2001 was our year to spend Christmas with relatives and friends in northern California. That we did. Then instead of heading south as we normally would we sadly watched the snowbirds... in the sky and on the road... head to warmer climates without us. Fran got tangled up in the medical system... and they always want to run 'just one more test'. Then Steve got involved in his technically-challenged families effort to sell his uncle?s guitar on eBay.

The guitar was at Steve's mom's in Yuba City and his uncle was in Oregon somewhere so it took some co-ordinating. The 1962 or '63 Fender went for seven grand! To someone back east in Ohio!! Boggles our minds.

Steve got the guitar packaged and ready to mail, took it to his brother Glenn's and as soon as the auction was over and the check got to Rhett we finally (January 18) hit the road. Woo Hoo!!!

Down the 5 to Santa Nella... yes, Pea Soup Anderson's stomping ground. One of my favorite stretches of I-5 is between where the 5 junctions with 580 and heads south with the canal on one side on the valley floor and the rolling velvet green (winter and spring) hills on the west side. The view out over the San Joaquin Valley is incredible. On a clear day you can see forever. You can overlook the whole town of Patterson... maybe I mean look-over because you can?t miss it. On down Newman and Gustine way the hills are covered with tree crops, mostly citrus.

We get off the 5 at Highway 33 and follow it until it intersects Highway 152. Just a couple blocks south east of that intersection is San Luis R.V. Resort. If you have ever met someone and felt as though you knew them all your life, that is the way Jo and John Martindale effected us when we met them last fall. We stayed there a week or so enjoying their Animal Town,visiting with them and tweaking their website which we had built while in Yuba City and were 'connected' to the internet. Days were pleasant and nights were cold there but at least we didn't have SNOW! like Yuba City did.

A side trip while staying at San Luis RV Resort took us out to the San Joaquin National Cemetery. It is a beautiful place in those rolling velvet hills symbolically at the end of the road (McCabe Road, that is). We'll put up a story about that and all we learned there soon.

While at San Luis park we got to meet a brand new fuzzy, black baby llama. Too cute. Triplett baby goats were born in December and were fun to watch as they tormented their mom in a private pen. One of them insisted on jumping on to her back and standing there to get a better view of the world. I guess my favorites are the miniature donkeys. There are five of them... Pancho, Chia, Stickers, Lily and Dolly. You can see more about them and all the other inhabitants of Animal Town on the website... SanLuisRV.com

Back on highway 152 as it beelines through Los Banos and on to the 99 just below Chowchilla. Then we headed down 99 to Kingsburg and our 'home' park Royal Oak Resort. Actually it should be Royal S. Oak ... because Serenity is it's middle name.

We parked our house in our favorite space, #50, between a permanent mobilehome (oxymoron?) and a day use section that is unused in the winter. With the mobile blocking view of anything on that side and no one staying in the park further out than us we actually went two whole days without seeing a human being other than our reflections in the glasslike river. I guess this place is total action in the summer months but it's a great place to zero out anxiety in the winter. The one BIG, GIANT drawback is that it is technically challenged... no thought of making it email friendly is in the works.