We’re On for RAGBRAI

Donna returned from her speaking engagement in Gillette, Wyoming late Tuesday night. While she was away she received an email notification that her entry in the Des Moines Register Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) was accepted. As the name implies, this is an annual event that’s taken place since 1973. The routes vary and this year’s route goes from west to east across northern Iowa.

The bike ride takes place July 23rd to July 29th. There are seven overnight stops – the first day begins in Orange City and ends with an overnight stop in Spencer. The total mileage of the ride is 411 miles, ending in Lansing, Iowa on the banks of the Mississippi River. Each day’s stage will be 50 to 73 miles. Most of us think of Iowa as flat land – it’s really rolling plains and this year’s bike route has plenty of climbs – the total climb is 13,078 feet. Of course Donna won’t gain 13,000+ feet in elevation – the rolling terrain means it’s mostly short climbs followed by a descent.

Our plan is to make our way to Iowa after our granddaughter’s high school graduation in June. We’ll meet up with our friend’s, Jeff and Deb Spencer (Rolling Recess) and a few other RV couples that make up the team. Our plan is for me to caravan with the other RVs to the overnight stop towns while Donna rides.

Last weekend, before Donna rode her bike to Cabrillo National Monument, I outfitted it with lights. She doesn’t ride after dark, but these lights help make her more visible to cars. I bought a set of Blitzu Gator 390 rechargable LED lights. These lights can be set up to vary the brightness and also have a setting to flash on and off. I set up her headlight and tail light to flash. We’ve seen a lot of bicyclists in the area with blinking lights and they definitely stand out.

When Donna and I first met, it was through a bicycle club. We would go on the Saturday morning club ride – along with about 100 other people – and ride together. Usually the riders would break up into smaller groups with similar pace and abilities. We often rode 40 or 50 miles. Nowadays, I’m feeling the effects of the toll my body has taken over the years. I’ve had three shoulder surgeries, a neck dissection and a fractured C7 vertebrae along with a steel plate in my right collarbone. Riding 50 miles a day is no longer in the cards for me. I get neck cramps and sore shoulders.

It’s been a while since I’ve been out on my carbon fiber Orbea road bike. When I ride I usually keep it down to an hour or so on my Specialized Crave mountain bike. Maybe I should consider selling my road bike.

Last night Donna made a new dish. It was a Korean Beef dish made with grass fed ground beef that our friend Sara Graff gave us a while back. Served over rice with steamed broccoli, it was delicious!

Korean beef

The temperatures have been in the mid to upper 70s this week. Today will be partly cloudy and cooler – around 70 degrees. The weekend forecast calls for clouds and cooler weather with a chance of rain on Sunday. I’m going to the rec center for pickleball this morning. Donna is busy at her laptop working on project that’s due tomorrow.

 

*Just so you know, if you follow one of my links to Amazon and decide to make a purchase, you pay the same price as usual and  I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

 

Beachcomber Bar

Sunday was another beach weather day as the temperature reached 84 degrees with clear blue skies. So, that’s what we did – we went to the beach. A little after 2pm, Donna and I went to Sini’s site and all three of us piled into her car for a short drive to Dana Landing. We met Gary Stemple at the Freedom Boat Club ( I posted about the club here).

This time, instead of a wake boarding boat, we took out a center console fishing boat with a 250 horsepower Suzuki outboard motor. Another friend from my school days, Rosemary Neff, joined us and we cruised the bay.

Donna and Sini – Gary at the helm, Rosemary partially hidden

We headed over to Mariner’s Point and picked up another passenger, Lance. Lance is a friend that grew up with Gary’s son. From there, Gary piloted the boat across Quivera Basin and out past the jetty to the Pacific Ocean. We took it easy and just puttered around.

Along the way we saw an impressive boat – a 60 Sunreef Power Meow. It’s a dual engine catamaran design with a length of 60 feet and a beam of more than 27 feet. It has a range of 3,000 nautical miles!

Sunreef Power Meow

Catamaran hull design

We cruised back across Mariner’s Basin and beached the boat near the Bayside Walk at San Gabriel Place. We set the anchor in the sandy beach and disembarked. It was a short walk to the Beachcomber Bar on Mission Boulevard. We snagged the last remaining table and ordered a round of drinks and talked while we waited for the Stiers Brothers band to set up.

While they were setting up, I talked to one of the guitar players – there are two guitarists – they’re brothers and both play excellent rhythm and lead guitar. I asked him if it was the same band that played in the area in the ’70s. He said it was more like the ’80s. Then he said unless you mean playing at backyard parties and keggers – we did that in ’70s and moved on to clubs and bars in the ’80s. Yep, that was what I meant and they were still at it.

