A Visually Inspiring Store

I looked online today to find a store that might be able to help me figure out how to knit socks and found one called ABC's of Creative Pursuits Fiber Arts....I talked to the owner, Nancy, on the phone, and she was so helpful and understanding of my sock problem, that I felt comfortable in choosing this store over others. We headed to downtown Bakersfield, with Eldy as my navigator, and he dropped me off so I could browse and get some help.

People who do handcrafts will understand what it's like to walk into a store and just be WOWED by what they see...inspired by the colors, yarn combinations, projects hanging and draping all over the place, craft books and magazines, hand dyed fibers....the nearest thing I can compare it to, is the excitement I used to feel when I got a new Crayola Crayon box of 100 colors for the beginning of each school year when I was little. As I got older, it was the excitement of walking into a craft store in South Bend, IN (Erica's Craft and Sewing Center) and seeing all the modeled quilting and crafting projects hanging around, charm squares and fabrics stacked on shelves, inspiring me to sew and create things. Now it's quality quilting and knitting shops....I suppose if you don't have the craft gene, you probably wouldn't get excited by this store, but it sure was beautiful! Isn't it wonderful that there are people like Karen who can create such beauty in the world and want to share it with others by having such a cool store?  I loved being there...While I was there, Karen patiently took an elderly lady under her wing, retaught her to crochet after 20 years, helped her get started on her 23 year old afghan that she had forgotten how to do, and then sent her on her way after charging only $5.00 for about 45 min. of help.

Karen then took me under her wing, and in the sunny big picture windows of the store, along with her good friend, Beverly, we sat and chatted for several hours at a nice big table filled with yarn, fibers, and magazines. I hammered out my sock with some help from Karen. We talked about knitting, traveling, spinning, fibers, how to do this and that, and knitted all the while. I asked LOTS of questions and she and Beverly patiently answered all of them. It was a delight to spend time with the both of them, and I ended up spending the good part of two afternoons at the shop, learning new things.....it was wonderful! And Eldy, bless his heart, dropped me off two days in a row so I could get my sock fix, yarn fix, and spend time with some wonderful ladies while he tried to find something to do in Bakersfield. If you ever are in the Bakersfield area, love to knit, spin, do stuff with yarn, need a book, stop in and see Karen at ABC's of Creative Pursuits, right downtown on 17th street. It's a beautiful, friendly store and a wonderful way to spend an afternoon......

How to Get from There to Here

Hunh?  How did we get from Aguanga to Bakersfield, CA? We took CA-79N to I-15N, then CA-91W, CA 71 N to CA 57N, to I-210 W to I-5 N to CA-99N, and then finally, CA-58 E...and exited at Edison Rd. Got that?  Here we are at the Orange Grove RV Park in Bakersfield, CA. We picked this destination because we are heading north to Coarsegold, CA in a couple of days, and this was about the most direct way on our way there. We are staying at this park for two days to give Eldy a chance to rest up from a difficult drive yesterday.

How difficult was it? Well, it was through the mountains, some BIG ones, so big they filled up the windshield as we were looking out at the highway. I couldn't tell you the names of the mountains, they were on all sides of us, and we just kept passing one after another. You know they are big and the grade difficult when you see run away truck lanes on BOTH sides of the highway, AND a radiator water supply station turn off for overheated vehicles. The diesel exhaust brake handled the mountains beautifully and not only did the engine maintain its cool, but Eldy did, too!  We made it to Bakersfield, CA. where there's a nice RV park, Orange Grove.

Orange Grove RV park is a nice park for an overnight destination...If you come a little earlier than April, you would be in time for the orange picking harvest. This park has been divided off of from an orange grove and made into an RV park. As you pull into the sites, orange trees are on both sides of you. They are now flowering and setting for the coming season. If the oranges are in season, the park provides an orange picker tool to get the oranges off the trees. How fun is that?! But we missed the main picking season by just a few weeks, darn it! I guess the oranges were ready earlier this year because the trees are totally picked over in the campground. They must be good tasting oranges! The cost of this park is 30.00 a night.

We have a nice site, enough room to put slides out, but the neighbors are closer than what we've been used to!

While we've been traveling, I have been trying to knit socks and can't quite seem to get the hang of it. I feel like a such a knitwit that I can't seem to figure it out on my own. But there's a nice knitting shop in downtown Bakersfield, so tomorrow I'm  headed over there to get some help!  See you later!

