bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday-  We walked,  then I went to make a Lanyard. It turned out very nice, but the grommet  is facing the wrong way. So I need to buy a new grommet and take some of the beads off so that I can make a tail.

Bob came over and met up with me at 12:30 and we went to the patio to have steak and cheese subs. The cooks come on Saturdays to cook these really good steak and cheese subs.

We left and went to the Escapees Joba Hills Resort. We are always looking for a place to settle, when we need to, and we wanted to look at this resort. We had heard great things about this resort.If you want to move in there, there is about a 10 year waiting list. It is a beautiful park! There was a wonderful activity center; there were even women playing Maj. They have Maj daily, which is a plus. A nice pool, an outside BBQ and Bar, and all the normal amenities, including a wood shop. There are several negatives though, 1. California- so very expensive. 2. Built on hills. We would not be able to ride our bikes or walk. The place is so hilly, you would need a golf cart to get around. 3. It is 13 miles to town and 5 miles from the nearest fire station/ EMT’s/ Paramedics. So as much as we liked the resort, it will not be on the list.

We returned for social hour. At 5, we went to the Leisure Coach Works dinner. They always serve hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, baked beans, pasta salad, and chips. It was a buffet. They are sponsors of the rally every year!

John, the CEO,announced that they were fund raising for one of their employees. The poor guy had just lost his 17 year old son. The kid was riding his skateboard and was hit by a car. They needed money for the funeral. So he was asking everyone to donate. I don’t know how much money they collected, but folks were shoving money into the box. ALFA stands for A Loving Family Affair. Leisure Coach Works used to be Alfateers, and the company is made up of the guys who built the ALFA’s, so it is all family….

We went over to a street party on the next block, taking the dogs with us. Since we were all sitting in a circle, we let the dogs off their leashes, which they really enjoyed. They were of course fed lots of treats and got lots of petting They were two very happy canines!

There were several other dogs there. All of them sniffed butts, and generally enjoyed their time together. A lady drove down the street, in her golf cart, not from our group, with her dog in the cart. All of the dogs gave that strange dog a good barking! We have a Roadrunner dog pack!

Sunday- I woke up this morning thinking about the fact that we did not have a costume for the dog show. So I got up and made one for each of them. They were “First Aide” dogs. We made signs out of paper with a red cross on it, and put some tape, hand sanitizer, 4×4’s and band aids on them. I forgot to take a picture. We did not win a prize, as they only gave away 1st prize this year. The pet show is always fun. Harley, who is a professional dog, did not win the best performance category. Rudy and Beth’s dog, Noah, won! Yea, the 10 year run was broken! He has always won this category.

It always amazes me how well behaved all the dogs are. This year it was held inside, and there were no fights, arguments, barking, or carrying on. All the dogs behaved very well.

We returned to the MH and I worked on another article.  We went to brunch at a little local restaurant. We took home enough for two more breakfasts, each!

We stopped at Sprouts then returned to the MH. We went to the final social hour and took our chairs home with us this evening. We always to just leave them at the site of the social time during the rally.

We went to dinner at the Ballroom for the final dinner. We were the second to the last table called. Usually, they draw table numbers, which is fair. This year, some guy just walked around telling tables to go. His friends came first, of course.

We did not win any of the prizes, but I did win the center piece, which is a napkin holder.

 

We returned and said farewell to some folks. Two of the MH’s are already gone, They left and went to Redlands for some repairs, although the owners returned for the dinner.

CeeAnn and Ray’s MH had 4 broken jacks. When Redlands was repairing the valve stems for their tires, the workers broke all four of the jacks. Ray had spoken to the owner of Redlands and they are replacing the jacks, free of charge, as they should. Glad we did not use them for our repair!

We stopped at the social hour site and picked up our table which the group used during the rally. It is a slightly rectangular table which rolls up  and is stored in a bag. We are starting to get ready to leave in the morning. 

