2017 Year End Review

Our 2017 Route

With the end of 2017, we have now been on the road full time for 18 months. The map above shows where we have camped for the year. Click on the link to get to the actual Google map if you want to zoom in to see more details. Obviously, we have been spending time in the western US states. And not that we have anything against the state of Nevada, but it looks like we have successfully circumnavigated it this past year never once crossing the state line - not even to get a geocache there! We will likely rectify that early in 2018 but with no definitive plans, who knows?

Where We've Stayed and How Long

Our travels have taken us through 7 states. There were 61 travel days, although four of them were a single night stay when we were trying to make distance between real destinations. In terms of the type of campgrounds we stayed at during the year, our most frequent stop was at Elks Lodges. Since we were not Elk members at the beginning of 2017 and didn't become a member until late March, we had no idea how well this would work out for us. We spent a total of 119 nights at 25 different Elks Lodges or roughly 1/3 of the year. Private campgrounds accounted for 107 nights. While state and county parks were used for 104 nights. The remaining 35 nights were spent boondocking in the desert of Quartzsite, casinos, a couple RV rallies and at a service facility. The motorhome was driven 6500 miles for the year or about 18 miles a day on average. We put another 14,500 miles on the Jeep to do all the side trips we have taken.

Some travelers will give their top ten campgrounds of the year but we never choose a campgrounds for what it has to offer but rather pick it based on what things there are to see and do in the area. So instead, we will give our favorite stops based on what we saw or did not on where we stayed. There are likely better campgrounds than those we picked for a given spot and even the best campground wouldn't be able to make up for a so-so location. Unfortunately weather or other calamities can sometimes ruin a wonderful location. Two that should have made the list but didn't were Crater Lake (smoke from fires) and Mt St Helens (fog and rain). These will need to be kept on the bucket list and revisited on a future trip.

What were some of the highlights from 2017? Well there were so many that it is hard to narrow them down to a reasonable number but we will try. In chronological order they are:

• Tucson, AZ: We stayed near here four times over the winter and spring. There are lots of great hikes and things to see but our highlight was going to the Tucson Rodeo and Parade. A wonderful parade and our first rodeo experience.
• Sedona, AZ: I almost don't need to say anymore. What a wonderful place. The beauty is astounding. The West Fork Trail hike was a memorable one but there were many others.
• Page, AZ: Lower and Upper Antelope Canyon hikes were quite remarkable. A guided walk through the slot canyons and seeing the water carved rock formations with the intense colors was a stop we won't forget.
• Kanab, UT: Our spot to see Zion National Park with some pretty incredible hikes. The downside for us were the crowds and we were there before the summer rush. The highlight in Kanab was actually Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. A place we would love to spend some time volunteering at.
• Bryce Canyon, UT: This area has some beautiful sights. The hoodoos in the national park are almost otherworldly. Two hikes here were favorites. One inside the park following Peekaboo Loop to Navajo Loop and another hike outside the national park in Red Canyon doing the Golden Wall Trail.
• Burien, WA: This was our stop to get into Seattle and the main reason for this one making the highlight list was visiting Geocaching Headquarters in Freemont for our 10,000 find. Probably would not make it on most people's top 100 list but it made our top 10.
• Terrebonne, OR: We had a wonderful spot to park and hosts that were some of the nicest people we have met, but Terrebonne might not normally be on someone's list of places to stay. So why did it make ours? Timing, timing, timing. We were there for the solar eclipse in the path of totality. An incredible experience that might force us to find a spot for the 2024 eclipse.
• Yachats, OR: We loved lots of things along the Oregon coast but the highlight from this stop was at Cape Perpetua Scenic area. The Spouting Horn and Thor's Well were very interesting to see. Just be sure to time your visit with high tide or it might disappoint.
• Brookings, OR: This was one stop that brought us to the wonderful world of coastal  redwoods. These trees are so tall that it is difficult to comprehend while standing at the base of one. The actual highlight was across the border near Crescent City, CA in Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park. There are numerous spots here that could have made the list but the Boy Scout Tree Trail was the one that comes out ahead. A beautiful hike where your neck may be as sore as your legs afterwards from needing to tilt your head up to admire the tall trees.
• Desert Hot Springs, CA: In the shadow of Joshua Tree National Park, one might expect this to be the highlight of this stop. There were also numerous sights in nearby Palm Springs, but the highlight here was the ride up the tram to the 8500 foot level to do an incredible 5 mile hike in San Jacinto State Park. This may also be one stop where a campground amenity nearly made the list - hot mineral spring pools.

