Before Summer 2023 (06-26-23)

 After returning from Mexico, we didn’t let any moss grow under our feet.  We headed home for a brief few days before heading to our next destination- Southern California.  We originally planned this part of our trip in order to meet up with Paul’s brother Tom and his wife Sue- we call her Sue1, and I am Sue2 because we are both Sue Porter, but she was in the family first.

Anyway the plan was to meet up with them and head to the Zydeco Festival in early-mid May. It also was Tom’s 70th birthday so we planned to arrive early to celebrate that. Then Paul and I found out that Jimmy Buffett was playing in San Diego the first weekend of May, so we added that into the mix.

So, plans were made.

We arrived in Chula Vista CA on the 5th of May- the Buffett concert was on the 6th.  We loaded up the truck with everything we had that screamed “It’s 5 O'clock Somewhere” and drove out to the stadium. This is a brand new stadium and Buffett is the first concert to be performed there. We had never tailgated before but we were quick learners. We set our food and drink up in the bed of our truck and of course, posted on Facebook. 

Then we took off to wander around drinking a margarita while observing the crazy antics of our fellow parrot heads.

Unbeknownst to us, after Paul posted on Facebook, some friends saw the post, and they were a 2 minute walk from us. So as we were walking around enjoying the ambiance, they were at our truck looking for us. Too funny. We did catch up to them and chatted for a while before heading in to the concert.

The weather was perfect for an outdoor concert. Jason Mraz opened, followed by a set by Mac McAnally who was joined later by Jimmy Buffett. I am not much of a concert goer but we definitely enjoyed it and yes, the tailgating was really fun and crazy- but it didn’t speak to me like the Eagles Concert did.

 I think the only performer I am interested in seeing perform live now, is Garth Brooks, if I get the chance.

Ok, so, concert over, we moved from Chula Vista, CA up to Oceanside, a couple of days before Tom’s birthday.  Our first day there, the guys were looking for a project to work on together, so they headed off to Sue’s son Shad’s house. Years ago we spent a few days working on projects here, and this was another smaller project.

 UNFORTUNATELY, while the guys were outside looking at water sprinklers etc. I was inside the house and managed to take one BAD step. I knew immediately that something was wrong, and called Paul on his phone. Fast forward to Urgent Care, and I have two broken bones in my foot, with doctors orders not to put any weight on it until I see a surgeon.

Peachy. Our daughter Jess had already made plans to come and stay with us for a couple of days while we were in southern California. Luckily we were still able to enjoy our time with her, and spent a wonderful two hours sitting outside a restaurant on the water, enjoying the smell of ocean air.

The three of us went to Tom’s house for his birthday and had a great time celebrating the fact that he is getting old, haha.

The Zydeco Music Festival (Gatorbythebay) was out for me, so Paul and I called it a day and headed home instead. We found an orthopedic surgeon in Kingman, about an our from our home in Havasu, and headed there to get X-rays, CT scans, and the news that unless the piece of bone sticking up from my foot causes me a problem later, I should be ok. However, I still had to do two weeks of no weight bearing, followed by incremental weightbearing, as tolerated.

Although I consider myself a crutches Pro, apparently that was many years ago because crutches are not fun. It took one day for me to order a knee scooter, so I could zip around the house to my hearts content. Weirdly, I received two scooters from Amazon, although I only ordered one. They kindly told me to donate the extra, which I did, when someone local on Facebook put out a call for a knee scooter because she broke her foot.

My birthday weekend was spent at the house with my cousin Linda and her husband Michael. Although quieter than usual, the 4 of us still had a great time, hanging by the pool and playing games.

I love my daughter’s sense of humor. She made this card for me for Mother’s Day: And yes, I opened it again on my birthday, lol. 

Next up on the agenda was Memorial Day weekend. This is always a fast paced crazy drunken weekend. We called all the participants to let them know that I might be a bit of a Debby downer, but they all decided to come anyway.

The good news is that my foot was never put in a cast, so I could lounge in the pool as much as I wanted. I already own a walking boot, so that made life much more tolerable. I wasn’t up for going on the boat, but I heard they all had a great time.

Memorial Day over, life settled down, for a few days.

We had made some plans for June that were now impossible to do. I was supposed to fly to MA on my own, to spend time with my family, and our son Stephen, but of course, now I can’t drive, so I canceled my flights etc. Very disappointing. Paul had planned to go to Fresno CA during that time frame, to help our friend Kirk build a deck. Since Kirk had bought all the wood, Paul still went, but for a shorter time, leaving me home alone for a few days.

It was around this time that all kinds of things started going wrong, actually. 

The dryer broke.          

          
            

The front landing gear in the Mobile Suite let go, tilting the front down “on its knees” as we say. Unfortunately the fridge was running, which caused the cooling system to fail (due to being off level too far) and we had to order a new cooling unit. It took two tries to get one here and in fact we only got the fridge fixed 3 days before we were scheduled to leave for the summer.

Paul bought new tires for the Mobile Suite, since they were close to aging out and we are taking the trailer for the summer. 

 While the tires were off he noticed that the leaf springs were in bad shape, and the Trailair center point suspension was not working, or had frozen, or was cracked, (actually, the bushings were worn out) or something.  I can’t keep up with all the lingo. 

