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

Rafters

Made it!

Evidently the Dodge dealership knew what they were doing! Not only does the pickup seem to be fixed but it only cost us around $100.00 rather than the $700.00 bill at the transmission shop! Quite a difference.

Our trip today was only around 80 miles, from Marysville, CA to Thousand Trails Ponderosa in Lotus, CA. We stayed at this park last October for a week and really enjoyed it so thought we would stay here again. The park is smaller than most Thousand Trails but it’s very nice. The American River runs along one side of the park and we happened to snag a site close to the river. The sites here by the river are a little close but it’s so pleasant to sit out and watch the river and occasionally see a kayak or raft float by we decide to park here.

Photos
Both taken at Thousand Trails Ponderosa of the American River

Short trip

Well….we got to test out the repair on the pickup transmission today…it failed :o( So instead of heading out we drove straight to Marysville, CA back to the shop. The pickup problem has totally baffled the transmission guys. The good news is they refunded all our money and got us an appointment tomorrow morning at the Dodge dealership in town. The bad news is since we will be going to a dealership I imagine we will spend all the refunded money plus some to get it worked on. We just hope they can fix it.

We found a RV park in Yuba City, not far from the dealership, so we are staying here for the night. It’s called Travelhome Park, it’s fine, super nice people running the place. Hopefully we are only here for the night!

Photos
Top: Cheye in the pickup
Bottom: we had to drop the trailer in the alley behind the transmission shop while they tried to repair the pickup.

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