Monthly Archives: December 2015

De Anza Revitalization Plan

I had a follow-up visit with Dr. Leek yesterday and he removed the stitches from my right hand. Now I can start to really work on range of motion and hand strength. It’s still sore from the trigger finger surgery, but exercises with putty should loosen it up and get things back to normal.

Last evening, Donna and I walked to Mission Bay High School. We took the long way over the Mike Gotch pedestrian bridge to Olney Street. We wanted to attend a meeting of the De Anza Revitalization Plan Ad-Hoc Subcommittee. I wrote about changes coming to the area last December in this post. We have an interest in the plan as it will affect the Mission Bay RV Resort. Since we hit the road nearly two and a half years ago, we’ve spent eight months in this park.

Mission Bay Park is a regional park (surrounding Mission Bay) that serves the residents of San Diego and visitors as well. The original Mission Bay Park Master Plan provides the following land use recommendations:

Regional recreation needs including Guest Housing (camping facilities and recreational vehicles) and beach access
Wetlands to contribute to Mission Bay water quality
Hydrologic improvements to safeguard the viability of marsh areas
Trail, viewing areas and other recreational features
Leaseholds that support the Mission Bay recreation use

The master plan does not specifically call out the use of the land at De Anza Cove or Rose Inlet. The De Anza Revitalization Plan will specify uses and development of these areas. The committee has a three-year timeline scheduled for completion in 2018 – this means the plan will be defined and agreed upon and an environmental impact report will be reviewed and hearings to adopt the plan will be held in the third year.

I take this to mean little development will happen until the plans are adopted and added to the master plan as an amendment in 2018.

What does this mean for those of us who utilize Mission Bay RV Resort? Campland on the Bay has only a year left on their lease. If they don’t get an extension on their lease, they will have to vacate the property on the west side of Rose Creek. This will mean that more than 400 RV sites will disappear from this area. This would surely put pressure on the Mission Bay RV Resort and create competition among RVers to reserve a site.

Last night’s meeting didn’t get into the plan – it was more about the responsibilities of the committee and their meeting schedule. The Mission Bay Gateway Project site has a map with a vision of what the area might look like in the future. This map includes expansion of the RV park along the bay to the point on De Anza Cove. It also shows a skateboard park and aquatic center north of the current RV park. The ball fields and tennis courts by the golf course will be enhanced. The land currently occupied by Campland will revert back to natural marsh as part of the Kendall-Frost Marsh Reserve. This is the direction I expect the planning process to follow.

Time will tell. We’re more than likely to return here in 2016. We’ll see how things are shaping up then.

Sweetwater Summit

Last week, I noticed a vehicle entering the Mission Bay RV Resort with a hang tag that showed a checkout date of 1-31-16. What’s significant about that? Well, Mission Bay RV Resort has a policy of only allowing a stay of 31 consecutive days before you have to leave the park for a minimum of 24 hours.

Later I stopped by the office and asked how someone got a checkout date more than 31 days after entering the park. They told me they’ve altered their policy. If you’ve been here before for a long-term stay, they will double the allowable stay to 62 days. They said the change was made last August. When I made our reservations in September, I thought we were still limited to 31 days. I made a 31-day reservation followed by a second 31-day reservation after a day out of the park. You would think they would’ve mentioned the fact that I could have stayed for 62 consecutive days – they had my history in their system and knew I stayed here frequently.

Monday was our day to leave. I didn’t like the site we were in – I think site 135 is one of the worst in the park, so I looked forward to the move. There’s a large tree at the front left corner of the site. This not only interfered with satellite reception, the tree dropped debris constantly. I could hear stuff falling from the tree and clunking on the roof. Then at night, birds would roost in the tree. This resulted in bird droppings all over the front left corner of the coach and on the windshield cover.

Monday morning I shuttled stuff over to our trailer. They let us leave the trailer in the overflow lot while we are out for our 24-hour “exile” period. I made several trips to put our chairs, grills, ladder and Donna’s bike in the trailer. I parked our scooter behind the security shack and covered it. It’s a secure parking spot.

