Bark and Splash 2011

Scott and Cheryl Wright for the last few years have always attended the Folsom Bark and Splash which is held at the Folsom Pool when it closes down for the season. You see, the reasoning is, they have to empty all of the water out of the pool anyway, so why not allow the dogs to run free in the water for a little while before hand.

At any rate, Scott and Cheryl have been telling us about this every year, and we finally made a point of attending it. It's a great event with a lot of vendors that attend and it is a great event for dogs of all shapes and sizes to get their feet, or entire body wet. We brought Rosie and Lilly to see if they would be interested in partaking in a little splash and bark fun.

Though many dogs got in the pool and splashed about, chasing balls and Frisbees, some of them took the opportunity, like many of their two legged counterparts, to visit the booths to see what was for the taking!

Our two dogs however didn't get that much enjoyment out of the event. Lilly isn't much of a water dog as she had a bad experience years and years ago where we almost lost her. And, Rosie doesn't do well in large crowds of people or with barking dogs. We think it is a cool event and may attend in the future, but we'll have to wait and see if we bring any of our dogs in the future.

If you get a chance in your local community, check out your local pool and see if they have such an event. Its a lot of fun, and has the potential to be a great fund raiser as well.

Happy camping! Eric and Carol

Family Reunion

On the first weekend of October, we all got together for the 5th annual Waite Family reunion. This is the fifth family reunion, the fourth held at the Tower Park KOA just west of Lodi California. Carol's sister Sandy started these reunions five years ago, and we have been very fortunate that the event has tended to attract more family members every year.

Carols' dad Calvin had a brother Rex who lives in Michigan. Rex has a number of kids and grand kids who live in Michigan which is the state that Calvin Sr was raised in. This year, we were hoping that there would be some family members from Michigan attend our family reunion, but unfortunately no one was able to make it. None the less, we had a wonderful event as always.

On Friday night, there were about 25 of us that got together for a Taco feed. Though Friday night is just when everyone arrives at the camp ground, we still have a wonderful gathering together. The KOA that we stay at consists primarily of RV sights, but it also has a large number of Camping Cabins. So, it is well set up for a reunion where family can attend in an RV, Tent, or stay in one of the cabins.

On Saturday, we had a number of games which included a sack race, water balloon toss, sponge relay and Tug of war followed by a horse shoe tournament. Though it always seems to be a challenge to get the family all together to get the games starting, once we are rolling, everyone has a wonderful time.

After the Horse shoe tournament is done, we get together for a giant pot luck. This year, because Carol is turning 50, it was decided that celebrating Carols birthday was something important to do. So, before Carol woke up on Saturday morning, I ran off to the local Safeway store to pick up her birthday Cake. Sandy got all of the decorations, so it turned out to be a wonderful evening with the entire family.

On Sunday, we said our good byes to everyone and look forward to next years gathering!

Happy camping! Eric and Carol!

September 11th 2011 - California Capital Air show

This weekend we remember those who lost their lives as a result of the terrorists attacks on September 11th 2001. The immediate terror of the events on that day, had a huge impact on our nation. But, then there is the lingering damage that is done in the form of injured or killed members of our US armed forces as a result of the military action taken in response to the terrorists attacks. We as a nation should weep for there sacrifices, but we should always remember their sacrifices and support them and their families who survived them. And like so many others in our country, both of us remember what happened on that date, and support our troops and the actions our government has had to take as a result of the events on that day, and other attacks on our country.

On September 11th, we attended the California Capital Airshow that was held at Mather Field which is just a mile from our home. The air show was a wonderful event where we and thousands of others celebrated our country as we watched many exceptional aerobatic performers and viewed a lot of great air craft displays.

One of the demonstations was a re-creation of the attack on Perl Harbor executed by the Japanese on December 7th, 1941. This demonstration was very realistic and made the hair on our harms stand on end.

The wonderful climax to the air show was the fly over by a US Coast Guard C-130 that deployed over $10,000 worth of flowers in order to remember those that perished as in the attacks of 9/11/2001.

As Carol and I have been doing for a while now, we had the chance to remember and thank those who have served in our US armed forces.

Happy Camping! Eric and Carol Anderson

Our trip home from our Anniversary

First off, the last four blog entries were posted at the same time as this one because I had a hard time getting the pictures to upload at the RV park. So, be sure to check out all of the last five blog entries.

As they say, all good things must come to an end. Today, we left the Betabel RV Resort and headed home. Carol has been wanting to get some time behind the wheel driving the motorhome. The sparsely populated area of San Juan Bautista was the perfect place to do this. Carol had a chance to warm up on the frontage road between the RV Park and US 101. She then drove, collectively, about 70 miles of the 130 mile trip home.

With a little tutelage, she got her feeling for being behind the wheel really quickly. The dogs were just as comfortable with Carol behind the wheel as they are with me.

We had such a wonderful four day weekend for our 12th anniversary. We are so in love and so enjoy getting out in the RV together.

Stay tuned for our other outings together.

Happy camping! - Eric and Carol -

A wonderful Anniversary day in Monterey

Greetings everyone,

We celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary in the city of Monterey. Originally, we were hoping that we would be able to do some Geocaching in the Monterey area, as it always takes us to places we normally wouldn't visit. Unfortunately, because of the fact that Dinner required a more dressy attire and that we were over 30 miles from Monterey, we opted to just get dressed up and walk through Cannery row until dinner time. This was a wise decision, cause we were in bumper to bumper traffic almost the entire way from San Juan Bautista to Monterey.

