7/11/13 - San Diego, CA

It was sprinkling a little this morning and we needed to wash sheets and clothes so we stayed around camp this morning and took care of it.  Then we drove to the Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcala.  This is the first of many California missions and was founded in 1769.  After touring the mission we drove back into San Diego and took a tour of the U.S.S. Midway, an aircraft carrier decommissioned in 1991.  After going through the ship it was rush hour so we drove a few blocks over and had a beer at Karl Strauss Brewing.  We tried to go to another brewery but it was near Petco Park and there was a baseball game going on tonight.  The traffic was backing up near it and there was no street parking for us to go to the brewery so we just drove back to the Casita.  Just before getting there we stopped at an In-N-Out Burger and got some food for supper. 

 

 
 
 
 
 

7/12/13 - Vista, CA

We left San Diego this morning and drove north to Vista.  We got an RV site at the Elk’s Lodge campground.  After unhooking we drove to the main Stone Brewery in Escondido.  Then we went to Green Flash Brewing.  On the way back to the Casita we stopped at Port Brewing/Abbey Brewing.  Tomorrow they are having their "Christmas in July" to benefit Toys for Tots.  They will be unveiling their 2013 Santa’s Little Helper beer.  The bartender, Sean, gave us a bottle of the 2010 Santa’s Little Helper and we bought one of the 2013 bottles to share at our Foam Ranger/Houston area homebrewer’s Christmas party this year.  

 The Elks RV park is completely jammed with RVs.  They have dinner night tonight and a rally.  Tomorrow they have lunch open to the public and at night they have the hall booked for a quincenera.  We will have Sunday breakfast before leaving -- it sounds really good.

 

 

7/13/13 - Vista, CA

We slept until 8:00 and then got up and had breakfast and coffee.  We drove into Oceanside and went to Mission San Luis Rey.  This was the 18^th mission built in California and is known as the “King of the Missions”.  Then we drove down to the Oceanside beach - what a zoo!  They were having a beer festival there.  The rest of the day we visited breweries.  We went to Oceanside Ale Works, Breakwater Brewing, Indian Joe Brewing, Aztec Brewing, Iron Fist Brewing, Belching Beaver Brewing, Latitude 33 Brewing, Rip Current Brewing and Mother Earth Brewing.  That’s a total of 9!  Now, just so you don’t think we are total sots, we had a taster pour of one or two beers at each of these breweries.  They ranged from $1 to $2 per pour.

7/14/13 - Trabuco Canyon, CA

We had breakfast this morning at the Elk’s Lodge.  It was really good, especially since I didn’t have to cook it.  We hooked up and drove to San Juan Capistrano.  We visited the famed mission where the swallows fly back every year on March 19 from Argentina.  The mission’s chapel was destroyed by an earthquake a few years after it was completed and it was never rebuilt.   

We got an RV site in Trabuco Canyon, California at the O’Neill Regional Park.  This is the first time on this trip that we have boondocked.  Jim found a brewpub in Rancho Santa Margarita that was open until 5:00.  We got in the truck and went for a beer.  Cismontane Brewing makes a really good beer called Mesa.  It’s 75 percent pilsner and 25 percent Reisling.  We had a couple of their other beers and they were very good.   We chatted with the brewer, Evan.  When we got back to camp, Jim cooked Beef Burgundy in the Dutch Oven.

7/15/13 - Trabuco Canyon, CA

Jim took us to a geocache across the road from our camping site.  Then we drove into Yorba Linda to the Nixon Presidential Library.  This is also the site of his birthplace and the graves of him and his wife Pat.  We toured the library, house and helicopter from 10:00 to 3:00.  The house was built by Nixon's father in 1912 from a kit and is in its original location.  We saw the bedroom where Nixon was born.  The helicopter is the same one that Nixon used to leave the White House when he resigned.

 It was too late to visit any breweries on the way back because they didn’t open until 5:00 and we didn’t want to drive back in the dark through the hills.  We found a geocache across from the Nixon library called “Tricky Dick” -- it was down a manhole cover.  We stopped at a wine/beer store across from Cismontane Brewing and bought a bottle of Mesa to take back with us.  We also picked up a few bottles of beer from some of the breweries in the area we didn’t get to visit today.  We sat out at camp, drank a few of the beers and fired up the generator to be able to update the blog.  We will have Jim’s leftovers tonight with a salad.

7/16/13 - Simi Valley, CA

This morning when we left camp we drove right past the retirement community that Wayne’s mother lives in.  We drove through the middle of Los Angeles to East L.A. and visited San Gabriel Archangel Mission.  This one is called the "Queen of the Missions".  The next stop was Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana in Mission Hills.  This mission has a cemetery where Bob and Delores Hope are buried. 

We got an RV site in Semi Valley at Oak Park in the Ventura County park system, and tomorrow we will visit President Reagan’s library.  The park we got a site at is feet from the railway line for commuter trains.  The restrooms don’t have showers and it’s an extra $15 to use the dump station even if camping here.  The cost is already $31.00 per night.  Don’t stay here if you come this way!  It is very quiet though (when the trains aren’t coming by) because only three RV’s are camping here.  We are staying here because this is the closest camping spot to the Reagan Library.

7/17/13 - Lompoc, CA

The commuter trains stopped at 9 pm last night but one freight train came by around 11. The commuter trains were 4-5 cars long and went by quickly. The freight train was loud and sounded like it would come through the Casita.  I told Jim I hoped it didn’t derail!  The commuter trains started again this morning around 6 but they really didn’t bother us.

We drove a few miles down the road to the Reagan Presidential Library.  His grave is here also.  They had the Air Force One Boeing 707 that was used through several presidents' terms.  Reagan put the most miles on it so when it was decommissioned it was brought to his library.  Reagan's helicopter and presidential limo were also here.  There were a lot of people here partly because of the Lincoln exhibit.  This is a special exhibit of items from personal collections that were brought together for the Reagan Library.  This isn’t a traveling exhibit and will not be shown again when it’s over.  It has lots of really good Lincoln memorabilia, including the pillow that Lincoln’s head was on after he was shot.  There are still bloodstains. There was also an incredibly lifelike sculpture of Lincoln's head that was about ten times life size.  There were also sets from the Lincoln movie starring Daniel Day Lewis and Sally Field.

We left and headed out for our camping site.  On the way we stopped in Ventura and toured Mission San Buenaventura and then on to Mission Santa Barbara.   We didn’t have time to stop and try the beer in Santa Barbara.  We needed to get to our RV site in Lompoc.  It was 6 pm by the time we got here.  We are about 15 miles from Buellton and Solvang.  We have been to both of those cities before with Lorna, David, Kim and Steve.  We were at a restaurant here that was featured in the movie "sideways" where a man got my hair caught in his belt buckle and just about yanked it out and me off of my chair.