The Joys of Retirement Production Company

Since the 1990s Elephant seals have been breeding and birthing on a 7 mile stretch of beaches along this central coast, just north of San Simeon. Today about 25000 frequent these beaches, 10% of the world population. January is birthing season. We saw many newborns with their moms! Each Harem master, alpha male, has between 20 and 50 females that he guards until they are ready to wean pups and head back to sea, about 4 months. During this time all but the pups are fasting. The seals feeding grounds are far out to sea! This is a perfect time to see the seals, and if you never have seen this sight, come spend a couple days, It’s amazing!

Our adventures today started late, because we decided to work on our next trip plans. We are headed to Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii and found a super colossal amazing offer for our Diamond resort. We had 13,800 points to use and had planned on a 9 day trip to Kauai, however the island county administration implemented very strict CCP Virus restrictions, and our resort couldn’t handle them, Soooo we had to cancel that part of our trip. However, while doing that we found a fantastic deal on the Big Island, where we were already booked from March 9 to April 19. After some calls and much thought, …. well, actually about 3 seconds of thought, we booked this deal! We got 40 nights at the Royal Kona resort on Kailua Bay for the same timeshare points we would have used for 9 on Kauai! Plus free parking and $25 per DAY hotel credit to use at their restaurants! We can upgrade to the most amazing corner view room for just $30/ day and have a King Suite with views of the ocean and the bay. I think I’m walking on air here! We booked our CCP test for Monday afternoon and we are out of here Thursday! I will be celebrating my 72nd birthday in Hawaii, again! Our extended trip now is almost 12 weeks, just 3 days short of 3 months! Needless to say, expect pictures of sunsets, palm trees, papayas, and beaches! It is another of my favorite places in earth! And after missing 3 international trips over the last year, this is a welcome vacation get away!

Back to what we did today! Our drive down the coast for lunch in Morro Bay, a visit to the Rock, and some photography of the sea otters, my favorite sea creatures! Enjoy!

There is an upcoming Pacific storm the end of the week, part of the reason we came up early instead of waiting for my birthday week. The benefit for us now is the beautiful waves breaking on the shore by us! We had lunch in Cayucos and you can see the height of the waves as they pass under the pier there! A couple of classic cars were in the parking lot at Leffingwell Landing.

We long ago discovered a drive out of Cambria south along the Santa Rosa Creek Rd, and decided on this day with lots of tourists we would find a get away there, and we did! Few other cars! Only 1 passed us! The views are stunning, and we even saw a couple little foxes along the way. Enjoy the ride with us

Today our great granddaughter Zuriah is 4! She’s a joy and a sweetheart! She and her mommy Kaila made her Halloween costume this year! She was a little Bald Eagle. Mom and dad, grandson Trey fit right into the patriotic theme! Happy birthday, sweetheart!

I felt an urgent need to “get out of Dodge”, escape to the seaside, so took off for Cambria for a few days. We will do a bit of exploring, even tho I’ve been here dozens of times over 35 years, I still love it. It’s my refuge. I love hearing the waves at night! Watching them during the day. I think i was born to live by the sea! Here’s a few first glimpses of our view

For Christmas we received some darling pictures of our littles, our youngest grandchildren, Bodhi, 3 and Poppy 15 months. Sweet sweet babies!

Today Our church projected the Liberty Baptist Church Vision for 2021 It was a very uplifting service about renewal and revival. I believe Pastor is exactly right! We don’t know what 2021 will bring, just like in 2020, all our planning was turned upside down! Again, It will be a season of change for all of us, I’m sure. Hang on tight, the next few weeks particularly will be a chaotic roller coaster, but have faith. God is moving in this time. We will wait on HIM to hear his plans! But be ready for His renewal and revival!

It was also a time to dedicate the newly remodeled bookstore space which is being repurposed for a youth center. At the end of the service the pastor called the men who worked to remodel that space to come up and receive the thanks of the church, and the wives who spared the guys for the time it took for them to work there! He thanks us all with lunch at In n Out! The church brought the In n Out truck to the church patio for a lunch! and thanked the ladies with this beautiful bouquet with 2 dozen red roses! It was a complete surprise! The new space is lovely, and filled with things that will bless the youth of the church. It’s big enough for their meetings, and is equipped for teaching, but also a lounge place for them to hang out, a game room for their entertainment. It is a place dedicated to bringing young people to a knowledge and relationship with Jesus. Pictures of the new space will come soon!

Thanks for bearing with me as I learn how to navigate and create pages and blog entries with WordPress. It’s been years since I needed to update websites for work and those skills are rusty! But as always, learning new programs takes time.

I’m recovering from Facebook addiction, I’m sure you can commiserate, and media overload from the last few weeks, so taking a break to just enjoy memories of our trips and plans for the future. I will make a post for the next few days on the travels we did in recent times, one per post. If you joined us on FB at our travel group, The Joys of Retirement Production Company, these are summaries of those adventures. For convenience sake, I’ll travel backwards with the most recent trips in 2020 to …. wherever far back that goes. We actually have a data base of trips so I can refresh the memory of the years those trips were taken! Too many to remember with aging grey cells! In between those, we will post our upcoming plans and trips as they occur…. and several are in various stages of planning or booking. Since life these days changes day to day, by circumstances out of our control, I’m not predicting any of theses will happen as planned…. just hoping!

Part of my period of recovery will also be reading, studying the bible more, knitting and crocheting, and tending the living things at home, mostly husband and plants. I may post occasionally about those things. I’m afraid we are devoid of pets at the moment since our last kitty passed away, because we just travel too often to leave them alone. ONE day, in the future, we will revisit that, as much as I miss pets now, it just isn’t the right time.

Thanks for taking time to muse with me about the future. Enjoy your day!