SoCal fun Part 2

A Trip to California would not be complete without a journey out in the ocean to try and spot some whales. And we did see whales. Not up close and personal but we could see their water spouts and tail fins without any trouble. Now San Diego is not the most ideal place to see whales. If you want some personal time with them you either go up to Seattle/Alaska or down to Mexico. As far as the whales are concerned California is a drive by. 

Here are the four amigos heading out to find us some whales Arrrrrrrr. 

Seals Just catching a little sun. 

There she blows. 

 Another great and noteworthy destination is the one and only San Diego Zoo.  We have been looking forward to visiting here ever since we hit the road. We got together with our friend Bill and spent a glorious day at the zoo. Little factoids about the zoo. People may be against zoo's but this one does some fabulous work for the environment. They do more for endangered species then anyone I have heard of. They have reintroduced over 200 California Condors into the wild through their breeding programs. Saving seals,pandas, and numerous other species. Truly a wonderful organization.

an infant gorilla,,,, adorable!

A new baby gorilla. 

 Lynn and the Pandas.

We adopted some babies. Not really. 

Our friend Bill from Sheboygan. Little know fact, Bill is one of the plank holders of Comic Con. I never knew. 

The California Condor.

Just hangin.

A baby ......some sort of monkey.....

Another destination is San Juan Capistrano. The swallows don't return only to the mission anymore. They have actually moved to the highway overpasses. Not quite as romantic is it? but the Mission is beautiful as well as is the Mission Basilica.

San Juan Capistrano

The Mission chapel. 

The original Mission Bells

The ruins of the church which collapsed during an earthquake. 

The new Basilica. Beautiful.

Dana Point San Diego

A real treat and a surprise from Lynn was another check off of my bucket list. I got to go up in a glider. Rick and I shared a ride and it was a lot of fun. Noisier then I would of thought but the noise was from the air vents in the sides of the plane. And believe me you needed them. It gets really hot inside that plastic bubble. But it was well worth it.

On our sail plane trip Honey our god dog came along. 

 Another great stop in San Diego is Balboa Park. It's the same complex where the zoo is. Here are some of the highlights.

Conservatory

Model train museum/display. It was 3 floors. 

Lynn loving the flowers.

Art in the park

The Globe theater complex. 3 different theaters. 

A night at the museum anyone? 

I just love the roots of this tree. 

 Here are some miscellaneous pictures from the Pacific coast. So beautiful!

Our Honey.

Beach closed for the protection of the seal pups.

Well that's it for SoCal. Yes we did a lot more. Wineries, a casino, Hiking in the foothills, and eating at some great restaurants but all of those pictures start to look the same after a while. During our stay at Rancho California we must of taken over a thousand pictures. Editing them is taking hours of time and I still haven't finished. Maybe someday, but we have new adventures ahead. Like our first ever RV rally.

So thanks again for looking at our blog. Comments are always welcome and I will try to stay more current with the posts. Of course I've said that before and it hasn't happened yet. Oh well. Maybe one of these days. See you down the road.

Let the So Cal fun begin part 1

This blog is going to be a highlight reel of the 3 months we spent at Rancho California. And I have a confession to make. We got real lazy while we were there. It may seem that we were busy all the time doing all of the fun things we posted on Facebook, but in reality we spent more time sitting then going. You have to do that now and then because when we leave here we are going to be very busy. 

So on to the highlight reel. 

We love to Kayak but finding a place to put two 10 foot long kayaks is not an easy task. Carrying them on the roof of the truck would be a pain in the you know what, and on the roof of the 5th wheel, even worse. The solution was to buy two inflatable kayaks. They work great, can store in the back seat or in the truck bed with the bed cover closed. Here we are using them on two different occasions. 

 These two pictures were taken on Mission Bay in San Diego.

 These three were taken at Bonnelli Regional Park in San Dimas. 

Needless to say, we loved it and plan on using them as much as we can.

We spent a fair amount of time in the San Diego area. Here are some of the pictures that we took at Point Loma-Cabrillo National Monument and Coronado.

A great view of San Diego

Cabrillo statue

A fun shot with our good friends Rick and Lenore. 

Just one of the ships leaving the Naval Base. 

We love the coast, but who doesn't. 

The shore at Coronado.

As this was the Christmas season they of course had an outdoor skating rink. 

As San Diego was an hour west of us, Joshua Tree National Park was an hour east. I have never seen a landscape like this before. Desert but with rock and small mountains to climb and play on.

Part two coming soon. See you down the road and thanks for reading our blog. Don't forget to let us know what you think.