A day in Old Town Temecula

Yesterday we met our friends Jeri and Stan (Stach) Gutowski in Old Town Temecula!

We had a delicious lunch at The Edge Restaurant.  Jeri and I led the way through the shops while the guys found the "husband benches"!  Jeri and I bought a couple of yard flags and talked and talked and talked some more!  We needed to catch up on almost six months (even though we keep in touch by text and phone)!

You can certainly tell we've had spring this year.  On our trip we have seen bird eggs, baby birds, baby quail, baby bison, baby cows, baby geese and driving through our campground, more baby geese!

Visiting, shopping and eating..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Wilderness Lakes!

We arrived back in San Diego County on Thursday afternoon.  We've been having a computer glitch, we think from a virus.  It mostly is affecting our AOL email.  We are probably going to have to get it looked at.

Last night we had dinner with our friends Bill and Jany Staley.  I used to work with Bill at the CPA firm.  We worked together 18 years.  We went to BJ's Brewhouse in Escondido.  It's a fun place and the prices are pretty good too.  The pizza looked great but none of us tried it.  Bill and Jany both had stuffed baked potatoes and they both thought they were delicious!  I enjoyed a pasta dish with grilled shrimp, tomatoes and feta cheese and Ted had a chicken parmesan.  After dinner we sat and talked over a Starbucks!

The weather in central California was pretty hot so we are enjoying the cooler temperatures here in San Diego County!

Near home..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Sunny Bakersfield!

They have been working on one of the wells at the campground and yesterday the backhoe struck the power line and cut the power to the park.  Ted and I went through that when we were remodeling the house.  They were digging a new area for our septic and hit the electrical, telephone and water!  Boy was that a mess.  When SDG&E came out they said the lines were pulled out of the box and they were worried about PCB's so they had their hazmet team out.  Our contractor had to pay a LOT of money to fix that mess!  Our power came back on in the park about 2:00 a.m.

We went out in the afternoon to fuel up before leaving today.  We are now in Bakersfield.  When we came out of the campground the Bison were wandering around so I took their picture!

Tomorrow we head for our Wilderness Lakes Campground in Menifee!

Big and little Bison..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Golfing & Eating!

What a great day, golfing and eating!  What more could you want???  We went and played nine holes at the Bolado Park Golf Club in Tres Pinos!  It was a fun course and Ted beat the socks off of me!  It has been a long time since we played.  I hit just enough good shots to want to play again!

After golf we went to a little cafe in town called Flapjack Country.  They have pumpkin spice flapjacks which I just had to try, and boy are they yummy!  They do rival my sweet cream pancakes!  We were here the last time we stayed at the San Benito campground and remembered they have really good food and service.

I came home ready for a nap but decided to get on the computer instead!

Golf and flapjacks..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Casa de Fruta!

Before I get to the nice day we had yesterday, I have to tell you that our repair woes continue!  Of all things, the flap in the bottom of the toilet started acting up and finally stopped working yesterday.  We took off to Hollister to a RV repair facility and of course, being Saturday, they were closed!  There is a Camping World about 40 miles away so we called them to see if they had the parts and of course, they have to be ordered, and of course, it takes a week to get them!  And of course, we are leaving on Wednesday.  We can still use the toilet so we will wait until we get to San Diego to get it fixed!

Now to the fun part of yesterday!  On the way to Casa de Fruta in Hollister, we noticed a Glider Airport.  Ted used to fly gliders so we checked it out.  They were having some sort of promotional event.  We watched a few planes soaring and then continued on our way.

Casa de Fruta was started in 1908 and is basically a fruit stand!  Yesterday they were having a craft fair so we checked out all the "goods".  They have a fruit and nut shop, sweet shop, restaurant, wine tasting room and deli.  They have a 2-story carousel and a train that gives rides around the park.  They have an RV campground and an Inn.  After having a great lunch and a little shopping, we headed back to the campground.

Around 7:30 it was still nice and warm out, so we went over to the adult pool for some swimming.  We were the only ones there so were able to splash around to our hearts content!  After a little exercise and cooling down, we headed home.

Carousels and trains..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Paicines, California

On Wednesday our friends took us to Old Town Sacramento.  We walked around the shops.  The train station is right next to the Sacramento River and there is a lot of train memorabilia.  The old hardware store is more of a book store and old time toy store.  A lot of the shops are geared toward children and the day we were walking around there were lots of children on field trips in the various museums.  There are souvenir shops and lots and lots of restaurants!

Joel wanted to take us to lunch on the river so we went to the Virgin Sturgeon.  You walk down some steps to an airplane walkway which takes you to the restaurant which sits out over the river on a pier.  We had a good lunch and I had a hot buttered rum!  Some of our entertainment was provided by a mother goose and her babies.  It was fun watching them trying to get up on the pipe or the dock.  They were enjoying eating the grass that was growing on the landing!

We arrived in the tiny (population 204) town of Paicines in San Benito County, near Hollister, California yesterday!  We will be here until June 9th.  We have a Thousand Trails campground here.  The town itself has one country store but we are out in the middle of a farming area.  It looks like they are growing onions, cabbage and lots of grape.  So of course there are several wineries in the area.  We've also seen some Bison across the road from the campground!

After arriving yesterday we went about 5 miles up the road to the town of Tres Pinos, with a population of 500!  They have an ATM, a gas station that sells diesel fuel, a saloon, several Mexican restaurants, a cafe and a big church!

Watching the baby geese..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Minden Lake

We are still in Sacramento and have been hanging out at the campground for the holiday weekend.   Our campground surrounds Minden Lake. There are bass, catfish and carp in the lake.  There were a few people fishing over the weekend.  They have canoes, paddleboats and bumper boats available for rent.  They have several tent areas and two areas for RV's.  Max and I have been walking around the lake once a day, a little over 1 1/4 miles.  Max's tongue is hanging pretty good by the time we get back!

Kickin' back on Minden Lake..."Ain't Life Grand!"