Well, we did it… sold the house, traded in Sue’s car for a new towable Jeep and have started our full time adventure in OUR HALE. As mentioned earlier in the blog, HALE means home in Hawaiian. And it has definitely fit the bill, as our new great adventure begins. Sue lived in her house in Antioch California for 32 years, with some awesome roommates (Diane, Brenda, Diane W. & Nicole) over the early years. We enjoyed many pool parties and fun times together, at least those that Sue can remember. On July 4th, 1999, Sue had another party and met Sallie. Needless to say, almost 16 years later, our lives have changed and we have now both become vagabonds. The sale of the house happened very quickly. We had 2 offers within 24 hours of being listed. We accepted the second offer, and after many inspections, the appraisal, a trespasser swimming in the pool, the house sold… $25,000 more than what our realtor Elsa thought we would get for the house. We were very pleased. We had one last party, entitled “The Last Party on El Monte Way”. Many friends from over the years attended and the invite mentioned instead of BYOB, it was BYOC (bring your own chair), because the house was empty and we had none. Everyone got a tour of the new house on wheels and the empty house with all the walls. The biggest thing we will miss from this house was of course the swimming pool, and our wonderful neighbors (Mark & Karen, Amber, Steve, Jackson and Bella, John, Sue, Travis and family).
Our first destination was in Santa Barbara with Sallie’s mom Norma. We enjoyed the week hanging out at the campsite, going to the beach and spending a day in Solvang. We were able to get America’s Got Talent audience tickets at the famous Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. It was a total blast being a part of the television show taping that will start airing on May 26th. We were seated 6 rows back from the stage next to Howie Mandell. Be sure to look for us on TV.
Once we said goodbye to Norma, we headed south to Newport Beach. Our campsite was right on the Newport Lagoon where we had bird feeders out to entertain the kitties. We had a busy week going to our favorite stomping ground Huntington Beach. We also couldn’t pass up Frozen Fun at Disneyland. While in California Adventure we were surprised to run into Ida Lee and Rudy Lopez. It really is a small world… needless to say we sang “It’s a Small World” the rest of our time at Disneyland.
Since we were so close to L.A., we had to make a reservation at the Sur Restaurant, in hopes of seeing some of the staff/cast from the Bravo television show Vanderpump Rules. We did see Max, Lisa Vanderpump’s young son. She would have been proud to see what a hard worker he was. The food by the way, was excellent.
At the RV park, we met our neighbor Larry Lake. It turned out he was once a publisher of The Milepost, a book about traveling to Alaska. After chatting with him, we are now considering going there. We had heard horror stories from other RV’ers, that it would do major damage to Our Hale (tires, windshield…). He helped us map out our trip and are possibly planning it for 2017.
It was nice to spend an evening with Sallie’s stepsister Marla, her husband Randy and daughter Kate.
We then returned to Chula Vista RV Resort south of San Diego for a few days. This was our last stop from last years 8 month trip and much better for Sue, considering she had wrist surgery the last time we were there. We were located right next to the San Diego Yacht Club and Bay.
Our new great adventure now began as we left California heading east. Yuma AZ was our first destination and our very first hike of many more to come. We hiked Telegraph Peak and once there, understood why the hike review mentioned to bring pliers. The cholla cactus have very large dangerous thorns one would not want to fall on. We set a goal to hike 200 miles over the coming year.
On to the great state of Texas!
I’m so happy and excited for you both. Happy trails to you both. Keep in touch.
Thanks Treese! I still can’t believe we sold the house. It does give me a feel of freedom and I love it! You stay in touch too!