family, friends and beach time!

So you may remember me writing about our weekend in San Diego, reconnecting with John's uncle and aunt, Neil and Carolyn. If not, you can read about it here. They have 2 older kids - Annie working in New York and Emily at university at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo (Central Coast of Cali). Zara slept in Emily's room while we were there, and tried on all her old costumes and paraded around in her highest heels. Zara also did some texting with Emily on Carolyn's cell phone and just felt a real connection with her. So we were all thrilled when Neil and Carolyn stopped by GG's place on the way home from picking up Emily at the end of her school year. Zara loved Emily before even meeting her, and they just clicked right away!

                                                            

GG with some of her clan. It was a super short, but super sweet visit! We were all sad to say good-bye... again. We also said our farewells to GG as our time in LA was ending. We look forward to visiting her in Washington again this summer! 

The next day we drove up a long winding mountain road to Lake Arrowhead to visit Danny and Nancy Eager, some friends that we hadn't seen for about 7 years. We ate lunch by the lake, then played in the park and raced go carts. Zara had never driven a go cart before and was bit nervous about it, but she just cruised around that race track! Bella loved being her co-pilot!

Zara doing a little happy dance after the racing!

We spent the night with Dan and Nancy at their lovely cabin, then headed back down the next morning to pick up the motorhome and make a beeline for the ocean! We arrived at Refugio State Park that afternoon - what a beautiful spot! A lovely sandy beach, bordered with palm trees, dolphins swimming by! Blissful!

                                            Bella doing her "Stick tricks" (Musketeer moves!)

                                                           The view from the RV! A sweet spot!

That night after dinner, the sun had set and the sky was turning a pinky grey, when Zara yelled "Dolphins!". We raced outside to the beach and there were 6 bottlenosed dolphins hanging out in the bay about 50' off-shore. They were playing, interacting, rubbing up against each other, jumping, spyhopping, just enjoying each other and in no hurry to get anywhere. What a gift to witness these magnificent creatures! We watched them for about 20 minutes before they slowly made their way out of the bay. Wow! We said good night and thank you to the dolphins and went to bed!

The next morning we loved exploring the point with all the amazing rocks.

We spent most of the day on the beach. There was a cool breeze blowing much of the day that kept us deceptively comfortable! We all ended up getting a bit sunburned - we're not used to being out during the hottest part of the day! We won't let that happen again. It was just too beautiful to leave!

Late that afternoon we headed north about 45 minutes to John's folks place in Santa Maria. We've now been here for almost a week, enjoying time with family, and taking some down time after a busy month on the road. We are now more than halfway through this part of our adventure! We'll enjoy a couple more days here, then will hit the road again. I wonder what adventures are waiting for us just around the corner?