We said our sad goodbyes to my brother Ronald, his wife Terry, and son James on Friday morning in Westley, CA and hit the road by noon.  It was an uneventful drive to San Jose with the exception of the bumpy pothole-ridden freeways.  We pulled in to the San Jose Elks Lodge about an hour and a half later.

There was only one small hiccup – at our last exit, the GPS said to turn right at the intersection and the Lodge would be on the left in a couple hundred feet.  It wasn’t there!  We found out (later) that the entrance to the lodge was directly across the street at the intersection after our exit.  We didn’t see the lodge sign; put our trust in the GPS; and turned right.  Arrgh!  We had to turn around in a shopping center parking lot.

Once we pulled into the lodge parking lot, we saw all the rigs and started wondering if there was an empty spot.  It turns out that a large portion of the parking area is also storage.  I called the lodge the day before but only got a recording that said “first come – first serve” for the 28 RV spots with electric and water.

As I was walking around the lot to see if there was an open site left, the camp-host walked up to help us out.  What a nice guy… and very talkative too 🙂  I think he told us his name was Glenn.  He directed us to the last 50 Amp spot that was open.  It turns out that there was a 30 Amp spot on the back side of the row too.  So, I guess we were lucky.  The only problem is that they don’t have a dump station on site.  We should have dumped on the way here, but wrongly assumed that the lodge would at least have one dump station.  Oh well; Glenn gave us very detailed directions to a nearby dump station, and after another 10-15 minutes of conversation, we disconnected the Silverado, parked it in our new site, and drove over to the dump station to take care of the dirty deed.  We only got lost one more time. 🙂

When we returned to the lodge, the camphost Glenn was there again to direct us into our site and then he waited to supervise our hooking up the electric and water to make sure everything was alright.  Nice guy 🙂

We paid $110 for 5 nights ($22 per night) by putting a check into an envelope that is available at a pay station alongside the RV parking lot.

Shortly after we got set up, my cousin Phil texted that he was on his way home from work and would stop by if that was OK.  Of course, that was OK 🙂  We haven’t seen Phil since our campout together at Lake Tahoe in July of last year.  This was before I was doing the blog, so unfortunately, I can’t paste a link here like I usually do.

Anyway, it was great to catch up with my cousin Phil – albeit briefly.  He had previous plans to go camping with his son this weekend so we won’t see him again until Sunday.  We hope to get together again then for dinner.  His sister, (my other cousin), Beth and her family are also here in San Jose, so hopefully we can all get together with them as well.

After Phil left, it was getting dark and we hadn’t eaten yet.  So we jumped in the Silverado and headed around the corner to find a small Greek restaurant.  There was also a hair stylist next door, so Stilla jumped at the opportunity to get a quick hair cut while we waited for our food.

Good haircut, good food!  We relaxed in the Coach for the rest of the evening because we didn’t see much activity (very few cars) at the lodge.  Maybe we’ll go inside tomorrow (Saturday).

The only firm plans we have right now are for a tour of Alcatraz.  We got on the website yesterday and found out the tours fill up quickly, so we reserved a tour for this upcoming Sunday.  I’ll let you know how that goes with lots of pictures…  meanwhile, there’s lots of other things to see and do here.  Cousin Phil gave us some tips, so stay tuned 🙂