Our “Friends and Family Birthday Tour” is what we are calling our planned trips for this Spring and Summer. I will be “celebrating” my 75th birthday this year and it will be Carol’s 70th. We have plans for this trip to California and, this Summer – some time in June – we will begin a trip to the East Coast to visit other friends and family there. That was not our original intent with these plans but it has turned out to be our “Birthday Tour”.

Our granddaughter, Katy, finally got a speaking/singing/dancing part in her theater company’s production of “The Little Mermaid” and we promised (and we want to anyway) her we’d come the 800 miles to see the show when she got a part like that. Both granddaughters are in the show. Brooke is in the cast with a more minor part. The show that we have tickets for is March 8th. We also have a GMC Western States Club rally (no GMC but lots of GMC-friends) on April 3rd in San Diego.

On Monday, March 4th we managed to leave at 9:30 AM for our first destination, Ken and Judy Booths home at Lake Havasu. We had visited the Booths on the first night of our trip with Daniel and Marjon on our way to Mt. Hood last year and enjoyed ourselves so thought we’d try it again. We had a very nice, uneventful day and arrived at about 4:00 PM. Ken and I spent some time talking about his engine problems and what he planned to do about it

On Tuesday, March 5th our destination was Mountain Valley RV Park in Tehachapi, CA. This was about an hour shorter trip than the first day and, because of the time zone change, we gained an hour – to be given back on March 10th when Daylight Savings Time causes a “spring forward”. We had dinner at The Red House barbecue on Tehachapi Blvd. and it was every bit as we remembered. We got back “home” before 7:00 PM just before the rain started to fall pretty heavily and the wind started picking up. By the time we went to bed we had some pretty high winds blowing and they blew for most of the night. At times they were so strong that I had serious fear of some sort of damage to the coach or the car from falling tree limbs or wind damage to our slide-out awning covers. We would have slept better at the Orange Grove RV Park on the other side of the mountain near Bakersfield

Wednesday, March 6th we are in a campground at the Stanislaus County Fairgrounds in Turlock, CA. Carol found it using a new phone app – Ultimate Public Campgrounds ($3.99). She checked other apps we have and could not find it with them.

On Thursday, March 7th we arrived at Mark’s house. The girls – Kristin, Katelyn and Brooke were scheduled to attend that evening’s presentation of the musical – The Little Mermaid – that we were here to see Katie and Brooke in. There are two complete casts and this was their opportunity to see the show with the other cast. Mark was also leaving to do his duty as a volunteer “flydad” – dads who work the cables, pulleys and ropes to make the cast fly above the stage. We spent the evening playing Uno with Alex and had a great time

On Friday, March 8th it was our turn to see the show. We had an early dinner at a local Italian restaurant with Darryl and Linda, Gene and Jean, Mark, Kristin and Alex. The show was really good with Katie having a good part that included some singing, talking and dancing while Brook was in the ensemble supporting cast. We loved it.

Saturday and Sunday we mostly hung around in the house with a nice warm fire burning in the cast iron stove. Sunday we visited Darryl and Linda’s new home in Cameron Park.

Monday, March 11th we left Mark’s for a visit with some long-time Amdahl friends elsewhere in Sacramento. We had Jerry and Carolyn Feroben, Dianne Siler and Andy Thomson at Jerry and Carolyn’s home and a tasty dinner that evening at a restaurant in the original Tower Records building in downtown Sacramento.

Tuesday, March 12th we arrived an Manny and Deo Trovao’s home in the hills overlooking San Jose. We treated Manny and Deo to dinner at Red Lobster and went to bed early.

Wednesday, March 13th we visited Amdahl friends Jim and Tonia Baker at their home in Silver Creek. We were surprised by Linda and Mel Cottle. Linda was also an Amdahler back in the day.

Thursday through Sunday, March 14th through the 17th we visited Brian and Chris at their home on the 17th floor of a high-rise in downtown San Jose.

On Sunday, March 17th we returned to Manny and Deo’s and spent Monday and Monday night there. I took advantage of the availability of tools and a little help fixing the entry step which had broken at the Turlock stop on the way here.

Tuesday, March 19th we left San Jose to continue our trip. We had no plans other than to visit Carla and Artistic HangUps in Salinas and to spend the night at San Lorenzo County Park in King City. We decided to stay at the park for an extra night to rest and plan the rest of our trip.

Thursday, March 21st through Sunday morning, March 24th was spent at Pismo Beach. We looked at where we wanted to go and how much time we wanted to spend at each place and decided to go to Pismo for 3 nights, Joshua Tree for 3 with a night to get there which turned out to fit with our wish to see the Reagan Library. We found a campground that was really close to the Reagan Library that had an available space for $37 – a bargain given today’s prices and demand. So our plan for Sunday is to drive to Simi Valley and arrive no earlier than the 11am check-in time and visit the Library for 2-3 hours.

