Pinnacles National Park – Canned Comfort

Racooned!

As we continue with the story of our Pinnicles National Park 3-day we are on a Sunday walk to the Caves. It is a beutiful day and we are enjoying new sites we had not seen before. More people are on the trail but all are courteous and appear happy to be out and about!

We make our way back to our site and note that many of the weekend travelers are gone and it is very quiet. Oh how wonderful the sounds of nature are. We do note that we see alot of small racoons and silly black birds looking to clean up the crumbs of the weekend campers. The signs all over the campsites quite clearly state DO NOT FEED THE WILDLIFE, ESPECIALLY RACOONS, they can be dangerous.

We take an afternoon nap and then begin to prepare for our dinner meal. Our table is set and the new camp stove heating the griddle and feed the dogs. Our appetizers, chips and salsa with lemonade make for an easy preparation for our dinner. We had purchased a couple of bottles of Cabernet from Pietro Santo winery to go with our meal and so we open and let it breathe.

Little racoons keep running at the edge of the creek and our table. My hubby puts his back pack at the door of our trailer and goes back to help prepare our goodies. A little racoon is quietly unzipping his backpack! We shoe him away and laugh. Our evening continues and don’t think anything about it and proceed with our evening.

As we finish our dinner I see a medium sized racoon approaching us quietly and quickly and almost gets to my sister-in-law! it frightened us and she jumped up and down screaming at the creature and it finally went away. We laughed and continued on with the evening! As the cleanup is complete and we settle in for desert racoons are not on our mind. We all go to bed and know tomorrow we return back to the rat race!

We had a solid sleep and awakened for our usual al fresco breakfast. We have our first cappuccino first and while I am dressing I hear a few choice words from outside. I hustle outside to find my husband shaking his head, waving his hands and saying wonderful expletives. There are tiny hand/feet prints all over the roof of the truck, the cargo over over the bed AND the entire interior of the truck windows etc. !!!! Luckily we had our H2O cleaning towels and it made it fun, easy and no smells.

The only way in was a two inch opening of the small back truck window! They broke it by pushing it down?! After the initial shock and awe we laughed and couldn’t believe how they took every little thing inside and examined it all. They found my lost bluetooth earpiece, ate all the doggie treats they found in a zipper pouch. Yes they carefully unzipped the pouch and then took out stuff. No tearing and no chewing any of material.

After our outside breakfast we began to clean the truck up for our ride home. This just goes to show you ALL the signs at the park are really, really, REALLY need to be followed cuz it’s true!

Yet another wonderful trip to put in our book! Oh yeah, this is a photo of my brothers rig and his stuff no ours! We followed the rules and we got attacked!

Oh, Friday Escape Is Here!

As I worked all day, my hubby had the responsibility to pack our silver comfort to go to Pinnacles. I have lived all my life within 2 hours from this jewel, ALL MY LIFE! Recently we had the epiphany of the beauty surrounding us. Everyone lives near beauty but thinks that over the hill on the other road is where beauty is. Living in the central California Montery Bay Area we take so much for granted.

After our adventure in the real winter of Nevada and Idaho we wondered if we couldn’t enjoy our Airstream closer to home and learn how to benifit more from our cozy comfort. We have survived our frozen poopscicle and many other challenges, as all travelers do. We have learned to laugh and cherish the lessons learned and the appreciation of the moment.

The weather has been warm and clear for too long. We planned on more of the same but of course mother nature had other plans. As I worked through the day watching the clouds gather, my man and doggies prepped for our journey. I had left a list of food stuffs and clothing to pack so we could enjoy an old new “jewel”.

My brother and wife were going to join us. What fun. Of course I worked an hour later than expected, the skies where getting dark with clouds and the wind was getting stronger. I could not wait to get in the truck. As we started out from my office we began our journey.

The skies were getting darker as the sun bagan to set and the storm began to gain momentum. Oh well, that just meant we could have a little adventure and expierence some weather. Of course our “weather” is nothing but a mild inconvenience. We love our climate we just need rain!

The road and emotions began to lift as we left the highway and city behind and drove through Hollister, California. Unfortunately for us the darkness cloaked the beauty we drove by. It is so fun to see our silver coach behind us. It signifies freedom from work, stress and pressure. When your think about it, we don’t need to travel days for beauty and regeneration of spirit. It surrounds us. We just need to see it.

As per usual we really don’t know where we are going, ok we have general directions and a road. It is dark and the signage for Pinnacles is minimum. We travel along wondering when the rain will drop. We keep going and arrive after dark at the park. We get a little confused on the road and finally find the campground. We find our spot and easily park. Wow it was too easy. We settled in and took our doggies for a walk as the rain started in earnest. We laughed and enjoyed the smell of rain and knowing our doggies were soaked! Luckily we had put up our awning which sheltered us as we toweled off our friends. It was an easy evening and the rain played music on our roof. The enjoyment of the sound of rain lulled us to sleep.

The morning was lazy and enjoyable. The park was less than half filled, no generators were allowed at all but we had electric hookup. Comfort, beauty and quiet. We did not have our Nesspresso Pixie nor the Frother! Someone who shall remain nameless forgot to pack our beauties. We pressed on and enjoyed our french press coffed instead. I do miss the frother though. hmmmm

Our Pixie and frother to the rescue. — Our Pixie and frother!

We had dinner outside, slow roasted lamb ribs, garlic mashed potatoes and blanched asparagus with goat cheese and bread. We ate outside under the stars as the rain passed over and the stars were out. Just before dinner the ranger held an little discussion on the California Condor! It sprinkled throughout the presentation but it was informational and fun. We walked back to our trailers and began to set out the picnic table for dinner. I drained the fat off the ribs and spread salsa over the garlic sea salt rub and we ate hungrily.