Bye-Bye Jojoba Hills

We decided we wanted to get moving by 10:00 this  morning and so, before we leave, I'll leave a few more photos of the park....the facilities were wonderful! The pool was one of the largest I have ever seen in an RV park, even beating out some of the fancier RV "resorts" we have stayed in....the landscaping was exceptional, the people were wonderfully friendly, even the long term residents...

The library with a HUGE selection of DVD's for .50 rental

Although I couldn't ride my bike in the park, the pool, the fitness room and the views more than made up for that! They also had a sewing room and a craft room but I didn't get a chance to use those...they were very nice.

our site

Although the parking site was 50' X 70' for the RV, the common area, the place where you would set up your chairs and grill, was HUGE...and you had this much space on both sides! Here's a view from the pavilion by the pool:

View through the pavilion by the pool

And here's one of several benches in the park by a waterfall or fountain....

We will definitely come back to this beautiful and spacious park....

You see these "bottlebrush" bushes everywhere--interesting!

Restaurant tip--we only ate out at one...it was called The Yard, at Promenade Mall in Temecula, and it was wonderful!  Expensive, but we ate lunch there for very reasonable prices...they had some great specials..

Soup and a half a sandwich...yum!

Memories? Besides all the ones from the last couple of days, one more with a little bit of silliness...To my siblings: (we all used to be competitive swimmers) Don't faint, but I actually got out and swam some laps in the pool two days in a row! But here I am with my spa buddy, Shamu ( the little thermometer in the hot tub)....that thing just cracked me up every time I looked at it!

We really DID get to Bakersfield...it was an interesting drive, we'll tell you about it tomorrow.....

A Trip to Julian, CA

When you go to parks, sometimes the office gives you a sheet of ideas of things to do, places to go, and how far it is to them. Jojoba Hills Escapee Park does that....on the list was a trip to Julian, CA, about an hour's drive from the campground....the fact that there was a Dudley's Bakery in the town or nearby, caught my attention. (Dudley is my middle name and my mother's maiden name). Besides, it's a bakery! I do have a sweet tooth, so off we went.

Julian is a cute little town. The main street doesn't look like much from the outside, but step inside the store fronts and there are some amazing boutiques there. We didn't find the Dudley Bakery, (it was in another town a little ways away), but we did find some wonderful stores to browse in and shop...I stopped in a store called American Gardener on Main Street. Wonderful store! Things for the home and personal use, gardening stuff, soaps, a little bit of everything--it smelled delicious! Stopped in another store and it was like a general store...tons of stuff there and a big selection of Vera Bradley purses, a fabric purse designer with corporate headquarters in Fort Wayne, IN, my home state...just the place to buy a new one to replace my worn out old one! 

Eldy patiently waited for me to explore and then.....we discovered an old soda fountain store...I LOVE those old soda fountain counters and history behind them! Lots of fun in there...right next door is a small drug store with a "Candy Cave"...you walk downstairs into the cellar and bulk candy in buckets galore awaits you! How about some "psychedelic microbruisers" for $7.00 a pound? Whatever you could possibly want, they had it!
The name of the fountain drug store was "Miner's Diner". They had an old Big Boy (of the Big Boy Hamburger fame) in the window, and a soda fountain dating back to the early 1920's. We had a delicious shake there. The soda fountain was cool!

We'll see you on the road tomorrow.....on our way to stay in Bakersfield, CA in some orange groves!

Temecula, CA-- Southern California Wine Country!

After reading that there are over 35 wineries in the Temecula area where we are staying, we decided to take a little trip down "winery row",  De Portola Rd., about a 15-20 min. drive from Jojoba Hills, to check out some of them. Beautiful, beautiful countryside....We visited the Keyways Winery, the Robert Renzoni Winery, Leonesse Cellars and the Wilson Creek Winery, our favorite. And no, we weren't soused by the time we got to the last one, Wilson Creek. We just wanted to see the grounds of the wineries, and didn't feel like spending too much money for sampling the wines until we got to Wilson Creek.  It just seemed a friendlier place than all the rest. Maybe the two golden labradors, who were in the lobby of the taste testing room, helped, but the gals at the wine bar were super friendly, too! For 12.00, we each sampled a few wines, and Eldy decided to taste their top wine for a few dollars more. (It sold for 100.00 a bottle). We didn't buy it this time...but it was too dry for me! Eldo loved it! I think we'll stick to the Consumer Reports on moderately priced wines. There are VERY good California wines to be had for under 20.00 a bottle, but we sure enjoyed tasting some finer wines!