One thing we get asked a lot is "What does it cost to live this lifestyle?". Well a lot of the costs we incur would happen whether we were living in a home or on the road. Health care insurance costs - our highest line item cost - would likely be identical. Groceries and dining out costs seem to be about the same as before for us. Sometimes we're in an area with higher food costs and sometimes lower. It likely averages out. Entertainment and recreation expenses are purely discretionary, they seem to be similar for us but your mileage may very. Things that are different are the cost of owning and maintaining a home. Our campground costs could be compared to home ownership costs like water, electric, gas, garbage collection and taxes on the home. In our case, our campgrounds fees totaled $9500 or $26 per day. Our cheapest spots were boondocking for free but spending just about $3.50 a day in diesel for the generator. Our most expensive stay was at a private RV resort near Mt Hood Oregon at about $65 per night. In our case this cost is lower than during our home ownership days. Our cellular/data bill totaled about $2500. We do miss having consistent high speed internet access like we had at home and this cost is greater than the equivalent from before. Fuel cost us about $2200 in diesel for the motorhome and $1600 in gas for the Jeep. Motorhome and Jeep service costs were about $1900 total with only a few hundred being unexpected service. 2018 will be a much more costly year since we need new tires on both vehicles probably approaching $5000 - ouch! I suppose the equivalent thing in home ownership is when a roof need replaced or the house needs painting. Neither is cheap, but they don't happen often.

In a nutshell, we don't find the costs of living this lifestyle any more costly than living in our sticks and bricks house and it is generally a less expensive way to go. Of course it doesn't have to be. As we were investigating camping spots in the Palm Springs area, we found an RV resort that cost between $160 to $250 per night! I would hope they wash and wax my rig for that price. We don't find living in a confined space an issue. I occasionally miss having my workshop and all my tools but am happy I traded them for this experience. We enjoyed our home on 49 acres and all the trails, but now we have the whole country and all its trails. And best of all, I don't need to maintain them.

We did have a good year geocaching as well. We got in 1603 caches - our best year yet. And much to Chris' chagrin, we have a 540 day caching streak underway. We have done some very creative cache hides along with our fair share of somewhat lame ones. But geocaching has taken us to many interesting and scenic spots along the way. We also had the privilege of placing a new virtual geocache and did so at the lighthouse in Cape Blanco Oregon.

What will 2018 have in store for us? We will spend the bulk of the winter in southern Arizona before heading east. A visit in the Dallas area with some of Chris' family, then up to Cincinnati around Memorial Day for a big geocaching event and visit some of my family. Beyond that, we likely will hit the Rochester area and maybe east to Maine? Who knows? Only time will tell where we end up.

Here We Come - Desert Hot Springs

Map of this blog's locations click this link to open the map

With our unexpected stop in El Cajon coming to an end, it's time for us to head north and east a bit to Desert Hot Springs. The drive will take us right past the starting point of the Lilac Fire. Fortunately, I-15 is now fully open through this area. Not that I wanted to see devastation as we drove by, but I at least expected to see some signs of a recent fire. I suppose cruising by at highway speeds didn't help to identify burned areas, but if we hadn't known a fire had this whole area closed down a week or so ago, I doubt we would have even commented on it. The drive is a relatively easy 150 mile jaunt and there was not too much traffic along the way.

We had read about Sam's Family Spa from another couple's blog posts. They have stayed here several times over the years and it sounded like a good spot to settle down for a while. There are quite a few things to see and do as day trips from this location. It is practically in the shadow of Joshua Tree National Park and about a 20 minute drive to the ritzy Palm Springs. The monthly rate is $575 plus electricity. We have only ever stayed at one other place long enough to be charged for electricity. At that stop, we used about $1.70 per day. That was with our other motorhome so it will be interesting to see what this all electric coach consumes.

