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

Hot weather preparations

One of the things we did before heading south was to prepare a bit for hot weather. We purchased vent cushions along with a couple rolls of that foil thin insulation. We cut the thin insulation to fit all our windows, blocking the sun from heating up the trailer. It's easy to put up and take down so we only use it when needed. Wow, what a difference it makes! Of course if we put up the insulation in all the windows it is very dark in the trailer…I think Cheye likes it, kind of puts her in touch with her dog roots of living in a den! ;o) Our air conditioner can keep the trailer wonderfully cool when we have the insulation up, before it only took the temp down about 5 degrees cooler than outside. Good purchases if you’re going to be in hot weather.

Thousand Trails San Benito isn’t particularly picturesque right now, most of the grass is brown as are the surrounding hills so I don’t have a lot of photos of just the park. We have seen some wildlife; a bobcat trotting by our first night here (haven’t seen it since), a number of deer, rabbits, quail and hoards of ground squirrels and gophers. Of course Cheye loves the squirrels and gophers, she lays outside and watches them by the hour…cheap entertainment!

Photos
Above: the thin insulation in one window
Below:
1. the hills around San Benito when we were here last March
2. the hills around San Benito now
3. the family pool
4. a deer
5. a rabbit

Bug-free

Friday we decided to go into Gilroy, CA in search of a freestanding canopy with a netting so we could sit outside in bug-free shade. Walmart had a one. It’s been great to use as there are an abundance of flying bugs here. Much nicer to read a book outside without having to swat bugs!

It’s been rather hot the last couple days, in the high 90’s and even over 100 yesterday, so we’ve been visiting the adult pool here at Thousand Trails San Benito. Yesterday we went swimming after lunch along with a lot of other campers! We did meet a number of nice people. Today it warmed up early so around 10:00 a.m. it was off to the pool again. A couple we’d met yesterday, Jim & Jackie, also showed up and we had a great time chatting with them. Always fun to meet fun people!

Photos
Top: Our new canopy set up by the trailer
Below: (all taken at Thousand Trails San Benito, CA)
1. a view of the hills one morning we had some fog
2. a bunny
3. a quail