by Madyson Grey
Built between 1847 and 1849 by Don Raymundo Olivas, it’s Ventura County’s only remaining Monterey-style, Rancho-era adobe house. They didn’t have time to do the place justice, besides the fact that the house is only open for tours on weekends. So this was one place that they for sure would come back to again.
The day was fast passing, and it was time to head for home. “I’ll let you drive home, now that the surprise is over,” Victoria said magnanimously.
“Oh, thank you very much, ma’am. You’re too kind,” Rafael said with teasing sarcasm.
The afternoon traffic was beginning to get heavy, so it was four twenty-five when they turned up their own driveway. When Rafael started to turn into the drive leading to their house, Victoria directed him to his mom’s house instead.
“Happy Birthday!”
A chorus of voices called out when Rafael and Victoria walked into Manuela’s house. It was just the two mothers and the grandparents, but that was his family, and it warmed his heart to see them all there to celebrate his special day.
Manuela had supper all ready. She had fixed all of his favorite dishes: enchiladas, rice, beans, and taco salad. After the food had disappeared, she brought out a three-layer coconut-pineapple cake. It was her own special recipe that Rafael had favored since he was a little boy.
With the cake, came out the presents, all prettily wrapped for him. But before they could eat cake, it was time for the piñata. Manuela ushered them all outside, and everyone took turns being blindfolded and swatting at the piñata until the birthday boy finally broke it.
Everyone scrambled for the candies as if they were little kids instead of grown-ups. Rafael, of course, spotted the wrapped package and claimed it. But Manuela stopped him from opening it until they went back inside and he sat at the table to open them all at once. Before he was allowed to open them, Manuela lit the candles on the cake for him to blow out. Everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to him.
Victoria had her trusty camera at the ready and caught him mid-blow with cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk. After he had snuffed the candles with one blow, his mother gave him permission to go ahead and open his presents. It made him feel as if he were still a kid at home, which wasn’t an altogether unpleasant feeling.
While he was doing that, Manuela and Lena dished up cake and ice cream for everyone and passed it around. He was very pleased with everything—the shirts, the DVDs, the wallet, and the ship’s model.
“You really want to keep me out of mischief, don’t you?” Rafael said to Victoria. “This will keep me busy for a month of Sundays. Maybe two months. But it is very cool. I hope I can do a good job and make it look like the picture on the box. Thanks, honey.”
“And thank you, everyone,” he added. “This has been a terrific birthday. Did I tell you about the whales we saw this morning?”
“Yes!” everyone yelled teasingly.
He had told of the morning’s adventures in great detail all through supper.
“Oh, okay. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t forget to tell you all about it,” he grinned. “And did you see all the pictures Victoria took?”
“Yes!” they all said again.
Everyone had seen all of the photos at least once, especially the ones of Rafael petting the dolphins and leaning over the railing with the grey whale just below him.
Manuela and Lena cleaned up the kitchen in record time, and then everyone sat around in the living room and visited for an hour or so. Manuela got out the photo albums that contained pictures of Rafael from birth up to the most recent ones she had of him, and passed them around for everyone to look at. Rafael was properly embarrassed by some of them, but didn’t mind one bit.
Chapter Seventeen
Their lives settled in to a fairly predictable routine of property inspections juggled around working at and overseeing the park’s operations. They made several more trips over to Las Vegas to oversee the renovation of their RV park over there. By the time everything was complete, it didn’t resemble the park they had bought in the slightest.
Instead of a dusty, second-class campground, it was a classy, upscale park with paved roads and pads, green, manicured lawns everywhere, a sparkling clean swimming pool, a top-notch gift shop and Laundromat, and was staffed by friendly, competent employees who took pride in keeping the grounds and buildings spotless.
Rafael did some homework and ended up purchasing a twenty-five-acre piece of land that bordered ThornRiver RV Park, and began the process of putting in a hundred more RV spaces. Fifty of them he decided to rent by the month. There seemed to be a lot of call for monthly spaces. These were not down-and-outers, either. They were traveling professionals, retirees who wanted to spend time in the area exploring, or folks having to wait while their new home was being built or renovated.
With diligent advertising, ThornRiver RV Park was able to snag its fair share of the northward migration of the snowbird crowd who were leaving the sunny southlands in March and April. Pleasantly surprised by the “new” park, many of them promised to make it one of their stops during the fall migration back south.
February was more of the same. Property inspections and the park. They traveled to the California properties during these winter months. For the most part, they were finding their properties well taken care of and problem-free. Of course, as with any building no matter its age, there were on-going repairs to be made, which Rafael saw to it that they were done in a timely manner and with quality materials.
The exception to routine was the construction of the upstairs balcony that was built especially to hold the telescope. When completed, there was a wrought-iron spiral staircase that led up to the balcony from the front of the house. It had a gate at the bottom with an electronic lock on it to keep away intruders. The whole family had fun looking through the telescope both day and night.