Sam's does not take reservations for monthly stays so we were coming in with some uncertainty but we had been told that coming in this early in December would likely be fine. We pulled in, unhitched the car and drove around the section where extended stays are permitted (there is another section without electric meters that may only be used at the daily or weekly rates). There were quite a few spots open so then it was a matter of figuring out what orientation we would prefer. We pick a spot that will place our nose facing east. That will keep the afternoon sun from heating up the rig through the windshield plus our awning will be facing south in case we want to use it to provide some shade. All the sites have a slight slope and in our case it means the rear is low. We pull out all the leveling blocks we have and find we can get leveled without issue. We do see many rigs that have the from tires lifted off the ground. In our book, that is a "no no". But I don't have enough hard facts to argue this point with others, so I keep this opinion to myself and let them do their thing. Before we get setup, we ask if it would be okay to wash the rig and they say fine just don't waste the water. With the sun setting so early, we are out in the dark finishing up the washing. I guess we will see in the morning how well we did.

Our Spot at Sam's for Five Weeks

We hope to stay here about five weeks before heading into the desert in Quartzsite Arizona. If we make it that long, it will nearly double our record of 16 nights in Benson Arizona last March and April. This should give us plenty of time to see nearly all the things there are to see in the area. On our first day, we head to the Palm Springs Visitor Center and pick up all sorts of info and talk to one worker about the types of things we like to do so she can offer recommendations that might work out for us. I think she really liked the fact we were asking what can we do for the next 5 weeks instead of what can we see in two or three days like most others coming here for info.

Next we head over east of town closer to the town of Indio to go to Holland RV. They are a Newmar dealer and if their website is up to date, they have two new motorhomes we have been wanting to see in person for some time now. The first is the New Aire. On paper, this is THE rig we would have been looking for had it been available when we were in the market for a motorhome. Coming in at just under 34 feet in length, it would have the advantage of being able to fit in so many more spots than our current 38 footer Dutch Star. It has many new features that aren't even available on the Dutch Star models. The basement storage is quite impressive although at the expense of some tanks capacities. We have watched numerous YouTube videos giving detailed tours of the New Aire but we needed to see it in person to see how it "feels". We go in to get a salesperson and we explain what we were there for. He takes us out and starts to go over the features but quickly realizes that as two former engineers that have been full timing for about 18 months, we are not the casual customer. He heads in to get another sales guy more familiar with this particular model. After spending close to an hour looking this one over, we concluded the inside storage, specifically the kitchen, seemed to be lacking. The overhead compartments are quite a bit shorter in height meaning lots of things we have and use wouldn't fit. The basement storage might need to be used to store some things and that just seems like a clumsy way to live.

Next we went to look at a brand new floor plan in the Dutch Star lineup. The 3718 would be the same length as our current rig but have an improved chassis and higher horsepower. When we saw this floor plan on paper, there were many things we liked about it. In person, it was a very nice rig, but it too seemed to suffer from smaller interior cabinets. We would need to drastically change our "stuff" in order to get things to fit. It also didn't seem like a better rig than the one we are now fully adjusted to even though it would be 6 years newer. I suppose the best news is that we won't need to spend a bunch of money to buy a new coach!

One of the nice perks associated with staying at Sam's are their hot mineral spring pools. They do have the typical chlorinated swimming pool which is nice but a short distance from the pool is a large covered area with 4 hot pools. Each one is kept at a slightly different temperature in the 99 to 108 degree range. Each night the pools are emptied and cleaned and then refilled in the morning from the hot mineral springs. We have found it quite relaxing to come over and soak for a half hour or so. Supposedly the total capacity of the pools is 75 people but I doubt there have been more than a couple dozen people anytime we have tried them out. They also have a nice pond with all sorts of ducks, an aggressive black swan, egrets and herons. They also have several large screened pens with doves, peacocks and other birds. It is nice to take a break from soaking and walk around the peaceful setting they have created here before heading back to relax in the water.

