Travel with Sue and Ted

Category: California

  • Central Coast California

    As we near the end of our grand tour through the Western United States, it was a delight to spend four days on the central coast of California in Pismo Beach and San Luis Obispo. This area is one of our favorites.

    dsc03378Included in our time here was the great opportunity to visit with Sue’s college roommate, Lynn, and her husband Ken, who live in Los Osos, as well as Lyle and Nancy, friends from Shafter, who now live in Morro Bay.  We also had fun riding bicycles on the Bob Jones trail, a six-mile round trip between SLO and Avila Beach.

    dsc03375While here, we visited a different winery every day, and enjoyed the opportunity to soak in the views and sip wine at:  Baileyana, Tolosa, and Chamisal Wineries (pictured below from their estate patio).

    dsc03380Tomorrow we drive to our home sweet home and this chapter of Sue and Ted’s retirement travel adventures reaches its conclusion.  What a trip it’s been!  Nearly nine weeks, almost 8,500 miles, 14 states, 19 National and State Parks and Monuments (9 were new to us), 22 different campgrounds, and the opportunity to explore and be with cherished family and friends. One more blog post after this one… Our usual best of everything list across our entire list! 

    Thanks for vicariously coming along on our journey, and for your love, prayers and encouragement!

  • California – A Long Drive

    We made it back to California!  On Friday, after a long 12-hour drive from Monument Valley, to Bakersfield, we stayed at the Orange Grove RV Park on Friday.  On Saturday we drove the lovely road (166) through Maricopa to the coast. 

    We are now in the last three days of our long adventure near San Luis Obispo to see some friends, and enjoy the Central Coast before driving up 101 and finally getting home.

  • First Night – Shasta

    This is the first long trip in the trailer, and on our first day everything went great!  We left at 10 am and arrived in the city of Mt Shasta (about a half-hour north of Lake Shasta) in a lovely KOA, at 5:30.  Due to the Labor Day weekend, we endured slow stop and go traffic on 280 and 80, but without stress because we have no deadlines.  Our new Ford F150 V6 had no problem pulling the 23′ Creekside trailer up the mountain grades.

    Mt. Shasta KOA-Site 31Now we are enjoying sitting under a pine tree, outside our rig after arriving here, with a bottle of Tolosa Pinot Noir partnered with cheese and crackers.

    The important confirmation today is that I have great confidence in my driving pulling a larger trailer.  Our lunch stop was in Dunnigan (the first city north of Woodland after the 505 merges into I-5) and I did a really good parking job.  After pulling into the parking lot, I had to go past my selected ‘trailer’ parking spot, then back-in, making a 90 degree left turn.  What made this successful was the backup video camera system my family got for me for my birthday – a camera at the back-end, and one on each side – which  made the back-up process smooth.  Sue didn’t even have to get out of the car to guide me!

    Balloons from Monday Night LadiesOur day started today with balloons!

    They were set by our trailer at 7 am, by Joyce Fisher, on behalf of Sue’s Monday Night Women’s group from church, wishing us safe travels and Sue a happy retirement.  I caught a glimpse of Joyce before she left in her car, just as I was sitting down on the front patio for my morning devotions.  I hugged and thanked her before she drove away.  She smiled and said to me:  “Take care of our girl”

    Joyce, we’ve had a good start to our long trip, and, I will.

    Thanks for following along with us on our journey!

    Ted & Sue