Stiers Bros

They played a wide variety of music – you can imagine the repertoire they’ve acquired over the years. They still attract a younger crowd – the bar was full of people of all ages.

A younger crowd

Donna and me enjoying the music

Just before the music started, I asked Gary if he had checked the tide tables. He hadn’t. I looked it up on my smartphone. The tide was receding and low tide would be at 6:50pm. It was a little after 4pm. Gary and I went back to the beach and the boat was stuck in the sand. We were able to reset the anchor and push the boat into a little deeper water. I think if we had left it where it was, by the time we left the Beachcomber it would’ve been high and dry and difficult if not impossible to get it off of the beach.

A couple of interesting shirts at the Beachcomber

We left around 6:30pm after the band’s long first set. We had to get the boat gassed up and back to the boat club by 7:30pm. It was a good time on the bay and the band at the Beachcomber was great.

Today Donna is flying to Gillette, Wyoming where she’ll be the keynote speaker at a women’s expo tomorrow. She should be back home late tomorrow night. The forecast calls for clear, sunny skies but cooler weather with the high in the low 70s. I don’t think Donna will enjoy 70 degrees and sunny skies in Gillette. Apparently, they had a foot of snowfall just a few days ago!

 

 

April Beach Weather

I started the weekend in the usual manner – happy hour at Offshore Tavern and Grill. As I was about to leave on the Spyder, a garage door across the alley from me opened and a guy wheeled an old motorcycle out. I pulled into the alley and shot a photo and spoke to him briefly. The bike was a 1952 Triumph Thunderbird in excellent condition. He told me he bought it 50 years ago. The 65-year-old bike looked to be in original condition right down to the canvas saddlebags.

1952 Triumph Thunderbird 650

The weekend brought beach weather. Donna went for a bike ride Saturday morning with our friend, Johanna. They rode out to the Cabrillo National Monument at the end of Point Loma. The round trip was 26 miles.  I took my Specialized Crave mountain bike for a ride to the beach. I saw another interesting vehicle while I was out. I don’t know the story behind it – it was a Cadillac limo with shark fins on top and  teeth and gills painted on the front.

Shark Cadillac limo

The waterfront at Pacific Beach was nearly as crowded as it would be on a summer afternoon. The foot traffic on the boardwalk made bicycling difficult. I shot a couple of photos and headed back along Mission Bay. The bay was also busy but the Bayside Walk path had fewer people and was a nice ride.

Pacific Beach looking northwest toward Crystal Pier

Pacific Beach looking south by the lifeguard tower at the foot of Thomas Street

When I returned, I watched the Formula One qualifying from Sochi, Russia. Later Sini joined us and we had cocktail hour outside.

Sini and Donna enjoying Moscow Mules and snacks

Donna was up early this morning. Her sister, Sheila, picked her up at 7am and they went to Torrey Pines to hike and run on the trails there. I watched the Formula One race while she was out.

The temperature reached 80 degrees Saturday afternoon. Today we’re expecting upper 70s. Our plan is to meet Gary Stemple at the Freedom Boat Club this afternoon and take a boat out on the bay. In the late afternoon, we’ll take the boat to Mariner’s Basin and anchor, then wade ashore to the Beachcomber where the Siers Brothers Band is playing.

California Gas

I’ve become less prolific when it comes to posting to this blog. It isn’t a matter of laziness – well, maybe that’s part of it – it’s because we’ve settled into a routine here in San Diego. It gets monotonous to post about daily activities without variety. Over the last four years, we’ve spent three or four months a year here at Mission Bay RV Resort. The big news this week is Donna’s back! She came home Tuesday night from her visit with her parents in Vermont.

One of the things I’ve noticed when we’re in California is the difference in the gasoline here. Not only is it more expensive than the rest of the country, it’s also a different formulation. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has its own regulations for gasoline formulation. I’ve noticed an increase of fuel consumption of about 15% when we’re in California. This was true with the 300cc four-stroke engine in our Kymco scooter and also holds true with the 998cc four-stroke engine in our Can-Am Spyder.

The CARB regulations are supposed to reduce air pollution. It seems counter-intuitive to me to think burning more fuel reduces pollution. If every vehicle in the state burns 15% more gasoline due to the formulation, that’s a lot of extra fuel being burned. I understand how oxygenate additives can result in more complete combustion thus reducing the amount of unburned hydrocarbon in the exhaust. But I have to wonder about the additional resources required, the additional refining steps for one market only – while the rest of the country utilizes fuel made to federal standards – plus the need for transportation of 15% more fuel and so on. What’s the real overall impact?

About 10 days ago, I made reservations for us to return here in October. I wanted a site for two months. Karen in the office couldn’t find a site I wanted that would be open for two months. I refused to take a couple of the sites available – one would put our bedroom window next to the entrance to rest rooms and another had a large tree that I knew would block satellite TV reception and also results in a large quantity of bird droppings. I settled on site 112 for five weeks then a move to site 117 for the remainder of our stay.

