Randy and Robin's Roving Retirement

We absolutely love Palm Springs. Very peaceful, mellow vibe here. We have a 1 BR 1 Ba condo, about 600 square feet. The pool and hot tub are about 100 ft away, but the hot tub has not been heated since our 2nd day here due to Riverside Co Covid rules. Word is out that it may re-open soon, but with new lockdown it may not happen. It is outside and rarely used, so we are excited to finally use it again. We have very friendly Costa’s Hummingbirds on our patio. I have been trying to get one to perch on my finger and have actually touched the chest of one. One actually landed on Robin’s toe while she was seated.

As usual, we have discovered some outstanding nature walks. Big Morongo Canyon, Thousand Palms at the Coachella Valley Preserve, and Joshua Tree National Park. We also found some local walks out our front door, from easy loops, to walking part way up the tram hill, to luxury neighborhoods a short drive away. We actually bought a used tandem bike, a 1968 Schwinn Twinn deluxe. We are working well as a team with Randy as captain and Robin as stoker. Riding a tandem is quite different from solo riding.

After a hectic drive from Vegas, we arrived at Mark and Arlene’s in Fountain Valley, CA. Due to Covid and some high risk people, Mark had us set up in his motor home out front of his home. He even set us up for 2 nights at Bolsa Chica State Beach.

Glorious evening as the Baskins took us on the Balboa ferry and an evening in Balboa/Newport Beach and shared a lovely meal at the Old Spaghetti Factory.

Newport Beach

We really enjoyed the Newport Beach Boardwalk. The shops, waterfront homes (many for rent), people watching and bars. After 8 nights in the motor home and with colder temperatures and aching backs, we moved into Motel 6 Costa Mesa.

I grew up in Hollywood, but have not lived there since 1970. I took Robin on a tour of my old elementary schools and neighborhood which was about 1 1/2 miles from Hollyood and Vine. We had a fun walk on Hollywood Blvd, drove Sunset Strip and though Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive. We ended up at Santa Monica beach for lunch and a walk on the 3rd Street Promenade, the Santa Monica Pier and finally a walk on the Venice boardwalk. Another day we went to the LaBrea Tarpits.

Another day we went to Forest Lawn cemetery to pay respects to my mother and spread some of my dad’s ashes. Beautiful cemetery with a number of celebrity graves.

Orange County and LA was a fun, entertaining adventure even with a lot of Covid closures. We want to return once it opens up. Next off to Palm Springs, where will stay until March 1st.

Neon Museum

We went ahead and took the evening tour. A worthwhile tour to understand the history of Las Vegas.

Erotic Heritage Museum

Now this was an interesting museum. X Rated, so beware.

Las Vegas Natural History Museum

A smaller, older museum which was still interesting to stroll through. Easy to spend a couple of hours. Only $10 admission.

Mob museum

We had been to the Mob Museum before several years ago. Although a costly admission, it was very entertaining to go again. If you go after 5 pm, there is a substantial discount. 3 floors of fascinating information and history.

Area 15

Not a museum, but Area 15 is an interactive experience. We did not go in as they were booked for a month with social distancing protocol. Pictures are of the parking lot art.

Planet 13 is the largest marijuana dispensary in the world. Pretty crazy place. To get in, you must provide all types of personal information, including drivers license, address and other personal info. All this before you walk in the door, even if you don’t plan on buying anything.

In Washington State, the majority of the cannabis industry is cash only. In Vegas, they take debit cards. The workaround is that they process the transaction as an ATM withdrawal. For example a $16 purchase is processed as a $20 cash withdrawal and then they would give you $4 cash back. Fascinating place to visit even if you don’t want to make a purchase. They even have a sit down restaurant with non cannabis fare.

October has been a great month for outdoor activities with the perfect weather to enjoy it. We went to several of the areas multiple times, as they were free or very low cost.

Red Rock Canyon National Preservation Area

You can either pay $15 for a day pass or get the annual America the Beautiful National Park Pass to enter the area. The scenic 13 mile drive has many pull off areas to hike and explore. The best areas seem to be during the first half of the one way drive. The hikes vary in length and difficulty with some being quite strenuous which we avoided with ease. There was a group on scooters from Red Rock Scooter Tours which would be a fun way to go through the park.

Boulder City

This is a lovely peaceful town with some decent restaurants and tourist activities. The town was started to house the workers building the Hoover Dam. The dam and its tours were closed so we just explored Boulder City.