Of course we can not have a trip without fun. As I brought a beautiful toasted lemon cake with toasted coconut frosting it flew off the plate in my hands and landed on the ground! I had waited for a taste of this luscious cake for days. Sooooo we saved the top layer and followed the 5 second rule and all tasted the cake with a little extra seasoning. Nothing ever goes as planned! Flying Coconut Cake is the first evening star.

As we go back to our trailer and start to clean up I realize my hubby did not pack our H2O Home cleaning tools to pick up. But even worse my sink was not draining. We tried boiled water, at least three times and realized that the hot water only went so far down the pipes! I unwound the plumbing stuff and found a 2 inch by 1.5 inch fat plug! We had a fat-scicle!!! We went from poopscicle to fatscicle! wow so much laugher and fun.

Soooooo all systems clear, we rest as tomorrow we go a hiking to the caves!

Rain Rain Happy Day !

How wonderful to actually be hearing RAIN again. The warm weather is beautiful but the rain is what we need. It also makes we want to travel. Yep, weird huh. While everyone is on the road during the good weather the cooler, more unpredictable weather and fewer options for open campgrounds etc make it more exciting.

I must say without the weather challenges, less utilized camp grounds and quieter landscapes we would be bored. No fun, goofy memories. I love reading the many blogs that feature Airstreams and decor. It makes me think, what is our style of travel. We know we love to cook, then Airstream comes out with limited edition gourmet cook version of our dream size coach. Ohhhh bad! The challenge is to make more with less space and re-think the decor, comforts we slowly find we either need or don’t. Oh boy more fun! In two weeks we are traveling far away (90 minutes) to the Pinnacles National Park. Shall we see California Condors, large wing bats, winter flowers, secret vistas that take your breathe away or just the beauty of sitting and drinking in pure wonder given to us from Mother Nature! No not just wine and olive oil that is abundant in this area! That means a trip to Santa Pietra for olive oil, and one of the local wineries we have yet to discover.

I have already thought of our menu, our travel times, reserved our space and have plans to coordinate with my brother and his wife on Saturday of the 3-day adventure. The challenge is, I need to re-think what our creature comforts are and how can we go from ” what we started with” to “okay what do we do now?” That says a lot of laughs and more fun.

Reading “J5MM” blog I am immediately wowed and a little intimadated. She is so vibrant and brings new views of what we can do in our little silver rolling statement! Where do my needs and adventurous energies lead us to?

Ohhhhhhh what shall we do? Dream and go! I am determined to go from where we started our statement to we are venturing out to find our FUN and adventure NOW! Yes Rain makes us start thinking of places to go and things to see. Especially near our home turf! See, the silver wink beckons. We are anxious to get on the road!

Two sites I have found that are inspiring are J5MM and Social Vignerons are two new fun, informative sites that make me think of luxurious, simply fun, tasty adventures on the road! Let’s get traveling.

Silver Dreaming

We are prisoners of our routines. I know I feel like there is this hamster wheel I keep running on without the ability to jump off. Then I look out and see a glint of sunshine on our silver Flying Cloud that keeps winking at me. It seems to say “come on we should go someplace”. We just returned from the ice-cube travel to the Idaho countryside that took five days. We had a timeline, many miles and new lessons learned — NO MORE POOPSCICLES!

As we look at our work week and think there is not enough time or money to make another trip somewhere right now. Wrong, we live in beautiful Santa Cruz County on the Monterey Bay, hmmm. There are many state parks and national parks close by. The Pinnacles National Park is the farthest away at 90 minutes! Sea Cliff and New Brighton are 15 minutes away. They do need reservations all year round but well worth the planning. If you’re self-contained there are even more opportunities to run away.

When we first bought our beautiful Airstream I had many things on my mind, I did not want to rough camp, I wanted to be comfy, I did not want left over household items as our trailer pantry and stores and I did not want to create a large footprint as we traveled. I loved the pictures of others luxuriating as they “camped”.

The first five years were filled with meltdowns, tears, new lessons, forced communication all with new eyes to see our world. We have traveled from California to Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado. We marvel at the bigness of our country and the kindness of those we encounter. Again though that took up to eleven days to get there and back. That is too much time.

A friend of mine who lives in Aptos, California told me when his kids were younger they would get into their Class C RV and drive 10 minutes to New Brighton State Park and feel like they were worlds away from home and had fun like tourists do. Hmm hadn’t really thought about the local parks.

That makes escape easier and more relaxing. We have many wineries here in Santa Cruz County and Monterey County, Olive oil tastings, ocean shores, mountains and quiet relaxation. This doesn’t even touch on great foodie adventures. With our little Silver coach reminding us of the why behind our investment we smile. It is a new year with new possibilities for seeing what we don’t see every day. When I drive to work everyday I drive by miles of open beach, the Elkhorn Slough, miles of farmlands growing everything we eat but I just drive by and take it for granted.

We often lose sight of what we have right next to us because it is just there. Now we can see that with a little time spent on the State Parks and National Parks internet sites we can make a reservation and be on our way within an hour after work. This puts a little lift in my spirit and lets the stress release. I have made one day car trips to Lake County to pick up Six Sigma Wine, but it is a long day. Here I can go out of my daily circles and in 10 minutes to 90 minutes max, be in another beautiful place. If you’re prepacked with all your creature comfort have to haves, you just add a little sprinkle of your favorite wine, steak, comfort food and off you go! What we have and don’t see is what takes the energy out of our lives. We don’t have to go to Paris to find adventure. Here where we live, if we open our eyes we can find it here!