We don’t even close the blind at night so we wake up to this view in the morning. We arrived just before the first Sedar of Pesach (Passover) and helped prepare for the holiday. First night we were just the 6 of us and we ended a bit early, about 11:45! We turned off the lights in the coach about 1:20 AM. Second night we were at a friends house with many more people. They had young children who went to bed at some point along the way. It was midnight when we left the house. It was a mile walk back to Yechiel’s so we had left the Jeep nearby and did not have the walk before we drove. Somehow it didn’t stop, the next afternoon we had dinner at another friend’s home where Miriam prepared the meal and we carried it with us since the husband, Steve, had had surgery recently and Cindy was not able to prepare for the holiday. It was a festive dinner nonetheless and we enjoyed meeting Cindy and her children.

As we relax on the coach today we are trying to catch up with our stuff and watch the birds that flit about on in the brush on the slope above the coach. I have mostly not bothered to identify them, just enjoy seeing them. Although there is road noise during the day, at night mostly we can hear waves breaking on the shore below us, if we hear anything. 

The holiday continues until Saturday sundown until Thursday night it is mostly about what we eat, no unleavened product. In the Reform movement the holiday will end Friday night, but in deference to the Orthodox world we visiting we will keep it, in our way, until Saturday. Last year we left for Japan in the midst of the holiday. 

I just read a blog “What to do when the Campground Sucks” and I thought about our many experiences where the campground has been less than ideal for a variety of reasons. The wonder of being self contained is that it seldom matters unless we plan to stay for an extended period. When going into a new area we will often only pay for a night or two so moving on is not a loss. Weekends in State Parks near cities generally are not a great idea for us since we are not campers. We do not revel in noisy families watching/playing athletics and drinking around a campfire. During the work week these parks can be grand and frequently we have them pretty much to ourselves. Dockweiler, near LAX, where we have often stayed can be party central on weekends, not so much in Malibu Beach. Somehow we have booked two campgrounds for a week each, one in Marin County and another in Salt Lake City. In both cases we need to be nearby for 4 days and taking it out to a week will give us a chance to see an area we have not spent much time in. I can only hope that we will not experience the Sucky Campground syndrome. 

Looking at our intent to “settle in” at Jojoba Hills I realize that this will be the first time we will have committed ourselves to an extended stay and to participating in the activities and amenities of the facility. The “requirement” to volunteer should not be an issue for us as we love to do that and it certainly will help us get introduced to more members quickly. Whatever you call what we will be doing there it won’t be “camping.” We will be entering a different phase and it remains to be seen how we will like it once we settle in. If our past history is any basis for judging, we will adapt just fine. We do not plan to give up our road travels nor do we plan to give up international travel, we just got new passports good for 10 years and had them issue the “big” book with 52 pages just in case we need lots of visas.

Our route through June 15! After Pesach up the coast to Bay Area for a week. Then along the Lincoln Highway to Salt Lake City. We fly to ROC on the 28th and return to SLC on the 3rd of May. From May 5 through 30 we will be working our way East to arrive in Gaffney SC on May 31 for Camp Freightliner where we will learn everything we might want to know and then some about the chassis our motorhome is built on. From there we head to Vermont for Daisy and Steven’s wedding. We will return to Rochester on June 15 just in time to prep for Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival. That is as far as the planning goes for now. Well there is some foreign travel planned, but I’ll save that for another post.