Coronado Island, California

We left Monday 3/24, we had reservations on Coronado Island starting the 27th.  After a trip to the local DMV  (it took about an hour) to physically show them the Vin number we were on our way.  The weather was beautiful, we took the sun to Oregon and now we're taking it back with us.  Our goal was to make it to Anderson, Ca., south of Redding, to spend the night for free in a Wal-Mart parking lot, we made it by 7:00.  We woke up to find one of Wal-Marts brightest parked right in front of the coach.  I was afraid we would have to disconnect, back up and then go around him but Gary was able to maneuver around the car.  When we pulled out of Anderson it had just started to sprinkle, it turned to a pretty heavy rain for about an hour.  So much for the sun we  were taking with us.  Tuesday 3/25, we arrived in Santa Nella about 3:00, in time to take Luci for a long walk down the canal road.  We'd stayed there on the way up, it was a nice place and not too expensive. The next morning we hit the road by 9:00 with Santa Clarita as our goal, another Wal-mart.  We chose Santa Clarita because it was at the base of the Grapevine so we could hit LA freeways at a reasonable time, we had been told between 10 & 12 was a good time.  We asked if we could stay the night, one person said yes, another said to check with security. We picked up 7 geo caches in the parking lot of the shopping center.  We checked the prices of RV parks in the area just in case we had to leave, they ran from $50.00 to $75.00.  We never saw the security guy so wen went to dinner at a BBQ restaurant in the parking lot.  Yum!  What a miserable night, we didn't open any slides, it was a bit cozy so we went to bed early.  I was fast asleep at 10:00 when Gary woke me up saying he wasn't comfortable staying there, he was thinking about hitting the road.  Then he went to sleep and I was wide awake.  I think we took turns sleeping, finally hitting the road at 5:00, he said we could beat the morning traffic.  HA! It took us 2 harrowing hours to get to a rest area across from Camp Pendleton where we ate breakfast. Whew glad to get out of LA