When we first told people we planned to hit the road as full-time RVers, we were often asked if we would miss our friends and become lonely. We figured full-timing would give us more opportunities to reconnect with friends as we traveled and also allow us to visit family around the country. This has turned out to be true as we’ve hooked up with friends and family from coast to coast. What we didn’t realize was how we would find a whole new community and establish friendships with fellow nomadic travelers.

I’ll give a couple of examples. I’ve already mentioned that our friends Tom and Kris Downey (Open Road 365) are here at Mission Bay RV Resort. Donna and Kris met as fellow SendOutCards distributors. I first met Kris and Tom in Michigan when we were selling our stuff and planning to hit the road. About a year later, they decided to do the same – and here we are meeting up 3,000 miles from where we first met. We also got together with them last winter when we were both in Mesa, Arizona.

A few days ago, I was standing at the security shack at the park entrance shooting the breeze with the guys when I saw a Honda CRV followed by a Holiday Rambler motorhome approach. When the Honda stopped at the entrance, I recognized the driver. I said, “Hi, Nina.” She recognized me and we exchanged pleasantries. I’ve been following her blog for about three years (Wheeling It). We first met Nina and her husband Paul a couple of years ago in Cape Blanco, Oregon. We ran into them again in Albuquerque a couple of months ago and now we’re in the same park again.

There’s a social media site created expressly for RVers called RVillage. We enter our location on the site as we move around. A few days ago, I received a private message on RVillage. It was from Iain and Kate. They said they met up with Hans and Lisa (Metamorphosis Road) and Hans told them they should look us up since they are also staying here at Mission Bay RV Resort. I responded to the message and we’ve planned a happy hour get-together this afternoon.

A couple of days ago, I saw an Alpine Coach enter the RV park. Shortly after that, I received another private message on RVillage from Don and Cheryl – it was their Alpine Coach I saw. We met them here last spring when they were preparing to go full-time. We plan to get together again.

Yesterday I went to the Pacific Beach Recreation Center (PBRC) to pay pickleball. Donna hurt her knee last Thursday when we played and decided to stay off the court. While I was at PBRC, she walked to Staples and Vons in Pacific Beach. Walking didn’t hurt her knee, but she was still cautious about making quick movements that might put a strain on it. While she was at Vons, she recognized a woman who also plays pickleball at PBRC (her name escapes me at the moment) and they had a brief chat. Donna said it made her feel like a local to run into someone she knew at the grocery store.

Anyway, my point is that we aren’t lonely on the road. We’ve managed to visit old friends and family and we’ve made new friends in the RV community and in the communities where we stay. It’s amazing how we often find ourselves in the same place at the same time as other RVers who have become our friends.

I was out and about running a few errands on the scooter Monday. I made a detour to take a look at the beach. There were high surf warnings all weekend and high tides again. It was a cool and windy day so there weren’t many people at the beach. The high tides and surf left a lot of kelp up on the beach.

Crystal Pier at Pacific Beach – kelp on the sand

This morning I heard that the high (King) tides have caused a lot of erosion of the beaches in North County. Carlsbad lost a lot of sand and they’re shoring up an area where Highway 101 is threatened by the erosion. The highest King tide of the season will occur on Thursday, December 24th.

I went in for my annual physical at Dr. Ryan’s office in Point Loma this morning – thus I’m posting late. While I was out, I stopped at BevMo and bought a few interesting beers. I’ll bring a couple along when we meet up with Iain and Kate this afternoon.

Stone smoked porter I opened for Donna Monday night

We’ve had clear skies with cool, breezy weather. It’s been in the low 60s during the day dropping into the high 30s and low 40s at night. The inland valleys have had frost. The receptionist at Dr. Ryan’s office told me she had ice on her car this morning in east Mission Valley. Brrr…it’s not supposed to be this cold here. Today we’ll see more of the same, then it’ll warm up to about 70 by Friday. I shouldn’t complain after seeing the amount of snow falling in several parts of the country – the airport in Denver shut down as 24 inches of snow came down. The winter storm left deep snow from northern Arizona to Montana, Oregon to Minnesota and everywhere in between. We prefer to scrape sunshine off the windshield.