coasting up the CA coast

After driving through the first real traffic we’ve experienced in a long time, and spotting a mile-long train full of sad containers going nowhere, we spent Sunday through Tuesday in the Orangeland RV park, in the middle of an orange grove in the city of Orange, in Orange County. (I think they’re attempting some kind of theme, don’t you?) We discovered that apparently RVers do celebrate Halloween – if you want to hand out candy, you dress up your coach so they know to knock on your door. Unfortunately, we weren’t prepared, so we just chilled.

We got a lot of busy work done on Monday and then had a nice lunch on Tuesday with Deron’s niece, Danielle, who lives in Newport Beach – we hadn’t seen her in years so it was great to hang out and catch up. The dogs were immediately in love 😊.

Wednesday we stayed at another Harvest Host winery located in downtown Fillmore. The wine pourer (?) was a trip! (I’m not sure what to call her – she absolutely was NOT a sommelier.) She was super talkative and friendly, but so so bad at promoting the tasting! “Do you want some cheese? It’s kinda funky. I wouldn’t eat it, but my boss swears it’s good. She got it at Trader Joe’s. Do you want to try it? I think it’s weird but it’s probably fine…” LOL! It was all I could do to get her to show it to us so we could see what she meant by “funky.” Turns out it was a cranberry-covered goat cheese roll – delicious! But she wouldn’t try it because it reminded her of sushi, and she hates fish. HAHAHA! She was super proud of the chips she picked out to go with her favorite dessert wine, because though they LOOKED like chicharrons, they weren’t (she can’t stand the thought of eating pig skins). And she loved the combination of the other dessert wine with graham crackers, but we didn’t have the heart to tell her she needed to keep her graham crackers in an air-tight container – they were oh-so-stale and nasty – we just nibbled the smallest amount we could to make her happy. Overall it was really fun, and we did end up liking one of the port wines.

We spent the rest of the week in a super nice, new RV park in Greenfield. If it wasn’t in the middle of nowhere we really want to be, I’d stay there for a long time! It’s in the heart of farm town, CA, so there are crops and cows everywhere, and it’s breezy, green and beautiful. Since it’s only an hour away from Carmel-by-the Sea, we decided to spend Saturday shopping, eating and hanging out by the seashore. We had a delicious lunch at Portobella, spent a few minutes on the beach savoring the crashing waves, checked out a few shops (and a bakery), and then headed back to the coach.

Tomorrow we head to San Carlos to stay a couple days with Deron’s sister and brother-in-law, Stephanie and Greg. We’re super excited to meet their giant Bernese Mountain dogs and see their beautiful kitchen remodel! I’m pretty sure Stephanie is going to spoil us rotten with her amazing culinary skills, but we’ll survive, LOL.

praise & prayer

Praise: it took a lot of time, creativity, and help from some generous friends, but we are now set up to be in Southern California from December 2^nd to February 7^th. We’ll be in Alpine for the first month, then moving to Temecula, Lakeside, Chula Vista and finally Santee. During that timeframe we plan to see as many friends and family as possible; celebrate family birthdays, Christmas and our 18^th anniversary; use our Ironside gift card; go to Foothills Church in person; and watch Matt and Loran get married. We want to be FULL of San Diego memories when we take off – because we probably won’t be back for quite some time.

Prayer: we need to start planning our next season itinerary in earnest – which we think will culminate in some extended time on the East Coast. We are very aware that “the mind of man plans his way but the Lord directs his steps” (Proverbs 16:9), so please pray that God would guide us to the right destinations and give us all the wisdom we need to navigate through lots of unknowns, and for His continued physical and financial protection, and that, more than anything, we would represent Him well in all our travels.