Feb 8th - Santa Cruz

Today we took a day trip along the coast down to Santa Cruz, around 200 miles total. We had a great day!

It was foggy in Oakland this morning but as we started crossing the Bay Bridge the fog lifted.

 It then got thicker. As we got closer to San Francisco the fog became more of a ground fog. I missed getting a photo of the SF high rises sticking up out of the fog.

 We stopped in Pacifica, CA and spent a over an hour walking around, along the beach. The photo after the next one is taken from near the top of the bluff in the background. There were warnings about the heavy surf. Waves were 13-16 feet high. It was awesome.

 More surf.

 We were parked back at the other end of this beach. I walked along the beach and then climbed this hill, it is a long ways down to the level of the beach. The view was great.

 We poked around looking for a place to have lunch in Half Moon Bay. We found Barbara's Fishtrap down next to the waterfront. This photo was taken out the window next to our table. The glass must have cause the blue tint. I had fish and chips and Kathy had a seafood platter. The food was GREAT!

 The outside of Barbara's Fishtrap.

 We stopped between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz and walked around some more. Check out the surf behind me.

This is the same spot. The rock outcropping behind me is separated from where I am standing. To far to step over but someone a little daring could probably just from one to the other. After Kathy walked out next to me we looked over at the far rock and there were at least 50 baby seagulls walking around on it. They walked down the far side to where we could no longer see them. It must be a rookery.

We drove though the downtown area of Santa Cruz but didn't stop to walk around. We took a different route back north and stopped along the coast in Santa Cruz. We spent over an hour walking up and down the sidewalk next to the coast, again. In one area there were 30-50 surfers out. Many were so far out that they just looked like dots until they got up on their boards to ride a wave.

We arrived back home a little after 6 PM. Drew got home a few minutes before us. Kathy warmed up some goulash for supper and he came over to eat with us, and visit for awhile.

Thank you God for a such a great day.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Feb 6th - Wall Washing

Weather was nice again today, we are enjoying it but some of you folks are probably tired of hearing about daily highs in the 60's and lows in the 40's. Rain is forecast for tonight and tomorrow. Tonight's low is supposed to be 51.

This morning we went to the IKEA that is a couple of miles from here. We had lunch at IKEA and then left and went to the Berkley Bowl, it is the grocery store that has a phenomenal amount of fresh fruit and vegetables.

When we got home I took a nice nap. Kathy took a short one and then washed windows on the "conservatory." I finished washing the last section on the front of the house.

I found out that we missed yesterdays (Sunday's) excitement. About five blocks from here there was a pitched gun battle around 3 PM. 7 people were hospitalized with gunshot wounds. None of the injuries were life threatening. The people shot were not cooperating with the police. These people must be terrible shots.

I'm guessing that in the 3 weeks that we have been here I have read about at least 6 people being killed. I don't know if the problem is gang or drug related, or maybe both. The area around here doesn't seem to be all that dangerous.

Goodnight and may God bless you and yours.

Feb 5th - Mo' Washing & Painting

Today we spent the day doing more house washing and painting, plus Drew mowed the lawn and I torched some weeds.

I'm almost finished with the house washing, maybe another half hour tomorrow. We got a lot of trim painted today, but still have a lot to go. It is good to see the progress.

The day was another nice day. The high was in the mid 60's again, and it was sunny again. Tomorrow nights low is supposed to be 51 degrees.

Not really much to pass along tonight.

Good night to all. May God bless you and yours.

Feb 3rd & 4th - Painting

Yesterday we went to the Farmers Market in Oakland in the AM and did more priming in the PM. Today we covered the RV with plastic again, repaired the plastic on the windows and doors of the house and Drew sprayed the back and side of the house. Kathy put the finish coats on the area around the front porch. The part of the front of the house under the gable end has not yet been washed or primed yet, nor has the side of the house that is on the lot line.

Tomorrow we start painting the trim. I'm not sure about when/if we attack that area with the gable roof. For one thing we don't have a ladder that is long enough to reach the peak. The aluminum extension ladder, which we lovingly call "the skinny man's ladder" is maxed out for us big boys just reaching the eaves.

It is 7 PM here I see Drew on his way over. We are all showered and ready to go out to eat. We are all pooped.

Good night. May God bless you and yours.

Feb 3rd AM - Botanical Garden Yesterday

Yesterday we went to the University of California Botanical Gardens in Berkeley.
http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu/
Drew wanted us to see what type of native plants they had for sale that would draw honey bees and/or butterflies. When we paid to park I put in a couple of dollars, for 2 hours, thinking we would be out by that time. It was a great place to walk around, worthy of a trip back when we can spend more time there. We went to the section where they sell plants and Kathy bought a couple of them. We put them in the car and then started walking around. There are pathways across the hillsides and you walk, and walk, and walk and..... There are so many interesting plants that the walk is enjoyable. I'm sure we didn't even see half of it when I checked my watch and saw that we only had 15 minutes before the time on the meter ran out.

The entrance from the parking lot.

 The great gardener getting ready for work.

 These daffodils were pretty even though they were pretty simple compared to a lot of the other things we saw.

 One of the views from inside. Right

 View from inside - Left - That is Kathy on down the path. You can see path winding up and down the hillside in the background.

 A view to the northwest. We could see one of the bridges from San Francisco crossing over behind the point of land.

It was a good day.