Swimming Pool Area

Hot Mineral Spring Pools

Black Swan Senses Food

Cascading Falls

Heron Poses

Pond Area at Sam's

Peacocks

There are quite a large number of geocaches hidden in the area. There are over 100 caches all along Dillon Road in both directions from the campgrounds. Generally this type of "power trail" would consist of lame caches under a pile of sticks or in this area, a pile of rocks. But many of these caches are quite creative hides or unique containers. I have had Chris drive me 10 miles down the road and I would bike back geocaching along the way. There are also some large desert areas where the cache owner has created "geo-art". We spent one morning doing a series of 22 caches hidden in the shape of a heart. Since the area is mostly flat with minimal bushes and other vegetation. It is relatively easy to walk from one cache to the next.

Heart Shaped Geo-Art

Each Thursday evening, Palm Springs closes about half a mile of Palm Canyon Drive and has Villagefest. Over 100 vendors set up booths on both side of the street selling all sorts of food and crafts. Most of the businesses and restaurants along the event are open as well. On the first Thursday we are in the area, there was an additional event going on. Walk of the Inns is an annual event where a dozen or so of the unique inns located in Palm Springs open their doors and allow visitors to wander through the grounds and tour the rooms inside. We got a late start so by the time we got to Palm Springs, the streets were already swamped with cars and people. We eventually lucked into a parking spot along the road and were able to visit five or six of the inns before the event was over. The ones we toured were quite nice. One of them is situated in the side of a hill with tiered terraces giving great views of the city. Chris was particularly fond of this one since it was furnished in mission style furniture and lighting. 

Water Feature at Inn

Pool in Central Courtyard

Nicely Landscaped

Great View of Palm Springs at Night

Mission Style Lighting the Pathway

Before heading over to the Villagefest, there was a 15 minute fireworks show that we weren't expecting. It was fun to walk up and down the street checking out all the crafts at Villagefest. For the most part, the crafts were produced by very gifted artists. But that also meant that they carried high price tags. Maybe not unexpected in an affluent town like Palm Springs.

Fireworks Over Palm Springs

Glowing Artwork for Sale

Crowds Shopping at Villagefest

Xmas Decorations

Joshua Tree National Park is just to the northeast of our campground. In fact the hills we see in that direction, which are about 3 miles away, are part of the park. Unfortunately the three entrances into the park are not that convenient. The closest one is about an hours drive in the town of Joshua Tree. We stop at the visitor's center there to get a bit more information before heading into the park. Obviously we were not the only ones with this idea since we waited over 10 minutes to get through the entrance station. Rather than picking a long hike, we opt for a couple of shorter ones. The Wall Street Mill trail starts at the Barker Dam parking lot. It is only about a mile out to the remnants of the old mill which was built in the 1930's. There are numerous old vehicles and buildings as well as the remains of the mill itself. The hike is completely flat with the only issue being much of the trail is in deep sand which makes for slow going. The dry desert conditions allow the metal of the cars, trucks and mill to age very slowly. It is interesting to imagine what life must have been like working in a desolate area like this. Besides the numerous Joshua trees, there are very interesting rock formations that add to the beauty of the area.

Part of Wall Street Mill

Truck Needing TLC

Old Windmill and Joshua Tree

Rock Formation

Dried Yucca Flower

After we get back to the parking lot and eat lunch, we decide it makes sense to check out the Barker Dam loop trail. This loop is just over a mile long and indeed takes you out to the dam which to our amazement was still in good shape and holding a small pond of water behind it. There were lots of people out enjoying the area as were a bunch of ducks. We still have some daylight left so we stop at a few more pull outs as we head to the Twentynine Palms entrance. Hall of Horrors sounded like an interesting spot. Apparently it is a favorite spot for rock climbers but there were none out this late in the day. Skull Rock also piqued our interest. There are many interesting rock formations at JTNP and with a little imagination, one could be convinced that this one looks like a skull.

