Turnkey Camping

I’m pretty exhausted this evening because Charlie and I visited - not 1, not 2 - but 3 museums today!  This reciprocal museum pass is really paying off!  We started off at the MOXI - wonderful stem museum!  His favorite exhibit was a car race track - surprise, surprise! I packed a lunch and we picnic’d (sp?) on a bench at the museum right before we popped over to the Natural History Museum.  The highlight of this was the outdoor dinosaur animatronics!  The T-Rex was a little too scary for him to take a selfie with - but he loves the mama and baby stegosaurus! The outdoor space also included a stream to send wooden boats down and a “club house” where kids could observe insects in enclosures and touch seashells and snake skins.  While we were there, we were told about their sister museum - the Sea Center back on the wharf.  I think this was our favorite!  It featured a touch tank and individual aquariums.  There was even a section where folks w...

 Our campground is really nice and we've been fairly content to just stick around here a good deal.  They have a small hiking trail and a great playground.  Every time I try to venture out with Charlie, he would rather just go to the playground.  The weather is perfect - shorts and tee shirt and a sweatshirt - my favorite!  Stu left for Anaheim today and I'm hanging with Charlie and Buster (and the cats!) at the campsite.  We met some really nice friends with a 2 and 5 year old, so it was fun to chat with new camping friends.  Poor Charlie Bear was stung by a bee at the playground.  It was so sad to see him in so much pain.  I was able to put ice on it and give him a tiny dose of benadryl and some lunch.  After that, he took a long nap - until 5:30 pm.  When he woke up, we went to the grocery store because I was out of coffee (yikes!) and drove to Stern's Wharf for the beautiful views and some ice cream.  We ended the night wit...

  Our lives felt very full-circle today.  We dropped L&P off at a college experience week at our alma mater, Westmont, in Santa Barbara.  It was really cool to be on campus again.  Lots of things were the same and there were some neat changes.  We dropped them in the dorm rooms, explored the campus and then they were off for their program!   We took C out for a smoothie and then parked at the bus terminal and took the hop on / hop off waterfront shuttle to a playground on East Beach.   We got back to the truck and Charlie immediately fell asleep.  We stopped at a grocery store and Stu ran in to grab more basics.  He made yummy carne asada tacos in the camper and we called it a night.  We may be down to one kid at the moment - but he has bundles of energy and never stops talking.  Today an old man on the bus put his fingers in his ears because Charlie was talking so much.  Whoops!  We ended the evening with a bucket bat...

We headed back to our friend’s house for coffee this morning and then packed up to hit the road again.  We’re at a cool campground near LA - on a cliff that overlooks the city.  Next we went into Glendora to meet up with friends from college.  My college roommate married Stu’s college roommate and we hadn’t seen them for about 8 years.  We spent the afternoon together and then P’s friend from Thailand came and spent the evening and night with us in the camper.  It has been so fun to reconnect with friends.  We also reminisced about our college - we looked at old photo books and I came across this photo of Stu and I in Thailand before we were dating.  Such fun times behind and ahead. 

We drove to Palm Springs, CA to see some friends we met on our caravan to Mexico.  The last time we saw them was over two years ago.  We spent the evening reminiscing about our trip and laughing about fun shared experiences.  They have a beautiful home with gardens and a pool and they made a delicious lasagna dinner.  On the way back to the campsite, it was so windy - almost like a sand storm.  But we had a wonderful afternoon with fabulous friends. 

 We slowed down this morning and I worked a bit on figuring out our tire issue.  It ended up that we had a a small leak that was able to be patched.  We had some lunch and C, P, and I headed back to Phoenix to check out the Science Museum.  It was great!  The boys really enjoyed it - and I ended up getting a membership because they’re reciprocal with so many museums across the US.  I wish I would have done that in Oklahoma because we would have gotten in for free today!  But we have lots of destinations ahead of us, so hopefully we can see some museums down the road.   This heat really wears you out!  It was 112 and even now at 4:45 pm it’s 109.  I’m off to make a great big salad for dinner because I don’t want to heat up the trailer from cooking something!

  Today’s adventure landed us in Scottsdale, AZ.  We cheeked out OdySea Aquarium and Butterfly Wonderland.  This was a great choice for another 110 degree day!  The butterfly exhibit began with a great 3d movie explaining monarch migration to Mexico.  It was wonderful!  After that, you could go in the enclosure and see lots of varieties of butterflies!  We loved it.  They also had various reptiles and some sea life on display.   The Aquarium had sharks, penguins, sting rays, sharks and even an octopus!   It was a great way to spend the day.    

 Today we wised up and started our adventuring early.  We were at Goldtown Ghost Town right when they opened at 10.  We went on a narrow gauge train, on a mine tour and in the “mystery shack” - a cabin built at a 45 degree angle. We had a great day exploring the ghost town - lots of little shops.  The big kids panned for gold and C and I did gem mining.   It was a fun wild-west type experience!  We finished our time at a chicken chain, “Jollibee’s” that L had been wanting to try.