Storm and quiet

There was a big thunder and lightning storm last Wednesday night. Looks like it hit a lot of the west coast. The storm went on all night here in Oregon House, most of the time it was like flashbulbs going off at a Hollywood premiere. I had never seen anything like it! Friday we had dinner at the campground café and chatted with a man that grew up in Oklahoma. He said he enjoyed the storm, made him feel like he was back home. :o)

We haven’t done much out of the ordinary this week; walks, internet surfing, cross stitching, reading… Today we went into Marysville, CA to grocery shop. It is about ½ - ¾ hour away but not a bad drive. The local grocery is pretty limited which is why we went into Marysville.

Just a couple more nights here at Lake of the Springs. As usual we are really enjoying it here!

Photos - all taken at Thousand Trails Lake of the Springs
Top: Our site
Below:
1. a beautiful sunset
2. Cheye in the lake
3. a deer by our site
4. some type of blue bird

Back in California

From Bend we drove down to Redding, CA and stayed at Premier RV Park there. We had stopped at Premier RV for a couple nights on our trip south last year. We prefer to stay at the Thousand Trails parks, taking advantage of our membership, but from Oregon to California there are a lot of miles with no Thousand Trails so we broke up the trip in Redding. We are currently at our favorite northern California Thousand Trail park Lake of the Springs in Oregon House, CA. We will be here a week.

Our trip was not without a few hiccups this time. We had to have a couple repairs done, a boot for the turbo boost got a hole in it plus we had some transmission problems. The pickup kept jumping out of overdrive, so we had to drive rather slowly until it would jump back into overdrive. However both problems have been fixed and hopefully the pickup is all better for a while!

So far we have had great weather at Lake of the Springs. We took Cheye down to the dog run/swim area today and she had a nice paddle around. Such a nice park, it is our third stay here but we still really enjoy it!

Photos
Top: the view from our "back patio"
Right: our site
Below: Cheye swimming
A cool shot Dave took of a bee

Moving tomorrow

Tomorrow we will be on the road again. It’s been a nice week here at Lake of the Springs Preserve, in Oregon House California, quiet but nice. The park is pretty empty even though the weather has been good, I guess people must think it is a bit early to be camping this far north.

Most of what we did today was to get ready for tomorrow’s move. Dave went in to a service station down the road for some propane and diesel and packed up outside stuff. I did some cleaning and arranging what I could inside. Cheye slept, ate, walked and insisted on some scratching and petting, but then that is what she does everyday!

Books and photos

It was a laundry day today. While I was waiting on the clothes I walked up to the Lodge and took advantage of the book exchange. I had noticed a few good titles when we were up at the Lodge for the Spaghetti Dinner so I took some books hoping to exchange them... happily the good titles were still there.

So this afternoon I did a little reading, Dave took a long walk and took a number of photos. We sat outside for a while and enjoyed the sunny afternoon and then bbq’d burgers for dinner. Besides a phone call from a friend the evening was pretty quiet. All in all a fine day. :o)

Photos-
Top: Cheye looking at the view
Below: Dave took the photos of the deer and buzzard, I took the one of the moon

Enjoyable day

Just not much to talk about today. Besides going for a number of walks we watched part of the NASCAR race and did a little computing. It was just a very quiet enjoyable day!

I posted one of these pictures (below) previously, but today I was culling photos and realized I really should have posted them in a series….so here they are!

Deer visit

We did a little drive around the park today. It started off as going to the store here in the park to sign up for the spaghetti feed dinner that is on Saturday night, but the store is only open on Saturday from noon to 3:00 p.m. Lake of the Springs doesn‘t run “full service” until sometime in April so everything is scaled back right now. From there we checked out a couple areas we hadn’t been through before, it really is a nice park.

This evening Cheye started hopping around, looking out the window. I looked out and there was a bunch of deer right beside the trailer. So beautiful and so amazing to have deer wandering around just beside us.

Photos-
Top: a rabbit we saw while driving around the park
Bottom: a doe with her fawn peeking over her back
Video-
Deer beside the trailer

Moved

This morning we went into Oregon House, CA to pick up a few groceries, on our way back to the trailer we took a trip through one of the other sections and decided to move. The area we moved to has fabulous views, so we quickly packed up and found a site and got all set up again. It was a good move, what a view! Our internet is a little faster too. :o)

We spent our day in the usual way, walks, reading and computing. Dave took Cheye on one walk and he came upon a doe and her fawn, which was just steps away from Dave. He got a few photos of it bounding away. Later Dave, Cheye & I walked up the hill behind our trailer, you can see the lake from the top. Really pretty. We don’t often move once we are set up but are glad we did this time.

Photos
Top: some cheery flowers here at the campground
Bottom: the fawn Dave saw on his walk
Video: Views at Thousand Trails Lake of the Springs

Back at Lake of the Springs

We are in Oregon House, CA at the Thousand Trails Lake of the Spring Preserve. We have stayed here before and really like the park. It’s pretty and well maintained plus they have a fairly active schedule. I don’t have the greatest internet connect but it’s workable.

It took us about 5 hours to make it from Thousand Trails San Benito. Our drive up I-5 was pretty unremarkable, just the way you want a road trip! The rest of our day was settling in and relaxing.