Pond Behind Barker Dam

Barker Dam Still Standing

Balanced Rock

Nice View

Skull Rock

The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens in nearby Palm Desert sounded like an interesting spot to check out. During the holiday season, the place is decorated with millions of lights and other decorations and they open up in the evenings for visitors to come and enjoy. They call this evening event Wild Lights and it sounded like a better way to experience this place. If it turned out to be really fantastic, we could always come back during the day for another visit. We arrive after dark but 10 minutes before they officially open the doors. There is a geocache at the very back of the parking lot that looked to be mostly deserted at this point. As we head back to ground zero and begin our search with our flashlights in hand, we hear a voice from the darkness telling us to look over by the side of another building. We weren't expecting anybody to be back here. He didn't know exactly what was back there, but he said generally people that come this direction are looking for something and he knew where it was. We appreciated the help even if it was just a bit spooky.

Entrance to Wild Lights

 There was a short line of people waiting to get in but it wasn't too bad. It was a cool evening (for this region) so that may have kept some of the locals at home not wanting to don their winter coats and hats. We on the other hand, survived the cold with a simple sweatshirt! They definitely go overboard with the lighting. There is a humongous model train setup that seemed to just keep going and going. There is a reindeer feeding area with a couple of them anxiously waiting for the next visitor that comes in with food. I suspect they are not part of the zoo at times other than this time of the year. Many of the animal holding areas are open and quite a few of them are up and about. The most interesting ones were the giraffes. Their large outdoor area was pretty well lit with flood lights. I was able to see about a dozen of them, but they were being shy and didn't come close for a photograph.

Model Train

Trolley

Merry Go Round

Reindeer Says "Feed Me!"

Real Giraffe

There were quite a few large animal decorations along the various pathways. Some were inflatable with internal lights while others were metal sculptures. The merry go round was drawing a steady crowd of people. One of the most popular displays was a tunnel of lights. It was probably 60 feet long and 15 feet wide and constructed with dozens of strings of lights over some sort of hoop frame. The lights were synchronized with the holiday music that was playing. I put together a short video of the lights.

Inflated Giraffes

Cheetah Ready to Pounce on Zebra

Lots of Lights

Dino on the Loose

Escape from Oceanside

Map of this blog's locations click this link to open the map

With a little over a week here in Oceanside, we have more places to see. One day trip takes us back north past Camp Pendleton to San Clemente. From what we read, there is a nice trail for many miles along the coast so the plan is to bring along the bikes and go for a ride. We head to Linda Lane Park which wasn't very busy so there was plenty of parking. The park is just north of the San Clemente pier. We decide to head north first. Even though the park wasn't crowded, there were plenty of people out on the bike path enjoying the nice weather on this Sunday morning. We travel about five miles to Doheny State Beach. The bike/pedestrian path varies greatly over this distance from a hard packed gravel to three lane paved bicycle path adjacent to the Coast Highway. Even though it was a nice day, the beaches themselves were nearly empty. I guess it is December and I don't know what the water temperature is. 

San Clemente Pier

Along the Bike Path

Doheny State Park

We turn around and make our way back to the car to have our sandwiches we brought along. It was nice to sit on the bench and watch all the people going by. We put in some more money for parking and headed south. Bikes aren't allowed on the pier so we only briefly check it out. There were lots of people out surfing although the waves didn't look that great. The bike path heading south is not quite as nice and definitely shorter. After about two miles we end up in Calafia State Park and the path seems to end. Maybe it continues inland along surface streets but it doesn't follow the coast. We decided to head back to the pier and watch the surfers. 

As luck would have it, there was actually a surfing competition underway. I suppose that explained the large number of surfers and spectators. We found an open picnic table and plopped down to watch them catch a wave. At the table next to us was a family with two young boys. They both had the bleached blond hair and the mannerisms I have come to expect from "surfer dudes". One of them was icing his knee, so I suspect surfing is not a sport without some risk other than the obvious one - drowning! Every 15 or twenty minutes, the guy on the PA system would announce the next age group for the competition. With the late afternoon sun off in the west, we found it next to impossible to see the competitors. I did notice when one group of six went out, each one was wearing a different brightly colored t-shirt over their wet suit. I guess that's how the judges keep them straight. At one point a guy comes up and asks us how a surfing competition is scored. We told him his guess was as good as ours. 

