Camping on the California Coast

We left Riverside CA. this morning and was thinking we would be headed back to Las Vegas with a couple of stop off on the way, but the weather man said to expect High Winds all day today and peaking tonight at over 50 mph (gust to 80) in the high desert area between Riverside and Vegas. 

I have heard about this campground (parking lot) right on the beach in Ventura for a while and we decided to drive the 100 miles down the coast to see if we could find a spot. As it turned out we got the very last spot out of about 125 total. I didn't think there were any but as we drove down the highway, we found one and unhooked the car, did a little maneuvering and here we are.

Will be windy today, it's currently High Tide, but I think we have quite a bit of beach once the wind dies down and Low Tide arrives. We are planning to stay 4 days, we have our bikes and a bike path 5 feet from the coach to Ventura so let the fun begin. 

Pearl always wants to collect rocks from different places we go. I thought she had overloaded herself this time as she had about 6 of them and we still had to climb up to our campsite. It is fairly easy with both hands free but I had my doubts with 6 rocks. As usual she came through with flying colors.

 

The California Caddel Clan (CCC) in Riverside

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ln178ae2mgoyxy5/catroommatefinished.mp4?dl=0

The link above is to a movie Aidan made for a class he took last year at Riverside Community College. He had to do the script, acting, filming, music & editing and I think he did one heck of a job. This year he is assigned to a team that will be using professional equipment and doing the same thing.

Very Impressive Aidan.

We had a fun day visiting with Steve & Jinxi catching up on their plans for the future. Lots going on in the Southern (and Central) California Caddel family. 

I know several of you have asked what the California Caddel Clan (CCC) has on their agenda for the future so I thought I would try and do a short synopsis of some of their Plans and Dreams that they shared with us. I will undoubtedly get some of it wrong and confused so take what I write here with that in mind and forgive me if I get some of it wrong. Maybe we will get some updates and corrections in the comments section from some of the members of the CCC

1. The ladies seem to have the biggest agendas so here is what I remember about Jinxi and Brynn

• Jinxi just received her master's degree in psychology and and plans to continue with her studies specializing in Drug & Alcohol Abuse, Addiction, Counseling and Education. I think there are another couple of years of schooling left for her Doctoral Program, with the last year being in Portland Oregon. Both Steve and Jinxi love the Portland area and it seems there is a pretty good chance they will end up permanently relocating in the Portland area. Jinxi will be licensed and certified in this area of psychology and wants to do work in this field. I think her dream job would be with helping elite athletes. Jinxi herself is a pretty hi-level swimmer and still regularly competes at a pretty strong level with both men and women competitions.
• Brynn is finishing up her Degree at UC Davis but instead of graduating this spring she is taking another semester to participate in a couple of more advanced classes. If I understand it correctly she is majoring in Advanced Mathematics and Physics. She plans to continue her education several more years but not sure which institute she will go to next. I think Brynn is wanting to focus on research and I have heard Canada has some select institutes that she is interested in, so stand by for more info on her next stage of learning.
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• Steve finished his law degree many years ago and didn't plan on sitting in any more classrooms, but you can see he is getting a taste for some higher education also. He is thinking about following along in Jinxi's direction and taking some of the same classes for Drug and Alcohol abuse and counseling as he said "She is studying all the time and I am surrounded by all this information so I am getting the education anyway" so I think he figured he just as well make it official and get his licensing and certifications also. My guess is they may very well open their own business along these lines sometime in the next few years up in the Portland area.
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• Shea is completing his 2 years at Riverside Community College and he is following in some of the same general areas as his mom. We didn't get to see Aidan or Shea as they were in school so I didn't get as much info as I would have liked, but my understanding he is wanting to be a Physical Therapist. He is wanting to work with patients who are recovering from surgery, or other injuries and disabilities. After he receives his bachelor's degree in kinesiology, he will start working on his master degree, and then eventually his PhD which is necessary to be a licensed physical therapist. The last time I talked to him, I think he even mentioned he thought it would be fun if he and his mom had their own business; with Shea training the physical body and Jinxi helping with the mental portion of the athlete. Sounds like a full service training facility.
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• Aidan is taking classes centered around the film industry. As you can tell from the movie that I posted the link to above that he is really learning a lot. That movie was done with his cell phone. As Jinxi told us, you can see how he sets the scenes up, and the different filming techniques he used that most of us don't really think of when we make our home videos. Aidan has been trained in the use of the expensive professional cameras and now he can check them out from the college to use in making more films as he advances to higher levels and projects.

I hope I got most of my facts correct and if nothing else at least  by typing it out it helps me keep it a little more clear in my own mind.  

Driving down a Windy I-10 headed to Riverside

Not a lot to look at on this part of the journey, so I decided to practice uploading a video from YouTube.

Feeding the Critters

We had a lazy day today, and decided to stop in at the 

Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch and feed the Critters.

There were a lot of critters that didn't make the video (because it used up too much data from my Verizon data account) but here are a few and it ended up being a fun day.

Starting the Journey

Now that we have put the house up for sale, we need to figure out what to do! We have been checking out more affordable areas to purchase a home and hope to find something that is just what we want

• Open floor plan with kitchen and family room combined
• Under 2000 sq ft
• At least a quarter of an acre so we have space for the RV
• Low maintenance landscaping so we can be gone for months at a time
• RV garage or at least parking pad with some Weather protection to keep the RV in good shape 
• AFFORDABLE
• In a warm climate 

Below you will see some of the places we have been looking, but so far haven't found anything that has everything (except for the place in Kingman where our friends Pete & Debbie live, but it isn't for sale )

The map below is an interactive map and you can click on it to move it around, enlarge it and if you click on the markers you should see some pictures of the different locations that we took while we were there.