October 2023 - A Quick visit to CA with Beau, Part 2

Heading to SoCal for Oktoberfest Fundraiser for my Grade School

DAYS 6 ~ 8, October 12-14

My grade school, 1st thru 8th grade. St. Ireneaus, Cypress, CA

There were no fences when I went there).

Hmm? Is the fence to keep kids in, or people out?

After leaving Alameda, CA, I drove south then west towards Livermore, CA and merged back onto I-5. It was a long 430 miles to Costa Mesa. Especially after driving over the Grapevine where Google had me jumping from freeway to freeway to void accident delays that were impossible to navigate around. I arrived at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa after dark. After driving around several blocks and stopping at several different entry gates that were locked, I found an after hours security station. They were extremely nice and pointed me in the right direction. Like "ya see that gazebo thing wat over there, well just park anywhere over on the other side of that". Ya, um, okay. Not like KOA were they guide you into the spot with their golf cart. The RV parking was not very organized but also not very crowded. There were full hookups in several different areas but only $40/night. The few other places that I might have found vacancy were from $85~120/night. And I wouldn't have know if they had vacancy until I got there. This actually turned out to be a decent place once I got settled in the morning.

Orange County Fairgrounds, Costa Mesa, CA

I felt very secure here. There was a security gate right on the other side of the fence and a huge flood light at the top of the pole. The fairgrounds administration building was right at the end of the fence. The Fairgrounds were HUGE. Over to the side of where I was there were about a dozen fifth wheels backed up to a fence but they weren't normal fifth wheels. They had about 5 doors to each rig. Turned out they were the residences of the employees of the carnival ride company. On the other side of the fairgrounds there were equestrian stables, giant parking facilities, several different expo venues, an "eco-farm", and an outdoor concert pavilion. The neat thing was that Beau and I (along with the few other RVers) had free roam of the place. One evening, dusk, while walking Beau, I saw something run around the grassy hill behind the pavilion. A bear maybe? There were security people scattered throughout the facility throughout the night and I mentioned it to one of them. I said escaped cow maybe? He laughed and said that was their weed control; 2 llamas, 2 goats, a cow, and a pig. A bear? Where are you from? Beau and I slinkered back to our T@B.

The next day I took the pup for a walk around the perimeter of the fairgrounds. It was 2 miles around and we found a "Bark Park". It was really big, lots of grass, double gates, fire hydrants, trees, lots of dogs, and running waterfall dog fountains. Next to the bark park was a regular park, dogs on leash and really big. Lots of fountains and waterfalls, ducks and geese, ball fields, kids, ponds that dogs like golden retrievers want to swim in but aren't allowed to. The bottom line is that the fairgrounds turned out to be a good option for me. It was a 25 minute drive from where I was to go to the Oktoberfest and the only other viable option, at $85+ a night was across the boulevard from Disneyland and right under I-5. What's that saying? God looks after drunks and fools with dogs?

Saturday rolled around and after getting some exercise with Beau, washing my truck, stocking up on groceries, and getting a good nap I headed off to pickup one of my friends, a classmate, to give her a ride. I don't drink much so I offered to be her designated driver. I took surface streets all the way there and it was no problem. It was interesting to see so many streets with familiar names. Beau got introduced to Kat's dog Xena and then we were off to the fundraiser.

The Oktoberfest was amazing! Lots of different kinds of food, 12 different kinds of beer on tap, caramel corn, wine and seltzer's, games, live music, an oompah bank, and then a DJ. They had laser lights with a smoke machine with great effect. All for the price of admission. So many generations of students of past years. There were a lot of my old classmates and everyone appeared to be having a great time! There was some discussion of trying to put together a class camping trip. We'll see. Life is short.

The top left photo was a competition to see which girl could keep her full beer stein held out in front of her the longest. They had the same for men.