We pulled out just before noon. Our destination was the Sweetwater Summit campground – part of the Sweetwater Regional Park. We hadn’t stayed there before. Our route took us east on I-8 through Mission Valley to I-805. We followed I-805 south to CA94 east, then CA125 south. It’s about a 45-minute drive. This was uncharted territory for me. Back in the day when I was growing up here, there wasn’t a CA125 freeway. I’m not sure when they built it. The pouring of the concrete on CA125 south of CA94 was poorly executed. It’s like a roller coaster ride. The speed limit is 65mph. I was traveling around 60mph and that was too fast as the suspension was working overtime through the whoop-de-do surface. I’ll avoid CA125 from now on.

The volunteer at the gate at Sweetwater Summit had our check-in package ready and told us that the site we booked – site 129 – is the most requested site in the park. We drove up past the Sweetwater Reservoir over the ridge and down to the northwestern end of the park. The site was a long pull-through, reasonably level and was screened from the nearest neighbor with shrubs. The windshield view was nice.

Windshield view at Sweetwater Summit

View to the east in front of our site

Sweetwater Regional Park is in a suburban area but it seems like you are far from the city once you enter the park. It feels similar to Santee Lakes Recreation Preserve, but it has more traffic noise than Santee Lakes. We chose to stay overnight here to check out the park for future reference.

We didn’t explore much past our corner of the park Monday afternoon. I watched the Monday Night Football Game – it was dark by the time the game came on. I noticed a few commercial airliners passing just to the north of us. They were flying low as they made the final descent to Lindberg Field. San Diego International Airport, also known as Lindberg Field, is the busiest single runway airport in the country. The runway is oriented east-west. The prevailing wind is from the west, so most of the time, take-offs and landings are to the west on a heading of 274 degrees. We were about 10 miles east of the runway. The jets flying by were throttled back for the descent so they weren’t making much noise.

On Tuesday morning, Donna went out to hike on a trail into the Regional Park. She had asked at the office for a trail map – the map wasn’t very clear, but she got some verbal directions about how to make a loop. I took care of a few chores at the coach, then I went for a hike up toward the water tank on the ridge behind our site.

Yep, it’s a trail

I saw warning signs to beware of rattlesnakes.

Watch for snakes

On top of the ridge, I could see the reservoir on the north side. Donna told me later that she spotted a coyote right about here.

Sweetwater Reservoir

Looking back toward our site, I could see many hiking trails. Donna went up over the ridge, down the switchbacks and then crossed under the freeway near the golf course. She followed a trail to the dam and then along the Sweetwater River before heading back to make a loop crossing a pedestrian bridge over the freeway back to the campground. She finished her four-mile hike in time for a phone interview with an editor from Oprah.com at 10:30am.

Trails and golf course in the background

We pulled out of the campground just before the noon checkout time. I took a different route back to Mission Bay – I didn’t want to bounce down CA125 again.

We checked in and I drove over to our site – we’re in 145 now. Before I could reach our site, a fifth-wheel trailer was blocking the lane. The guy appeared to be struggling to get the trailer aligned with his site – which was next to our site. Donna asked me if it’s possible to jack-knife a fifth-wheel trailer. I told it was and this guy was about to do it. We waited for a good five minutes or more as he jockeyed back and forth and finally got the rig into his site.

As usual, Donna directed me with the Cobra hand held CB radio. I made a three-point turn and lined up perfectly. I love it when it works out like that – especially since all of the neighbors were watching as they were entertained by the guy in the fifth-wheel.

After getting the coach set up and eating lunch, I walked to get the stuff from the trailer. On the way, I saw our friends Tom and Kris Downey (Open Road 365). I stopped to say hello. Tom offered the use of his Chevy Equinox to haul my chairs and stuff back to our site. I took him up on the offer. I was able to load the chairs, ladder and push broom and drive back to our place. I unloaded then went back for the Weber Q grill. The use of his SUV saved me at least four walking trips out to the overflow area to carry stuff back. Thanks, Tom!

I walked back to the trailer to get the Traeger grill – it was too big to put in the SUV. With that done, all I had to do was get the scooter, then put on the tire covers and windshield cover. By then I was ready for a shower and a beer with the guys at Offshore Tavern and Grill.

This morning we have mostly cloudy skies that should burn off this afternoon and the temperature will reach the 70s. There’s a cooling trend forecast for the coming week with a slight chance of rain tomorrow or Friday.