Once we got to Monterey, we spent the majority of the day walking through Cannery Row. When we first arrived, we had a delicious lunch at the Cannery Row Brewing company. This place was hopping on this holiday weekend, but a table for two opened up fairly early in our wait for seating , so we got right in! After lunch, we walked around in some of the stores in cannery row. The Monterey Bay Aquarium had a long line of folks waiting to get in, so it is a good thing we had seen that attraction in the past. After walking around for a while, we stopped and got some refreshments and sat in a patio area watching the Kayak's go by in the bay. It is was nice and relaxing!

Our dinner reservations at a restaurant called the 'Chart House' were for 7:00 PM, however we were done with the crowds at around 5:15 PM, so we went in to see if they could seat us early. They were busy, but able to get us seated at 6:30 which was fine. We just relaxed in the bar until they were able to seat us. We told the Matre de, that we wanted to be seated in a window seat, and wow, what a nice table. It had a great view of the bay. Along with that, went fantastic service and food. If we are ever out in the Monterey area again, we will definitely dine here again!

Tomorrow, we head for home, but this has been a wonderful Anniversary celebration!

Happy Camping! - Eric and Carol -

San Juan Bautista - Pinnacles National Monument

Hi there everyone,

Our second full day here in the Monterey/San Juan Bautista area was another full one, but enjoyable none the less. We started out Geocaching, in San Juan Bautista. Geocaching is an activity that my Eric's Sister and Brother-in-law introduced us too over 5 years ago. We had 5 geocaches to find in the San Juan Bautista area, but two of them were over two miles from the closest place to park the car, so we decided against those, as we just couldn't spare the time. One of the caches, was located at the old, yet still operational Mission San Juan Bautista! We took a couple hours exploring this mission, gardens and immersing our selves in it's history. We found there were some Civil War Re-enactments going on in the area as well which were very interesting. If you ever find your selves in this area, you must check out this mission.

After having lunch we did some antique shopping looking for Pie birds and ceramic Boxers. We found a Boxer so we snagged that up for Carol's collection and we also found Carol a new purse, but after two exhaustive days of searching, not one Pie bird to be found. What is up with that. We really enjoyed old town San Juan Bautista. May more open store fronts than in Gilroy, probably because most of the buildings on main street were wood framed and faced, instead of un-reinforced masonry.

After we finished up in San Juan Bautista, we thought we would take a run out to Pinnacles National Monument. The bummer was that we didn't get there until after the ranger station had closed. So, though we didn't get to see the interpretive exhibits, we did get to see the Pinnacles. This is the sort of place geared more for the avid hiker and rock climber than for those that like to drive up and check something out. If you like to hike, allow yourself two full days to check this area out, if you like to 'drive up and see what you can see', you'll be out of places to explore within an hour. Allow yourself at least two hours though if you are going to include the visitors centers. It was much warmer up here at Pinnacles than in the rest of the San Juan Bautista area. Pinnacles is much like Castle Crags state park, however we find Castle Crags more enjoyable.

If you are in the area however, we highly suggest you stop by for a visit.

Sunday, we are off to Monterey to do some more Geocaching and to enjoy our anniversary dinner with a spectacular View from 'The Charthouse'.

Happy camping! Eric and Carol

The start to our 12th wedding anniversary

Hi there everyone,

Well, we have set out on our four day weekend trip to San Juan Bautista to celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary! San Juan Bautista is just a few miles east of Monterey. When we set out for Batebel RV Resort on Thursday afternoon after work, we weren’t sure if we were going to make it all the way to San Juan Bautista Thursday night, but we did.

The RV park here is wonderful. All of the sites are very roomy and there are nice hedges separating each site. There are a number of Full Time RVers that live here, but everyone keeps their sites very clean. There are a couple of grassy areas to take the dogs so they can get up a run and blow off some steam. Speaking of dogs, our three traveling companions were excellent as always on the road trip down here. We arrived at the park about 10:30 Thursday evening.

On Friday, we checked in and found out that we needed to move to a different site, which was fine. The new one was even larger than the first one we were in. After we got camp all set up, we headed up to the town of Gilroy to check out this town. Old town Gilroy is so cool to look at, but unfortunately, a lot of the buildings have false facades that are made of granite and other un-reinforced Masonry, so they cannot be occupied. As a result, a lot of downtown is abandoned. Because of the down economy, no one has any money to put in to restoring these buildings to their previous grandeur.

During our tour of Old Town Gilroy, we had lunch at the Garlic City Café. If you are ever in Gilroy, you must check out this place! The location is small but the food selection is wide ranging. The quality is excellent and the prices are reasonable.

After a fair amount of walking through Antique stores, we stopped by Starbucks and then reposed to a local park for a little break to take a load off our feet. As we were headed out of town, we stopped by the Gilroy transit center which is the old Rail station for the town of Gilroy. It is a wonderful place to visit, among the many other attractions to this wonderful city.

We got back to camp before sun-down and we took the dogs for a run on the lawn one more time before our day was done. We have many options on things we can do the next two days of our weekend, so you will just have to tune in to see what we are up to!

Happy camping! – Eric and Carol -