I received an e-mail confirmation for site 112, but I didn’t get one for site 117. The next day I stopped by the office to see if the reservation was made. Karen told me she was having a problem getting the reservation into the system but would continue to work on it. I still didn’t have a confirmation so yesterday I inquired at the office and found out that she had done a lot of work to make site 112 available for us for the entire two-month stay. Yay – no move required. I got the confirmation e-mail in the afternoon.

We usually stay here in the fall and leave in mid-January. We stayed here in May a couple of years ago to attend my daughter’s graduation from Cal-Western School of Law. On Wednesday evening, I shot a photo of the sunset reflected on clouds. As I watched the sunset from the western end of Mission Bay RV Resort, I noticed how far north the sun was compared to the sunset shots I took in the winter months.

The first photo below was taken on December 20th. Notice how the sun is nearly directly over the boat dock at the Campland Marina. Click on the photos to enlarge them.

Sunset in December – see the boat dock

The sunset on Wednesday evening, March 26th was far to the north – the boat dock isn’t visible as it’s out of the frame on the left.

Sunset April 26th

The occupancy here at the Mission Bay RV Resort is about as low as we’ve ever seen it. During the Easter week, the park was nearly full. Now about two-thirds of the sites are vacant. Donna met one of our neighbors yesterday. There are two women here in a small Fleetwood Flair – a class A motorhome less than 30 feet long. They have a pet pig onboard! It’s a large potbellied pig.

Zoey the RV Pig

She’s called Zoey the RV Pig and you can find her on Instagram.

Last night Donna made roasted garlic and lemon chicken thighs and served it with sauteed peppers, asparagus, zucchini and onions. Sini joined us for dinner. No frozen pot pies for this guy while Donna’s cooking!

Roasted garlic and lemon chicken and sauteed veggies

I played pickleball four days this week. Donna joined me on Wednesday. Today I’ll pass on the pickleball and run a few errands this morning. The temperatures have been a little cooler this week and humidity unusually high. The forecast calls for low 70s today and the humidity will be near 60%. Tomorrow’s forecast says we’ll see the upper 70s with humidity at a more normal level for the area – less than 40%.

 

Boat Club

We had a fun day on the bay Sunday. My friend from my high school days, Gary Stemple, invited me to go boating. He also said I could bring someone along, so I invited Sini to join us. Sini and I left Mission Bay RV Resort around 12:30pm and drove her car to the Dana Landing Marina which is centrally located on Mission Bay.

We went to the Freedom Boat Club where Gary has a membership. Freedom Boat Club is a boat sharing concept. To join, you pay a one-time membership fee and then pay monthly dues. They have a number of boats – fishing boats, ski boats, pleasure craft, etc. Members have unlimited access to their home fleet of boats – just reserve a boat and go. They have over a hundred locations in  24 states and British Columbia.

Gary and his friend Kirk, who is also a member of the boat club, met us there along with another friend, Howard. We took a boat designed for wake boarding and wake surfing out. Gary and Kirk are both experienced at wake surfing. The boat was an inboard design with a specially shaped hull and ballast tanks to enhance the wake it makes. There were two tanks, one on the starboard side and one on the port side.

Surfers use either a conventional stance with their left foot forward or what’s called a goofy foot stance with the right foot forward. Conventional surfers prefer to ride the wake on the left side of the boat. To enhance the left side wake, Kirk filled the left ballast tank with water as we cruised out on the bay. A pump filled the tank with bay water. This made the boat list to the left and created a wave-like wake on the left side. He also had us shift our positions in the boat to get the wake shape right.

The speed of the boat is a critical factor and the driver has to be precise with the speed. Kirk piloted the boat while Gary surfed and Gary drove while Kirk surfed. They set their speed to the tenth of a mile per hour – we usually ran around 10.5 to 10.9 mph.

Gary went first and started with the board on the fan tail of the boat. As we got up to speed, he put his weight to the rear of the board and slid off into the wake holding a short ski rope.

Gary getting started

Once the wake developed its shape, Gary shifted his weight on the board until he found the sweet spot, riding the wake and putting slack in the rope. Then he tossed the rope to me at the back of the boat and surfed the wake.

Surfing the wake

The water on the bay between Fiesta Island and Ski Island was choppy from all of the watercraft in the area. Gary was working hard to stay up on the board. After a while, we decided to move to another spot. We went to the area called Sail Bay and the water was smoother there. However, there were many sailboats, some participating in a race and we had to stay clear of them. The sailboats had the right of way.

