After four weeks in Santa Cruz, we loaded the Vistabule and meandered down highway 101, hugging the coast and then veered east over the Topatopa mountain range.  The land was dotted with acres of orange and lemon groves with fruit ready for harvest. As we travelled, we passed by a number of tractor trailers heaped with lemons heading for processing sheds. I wonder if some of those lemons made their way to a HyVee store in Minnesota?  We spent one night in Santa Paula and our final destination was Descanso, a small mountain town 40 miles east of San Diego. While it wasn’t a big deal we struggled with  battery issues and are still trying to learn some of the Vistabule mechanics of battery chargers and voltmeters. I will spend more time researching  this and write about it in a later post. Because it was so cold on our drive from Minnesota to California we never turned on our newly installed refrigerator but finally had the opportunity to test it for 24 hours. So far so good, my yogurt was cold! Our camper is once again sheltered in the garage of a friend until mid February. Tomorrow we depart for New Zealand and will fulfill another item on Stephen’s bucket list.

We’ve been nomads for six weeks and have a few more travel discoveries to share:

• Two pair of jeans, two shirts and a jacket are sufficient.
• Take advantage of nature’s opportunities immediately. We missed the monarch  butterfly migration by one day.
• Walking together fosters good conversation.
• Purchase a good quality raincoat…it will pay for itself.
• Avoid Interstate 5 through Los Angeles while pulling a camper….its nail biting.

We have been generously blessed by friends and relatives along the way. At times we are overwhelmed and humbled by the kindness we have received. Thank you! I will close this blog from a location on the North Pacific Ocean and pick it up on the other side of the world at a location on the South Pacific Ocean. Pinch me!