Leaving California, Headed for Home

At Sister’s House in Citrus Heights, CA

We entered California four months and 15 days ago for our yearly visit.  This year, besides visiting with family in the Sacramento area, we visited the Santa Cruz, Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Alabama Hills, Carson City, and Truckee areas, along with a six week trip up in the Northwest portion of California, and Southwest portion of Oregon.  We celebrated Dad’s 90th birthday, Mom’s 88th birthday, both of their 70th anniversary, and the marriage of my oldest son Michael to his lovely bride Anna.  Tomorrow morning we head out…at this time tomorrow we will be somewhere in Nevada along I-80 headed to the Salt Lake City area to visit with my daughter Stephanie.  It has been a wonderful 4 1/2 months here…despite the hot hot hot weather, and the fires which are a yearly occurrence here in the west.  The Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys have always filled with smoke…accounts of early settlers talk about smoke layers due to winter fires used to keep people warm to wildfires which broke out from what is believed to be lightning strikes.  As a kid, I remember the heavy smoke from the burning of the dry rice straw left over from harvest each year on the western side of the Sacramento River, a practice which is less common now days.  And I remember many large wildfires, some in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and lower foothills, which others were in Southern California or along the Coastal Ranges.  It is a part of living in the west.

    

Sacramento is a wonderful place for flowers.  It is the Camellia Capital of the World…just ask the Camellia Society of Sacramento.  They use to have a Camellia Festival in late February or early March--which ran from 1955 to 1993 which featured a debutante ball, princesses and a parade with flower-covered floats.  I think in 4th grade we had to make a Camellia Poster as part of a city-wide contest to help promote the event.  My posters were only good enough for the trash can…  I don’t know why they stopped the huge festivities…but they do still have a yearly Camellia Show, this year was the 94th year, still held by the Sacramento Camellia Society.  Not sure, but I think the parade probably stopped due to the Naked Ladies.  All I know is that the Naked Ladies appeared again yesterday, and we are headed out tomorrow!

Naked Ladies are also known as Belladonna Lilies…and they appear each year in Sandy and Arny’s backyard.  In the spring they appear as a green, leafy plant, which lasts for 4-8 weeks before they seem to die off.  Then in July or August a single stem starts to sprout upward…and lily opens up.  In the picture above, the short ones will be as tall as the lily that is open in just a few days.  The lilies will last for a few days, then die off.  It is an amazing show…  I am glad we were able to see a few of them bloom before we leave.

     

These two fur kids are not going to be happy campers tomorrow…especially the one of the left.  Bubba (upper left) absolutely LOVES being at Sandy and Arny’s house.  Arny is Bubba’s best friend…and outside of our trip to Oregon for six weeks, and the three weeks we were sightseeing California, he has been here at their house for the past year.  However, we were here for all but three months of that time…this time we will be gone for 7 or 8 months…so Bubba is coming along with us.  Boy, he is going to be one depressed dog for a number of days…perhaps a couple of weeks…but he always adjusts to it.  We just hope that at 15 years of age, he has a few more visits back to see his buddy Uncle Arny, and also Aunt Sandy.  Skruffy, on the other hand, is fine as long as she is with me or with Marcia.  But she too LOVES Sandy and Arny’s house…the daily small treats of fried pork that I cook up and give them to hand out twice a day, the squirrels, the lawn, being in Sandy’s lap every now and then…she too will miss them.

  

For us it is a two-sided sword.  We have had some meals with mom and dad, including finding a great breakfast/lunch place called Annie’s right near to their Assisted Living facility.  We LOVE visiting family out here, we LOVE staying in Sandy and Arny’s backyard when we are here, we LOVE the sights we can explore getting here, short trips we take while here, and on the trip home.  We also LOVE our friends and family who don’t live here…and we miss our friends and family back home.  Next year my youngest son Ryan is graduating from Chiropractic School in the Kansas City area in April…and our plans will be to return to California sometime after that.  When, How Long we will stay is all up in the air for now.  But the Lord willing, we will return, and seeing family out here is always a wonderful thing.

Back to the map…this is our proposed route.  It will take us through Salt Lake to see Stephanie, through Kansas City to see Ryan, Aunt Vera and other relatives in the area, then down to Arkansas, and finally back to Florida.  I am not going to see my doctor until next March or early April since we pretty much will be going through Arkansas again on our way to Ryan’s graduation.  We decided to NOT go through the Chicago area, probably saving that for next spring.  Marcia’s driver’s license needs to be renewed in September, and they will require her to take a vision exam…otherwise we could do it over the Internet.  We want to take a bit of time going through the northern portion of Colorado, so we are not ready to set time periods for our Kansas City or Arkansas Visits as of now.

Sixty Seven Years!