Sailboats on the bay

They had an easier time wake surfing there and had some good rides. Sini and I passed on the opportunity to try out wake surfing – maybe if it was warmer and the water smoother we would give it a go. As it was, I was sure I would be cold and barely able to stay up on the board.

Kirk getting a good ride

Around 3:30pm, we quit wake surfing and took a leisurely cruise back to the marina. Boating is always a good time even if we’re just cruising the bay.

Sea World viewed from the water

Sini enjoying the sun and the boat ride

When I arrived back at home, I realized I was hungry. I ordered a pizza from Woodstock’s Pizza in Pacific Beach and it was delivered about half an hour later. I had an early dinner. I paired the pizza with an IPA from Stone that’s brewed with crushed tangerines and a touch of pineapple. It was tasty.

Stone Tangerine Express IPA

Yesterday’s high temperature only reached 71 degrees. The forecast calls for the upper 60s today. I’ll head over to the Ocean Beach Recreation Center and get some exercise on the pickleball courts.

Cadman Park Gang

I took a break from pickleball on Friday and took care of a few domestic chores. First of all, I dumped and flushed our holding tanks. I usually do this once a week when we’re on full hook-ups. Then I took care of house cleaning. Donna often says that when you live in 300 square feet of space, everywhere is a high traffic area. High traffic areas require frequent cleaning. I also cleaned out the shower drain and had the place ship-shape by noon.

My next task was adjusting the parking brake on the Spyder. As the brake pads wear and the parking brake cable stretches, it goes out of adjustment. With too much slack in the cable, it becomes difficult to get the brake to release once it’s applied. The procedure calls for tightening the adjusters until the brake applies, then backing off the adjustment lock nut four and a half turns. Sounds precise but it’s really only a guideline. It’s more of a trial and error process until you get it right.

Friday afternoon was warm – the temperature reached 84 degrees. Around 3pm, I rode the Spyder to CVS in Pacific Beach to pick up a couple of items. Although CVS is only a few miles from Mission Bay RV Resort, it was a tough ride. Traffic was backed up on Mission Bay Drive and barely moving. Grand Avenue wasn’t much better. It took me about 20 minutes to get to CVS. I planned to go to Offshore Tavern and Grill around 4pm for a cold one with the guys. I could see that getting out of Pacific Beach on Grand Avenue or Garnet Avenue would be slow going.

I took an alternate route that was much longer mileage-wise but ultimately I think it was quicker. I rode south on Ingraham Street to Sea World Drive, then hit Morena Boulevard and continued onward to Offshore Tavern and Grill. With Donna away visiting her parents in Vermont, I decided to take advantage of the happy hour pricing and ordered a poke plate for dinner. Poke (po-KEY) is cubes of sushi grade ahi tuna over chopped cabbage with green onions and Asian dressing. Fried wonton chips and avocado complete the dish. It’s delicious.

Poke plate

Saturday was another warm day with the temperature reaching the mid-80s. As I was getting ready to head over to Cadman Park for a get-together with old friends from my school days, Ozark was taking her usual mid-day nap on her bed attached to the living room window. With abundant sunshine, she needed to shield her eyes while she slept. She does this when it’s bright outside.

Ozark shielding her eyes while she naps

We had about a dozen people show up at Cadman Park. Someone was grilling burgers and we had snacks out. We stood around and talked over a couple of beers.

Some of the gang at Cadman Park

There were some people I haven’t seen in a few years and there were some I haven’t seen in decades – Mike McMahon, J D Mincey and John Drake. A little after 3pm, we moved the venue to the patio at Offshore Tavern and Grill and a few more people showed up. It was a fun time.

Party on at Offshore

I left before 5pm and came home to watch the Moto GP qualifying and Moto America races from Austin, Texas.

Today we have cooler weather. We may see 70 degrees, but it won’t be any warmer than that. I’m meeting up with Gary Stemple and a few friends at Dana Point around 1pm to go out on his boat for some wake boarding. Sounds like it’ll be another fun afternoon.

 

 

 

Indoor Pickleball

Donna took an Uber ride to the airport early Tuesday morning. She flew to Albany to spend a week with her parents in Bennington, Vermont. I’ve been going to the recreation centers in Ocean Beach (OB) and Pacific Beach (PB) to play pickleball. They play pickleball in OB on Monday, Wednesday and Friday starting at 10am. At the PB rec center they have pickleball on Tuesday and Thursday – again starting at 10am.

I love the game – if you want to learn more about pickleball you can find all of the rules at USAPA.org. Their website also has listings of places to play. While we were at ViewPoint RV and Golf Resort in Mesa, Arizona, I played three days a week in a round robin series for players that are 3.0 level and higher. Most of the players in the matches were 3.5 to 4.0 players. Pickleball has a rating system that sets criteria for skill levels ranging from 1.0 – beginner to 5.0 – expert.

