Summary: First Month on the Road

So, the American Bucket List Tour (ABLT) has started and I have been slow to take up the blog duties.  It has been a busy month thus far.

We have progressed at a leisurely pace as I had hoped we would.  Some days have been a whole two hours of driving and then staying for days at a time to see things.  We stopped in Springfield, Oregon to visit friends/family and then Sutherlin, Oregon to visit family and then made it to Redding, California only because it was on the way.  From there it was a short day to Sacremento, California where we spent time at the California State Rail Road Museum and a bit of Old Town Sacramento.  THAT was a great find!  The museum is unassuming from the outside but fantastic on the inside!!  There are LOTS of trains and train related "stuff".  We spent hours wandering through the museum and felt rewarded for finding it in the first place.  After that we had the time to stroll down the old board walk street and found a saloon that had great sandwiches... a few stops later we had a couple of bags of jelly bellies and it was off to the RV "park".

We stayed at the Expo Center lot.  That is a great way for the center to keep the rent paid to the city.  RVer's are in the middle of great stuff and the facility gets the attention it really needs long term to stay viable.

We moved on after a few days and stopped in a Sutter Creek (another grueling day of three and half hours or so) to visit friends and see the down town of Sutter Creek.  That was yet another fun walk about for a few hours.  Not that we enjoy window shopping and wine tasting or anything.  We both like artsy shops and there are several of interest in towns like these.  A few days later we hitched up the Toad (Posie the PT Cruiser) and set up camp later that day in Salinas, California.  From there it was easy to day trip to the San Juan Bautista Mission, Carmel by the Sea and Big Sur.  Abby really liked the beach at Carmel... what a dog friendly town that is.  A few days later we loaded up again and made it to Oceano, California (near Pismo Beach) and visited family again.  Taking a week to explore we hit Hearst Castle, Avila Beach and State Street in Santa Barbara, California along with other local places.  Last time we were in the area we had stopped at the Monarch Butterfly Reserve in Pismo but this time we had rain and it was a bit cooler so the butterflies were not so active.

Our assault on southern California was a longer day from Oceano to San Diego.  We skimmed across the top of Los Angeles and utilized I-15 to arrive in Lakeside (just east of S.D.) at sunset.  By the time we did the obligatory check in we had to find our site in the dark.  Thus far we have visited a wonderful place for breakfast (and probably other meals) called Hob Nob Hill, the USS Midway and Seaport Village along with a bunch of friends in the area.  In a couple of days we will have visited more friends, the San Diego Zoo and Balboa Park.  It will time to hook up and head east for the rest of the ABLT.

I apologize for the fast tour of our first month but I belatedly realized that I had fallen into the trap of just traveling and not keeping up the blog.  I hope to do better as we continue on.