Mom and Dad celebrated their 67th Anniversary today!  We went out to dinner, (Arny, his mother Euleda, my sister Sandy, Marcia, myself, and of course, Mom and Dad).  After a nice dinner at Felipe's, we came back to Sandy and Arny’s and had cake and ice cream.

It was a nice, moist chocolate cake with a frosting which seemed to be a marshmallow-whip cream mixture, with dark and white chocolate chunks on top.  Ice Cream was either triple Vanilla, Rocky Road and/or Peanut Butter Cup.  At the end of the night, we were all just stuffed.

Let’s just say that there are more birthday years in this room combined, than this country of ours has had in total.  One thing nice about having to turn around from our trip to Alaska…and that’s that there is good family memories to fill the gap.

66 Years–Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad

One’s 65th Anniversary is called the Blue Sapphire Anniversary.  When you have your 66th Anniversary, there is no such honor.  So instead we made up our own….the Black Angus Anniversary.

Stuart Anderson founded the Black Angus Steakhouse chain in 1964.  They entered the Sacramento market when I was working for Mr. Steak back in the 1970’s, one in South Sacramento and one in Citrus Heights.  Only the Citrus Heights location is still in business.  As a restaurant chain, Black Angus once boasted over 100 locations….now down to 45 locations in six Western States.  As the name suggests, they serve Black Angus Beef, although they also have Seafood, Salads, and the normal items you would find in a classic Steakhouse.

Here is mom and dad above giving grace during our Memorial Day BBQ nearly two weeks ago.  I failed to take my camera to Black Angus today because I got caught up in the time…thinking it was a 5:30 dinner, instead it was a 4:30 dinner….barely had time for my shower after getting a few repairs done with the motorhome today.  (The above picture of the steakhouse was taken off the Internet from their website.)

Today I finished installing our LED floor lights which I got from Amazon, pack of 10 for $9.99.  Thought that was a pretty good deal.  Getting down on the ground to replace them, not such a good deal…but it was worth it.

Wednesday I replaced three of our lamps with these LED lights.  These were $9.95 each, and each lamp took two lights.  Not as good of a deal, but it was needed to in order to keep the draw of the battery down when we are not plugged into power.  They also give off a brighter, whiter light than we had before, so that is a bonus.

Also installed this AVIVA TRIO Dispenser in the shower.  This is our second dispenser in a motorhome, and we like having the convenience of not having to open and shut the soap, shampoo and conditioner bottles during each shower…and especially like not having to bend down and pick up said containers when they get knocked off a shelf, or fall from our hands.

We are having a slight problem with a few of the windows.  The window cornice is in two parts, and the inner part is stapled to the outer part from the inside.

As you can see with this one, they have a tendency to separate.  The one in the bedroom on Marcia’s side had a massive seperation…so much so that it was hard to raise the window shades because the shade would get caught up on the inner portion of the cornice.  So I took the cornice and shade down (all in one piece, which made that easier….only four screws!), and Arny used his staple gun on it and I put it back.  It now looks like the first window picture above.  I am going to get us a staple gun because I KNOW that it will need to be used from time to time.

Need to get back over to Camping World and get one of these Pleated Shades First Aid Kits.  Had one in our last motorhome…and of course, it went up in flames too.  Need to replace some of the cord retainers on a few windows too, and having the strings, springs and guides will come in handy “IF” a shade completely falls apart…which I am hoping never happens. 

    

Previous I talked about the missing propane line…well, Kerry McColloch at McColloch’s RV repair and storage called today and the line he ordered was in.  So around 3:00 pm Arny and I crawled under the motorhome and Arny installed the line in about 10 minutes or so….with the “or so” being the time needed to go back to his garage and get the proper tools…along with an “or so” for the time to find the white silicon tape used on the threads of the new fitting.

The new line did not need this elbow, which Arny removed first.  One end went where the elbow was, and the other went on the reverse side of the yellow cover in the picture above-left.  Then it was a matter of using tie downs to secure it, and it was done.  We should be able to get propane now, which I plan to do on Friday or Saturday.  And since we started this project at 3:00….and dinner at Black Angus was at 4:30 and not 5:30 like we both thought, it made for a quick shower and out the door in order to get there…and now you know why I forgot to take the camera for the 66th Anniversary Dinner at Black Angus.

And how was dinner?  Two had Prime Rib, three had New Yorks, and two had Filet Mignon (the coupon we used had Filet Mignon on it in place of Ribeye).  Since six of us were using three “Campfire Feast”, they came with three appetizers, and three desserts.  All I can say is that we were all stuffed when we left, and the three desserts came home in boxes for later consumption.  And mom remembered to share a little of her Filet Mignon with Skruffy and Bubba, who gobbled it as fast as they could.  We are blessed to still be able to enjoy mom and dad and to celebrate their 66 years together.