Playing with and against higher level players really improved my game. My tactics and shot selection improved and team strategy developed. We played on outdoor courts. Here in San Diego, I play on indoor courts at the recreation centers.

As my skills have improved, I see a bigger difference in the outdoor game versus the indoor game. Outdoors you play with a ball designed for outdoor use. It has smaller holes than an indoor ball to minimize the effect of wind. It’s made of a harder material to cope with a paved court surface and it bounces higher than an indoor ball. Maybe it’s just a matter of the players’ skill I was playing with in Arizona, but it seems to me that the outdoor game is played with more finesse.

The usual strategy is to hit the serve deep, the returning player hits a deep return and immediately moves forward. The first two hits must bounce before they can be returned – then the ball can be struck in the air before it bounces as long as the player hitting the ball is at least seven feet back from the net. So, the best third shot is usually a drop shot that hits the opposing court less than seven feet past the net. What often follows is a “dink” game where each team hits the ball softly trying to keep it low and within seven feet of the net. Sooner or later someone makes a mistake and hits the ball too high or hard and the opponent pounces on the mistake.

Here in San Diego playing on indoor courts I find the game is played differently. The indoor balls have larger holes in them and are softer. They can be hit much harder without flying out of control. There’s also no wind to to adjust for. Most games feature very little dinking, it’s more of a slam fest. I’ve had to adjust my style of play, but I have to say I prefer the finesse of the outdoor game to the slam and jam style played here.

When I went to the PB rec center on Tuesday morning, I noticed a difference. It was brighter inside. They had sanded and refinished the flooring – the new finish was much lighter than the color of the previous finish. The old darker flooring contributed to the poor lighting making it difficult to see the ball – especially on the court on the north end of the floor. The new floor color reflects much more light – this is good and bad. The additional light makes it easier to see the ball when it’s in flight or coming off your opponent’s paddle – this is good. However, sometimes you can lose sight of the ball when it bounces or passes low over glare spots on the shiny floor.

New lighter, shiny floor – notice the glare spots

At the end of the game, it’s the same for everyone – the glare is hard for both sides. Outdoors you have to contend with the sun and wind and sometimes it’s worse on one side of the court.

Other than playing two and half hours of pickleball daily, I haven’t done anything too exciting this week. Tuesday morning, I was checking our batteries. For some reason our chassis batteries don’t receive a maintenance charge from the Echo Charger intermittently. I haven’t been able to pinpoint the cause – it happens every now and then. I put a trickle charger on the two 12-volt chassis batteries when the Echo Charger isn’t keeping them fully charged.

After I hooked up the trickle charger, I straightened up and did it again – bang. I hit my head on the bedroom slide out. Donna keeps saying I need to put foam protector over the sharp slide edge. I tried using a foam tube that’s made for pipe insulation, but I couldn’t keep it in place when the wind picked up. I need to figure out a way. I don’t want to tape it on, the adhesive wouldn’t be good for the paint.

Bang – I did it again

The weather has been beautiful – high temperatures around 70 with partly cloudy skies. The humidity over the past couple of days has been higher than usual. It’s gotten up to 60 or 70 percent. After months of dry desert climate with humidity levels around 15 percent, this feels extremely humid to me.

Easter Sunday on the Bay

Friday went pretty much as planned. We pulled out of our boondocking site near the Imperial Sand Dunes around 9:30am and headed west on I-8. There’s construction in progress on the interstate between Yuma and El Centro, but traffic was light and it didn’t slow us down much. I usually cruise at 60-62mph and we were able to maintain this speed most of the time.

We had a headwind as we crossed the desert. West of El Centro the elevation was zero – mean sea level. There’s a huge array of solar panels covering hundreds of acres with a huge transformer station on both sides of I-8 in the desert there. Near Ocotillo, there are wind generators on both sides of the interstate. This is where the climb up to Laguna Summit begins. There are three summits along the route – Tecate Divide, Crestwood Summit and Laguna Summit. All are over 4,000 feet above sea level.

Although we had a headwind, we were able to maintain a minimum speed of 50mph up the grade and the engine coolant temperature never exceeded 197 degrees. I was happy about that. We stopped and had lunch at the Buckman Springs Rest Area. This is located in a valley between the Crestwood Summit and the Laguna Summit and is a favorite stopping place for us. The exit to the rest area on the westbound side is poorly marked. There’s a sign advising “Rest Area one mile ahead” but the exit at Buckman Springs doesn’t have a Rest Area sign and you can’t see the rest area until you’ve passed it. If you are looking for a rest stop and aren’t familiar with the area, you could easily miss this one.