Springs Preserve

The Springs Preserve is a delightful 180 acre outdoor area that you can enter for $5 and even comes with a free train ride. Amazingly, it is the center of Vegas, yet remains untouched. You can also access the museums, but they were closed for us.

7 Magic Mountains

Roadside art attraction south of Vegas on I-15. Not much there, but fun to walk around and great photo op.

Clark County Wetlands

Another great find on the east side of Vegas, almost Henderson. A free entry to a very delightful wetlands. Great walking trails, ponds, viewing areas, even a small theater with educational short films.

Henderson bird Viewing Preserve

Another free activity that we discovered just before we left Vegas. There are 9 ponds together that you can walk around.

That is it for now. A few more Vegas posts, then we will catch up on California.

The strip has been awesome. Monday thru Wednesday it is very quiet. It picks up for the weekend, especially Columbus Day weekend. We love the empty Las Vegas strip for morning walks. We self park at a casino and walk 1-2 miles one way, alternating outside in the sun and then inside thru the empty air conditioned casinos. Then turn around and go back. We can get 10,000 steps before lunch this way, sometimes getting 20,000 + by the end of the day.

We love the area just north of New York New York, known as the Park. It is an open air, peaceful retreat with water walls and tables to sit and relax or eat. We needed a break from our retirement, so we cashed in some MyVegas points to get 2 free nights at the Park MGM and stay on the strip. We did have to pay the resort fees, but still a great deal and allowed us more access to the strip and the Bellagio fountains in the evening.

Fremont Area

So much to describe here in Vegas, we have decided to post by category vs. chronology. Today’s post is about our new home base, the Mark 1.

We are staying in an Airbnb on the 12th floor of the Mark 1 Apartments. Our view is amazing and we can actually watch the sunrise from bed. We have a small gym and a very chilly outdoor pool. It has been in the 80’s and 90’s most of the month, so we use the pool area as our personal space to read and play cards as very few residents use it.

Sunrise from living room window

Our building is secure with locked entry doors as well as underground gated parking. It is an older building yet fairly well maintained. We are a little over a mile from the Wynn Hotel and the Vegas strip. Neighborhood is a bit sketchy, so we enjoy driving to local walking areas.

1st stop Roseburg, Oregon

Full day drive from Lynden, WA to Roseburg, OR. Stopped at the Vancouver, WA waterfront so Robin could have her favorite French onion soup for lunch at Wildfin. Our river house in Roseburg is quite isolated and peaceful. Extremely well equipped with a Keurig, rainfall shower, and USB plugins on the bed. Spent 2 nights there. Next door has a few llamas and pigs.

The funniest experience was when we spotted some wild turkeys on our morning walk. There were 6 of them and 3 had fallen behind and got stuck behind a fence. All they had to do was walk 2 feet to the right to rejoin their pals, but they couldn’t figure it out. So I walked closer and spooked them over where they went running like crazy wild turkeys on Wild Turkey. Merge the pics below to get the idea.

Spent 2 nights in Sunnyvale with Robin’s cousin, Don. Long drive from Roseburg. Don made us a great breakfast on Sunday morning. We took him out for dinner to the Duke of Edinburgh. We really enjoyed Don, his 2 cats, Leo and Miller and relaxing on his patio. We had an enjoyable walk to the Sunnyvale Community Center. We saw a Turkey vulture on a lamppost along the way.

Next stop, Vegas baby!

Initially we would have been in Portugal starting in September, but Covid 19 restricted us to the US for now and we don’t expect to get overseas until January or even April 2021. This has been beneficial as we get our travel procedures honed and find what works for us. We have primarily been staying in Airbnb’s and found that 28 days or longer gives us a 5-65% discount as well as only a single cleaning fee. Although we may stay in a city for longer than 28 days, we only commit to the initial 28 until we spend 7-10 days to acclimate and determine if the location is right for us and if so, we can extend our stay.

