Time to head back

As the end of May approached we headed north. We scheduled 5 shows for Gypsy Wind. Initially we had wanted to do shows all the way through to mid-September but some fell through for August so we decided to cut our season short and plan to return to San Carlos the 1^st week of August. Our shows start in Kremmling, a small festival in our old neighborhood. Then we are going to Blues from the Top in Winter Park. We are going to Wyoming and Montana after that, ending up in Lyons, CO for Rocky Grass.

As we weren’t in any hurry to get to Golden, except to see our kids and grandkids, we decided to go to California “on the way home”. We have good friends that live in Hemet, Marvin and Carlene. They came to our wedding and they have been asking us to visit. Jim’s daughter Karen lives in Merced, along with our other 3 grandkids, none of whom I’d met yet. His oldest, Isaiah, was graduating from middle school and we really wanted to be there.

Well one thing led to another and we brainstormed on who else we could visit along the way. Jim has friends everywhere! In addition to visiting Mike and the kids in Phoenix and his sister Norma, we decided to detour to the wild west in Wickenburg. Friends of Jim’s, Steve and Jeanette Schwartzbach, are transplants from Chicago. He taught them to scuba dive, of course! They own an off road adventure touring company and have a great house on a beautifully landscaped property. Well, they taught me how to ride a quad and we saw some incredible country! It was a little narley at times, but a hoot. I haven’t had so much fun since I learned to dive. Then Jim taught me to shoot …I’d never shot a gun before either. I didn’t do too bad ….only flinched a little and even hit the target! (The wild west is alive in Wickenburg)

We had an uneventful drive to California and got to Marvin and Carlene’s just in time to go to their friends for a Memorial Day BBQ. We have great timing. We spent a couple of days relaxing with them and talking of sailing and “rat rods”. Marvin has restored a 1929 REO Speedwagon, named Mader Sr, after the movie Cars. When you have a rat rod, you leave the body rusty and put in the biggest engine you can fit into it! You add bullet holes and skulls and all kinds of ornaments to trick them out. It is very, very cool. 

We drove north through the Mojave and the San Juaquin valley…..what a study in contrasts! I like how they put signs up on the fields so you know what they are growing. I wish everyone would. It sure would make for a more interesting trip if you knew what you were looking at!

I t was great getting to meet Karen and her kids. Isaiah is a teenager and a very talented quarterback. He just made starting quarterback of the freshman team. Holden is 8 and in the gifted and talented school. He is so smart and into biology … he wants to be a doctor. Bella is 6 and very tiny. She’s going into 1^st grade but reads at 3^rd or 4^th grade level and is very much into butterflies. (Hotel California)

We wanted to go back east through Yosemite but the main road over the top was still closed due to snow and ice. I was really bummed as I had never been there. So we went through Las Vegas….not a fair trade off at all! But the upside was that we were able to visit Zion and Bryce National Parks. (Zion National Park webpage) (Bryce Canyon National Park webpage)

Zion was a little disappointing as you have to ride shuttle buses through the park and I don’t think you get to see as much. But there isn’t a lot of space so it is the best solution…..absolutely no parking space anywhere! The best scenery was on the drive out of the park…we had to go through a tunnel that was built in the 1930’s. A motorhome has to buy a special permit to go through it as they have to stop traffic so you can drive down the center of it because it is too narrow and low! The rock formations on the other side were different as night and day from the main park….(Zion National Park)

Bryce was incredible, though. We unhooked the jeep and spent a lovely day driving the rim, oohing and aahing over the Hoodoo’s and spires!  (Bryce National Park)

We were real temped to just stay in Utah but it was hot. So unless we wanted to spend big bucks at RV parks, it was too hot to sleep… boondocking it. Big truck stops are always good places to spend the night…you can park far enough away from the trucks so the noise isn’t too bad and ice cream is just a short walk away!