Getting back on the interstate, we had to merge into bumper-to-bumper traffic. There’s a Border Patrol checkpoint about a mile from the on ramp at Buckman Springs. Once again, we were waved through with no questions asked and got up to speed again.

We checked in at Mission Bay RV Resort in San Diego around 1pm. I had reserved our site here last November and paid a deposit. That locked in the price at $925/month. They’ve raised their rates since then – it’s now $1,085/month – it was $875/month when we started coming here four years ago. While I was checking in, the girl at he counter mentioned our trailer and overflow parking rent of $150/month. I told her we haven’t been charged for trailer parking here since those Dirty, Rotten Thieves stole our trailer from their lot. She looked up our account records and verified the information, but then she told me this will be our last free parking pass. So, next time we come here we will be paying a much higher price.

Although parking our coach at ViewPoint RV and Golf Resort in Mesa, AZ was difficult, the overall dimensions of the site were generous. We dropped our trailer on the concrete pad and had ample space between our coach and trailer to set up our awning mat, chairs and grills. Here at Mission Bay RV Resort, it’s a little more cozy. Our neighbor’s rig is closer to us than our trailer was at ViewPoint.

Neighbor close by

Our friend Sini Schmitt is three sites away from us. Sini came over and visited with Donna while I got us set up. Sini had friends coming down from Seattle and they planned to sightsee on Saturday. They used her friends’ rental car and Sini gave Donna the keys to her Saturn Vue. Donna took advantage of the car to get to her hair appointment, stock up on groceries and also visit her sister Sheila in Point Loma.

On Saturday evening, I grilled a pork tenderloin that Donna marinated in her mojo marinade for 36 hours. Twenty-two minutes on the grill had the internal temperature of the loin at 140 degrees – perfect.

Pork tenderloin with smashed potatoes and green beans

The RV park is nearly full with lots of young families and kids here for the Easter weekend. This is a big change from ViewPoint in Mesa, Arizona which is a 55+ park. Not many youngsters racing around on bikes and skateboards there. The weather all weekend was beautiful with highs around 70 degrees – it hit 74 on Sunday. The Easter crowds around Mission Bay Park were at summertime levels – lots of canopies, grills and volleyball games on the grass.

Donna is still trying to overcome a respiratory ailment but wanted to get some exercise on Sunday, so she walked to Trader Joe’s in Pacific Beach. It was about a five-mile round trip and she came home with a heavy load as she also stopped at Petco and bought a six-pound bag of cat food. I spent the morning watching the Formula One race from Bahrain.

Around noon, I got ambitious and pumped up the tires on my Specialized Crave mountain bike. It was breezy – I rode toward the ocean on the Bayside Walk right into a headwind. It was slow going. I kept at it and rode all the way to the boardwalk at the end of Pacific Beach Drive.

Easter Sunday and the boardwalk at the beach was crowded!

People on the boardwalk near the Surfer Hotel

Surfers in the water

The wind pushed me along on the ride back and I made good time. I stopped to shoot a couple of photos and still made it back in just 20 minutes.

A nice day to be on the bay

View from the pedestrian bridge over Rose Inlet looking toward Fiesta Island

For our Easter dinner on Sunday evening, I grilled salmon. I tried a different technique. Donna coated the salmon with olive oil on both sides and sprinkled it with salt and pepper. I also oiled the grill grates. I put the salmon skin side up on the hot grill for a few minutes, then turned it skin side down for a few more minutes on medium heat. It worked great! The fish doesn’t stick or flake when it it’s skin side up because it isn’t fully cooked yet.

Grilled salmon with orzo, spinach & feta salad

This morning I plan to head over to the Ocean Beach Recreation Center to play pickleball. Donna’s working on a article. Tomorrow Donna is flying to Albany, New York to visit her parents in Bennington, Vermont. Once again, I’ll be a bachelor for a week.

 

A Familiar Route

The final few days at ViewPoint RV and Golf Resort in Mesa, Arizona seemed to fly by. Actually, our two-month stay here seems to have gone by quickly – even more so for Donna since she was away for a girl’s week in Sedona. Our first month of the winter stay in Arizona dragged slowly – that’s because I was stranded in the parking lot of RV Renovators having repairs made. Donna was able to escape for week from there when she made a trip to Vieques.

On Monday, Donna joined me on the pickleball courts in the morning. This turned out to be not the best decision for her. Although she played fine, afterwards the congestion from the cold she’s been fighting returned big time. She took it easy and stayed home on Tuesday. I played for two and half hours that morning and again on Wednesday.

On Tuesday afternoon I started packing the trailer. I reorganized a few things and had it looking good. By Wednesday afternoon, I had most of the stuff stowed in the trailer, leaving only a few items for Thursday morning before we pulled out.  We went out for dinner at Roma Cafe Wednesday evening on Main Street in Mesa. Donna loves Italian food and she says it’s great to feed a cold.

