May 31, 2010 - Day Twenty-four

Memorial Day.

We broke the record of how many days we’ve spent in our trailer in one stretch. Our trip last year was from Oceanside to the shores of Lake Superior in northern Wisconsin where we visited my sister, Susi, and her husband, Billy. My mother was also there. We’re going to be there in a month or so, but we’ve going to keep traveling in the opposite direction for a little while longer.

Today we’re headed to Naples, Florida to visit Robin and Mike Faircloth who moved here in 2008 from Ramona, California. We got to know them through the San Diego Miata Club. Although Mike is a car guy, he has a Rolls Royce and a Triumph, its Robin who owns the Miata.

Robin also followed us home when we took our trailer to Moab, Utah for a Miata meet. She and Marianne got to know each other much better on that trip, and we’ve continued to stay in touch. When they were visiting in San Diego this past March, we had dinner with them.

It was an uneventful drive down to Naples, but we did go through many of the communities where Marianne’s grandparents from Wisconsin stayed during the winter. And it was also where Marianne’s mom got to meet Babe Ruth when she was nine, had her picture taken with him, and received a baseball signed by the 1931 New York Yankees, including, Ruth, Lou Gehring, Left Gomez and more.

We arrived at Naples, and then drove to Mike and Robin’s lovely new home with a huge yard. Mike had to leave for work a few minutes earlier, but he called Robin to let her know that he saw us on the way.

We parked the trailer in their front yard, just as the heavens opened up. We were in their home for a minute or so, when it became a torrential monsoon. By the time it was over they had received 4” of rain, and our trailer was on its own island! Four inches! For the past couple of years we’ve only received 6” of rain all year in Oceanside.

Robin then took us to a great Italian restaurant, D’Amico & Sons, for dinner, playing tour guide the entire way. This was Memorial Day and many of the restaurants were closed for the holiday, in fact our first choice, a Cuban restaurant, was. Before dining at D’Amico’s were stopped by Mike’s work and got to see him before he’d get home at 3am from his work shift.

We got right in at D’Amico’s; one of their specials is an all-you-drink house wine (red or white) for $7.50. The girls took advantage of that! We all ordered different pizzas so we could mix and match. They were very tasty. I am proud to say that I finished mine, but the girls needed to-go boxes. They would be another meal for another day.

After dinner we headed to the beach to watch a glorious sunset, but not before driving through some very exclusive neighborhoods, where each house is more impressive than the one next to it, and in all different styles.

I must say, the Florida gulf coast does have some great sunsets, because during the summer months, when no one is here, the large thunderstorm clouds provide a dramatic background to the sunsets that we never see out West.

Heading back to their home and our trailer, we drove through the “Old Naples” downtown, which is like a miniature Rodeo Drive, with expensive stores and restaurants devoted to the well-heeled partisan.

By the time we got back to the trailer, we were bushed and immediately went to bed, using only our 12v fans since we didn’t want to turn on our generator, but it cooled down into the 70’s so we got a great night’s sleep.