A Visit to a Gourd Farm???

A fulltime RV lifestyle includes lots of sightseeing (if you're lucky) with a liberal helping of hikes and climbs in the "outback", and lots of kicking back and serious relaxing (if you're lucky,) but having some hobbies helps keep the mind sharp and the eyes focused. Jan has been doing beautiful Swedish weaving projects, and I've been trying to get going on some artwork. Last winter, we looked into some woodburning and woodcrafting activities. Surfing the web, Jan discovered beautiful examples of intricate patterns scribed on the surface of dried gourds. Well, where can we lay our hands on some of these gourds? As it turns out, not in the Texas valley. The best source is a gourd farm in Southern California, from where they can be sent directly to you for a king's ransom in shipping costs.

All this preamble gets us to the point of this blog post. Here we are in Southern California at one of our "free" parks near the town of Temecula, and only a few miles from THE GOURD FARM. Can we plan things, or what?? A short drive through the avocado groves (thousands of hillside acres) and we were at the source - table after table of cleaned and natural gourds in all shapes and sizes. We picked a dozen or more, plus some patterns, inks and paints, and how-to books. We're all ready get creative.

A Return to San Diego

Well, its April 15th and we're finally back in California - in the Greater San Diego area to be exact - after a two year absence. It is definitely one of our favorite states to spend time in, and San Diego is a great place to resume. When we were here in early '07, shivering in 18 degree overnight temps, we focused mainly on their wonderful zoo, making two full-day visits, as well as the Old Town section and Balboa Park.

This time - here for a week - we thought we do the bay area. We took in Coronado Island, and did a Bay Cruise finished off with a terrific waterside meal at the Fish Market Restaurant. And check out this statue of "The Kiss" next to the USS Midway Museum.

Easter with Friends in Yuma, AZ

Here we are at the Mexican border again, this time in Yuma, AZ. We came here via a one-week stop at one of our all-time favorite places in Cottonwood, AZ, just a few miles south of the beautiful red rock country of Sedona. We spent the winter of 2007-2008 here, and can't seem to get enough of it. Yuma also gives us another shot at a Mexican border crossing at Algodones for meds and tequila.

We are having Easter dinner with more great friends met thru our boating life, Len and Connie Martin, late of Brunswick, GA. A couple of years ago, Len took a job as manager of the Lower Colorado River Region of the Bureau of Reclamation (what a mouthful) which controls the quality and distribution of area water to all users - a really important job for a boat bum. It is really a complicated activity. Len and Connie also took us on a drive along the local section of fencing and other devices to prevent illegal border crossing. We had seen portions of the fence down along the Rio Grande in the Texas Valley, but this section stretches continuously from the Pacific Ocean to ... Driving right next to it here (just a few feet away) gives us a whole new appreciation for why they decided to do things like build it a few hundred yards on our side of the border (don't think anyone is really going to throw a ladder up against it,) but as Len points out, they make a bunch of dumb decisions too.

Connie prepared a wonderful standing rib roast and all the fixings for our dinner. It was the highlight of our four-day visit here. Can't wait to come back. Old boating friends are the best.