One of the joys of camping in one place for an extended time is that you actually should get some of that time to yourself. We’ve been staying in LA since Oct. 12, and with all the family visits, Wendy’s Puerto Rico trip, my fishing trips, and catching up with friends we’ve hardly been home. I suspect the cats have been looking through the phone book for good adoption homes. In any event, this leads us to SuperBlog 2, step-sister to the Mother-Of-All-Blogs from last month. Where to start? Here’s a shot of our current site.

Camped at Walnut RV in Northridge

Wendy had a FABULOUS time in Puerto Rico. She went with 7 other women, 3 from LA and 4 from Boston, who are all associated through their friend Andrea who sadly passed away from breast cancer 2 years ago. So the trip there was a celebration of her life for the girls. They stayed in a 5 bedroom villa just 50 yards from a beautiful beach just outside of Old Town Puerto Rico. Visits to the rain forest, the Bacardi plantation, the Bioluminescence Lagoon, and Old Town kept them very busy.

Girls Gone Wild in Puerto Rico (minus to sleepy heads!)

While Wendy was away, I went fishing. Well, I went fishing twice. The first time on a day boat out of Marina Del Rey where the fishing was very good because it had been raining for 3 days and no boats had visited the captain’s favorite spots. I was rewarded with a nice 5 lb. red snapper, a 4 lb. rock bass, a 2 lb. sculpin, and a 20 lb. ling cod that just missed winning the jackpot for largest fish. We are still eating that sucker. I drove to Oceanside 2 days later and spent a good part of the day fishing with my big brother Brian. He has a great fishing boat and we prowled the waters off of Carlsbad and Encinitas where we managed to score 3 sand bass, one almost big enough to be a record fish! We ate those babies as fish tacos at Bri’s house before I drove home. My big ling is shown here next to the derby winner, who I nicknamed Mongo.

Warren's Ling (left) with Mongo (right)

We celebrated Joyce’s birthday at a nice Italian restaurant in Beverly Hills. We cooked fish tacos for Dylan, Brandon, Dana and Jeff one night. I cooked dinner (ling cod, what else!) for Mike while Wendy and Elaine attended their monthly session of the LA Book Club. And son of a gun, the Giants went up 2-0 over the Rangers in the World Series! We even saw a movie! We did everything but blog.

We had a real treat when Dana invited us to help with a class project at Brandon’s school. Actually, she suddenly was reminded that it was her turn to do a project just a couple of days before it was due, and she pleaded with us to help come up with a theme, get it all together, and show up with her to do it. In keeping with her grandmotherly reputation, cookies became the theme. We prepped up 6 dozen sugar cookies (what better to give a bunch of 2nd and 3rd graders early in the morning than sugar?), several dozen cake icing piping bags, and bowls of candies so the kids could decorate Halloween cookies. They did a great job, and luckily we got to leave before the sugar really kicked in! Sorry Mrs. Colón, we hope you survived the rest of the day!

Cookie Crafting

Andy Warhol would be Proud!

Today, Saturday, is the big Cousin’s Party. While a few of us are in town (and a few others will fly in) we’re gathering at Michael Frank’s with 3 generations of cousin’s from the Frank Family side, Wendy’s Mom’s side of the family. This happens only once every several years, so watch for the police reports out of Westlake, CA.

And tomorrow I get to go the biggest custom car show in the San Fernando Valley! I was invited by Steve, a friend, for the last-Sunday-of-the-month impromptu show held in the parking lot of a local shopping center. There will be several Corvette clubs there, and of course this is my favorite car. Visit my homage website at www.67-corvette.com.

Our person of interest today is Brandon Marks! We were inspired not only by the artistic efforts of his classmates but by his teacher, Mrs. Colon, who must have a bulletproof sense of patience with her kids. Brandon made sure to fetch Wendy’s sugar cookie recipe to give to her after we had left. Good for him!

And of course, here’s Tippy!