Wild & Three Thursday!

Happy, happy Thanksgiving. I've said it before and I will say it again My absolute favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. And I don't even like turkey! It's all the food (cause there is ALWAYS lots and not just turkey at our gatherings), family and fun but without the pressure of gifts and the weather is usually mild so everyone can get there. What is NOT to like! This year however, family is limited to just MiRV and I. It's still all good but being with family for this one is a favorite and I certainly do/did miss it.

There is so, so much to be thankful for ANY time but I am especially mindful of how blessed we are during this particular time of the year. We are so fortunate to live in a country where we can have so many freedoms and do not suffer from an oppressive government. We personally do not suffer from war or poverty. Thank a service member for that whydontcha! Cause that whole no war thing on our soil, that's a biggie and everyone should ALWAYS be thankful for that. Not gonna get much deeper but suffice to say we are fully aware of the abundance and liberties that we experience and we are beyond thankful for that.

The Daughter and family are safely back home. We are spending our turkey day in Tucson eating hot off the grill steaks. It's cool, rainy and windy. We decided to just take a three day break before moving on to let the weather settle down. They have closed some roads right behind us so to speak and they are closing roads in the higher elevations all around us. So we will be stationary as this bit of weather moves on. We hope to pull out on Saturday a.m. but we are flexible enough to be respectful if the weather is still an issue we can stay put if needed.

Oh, the zoo trip was a resounding success! What a delightful day with perfectly beautiful weather. We nearly opened and closed it. Saw all kinds of animals. I loved the koala's best. Feeding the giraffe was a hit as well as getting to see the baby gorilla nursing.  Watching the cheetah walking by on a leash right in front of us was a pretty cool bonus, too. And riding the sky tram (twice) as well as the double decker bus was a nice break from all the walking. Oh, and let's not forget the chuckle of seeing "Save the Chubby Unicorn" shirts (rhinoceros, need love, too) Stopping off at In and Out Burger on our way to the hotel was a great ending to our full day; love me an animal style burger!

OH em GEEEEE I would be remiss if I did not mention our visit with ThreeDoorsDown! They were incredible host and we enjoyed sitting round the table catching up. Great to spend time with such good people. And MiRV was so stoked to get wet. He was pretty dry! Be able to to surf with RocketBoy in Redondo on the same board he learned to surf on in Cocoa on he couldn't have been happier. :)

Wild & Three Thursday!

They're here!

Plane ride went well and she was excited to see us. Mom and dad both reported that the wireless noise cancelling headphones were a hit. Their first trip to the Pacific Ocean was enjoyed by all. We are currently enjoying our cottage view at San Onofre where dolphins have been frolicking just off the coast. Lots of shell collecting, beach exploring, GoFish playing, Sprinkle cupcake eating, sand sweeping, crossword puzzle working, relaxing is happening. We even went bowling! Just a tidbit if you are military looking to stay at San O go ahead and book that airbnb you looked at because the beach cottages associated with Camp Pendleton are disappointing. The train tracks have traffic on them right in front of the cottages ALL NIGHT LONG and honestly we found that the public beaches are better maintained/groomed and the cottages are just not that great. I'm extremely sad to report this. As we are usually all in on utilizing our military base privileges, however, as of late we are finding out they are falling short.

Planning a trip to the San Diego Zoo on Saturday and the weather looks to be awesome for such an outing. Gonna be sad to see them go. I think everyone is having a good time. The night sky in Joshua Tree was AH-mazing...saw shooting stars, satellites, planes (lots of planes) and many, many stars. Loved our view.

Wild & Three Thursday!

We are in Joshua Tree National Park! WOW! Neat, neat little place. We snagged what we thought was the last spot, then as we are walking back to the iron ranger we notice a spot with people but no tag. After inquiring, no they aren't camping, they just stopped to picnic. Really, in the campground? There are plenty of picnic stops, I just don't get it. We moved to that spot since it was a bit bigger and move level for sure. Sweet!