*Just so you know, if you follow one of my links to Amazon and decide to make a purchase, you pay the same price as usual and I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

Playing Catch Up

When I started this blog back in July of 2013, the intent was to provide a way for family and friends to follow along as we transitioned from the workaday life and traditional housing to the full-time RV lifestyle. As time went on and more readers started following, I tried to add more detail about what life on the road is like.

I started adding technical content and also tried to illustrate how it’s not just one long camping trip. In fact we rarely sit around a campfire. We shop, clean, and prepare healthy, delicious meals in our home on wheels just as we did in our sticks-and-bricks home. And though our neighborhood changes, we are part of a close-knit community.

My goal is to post consistently. I’ve fallen behind these past few days, so I’ll catch up now.

On Friday morning, I scootered Donna over to the Ocean Beach (OB) Recreation Center to play pickleball. After dropping her off, I went to Costco to buy baby back ribs to cook on the Traeger on Saturday. I came back to OB and picked up Donna at noon. We rode down to the base of Newport Avenue to the South Beach Bar and Grill. We found seats on the upstairs patio giving us a view of the beach.

Friday’s weather was cooler with highs in the 60s and an onshore breeze that brought some clouds and added moisture to the air.

View from the upstairs patio

There was quite a swell coming in and the waves were big. Even higher surf was predicted later in the afternoon. We watched a few surfers as we ate tacos – I had a mahi taco while Donna went for a calamari taco. We washed the food down with a pint of brown ale from Helm’s Brewing located up on Clairemont Mesa. The brown ale was more like a porter – Donna and I liked it just fine.

Helm’s brown ale

On Saturday morning, Donna went for a run. While we were talking the night before, she said she was thinking about entering a 10k run in a few weeks but didn’t think she could run six miles right now. I told her that she could do it – she just needed to reduce her pace from the speed at which she runs three miles. If she set a sustainable pace, slowing if needed, she should be able to go six miles. She mapped out her route to Crown Point then along the Bayside Walk path to the Bahia Hotel – about five and half miles.

She made the distance without walking! At the Ventura Cove parking lot, she rented a Decobike – a cruiser style bike – from the bank of bikes docked at that location, one of many automated rental locations around San Diego. She paid $5 with a credit card for 30 minutes. She had to pedal madly to make it back to De Anza Cove in less than 30 minutes. She docked the bike at the De Anza stand with one minute to spare! She’s planning to do that run again, but she’ll pay seven bucks next time for a full hour of use so she can just take her time cruising home.

While Donna was out, I did a deep cleaning of the Traeger wood pellet fired grill/smoker. Then I prepped the baby back ribs. I was in for a surprise when I opened the packaged ribs I had bought at Costco. I thought that two racks of ribs were vacuum sealed per pack in typical Costco fashion. Nope, there were three racks stacked in the package. I seasoned the ribs with Sweet Rub O’Mine, wrapped them in cling wrap and refrigerated.

Later, after I fired up the Traeger, I found that I couldn’t fit three racks plus a pan of apple juice on the grill, so I cooked two racks as originally planned. I timed the cook so we could sit outside for an early dinner before sunset.

We had company coming – our friends Hans Kohls and Lisa McGuire. We’ve actually only met once briefly at Santee Lakes Recreation Preserve about a year ago. I follow Lisa’s blog (Metamorphosis Road) and they read this blog. So we feel like we know each other – at least we know what we’ve been up to. Donna received a text telling us they were running a little late as Hans was picking up his new Fuji carbon fiber 29er mountain bike. I walked out front to meet them and give them a car pass so they could drive to our site.

Calm water for a sailboat moored at De Anza Cove

I was glad we had a little extra time. All afternoon there was a breeze blowing out of the north. The space between our coach and the Foretravel coach in the site next us created a breezeway which intensified the wind right over the Traeger. The fire pot temperature was normal, but the thermometer in the top of the grill showed we were cooking the ribs about 30 degrees lower than usual.

