Hummingbirds

On our walk this morning we saw a trailer that had a bunch of hummingbirds at their feeder. We decided we better help out feeding the birds and put up our’s. There were a few takers today and Dave managed to get some photos of these zippy little birds. They are just so cute!

I have mentioned that I enjoy cross stitching. It’s an easy hobby to do on the road as long as the pattern isn’t huge. Today I finished my current project and in record time, well for me! The last 5x7 project took me a few years, of course I was still working and then there was house work, yard work… well you know the drill… so I didn’t pickup my stitching too often. This 5x7 only took me just over 2 months. Not extremely speedy but then why rush??? :o)

The weather here is holding in the mid 80’s with lots of sunshine and a breeze. Absolutely beautiful.

Photos
Top: A little dark, but there are 4 hummingbirds at the neighbor's feeder
Right: My latest cross stitch project, a Debbie Mumm pattern
Below: A hummingbird
Video: Hey... more hummingbird photos!! :o)

In the San Diego area

We arrived at Thousand Trails Pio Pico (Jamul, CA) last Thursday. The drive over from Idyllwild was wonderful in our new pickup. Very comfy ride. The weather here has been beautiful so far, in the mid 80’s with a nice breeze.

If you have been to Pio Pico you know that this park is pretty much a dead zone for cell phones. Even using our Wilson Booster we weren’t able to get any reception for either our phone or aircard… no internet for 2 whole days!!! (I only got shaky once or twice ;o) ) Well, this morning we bought a cord that goes from the Wilson and plugs directly into the aircard antenna plug… ta-da connection! So now we have internet at the trailer. Yea! Hopefully it will remain a useable signal while we are here. Unfortunately our phone doesn’t have an antenna plug, so no phone.

This morning we made the short trip into Chula Vista for groceries and such, so nice to have a large town nearby. Our first couple of days here were spent doing very little! Yesterday morning we did go over to the lodge for breakfast and met a nice couple that have been full-timing since 1999. Hope we are able to RV at least 10 years, or even longer!

Photos
Top: Our site this morning with the morning fog over the hills
Right: the row we are parked on at Pio Pico
Below: A flower... I have no idea what it is called but I like it!!

A solution to the pickup problems

It’s been an odd week for us…as I mentioned in my last post we took the pickup to a mechanic in Hemet, CA . It was pretty much stuck in the lower gears by that time, overdrive would kick in occasionally for a few minutes only. We ended up leaving it at the shop and getting a rental car for 3 days. While it was being worked on Dave and I decided with all the trouble we have been having with it we just couldn’t trust the pickup anymore, it was older (1997) and as it is our only transportation we wanted to buy another newer rig. To make a long story a little shorter, we decided on a 2004 Dodge Ram that was up in WA being sold by a friend of Dave’s brother. Sooooooo...Dave left Thursday evening and drove our old pickup up to Washington, only able to go 50 mph most of the way (guess lots of people “waved” and honked at him as he was going through congested metropolitan areas). It took him around 24 hours to drive up. After buying our new pickup and selling our old one to Jim (Dave‘s brother), getting a fifth wheel hitch installed plus some standard maintenance, on Sunday about noon Dave started the return trip, he got in just before 7:00 this morning. Currently he is up in bed sleeping… (that’s kind of a “duh” isn’t it). So we now have a beautiful deep burgundy pickup. It is really lovely.

Since the old pickup was not up to pulling the trailer Cheye and I held down the fort here in Idyllwild, CA. It’s been an odd few days being in the trailer without Dave. I just kind of wandered around aimlessly and didn’t get much done. You should have seen Cheye when Dave came in this morning… she wiggled, jumped and whimpered. It was quite cute. I, on the other hand, gave him a big hug and kiss and after checking out our new-to-us pickup, I sent him off to get some sleep. It is nice to have everything back to normal! :o)

Photos:
top left: Cheye watching a squirrel up in a tree
right: a pretty flower
bottom left: Cheye found a perch while out on a walk here at Idyllwild
below: the new pickup - some pics I took, some were sent to us by Jim.

Idyllwild, CA

Thousand Trails Idyllwild in California is where we are currently staying. It is up in the hills, actually we are just above 6,000 feet! Cooler here, only in the low 80’s so that is nice. The park is very pretty, lots of trees and very hilly. Most of the sites are fairly deep so there is lots of room, and quite a few are terraced into the hills. Very peaceful and relaxing here… a nice place!

Unfortunately the pickup is acting up again. Ran wonderfully for about 400 miles and now it is back to square one. We have an appointment tomorrow for it...keep your fingers crossed for us!!

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