At Surfing Competition

The next day we head south of Oceanside to Encinitas. It is only 15 miles or so. We understand the area near Swami's State Beach is a popular surfing spot, and now that we are experts on the sport, we figure we should investigate. Parking turned out to be quite the ordeal. There aren't many spots in the beach's parking lot and we drove well over a mile down the coast highway before we found an open spot. It definitely is a popular surfing spot. We saw several cars pull up and two or three guys would get in their wetsuits, grab their boards and head down to the beach. We wandered around up above the beach in San Elijo State Park before heading down a set up stairs to the beach. There were quite a few surfers out and the waves were a bit better today so we saw some doing pretty well. The guy that didn't have an ankle strap attached to his board seemed to be fighting a losing battle. After he would bail off his board, it would take him five minutes to come in to get it and then paddle back out. We eventually made it back up the beach to Swami's and headed up the stairs for the long walk back to the car.

Beach Volleyball

 

Surfers Near Swami's Beach

Mermaid Spotted on Beach

Homes with a View

There was one more thing in this general area we wanted to see. The San Diego Botanic Garden. Even though we are about 25 or 30 miles from San Diego, the botanic garden is up here in Encinitas. The property is 37 acres and has many paths crisscrossing all over the place. A large number of the plants are labeled so as we see something odd or interesting, we at least can find out what it's called. Lots of the fruit trees were producing fruit but visitors are warned about picking or taking it because of med fly infestations. It's too bad because some of them looked quite tasty. There are several life size statues of people that are also planters. They have various plants growing on them to give the figures quite an interesting look.

Unique Artwork at Garden

Interesting Foliage

Walkway to Overlook

Dancers

There are several sections throughout the park that are dedicated to the plants of a given region of the world. One rather large section is dedicated to children. There is a large treehouse and all sorts of toy areas. Even though we have long exited our childhood, there were plenty of things that we found interesting here as well. Had there not been so many parents with their kids here, we might have been able to play with some of them ourselves!  The majority of the park was currently decorated with lights and as sunset approached, the lights were turned on. The park closes at 5 but near the holidays, they have a separate event in the evening to see the park all lit up with Christmas lights. We were a bit tired and hungry so we finished up our tour and headed out. 

Chia Man?

Night Lights Before Nifght

Bright Flowers

Bikini Clad Mushroom

One highlight of our trip was the opportunity to visit with one of my cousins originally from Ohio. I remember as a kid often going over to my aunt and uncle's house to visit. Rose is 8 years older than me and her brother is my age so I would usually play with him and avoid the older siblings. We suspect the last time we saw one another was at our grandmother's funeral just under 30 years ago so there was quite a bit of catching up to do. We arranged to drive down to her place not far from Balboa Park in San Diego. My wife and Rose had never met before, but it turned out they have many common interests so there were lots of discussions to have and not much time. We took two of her dogs for a walk through the lovely neighborhood of North Park where she lives. My wife is a big fan of craftsman style bungalows and this area has a large number of them. Many are nicely cared for with a wide variety of styles and features to admire.

Next we hopped in the car and drove to Balboa Park. This is a huge place with all sorts of things to see and do. The famous San Diego Zoo is here as well as a couple dozen museums that cover the full gamut of interests from cars to science to culture and art. We keep it simple and just casually explore the area without spending all our time in one spot. Balboa Park is a location that really requires us to spend a couple weeks camped in a much closer campground to permit us to take it all in properly. Our visit today will just have to hold us over until that future return trip. We found a nice lunch spot and enjoyed food, drink and conversation. 

Fountain at Balboa Park

Reflecting Pool

Another Fountain

Large Innertwined Cactus

Ornate Entrance

Whimsical Statue

Next we jumped back in the car and Rose gave us a guided tour of the San Diego area. We aren't used to such a personalized tour. We ended up heading over the bridge to Coronado and lucked out finding a parking spot near the Hotel del Coronado. We got out and started to wander through the amazing grounds of "The Del" as it's called. Being built in the late 1880's, it is a pretty amazing building. Turns out it is the second largest wooden structure in the US. The first being the Tillamook Air Museum which we visited earlier this fall. I suppose we should investigate what is third on the list and add it to our itinerary! 

