Day 11
We left the dusty hot campground in Three Rivers and headed north on Highway 99 toward Fresno. Before we left, we found that there is a REALLY cool magic shop in Fresno called Hocus Pocus, so we found a place to park the RV (an old Sears parking lot) while we drove to the magic shop.
WOW! This is unlike any store we’ve ever visited. From the minute you step inside, it is obvious this is where serious magicians by their tricks from. It was unreal how much inventory they had! It’s a family owned business and Max, the shop manager, was super friendly! He even gave Tripp a custom deck of cards with their logo on it! Tripp was super excited about that.
Here is their website in case anyone reading this decides they want to order some really high quality magic tricks: http://www.hocus-pocus.com/. Also, here is an article that talks about their $3 million online business: https://thebusinessjournal.com/magic-touch-3m-online-fresno-business-brings-illusion-to-the-world/
So it was out of sheer luck that we happened to search for magic shops while traveling through Fresno (of all the places we have traveled since Arkansas) and came across this major worldwide source of magic tricks! Really exciting! There were SO many magic tricks that looked like they would be really fun to learn. I had to refrain from buying anything for myself, but we did get a few things for Tripp. I think my favorite one is the Carpenter Coins trick. I was amazed when Tripp performed that one for me today.
It was fun talking with Max, and I found he is a fellow Jeep enthusiast so we talked for a bit about Jeeps. What a cool guy – wish we could have stayed longer to talk more, but we had to get back on the road. If we ever come through Fresno again we will definitely stop here!
We arrived at Flag City RV Resort in Lodi, CA. It’s a really nice place! All paved sites, nicely spaced, and easy to get in and out. We then made a trip to a couple of stores and ate at El Pazcifico Mexican Grill & Cantina.
Day 12
We headed north toward Redding, but when we stopped at a rest stop I found a man’s wallet, loaded with credit cards and cash.
We looked to see if we could find him nearby, but no luck. We began researching him online and in Facebook and tried to contact him as well as some people who had commented on his Facebook posts. We didn’t have any luck, and finally contacted the police so we could give his wallet to them. We tried contacting him through Bank of America and good Sam, since he had those cards in his wallet, but neither one helps much at all. It’s amazing how it’s super hard to reach someone with a legitimate reason (with all of the privacy restrictions in place these days), yet telemarketers have all of our phone numbers! It was really frustrating. After the police officer came by and picked up the wallet, we continued down the road.
When we were almost to Redding we got a call from one of the people we had sent a message to through Facebook who knew him. She said that they called him and left a voicemail, and we’re hoping they will get the message soon. Apparently, the man and his wife were headed north to Redding, just like us! We wish we had known that so we could have kept the wallet with us.
When we got to Redding, the man and his wife called me and they were super grateful, really friendly, and thanked us a bunch for contacting him. Unfortunately, they will have to drive back to the town where the rest stop was about two hours south, but they were able to adjust their RV reservations so they can pick it up Monday when it is available (apparently it’s locked up until Monday).
We arrived at JGW RV park in Redding. We have stayed here before and it’s a really nice park! Karen and Dale actually recommended it to us when we were first traveling out this way in an RV a few years ago.
We took the kids to the skate park, which they had been to years ago but didn’t remember it.
