16.-22.10.2006: Riverside - San Juan Capistrano - Rancho Bernado On the way South heading for L.A. it was very windy and then we hit fog. It took us a while to find the campground in Riverside which was in a county park. But we finally found it at 4-30pm and paid for four nights as we had a lot of work to do. We managed to get a TV reception on the laptop and watched a programme about Hurricane Katrina and we even got BBC World news!! At last! We spent a lot of time writing on the computer and Kirsten spent a lot of time hunting for photos that she'd taken from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Unfortunately, it seems that she transferred them from her image tank onto the computer and even had copies on the USB. But also managed to delete them all!! Kirsten said that the Mormons had stolen them!! We even managed to give Winnie a much needed wash on the outside. On Friday we had the usual stress of leaving a campground with all the cleaning etc that we normally do. We finally left after having a shower at 2-30pm and headed south. We stopped at a library for an hour and also went to Burger King. Then we headed across highway 74 which goes over the mountains towards the Pacific Ocean and was an extremely busy road. We drove to San Juan de Capristrano to go and see Vonda Shepard in concert. She was the pianist and singer on the Ally McBeal show for about 5 years and is mainly known for her appearances on the show. (Kirsten knew of her well before that though!) We've already been to see Melissa Etheridge and so Kirsten looked on the internet to see if Vonda Shepard was playing anywhere. We didn't buy any tickets because we weren't sure if we would make all the way over to the California coast in time. But we made it and we also got tickets for $25 each. It was in a large restaurant called the Coach House, with a permanent stage in at the front. They have nightly concerts here and can seat up to around 500 people. There were 3 acts on. The first was Connie Rae, a singer with a backing guitarist. The guitarist was better! Then came Steph Johnson and band - very good. She had a voice like Sade and played the same genre of music. Finally it was Vonda Shepard's turn. She is a lot better live than on CD. Kirsten managed to video the 1.5 hours that she played on stage with her two guitarists. One of the guitarists had played for 20 years for Tina Turner! Kirsten also bought Vonda's last two CDs which she hasn't been able to find in any shops. So she was a very happy bunny. She would have been happier if people hadn't kept ordering drinks on the table in front of us so that we've got the waitress going back and forth on the video!!! At the end of the concert, Kirsten tried to get one of her new CDs signed by Vonda but she got stopped by the security guards! There were around 300 people at the concert which was surprising as Helen thought that Vonda Shepard was a lot more popular than that. But at least everyone could get a good view of the stage. It was 11-30pm by the time we left and we had to drive further south to find a Wal-mart where we were allowed to park overnight. On Saturday we went shopping in Wal-mart. Our next stop was to visit Lesley and Rod in San Diego. Lesley was on our South America trip in 2002 but on the other truck. We got to know her better on the Galapagos islands because she was on the same boat trip. We have kept in contact by email since and the last time we had an email we found out that she'd got married - not because she told us in the email but because her surname had changed!! This time we sent an email, we found out that they now had a son - Zachary, born June 30th 2006 and only 4 months old. God knows what surprise the next email will contain!!! So we spent an hour in Wal-mart hunting for a present for 4 month old Zachary. Unfortunately neither of us are very good when it comes to choosing presents for children and we always seem to end up with something that they have already grown out of!! That's why it took us an hour! Finally we decided on some body-suit pyjama things - great description!! We opted for the 9 to 12 month size and hoped he hadn't already out-grown that size!! We arranged to meet them at 2pm at their apartment so we had a bit of time. But we still managed to hit fog on the freeway and the resulting traffic jam. Finally we got to meet little Zachary who is really cute! It was great to see Lesley and Rod again and we enjoyed catching up on everything thats been happening. But they both looked very tired, Rod more than Lesley, as Zachary gets fed at around 3am every morning so they're not getting much sleep. Lesley is already back at work because there is only 3 months maternity leave in the US. Lesley took an extra month of unpaid leave on top and now Zach goes to day care which he obviously enjoys. Sunday was Lesley and Rod's 2 year wedding anniversary and Rod had planned a special surprise. We stayed at the apartment and Kirsten worked on transferring the video of the concert onto CD. Lesley and Rod got back just after 7pm and we found out that Zach had spent the day with Rod's parents and the two of them had gone sailing around the bay!! There wasn't much chance to talk as it was time for Zach's bath and to get him ready for bed.