Sunday, July 26, 2020

Count Down to a New Travel Adventure

Although we took a quick "shakedown" trip to Morro Bay at the end of June, we have been staying safely settled on our Jojoba Hills site while the world is fighting COVID-19.

 
Ricardo Breceda sculpture at his studio in Aguanga CA

The summer temperatures here have been quite hot, hitting the 100°+ range several times. The Alfa AC has just kept up. The evenings have been very nice and we have been able to turn off the AC and open the windows almost every evening.

With the quite pleasant evening temperatures, we have taken to sitting outside and enjoying the sunsets and watching our local wildlife.  We see a lot of quail, bunnies, birds, and even saw a bobcat walk right across our site on his way for an evening hunt.

Part of our after-dinner routine has become feeding the local bunnies. We noticed they were eating the dried leaves that had fallen from our two grapefruit trees. So one evening I scattered a few fresh leaves to see if they would eat them. They did. Now we put some down each evening. 


Bunny video

There are four bunnies that we see most evenings. One is far less shy than the others. He often sits under the tree waiting for us to come out and put down some leaves. Even though he has been waiting, he doesn't rush over to eat when I drop the leaves. The other three, if they are around, will run away when we come out and only return after we have been sitting quietly for some time. The less-shy bunny will either freeze when he first sees us, or hop just a short distance away, then slowly make his way to the new leaves and eat.  Although one is a bit smaller than the others, we think they may be siblings. We have noticed that they do not "share", and will chase each other away, or drag "their" leaves away from the others. It can be a bit of a circus.

Since most other possible park activities are closed, bunny watching gives us an hour respite from politics and COVID concerns.


Although our patio area of our site faces the Southeast, we get very delicate, pretty sunset colors. On this evening the northeastern sky was intensely colored with fuschia and purple clouds.

Many of the people here at Jojoba have planted a lot of things and developed their landscapes. They don't appreciate the rabbit population, and protect their flowers with wire and fencing. We have kept things simple with mostly gravel, cactus, and "rabbit proof" honeysuckle plants. Although they like the grapefruit leaves, they cannot reach them and cannot climb the two trees!

Unless something unpredicted happens, this is our last week at Jojoba this summer. On July 29th we will be taking off for at least two months on the coast of Oregon. 

Traveling around 300 miles per day, it will take us four driving days to get there. I have made reservations so we know where we are stopping each night.

We will spend the month of August in Bandon, and September in Port Orford. 
Our October homebound drive will include stops in the big tree country of northern coastal California. Where and how long we stop will depend on the virus.

Although we have felt quite safe here at Jojoba, Riverside county California has had some very high case numbers. Neither of the Oregon counties we are going to have had any deaths, and their case numbers are quite low, so we don't think we will be at greater risk. We will continue to take all of the precautions, masks, hand washing, avoiding crowds, and keeping shopping trips short and infrequent, that we have been doing for months. We are looking forward to walks on the beautiful cool beaches and parks of the Oregon coast!

I am trying to get back into the blogging habit, and my next post will be after we have arrived in Oregon. 

I will be posting a link to each blog on my Facebook page.  I usually do not accept friend requests from people I don't recognize, so if I don't respond to your request, leave a comment on my blog and I will be sure to accept your request.

How have you dealt with hitch-itch or the desire to wander this summer?

8 comments:

  1. So happy to see your post pop up. We also took off for about three months to go to Montana so Jim could fish. We ate still isolating as much as possible which is pretty easy in the rv. Please have a wonderful time in Oregon and I look forward to your posts

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  2. I'm happy to hear from you, even if only remotely. It has been a trying time but you'll have a good respite for the summer. I look forward to your posts.

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  3. Nice that you have the creatures of nature to keep you entertained.
    Glad to see that you are back to Blogging. It is easier if you make a habit of doing it every day even if it is a short post.
    Looking forward to following your up coming travels.
    Be Safe and Enjoy the adventure.

    It's about time.

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  4. Was at Bandon Or. for the first time last Sept. Was amazed how beautiful it was . Hope to go back some day if things every settle down . Hope you post a lot of pictures . I tried crabbing for the first time and I think once was enough . Have a good trip . Vern in Boise Id.

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  5. Aloha from Ontario Canada. Glad to see you folks are still mobile and traveling occasionally. I remember driving by your place in JoHoba early one morning about 4 years ago. You have a really nice looking Park there. Do you still let Craig outside all by his very self:)) Hitch-Itch has never left us and after being RV-less for over a year we recently acquired a small Class C. Travel plans pending. All the best to you both and good for you guys on heading to Oregon.

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  6. So VERY good to hear from you and know that all is well. I have really missed the travels of all my "friends" during this time. I have just been hunkered down. learning to do w/o and then ordering things online, i have gotten VERY good at figuring that out. HAHA
    Take Care and look forward to new stories and travel
    Safe Travels

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  7. Love your header.

    So happy you are pulling out and going to do some traveling. Be safe and enjoy your trip

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  8. Wishing you well as you visit the coast. We tried last month and the crowding was rather awful. Coastal towns are asking for people to not come from outside ares. Bend has requested that travelers stay away. Glad you got reservations. Hopefully you can find some cool air and a respite from the desert. We at least have a home where we can ride it out, but the overcrowding in Oregon from people escaping from many states that have much higher covid numbers than we do has made it impossible for us to find a place to go. Everything is jammed. As one person said the rivers are so full of watercraft you could walk across without getting wet. Don't mean to be a bummer, but be ready for heavy crowds and limited resources. And stay well.

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