Southern
California
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We made it to the West Coast
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These windmills always fascinate
us
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Fields and fields of windmills
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Our winter home
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Our space
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Our view out our front door
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Views of the park
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Temecula Valley Wine Country
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Fields of vines
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Purple and
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White grapes
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View down on way to San Juan
Capistrano over mountains
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San Juan Capistrano (Note)
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Dana Point Beach
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"Bunny" waves
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Bluejay taking peanut from Lois'
hand
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1st Fire Bomber run (Note)
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2nd Fire Bomber run
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3rd Fire Bomber run
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Helicopter getting water from
the lake
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Some of the local fire damage
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This is why we were hooked up
and ready to go
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Just 4 miles from our location
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Lois, Warren, Viesca, Linda
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Plus Fred--Warren and Viesca
were long-time friends of Mother and Dad
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Our first skiing adventure in
California-Mountain High
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Ski expert Fred
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Lois and snowboarder trying to
stay out of her way
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Fred being cute with the camera
after I fell down
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Land formations as we left ski
area
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Br-r-r-November 23, 2003
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Day trip to Idyllwild in the
mountains
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Idyllwild totem
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Totem, Anita, Lois
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Gene, Fred
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Lake Fulmor
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Tahquitz Rock
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Tahquitz Rock Closer
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Fall Color
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Thanksgiving
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Our day at the zoo
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6 month old Arctic Wolf
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Clouded leopard
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Red-flanked Lorikeet
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"The Thinker"
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Who is looking at Who??
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Shy koala
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Nelson
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4-year-old panda
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The 4-month-old baby panda was
not out for public viewing yet
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Anthony's Riverboat Restaurant-Newport
Beach-Boat Parade
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Christmas with Linda
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In our home
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After Fred's Christmas concert
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Disneyland Concert
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Valley Winds Community Band
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Fred is to the right of the tuba
on back row
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Our final ski day at Mountain
High-Feb. 23
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Our Birch Aquarium trip
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The Tucalota Springs Camp Hosts
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We arrived in California on September 3 in time for sister, Linda, to stay with us for two days. When she sold her house in El Cajon, inspectors found termites; therefore, her house had to tented and fumigated. As friend Ron says, she slept on our dining room table! We've enjoyed time with Linda -- gambling, packing, transport for surgery, gambling, movie, sightseeing, packing and more packing. Sister Linda is moving to Santa Fe, NM (not to get away from us, so she says). She will be around until the end of the year, so we can get in some more sightseeing, gambling and movies!
We are getting into the swing of the casino life! Presently, we are ahead of the game but, you know, that changes each time we go!!
We took a day trip to
San Juan Capistrano recently. We went over mountains to get there - narrow and
winding - and appreciated the historical significance of San Juan. San Juan
Capistrano was established in 1776, the year of our Independence. It was founded
by Padre Junipero Serro, who then went on to found 9 of the 21 missionaries
in California. The Great Stone Church part was destroyed in 1812 by an earthquake
and has not ever been rebuilt. Currently there is a special project to install
a steel framework into the top of the dome portion of the missionary to make
it quake resistant. There is still one Chapel in the structure that is used
for worship services; it was built in 1778 and the altar area has been re-gilded
with gold about every 200 years. The mission is also home to the "swallows
of Capistrano", the little birds that migrate each winter into Argentina.
The always leave on October 23 and return on around March 19, St. Joseph's Day
on the Catholic church calendar. Another interesting fact is that in 1818 a
pirate from Argentina raided the mission and took all the wine; the same country
where the 'swallow' migrate to. The missions in California were actually built
to prevent the Russians from establishing more settlements. The Russians had
already started an establishment just north of present day San Fransico. The
Spanish learned of that and sent Padre Serro to start establishing missions,
each with a contingent of soldiers to keep the Russians out. The Russians actually
stayed until about 1840 when the had decimated the seal and otter population,
so they left and went back to Russia. The Spanish missions became a major factor
in the architecture of California as it developed as a state.
We went to Dana Point Beach and watched the surfers. It was about 3:30pm and
it was interesting to watch the kids come to the beach after school; a car would
drive up and kids would get out, take their boards off the top and head for
the beach. Lois said, "I guess kids here ask for surfboards for Christmas."
The waves weren't too great the day we were there--kind of like the bunny ski
slopes we are used to! On the way back, we came through countryside filled with
tomato plants--rows and rows, miles and miles of plants!
Fire in California
We had been seeing the fire damage on TV, but it was far from us, either up
in San Bernardino or down around San Diego. The northern fire is suspected to
have been started by an arsonist. The fire down by San Diego was set accidentally
by a lost hunter that shot up a flare to attract attention. The end result in
either area was a wildfire that was burning everything in its path. The terrain
is rugged and the main fire fight is done with fire bombers dropping water and
fire retardant into the areas. The firemen also try to build fire breaks with
huge bulldozers to move fuel away from the fire's path.
We came home from church about 11:30 and within 30 minutes, you could see a large plume of smoke to the west of the campground. Very quickly the fire began to spread all across the horizon. Within 30 minutes there were fire bombers dropping liquids on the building fires. We watched cautiously and began to make plans to leave the area. You could not get any information about the path of the fire; it was smaller than the other fires and all the press coverage was talking about the big fires. One of the roads out of the area was quickly closed and the highway patrol there told us that we would probably not have a problem where we were. Just to make sure, we went to bed on Sunday evening with the truck connected to the trailer so we could leave in very short notice. We finally went to sleep with an eerie glow access the mountain ridge west of the park. The second day, the bombers continued to drop on the fire and slowly the area of the fire was contained. It continued to burn to the west, farther away from us, but the smoke still looked close. The fire burned several thousand acres, destroyed 3-4 homes, but luckily, there were no deaths and no lose of horses on the many ranches.
As I write this, the fires in the other areas
continue to burn and only God knows when they will end; 20 deaths, several thousand
homes lost and close to 1,000,000 acres burned.
Our trip to the zoo was a great day, beautiful sunshine and very plesant temperatures.
The special treat was an animal show featuring two sea
lions. The larger one, weighing 600 lbs., featured in the pictures was first
resecued when he beached himself. After recouperation, he was taken back to
sea, but kept coming back on shore. The last time he was taken out to sea, he
showed up on the couch of a beach-side office. At that time, the zoo volunteered
to take him in and make him a star in their show