Sports on the road...

Did you ever play golf behind a group of men swilling beer on their second round of 18 holes?  We did and I can tell you the more beer they consume the slower and slower they get; and take forever on the greens, as they decide which hole to aim for and finding it harder and harder to get that ball into that tiny moving hole. Being stone cold sober, we both had a refresher course in patience playing behind them; and they did not have the wit or courtesy to call us through!

We have now been in Palm Springs since March 10^th and will be here until the 31^st – our nephew Luke from Vancouver, B.C. just arrived today for a week’s visit – he was scheduled to go to Japan on a school trip, which understandably had to be canceled.  I have played tennis at the local publics courts - it costs $$.  First day I was partnered with a lady who had a hip replacement not too long ago and was recovering from a sore on her leg.  A very nice lady but she did/could not move she could hit the ball if it came her way.

Did I tell you she was over 80?  I was so frustrated…  The next day I had a much better partner and a good match.

But…on Thursday last we had a great experience; we were able to get tickets to the BNP Paribas Open in nearby Indian Wells and saw the ultimate winner Djokovic beat Troicki; Gasquet beat Roddick; Nadal beat Devvarman and Federer beat Harrison – an amazing treat. Note the name Ryan Harrison who played Roger Federer – an 18 year old wildcard phenom who has a great future!

All the RV parks now have heated swimming pools so I can swim every day. Some pools are longer than others so I can get a good work out.  In Palm Springs the water is nice and cool but up to now the water was warmer than the air.

I do half an hour of Yoga most mornings, I try to find a nice spot with a view but sometimes that is not possible so I just roll out the mat outside the door.

We can walk into Palm Springs from here; so we are back to our nightly walks which we have missed as we usually are not in a spot where we can go wandering off in the dark, we also do plenty of walking or biking during the day.

Golf, we did say we would play golf at least once in every State; so far we have achieved our goal.   Three States almost completed with many rounds of golf; we’re guessing that going down the East coast will present a bigger challenge.

Tom promised that he would start yoga when we got on the road - so far he has bought a book with a demo CD he read the first Chapter and I have not seen the book since. However, he does get plenty of exercise walking, biking, swimming and weight lifting when we are moving, getting the dolly hitched on the back of the RV and strapping the car onto the dolly.

San Diego and Balboa photos

1. Bluebug and me on the ferry

2. Tom on the Beach at Balboa

3. Leslie and Barbara

4. Debbie & Mike came to lunch

5. On board "Midway" aircraft carrier

6. Tom inside a troop helicopter

San Diego experience

We moved on from Malibu to Anaheim not to visit Disney World but to get nearer to San Diego as we usually travel 100 miles or under when we move.

You wondered why we are taking so long to get out of California.  We are the tortoise not the hare. On our first night there was a magnificent fireworks display from across the road in Disneyland.  It lasted half an hour.  It was President’s Day. 

We took a trip to Balboa Island, (it is near Newport Beach).  What a beautiful little resort this is.  The houses look tiny and cute, they are painted beautifully, some have a theme, like boating or sailing, Irish or Dutch and on the perimeter of the island the houses have their own gated marinas. Prices range in the multi-million dollars.  We took the car ferry to Balboa Beach where we had a picnic on the beach or as I used to say to my children “let’s have sand sandwiches”.

We arrived in San Diego and pulled into a RV Park called “Camp Land” right on Mission Bay.  There are activities organized every morning, yoga, water aerobics, tennis, aerobics. Needless to say I tried them all...

We were not too far from my friends Barbara and Debbie. The weather was beautiful when we arrived but the forecast was for rain. We had Dinner at Barbara’s on our first night; it was great to see her. Barbara had invited Leslie and her boyfriend Dieter also, I had met both before and they had visited us in Los Gatos.

The weather got cold and wet our first week end - all of San Diego’s February rainfall fell in 48 hours – and, we had lots of puddles. The second night Leslie had us to her fabulous new home for dinner. Lucky us!

Throughout our stay we had a male and female duck literally camped right outside our door. They had no fear of humans they just quacked and sat by the door, demanding to be fed.    

Debbie and Mike came to lunch in our RV and that was a wet day (they brought lunch) and also treated us to dinner at Il Fornio on Coronado Island looking back at San Diego, what a lovely setting? We watched the lights go on in downtown San Diego which was pretty.

We also hiked in Torrey Pines State Park with Debbie and Mike - a truly amazing place to hike – spectacular. Afterwards we dined at Chef Debbie’s; where we enjoyed the best Lamb roast, ever!! 

I got to play tennis with Barbara’s group twice, most of whom I know from previous visits.  Some very strong characters and I don’t mean tennis. Barbara was our chauffer to quite a few of the scenic sights of SD. We saw the yachts that compete in the “Americas Cup” race on the Bay.  That was really exciting, we enjoyed it so much we went back a second day.

Visiting the “Midway” aircraft carrier turned out to be a real surprise. Once again it was much better than we had expected.  It is like a city on a ship. We visited the Bridge first that took half an hour. We spent 2 hours on board and we needed longer. Thanks to Barbara we went to the Zoo on two passes.  That is the best Zoo in the World.  The animals are so well looked after, the landscaping is beautiful and they have Panda bears and Koala bears.

We had several dinner parties at Barbara’s and each time I met friends form previous visits. The weather improved as the week wore on so we decided to stay longer as we were enjoying ourselves so much.