Friends in Fallbrook

For 2 weeks, we set up camp in my dear friend's driveway. Long ago, Susan and I spent a summer camping together on Roan Mountain, where we released and monitored 5 fledgling Peregrine Falcons. She and her family now live in a beautiful little house in Fallbrook, CA. It was a real treat to spend some good time with her and meet her cute little boys. We arrived in time for some fun Halloween festivities: a great Halloween party with crafts for the kids at a friend's house one night, and Halloween games at the Fallbrook Community Center, followed by trick-or-treating. Here we are dressed-up for Halloween. Adalaya is a gypsy, and looks like she fits right in with Susan's pirate family. I should have been a parrot instead of an owl!


It was Jackson's first time trick-or-treating, and Adalaya showed him the ropes. They would hold-hands while they walked up to a door, and Jackson would yell "Trick-or-Treat" and Adalaya would say "Thank you". Jackson was quite a trooper, because the neighborhood that we picked to trick-or-treat in took Halloween very seriously! Adalaya and I are used to the mellow Celo Halloween hay-ride scene, but this one involved chain-saws, mangled mannequins, and actively scaring kids. But together they braved all for the ultimate loot! Arrgh, sugar!

We took a few side trips during our stay in Fallbrook. We drove back to the coast for a night in Carlsbad, CA, the city where George came a year ago to buy our van (remember it's VW central around here). We paid an all new-high of $50 for a campsite in the South Carlsbad State Beach Campground. But we did have a nice ocean-side view!

We biked into downtown Carlsbad and went to a great pizza and brewery place - The Pizza Port.
Here's George sampling some of the micro-brews on tap.

The pizza was delicious and we were happy to be biking home at sunset!


Susan and her boys met us at the beach the next morning for some wave-dodging and pond-digging in the sand.

Adalaya is really good at entertaining the boys, and today was no exception.

Another day, we went into San Diego for a morning at the zoo. Among our favorites were the Koala Bears and Giant Pandas, neither of which I had seen before.


The "Skyfari" was a fun way to travel over the zoo.

We had other adventures with Susan's family, but that will have to wait for another blog entry.