The End of December 2011

We returned to New York City on December 23 with the weekend to enjoy the lights and festive feeling of the city.

The best gift we gave ourselves was to attend the Christmas spectacular at Radio City Music Hall with the Rockettes.  It was fantastic and one of the most amazing performances we've seen!

Christmas in New York means:

The Rockefeller Square Ice Rink

Central Park on Christmas Day

Decorated stores (Tommy Hillfinger far right)

The bright lights of Times Square

 The Salvation Army music on 5th Avenue. Any donation was given a CD by the band playing.

Even a NYC Policeman on horseback

and PK enjoying a very rich and tasty hot chocolate at the Christmas Market in Bryant Park

From NYC we flew west to visit my brother, Kurt and his family, in Boulder, CO...just in time for niece Neeve's 20th birthday on December 26.

Home at last on the 30th of December to attend the wonderful 80th birthday party for our dear friend, Nelda Krylach, held at the Madonna Inn.  Such a fun evening!

We stayed on for the next few days at Jim and Carolyn Park's little RV spot. While there, we posted our sweet T@B trailer on Craig's List and we SOLD IT!!! Of course that meant more sorting and repacking and sifting to do!

So sad to see our little 'Barbie Trailer' leave...so many wonderful memories

But we saved time for sunsets, hikes, talks, and enjoying our favorite part of the world.  Warm days and chilly nights, a very mild winter on the coast.

January 7 we took off for San Diego and the start of a month long stay at Santee Lakes and Campground.

Our first time to stay a month in one place...

DECEMBER , PART 2 December 15-23 2011

I guess my New Year's Resolution has got to be....post this blog on a regular basis once again!!!  Im really going to try now that we are back on the road full time. December was a wonderful, though our traditonal Christmas had changed totally for us this year... no house for setting up and decorating a tree or planning dinner parties, no yard for hanging Paul's cute candy cane lights and our new life living in our little motor home meant we wanted to do something new and different. A river boat cruise to visit the Christmas Markets

along the Danube River in Germany sounded just right!  We sailed from Nuremberg, Germany to Vienna, Austria for 9 days with Grand Circle River Cruise on the River Adagio.







 Surprisingly we had no rain and no snow! Cold...yes. And such fun!

We started with the grandest of all German markets in Nuremberg. Bundled up, we wandered and listened to Christmas music performed by local groups

and drank the local Christmas beverage Gluhwien,

a tasty mulled wine sold throughout the market area.
One thing we really liked was that everything we ordered, both food and drink, was served in real dishes/cups with real silverware.  Nothing plastic and disposable. To make it work, we would pay a small deposit, 2 Euro or so as a deposit, drink or eat our treat then return the dish and receive the deposit back.  Novel idea...no trash!




 Snacked on sausages (and sauerkraut for me)

and wandered among all the Christmas  booths.

Nuremburg is known also for its wonderful gingerbread cookies... a mix of a carrot cake turned cookie, scrumptious!

We also visited the Castle at the top of the hill for a wonderful view of the city.

and even saw the remains of Hitler's Rally Grounds outside the city where he had planned to speak and display his military might, built in a similar design to the Coliseum.

Cathedrals and beautiful Germany buildings everywhere.

One of my favorite finds was the 16th century home of German artist Albrecht Durer. Though the city of Nurnmburg had been totally destroyed in WWII this house remained unscathed. We were lucky to find an English speaking docent leading a tour in the character of the artist's wife.









When traveling a river there are many locks to pass through.  The tallest of these was 82' tall so we went outside to watch. Amazing to think there was a wall of water on the other side of the cement wall.We passed through 21 locks along the river. Guess that's about the only part of the river travel that's hard for me...seeing a concrete wall within a foot of the window, I never get used to it.

2 days later we visited Regensburg, Germany. Another walled city with beautiful architecture and seerval Christmas markets.

Passau was our next stop where we encountered this Guard at one of the gates to the city.

One morning was spent just cruising along a very picturesque part  of the river with castles along the hillsides.  Freezing cold outside, but didn't want to miss anything!

Our last evening was spent in Viennna where we attended a wonderful concert with the music of Strauss and Mozart.  A 13 piece orchestra played while 2 opera singers and 2 ballet dancers performed various pieces.

 We left early Dec. 23rd for our flight back to New York...but that's a story for next time!

DECEMBER 2011, Part One: 2 weeks in SLO

This blog goes back a a bit to Thanksgiving holidays and then on to our stay in San Luis in early December.  So...starting with Thanksgiving, we were camping north of Phoenix in a wonderful county park surrounded by nothing but desert and all with in about a 25 min drive to our niece Mandy's home. After our first week there, PK was ready to tackle a with a little home improvement project while we were there...he's always in demand no matter where we land. Even Wesley helped out on a painting project.

Mandy was out of school on Wednesday before Thanksgiving so she and I had a fun afternoon picking out a "Costco-made" dinner, including a deep fried turkey, pumpkin pie and cheesecake. On Thursday, Alena made her famous garlic potatoes, Peggy made the cranberry salsa and we were set!

Thanksgiving dinner's never been easier!
