grounds at Wilson Creek

From what we saw, most of the wineries charge for tastings--about $12.00 for five pours seemed to be the average. We tasted some interesting wines--"ice" wine at Keyways....that was a very sweet, delicious dessert wine that is harvested at a very specific point in the grape harvest...grapes that have been frozen while still on the  vine. The sugars and other dissolved solids don't freeze, but the water does. So a more concentrated grape gets pressed from the frozen grapes. The freezing happens before the fermentation, not after. Who cares, right? Well, it's delicious! And, it only costs $50.00 a bottle! (ONLY!!!!!!) Too expensive for me.....but WOWZA! It was wonderful!

It was a beautiful way to spend the afternoon. These are beautiful places, not just fields of grapevines..

There were the healthiest and most beautiful white and red roses on the grounds of Wilson Creek.


There were quite a few wine festivals and celebrations having already been held or going to be in the future...but we've missed them. Looks like a great time!

These girls were having a birthday celebration at Wilson Creek as well...my guess, someone's 21st birthday?


Here's the classy "tasting ticket" they gave us at Wilson Creek to keep track of what we tried:

And here's my honey enjoying his special wine......(the sample of the 100.00 one)....Eldo has great taste in all things! But I think he still prefers a good beer more than wine...Sparky is the wine drinker in the household...

We're getting ready to leave soon for more northern parts of California...we're stopping in Bakersfield, CA., for two nights on our way to Sierra Vista, our next main destination....we'll see you later! Time to get packed up and ready to go.......and remember....

Jojoba Hills Escapee Park

view on a walk in the park

Jojoba Hills (ho-ho-ba Hills) is a beautiful park.....one the most beautiful and spacious in the SKP (Escapee) park system. You have to have signed up for a membership in the Escapees..I think it's somewhere around 60.00 for an annual membership. This is a coop park--it's not owned by the Escapees per se, it's owned by the members who live here and the park is affiliated with the SKP's. Just about everything is done by volunteers to run the park and WOW! Do they do a wonderful job! Everything is clean and well maintained, the landscape crew is awesome as you can see by the plantings and flowers that surround the park. There are landscaped plantings well beyond the boundaries of the sites and the parks..there are water fountains throughout the park, and park benches in front of the water to sit and contemplate your surroundings as you look at the beautiful flowers and cactus they have planted.

As you come into the park, you've got a beautiful, cactus lined drive up a steep, 11% grade hill, the only very steep one, but we didn't have any trouble getting up it with the Tiffin...sites are terraced into the hillside. Elevation ranges change throughout the park, but the sites are level and have gravel and concrete patio pads. The sites are HUGE. Ours doesn't have many improvements on it, the owners haven't been here in quite awhile, so it looks kinda plain.....but the beauty is all around and the views towards the mountains more than make up for a plain site. We'll be here for a few days....see you in the park tomorrow......

Travelin' to Aguanga, CA

Well, we  just missed all the excitement....on our last day in Indio, there was an earthquake! Magnitude of 3.0, nothing too serious...we had already left and were driving to Aguanga, about an hour and a half away. The San Andreas fault is not too far from Indio, so they are used to feeling the earth shake and shimmy, would be my guess....Well, I just had to ask Eldo, "Honey, did you feel the earth move?" and he said, "No, silly!"  I forgot to show the photos of the thousands of windmills in the Coachella Valley that we left behind as we made our way to Aguanga (love those California names--Cuyamaca, Chowchilla, chimichanga...(How did THAT one get in there? asks E). I think there are over 4,000 of them, (windmills, that is) and you can take a windmill tour and learn all about them. The tour is expensive, so we didn't take it. (30.00 a person) There are so many wind turbines because of the high winds in the Coachella Valley, which are stronger in the spring. It was exceptionally windy the entire time we were there at the Indio fairgrounds according to what the locals said.....The wind is what drives the weather across the rest of the country, but how that all works is a mystery to me. I need to take a meteorology class some time!

Not the best photo-it's through a dirty windshield, they are actually quite beautiful!