Monday- We had been watching the weather and the winds,are going to be 25 mph, in the Hemet Valley. We had  planned to go up to the Soledad Canyon TT near Palmdale and Lancaster. The drive is through several canyons and up in that area the winds are to be 45 to 60 mph. So we decided to stay at the resort.

At 9, we went over to the office to see if we could get the Passport America rate. It was $28, as this park is very expensive. For the Rally, we were paying $44 per night, with the rally discount. We would have to move from our pull thru site to a back in. That would not be a big issue, but if we have to pack up the MH to move, we might as well move to Wilderness Lakes TT, 13 miles away, and near the interstate we are traveling tomorrow. Our stay there is free. So we decided to move. 

I called TT and they said they did not have any sites available at Wilderness. Barb suggested that I call the Ranger at Wilderness and ask them. Sure enough, they had a site for us. So we packed up, went around saying good-bye to friends, and drove to Wilderness Lakes, before the winds picked up.

We arrived and settled in. This is our third time at this park. So we were very familiar with the place. We had found a nice, FHU, 50 amp site. We ate lunch, and went to Costco in Temecula for gas, $3.35 gal. It was $2.36 gal in AZ before we left! We went to JoAnne’s and Total Wine. We returned and ate dinner. We had a quiet evening.

Tuesday- The winds were gone for today! So we left around 10 AM for  the Soledad Canyon TT. We traveled through several canyons and there was some wind, funneling through the canyons. We were very glad that we waited to move!

We traveled through some NP land and state land. We arrived and checked in at 12:30, for a total of 102 miles. I had already checked on RVParkReviews.com, to see where we wanted to park. The park is in the mountains, and to obtain internet, we need to be up high. So we knew we needed to go to the ‘N” section. TT parks are first come/first serve for parking, so we always disconnect the car, and run around looking for a site. We found one where we could get satellite and 4 bars of 4 G Verizon internet. This park has free internet, at the Family Center and at the Adult Center, but you have to sign up for a specific 1 hour time period, and use a code. Luckily, we found the site with good internet access using our MiFi.

We set up, then drove around the entire park just to check it out. This is a very large park, located in Los Angeles county. I imagine the place is packed on the weekends! We ate dinner at home and had a quiet evening.

Wednesday- We had several places we wanted to visit while in this area.  Our first destination was the Musical Road.

This was pretty cool! It was originally built, in a residential neighborhood, for a Honda commercial. They had to move the road due to the noise. It is now located out of town in a commercial area.

If you drive over the road, at 55 mph, you hear the William Tell Overture. (The theme for the Long Ranger). We did it three times! Just something different…

We continued on to the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve. The Poppy Festival is this weekend in Lancaster, so we thought they would be in bright bloom.

Well, we were wrong! The lack of rain and the poor winter weather meant that they did not bloom at all this year. The guard said that there was nothing to see. So we turned around and headed back to Lancaster.

Our next stop was at the Boing Plaza.

Well, this was a whole lot of nothing! They had the one plane and several homeless people. So we continued on to JoAnne’s, Michael’s and Hobby Lobby. I am still looking for the grommet, which I did not find.

We went to lunch at a little Mexican Restaurant, which had really good ratings. We were not impressed. From there we stopped at Walmart and returned to the RV park.

We ate dinner in and had a quiet evening.

Thursday- The weather forecast was for winds to pick up in the mountains after 12. So we tried to get moving quickly and drove out of the park at 9:15. We decided to take a longer route, rather than drive through LA traffic, so we drove north to Lancaster. Unfortunately, the winds picked up in Lancaster and were a side wind. So we had to slow down a bit.

We turned west and now had a headwind. That slowed us down some and with the twists on the two lane road, we traveled slower than anticipated.

We eventually reached I-5, and drove south, with a tail wind, and down hill, which helped with our mpg. We turned west and traveled out to the coast. We turned north on the 101 and traveled  north through Santa Barbara, and turned east on Hwy. 154 through the mountains. We traveled UP, UP, UP! What a zig-sagging, two lane road! All of the pull outs for slow moving vehicles were on the uphill, so it would be impossible to get moving again! It was 11 miles.