And those Joshua Trees, well, you might get a Dr Seuss feeling while looking at them. But fun fact...they are not really trees! I know! Google it, it's true! Since I was so underwhelmed at Big Ben National Park last week it was good to be impressed again. Part of my poor assessment could be weather related. It was windy, really, really windy. And due to rains and foggy weather we were unable to do some of the major hikes we were planning. However, the reality is we will probably not make a return visit to BBNP. Park staff was not very helpful or friendly and the park itself seems tired. Back to Joshua Tree...lovely park. Though not a fan of their new all reservation campgrounds. At least two of their larger campgrounds have gone the route of must make a reservation to get in. Not good, not good at all especially for people like us. We were fortunate to snag a spot at White Tank which is still a first come, first serve. We ended up staying two nights. As we made our way through the park we checked out one of the reservation only locations. Nearly empty! Ugh, that really makes me ruffled. we encountered this reservation only type campground in Michigan earlier this year and we are just not a fan. Especially when the walk in sites are ALL full and the reservation sites are going unused.

Anywho, as I mentioned in another post we are making our way to California to meet up with the Daughter. We were fortunate to get a visit in at Guadalupe National Park. However, due to high winds we were unable to hike.That was a real bummer for MiRV as he had hoped to hike the high point. Speaking of campgrounds, GNP has one....well they are calling their parking lot a campground which IMO is stretching it. What you really have is a semi flat parking lot that they call  a campground! LOL It most certainly is not. But at least you get to stay right in the park. And in all honesty we were thrilled to snag one of only two spots open when we rolled in. While we were there we trekked on up the road to visit Carlsbad Caverns National Park. How cool is that place? FYI you can go on your own self guided tours. So don't fret when you check the website and it says all the "tours" are sold out. Those are the park guided tours and you can still go on your own self guided tour during park hours. You set out and just explore on your own on the designated paths or grab an audio guide for $5. It's pretty awesome. Disclaimer: It does stink at the natural entrance from all the bat droppings!

We also stopped by White Sands National Monument, twice. Even rode down the dunes a couple times! Then we headed on into Arizona where we made a little side trip up to Saguaro National Park. It was incredible. The number of saguaros was totally overwhelming. I have never even seen that type of cactus in person before so to see so many in one spot was WOWSA! The coolest thing there was seeing the little Mexican elf owl in the abandoned woodpecker hole.What a treat that was. So cute. We really enjoyed the drive through this park and the friendly staff. Another impressive stop has been Organ Pipe National Monument. The campground here was quite nice. Not crowded at this time of year...even though there are 200+ sites. There had solar showers and a beautiful sunset as well as sunrise on our stay over. I would return here in a heartbeat. Though it's quite a drive to get down there I think it was worth it. In hindsight we probably should have done more then one night. Make sure you leave the light on and the hood up for pack rat deterrence! Seriously!

Still looking forward to seeing the Daughter and family in a few days for a week of beach life. Meanwhile we are gonna enjoy a little more time at Joshua Tree before meandering on that direction. Looking forward to the night sky tonight, they say it is quite the view. I'll let you know.

Wild & Three Thursday!

Happy Birthday to our Patriach...

He's 89 years young tomorrow. Complains a little; mostly, about what he can't do anymore...but we tell him he is doing great for where he's at! Sometimes he agrees, sometimes he doesn't. For his age though he is seriously doing quite well IMO. 

Sooooo Happy Birthday DAD!

We will do dinner when we return; until then hold down the fort!

He sure enjoys spending time with the great grands!

We have heat...

We were thrilled to finally see the UPS man show up this morning and once the delivery was made it was out to ROADA to install the new part. MiRV thankfully is VERY talented and was able to make the install with minimal hurdles. Needed a 2mm allen wrench, which we didn't have so I scouted one from my dad but we came up empty. It's a good thing someone got creative because he made a screwdriver attachment head piece work. After that it was pretty smooth sailing and we indeed now have heat. 

Tomorrow is go time. We will head down into TX for a stop at Big Ben National Park; then make our way to Cali for a meet up with the Daughter and family. There will be other stops along the way both coming and going. Since the schedule has changed so much with the heating part delay we have had to adjust several plans. All doable but adjustments were needed. Overjoyed to be heading out and looking forward to the downtime at the beach coming our way with Bee!