Hotel del Coronado

Christmas Bears Greet Us

Beautiful Roof

Before heading inside, I pull out the phone to see if there is a geocache nearby. Not too surprisingly, there is. With all the people wandering around, finding a geocache without arousing suspicion was going to be difficult. Chris and I usually don't enjoy trying to find these types of hides, but my cousin was quite intrigued so we had to persevere until we spotted the small bison tube. 

With that mission accomplished, we head into the main lobby of the hotel. It is quite the sight and being decorated for the holidays made it even more astounding. The Christmas tree was big and decorated nicely although it was hanging upside down which I hope doesn't become a big trend. There are many shops scattered around the various wings and hallways of the hotel. There were plenty of very expensive things to admire but we have a space issue with the motorhome so we didn't spot anything we just had to have. We then went out to the deck area and had drinks while we watched the sun set over the Pacific. The place was very busy since Santa was just 20 yards away meeting with kids and having photos taken. By the time we left, it was good and dark which made all the lights decorating the building that much more impressive. We headed back to Rose's place, said our goodbyes to the three very excited dogs and headed north to Oceanside. What a busy and wonderful day to spend with family.

Upside Down Christmas Tree

Lights Galore

The next morning, Chris headed back to the really good farmers market in town. When we turned on the TV at lunchtime to catch the news, the broadcast was completely centered on a wildfire that had just started a little after 11 AM. As the reporters are giving the live updates from various locations around the fire zone, we realize that the fire is about 15 miles to the east of us. This fire was being called the Lilac fire. That just seems a bit too pleasant of a name for a wildfire. This wouldn't normally be that much of a concern but we were experiencing very strong Santa Ana winds. These are coming out of the east and blowing right to us. Sure enough when I step outside, you can see all the smoke blowing high above us. We spent the rest of the afternoon watching television coverage of the fire as is grew from 5 acres to 50 to 1000 and kept getting closer. At times the smoke smell was not pleasant and there was ash coming down at the Elks Lodge. When the fire chief stated that this fire could get out of control and burn all the way to the Pacific through Oceanside, we got quite worried. 

Lilac Fire During Early Stages - We are at Pink X

We realized that we were not going to get any sleep tonight for fear there would be a knock on our door at 3 AM telling us to get out. Having seen past reports of some of the other fires near Napa where people didn't even have time to get their cars out, we knew we didn't want to experience that. A real plus of our lifestyle is that our home has wheels. We don't have to stay in harm's way. Some disasters provide ample warning (hurricanes). While others give little warning (tornados). And there are those that give no warning (earthquakes). This fire was proving enough warning that we felt obligated to heed it. So just before the sun set, I started packing up camp. We talked to our friend Michael and he suggested if we leave, we should head south first. We called the Elks Lodge on El Cajon which is just a bit east of San Diego and well away from the potential path of this fire. They said they had one open spot but could accommodate rigs for boondocking if need be. 

We have tried to follow the rule that we need to get into a campgrounds well before dark in order to setup with plenty of light. And for the most part we have been very successful at achieving this goal. So it did seem very counterintuitive for us to be pulling out of our spot well after sunset. The drive to El Cajon should only be a bit over and hour but there was a fair amount of traffic so it was closer to 90 minutes. Our next dilemma was to be our fuel situation. We had plenty of diesel to get to the Elks Lodge, but if we needed to boondock, we would need to run the generator. As a safety feature, so one doesn't run out of fuel while running the generator, the fuel line to the generator is tapped off the tank at about 1/4 (or is it 1/8?). Well we would be near the 1/8 point when we pulled into El Cajon, so we did another thing we generally don't like to do, head into a filling station without fully knowing there is room for us to do so. A quick evaluation of a fuel station we saw while we were waiting for a light at the off ramp of the expressway, led me to believe it could be done. Fortunately I was right and other than a pickup truck that started to head into the same lane I was already edging into, he wasn't willing to play chicken with a rig our size and he slid over to the other side of the pumps. With California fuel prices, I didn't fill up but did get plenty to last us if we needed to run the generator. 