Then On Friday, Mandy and Logan headed to Sedona to celebrate their first anniversary,

We spent Friday evening with Paul's sister, MarLyn, and her family. Yummy dinner at her favorite Chinese restaurant then back to their condo to make fudge, a fun family tradition. Saturday morning we were up early to pack things up and head west!

It always takes longer to put everything away than to unload but we were on the road about 11:00 hoping to be into California by evening. Made it to Indio and a great Elks RV Park just about sunset, time for wine and dinner outside on the warm evening. As always only a few campers and very quiet. It must get busy there at some point as there were 45 camping spots available. We chose a pull through since we wanted to leave about 6 in the morning to get across LA before traffic got too bad. That turned out to be the easiest and best "Sunday after Thanksgiving" travel we've ever done... We sailed through it all!

By noon we were pulling into a camping site right along  Rincon Beach, with a most fantastic, perfect ocean view!

Opening the door of the motorhome and getting our first whiff of the sea breeze let me know we were almost home! I never realized how much I had missed the feel of being at the beach. Sunset was gorgeous and after dinner we even had a small campfire. Nothing finer!!!!!

It was hard to believe we had been traveling for 4 months and were closing the loop we'd started back in August. I had been wanting to try driving the motorhome with the car attached and being back on familiar roads was the perfect place to give it a go. I took over for the last 45 miles from Buellton to AG and did well... Especially once I realized that I needed to give it my fullest attention and avoid looking at the absolutely gorgeous vineyards all around us, not an easy task. The color of the vineyards was stunning!

We pulled into Debbie Farmer's side yard about dusk and felt like we were truly back home. Familiar surroundings, wonderful friends.

The next 10 days flew by, spending lots of time with friends as well as getting all our doctor and dentist appointments taken care of. Lunches out, dinners at friends' homes, laughing, talking, and more talking, more laughing...just what I was hoping for in coming back to SLO. We went to the Cal Poly Jazz Concert, saw SLO Little Theater's production of The Christmas Story, sold the old yellow dolly (the one WITHOUT brakes) and Paul spent a day condensing our storage units from 2 down to only one.

We even took a trip north to Pacific Grove for an overnight visit with Frank and Maria and more time for sunsets and beach walks. Sunset at Asilomar Beach came with surfers, bongos, wine and a full moon!

After sunset we drove along Candy Cane lane in PG and found the cutest blow up decoration EVER....a little airstream motorhome with Santa at the door, opening and closing it. Sooooo cute!

Once back from Pacific Grove we moved to Jim and Carolyn Park's Orange Grover RV Park and I decorated our little house, setting Santa on the counter! (Thank you, Maria!)

Jean and Andrew Martin from Whitstable, England

We had a lovely visit with our English friends, Jean and Andrew Martin who were also staying with Jim and Carolyn. What fun to be all together! We had a wonderful hike along the bluffs on the Fiscallini Trail in Cambria on my last day in SLO. A beautiful part of the county I'd never walked before

The Martins, Peter and Linda Jankay and me! 

and an absolutely gorgeous day; warm, clear and sunny. There were great benches along the way made of driftwood scraps. We all had fun trying them out.

Carolyn joined us on the driftwood bench

Friday evening Jean and Andrew and Paul took in the Cuesta Jazz Concert while I went to dinner with friends. A perfect ending to our 2 weeks back home. A huge THANK YOU to our many wonderful friends who hosted dinners while we were home...the Wills, Caldwells, Parks, Penners, and Owens'. We loved it! ALSO: thank you to the Jankays, Feslers and Afanas for including Paul at dinners for the four days I was gone.

I left Saturday, December 10th, for a fantastic 4 day visit with my sister, Emily in Tampa, Florida. She's an expert at planning outings so we were busy having fun the whole time I was there.  Saturday evening started with a sunset time at a Tiki Bar.

Sunday we headed to Tampa to visit the Tampa Museum of Art followed by lunch at a wonderful Cuban restaurant, The Colombian.  Such delicious tapas and white sangria. A perfect afternoon.

Monday was our big day out in St. Petersburg and a visit to the newly opened Dali Museum.

 It was such an amazing visit! We joined a docent tour which gave us the background on Salvador Dali and his work.  Emmy wanted to show me St. Petersburg so we jumped on the trolley and had a tour of the town, very fun!

Another museum we stopped at was the Art Glass Museum of Dale Chihuly with this glass sculpture out front

After 2 busy days of museums, Emmy and I decided to just spend some time at one of her favorite places...Honeymoon Beach. Absolutely gorgeous! 

We ended the day with drinks and a beautiful sunset right along the bay then home for another tasty dinner.

 My last day was Wednesday and since I wasn't going to be there for Emily's birthday the following day, we celebrated with a birthday lunch together

 then she dropped me at the airport for my next flight to New York City.  Earlier that morning Paul had left San Luis and we were meeting up at JFK Airport about midnight to begin a 2 week Christmas Holiday in Germany. We are ever so grateful to Laura and Eli Afana for welcoming Foster to their home for the time we are away from California.  What a wonderful Christmas gift for us, knowing he'll be well loved and cared for while we are gone.