R & R in San Diego

Well, not completely rest and relaxation (isn't that what R & R means?).  We are having our main living room/kitchen/dining room floor replaced with new vinyl and carpet, we are shopping for Christmas, we are doing some spruce up and housecleaning on the trailer and we are doing our share of hanging out.

This park we call home this month is simply amazing.  The birds here are varied and abundant.  I've counted at least 6 species of duck and there are many herons, egrets, coots, cormorants and osprey. We saw our first flock of white pelicans today.  There are seven lakes, all connected, that are the final treatment for about 500,000 gallons of reclaimed water per day.  A stream runs behind our trailer much of the time. There are a fair amount of snowbirds here and a few activities like pot lucks, coffee socials, etc. We met a couple from Massachusetts who spend winters here and summers in Springfield.  Here are some random pictures of our surroundings and some more feathered neighbors.

New Photo Site Up and Running

Just in time for Christmas, you can now order prints of my photographs online.

Fine Arts America is a high-quality fine arts site showing paintings, prints, photographs and more from thousands of artists.  My images are available as canvas prints, acrylic prints, metal prints, notecards, framed paper prints and even cell phone covers!  All items are produced and ship directly from FAA and from everything I have read, the quality is superb and they have a money-back satisfaction guarantee.  They are priced very reasonably and shipping is pretty quick too. Note, I don't have many images up there yet, but will be adding more all the time.  If you have a favorite from a past blog post, let me know and I can make it available on FAA. Please take a look!

Fine Art America

Take me home, please!

Christmas

One of the tough things about living life on the road is being away from friends and family at the holidays.  This year we will for sure have our Chicago boy, Lucas, here for the Christmas weekend, but Jeff (who lives in San Francisco) has a new job and it just might not work out for him to come down.  We carry a little bit of Christmas decorations with us and several of us nomads in the park have lights, so here is a shot of our decorated trailer!

Photogenic San Diego

I am excited to be staying near San Diego for December for a lot of reasons.  We have some good friends in the area whom we will be visiting, there is the great zoo and safari park, Balboa Park, Coronado Island, etc. It is also a great city for photography, which I am starting to realize is becoming a real passion for me.  We headed down to Coronado to catch views of the San Diego skyline the other night and it was great.

This is the ferry dock on Coronado Island where you can take the $8 boat over to downtown

The last light of the sunset on the city. Disappointed there were no clouds, but we'll be back!

Coronado Bridge from the San Diego side

I loved these old tugboats under the bridge and the full moon coming up behind it

Final view of  the San Diego skyine from the beach at Coronado

San Diego--Santee Lakes Park

We are spending December in the San Diego suburb of Santee, where they have built an amazing regional park around a water reclamation project that recycles water for the community.  Seven lakes which have bass, catfish and are stocked with trout are surrounded by picnic areas walking trails and a campground run by the city with about 300 full hookup campsites.  Many snowbirds spend one or more months here in the winter and I have to say that Santee had done a great job with this.  They must make a bundle on camping fees and the people who stay here spend money in the economy--a win-win for something built around a water treatment facility.  The bonus is that we are about 25 minutes drive from San Diego and all it offers! It is very beautiful and I will be posting pictures from here over the next several weeks.

Dana Point--Continuing South

We reluctantly left Jalama Beach, agreeing that it was one of the nicest places we've stayed this year. There were only a few days before we were due in San Diego where we have a full month reservations at a park, so we had reservations for four nights in Doheney State Beach in Dana Point.  This was in the same general area of Orange County where we stayed for a little while last spring.  Our site was great, right on the beach and pretty roomy.  Nice views of the sunset and a very short walk or drive to the Dana Point harbor.  Here are a couple photos of our campsite and the sunsets here:

The sunset shots were take from the harbor, which was quite nice with lots of boats, shops, restaurants, etc.

The beach at Dana Point was just OK, not great, the weather was threatening a few days of much-needed rain and, frankly, we were both about ready to reach San Diego and settle down for a bit. So we pulled up stakes a day early and headed to our first winter home.

Dana Point harbor just after sunset

Happy Thanksgiving!

With our boys far away (one is in Colombia for two weeks!) we decided to forego the Jalama Burger and cook a nearly traditional Thanksgiving dinner yesterday.  We had a small turkey loaf, homemade stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, wonderful farmers market green beans and cranberry sauce.  It was a little feast here with a million-dollar view.  Even Tucker got some!

I'll close this post with some late afternoon beach views from the other day and a wish that all who read this had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We all have so much to be thankful for and it is great to be reminded again to do so.