In March they took a trip up through Oregon to inspect the Portland properties. On the way, Victoria checked online to see if there were any RV parks for sale along their route, and discovered that there was one in southern Oregon, about ten miles north of Medford. On their way back from Portland, they stopped to find it and check it out.
It was a smaller park, with both overnighter and monthly spaces. It was easily accessed from the freeway and centrally located to many places of interest in southern Oregon, including Crater Lake National Park and the Oregon Caves National Monument. They checked into a hotel in Medford so they could spend a couple of days at the RV park, deciding if it was one they would like to own.
After going over the financial records, talking with both overnighters and monthlies about what they saw as the strong and weak points of the park, seeing what needed upgrading and/or renovating, and interviewing all of the employees, they made the decision to purchase the park.
It needed a few things, but not the major renovations that the one in Vegas had needed. They made the decision to change the name of the park, however, and made it another ThornRiver RV Park. Their thought was to someday have a chain of first-class RV parks all across the nation. Someday they hoped that the name ThornRiver RV Park would stand for a top-rate RV spot and friendly, professional service.
Rafael and Victoria went into Medford to a sign maker who helped them design a new sign that would become the standard sign for all of their parks. They had two made while they were there, and had one of them shipped to the park in Vegas.
Among the changes they would make to this latest park would be to pave all of the RV pads throughout the park and to eliminate the tent sites. The consensus among both employees and monthly residents was that the tenters were often a problem, with some of them being homeless and trying to live there in the park. So it seemed that the easiest way to deal with the problem was to just eliminate the tent sites.
Instead, they would be converted to more overnight RV sites, with the addition of sewer and electrical hookups. Water was already piped to every site. The office/store building would receive a new coat of paint, in new, fresh colors
that would call attention to the fact that the park was under new ownership.
Because it rained much of the time they were there, they could see where the puddles accumulated and left instructions for leveling and paving to be done. Despite the gray, rainy days, they could see that the park was a pretty one and only needed some TLC to bring it up to being a first-class park.
They were both glad to get back far enough into California to escape the rain. They were also glad to be home again and catch up on what was going on there.
“Things are going so smoothly, it almost scares me,” Victoria told Rafael one day over lunch.
“I know what you mean,” he said. “It’s like I keep waiting for something horrible to happen again, and yet it hasn’t now for, what? Three months?”
“Nearly four,” Victoria corrected.
“Wow! Four whole months with no trauma, tragedy, or trouble,” Rafael said with a touch of sarcasm in his voice.
“Yeah, just as good as last summer while we were on vacation.”
“Maybe that’s the key,” Rafael said, his eyes lighting up.
“What?”
“We have to be gone for nothing to happen.”
“Oh, silly! What are we? Bad luck?”
They giggled at the thought.
“It’s not us, because when we’re away, nothing happens to us. Well, not much anyway. Maybe it’s our location,” Victoria said.
“But we’ve moved once and it followed us,” Rafael reminded her.
“True. But, LA is a crime-ridden area, like all big cities, so it probably is the area.”
“So, you want to move?”
“Move! Are you kidding? Where else are we going to find good weather year round like southern California?” Victoria exclaimed.
“Oh, I dunno. Hawaii, Texas, The Bahamas, Mexico,” Rafael said, a teasing twinkle in his eyes.
“Hawaii, maybe. Texas, maybe. I dunno about the others,” Victoria said, wrinkling her brow.
“So what’s wrong with Mexico?” Rafael demanded.
“I can’t speak Spanish. Neither can you.”
“Si, this is true,” he said with an exaggerated sigh. “My parents were determined to become Americans, and so they learned English and never taught Mateo and I any Spanish. All I know I picked up at school from the other kids. And a lot of that isn’t repeatable in any language.”
“Same here. Well, except for the profanity.”
“Besides, if we move, what about Mama, your mom, and Grandma and Grandpa?”
“I’m just kidding,” he said. “Sheesh! Don’t get all excited. I don’t want to move either. I love this area, our house, our business, our park, having all of our family close by, and the ocean not too far away.”
“Yeah, me, too. But I sure love to travel and see other places. I guess we’ll have to live here, but be gone traveling a lot so the bad boogey monsters can’t find us and dump on us all the time,” Victoria said facetiously.
“Works for me. By the way, we do San Diego next week,” Rafael told her. “You want to go to the zoo again, and fool around down there for a few days? Maybe visit Uncle Mac while we’re there?”
“Sure! Can we take the motorhome? I think it’s more fun than a motel,” Victoria said.
“I do, too,” he agreed. “Why don’t you get online and book us into a nice RV park down there, for Monday through Thursday. Okay?”
“I’ll do that right now, then you can help choose the park.”
Victoria went to get her laptop and brought it back to the kitchen table. She did a search for San Diego RV parks, and then waded through the list to find the one that caught their interest the most. She made an online reservation and then took the laptop into the office to print out the reservation confirmation.
