Lodi, CA

When we realized that son, Lee, would be able to meet up with us we went looking for a perfect meeting place.  We were heading north on I-5, Lee was coming from San Jose, CA and our friend, Lou, would come visit from Grass Valley.  So we needed a place central for all of us and a decent RV park for Kirby and I.  We decided on Lodi, CA and Flag City RV Park.

No one was very excited about the location and the weather was forecast to be in the triple digits.  Wow, were we ever surprised at how our day played out.  We left Success Lake and drove about four hours and settled into our site.  Lee arrived about 4:00 and we enjoyed a nice evening together eating carnitas and getting caught up on family news and gossip.

We also met our neighbors who have a beautiful black lab, Lola, whom Jake thought was wonderful.  We found out that Flo and Larry are from Yuma and actually live just down the street from where we were last month.  I remembered seeing them walking Lola.  We all hit it off right away and now l have a new BFF!  We can’t wait to get back to Yuma next fall and enjoy their company again.

Lou came over on Saturday from Grass Valley and it was old home week at our rig.  Kirby and Lee have known Lou for about 20 years and I have known him almost as long….he is family now! 

Since it was already so hot we headed into town to check out the local brewery that we had found online.  Lodi Beer Company is located downtown Lodi on a tree lined street – beautiful!  We each ordered different beers and enjoyed them along with a plate of nachos.  (I got the Red which I loved and Kirby of course tried the IPA which was very hoppy – just the way he likes them!)

The streets of downtown Lodi are really lovely!

What would be your choice?

I love the bar and the beer taps.  Very unusual.

A great smile on Lee's face!

Then it was on to wine tasting.  I had no idea that Lodi was a great wine tasting area so what a wonderful surprise.  I love wine.  I really love wine – so this was perfect for me and the men enjoyed it to.

Our first tasting room was the Van Ruiten FamilyVineyards.  That is where we met Nicole who explained all about their wines (and that she is going to Hawaii on vacation very soon and taking her twin 17 year old sons for their high school graduation).  I think our favorite there was the Sauvignon Blanc. It was a beautiful tasting room full of people having fun and enjoying the wines.  Lou got a couple of bottles for his wife who didn’t get to come and then we went on to the next.

Thanks, Nicole for the fun time!

That's us!

Michael-David Winery was next.  We loved their various zinfandels and we even got to sample a $60 bottle that we would never be able to purchase so that was very special.  It was awesome!  All of the wines we tried there were exceptional and we would like to have purchased a case – but we just don’t have the space!

YUM!!

Tasting at Michael-David

 Then it was back to the rig – which was only about a mile down the road.  We hung out visiting until the power went out!  Yikes – 105 degrees and no AC!  So, what do you do?  You go outside and sit in the shade of the RV, get the hose and get wet and invite your neighbors to join you.  It turned into a great party!  What an awesome day we had!  I love this life!

This is our Jake

And this is his new friend, Lola!

The Best and the Worst

Much has happened in the past week.  Some of it very good and some of it very bad.  So, I will back up to last week.

We left that awesome park in the middle of LA and took 4 different freeways to arrive at our next destination.  The freeways in LA are terrible!  We shook and rattled like crazy as we lumbered down the freeways heading north.

We only had 85 miles to go so it was an easy day.  We arrived at Pyramid Lake RV Resort about 11:00 am and were greeted by a pleasant Chinese lady.  She offered us just about any space in the park.  We should have wondered why there were so many spaces empty but we decided on one near an open area so that Jake could run.  All of this deciding was done without actually seeing the place – you can’t see much from the entry.  So off we went to space #121 and from there on it only went downhill.  After 2 and a half hours of moving, checking, arguing and discussing we had a burned out microwave, converter and later we learned, our TV.

The power at Pyramid Lake RV was a disaster!  There was no ground on the place we were assigned and it blew everything.  We went around measuring the power and finally settled on a location.  Since it was a 3-day holiday weekend, we didn’t feel we had much option of leaving and finding another place and – we were expecting our friends to join us in a couple of hours.

View from the Back

I could go on with this bitching and moaning about what a terrible place this was but I don’t want to dwell on it.  Just know that it was the worst ever, the most expensive and the rudest, most awful management ever!  Here is a picture of one of the picnic tables.  I won’t post the picture of the roaches – you can use your imagination.

This is just one of the tables - some were worse, some were better.

The best part was that Heather and Jim joined us in their 16 foot Scamp.  We have known them for years and years and have traveled together and partied together all over the place.  They also brought their black lab, Lexi, so Jake had a friend too!  The two of them hit it off right away and became best buds.  

Lexi on the left and Jake on the right - love at first sight!

Heather always decorates!

She decorated their camper too!

That was Friday.  On Saturday we had other friends come for the day and surprise us.  We hadn’t seen Alan and Susan in years when they just sort of showed up!  One look at them and I just started screaming with excitement!  I couldn’t believe my eyes.  What a fun day we had all catching up with each other again.  They stayed for a barbeque and we all ate outside together at the broken down table with a rug covering the weeds!  Who cares when you are surrounded by friends!

That's yours truly on the left and Heather on the right - having fun!

FRIENDS REUNITED!

Heather provided glow in the dark necklaces for us!

We remained at that horrible place with our wonderful friends until Monday.  We gave the owners of the park plenty of opportunity to pay for our loses or at least refund our rent.  They continued to be very, very rude.

We played cards and Mexican Train.  We ate lots of great food!  We laughed until our sides hurt, we reminisced about times past and talked about all our mutual friends!  It was an awesome time spent with friends who are as close as family.  Thanks Heather and Jim and Susan and Alan for making our weekend so fantastic!  You are the best!

We had a blast with the games!