I ran across one of my pet peeves when we arrived at Roma Cafe. Someone decided they were entitled to take two parking stalls – right at the entrance to the restaurant! What? I don’t understand behavior like this.

Nice parking job – but we got the Spyder in there

On Thursday morning, I put the windshield cover, awning mat and chairs away. Then I dumped and flushed the holding tanks. Then it was time to kick the tires and light the fires – we were pulling out. I thought I had a plan to get us out of the tight spot we were parked in. I wanted to pull straight across the street, then angle back and work my way to the left around the light post.

After a couple of moves, I could see this wasn’t going to work. Time for a new plan. I reversed the operation and worked the coach around the orange tree and irrigation line on the right side of the coach and pulled into the street in the opposite direction of my original intent. This was a time-consuming and painstaking process. When I finally got the coach safely into the street, I had to back into the pad to hook up the trailer – this wasn’t so easy either.

After nearly an hour of manueuvering to get out of our site and hooking up the trailer, I loaded the Spyder in it. We hit the road at 10:50am. The trip was a familiar one as we took the Loop 202 south and followed it west on the San Tan Freeway to I-10. I got off of I-10 at exit 164 and followed AZ347 through the town of Maricopa. Although Maricopa has grown and is beginning to sprawl, it cuts several miles off the drive to I-8 versus staying on I-10 and is a quicker route. We took AZ347 to AZ84 and merged onto I-8 west a few miles later.

We made our first stop around 12:30pm at exit 119 – the Butterfield Trail at Gila Bend. We often stop there for lunch at the Subway sandwich shop. It’s next to a truck stop that has ample parking in the rear and also has a free dump station and even RV hook-up sites in back – for a fee of course.

Great parking space behind Subway

We split the daily special foot-long sub and got back on the road. Droning along on I-8 isn’t the most exciting or scenic drive, but I don’t mind. It was getting warm – Donna had me turn on the generator and crank up the air conditioners. It was over 90 degrees out. Also, the wind was increasing – it was mostly a headwind but I had a few cross wind gusts to contend with. Our next stop was another familiar one – the Pilot/Flying J Travel Center at exit 12 – Fortuna Road in Yuma. I always top off the tank there before I enter California. I paid $2.54/gallon there for diesel fuel while the TruckMiles.com site shows the average diesel fuel cost in California is currently $2.93/gallon. Plus I have a harder time finding convenient truck stop locations in California.

A few miles after we crossed the Colorado River and were in California, we hit another familiar sight – the inspection station. This is where they usually question us about fresh fruits and vegetables onboard and ask us where we came from and where we are going. This time they just waved us through, no questions asked.

About 12 miles later we pulled off of I-8 and found our little piece of desert on BLM land in the Picacho Recreation Area. I think this is the eighth or ninth time we’ve stopped here for an overnight stay. We stop here when we’re east bound from San Diego and when we’re west bound from the Phoenix area. It’s a nice change of pace to boondock in a remote site without the distractions from sirens or helicopters and traffic racing through the streets of the city. Ironically, as I’m typing this, a formation of four helicopters – I think they were military MH6 Little Birds  – flew by!

Our little piece of the desert

The view from our doorstep

We don’t have another rig in sight. Donna spotted a large American flag to the northeast of us and took a walk toward it before dinner. It turned out to be just a flag pole and flag – no people or RV there. She also found a stack of pallets where someone had a bonfire but the site was empty.

The gusty winds continued through the night. It didn’t bother me but Donna said it kept her awake all night. This morning we have calm air here and clear skies. We’ll head out around 9am. Our only planned stop for the trip to Mission Bay will be at the Buckman Springs rest area in the Laguna Mountains – about 115 miles from here. It’s another place we always stop at – we’ll have lunch at one of the picnic tables there.

The weather forecast for San Diego looks great for next couple of weeks – high temperatures around 70 degrees and mostly sunny skies.

Ribs and Racing

Last week I played pickleball five days straight – I played for about two and half hours per day. Donna laid low getting over the cold she picked up while she was in Sedona. On Saturday, Donna borrowed a car from our friend Lana so she could take Ozark the cat to the vet. We suspected that she might have a tapeworm.

Before I dropped Donna off at Lana’s house we made a stop at Seńor Taco for an early lunch. This was our favorite taco shop when we lived in Mesa. They had a two fish taco plate on special for five bucks, including a 20-ounce drink.

Chipotle fish tacos

The tacos were huge and smothered with a chipotle sauce – tasty.

While Donna was out and about, I made a run to a well-known local butcher shop called Midwestern Meats on Main Street. They have high quality meats that are processed on site. We were having company for dinner on Sunday and I wanted to have another go at babyback ribs. The ribs at Midwestern Meats are not like the babybacks I typically find at the grocery store.

