A couple of nights ago I pounded out a post to start catching us up.  At that point we were 24 days behind on the blog.  With this monthly report we are down to only 13, woot!

Yes, this picture is blurry, but only because Pad Kee Meow’s Jiu Jitsu training is progressing so well that we are moving at an extraordinary speed, and the lens just can’t quite capture it.  Just like how fast this blog is getting caught up.

The Distance: 998 miles as we worked our way west from Phoenix through Yuma into Southern California, and then up the coast to just north of San Francisco.  Our 2017 total is 3,853, all but a handful of that occurring during the last three months.  I suspect we are on track for a 15,000 mile year.

The Places:  We left Phoenix bound for Yuma, and stopped there for eight days getting dental work done in Los Algodones.  From there it was on to Coronado, CA and the Navy’s campground at Fiddler Cove.  We then moved north to Ventura, staying at another Navy camp on Point Mugu, and included a day trip to the Channel Islands National Park.  While there we were able to meet up with Dad and Stopmom Marcia again when they rolled into town for a couple of nights camping on the Channel Islands.  Then it was on to Monterrey, broken up by a one night stop over at Camp San Luis Obispo,  Finally, we continued north beyond San Francisco before stopping at Travis Air Force Base’s Family Campground.  We used that as a jumping off point for a trip back to South Florida.

Channel Islands National Park

We spent 23 days in military campgrounds and 8 in a private RV resort.  We enjoyed full hook ups, sometimes even with cable or usable wifi, for 30 days, and dry camped for one. Other than the tax payer subsidized rate at the five different military facilities, we also used one of our Air Force Frequent Camper certificates for a free night at Travis AFB, and were discounted four nights in Yuma due to our Passport America membership.

The Marina at Coronado Naval Base.

The Budget:  May was a budgetary disaster for us, but we knew that going into it.  We ended up 139% over budget!  The vast majority of that was because of our dental work in Mexico, but we also had to get a partial brake job for Loki (pads and rotors on the front axle.)  This puts us over for the year, but we are still confident we can make it up the majority of that with rational expenditures in June and July.  Once we are out of California we hope the less rigid regulations will allow us to participate in a few markets to help pad the budget as well.

One of Rosemarie’s more elaborate pieces recently sold on her Etsy page.

The Drama and the Improvements:  Loki’s brakes started squealing and grinding about when we arrived at Travis AFB, so we had pads and rotors replaced on the front axle at the base Firestone center.  As for drama: the softball incidents at Travis are about the only thing I can think of.

Here are our monthly reports for the year so far:

• April
• March
• February
• January

And here are our 2016 and 2015 annual summaries, each of which have embedded links to the individual monthly reports from those years.