Yosemite National Park

Yosemite is a place we wish every person could see.  The first time you see it you know you'll never forget the feeling.  You may not want to leave it.  We didn't.


The story about driving through the tunnel to get your first view of  "The Valley" is so true.  You stop breathing.  It's a good thing they put in a small parking lot there so you can recover and get out of the car for a better look. 

Next time we go back, we plan on staying in the park.  It was a long drive from where our RV park was to get to the park.  We plan on staying at the Lodge and spending at least 3 days.  Maybe in a year or two.
GO. You won't regret it.  Park page: http://www.nps.gov/yose/index.htm

Want to see more?  Click the link, select slideshow and hit F-11 to enlarge the screen. 
https://picasaweb.google.com/103645060086585742201/Yosemite2012?authkey=Gv1sRgCNGu7fDsu8CL2QE#

Little Alex

As most of you know we just became Grandparents.  Thrilled Grandparents.   Little Alex is doing great now according to his parents and assorted doctors.  He came early, about 6 weeks early and was just under 4 pounds.  He had a rough few weeks in NICU, but he's home now and gaining weight like crazy.

Here's a few pictures of him.  We need to get some pictures of him with his mother.  We will work on that.  Chris is going to visit him in a couple of weeks down in Bogota, while Big Alex stays home with Pilot, but will go to visit his grandson at a later date.  Here's Bill Torrance with his son, Alex.

https://picasaweb.google.com/103645060086585742201/LittleAlex02?authkey=Gv1sRgCMzVnZzOwsanjwE#

Temecula and Seal Beach

We spent April in Southern California.  After leaving March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, CA, our first stop was in Temecula at an Escapee park, Jojoba Hills.  The park is about 15 miles outside of Temecula nestled in the rocky hills.  Close to the wineries where we had a nice time tasting the vino and a wonderful lunch in the area.  We like the Temecula area.

Jojoba Hills is a park that we are considering leasing a lot in the future.  Once we are ready to settle down for a good part of the year, this may be the place.  It's a beautiful area and the people who lease in the park  are a great group.  There's a wonderful club house with a pool, tennis court and many activities to keep a person very busy. 
Here is a picture of our view from our site at Jojoba Hills.  Very nice place to sit and rest for awhile.





After two weeks in Temecula we were off to the beach.  Seal Beach is in Orange County right on the line with Los Angeles County.  To get there you have to travel though some of the worse traffic in the world, so we left Temecula very early on a Sunday morning.  We made it to The Naval Weapons Station at Seal Beach safely.  Now this is a very interesting place.  It's right in the middle of Huntington Beach and Seal Beach.  In the middle of the base is a National Wildlife Refuge.  The base is used to resupply Naval ships with "supplies".   We were not allowed to take any pictures on base, but the famcamp there is a wonderful place.  Very nice, large sites with concrete pads.  There's a tennis court so Alex and I were able to practice our new form of exercise, Pickle Ball.  No! not what you are thinking!!!!   You'll have to google it.  One Saturday morning the National Refuge on base held an open house.  The folks from town had to go through security to get on base, but Alex and I were able to walk to the Refuge and meet everyone there.  They gave us a nice tour of the wet lands on base.  Here's some info on the Refuge:  http://www.cnic.navy.mil/SealBeach/OperationsAndManagement/EnvironmentalSupport/NationalWildlifeRefuge/index.htm

While we were at Seal Beach we did leave very early on a Sunday morning to drive up to LA to see some of the sites.  We had to stop in TORRANCE, CA for breakfast, just to check out the town.  We liked it.  A little larger than Seal Beach, but not bad.  Once in LA we drove toward Hollywood Blvd.  Saw Grauman's Chinese Theatre, but we didn't get out to see the stars on the walkway, as we could not find a place to park.  But, it was fine just driving down the street to see it and the assortment of  interesting humanity there.  We did end up, by accident, in Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive.   The parts of LA that we saw were not as scary as we imagined.  Most of it was very nice.  I suppose we just didn't get to the bad parts, but overall we were pleasantly surprised


We love Seal Beach.  It's a very small, neat and tidy little place.  It has a wonderful pier and a Main Street with nice local type shops and restaurants.  We could walk to the beach, pier and shops.  We will be going back there.  We got some nice shots of the Seal Beach. The pictures of the houses are for June Torrance.  She would love it there.

Click the link below, select slideshow and hit F-11 to enlarge the screen. 

https://picasaweb.google.com/103645060086585742201/SealBeach?authkey=Gv1sRgCNeS3b3pmbK1dw#