RV Trip – Day 2 – Big Sur to Malibu

Posted on September 30, 2011 by Rusty

We collected the RV yesterday, returned the Escalade, transferred the house contents into the RV, handed the house keys over, and set off.

Simon was (possibly rightly) tense about driving the RV for the first time and to make matters worse, it was rush hour in Silicon Valley and got dark about an hour before we made it to the first campground in Big Sur – called Riverside Campground. See the images from this morning – our first morning in the RV…

We set off at just after 10am on the big 270+ mile journey down to Malibu. We stopped off to watch some seals playing in the surf and to grab a little lunch…

Then completed our journey down to Malibu with another stop @ Santa Barbara to re-fuel and to stock up on food for dinner. The RV was had just over 1/4 of a tank of fuel (takes regular unleaded) and it drank a further $190 of the 87 RON quality unleaded!!!! If we filled in the UK this would have been closer to 246UKP !! This was for approx 340 miles…

Hopefully tomorrow will be less time in the RV and more time in the sun – although it is considerably colder down here in the South than it was up North (or in Ossett for that matter). The boys did really well considering pretty much all daylight hours were spent in it today…

Finally, the rest of the gang are hoping to feel less sick during drive time tomorrow – less twisty roads and a more versed driver by then…

UPDATE – photos uploaded – follw us during our trip by watching the following folder

Confirmed (again), Simon has the best wife….

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Rusty

Simon definitely has the best wife on the planet (just in case you had not already realised it). Last week she suggested that Simon and Tim take a two day break to Las Vegas to shoot guns etc before we start the RV trip. So we set off on Monday morning and came back on Wednesday evening, and had a blast. Not only this but Vicky stayed home and completed the packing before the RV adventure starts later today…

We walked the strip seeing all the relevant sights, had a romantic lunch in the restaurant 911 feet up in the Stratosphere (revolving restaurant that makes a full 360 degrees every 1 hour 25 minutes), and of course went to the shooting range to watch others shoot. In this case, Simon watched Tim shoot and Tim watched Simon. This caused one of the biggest laughs of the trip – ask Tim about Simon and ripping through the belt- funny story about how instruction cane be interpreted SO differently by people in the same room listening to the SAME instruction 😀

We watched the sirens of Treasure Island and finished the trip off with a trip out to the Grand Canyon on a helicopter with Mustang Helicopters – for Simon this was the best bit – just an awesome experience.

To be sat in the basin of the Canyon was an experience to not miss if you ever get the opportunity – the helicopter dropped 4,000 feet into the canyon in just minutes. Once we had a bit to eat and a drink, we rose 5,000 feet to get back out again – an immense place made easy with this 8 seat jet helicopter – a mere $2.5m to buy 🙂

Oh yes, and we had to pass the hoover dam to get to the Canyon….

As you can maybe see, the lake caused by the dam (Lake Mead) is only half full at present – apparently not a great deal of snow up in Colorado (where the Colorado River that feeds the dam comes from). The dam was not anywhere near as impressive (in our opinion) up close, but from the air definitely looked as impressive as the movies portray it 🙂

Let the adventure begin………

Posted on September 12, 2011 by vicky

So we spent a significant amount of time planning our little rv adventure yesterday and have just got the final confirmation in. So here is how we are going to end our Californian Adventure.

Day One – Drive to big sur and stay at Riverside Campground just off HWY 1

http://www.riversidecampground.com/index.htm

Day Two – Check out Pfeiffer beach, then head out on the big leg of our Journey to Malibu Beach.

https://www.maliburv.com/index.asp

Day Three – Check out Malibu then drive to San Diego, to go to “Brick or Treat” at Lego Land. Staying over night at paradise by the sea.

http://www.paradisebythesearvresort.com/

Day Four – Spend the day in Lego Land, then drive to Mission Bay Area in San Diego.

http://missionbayrvresort.com/

Day Five – Spend the day in Sea World. Stay a further night at Mission bay to re-charge our batteries

Day Six – Head back up the coast stopping at Huntington Beach to spend some time on the beach. Then drive to Anaheim Rv Resort nr Disney to go to Mickeys Spooktacular Halloween party.

https://www.anaheimresortrvpark.com/

Day Seven – Drive to Paso Robles WIne Country finally something for the adults ;o)

http://www.winecountryrvresort.com/index.php

Day Eight – Time to head to the airport and get ready to drop the RV off

http://www.coyotevalleyresort.com/home.html

Day Nine – Drop the RV at Family RV San Jose and head to the airport ready to say good bye California, hello new adventure :o)

Family RV – great place in San Jose

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Rusty

So we went back to the RV idea and took a look at San Jose’s Family RV.

Wow, what a stark difference from the Cruise America company. They had 70+ rental RV’s available to look at although we quickly homed in on our requirements – less than 35 feet but with bunk beds (the boys will love bunk beds 🙂 ). Take a look at the image below:

Floorplan as follows:

There are more photographs available in the photo gallery in the Home album including internal shots – take a look.

So, we rented it… 🙂 Now we are on for figuring out our route down San Diego 🙂 We have much prep and planning to do now – excitement begins right about NOW 🙂

Napa weekend completed – including a tour of Jelly Belly factory :-)

Posted on August 21, 2011 by Rusty

We are home again now, but not before nipping over to Fairfield. CA to visit the Jelly Belly Factory 🙂

With it being a weekend, the factory was not actually producing, but the tour was still interesting. Apparently 70 million jelly belly beans are made every single day 🙂

Daddy sampled a booger flavoured bean and a Pencil Sharpening flavoured bean – apparently they were both “pretty good” – whatever that means…

Sadly, they would not allow photography in the factory, so we can’t share any pictures of what we saw..

Finally, we have added all photos of the weekend in the gallery so they are available to see below: