March finds us in the Sacramento area. We've decided to keep the spot we have as a 'home base' for now. The rent is low, the neighbors are nice and it's convenient to the shop. We did manage a PolyMenders work trip to the Salinas/Monterey area at the end of January. Our home for the week at nearby
Betabel RV Park in San Juan Bautista was a nice change of scenery.
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| Raven enjoys the sunny weather too :-) |
Although we spent the majority of our time working, we did take a sunny day off to visit nearby
Gizdich Ranch (famous for their fresh pies) and the beach in nearby Watsonville.
The grounds are quite extensive. They have an antique shop, an apple press room, gardens, picnic area, orchards (of course) and the pie shop. During our visit most of the buildings were closed. I imagine on a busier day the parking lot would be bursting with cars and visitors. One benefit to picking a not-so-busy day is that we had the place nearly to ourselves.
So many freshly baked pies to choose from! I decided on a slice of Apple/Strawberry. It was a perfect slice of heaven. What a tasty lunch :-)) Ron's slice of Apple/Olallieberry was equally enjoyed.
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| Rene's slice, not a crumb was left on my plate |
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| Rufus enjoyed his treat too :-) |
After our lunch of pie we took a quick stroll around the grounds.
Had to work off a few calories... LOL
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| cute photo op |
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| Rufus professes his love of apples! |
But, the beach beckons. Nearby Watsonville boasts plenty of shoreline and luckily Manresa State Beach is dog friendly. Perfect. Off we go!
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| zoomies on the beach |
Rufus loves the sandy beaches just as much as we do. He likes to chase the waves and they nearly got him a few times...
The sunset would be in another 30 or so minutes. We decided to take a long walk along the shoreline and wait for the moment when the sun dropped down behind the horizon. Ron was busy with his camera so I thought I would take a few selfies.
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| such a goofy picture... |
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| a little better... |
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| third time's the charm :-) |
The sunset was definitely worth the wait. I especially love the one I got with my phone just as a couple of surfers made their way across the beach.
So here's what we have coming up at the end of this month:
One style of camping has always intrigued us and that's boondocking (
camping out in the boonies without hookups). We see our friends enjoying it and we feel that it would suit us too. We just need to get some experience. What better way to get that experience than to join others in the desert outside of Quartzsite, Arizona for a week?
We're signed up to attend a boondocking rally later this month. We're really excited as we've never tried boondocking yet. Right now I'm in 'research mode' making sure we will last the entire seven days off-grid. I'm reading posts about tips and tricks from bloggers who have done this before. We don't need to re-invent the wheel! We already know our black tank lasts 7 or 8 days. Our bathroom grey tank lasts for four showers so we'll have to deal with either less showers or quicker showers. Our galley grey tank lasts for about a week so we've already agreed to use paper plates. I still want to fill our 60 gallon fresh water tank and see how long it will last before we take off in a couple of weeks. We'll likely bring a few gallon bottles fresh water with us for drinking and cooking.
As far as power goes, we have a noisy generator that we use for work. Ron has researched quieter generators that would work for both the rig and for our onsite repair work. We'd then sell our noisy big one. Eventually we plan to get some solar panels and all that goes along with it. The rally will be a good place to learn about solar options and workings.
The boondocking rally is being organized and taught by Howard and Linda of
RV-Dreams.com. With a limited number of rigs allowed, it should be a good learning experience for us. We'll have plenty of new friends pretty soon who also enjoy the freedom that comes with bookdocking! Jodee and Bill did the same rally last year and they recommended it. You can read Jodee's blog post
here.
Hopefully by the end of the month we'll have the knowledge and courage to get out to those fabulous boondocking spots we see on our friends Facebook posts!
So what Pearls Of Wisdom do you have to share about boondocking? Be sure to leave a comment below :-)
As always, the photos can be viewed larger by simply left-clicking on them.