On Sunday, March 24th, we left Pismo and drove to Simi Valley to the Ventura County park that Carol found on our new Ultimate Public Campgrounds app. It was a real mess. The spot we had reserved was so unlevel that the front would have needed to be elevated at least 6 inchs to be level. There was no sewer connection and no dump station. The spot next to ours was closer to level (only 3″ required), open, there was no one around and no one answered any phone number we had so we took it. We left a note about who we were and what we did then we left for the library which was only about 2 miles away. When we returned someone was in the spot we were supposed to be in – they had a hydraulic leveling system and their front wheels were well off the ground – and no one said anything.

The Reagan Library was aesthetically beautiful. It was modern and set on a hill with a panoramic view of the valley around it. While the museum itself was beautiful, the message was the same as back in his presidential days – complete and utter BS. I started off listening to one of his campaign speeches and got p’d off immediately. When we toured the Air Force 1 there was actually a photograph of Ollie North – a convicted felon – things have not changed only gotten worse.

On Monday, March 25th we drove to Joshua Tree, CA and the Joshua Tree Lake RV & Campground. It seemed to take forever to get there but we wanted to take the back roads and stay off of the Interstates as much as we could. We were glad we did – the LA area traffic (extends pretty far east from there) is very stressful, if you are used to it or not. The campground is OK, reasonably priced and close to the park entrances – there are two entrances on the North side, one here in the town of Joshua Tree and the other at the town of 29 Palms a few miles down the road.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, March 26th and 27th, we visited the park. On Tuesday we went to the 29 Palms entrance because Carol had seen a sign on the way through town to use the 29 Palms entrance because of long lines at the Joshua Tree entrance. She had read that people go to the closest entrance and the line can be more than an hour long when it is busy. It is Spring Break and wildflower season during our time here so that was good advice. On Wednesday we got up early and were inside the park at 9:00am so that we could park at the Barker Dam trailhead on the advice of the ranger at the welcome center – they have one at each entrance. Tomorrow, our plan is to go through the park and out the south entrance all the way to Interstate 10 at Chiriaco Summit. From there we will head to Anza Borrego area for some dry camping in the desert.

On Thursday, March 28th, we drove through Joshua Tree National Park from North to South and exited at Chiriaco Summit on I-10. There were some wildflowers on that route and it was a very nice drive. From there we drove into Indio and Coachella where we visited a WalMart for some food and water and a gas station for some diesel and propane. We had decided to try dry camping in the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park so we wanted to make sure we would not run out of anything. We parked the coach in an open area at the Rockhouse Campground that is just outside of Borrego Springs and where cell reception is again available after crossing the hills between there and Salton City and the Salton Sea. We visited the park’s visitor center, found out where the flowers were and made plans for tomorrow. That night was a terrible wind storm that shook and rattled the coach for most of the night – it quit at about 4 or 5 am.

On Friday, March 29th, we hiked the Borrego Palm Canyon trail from the campground to the first palm trees, about 1.5 miles up and back. The trail is rated as “moderate” but was no worse than the “easy” trails of Joshua Tree. The weather was a little warmer than we have seen lately but no problem. Later in the day, we drove to Font’s Point, an overlook of the badlands area of the park that is 4 miles down a sandy wash – awesome! On our way back “home” we picked up Charlie and Betty Davis who were stuck with a broken-down car at the side of the road – we drove them home just short of town.

On Saturday, March 30th, we took a ride to the Southern area of the park to the “Mill Wash” road that led to the site of an ancient Native American settlement – shown as “village” on the map. Very pretty and very interesting.

On Sunday, March 31st, we left the park and headed for San Diego. Rather than going over some pretty steep and narrow roads through the mountains, we decided to backtrack to the Salton Sea area and go the wide, safe way via I-8 and other freeways. We managed to find a place in El Cajon to wash the coach and the car at a do-it-yourself car wash that Carol managed to find – she is turning into a great navigator. We arrived at the KOA at about 2:00 pm to the sounds of screaming kids, barking dogs and loud radios. We went from the quietest place we have ever camped to, probably, the loudest. Ouch!

On Monday, April 1st, we watched some of the loudest, rudest people pack up and leave – turns out Monday was a holiday (Cesar Chavez Day) so everyone had hung around for an extra night to take advantage. We “Ubered” into San Diego to visit our long-time friend, Kirk Cunningham, at his new home in downtown. We taked and then went out to a little French restaurant for lunch and then Ubered back to the KOA and then went on a minor shopping trip to WalMart.

We stayed the week at the KOA and left on Monday, April 8th for home. During that week we took a tour of San Diego that included the aircraft carrier Midway, the Del Coronado Hotel, downtown and Old Town San Diego. We attended the GMC Western States Spring Rally and had our usual good time with a bunch of nice people. On Monday night we stayed in a pretty basic RV park in the Fortuna Foothills area just East of Yuma, AZ. It was over 100°F when we arrived there so we needed electricity to run our air conditioner. We will probably choose another park next time. More of the same predicted tomorrow for our final leg home.