Thursday, September 24, 2009

A Change of Plans

I mentioned in my last post that our friends from Phoenix, Ron & Marilyn joined us here in Cottonwood. Our visit was fun, we went to Alcantara Winery for wine tasting, out for Mexican food, and just hung around the campground. Marilyn bought a 1000 piece puzzle for her and me to put together (we both enjoy puzzles) and we managed to finish it before they left. It was a good time!

Well….our “big news” is; seems we are going to stay put in Cottonwood for a while. We decided to lease a site for a year here at Thousand Trails Verde Valley. This doesn’t mean we won’t take a few trips now and then, doubt very much we will stay here for the hot summer, but we will be in one place longer than we have in the year and 4 months we have been full-timing. Cottonwood is a neat little town and close to a variety of places to visit. Another fun adventure!

Photos
Right: Puzzle Marilyn & I put together
Left: A balloon that floated over the campground
Below
1. the view of our "yard" at the site we leased
2. an amazing sunset here at Verde Valley
3. a view from the campground while on my morning walk



Thursday, September 17, 2009

Arizona

We’re back in Arizona, Cottonwood to be exact, at the Thousand Trails Verde Valley preserve. Since San Diego to Cottonwood is a long drive we broke our trip in two and decided to stay at Pleasant Harbor RV Park in Peoria, AZ (just northwest of Phoenix). It is a really nice park and marina on Lake Pleasant, our friends Ron & Marilyn are currently staying there so we got to visit with them. As a matter of fact they decided to come up to Cottonwood and are camping next door to us this weekend!

While we were at Lake Pleasant Ron took Dave & I on a ride in the desert in their Polaris… what fun! I love the desert landscape and this was an exciting way to see it. Besides photos of the RV park I’ve included a little video of our desert ride…

Photos
Top left: our site at Pleasant Harbor RV
Right: sunset over Lake Pleasant (a little fuzzy!)
Below: views of Pleasant Harbor RV
Video: our Polaris ride in the desert








Saturday, September 12, 2009

Just hangin’ around

Not a lot to report… we have simply been enjoying our stay here at Thousand Trails Pio Pico. We’re still going on our long walks, reading, computing and I’m still cross stitching. Today we did go into Chula Vista for a Chinese food lunch.

The park really emptied out after Labor Day weekend, but RV’s started pulling in Friday so this weekend there are a few more people here. Still not the crowd there was. Don, a man we met at Thousand Trail Ponderosa showed up Thursday so we have visited with him some.

This afternoon I took Cheye on a walk around the park and took the camera with me. I thought I’d get a few images of the park to share with you …

Photos
Top: our site
Right: Cheye in the dog run
Below
1. the adult pool
2 & 3. some views of Pio Pico
4. the hide-away cabins at the park




Monday, September 7, 2009

Back at Pio Pico



On the 3rd we moved back to Thousand Trails Pio Pico between Jamul and Chula Vista California. It’s been beautiful here, high 80’s with the great Pio Pico breeze. For the first time we are staying on the south side of the park. The south side has all of the full hook-up sites, the store, along with both the family and adult pools. Of course because of that there are a lot more people on this side of the park! It’s been fun, especially with Labor Day weekend, lots of activities and people to watch, however today we are watching a lot of them pack up and head back home since the holiday is over.

We’ve been doing a lot of walking up in the hills around the park. There is a dirt/gravel road that seems to go for miles through the hills, on my mapping program it is called Otay Mountain Truck Trail. There are even old concave mirrors along the way so trucks could see around the bends! Nowadays I think it is predominately used by the Boarder Patrol, 4-wheelers and hikers. Dave hikes a lot further than Cheye & I, he’s been going about 2.5 miles with an elevation gain of about 1,400 feet!. Cheye indicated that she didn’t feel up to climbing that many hills ;o) so she and I go a shortened version on the hills and then hoof it around the north side of Pio Pico… a very pleasant walk.

Photos
Top: beautiful sunset yesterday
Top left: the hills we have been hiking.
Bottom right: Dave (really blurry in insert) coming back from his hike
Below: sunrise a couple days ago.
Video: slide show of pics taken while hiking



Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Cuckoo Bird

This morning Dave was sitting on the couch, by an open window, and heard this click…click…click noise. Looking outside he saw this bird that seems to be attacking it's reflection in the pickup’s chrome wheel cover! See the video below. It must have gone on for 30 minutes…I wonder which bird won?

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Couple more days at Oakzanita

Well… here it is September! Wow, the summer has flown by. It’s our last couple days here at Oakzanita and it remains hot. With the horrible wildfires up by L.A. I am sure you have heard that the weather here in southern CA has been rather warm for a while now. It’s supposed to cool down a bit, I hope they are right.

Speaking of the wildfires, one is very close to one of the Thousand Trails parks, Soledad Canyon. Hopefully they will get that huge fire under control soon. Those firefighters are truly amazing, that is one tough job. When we lived in Benton City two different times brush fires burned the hills just behind our house. Both times firefighters from all over the state turned out and battled the blazes. We had helicopters and planes dropping water and retardants, guys out with dozers making fire lines, lots of trucks parked close to the homes just in case, it was really something to watch. (here are some pics from one fire) Due to all their hard work no homes were lost, the last fire blackened a few fence posts at a neighbors, but that’s all.

I thought I’d put together a slide show of Oakzanita for you. We often look for photos online of campgrounds we are going to stay at and Oakzanita didn’t have many. I'm not sure why, it's a pretty park. Maybe people find it a difficult place to photograph with all the hills, but it is really a nice campground. Definitely will be on our list of places to stay again.

Photos
Top: the entrance at Oakzanita
Middle and bottom: there is a trail that is marked with stones leading to these large boulders. Not sure but it looks like they may be Indian pestles
Video: slide show of Oakzanita