transitional stop at Santee Lakes until the grandkids leave for home on Sunday. After topping off the propane tanks, we got set up and awaited the arrival of Alisa and the kids. The kids requested grandpa’s almost world famous hamburgers a-la motorhome barbecue. After dinner, the kids and I went for a swim. I hadn’t had a shower since yesterday and had been working hard for two days. I did feel much better. What the hell! Tomorrow starts the weekend and they always give pools an extra shot of chlorine just before weekends. I think it’s the law. If it isn’t, it should be! The kids left, we took showers, I climbed into my new hot weather motorhome pajamas…a matching pair of boxer shorts and tee shirt in a modern camouflage pattern …and went to bed. We’d had it! Enough for one day! Whew!

Today is Saturday, the first day of August. Alisa and the kids are coming over today. They will be “pooling” at some point in time and we are going to inaugurate our brand new beautifully-built Beanbag Baseball game at some other point in time. The game consists of a slant board with holes cut in it’s face. The holes are designates as hits, outs and fouls. The only difference between this and a real baseball game is that you don’t swing a bat. You just pitch a beanbag and, depending which hole the bag (hopefully) goes through, you either strike out or run the bases.



Beanbag Baseball in progress!

The kids arrived and Gizmo was soon in doggie heaven, as in the center of their attention. He went from "Oh good, I'm going on a walk" to "Not another walk" to "No way, Dudette! I ain't budging this time!". It was time for Beanbag Baseball anyway. We set out the game, positioned the bases and I explained the rules. We had two four-person teams...the Chargers and the Raiders. After nine full innings of play, and with only a few disputed rulings made by the Official Umpire (me), the Raiders beat the Chargers by a score of 7 to 5. Thank God this in no way bears any resemblance to the REAL world where the actual scumbags from Oakland would never come close to beating a much finer, and certainly more gentlemanly group than San Diego's representatives to the NFL. After the baseball game, we all packed up and headed for Alisa's where Grandma Claudia performed her magic on Brooke's hair, followed by a great Farewell Dinner for the Texas grandkids who leave us tomorrow. We will soon be returning to reality!

Morning arrived at the ungodly hour of six o’clock. After romping Gizmo, Claudia and I headed to Alisa's to pick up Rachael and Kyndallyn for breakfast at Denny’s and the ride to the airport. After the kids were safely on the plane and on their way home, we returned to Santee Lakes to ready the motorhome for the start of a new adventure. Tomorrow, we head north with a very firm itinerary of stopping first at Ventura, or maybe Santa Barbara, or maybe Oceano or possibly Avila Beach. Stay tuned. I'll let you know.