We choose stays with a kitchen, so we can eat most meals at home. One simple home meal favorite consists of Ceasar salads with tuna or chicken. We love chili and find deli chili and beans with an added can of spiced beans goes a long way. Broccoli either steamed or roasted is one of our favorites. Robin loves making protein shakes many mornings and sliced melon, muffins and cereal are frequent choices. Randy will whip up scrambled eggs with mushrooms and cheese sometimes even for dinner. Generally we eat 2 meals a day. We loved Fred Meyer stores in Washington and found that being a Kroger store there are many affiliates in other states with the added plus of getting fuel discounts. Safeway/Albertsons also are very reasonable and well equipped for our needs. We have some inexpensive fast food favorites, Taco Bell, Subway and enjoy trying the local haunts such as In N Out Burger, Carl’s Jr and Cafe Rio. We love Dollar Tree to stock up on small items to make our stay more comfortable as well as pick up snacks. You never know what will be supplied at your next stay, aluminum foil, saran wrap, muffin tin, bath mat, so the dollar store comes in handy and we can always leave items for the next guest. Super Supplements (Vitamin Shoppe) has stores all over to pick up our nutritional supplements. AAA, AARP, Groupon and senior disounts have all been helpful for admissions to museums and meals.

Since we still have a car for our US travel, we bring along a few extras that we would not bring on a flight. Robin prefers bringing our own towels and washcloths as most stays provide very few and the quality is uncertain. Many stays have a washer/dryer included, but we have had to frequent several laundromats with great success. The commercial machines are fast, high tech, high capacity and take debit cards. We usually sit there and play Uno while getting our laundry done in under an hour. Some locations have a transfer service where you put clothes in the washer and they will put in the dryer and remove when done and send you a text message. Our wardrobes and belongings have been greatly reduced as we find it best to travel light and we can always pick up additional clothing or items. For example, our current bed is almost 40″ off the ground. Five foot tall Robin was challenged to get into bed. Using Facebook Marketplace, we bought a small stepstool for $5 and life is good. Each move, we discard a few more items to better prepare for the future day when a backpack and carryon will be all we take.

To get online purchases, Amazon has boxes everywhere. We share a UPS box with Katy and she can send what little snail mail we get to our local UPS store. We have our own Amazon Prime account for streaming TV shows and movies, yet most stays have access to Netflix. Amazon also provides Prime reading and the local King county library provides access to plenty of E-books. Pluto TV provides free TV and movies. For news we use the NewsOn app to get news from different regions including Seattle. The local channel news apps actually work better if available.

We have enjoyed our extra time here in the states and it has helped immensely with regard to our future travel endeavors.

We look forward to hearing from you and hope we see you in one of our future destinations.

Thanks to our great friend, Elaine Essensa, for the use of her condo on the Homestead Golf Course in Lynden, Washington. This has been the perfect spot for us for the month of September. We have a beautiful view, visiting duck buddies, a jetted tub, electric grille, extremely comfortable king bed and peaceful solitude.

Lynden is a quaint Dutch town, 5 miles from the Canadian border, which has been closed our entire visit. It is a short 1 mile walk into town, mostly on a trail. On the way into town, there is a cute Hobbit House and a park.

Bellewood farms was a few miles down the road. Homemade pies, jams, apple turnovers and incredible fritter bites. We road the train, a tractor with carts behind to take you to the apple orchards.

The Pioneer Museum was quite huge and very interesting to attend. Displays of storefronts as well as antique carriages.

Rikka and Joseph came to visit. Robin made a delicious lunch, teriyaki meatballs, BBQ chicken wings, and Caesar salad. We all played Five Crowns card game and then drove to Fairhaven for ice cream.

We walked the Sehome Arboretum by Western Washington University. Beautiful area to walk. A strange woman kept appearing from paths in different directions. We think she was an apparition.

Lots of fun activities, Appel Farms known for cheese (and goats), Boxx Berry farm, Twin Sisters Creamery. Marionberry Habonero jam, bleu cheese and other delightful cheeses. Hovander Homestead Park in Ferndale is scenic and has bunnies and geese.

Along with most of the western US, we had hazy skies and poor air quality mid month. Fortunately, our air quality did not get above 200 and only lasted about a week.

Whatcom Falls is a beautiful waterfall, better than several we saw last month. Great walking trails. Larry came to visit us one day and walked the trails and neighboring cemetery. Then we went to Boomers for burgers. Robin and I loved their mushroom swiss burger and waffle fries.

We had the opportunity to visit with Brad’s mother Joyce both prior and after his passing. She is a very strong woman of faith. Also, met up with Rob, Brad’s cousin. Brad was our friend for 20+ years and dealt with many tragedies and challenges for the last 10 years.

Katy came to visit twice. Both times we went to Fairhaven to shop and then to The Loft on the Bellingham waterfront. The best chicken avocado melt with bacon on sourdough ever.

Overall, the Lynden area was a very pleasant place, full of beautiful day trips, temperate warm days, slow pace of life and a delightful homestead.

Next, off to Vegas!