Here's a little info about the windmills...They cost around $300,000 each.  Almost all of the currently installed wind electric generation capacity is in California. One of the wind farms in the San Bernadino Mountains, the one in the San Gorgonio Mountain Pass, has more than 4,000 separate windmills! They provide enough electricity to power Palm Springs and the entire Coachella Valley. The blades are more than half a football field long. When you see some of them spinning like crazy, and then some are standing still right next to a moving one, it has to do with "microcells" of wind moving across the blades. Microcomputers monitor the wind speeds and direction and shut down the blades if needed to fine tune  maximum efficiency. Some of them are mounted on towers (which are more aerodynamically efficient) and some are mounted on latticework towers, to appease environmentalists who bemoan the windmill solid towers interfering with the beauty of the landscape and being able to see the mountains. Eldo says, in so many words, this is an ugly desecration of the landscape. To me, they are kind of beautiful, knowing that the wind is generating clean electricity and not smog and pollution.

photo courtesy of the web

Back to the drive today....The scary part was driving highway 74 to Aguanga. This was the route the GPS told us to take to Aguanga. As we started out, it immediately became one of those twisty, steep climbs up the mountains, with hairpin curves and very narrow lanes. I really got scared. I thought we weren't supposed to be on this highway with a motorhome towing a car. I did see a sign that said "truck route" which made me feel a little better. But we only saw ONE semi coming the other way the entire trip over and through the mountains. We kept worrying about tunnels, but I did a truck atlas check and there weren't any cautions for this highway heading to our destination. Eldy did a magnificent job of taking his time, pulling over on the pullouts to let faster moving traffic go by. Once I got over my fears of the highway, the views were incredible! We climbed to over 6,000 feet up before the highway leveled off, and came back down towards a valley and the town of Aguanga. The highway number changes as you make your way to Aguanga. I was too rattled to remember the number changes, but I know we ended up on highway 79 eventually, and the elevation came back down to somewhere around 2100 feet. Eldo was a little stressed, to say the least!

one of the park's views

But we're here in Aguanga, at the Escapees Park called Jojoba Hills. It's on a hillside, it's beautiful, reasonably priced (20.00 for full hookup) and wait till you see the photos tomorrow! Here's an early bird one above....We'll be here for five days so see you at Jojoba Hills tomorrow!

Palm Springs Village Fest

Every Thursday night from 6:00 to 10:00 PM October through May, they close off a section of downtown Palm Springs (Palm Canyon Drive) for VillageFest, one of southern California's most popular and longest running weekly events. The location is at the very base of the San Jacinto Mountains. This is a festival filled with music, flowers, original artwork, jewelry, crafts, horses (!) (they were there to raise money for an equine rescue mission) and my favorite, FOOD! Think all kinds of Mexican foods, middle Eastern foods, the usual BBQ, kabobs,  and junk stuff---chocolate covered bananas and some other ridiculously fattening ice cream treats---YUM!

beautiful California strawberries--freshest and sweetest!

You can walk along the vendor rows or check out the many wonderful restaurants and shops along the several city blocks on each side of the festival. They had produce there, too, and with Indio nearby being the date capital of the world, there were rows and rows of dates, raisins, plums and other fruits for purchase, too. We bought a pound of the freshest, plumpest, juiciest rains you could possibly imagine, and the taste of those fresh raisins, WOW! The vendor told me at least three times to take them home and FREEZE them or they will start fermenting if I leave them out! Got it, lady, I will freeze them. How nice it is to be able to buy a food item that isn't shot through with preservatives! While I'm on a food kick here, they had California strawberries that were so sweet, they were like candy! Picked fresh TODAY!

The crafts here were really great and so was the entertainment...street musicians, a fantastic saxophone player named Norm Douglas, a young man with a terrific voice trying to raise money to get through college, and other fund raising groups and individuals....there was a severely burned young man with barely a face who had the courage to be out there with his guide dog, he had written a book about his struggle for survival. I wish more people would have stopped and donated for him.

Cool craft things----wind chimes, dangles, decorative wood carvings, purses, little girl "girly" stuff, cool flaming fire pits and an interesting booth where the vendors claimed by tracing a Celtic design which is very maze like, you will calm yourself into a meditative, focused state of mind. That claim made me think about my ADD kids that I use to have in school, that might have been something that would have helped them concentrate their focus more,  a task to shift their focus into learning. I was always looking for things to help those kids pay attention, short of getting up on a desk and dancing! I tried classical music, stress balls, you name it! By the way, classical music often really helped.....

