Alaska Bound: Cruising Through California

Since the beginning of our great big RV adventure, I thought Alaska would be our last state visited, if ever. But here we are, 37 states and 4+ years later, and we’re on our way!

We’ve just spent the last 5 weeks traveling through California. The time has flown by without too much to report, so just one blog post. I’ve resolved to be okay with not doing a whole lot on our way to Alaska. Just getting ourselves there (and back in the Fall) will be the adventure.

Back in early March, we returned to Sunbeam Lake RV Park in El Centro for a night. I forgot to mention before that El Centro is the winter home of the Blue Angels. That Saturday happened to be their annual airshow which was a very cool welcome back to the USA! I used the opportunity to practice using my new telephoto lens. The photo on the left was taken with my phone and the photos on the right were taken with my new lens and you can see so much more detail even though the planes were at a much higher altitude.

On Sunday we moved to Sweetwater Regional Park in San Diego for 2 weeks. We loved this campground with reasonably priced full hookup sites and a 20-minute drive to downtown. There were a lot of ants and snails but they thankfully never invaded our trailer.

We’ve been fortunate to visit San Diego multiple times in the past and have enjoyed La Jolla, Balboa Park, and Coronado Island. This time I flew to NC to see my parents for a few days.

When I returned we took an oceanfront walk along Sunset Cliffs Natural Park to see some SoCal coastline.

And went to the Farmers Market and had lunch in the Little Italy neighborhood.

Next, we moved to Rancho Jurupa Regional Park in Riverside for a week. This campground has a nice new section but we were in the not so nice old section.

Riverside has a gorgeous old hotel, the Mission Inn, in the city center and we enjoyed walking around one afternoon. We also visited a free photography museum at UC Riverside.

After work on Friday, we made the quick decision to run from a storm that threatened to bring snow to the mountains north of LA on I5. We ended up spending a rainy weekend at Paso Robles RV Ranch.

We returned to our regular schedule and spent the following week in Santa Cruz on our way to visit our friends in Montara. We squeezed into a parking spot under a very fragrant eucalyptus tree at the Santa Cruz Harbor RV Park and had the perfect urban camping experience.

We were within biking distance of everything. We were able to explore the beach, boardwalk, and wharf, and also take a longer bike ride along West Cliff Drive.

Our last stop in California was Half Moon Bay State Park, just 10 miles south of our friends’ home. We scored an oceanfront campsite and loved the water views and spectacular sunsets.

We had such a great week catching up, taking walks, and having dinners with Peter and Jake, including my birthday at HMB Brewing.

And this past weekend we made it to Oregon!