While the Traeger was doing it’s thing, I took a walk through the RV park. I saw a 45′ Newell in one of the bayside sites. The owners were outside so I asked them if they minded me taking a photo of their coach. Newells are fantastic high-end luxury coaches. This one was a 2009 quad slide model that the owners special ordered – most Newells are made to order. It was a beautiful unit and we talked for about 20 minutes. At one point, their friend who was in the next site asked me if I sold motorhomes. I said, “No, why do you ask?” He said, “You seem to know all of the specifications and everything else about these motorhomes.” Well, I guess I’m a bit of a motorhome geek and study up on them. I looked online and found two used 2009 Newell quad slide models for sale. They were both priced at $899,000. I wonder what they cost new back in 2009? Today a model like that is around $1.8 million.

2009 Newell quad slide

Lisa brought the makings of a kale salad. As she prepared it, Donna kept an eye on the sweet potato fries baking in the oven. I took the baby backs off the grill and loosely tented them in foil. Meanwhile, we opened a bottle of beer they had brought and poured four taster glasses. It was a special release from Stone Brewing called Xocoveza. This is a milk stout that’s supposed be like Mexican hot chocolate. It had cocoa flavor for sure. It was delicious and I think it would be a great after dinner beer. They found it at Trader Joe’s.

Baby back ribs, sweet potato fires and kale salad

I put the third rack of ribs on the grill and let it cook while we ate.

Dinner time at the picnic table with Donna, Lisa and Hans

We had a enjoyable evening with good food, beer and much conversation. We sampled a few other beers we shared together. Hans held back after a couple as he had to drive back to Santee Lakes.

Beers we sampled Saturday evening

One of the beers we tried was really interesting. It was Pinner Throwback IPA from Oskar Blues Brewery in Longmont, Colorado. This is a session brew with 4.9% alcohol by volume (ABV) and 35 International Bittering Units. These numbers are way low for IPA – they are usually a minimum of 6% ABV and from 70 IBUs on up to 100. This beer had the citrusy hop taste of an IPA without the malt body. It was thinner with a strong grapefruit finish. Delightful on a hot afternoon when you don’t want a heavier beer or high ABV.

Later, I took the third rack of ribs off the Traeger. This rack cooked hotter and much faster. When I cut the rack into two pieces to wrap and refrigerate, it was very tender and juicier than the ribs I served for dinner. The Rendevous is a famous barbeque restaurant in Memphis and they advocate cooking dry Memphis Style ribs hot and fast as opposed to the low and slow method used for most barbeque. When I reheated that third rack of ribs by wrapping it foil and cooking in the convection oven for 30 minutes at 275 degrees, they came out super tender and tasty. The Sweet Rub O’Mine doesn’t provide as much bark on the ribs as the Stubbs or Traeger rubs did. I can see I need to experiment with ribs more. Maybe next time I’ll make sure to keep the heat up, then wrap in foil and cook on low heat for an additional 30 minutes.

The third rack of ribs

I didn’t mention the phone call I received Saturday morning. It was my old friend from school days, Sonny Sanchez. We were next door neighbors when I lived on Moraga Avenue in Clairemont. It’s been a long standing argument between us over who moved there first. I think we moved in at around the same time – but I’ll always claim to be there first. Sonny had an extra ticket to the Chargers NFL game and asked if I wanted to join him on Sunday. You bet!

Sonny picked me up Sunday morning and we drove to North Park where we picked up his Uncle Anthony. Sonny had three tickets his boss had given him, so the three of us were going to the game. At the Qualcomm Stadium parking lot, we met up with another old school mate, Gary Stemple. We tailgated in the lot, then went in and saw a disappointing performance from the Chargers. Denver’s defense was too tough for them. We had a blast anyway. Thanks again, Sonny!

Tailgating before the gane - Sonny, Gary and me

Tailgating before the game – Sonny, Gary and me

This morning I was busy. I had to move lots of stuff out to the trailer and pack up. We left Mission Bay RV Park at noon after about three hours of work. We’re at the Sweetwater Summit Campground at the Sweetwater Regional Park. We’ll return to Mission Bay tomorrow. Just last week I found out we can stay at Mission Bay for up to 62 consecutive days now. They double the stay limit for returning long-term visitors. We certainly meet that requirement having spent 7 months there in the last two years!

Zero on the Spice Scale

It was a beautiful day yesterday. Donna and I decided to take a walk. We headed out of Mission Bay RV Resort past the Mission Bay Golf Course to the Rose Creek trail. The trail took us underneath Grand Avenue where I saw an egret and a number of ducks in the creek. I snapped a photo.

