Everyone loves jelly beans!

There were several displays of Ronald Reagan and jelly beans. This portrait was made out of jelly beans.

Today we toured the Jelly Belly jelly bean factory. It was quite fun to see how jelly beans were made and how many days it required to make them. Most of the flavors were fantastic, but they certainly had some purposely bad ones too. Yuck! Blueberry, coconut, and pumkin, etc. were nice, but vomit and ear wax were no thank you.

Be careful to not get these flavors mixed up!

Although most of the flavors were fantastic, they had some yucky ones too.

After touring the jelly bean factory we drove through Napa Valley and the Silverado Trail. It was fun driving around seeing the names of wineries we recognized. Grapes were growing everywhere and it was one winery after another along both sides of the roads. We stopped at Sequoia Grove Vineyards and tasted all kinds of white and red wines. We bought 3 different kinds of wine to save for Thanksgiving. Today was very tasty indeed.

We are learning all kinds of things while on this RV adventure. Some are unexpected. For example, the need to be flexible is one of the unexpected things we are learning. Charlene and Ed could be described as analyzing everything. Literally everything. So, the need to be flexible flies in the face of their compulsive need to analyze. Too bad, sometimes RV’ing simply requires unexpected changes to plans.

In our latest example, we had requested mail to be delivered from our address in Texas to arrive before we left Coarsegold, California. When we checked the tracking number online, the Post Office predicted our package would arrive by Saturday. However, it appears that someone in Houston put our envelope on the wrong truck and sent it to who knows where. Surprise! So rather than leaving on Saturday and remaining steadfast to our original plans, we had the “opportunity” to choose flexibility and stay a few more days in Coarsegold. We actually loved the time in such a beautiful area which included finding an ice cream shop in Oakhurst.

Ed checked the tracking number on his cell phone Monday morning and it said our package was out for delivery in Coarsegold. We packed everything up, hooked up the Jeep to the motorhome, and drove down to the office to wait for the anticipated delivery.

Normally mail is delivered by 9:30 am, but by 10:00 there was still no mail lady. We waited in the campground office and chatted with the nice office staff. During our conversation we learned that the campground often has families from Germany stay. The campground owner marveled that the children of these families will swim in the pool when the water is about 70 degrees! There is no way we could do this; Charlene needs it at least 80 and Ed prefers 90.

At 10:30 the mail lady arrived and our package was there. Yeah! As we thanked her profusely for the package, she smiled and apologized for being late. “There was a ton of mail this morning,” she explained and we could tell she was sorry she was late. Then she saw our motorhome and wished us a great trip to “wherever you go next.”

As we pulled out of the campground where we had spent the last two weeks, we looked at each other and asked, “So where do you want to go now?” It’s a weird feeling to be driving down the road with no idea where you will be that night. Our only schedule is being in Reno, Nevada, on Thursday since Ed will fly out of their airport to attend a meeting for several days. Boondocking (thanks to our generator and big tanks) is always a possibility. Our memories of boondocking near Lake Mead still bring smiles to our faces. Or would we find a nice RV park with now-unknown amenities.

The decision came down to jelly beans. And not just any jelly beans, Jelly Belly jelly beans!

Charlene discovered a jelly bean factory in the Sacramento area and our plans were set. We could have chosen Napa Valley although it would be a little further than we wanted to go; with its many fabulous world-renowned wineries; but no, our plans orbited around a tiny jelly bean.

How many people in American make their decision of where to sleep because of jelly beans? Probably not too many, but that would be us. We looked for an RV park close to the jelly bean factory and boogied down the road.

A nice benefit is that we are actually now quite close to Napa and Sonoma. Although jelly beans are our priority, we will be forced to check out some wineries too!

While Charlene was driving, Ed was reading on the Internet about jelly beans. We learned some important jelly bean trivia. Charlene was quite excited to learn that in 1998 Buttered Popcorn became the number one jelly bean flavor in America by displacing Very Cherry that had been the number one flavor for two decades. Not many people love popcorn as much as Charlene. However, Ed was relieved that America had come to its senses and Very Cherry has moved back to the top spot since 2003, but only by a mere 8 million beans.

We had forgotten how much Ronald Reagan loved jelly beans. The blueberry jelly bean was created for Ronald Reagan’s presidential inauguration in 1981 and over three tons of jelly beans were consumed during the inauguration festivities. No doubt about it. We are learning some important facts on this trip! Stayed tuned for more jelly bean knowledge……today we tour the factory.