Another Lake

Well… we are staying at Thousand Trails Wilderness Lakes, but we didn’t expect a new lake to appear this morning! We had a fan running last night and about 4:30 a.m. it suddenly quit. Dave was trying to figure out what happened and finally decided to go outside to check around. Of course Cheye wanted to go with him so he opened the door and told her to go but when she got to the bottom of the steps she stopped. When she refused to go off the bottom step Dave turned the flashlight to shine outside and saw all the water! Seems a water main broke just by our trailer. We had an extension cord plugged in outside and as it was under water the breaker in the trailer popped making the fan quit. So, no water at any of the sites in this section for a while, hopefully it will be fixed soon.

Fun Fourth

We had a fun (and very warm) Independence Day here at Thousand Trails Wilderness Lakes in Menifee, CA. Our friends Ron & Marilyn are here and their friends (that live in this area) Colleen & Pat and Kris & John came over to join us for a bbq. We barbecued burgers, hotdogs, corn on the cob plus we had broccoli salad. For desert it was a Marie Callender’s strawberry/blueberry pie along with angel food cake with strawberries. All extremely yummy! The evening also included a lot of chatting and even more laughing...we had a great time.

Moved Again

Thousand Trails Wilderness Lakes is our current location. Yesterday was a long drive from Thousand Trails San Benito, about 400 miles. Normally we try to keep it to around 200 miles but we decided to go for it yesterday. Tomorrow our friends from Phoenix, Ron & Marilyn will be here too and will stay for a week. Should be fun!!

For those of you that have heard Wilderness Lakes is stinky and full of flies during the hot summer months… well I haven’t noticed any dairy smell at all either yesterday or today and I think there were more flies at San Benito. The temperature was up to 98 yesterday and is in the low 90’s today, so I think the rumors are not necessarily true. Now if the breeze should switch directions… well I’ll let you know!

Photos below:
Creatures here at Thousand Trails Wilderness Lakes

Hot weather preparations

One of the things we did before heading south was to prepare a bit for hot weather. We purchased vent cushions along with a couple rolls of that foil thin insulation. We cut the thin insulation to fit all our windows, blocking the sun from heating up the trailer. It's easy to put up and take down so we only use it when needed. Wow, what a difference it makes! Of course if we put up the insulation in all the windows it is very dark in the trailer…I think Cheye likes it, kind of puts her in touch with her dog roots of living in a den! ;o) Our air conditioner can keep the trailer wonderfully cool when we have the insulation up, before it only took the temp down about 5 degrees cooler than outside. Good purchases if you’re going to be in hot weather.

Thousand Trails San Benito isn’t particularly picturesque right now, most of the grass is brown as are the surrounding hills so I don’t have a lot of photos of just the park. We have seen some wildlife; a bobcat trotting by our first night here (haven’t seen it since), a number of deer, rabbits, quail and hoards of ground squirrels and gophers. Of course Cheye loves the squirrels and gophers, she lays outside and watches them by the hour…cheap entertainment!

Photos
Above: the thin insulation in one window
Below:
1. the hills around San Benito when we were here last March
2. the hills around San Benito now
3. the family pool
4. a deer
5. a rabbit

Bug-free

Friday we decided to go into Gilroy, CA in search of a freestanding canopy with a netting so we could sit outside in bug-free shade. Walmart had a one. It’s been great to use as there are an abundance of flying bugs here. Much nicer to read a book outside without having to swat bugs!

It’s been rather hot the last couple days, in the high 90’s and even over 100 yesterday, so we’ve been visiting the adult pool here at Thousand Trails San Benito. Yesterday we went swimming after lunch along with a lot of other campers! We did meet a number of nice people. Today it warmed up early so around 10:00 a.m. it was off to the pool again. A couple we’d met yesterday, Jim & Jackie, also showed up and we had a great time chatting with them. Always fun to meet fun people!

Photos
Top: Our new canopy set up by the trailer
Below: (all taken at Thousand Trails San Benito, CA)
1. a view of the hills one morning we had some fog
2. a bunny
3. a quail

Moved

Guess I let a little time get by since my last post! We left Thousand Trails Ponderosa in Lotus California yesterday and are currently at Thousand Trails San Benito which is in Paicines, CA. We stayed here for a week last February and will be here a little over a week this time. In February it was a bit chilly and we had a fair amount of rain. I remember getting together with two other couples for wine & snacks while we were all bundled in coats and had the awnings out so we didn’t get rained on. This time it’s warm and sunny, we have even gone to the pool for a swim yesterday and today.

Today was kinda busy, laundry in the morning and then to Gilbert, CA to go to Costco, Camping World and Walmart. Nothing real exciting but it certainly took up most of the day. Back to relaxing tomorrow.

All of the photos and video on today’s post were taken at Ponderosa. For some reason I enjoyed our stay there more this time than when we stayed there before…not sure why. Maybe the weather was better, maybe it was our site close to the river, or that we met a number of nice people, who knows. It was a fun stay, I’m glad we camped there again.

Just enjoying

We’ve been having a fine time here at Ponderosa in Lotus, CA. The weather has been great, in the mid 80’s, and is supposed to get warmer over the next few days.

Our days have mostly been hanging out at the park; taking Cheye swimming, reading, doing cross stitch, relaxing, watching the rafters go by, but we have got out a bit too. There is no laundry facilities at this campground so we went into Placerville to do laundry and some grocery shopping a couple days ago. A small group of shops and restaurants are just across the road from the campground and we have tried both the Mexican restaurant and a pizza place. I thought they were both very good. All in all a very nice last few days!

Photo: Our site
Video: a slide show and some video taken at Thousand Trails Ponderosa