Underneath Grand Avenue – egret in the lower left, ducks in the background

Our route arced back toward Mission Bay Drive. We cut through the Rubio’s parking lot and crossed Mission Bay Drive to Lanna Thai. We sopped there for lunch. I had my usual chicken pad thai dish while Donna tried something new – she opted for east eggplant with squid. She said it was delicious. There was a glitch with my order though.

Usually the waitress asks me what level of spicyness I desire. They use a scale of 1 to 10. As we were waiting for our food, I realized that she didn’t ask me this time and I didn’t see her again until my order came out. A waiter brought my plate and I asked how spicy it was. He said, “No spice – pad thai isn’t a spicy dish.” What? Every pad thai I’ve ever had was spicy as red chili pepper is one of the ingredients. Every time I’ve had pad thai at this very restaurant and every other restaurant, they’ve asked me how spicy I want it. He took my meal back to kitchen to add red chili pepper.

After lunch, we walked back to the RV park along Mission Bay Drive. Our route basically circumnavigated the golf course and the total distance was about three miles. The sky became partly cloudy during our walk. The temperature was in the upper 70s.

Later I rode the scooter over to Dan Diego’s European Bistro to take another try at fresh-hopped IPA beer. I was advised by John Hinton (On the Road of Retirment) to try it on tap instead of from a bottle – he thought it tasted much better on tap. I tried a taster then ordered a pint. It wasn’t the same Stone IPA I had in a bottle. This IPA was brewed by Pizza Port Brewing – a longtime San Diego craft brewer. It was tasty with a grapefruit like finish.

On my way home, I stopped to take a photo of the sunset. Thin, high clouds made it a spectacular sight.

Sunset on the bay at De Anza Cove

I finished my day watching the NFL football game. The Detroit Lions were stunned on the final play of the game – a Hail Mary pass that covered 61 yards to the end zone on the final play of the game.

Today we have some clouds and the predicted high will be in the 60s. Warmer weather will return tomorrow and into next week. I plan to scooter Donna to Ocean Beach for pickleball at the recreation center. Then I’ll head over to Costco and buy baby back ribs for tomorrow’s barbeque before I pick Donna up in OB at noon.

Grilling in the Dark

Before I started blogging, I had no idea of the amount of spam I would receive. I have software loaded on my WordPress template to block spam and prevent malicious logins.

Spammers typically try to post comments that are nothing more than links to a site they want people to visit. Spam is blocked and sent to a spam folder – I get 80 to 100 spam comments per day. Once a comment has been identified as spam, all future comments from that sender go to the spam folder. If a comment is posted by an unknown author, it’s held for moderation. This means that I have to look at the comment and decide if it legitimate or a spam attempt. If it’s legit, I approve it. The software has blocked over 59,000 spam attempts since I installed it.

Malicious logins are attempts to login as the administrator and take over my site. This is a scary thought – who knows what they would want to do with my site. The software has blocked more than 10,700 malicious login attempts. Having a strong password is important.

Donna’s sister picked her up yesterday afternoon and they drove to her house in Point Loma. Donna’s bicycle was there from Donna’s ride last Saturday. Donna was dressed for a ride and had a route planned out for a scenic ride back to Mission Bay RV Resort. She couldn’t have picked a nicer day – the temperature was in the upper 70s with clear skies. Here are some pictures she snapped on her ride.

On Shelter Island looking across San Diego Bay toward downtown

Sunset Cliffs in south Ocean Beach

Dog Beach in north Ocean Beach looking toward Mission Beach

Bike path heading toward West Mission Bay Drive

Other than a tough hill climb over the point on Talbot Street, she had a pleasant ride (map).

Donna surprised me with a gift the other day. When we were in Albuquerque, she bought it at the vendor area of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. She saw an item that she thought I would find useful during the short days of winter. Donna is really good at thinking ahead and finding useful gifts.

She knows how I dislike grilling in the dark. Working with a flashlight can be difficult if you have to use utensils at the same time. Donna found an LED headlight on an elastic band. I’ve used it a few times this week as it gets dark by 5pm. The headlight allows me to have plenty of light while my hands are free.

LED headlight

Headlight in action

I used it last night to grill chicken. I paired a Stone Cali-Belgique beer with it. Stone calls it a California IPA with a Belgian twist. It’s their usual IPA recipe fermented with Belgian yeast which imparts a spicy flavor.

