Sept. 20 - Oct. 5

We spent about 10 days in Escondido – It was good to slow down, connect with loved ones via the wonder of technology, and catch up on family/household tasks that, in spite of travel do go on.  From there, we used our gracious hosts George and Rosalie’s Pontiac Aztek to get to such places as Escondido, San Diego, Carlsbad, and LA. 

We toured San Diego’s Old Town, the - you guessed it – area of San Diego where it all began, which included La Casa de Estudillo, a large adobe-block townhouse built by Lieutenant Jose Antonio Estudillo in 1829. There were many other interesting old buildings but a lot of it has been commercialized.

One room school house

At The Maritime Museum of San Diego we toured four ships: Star of India – the world’s oldest active merchant ship which first sailed November 14, 1863, two other ships, and B39, a Soviet submarine that was used by the Soviets during the Cold War.  I must admit I (Peter) got a tad claustrophobic after a while and can’t imagine how anyone could spend up to three months in such a small space and under water to top it off.

Her first voyages were to bring cotton from India to England during the American Civil War

Later the she transported English emigrants to New Zealand

HMS Surprise
A replica of a 1700's British frigate

Doesn't this sound appetizing?

  

This B-39 had a crew of 78 men. She stalked many vessels during the
 Cold War, sometimes at depths of 985 feet.

Very cramped quarters in the submarine.
PS That is not Mabel in the background.

Also very impressive was the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, a military cemetery – “row on row” of thousands of graves marked by white tombstones.  

This is only one small section of the cemetery

It never was our intent to be huge sightseers in LA, but in the two days we were actually in the LA region we managed to see and do a fair bit including the Nixon Library and Museum in Yorba Linda. (Slanted coverage of almost everything from his administration - especially Watergate - although “overlooked” might be a better word.)

            

Army One used by the Presidents on
the right

     

                                                                   



We also attended the taping of two consecutive Jeopardy shows - nice to know how that is actually done, but it wasn't thrilling.  Couldn't see the contestants because these huge moving cameras were always in the way - so we had to watch a large TV screen if we wanted to see their faces. Anybody notice any irony there? They will be aired Nov. 28 and 29. We won't tell you who won. 

Spent quite a bit of time on the LA subway system, - there isn’t a better way to really get the feel of a city, -  a few hours in downtown LA, supper at Philippe's the home of French dipped sandwiches since 1909, and an hour at Redondo Beach. 

This is where Christina Hanaoka (John and Lynn Beimer's daughter) and her husband Paul live. She was a gracious host. After this we drove up to Sherman Oaks to visit with my nephew Jeremy VanAmerongen, who lives in Ontario but is following a computer studies program in LA.   It was a pleasure to meet with him.
From Escondido we went to Desert
Springs.
\

We stayed at an RV park called Caliente Springs Resort - one of the places where, thanks to a program called Passport America, you can camp for half price. The place is almost deserted as the snowbirds have not yet arrived. This is the “sister” resort of Sky Valley, which we’d heard about from so many Langleyites. We were actually there Sunday morning for church. There are some people who live here year round. We realize that we are not ready for this live style and would not want to move away from our children, family, friends and community.

Friday, Oct. 4 we left Palm Springs area and made our way to Phoenix, Arizona. We drove through extreme winds that made the whole RV sway. The highway goes right through the desert. The scenery at this point is not very pretty.  This part of the country is truly some place that we have never been before, unlike a lot of the rest of our trip so far. Our plan is to be in Dallas by Oct. 15 where we hope to meet up with John and Lynn. 

Today we visited the Pueblo Grande Museum, site of an archaeological park honouring the Hohokam people who inhabited the area from circa 450 AD to 1450 AD.  They developed a rather sophisticated canal/irrigation system which allowed them to form a large agricultural community. There were many artifacts on display and parts of the original walls were still standing. Very interesting! 

As we are approaching Dallas I've been reading Stephen King’s 11/22/63 a long, entertaining story of a fellow who gets to go back in time and whose goal is to stop Lee Harvey Oswald from assassinating JFK.  Might be a good book to be reading before we visit the Texas School Book Depository and the Grassy Knoll.  I’ve also read The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.  edited by Clayborne Carson.  The book came out in 1998, but is a collection of speeches and other things King actually said and wrote.  We will both have read this book before hitting the deep south and it will enrich our visits to places like Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma Alabama, as well as Memphis, Tennessee.  I remember much of what King wrote about, and also how critical many people were of King – dismissing him as a communist agitator.  That way we didn’t have to take his message seriously.   

Slowly but surely we think we know everything about the RV – but we had a setback today:  we couldn’t get the air conditioner to go and had the darndest time finding the fuse box, but we did find it. Why do they put those things in the last spot you would think of looking?  By the way - It’s a beautiful thing to have to use AC on the 2^nd of October.  May it continue.

Hopefully the updates on this blog will provide some idea of how our trip is going, and remind you that we have not fallen off the planet.  God is good, and we have been safe.  We pray that continues and may God bless you all.

Camping right along the ocean in Ventura, CA

Ever changing landscapes!!!!

We also spent time at the Getty Villa in Malibu, featuring Greek,
Roman and Egyptian artwork before we went to Escondido.  

Palm Springs Area

Our wonderful home! Everything we need. We are so grateful!