Update: Sunday, February 22, 2004.

It's been a while and I know all my fans are anxious to hear and see what we've been up to. Believe me, we've been busy.   

On January 4th we took a leisurely ride along the coast and accidentally found a nice place for rent fairly close to the "village" area of the seaside City of Encinitas, about 20 miles north of downtown San Diego. We thought about it for an hour or two then called the owner and took it. We signed a one-year lease on Wednesday then on Friday, we met with a realtor and put our house on the market. The following Friday we had four good offers. We reached an agreement with one of the buyers and closed escrow just this past Thursday, February 19th. It happened quickly!

Moving was painful. Our new place is about half the size of our old house and we had accumulated 16 years worth of "stuff" to fill it up. We now not only have lots of "stuff" here, we've stuffed stuff in a nearby storage unit. We've stored stuff with the company that moved us and we've otherwise donated, disposed of or sold lots of other stuff.

But... we really like our new place and our new lifestyle. Unlike Scripps Ranch where we had to drive everywhere, here we can walk to the beach, shops, bars, restaurants, a theater, and the train station. Our house is two blocks from a "Coaster" (the local commuter train) station, so we can take that to downtown if we were so inclined.

This is the Coaster zooming by our house. We're right across the street from the tracks, so occasionally it gets a little noisy here.

These are views taken from our upstairs deck. Notice the ocean out there on the horizon.

This is our old house with the sold sign (and trash cans) out front. It was sad to leave after so long but it was time to go and the price was right.

This is our new house. It's a duplex. We're in the one on the left, the north side.

The "village" area stretches along Coast Highway 101 which I guess used to be the main north-south drag before I-5 was built. In the village you can find everything from secondhand shops to upscale eateries. Yes, there is a Starbucks but no McDonalds or Burger Kings. There are still plenty of ma & pa breakfast places, a couple old motels and at least two excellent dive bars complete with pool tables and dart boards. The ocean is three or four blocks west.

Moonlight Beach is at the north end of town. About a mile south at the other end of town is the famous surfer hangout known as "Swami's" named after the Self-Realization Fellowship founded by Swami Yogananda.

This is a view from the top of Swamis Park. From here you must go down about 100 steps to get to the beach. Between Swamis and Moonlight beach there is only one other place to get up the bluff and that is just south of Moonlight beach.

We've had a few nice sunsets already.

John & Janet Visit!

Our friends from Moab and fellow Sportsmobilers were in So Cal for a while and came by to visit us on the weekend of the 14th.

Here are Lorri, Janet and John on the steps at Swamis.

There was a nice low tide on Sunday so we went for a stroll. You can see the Swamis steps and surfers in the background.

Here we have two Sportsmobiles and Lorri and the back of our new place.

Sara, Ashley and Lynn!

Lorri's sister's kids, Sara and Ashley came to visit us last Wednesday, February 18th, and spent the night. They had the week off due to Presidents' Day and other unknown reasons. We played Monopoly, watched a movie and had pie and ice cream. We also went walking around town and Lynn came by to pick them up on Thursday and joined us for lunch.

Here we are on Wednesday. It was a little blustery.

It was a little nicer the next day when Lynn showed up. The girls all had fun checking out all the shops. I mostly sat on benches and waited for them.

This is a self-portrait taken outside a shop. I'm the one on the far left. You have to look closely.