On the first real downhill, we went about 1.5 miles, and turned right onto Paradise Road, which took us further into the mountains, in the San Padres National Forest. This was a 5 mile road in, and not a bad drive. THEN, we turned onto the road into the TT. It is 2.5 miles.

We had heard about this road. UGH! it is basically a little bit wider than a single lane with small turn outs where the MH will not fit. As we turned in, there was a MH hooking up to leave and a pick-up truck leaving. We took a deep breath and started in on the road. About 1/2 way through, we met a small car, that was leaving, The driver backed up into a slightly wider part of the road. We were able to squeak by the car.

As we came around the last curve, we could see down into the valley where the resort is located. We could also see a delivery truck headed our way! Good timing, because he spotted us on on the road and pulled over in the parking lot near the Ranger Station. Whew, we made it through!

We disconnected and ran around the park looking for a site where we could get internet. At most sites, we knew we could get satellite.  We found one, and backed the MH in, but could not get level. The park is located on a hill, with terraces, where the FHU sites are located. We moved to the second road from the bottom. We wanted to be near the WiFi booster. We initially have a very poor signal, but with our Wilson Booster, we are getting a moderate signal.

We set up, and walked over to the Adult Center. I picked up a couple of books and will replace them with books we have read. We went to the store, and checked that out. There are two pools and a spa.

We settled in, ate dinner and had a quiet evening.

Friday- We are planning a quiet day. We went to the breakfast at the park. They have a nice breakfast on Fri, Sat, and Sun mornings. We checked with Tammy, the cook, to see if tonight’s spaghetti dinner had bell pepper. It did, so no spaghetti for us!

I had the Oso mini breakfast, which was plenty. Two scrambled eggs, 2 pieces of bacon ( or sausage) and a fresh biscuit( or hash browns). Bob had the pancakes, which he declared very good!

The breakfast and all the other meals are located in the Family Center. The Family Center resides in The Old Stone House. This ranch and RV park has quite the history. The land was originally occupied by the Chumash Indians, and there is a Chumash reservation in the area. Then a land grant was issued by Governor Pio Pico, while California still belonged to Mexico. The property passed through a number of individuals and was a Morgan horse ranch and an Arabian horse ranch. It was purchased by the Jameson family who opened a horse/camping dude ranch. The first of it’s kind! They were the ones who designed and implemented the terraced sites that we are staying in today. They lived in what is now the Adult Center. The Family Center is located in the original adobe. In the building below, to the right is the kitchen and activities office, to the left is the ping-pong room, and straight ahead is the actual living room/dining room and behind the building is a large porch with picnic tables. No bathroom, there is a porta-potty outside. 

The ranch was eventually sold to American Trails in 1984, then purchased by NACO in 1986. NACO was purchased by Equity Life, which owns Encore and Thousand Trails. NACO is part of our Thousand Trails membership.

We did laundry and worked on Ancestry.  I had several hints for Bob’s tree, so he signed up for Ancestry on his own so that he could add to his tree. Each person has to have their own Ancestry account. I hooked up with another distant cousin who is on my fathers side of the family. We share a great great grandfather..

At a little before 5, we walked over to one of the paddocks. This is a horse ranch which has horse boarding and trail rides. They had the OSO Rodeo Shindig, which they do every Friday evening. It was not much of a show and the horses were not cooperating! .

Below is the Thousand Trails logo flag.

 

This is the California state flag.

They rode the horses around the paddock with the three flags. They are training them(or trying too) to do a flag routine.

Then they took 15 minutes to set up an obstacle course. The horses did not cooperate, so it was a bust. We were getting cold, as the wind had picked up, so we left and returned home to eat dinner.

At 7 we went to the Pavilion/Chapel to watch a slide show of the history of the ranch. It was interesting. One of the Jameson children had given the resort a scan disc with a lot of pictures. One to the employees had put together this presentation. Afterwards they had a trivia contest on the slide show. I won a pair of sunglasses for knowing that Pio Pico was the Governor who gave the first land grant.

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