Most grocery stores have their babyback ribs delivered from a processing plant where they’re vacuum sealed. Midwestern cuts their own ribs fresh daily. They cut them differently from the mass production butchers. The ribs are meatier and most of the fat is carefully trimmed away.

Babyback ribs from Midwestern Meats

All I had to do was remove the membrane from the bone side of the rack of ribs.

Membrane on bone side

I dusted them with my rib rub which is three parts Pappy’s Choice seasoning and two parts Lambert’s Sweet Rub O’Mine.

Dry-rubbed racks of ribs

I wrapped them and put them in the refrigerator overnight and relaxed with a bottle of IPA Donna bought for me. It was one I hadn’t tried before called DFRNT IPA from Sonoran Brew Company – and it was different alright. Somehow they’ve managed to make a well-balanced brew at 6.2% ABV and only 42 IBUs. This seems like a low number of bittering units and suggests a lack of hops. However, the brew balances nicely and has adequate hoppiness without being over-the-top hoppy.

DFRNT IPA

Sunday was race day for me – I was a couch potato as I watched racing on TV most of the day. I started with the Formula One Grand Prix from Shanghai. It was an interesting race that started on a wet track that quickly dried. Then I watched the Moto GP race in Argentina. Another good one. Then in the afternoon I finished with the Indy Car race at Long Beach, California.

The Long Beach Grand Prix is run on a street course in downtown Long Beach. The first race there was in 1975. An Englishman named Chris Pook, who was running a travel agency in Long Beach, came up with the idea as the city was trying to gentrify and rebuild their image. He envisioned a Grand Prix featuring the best cars and racers in the world – Formula One – racing on the streets as they do in Monaco. The course would take the cars down Shoreline Drive past the iconic Queen Mary cruise ship.

Before the FIA would sanction a Formula One race, the city had to demonstrate its ability to actually operate as a race track. In September of 1975, they held a Formula 5000 race as the inaugural event. I went to that race with my friends Jim Birditt and Steve Drake.

Formula 5000 was chosen as it was a popular class in the USA – as well as in Britain and Australia – at the time. In the USA, the class was sanctioned by the SCCA and USAC. The rules called for an open wheel chassis powered by a stock block V8 engine of no more than 5000cc – five liters. The most popular engine for the class was the Chevy 302 cu. in. V8. The engines utilized mechanical fuel injection and produced plenty of torque and about 500 horsepower. In the lightweight chassis – about 1200 lbs total weight – they were beasts to drive as the tire technology back in the day could barely provide enough grip.

The race was fierce with many top drivers competing. Mario Andretti and Brian Redmond had quite the battle. Brian Redmond was the race winner after Mario Andretti retired with transmission problems. I was looking through a packet of old photos on Saturday when I found a program I had saved from that race in 1975.

Race program from 1975

In March of 1976, the first Formula One race was held at Long Beach. I was there for that one too. Clay Reggazoni won in a Ferrari 312T2 and his team mate Niki Lauda was second. I attended several of the eight Formula One races held there – I saw Gilles Villeneuve win in 1979. The final Formula One race at Long Beach was held in 1983 and I saw John Watson take the checkered flag after starting 22nd on the grid.

I put the babyback ribs on the Traeger wood pellet fired smoker/grill while the race was on TV. With the racks of ribs trimmed the way they were, I was little unsure of the cooking time. After about 140 minutes, I wrapped the ribs in foil and let them cook for another 40 minutes. They came out fine – I probably should have wrapped about 10 or 15 minutes earlier to retain more moisture.

Our friends Howard and Sara Graff joined us for cocktails and dinner along with their daughter, Kenna. Kenna enjoyed playing with Ozark the cat – thanks Kenna for wearing Ozark out – it made for a nice quiet night’s sleep for me! Sara brought home made cornbread and Donna served up green beans and garlic smashed potatoes with the ribs. I got so wrapped up in conversation and story telling that I neglected to take any photos of the group or dinner plate. I had a bottle of Sculpin IPA with the dinner and I have a photo of that though.

Sculpin IPA from Ballast Point in San Diego

This morning, Donna joined me on the pickleball courts and we played for two and half hours. Today was the first time I played without a bandaid on my left finger that I injured last week. It’s mending nicely.

Finger on the mend

We’re expecting a high temperature of 82 today and it will warm up to near 90 over the next two days. I’ll be busy getting the trailer squared away and preparing for our departure on Thursday.

And, oh, by the way, we’re not sure if Ozark had a tapeworm or not, but the vet treated her anyway as it wouldn’t hurt. She also got a rabies vaccination booster shot.