Stone Cali-Belgique

Other than a few clouds and cooler temperatures in the forecast for tomorrow, we expect the weather to stay nice through the weekend – 70s and blue skies.

Short Cycling

I’ve been trying to take it easy and let my hand heal from the trigger finger surgery. I looked back at my blog posts from October of last year and found the recovery time from the trigger finger surgery I had back then took longer than I remembered. The surgery last year released the ring finger on my right hand which is easier to work around than the middle finger I had done this time. One of the benefits of posting a blog is the ability to go back and look at past events and see what really happened.

Most of my activity has been limited to taking walks around the Mission Bay RV Resort or over to the bay. The weather has been a little on the cool side with daily highs in the mid 60s. That’s set to change today as we should see temperatures in the 70s with clear skies for the next week or so. We can’t complain about the weather!

On one of my walks, I noticed the marina across Rose Inlet past Campland to the west of the RV park was full. I don’t recall seeing this many boats there before.

Boats at the marina

While I was out walking, I also saw the smallest Airstream travel trailer ever. I don’t think I’ve seen one this small before.

Tiny Airstream

I snapped a photo as I walked past. When I walked back on the next lane behind the Airstream, I noticed the large Dometic Penguin air conditioner on top. It looked oversized on this small unit.

Big A/C on a small trailer

Having an oversized air conditioner is not necessarily a good thing. It can cause a problem known as short cycling. This can happen in a regular sticks-and-bricks home as well as an RV. A short cycling air conditioner runs for a short period, then shuts off. Then it turns back on only to shut off again.

Short cycling can create a number of issues. One is excess humidity. Usually an air conditioner will run long enough for the moisture in the air to condense on the evaporator and drain, leaving the air relatively dry. When the A/C short cycles, it doesn’t condense as much moisture and the air can feel damp and uncomfortable.

The other issues are wear and tear. Stopping and starting the compressor excessively causes wear. On start up, the compressor motor draws a large spike of current – it takes more power and causes more wear to start the motor than it normally does while running. Also, if the compressor shuts off for only a short period of time before restarting, there can be residual head pressure in the compressor making it difficult to start.

I’m sure Airstream knew what they’re doing when they installed such a large A/C unit on a small travel trailer. I’m guessing they reduced the fan speed for lower cooling output to prevent short cycling.

I rode the scooter over to Costco on Morena Boulevard yesterday. We were on our last roll of paper towels, so I wanted to buy a bulk package of paper towels and pick up more bottled water. I need to have water with me at all times due to a chronic dry throat condition caused by head and neck radiation. I also picked up a bottle of Veuve Cliquot Brut champagne for Donna to ring in the new year at the end of the month. Veuve Cliquot is her favorite and Costco had it at a good price. The bottle included a custom-fit insulated vinyl bag for it. I picked up a 22-ounce bomber bottle of Stone IPA for me. This was a special release made with fresh hops and it’s meant to be enjoyed fresh, not stored. It had an “enjoy by 12-25-15” label. So I did.

Stone fresh IPA

Last night we grilled green chile turkey burgers on the Weber Q grill for dinner. Donna walked to Vons in Pacific Beach in the afternoon – about a four mile round trip – and picked up cheese bakery rolls. I toasted the rolls on the grill and they were so good with the burgers.

Turkey burgers with avocado on cheese bakery rolls

I enjoyed the Stone IPA with my burger. To be honest, I don’t know what the fresh hop IPA is all about – it tasted like a Stone IPA that’s always available at the store. With all of the craft breweries around here, everyone is always experimenting and trying to come up with the next hit beer. Whenever someone comes up with a winner, the copycats follow. I’ve seen a few fresh hop IPAs on the shelves here – I think it’s gimmick more than anything though. I don’t taste any difference.

Donna plans to catch a ride with her sister Sheila to her house today. She left her bike there last weekend. From Point Loma, she wants to tool around Shelter Island, then ride through Ocean Beach and back here (map). I think I’ll hit the beach at some point today and take a walk.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Monthly Archives: December 2015

De Anza Revitalization Plan

Sweetwater Summit

Playing Catch Up

Zero on the Spice Scale

Grilling in the Dark

Short Cycling

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