Photos
Taken at Lake of the Springs

More planning

We drove into Linda, California today. Time to go to Walmart and stock up a bit. It is about 30 miles from the park which isn’t a bad drive. Of course we lived in the country before we became full timers, so we are used to having a bit of a drive to do any type of shopping. We picked up a couple Subway sandwiches on our way out for lunch…do they fan the bread baking smells out into the store on purpose? :o)

Besides our usual walks and computing we got into a flurry of emails with our friends Robin & Chad about where we might want to eat while in Vegas. In just over 3 weeks the four of us will be meeting up for a few days of fun, shows and food. Dave & I used to go to Vegas about once a year but finally got a bit tired of it. Haven’t been for a few years now so it should be fun. We aren’t much for gambling, but love the shows and restaurants of Vegas, besides there is a lot to do in that area besides the gambling stuff, Red Rock Canyon, Valley of Fire, etc. We are really looking forward to our stay there…and did I mention the shows…and the food? :o)

Photos: taken around the park
Video: taken yesterday at the Pet Beach

Beautiful Sunset and Beautiful Day at Lake of the Springs

Yesterday we went out for a walk after dinner and witnessed a beautiful sunset. I took a number of photos and managed to catch a few good ones.

This morning we took Cheye down to the Pet Beach. When we got there Dave opened the gate, took Cheye off her leash and she took off running to the lake sending the geese flying. It was funny. She has decided that chasing geese is as fun as chasing seagulls. Later she ran through some mud, sinking up to her belly, to chase a goose. One of these days there will be a goose that will take after her!

Today the weather was beautiful and the air smelled so fresh after all the rain yesterday. We had a pleasant day, went for some walks, talked with the neighbors, watched a little NASCAR and have the football game on now. Nothing profound, just a very nice day.

Photos:
Top: Cheye in swimming
After the post:
1. Last night’s sunset
2. The lake
3. The lake again
Video: more of the park and Cheye at the lake

Some Sadness

Last night a sad thing happened, a man died here at the park. He evidently just keeled over and fell to the floor. His wife couldn’t get signal on her cell phone so she went to a neighbor and they called 9-1-1 and did CPR. The fire department was here within 10 minutes, but there was nothing that could be done. Dave happened upon the wife early this morning when he took Cheye out. She was trying to use the payphone to make and receive calls. Dave waved down a staff member and they took her over to the office. Some family came this afternoon and left with her and the RV.

It seemed to be a day to chat with people. We went to breakfast at the Lodge this morning and we met Fred and Paulette. Fun people! They have been full timing quite a while and this winter they will be going to Florida to work at Disney World for a few months. Seems Disney likes to higher RV’ers for the Christmas rush. After lunch some folks were walking by and stopped to chat. They were the people that did the CPR on the gentleman the died. They have been full timing for about 10 years and said this is the 4th time they have been at a park where someone died. Later a lady stopped and asked if we were really from South Dakota and chatted for a while. Add all that chatting with the small family reunion going on next to us and it was rather a noisy day.

We had a major cloud burst this afternoon but there was a beautiful sunset and now the crickets are chirping. I think that after all that happened today it will be a peaceful night.

Photos: taken in Lake of the Spring park
video: more slides from Lake of the Springs

Cooling Off

This morning Dave opened the window blinds and called to me to come quietly over to the window. There were 2 deer laying down in our “backyard” by our lawn chairs. They evidently slept there last night. What a lovely way to start off the morning.

Dave worked some more on cleaning out and up the pickup along with the trailer’s exterior and storage bins. I did laundry and vacuuming. While at the laundry room I chatted with a woman who was also waiting on her wash. She and her husband’s favorite Thousand Trails parks are the larger ones that have a lot of activities. She said; “…it used to be that you met a lot of people at the different activities and made some friends. Now everyone has a TV and the internet in their RV so they don’t go to any of the activities anymore…”

It was cooler today, only up into the mid 70’s. It was really a wonderful temperature, a little breeze and some clouds floating by. Some of the clouds were rather gray but we didn’t get any rain, that is supposed to come tomorrow and Saturday. Fall is on the way.

Photos:
Top: Clouds rolling in
Bottom: Leaves turning red
Video: One of the two deer that were in our “backyard”

Lots of Deer

Dave & I did a bit of exploring this morning, unfortunately we didn’t take a camera with us…oops. We went over to the store, it is closed Monday and Tuesday so we went up to the Lodge. Very nice and quite large with a big deck on the lake side. After that it was a relax and read day along with taking a bunch of photos and video of the deer wandering by our campsite. We thought the Chehalis Thousand Trails had a lot of deer, but they seem to be every where here. The squirrels also made an appearance so we caught a few shots of them too. Cheyenne doesn’t seem to care much about the deer, although they seem to care a lot about her! She just wants to watch the squirrels.

We both really enjoy this area. The landscape is more open, a little more desert-like than the evergreen forests of the Oregon coast. Not that we have anything against evergreen forests, but high desert is our favorite. This is more of a cross between the two. One person told us this park was “interesting”, another couple told me it was their favorite park. I guess the old saying, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is true.

Photos:
Top: last nights sunset
Middle: Squirrel by our campsite
Bottom: Deer across from our campsite

Lake of the Springs

I know, I say this about almost every place we stay at, but I really like this campground! It is really beautiful…pine forest, fabulous lake, deer, wild turkeys, squirrels, geese, nice sites, clean bathrooms, very nice. We got in a about noon and found a site we thought could get satellite reception and set up. We do have some satellite, just no HD channels which is no big deal. Our aircard gets internet coverage, our cellphone even has reception…so much for the electronics!

We took a short walk over to the swimming/boating area and walked a trail along the edge of the lake. After we got back Dave set up the lawn chairs and we sat outside and read/snoozed. It was a lovely afternoon, in the high 80’s. Before dinner it was time for another walk and we came across a number of deer and wild turkeys. There is also a Pet Beach here - an area fenced off where you can take off leashes and let your pet run and go out in the lake. Cheye loved it! She went for a few swims. I think we will really enjoy our stay here. I’m looking forward to a little more exploring tomorrow.


Photos:
Top: our camp site
Middle: Lake by the Pet Beach
Bottom: Lake with geese
Video: A few views of the park