We really enjoyed this festival and ended up getting a terrific pizza for dinner at a restaurant along the street--delicious! Saxophone music on the street while dining outside at an outdoor cafe/restaurant---it doesn't get any better than that! Unfortunately, remember those horses I just told you about? They were standing on the street right next to our table and chose to do their business right while we were eating! EW-W-W-W-W! Fortunately, they cleaned up the mess right away and then moved them away from the restaurant. Whew!  See you in Aguanga, CA tomorrow!

Cabot's Pueblo Museum

Sometimes I'm dragging Eldo off to places he'd rather not go, usually but not always, it ends up being a so-so tour or just not that interesting if it's just my idea. Things that really grab his attention end up being very worthwhile and interesting, but he's such a peach. He went with my suggestion today anyway to go to Desert Hot Springs, about 30-45 min. from Indio, to see Cabot's Pueblo Museum...It had a great brochure describing the place, very colorful and interesting information on it so I was hooked! We gotta go see this, Eldy!  Cabot's Pueblo, a Hopi style pueblo residence, was the home of a famous man named Cabot Yerxa, who grew up with an Indian tribe as a young boy, became quite the explorer and champion of native American people. What? You've never heard of him? Well, they have in Desert Hot Springs! He was a bit of an eccentric man, a postmaster, an explorer, (he discovered the Desert Hot Springs water--aha!), and he was a guy who had a beloved burro named Merry Christmas. Cabot had some unusual ideas about how people should live, and he built his home based on some native American principles....

His residence is 5,000 sq. feet with 35 rooms, 150 windows, and 65 doors, and as in custom Hopi tradition, no two doors or windows are alike. He started building it in 1941. He used recyclable materials for the entire residence. Gee, I wonder if the guy that built Solomon's Castle in Florida was inspired by Cabot!? The house has secret rooms, passages and hiding places. (Cabot kept rattlesnakes in mason jars stuck in walls in the rooms when he would have to be gone to deter vagrants.) The tour, which consisted of an hour's talk about the man and his achievements, was informative. But the tour was crowded, there were at least 10 people on our tour, and the rooms were tiny and cramped. It was very difficult to move around and see much with so many people on the tour at one time. None of the secret rooms or passages were mentioned--darn! But there were some things there to grab your interest even if they weren't original Cabot Yerxa designs. See this weather rock? Here's what the sign says:
"When rock is wet, it's raining. When rock is moving, it's windy. When rock is hard to see, it's foggy. When rock is white, it's snowing."

There's a "trading post" at Cabot's place, a small gallery featuring local artists, and some interesting features around the grounds--storage sheds, outdoor cook stoves, rustic tools and machinery and original equipment that Cabot used on his property, etc. There are also artworks that other people have contributed to add to the museum's unique attractions, like the Indian statue above, and the public bench on the left. The grounds were very pretty and the cactus were in bloom. Lots of benches and chairs to sit on just to relax, plenty of shade under mature trees....The fee to explore this unique residence was 8.00 a person.

We enjoyed the beautiful grounds at Cabot's Pueblo Museum today...a nice little trip not too far from Indio, CA. In another day, we will be heading to the Escapees park in Aguanga, CA...finally! It's a little higher up in the mountains (about 2100 feet) and a little cooler. But first, we're off to a weekly festival in Palm Springs...See you at the fair!

How the Other Half Lives

When we first started full timing, I had this vision of the RV lifestyle...we'd be taking our big 40ft. rig and squeezing into state parks, national parks, campgrounds in the woods, having a campfire most every night, and just bringing our home with us with all the amenities right in our big backyard of wherever we were. That was true for quite a while. As we traveled more and more, we started seeing places called "RV resorts" and the prices weren't that bad, still under our budget of 30.00 a night.

