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Stampede Tour - On the Road posted by Dakota Livesay

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The last couple of days we’ve been staying at an RV park outside of Blythe. On one side of the park is the Colorado River. On the other three sides, as the pictures show, are fields of alfalfa.

This is definitely a River Rat park. It’s about ¾ permanent RV spots that are shut down for the winter. However, there were several groups that came in for the weekend. Although it was to cold to go on the river, it wasn’t to cold to party. Sunny and Jake were invited to join their party. But, Dakota wasn’t. Something about being a “party poop.” Sunny and Jake both said they wouldn’t go if Dakota couldn’t. So, we all went to bed early.

It’s off to Florence, Arizona for about two weeks.

We had a great Christmas with our children and grandchildren. We spent it in Palm Springs, CA. There sure has been a lot of wind.

And, to take advantage of the wind, they have wind generators all around the area.

We’re now headed back to Arizona for a few weeks.

Over the last week we’ve been so busy that we’ve hardly had time to do anything but work.

Christmas is the busiest time of the year for us with hundreds of people getting subscriptions to Chronicle of the Old West for friends and relatives as Christmas presents. Sunny prints a gift note for each, as well as includes a free CD of Old West stories…Our daily visit to the post office with bags of mail wasn’t appreciated by the postal clerks. The last postage increase screwed things up so we can no longer put our own stamps on the packages. Everything has to be run through their machine.

On top of this we’ve had to get out the January daily stories to the radio stations. And wouldn’t you know it, January has 23 week days. That means we have to burn two CDs for each radio station. We also had to get out this week’s hour show. And, oh yes, we had to get the January issue of Chronicle of the Old West completed. And then there are our personal Christmas cards.

Sunny seems to be taking the stress better than Dakota.

We’ve left the beach for the area called the Inland Empire…San Bernardino, CA. It was a lot of fun walking along the beach and gathering shells. Sunny has a good supply of them to look at when she missed the beach.

We’re working our way to Desert Hot Springs, CA to spend Christmas with our family.

We’re still in Pismo Beach, CA. On one of the walks that we take we pass by some power lines. One line seems to always have a flock of birds on it. Right behind it…you can actually see the other power line in the background of the bird picture…is a power line with small pieces of metal handing from it. We’ve never seen a bird on that line.

Interesting way to keep the birds away.

We’re now in Pismo Beach, CA. The RV park where we’re staying is up against the beach. Each morning and evening the three of us take a walk along the beach. Sunny collects shells, Jake collects sticks and Dakota collects his wits.

We have regular visitors of mallard ducks and coots each day looking for goodies, and leaving deposits.

We went to Hearst Castle. This is an unbelievable compound built by Howard Hearst at San Simeon. This thing sets out in the middle of nowhere. And during its heyday, everyone who was anyone was invited there.

One of the people in our tour group said to his wife that it was a sin that anyone should have this much money. I look at it a bit different. During the eight or so years that Hearst Castle was being built, Howard Hearst made the economy in that area flourish as he spent millions of dollars hiring people and purchasing materials to build it.

Over the last few days we’ve gotten our ocean fix with a stay at Moro Bay, CA. And, the weather couldn’t be nicer. We can walk outside the RV park onto the beach.

I often think that there is no more beautiful sunset than that with a desert view. But, as you can see, the view of a sunset from a sandy beach can be outstanding also.

Yesterday we went to the Solvang, CA Christmas parade. I like hometown parades. And Solvang’s, a Danish town, was a good one.

There were a couple of unique entries. This is the first parade I’ve ever attended where a cow or a turkey was part of it.

At the same time, there were a number of floats celebrating the real meaning of Christmas.