Family and Commuting in San Diego

I feel like I've neglected my blog lately. It's been a very busy few weeks, and the only motorcycle riding I've done is back and forth from San Diego, CA to Menifee, CA where my home is.

Last weekend my daughter and her husband came to Menifee (my daughter Olivia is beside me with my grandson Jackson, and her husband David is behind me) and Steve and I rode up to Menifee to my niece's home for a Family Football Day. Actually, it was just a reason we used to get together and spend family time, watching football, eating, drinking and singing karaoke.

My niece Shelli is our Assistant Extraordinaire, managing our business affairs and personal banking while we are on the road. She handles all of our mail, packages, banking, bookkeeping, etc. She is the one in the red holding her youngest, Sophia, age 17 mos. Her kids are Brianna age 15, Josh age 9, and Zack age 11 (he's so much like Steve it's scary!) and her husband David (yes we have 2 Davids!) is the tall guy in the back.

We had a fantastic visit and the girls got to spend some quality "Mommy Time" together.

For Steve and I, it's good to come home, regroup, get work done, and catch up on personal stuff. I have a slew of doctor appointments over the next few weeks to manage my ever-nagging chronic pain, my pinched nerves in my shoulders (which are getting worse every day), my cardiovascular/heart issues, and my yearly physical. This is one of the main reasons we come back to San Diego each winter, as it takes time to address all of this crap. I really hate the nuisance of dealing with my health issues. I wish I could just be healthy and not have to address it all. . .

Fortunately, we have a great place to call home. San Diego has the best weather year round! We've rented a condo close to Balboa Park and we have all the amenities one could hope for; a gym, pool, spa, underground parking and washer/dryer in our condo. The only thing missing is a housekeeper, so now after being her 3 weeks, it's starting to show. One of us is going to have to break down and scrub a toilet soon. It's amazing how spoiled we've become after living in hotels for so long.

San Diego offers so many options for food and drink that we mostly walk to go out, and we go out about 4 nights a week. I love to cook, but since we work in our condo all day, it becomes imperative that we get out a few nights, just to break up the monotony of being in the same place all the time. Of course, we also walk over to Balboa Park too, just for some sunshine and fresh air.

Motorcycling here is some of the best riding I've ever done. We have so many canyon roads from which to choose, the beauty of PCH, desert roads that lead through rolling hills, and a web of Interstates to access for getting somewhere quick. There's also the thrill of lane splitting, which is something one can only do in California. We got stuck in dead-stop traffic last Friday night riding from Lake Forest to Long Beach. We actually started our ride in San Diego, but the minute we reached the 405, traffic was at a stand still, so we rode the entire 33 miles splitting lanes.

We went to Long Beach to see Alonzo Bodden at the Laugh Factory with a few of the folks from Indian Motorcycles. The International Motorcycle Show was going on at the Long Beach Convention Center, so many of the people from the show were heading over to see Alonzo's act. He rides too, so part of his comedy centers on riding, and he certainly catered to the motorcycling crowd that night. We had a great time, even though riding to Long Beach was a long and grueling ride. Once we arrived we showered up, dressed up a bit, and hit the town. Steve treated me with a new sparkly dress and shoes, which made me incredibly happy.

So I'm getting plenty of miles in, albeit not always the kind of miles I want to ride. So much of it has been simply commuting back and forth, but as Steve is so fond of saying, any day riding is a good day.