So we stayed in some of these places....very nice...with pools, maybe a tennis court or two, shuffleball court....a nice clubhouse, and maybe, if we were  lucky, a small fitness room. The resorts started getting nicer, and the prices started to climb a little...now we are talking about 40-55 dollars a night. But we would look for deals like stay two nights, get one free, so we were still able to stay very close to our budget. Such places as Hidden Ridge RV resort in Hopkins, MI, Sunnybrook RV Resort in South Haven, MI, and Signature Motorcoach Resort in Naples are just a few of the nicer RV resorts. If you watch for deals, you can stay in a very nice place for less than the cost of a hotel room if you are looking for short getaways in an RV.....even for longer stays, beautiful RV resorts can be found such as the one we just came from, Palm Creek Golf and RV Resort, which we stayed at for 18.00 due to specials they were having. That was the nicest one we have found so far---sewing room, stained glass workshop, woodworking shop, lawn bowling, all kinds of clubs, 18 hole golf course on the premises, you name it, this place had it! (But not a massage therapist, lol!)

the waterway at Motorcoach Country Club

It's been an eye opener to see the quality and pricing of modern RV resorts that are TRULY resorts...a couple of days ago we went to a place in Indio, CA. that was the epitome of luxury and ritz for RV owners, although we didn't know it until we went for a tour. The name of the place in Indio is Motorcoach Country Club. (That was our first clue this was a pretty exclusive place!) We just wanted to see what the prices were and if they had any deals for a few days' stay. It's gated, and normally you can just tell the guard you want to drive in and look around. Nope! Not at this place. The salesman takes you around, no pressure, really nice guy...but we enjoyed the tour, and it was jaw dropping, to say the least! 

How about a personal lot with "infinity" pools, waterfalls, huge outdoor kitchens with two fridges, ice maker, outdoor dishwasher, gazebos, gas fireplaces, granite countertops outdoors (they seemed to be the norm), personal swimming pools and hot tubs on some of the lots, casitas (little apartments furnished for guests), a first class restaurant on the premises, HUGE clubhouse, two miles of navigable waterways, an 18 hole golf course that you can use carts on, 2 tees on each hole, 200 amp service TO EACH LOT, natural gas to each lot, and private docks on all waterfront lots?  The water front lot with the personal hot tub, infinity pool, huge shaded pergola entertainment center with granite countertops was on the waterfront, and it was selling for $869,000!  They had several lots in the $74,000-89,000 range that were undeveloped and around the perimeter of the place, so there were more affordable spots to be had. You have to pay 495.00 a month for city water, sewer, cable, trash pickup, mowing and watering, and the golf, tennis and health club and you pay $1400 a year (for owners) up front for dining at the restaurant, which appeared to be first class--on a hill overlooking the entire complex, and featuring moderate prices.

Here are a couple of sample listings from the salesman's lot listings:

     

Privacy - Developed Lot

Lot 20 - $179,900 Reduced from $189,900 South facing privacy lot with a totally enclosed backyard. Casita with a marble and tiled shower and bath, microwave, refridgerator with ice maker, TV and couch. The pool and spa have LED lighting with 8 different choices of color and the controls are located in the casita. There are 2 water features, natural gas tiki torches, 3 misting fans that cool the backyard by more than 20 degrees on hot days, landscape lighting and dimmable wall lighting in the patio area. There is also pet friendly synthetic grass. Great landscaping both front and back.

No? How about this one?

Privacy - Developed Lot

Lot 372 - $995,000 This lot was originally priced at $1,300,050 and has now been reduced to $995,000! This 9,000 plus square foot lot in the southeast corner of the resort is one of the largest lots ever built in an RV facility. This lot features paver throughout and mature landscaping. After passing through the gates to the backyard, you will not believe your eyes. A curved grassy area for pets, and the largest privately owned pool in an RV resort. The pool features a raised spa and a swim under grotto with waterfalls. Two tanning shelves, boulders all across back side of pool - and the poo is 70' across. The lot has 25 palms and an elevated private patio in the extreme southwest corner of the lot. A beautiful covered patio that has granite countertops, BBQ, refridgerator, oven, dish washer, wine refridgerator, warming drawers, double sinks and much more. TV compartment, sitting area, heat lamps and a lot of section under roof. The casita has bath shower and is set up perfectly for an office. Near the pool there is also a raised firepit. If you thought you had seen it all - you haven't!!

So this is how the other half lives! Whoo-ee! Personally, I think you could buy a heck of a stick house, on a heck of a lot with a beautiful view of mountains, rivers or whatever, for a lot less money! But, this IS California! After taking the tour of this beautiful, beautiful place, we decided it was just a bit too much for us in all kinds of ways! But it sure was fun to see how the other half lives, on an RV scale......