Palm Springs Thousand Trails

On September 16th we headed to Palm Desert to the Palm Springs Thousand Trails. It's funny that it is called Palm Springs since it is not actually there! Lol.

We are here for three weeks and our friends Scott and Terri will be coming here for a week. His birthday is the 26th and we are happy to be celebrating it with them! His daughter Krista, Son-in-law Eric and of course grandson Jordan also came for the weekend.

Here is our campsite. The park is actually still a working Date Farm, hence all the palm trees.

Palm Springs TT campground

Whenever we are here with the Blankenbillers, we always try to get to the Salton Sea. Google the Salton Sea if you do not know about it's history, it is VERY interesting. Talk about a DEAD sea!

Anyway, Scott had heard about the Ski Inn. It is supposed to have amazing burgers!

Ski Inn

It has been featured on the Anthony Bourdain TV show on the Travel Channel.

Anthony Bourdain at the Ski Inn

Because Scott really wanted to go here, and it was his birthday week, we went and got some burgers, and they really were good!

Burgers at Ski Inn

The cook came out and asked us how we liked them. We told them they were delicious. He said that was good, because he tries to make them more better then awful! LOL He was a real hoot!

After eating lunch Scott wanted to take a hike, keep in mind it was about 105-107* out. We went to the Sonny Bono Salton Sea Wildlife Refuge. The girls walked partway with us, but because of the heat decided to turn around. It was Scotts day, so I walked all the way. I figured he wouldn't leave me to die!!!!  At the end of the trail was a small mountain that we climbed up to get this view. To prove we made it I took this selfie!

Nice view

While we were in Palm Desert some other old time friends of ours came to the campground. Dave and Charlie Higby are fairly new Thousand Trails members. They are the ones we went to the Reagan Library with last year. Charlie told us about a couple touristy places they had gone to, so we went to check them out. We are glad she told us about them! Thanks Charlie!

This is Frank Sinatra's house in Palm Springs. We couldn't go in, but right about the same time we saw Huel Howser's show on PBS that did a tour of it. It really brought it to life to us.

Sinatra House

Just around the corner from the Sinatra house is an eccentric artist named Kenny Irwin Jr. It's a good thing his daddy is rich! He makes Robot Sculptures out of garbage and occasionally sells them out of Senior's back yard. It is nothing I would want, or want in my neighborhood, but it is worth seeing if you are in the Palm springs area!

Robot Sculptures

Well that's it for today,

See you all soon!

Love you,

Brian and Patty

Santa Barbara's Rancho Oso

We drove from Hollister to the Santa Barbara Rancho Oso Thousand Trails on September 2nd. We have been keeping an eye out on purchasing another motorcycle to replace the scooter we sold last April. We needed something mid-size, larger then a scooter but smaller then the 1800 cc Roadstar we used to ride. We decided on a Kawasaki Vulcan 900. We found a good deal on one in Lompoc, Ca on Craigslist while we were up in the state of Washington. The seller held it for two weeks until we could get down here to look at it. We liked it at bought it when we got to Santa Barbara.

2008 Vulcan 900

The picture above is on our site at Rancho Oso. We got Site #1 which is an end site on Terrace Level One. Easy to walk to the pool and Jacuzzi.

We met Crystal, Cynthia and of course Gracie at the Santa Barbara Zoo.

Santa Barbara Zoo

We spent the day and had a great time. Gracie loves checking out all the animals (including grandma and grandpa)!

Gracie enjoying the zoo

Here we are in the Aviary. 

Birds in the trees

We spent three weeks in Santa Barbara spending alot of time with Crystal, James and Gracie. We are now leaving to go to Palm Springs Thousand Trails. It is Scott Blankenbillers birthday coming up and they will be with us for a week to celebrate! 

That's it for today,

God Bless,

Brian and Patty

Russian River and San Benito Thousand Trails

After leaving Klamath River RV Park we headed to the Russian River Thousand Trails in Cloverdale, Ca.

Russian River

We were going to stay for 6 nights at Russian River. Patty's Sister Suzie drove in from Middletown to visit us. She was only going to stay for the day, but after not seeing us for such a long time decided to spend the night with us. It was great to see her and wonderful to see the sisters get goofy together!

The day after Suzie left we went to Bodega Bay which was made famous from the Alfred Hitchcock film "The Birds". It was an interesting place to visit, and some of the buildings still look the same.

Bodega Bay

We were not impressed with the campground and because there were no sewer hookups we decided to leave early after just 4 nights, We initially intended to go the Morgan Hill Thousand Trails, but it also did not have Sewer Hookups. It is also a fairly small park, and since Labor Day would have fallen during our stay we realized it would have been JAMMED tight! Instead we decided to go to San Benito Thousand Trails near Hollister and stay a whole week. We have been there before and know the area.

San Benito Thousand Trails

This is a huge park and although it was a holiday it was still only half filled. We were fortunate to get a corner spot with 50 amp power. Because of the drought in California there is very little grass here! We had a good time and this was a good layover spot with pool until we could get to Santa Barbara's Rancho Oso which is our next stop!

That's it for now,

God Bless you,

Brian and Patty