As we pulled into the Elks Lodge, we saw a fifth wheel just backing into a camping spot. So it looked like we had just missed out on getting the last spot. But when we got out and walked over to survey the situation, we discovered there was one remaining spot next to this fifth wheel. We setup and went into register and pay. There was some sort of mixup with the paperwork, so they thought there was only one spot even though there were two. It cost us an additional $80 to stay here the 4 nights we would have stayed in Oceanside, but we didn't care. We had a spot with power and far away from the Lilac Fire.

Since we hadn't planned on being near our current location, we had to investigate what there is to see and do around El Cajon. Mission Trails Regional Park is less than 10 miles away and from what we could find out about it, there are lots of hiking trails and even better, plenty of geocaches hidden in the park. We pack a lunch and head over there with the hopes of doing some hiking and caching. We first go to the visitor center, and what a visitor center it is. More like what you might experience in a national park as applied to a county park. They have all sorts of exhibits including a bunch of very elaborate quilts being sold for some fundraiser. I suppose this is how they afford to have such nice facility. It was a pleasant time exploring the displays until a bus load of middle school students came in and showed how the acoustics of the building allow their screams to carry all over the place. 

Realistic Quilt

Chris' Favorite

Mission Trails Visitor Center

Deck at Visitor Center

We had picked a couple of trails that would give us a nice loop to hike which also included half a dozen geocaches. Our starting point would be the Old Mission Dam which is a couple miles north of the visitor center. The dam is situated on the San Diego River and was built in 1803. As we have found with lots of "rivers" out west, this one was underwhelming in terms of water volume. I suppose in times of rain, it might get somewhat bigger with all the hills to provide runoff but on this day it was more like a creek than a river. 

Old Mission Dam

We start our hike along the Oak Canyon Trail. The first few hundred feet were in deep sand and we were concerned we were in for a very challenging hike. But once we started to climb a bit, the trail was in much better shape. In about 2 miles we hit the northern edge of the park. There apparently are more trails on the other side of California Route 52 but aren't part of Mission Trails Park. There are many more geocaches in that area but we still have a good hike to do to get back to the parking lot. 

Along Oak Canyon Trail

We had originally made plans with Rose to meet in Torrey Pines for a hike but with us moving to El Cajon, we decided to come up with a more convenient location. We figured Mission Trails Park would be a good choice. Rose came over to our "place" and she got the tour. Tours don't take a long time in our motorhome. We had a quick lunch then headed over to the park. Our first stop was on the south side in order for us to find a geocache we needed for a challenge came we are trying to qualify for. It turns out even with the three of us scouring the area, we could not come up with it. So we found another cache that would work and headed to that one. Actually this worked out well since the other cache was on the short Deerfield Loop trail. There were a few other geocaches to look for along the way and Rose seemed to be getting into the groove of finding them. Unfortunately there wasn't much going on at the BMX track. There were maybe two people there but they were only standing around and talking, not actually doing flips and jumps. 

We then drove back up to the Old Mission Dam area again but this time we did the walk back south along the paved Father Junipero Serra Trail (hopefully there is an abbreviated name for this trail since it doesn't roll off the tongue). There were numerous caches along the way so we had a nice time walking, talking and occasionally searching for a cache. By then it was getting late so we headed back to the lodge. We talked Rose into staying for dinner so we could continue our conversations. By mid evening, the music started playing at the lodge and let's just say it was plenty loud. I'm not positive what was going on but the music wasn't like your would expect from a wedding reception. In fact, much of the music was stuff we lines and liked. As Rose headed out, the party was in full swing and we were tempted to see if we could crash it, but instead we went back to the rig and just crashed. We enjoyed spending the bulk of the day with our guest and look forward to a future visit to the San Diego area. 

At El Cajon Elks - Notice Fake Tree Cell Tower on Right

Our last day in El Cajon was spent taking it easy. We don't need to be tourists every day. In fact it gets tiring when we attempt to maintain a constant sightseeing mode. We headed to the library so I could get caught up on blogs and upload more TV shows and movies on Amazon Video. We come back and start to prepare for a travel day. Our next stop is the desert. It even has that in the town name - Desert Hot Springs.