California!

We arrived in California yesterday!

It has been a long journey to get here--we've done lots of work and made lots of life changes in the last 2 months to be in the position for Joe to train this year--so it feels great to finally be here! Joe will have his first day of training with the coach and other athletes today.

During the last 2 months, we have had a lot of things "fall in place" that made us feel affirmed in our decision to move to California. Our house sold quickly, we found a truck and RV relatively fast, and sold lots of other possessions in an efficient manner.

One piece of the puzzle that has been uncertain is where we would park our RV. We have known about a few possibilities, and people here assured us that we should come and it would work out. The issue has been "hook-ups"...there may be a place to put the RV, but how would we get water, electricity, and have a place to dump our black-water? If we "boon-docked," which means no hook-ups, we'd have to find a place to fill up on water, use a generator, and tow the RV somewhere once or twice a week to dump the dirty water. In short, we could do it...but it would take some serious effort. RV parks are all over..but typically cost between $20-$30 a night. Not something we can afford this year.

A long-jumper here named Seun heard our good friend Tye talking about us coming and asking around about possible places for us. Seun offered to help--and called us about 3 days ago with an amazing offer. She happened to coach the child of a family who owns a very classy RV park close to the training facility on Twitchell Island. Seun told them about us and about our situation and Joe's training, and they agreed for us to be at their RV park for the entire year for FREE! We're still working out the details---and we will for sure do some work in exchange for the hook-ups (like edging all the sites)...but it's an amazing blessing.

For one, it's a beautiful park right on the Sacramento River and near the foot of Mt. Diablo---this is actually one of the best places to windsurf in the whole country, so lots of windsurfers camp and RV around here. Some RV parks aren't so great....but this one is meticulously kept, clean, with brick-paved pads for the RV. We not only have water and electrical hook-up, but we also have a place to dump our black water right at our spot (most campgrounds have one dump-station, so if you're staying long-term, you still have to pull the RV over to it on a regular basis...and it isn't easy to maneuver a 35 foot trailer in and out of sites that frequently.)

So we're feeling very blessed today. Rowan actually has a bit of a fever, so I've been camped out with her all morning. She's pretty lethargic and definitely needs to stick close to home today. It's my personality to want to get out and check everything out--find out where the grocery store is, the library, the post office, etc, and get oriented. It will have to wait until tomorrow. I will have plenty of time for all of that in the coming weeks!

I'll try to take more pictures of the area and post them soon.