One low note was that when I was messing about in the back yard I noticed that the top section of Drew's new shoring post (he bought it for us to shore the deck while we changed out the bad posts) was missing. When he came over for supper I asked if he had taken it inside. He had not. Apparently someone came inside his fenced yard and stole just the top section and a shovel that was outside. He called it his "ghetto tax". It will cost him close to $100 to replace what was stolen, and probably sold for a couple of dollars for scrap.

I talked to Frank W. at Mt. Gilead Bible Camp in Sebastopol, CA last evening. They are excited about the prospect of us coming up there to volunteer. We need to make a day trip up there and check things out. It is only a little over an hours drive, in the car, from Drews.

Hope all of you have a great day. Have to go, we are headed off to the farmer's market.
May God bless you and yours.

Feb 2nd AM - Yesterdays Events

Not much exciting yesterday. The day was mostly sunny but seemed a little cooler, probably high 50's. Not that cool because when we went out to eat last night I wore a short sleeve shirt and we walked up and down several blocks of Emeryville. I was cool but not chilled.

I had ordered 8 replacement, 18" fluorescent tubes for the RV, less than $2/each, online. We ahve 6 - 2 bulb fixtures that use them. I replaced the 2 bulbs that had quit working and 4 more that had significant discoloration at one, or both, ends. Still have a couple for spares. Now I have to find a hazardous waste disposal place to get rid of the old bulbs.

I took final measurements on the RV slide out cover and placed an online inquiry for an estimate. I got the estimate back, $165, which seems reasonable. Camping World quoted me about the same price but I think the other place has a better material. I am waiting for a response to a clarification question I asked. I will place the order as soon I get the response.

I went up in Drew's attic and checked out the cause of the sag in an area of his roof. The front of the house is an addition that was added a LONG time ago. The lumber is rough sawn full section (a 2x4 is actually 2"x4") lumber. The original roof was a full hip roof. When the addition was installed the triangular roof section that made up the front of the roof was removed and the builders appear to have done a poor job of temporarily shoring the old construction prior to finishing the installation of the new. Also, the original rafters are 2x4's and a couple of them, in the same area, have quite a bow in them. I have some ideas about how to build a truss in place to stiffen the area. By doing some jacking while installing the truss members we should be able to get rid of some of the sag. Actually it is a little more complex because there are four places where some remedial work (jacking/stiffening) needs to be done. The truss will be the most complex. Also, while I said we, I doubt that I will be here to help do more than start the process. The jacking needs to be done over a period of time to allow the existing structure to "absorb" the movement. It probably would be a good idea to spread the work out evenly over at least an entire year, maybe two years.

We had another camp, Mt. Gilead Bible Camp, respond to my inquiries about coming to volunteer. http://www.mtgilead.org/   In reply to their interest I sent them some background check information they requested. I will call them today as a follow up. The camp is in Sebastopol, CA. It is about 70 miles north of Drews. The camp looks like it is located less than 10 miles from the ocean. We probably need to drive up there, meet the people and check out the camp. Drew said that there is a lot of interesting stuff in that area. They have some volunteers, RV'ers, working there now but they are leaving towards the end of Feb. That would fit well with our schedule.

Kathy did more cleaning and painting yesterday. She unrolled the "bamboo" shades in the conservatory and brushed them clean. She said that when she took a shower yesterday afternoon she leaned against the shower stall and dirt that rinsed off her ran down the side of the stall.

We picked Drew up when he got off the bus last night, his bus stop is about 4 blocks from his house, and went to the Elephant Bar for supper. It was an interesting, somewhat upscale, place. The menu offered a wide variety. I ordered a blackened tuna item and was disappointed because it was so bland. No one in the north seems to know how to make blackened fish. It is supposed to be Cajun and spicy hot. It wasn't bad, just not what I expected. The "noodles" in Kathy's dish were overcooked, but she managed to eat all of it. After diner we strolled around the area. When we got back home we had already "buttoned up" for the night when we had a knock on the door. Drew came over and wanted to go through some photo files, of old slides we had taken when the boys were young, to get an idea of when and where they were taken. It was an enjoyable evening.

Today we going to the San Francisco Botanical Garden. It should be a marvelous day to walk around and enjoy the beauty of God's creation. It is sunny and the high is supposed to be 65.

Have a great day and may God bless you and yours.

Jan 31st - End of the Month

It is hard to believe that this is the last day of January.

Today Kathy did some scraping and wall washing on the inside wall of the "conservatory." I looked at the slide topper on the RV in more detail and am now reasonably sure that I/we can change the deteriorated fabric. Now I need to see if I can find a better price for the fabric than the one I got from Camping World.

There is a sagging place in Drew's roof. We previously took a quick look in the attic and could see where some modifications had been made. Today I did some measuring to locate walls and tomorrow I plan on going into the attic again to get some ideas on how we can jack the sag out of the roof and then reinforce it.

This morning I talked to a couple of guys from Camp Alta, in Alta, CA; about the possibility of us volunteering there after we leave Drews. They currently don't have any full hook-ups for RV's, although they have water and electricity. They invited us to come up and spend the night there to see if we thought we might have a fit with them. The elevation of the camp is about 4,000'. During our discussions they told me that they haven't had a lot of snow this year but last March they had over 4' of snow TWICE! Their average annual snowfall is over 20 FEET! The low temperatures aren't that bad but they sure get a LOT of snow.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.