WE HAVE A NEW BABY IN THE FAMILY!

Our special granddaughter, Megan and her handsome husband Joshua welcomed their son, Sean Liam (our second GREAT grandchild) into the world yesterday, October 25th. We have not received any details yet except the three pictures sent to my cell phone showing a very happy new Mama holding her baby son. Once we know more, we will share that info with you.

Salinas weather report: Cool nights and warm days. This weather is as perfect as it gets folks!

Update on son, Mike: He tells us the actual damage was a broken arm above AND below the elbow; a shattered elbow and a broken wrist. Miraculously, his shoulder and collar bone are okay. He did tear a tendon in his foot but the doctor says it is the only one (of dozens) in the foot he doesn’t really need … so, so lucky! After his surgery and a couple scary days in the hospital he is home, walking in a special boot and getting around on his own power. We love you Michael, Get well soon!

As full time RVers, Phil and I vote with absentee ballots and it goes without saying (Then why am I saying it you ask?) that the outcome of this election could possibly affect our lives—big time. Phil thinks he may have given our mail service the wrong zip code for our location. If that is true, we could be in Salinas for another week waiting for the package to be returned then resent to us. November 4th is coming up fast and we are a bit apprehensive … thinking we may miss the opportunity to have our voices heard. It would not be the end of the world but it would be a big disappointment since for the first time, we are not going to cancel each other’s vote. We will call our service on Monday to either confirm our fears or find out if we are just being impatient.

We are parked at the Salinas Elk’s Lodge RV park and it is directly alongside a local golf course. We parked nose in first even though it was a stretch for the electric cord so we would have the pastoral and peaceful view out our front window. While watching the coming and going off the tee in front of us all week, we have decided that golf aficionados are a curious bunch. When it started getting daylight this morning, I realized the course was blanketed with a thick fog at ground level. Even before I could see anything there was a worker buzzing around in a golf cart and I watched his headlight bouncing around in the fog. It looked a bit ghostly actually until I figured out what it was. Then even though the fog was still thick, there were numerous golfers going past our window and I wondered how they could see where the ball flew. And, did you know there are remote controlled golf bag carriers? We have seen several this past week and at first we thought they were runaways until we saw the remote controls in the hands of the people following along behind. Why? I did play golf in a former life for several years and speaking from experience, how tough can it be to push or pull a golf bag on wheels over comparatively flat ground? Also, we often wonder how all these young people get time away from work during week days to play … as I said, a very “curious” group indeed!

While we were in Pleasanton, we went on a couple road trips with my sister and her husband. Sitting up front and navigating for brother-in-law Walt, Phil discovered some new features on their GPS navigation system Nuvi by Garmin. We tried out this new found knowledge (yes, we had failed to read the manual) on our own older model GPS, “Carmen” Garmin and have been having a great time. We now know how to program “Carmen” to AVOID highways (freeways), dirt roads, u-turns, car pool lanes, etc., etc. and she has taken us on some amazing back road trips. As the acclaimed “salad bowl” of America (BTW Yuma, AZ also makes that claim), the Salinas area (which includes the beautiful Monterey Peninsula) is a mega-agricultural area and the fields surrounding this city are full of bountiful food crops in all stages of growth. We have seen miles of grape vineyards, several kinds of lettuce, artichokes, corn for silage, kale, cabbage, fennel, tomatoes, prickly pear cactus and many crops we couldn't identify. Oh yes, and strawberries! Hundreds of acres of strawberries being harvested and planted—in October! Who knew?

Until next week ...