Anyway, many thousands of dollars later, the trailer is back into ship shape condition. Whew.  I am extremely grateful that my husband is so mechanically inclined!

In the meantime, Paul got up one morning and broke his glasses.  On the same day, one of his hear aids stopped working.  Luckily we were able to get appointments at Costco for both, the next day, so off we went. That turned out to be the first of many trips to Las Vegas over the next few weeks.  I needed to go there for a CT scan of my foot (all clear), Paul’s glasses required several trips because the first pair arrived scratched, and the eye dr. at Costco wanted him to see a specialist to check on his cataracts, so we went back again for that. Turns out he does need cataract surgery, but we will wait till fall for that.

Soon after Paul arrived back from California, our daughter Jess arrived with some of her friends. Brooke and Matt have heard about the PPP (Porter Party Place) but have never been here.

They arrived with my favorite 2 year old, Noah. Noah is the first toddler we have had in the house, which took some extra thinking and precautions.

We thoroughly enjoyed their company and Noah found plenty to do. He did great swimming in the pool, and his favorite saying seemed to be “beep beep car”.  Beeping the horn on my Mustang was definitely one of his favorite pastimes. 

He reminded me a lot of my son at a similar age, “driving” my brother’s Firebird.

Once they left it was yet another run to Las Vegas, and then serious packing so we could leave town on June 21.

Because we are taking the trailer, we decided to book campgrounds in advance. We have the entire month of July booked at various campgrounds in Colorado, but we will stop first in El Paso to check in on Paul’s mom. 

California, Here We Come (08-14-21)

 

Having spent our last week in Texas helping Paul’s mom, we were ready to head to California. Before we left, we were treated to one hellacious storm, with winds apparently clocked at 60 mph- based on the damage we saw in the RV park-I can believe it.

Along the way we decided to make a short stop at home. We dropped off some stuff and fixed the irrigation system at the house.

Our original plans for California were thwarted by the lack of available RV spaces in southern California. We were going to start south and then head to northern CA, but ended up heading north first. We called our friends in Fresno and gave them the heads up that we would be arriving in a day or so. 

We haven't seen our CA friends in over 2 years, due to Covid, so it was awesome to be able to catch up on all the happenings. The week was full of group meals, including the night that Nancy and Bill came down from their farm to meet us all for dinner.

They brought with them boxes of fresh peaches and tomatoes. Wow. Peaches that taste like peaches, and tomatoes that taste like tomatoes. It’s one of the things I will miss about California- no where else in the country have I had fruits and vegetables that taste so good.

We were invited to a “zoom wine tasting” at Karen’s friend’s house. The winery shipped boxes that contain 5 small wine samples per person, and at 5 pm, the zoom meeting started, and the tasting began. We had technical difficulties with the TV we were using so our zoom ended up being a call on speaker phone. It was still fun.

As the night wore on, we made the switch to tequila, and more silliness ensued.

Once the weekend arrived, we headed up the mountain to Kirk and Karen’s cabin. We knew the 2020 Creek Fire came close to their cabin, and caused significant damage to the area, but it was awful to see the devastation and loss of property  first hand.

 

We heard that the fire moved so fast at times that the firefighters couldn’t save all the homes, so they made their decision based in part on who had maintained a “defensible space”. The structures that had all the debris and deadwood removed from around them, were prioritized. I guess it makes sense to do it that way, since not everything could be saved.

We had our usual fun time at the cabin, with the guys finding enough projects to keep them busy.

  And again, most of the fun seemed to revolve around food and drink. With the temperatures in the city reaching over 100 degrees, it was nice to be in the mountains and be able to eat outside.

After a little over a week, we said goodbye to everyone and headed southwest to Santa Barbara. We had discovered that our daughter had a week off, so she drove up to meet us and we spent a couple of days exploring.

Our day in Santa Barbara started at the wharf. 

From there we did a couple of wine tastings as we walked around town, and ended up back at the wharf, where we had dinner reservations. 

There were so many wine rooms it was hard to choose which ones to try, but we narrowed it down to two. It was a huge perk to us that we had Jess’s car, so we didn’t have to park the dually, and a huge perk for her that dad doesn't drink wine, and didn't mind being DD.

The following day we walked around Solvang, “the Danish capital of America”.  We had been here once before, but Jess never had been, so we made sure she tried Aebleskivers, a Danish dessert that is similar to doughnuts.

She seemed to enjoy them, just as she enjoyed meandering through all the stores.

Leaving Jess, we braved the L.A. traffic to make our way south towards Oceanside.  It was a bonus that because our visit was delayed, Paul’s brother was back in town, so we got to see them, as well as Paul’s niece and nephew. I didn’t manage to take a single picture!

This summer did not at all go as we had originally planned, and we had to be flexible and quick on our feet so to speak to keep up with the changes.

Now, instead of heading north, we needed to  head back to El Paso to handle some things for Paul’s mom.  Even that plan changed a bit.  We once again stopped at the house, this time so that Paul could replace the brakes on the trailer- doing it at the house was more comfortable than trying to do it in an RV park.

While we were in California, Paul's mom celebrated her 91st birthday.