Truly, it seemed as though all the bad things that could happen to them, had happened. Other than life’s ordinary inconveniences, they were getting by very smoothly. Some days Victoria felt like holding her breath, just waiting for the next disaster to hit them, but so far, it hadn’t.
In between work duties, they took time off to play around southern California and enjoy all the myriad of fun and interesting things to do and places to go. Thornton Park was thriving and never lacked for an abundance of guests each day. It was on solid footing and paying its own way, besides providing a few more feathers for the Rivera nest egg.
In May, they took off in the motorhome for rather extended working vacation. They would do their inspections in Albuquerque, Houston and Dallas, New Orleans, Memphis and Nashville, the RV park near Asheville, and then catch the ones in Des Moines and Denver on the way back west. While they were back east, they would also visit more places of interest that they had missed the previous summer, or enjoyed so much that they wanted to go again.
Before they left home, they both agreed not to buy any more RV parks this summer. The ones they had needed to start paying their own way before they invested in any more. The three they had were doing very well, thanks to all of the upgrades and renovations they had done. But they weren’t yet at the break-even point when considering the money they had put into each one against what each one was pulling in.
But that resolution went out the window when they pulled into a little park that was the only one for nearly a hundred miles on a stretch of freeway west Texas. They had driven farther than they really wanted to, searching for an RV park and finding nothing until coming across this one.
The little park had so much potential and was living up to none of it. On a major east-west interstate, out in the middle of nowhere, miles from the nearest town of any size, it was a location that needed a really nice RV park for tired travelers to pull into for the night.
The next morning, Rafael had a talk with the owner-operator who told him that he had owned the place for forty years, but really wanted to retire. His wife had cancer and they wanted to be able to spend her last months or years free to travel or do whatever they wanted. He had advertised it, but no one was interested. The price was so low that Rafael and Victoria couldn’t pass it up.
Before they left two weeks later, they had purchased the property and business, and made plans on how to upgrade and renovate it. They had also hired a couple who seemed to be competent, eager people to be the managers. They also had two workamper couples on their way.
The men they had hired were retired skilled carpenters, with working knowledge of electrical work and plumbing. The manager would oversee the work and hire other professionals to do what none of the three of them could do. Things like paving, landscaping, and installing a swimming pool.
The office building would be completely remodeled and painted, with an addition that would house laundry facilities, a game room and a small convenience store and gift shop. Rafael called the sign maker in Medford, Oregon, and ordered another sign like the two that he had made previously, to be shipped to this new park.
The three couples all met with Rafael and Victoria the day before they had to continue on their journey. They were an enthusiastic bunch, and caught Rafael’s vision of what the park should become. Under Rafael’s guidance, the paving had been done while they were there. A landscaper was on retainer to put in grass, flowers, and a shade tree at every space. Victoria had put up a nice website advertising the park.
Rafael gave each one a written job description, and a written outline of all of the work that was to be done. He stressed keeping in constant communication with him, sending him updates with photos daily, showing the work that had been done that day. Everyone was in agreement and on board with his vision of what the park would soon be.
So, early one morning in mid-May, Rafael and Victoria pointed the motorhome east and headed for Dallas. The remainder of their working vacation went as planned, with no more impulse buying of RV parks.
The couple happened to be between Nashville, Tennessee, and Asheville, North Carolina on June 28, Victoria’s twenty-eighth birthday. She had been thinking for the previous week or two what she might want t
o do on her birthday, and had settled on doing Dollywood. It proved to be a great choice for both of them, as they totally enjoyed the whole day, and were even lucky enough to get to meet Dolly herself.
They arrived back home in California the first week of August, and found everything there doing well, and everyone happy and healthy.
Chapter Eighteen
It took them several days to reorient themselves to being home again, but one thing that they felt that they had neglected was to pay a visit to Angel’s Retreat. They had not forgotten that place that they had discovered more than a year and a half prior. They sent regular monthly donations, but hadn’t been back to visit for a long time. It was something they wanted to do.
So on a Monday, after they had been home a couple of weeks, they took a drive over to Altadena where Angel’s Retreat was located. They received a warm welcome from Gene Hillman, the director.
“Welcome, folks,” he said as they were ushered into his office by the receptionist. “Have a seat. I just want you to know how much we appreciate your monthly donations. It really does make a difference here.”
“We’re glad to do it,” Rafael said modestly. “When we were made painfully aware of the issue of human trafficking, and then learned of the great work you are doing here, we just had to help out in some small way.”
“What brings you folks out here today,” Mr. Hillman asked, after the initial chitchat was over.
“We’ve been meaning to come over for months and months,” Victoria told him.
“We’re just so interested in the place and the work you do here, that we just want to come for a visit now and then,” Rafael added.
“Did you hear about the murders of the seven girls last November?” Victoria asked. “And that the FBI and cops finally caught the kingpin of the slave trade and put him on death row?”