Another County Park!

On January 2nd we decided to drive out to Yucaipa Regional Park (http://www.co.san-bernardino.ca.us/parks/yucaipa.htm), another San Bernardino County Park, to check out their RV facilities. This is a large regional park offering 3 fishing lakes, a 1 acre swimming area, and a water park with water slides. There are also boat rentals. There are 42 full hookup RV sites, which includes several 200 foot pull throughs with up to 3 hookups. These long pull throughs must be rented as a whole. The RV park is walking distance to the swimming area, and water park.

SWIMMING BEACH

RV SITES

WATER PARK

This place books up fast! We usually go some place on the 4th of July weekend with other family member, and extended family. After our visit I called my daughter-in-law, and we decided this was the place to go this year. More for the kids to do. I went online and found that out of 42 sites, only 3 single sites were left. This morning there was a cancellation, so the 4th member of our group was able to reserve that site. Now there are zero sites available 6 months in advance! RVParkReviews.com reviewers give this park 4-5 star ratings out of a possible 5. The cost is $35 per day, $45 per day on holiday weekends. If you are 62, or over, the daily cost goes down $5.

There is a security entrance where RV's and cars entering the park must show current registration, and insurance, and must pay either a day use fee, or have a reservation for camping.

Exploring local county parks

I've been aware for sometime that there are some local country RV parks in the Inland Empire where we live. In the 24 years we have lived in Ontario we have never visited any of these parks....shame on us! Elaine and I decided we would take a drive this morning, New Year's Eve, and see three of them. The first was Rancho Jurupa Regional Park in Riverside, run by the County of Riverside: http://www.riversidecountyparks.org/locations/regional-parks/rancho_jurupa/ .What a pleasant surprise this park was. It is located along the west bank of the Santa Ana River, within eyeshot of Mt. Rubidoux. There are two separate campgrounds within the park...Lakeside and Cottontail. Lakeside is near the fishing lake, and Cottontail is a new addition with very large, paved sites, and surrounded by grass. These are the nicest spots, and run $35/day for full hookups including 50amp service. The Lakeside spots go for $25/ day. There is a laundry, and very nice restrooms.



The second park we visited was Lake Elsinore Campground on the shores of Lake Elsinore. This park is actually owned by the city of Lake Elsinore: http://www.rockymountainrec.com/camp/elsinore-campground.htm . It is a little run down, but right on the shores of Lake Elsinore. Electric and water is $25 per day. There are no full hookup sites that I could see, but there may be. It is a very quiet park, and very close to services, and restaurants. There are a lot of trees, and palm trees specifically. Very quaint.

This was one of the more level sites. Turn 180 degrees and you see the lake.

The third park we visited was Prado Regional Park, run by the County of San Bernardino: http://www.co.san-bernardino.ca.us/parks/prado.htm . This park is less than 13 miles from our home, but it feels like you are a 1000 miles from anywhere. They have numerous 100+ foot pull through spots. The cost is $30 per night. If you are 62, or over, it is $25 per night. The pull through sites include a nice large concrete patio with fire pit, and a million dollar view.

The million dollar view...and great patio!

We will be returning, for sure, to Rancho Jurupa and Prado. Just goes to show you don't have to go far from home for a long weekend in the coach. There are a few other county parks we'll be visiting in the near future.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!

A short work week.....

Went mountain biking yesterday for the first time since the Labor Day weekend. If you've been following this blog you will remember we spent a few days at Mt. Baldy RV Ranch over that holiday weekend. I did a short 6 mile ride (3 miles uphill, and 3 down) that morning hoping to return before our friend joined us in his Bluebird. As I neared the end of the 3 mile downhill run the realization that my left achilles tendon was hurting broke through the exhileration of the downhill run. When I stopped it felt like it was on fire.....uhoh, what's that all about? Well, it took almost 4 months for it to heal. Yesterday was the test to see if I could ride, and not hurt it again. After 17 miles of really strenuous uphill and downhill the verdict is in.....no pain yesterday, or today! Let me rephrase that....no pain in my achilles tendon...lol!! I had a lot of other pain (shoulders, neck, elbows) from the pounding downhill, but that's to be expected. My body is not used to the downhill, but it will be again.

Mountain biking is one of the activities I use to stay fit. Usually if I am hurting it is self inflicted as in "I crashed". I really cannot point to any single thing I did to hurt it. I just remember it hurting one morning on our trip to Colorado in August. The pain would come and go, so I just wrote it off to stuff that starts hurting as you get older. Unfortunately, the ride on Labor Day weekend resulted in the pain becoming temporarily permanent, and resulted in me not being able to work out on my Stairmaster 4000pt, or mountain bike. The only thing I could do without hurting it more was run on the soccer field, so at least I was able to officiate soccer matches and retain some conditioning.

Now the long process of regaining my mountain biking conditioning, now that I know I can use the Stairmaster, and ride without hurting myself again.

Twenty-ten

We went with 1/2 a tree this year...lol!

Wow....it seems like it was just 1999. Then we were entering a new century, so a new decade does not seem as dramatic, however, the passing of another decade renews the realization that time keeps going faster. I'm pretty sure the last decade was really only 6 years long....have I done some inadvertant thing to interrupt the "space time continuim"?

One of our family traditions has been to see a movie Christmas afternoon. For the first time I took advantage of a "senior discount" yesterday to see the new Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes movie.....I saved 50 cents on each of our tickets! Yes, it was as good as I expected, but very intense. I can recommend it very highly.

On the other hand, a new decade means my wife and I are much closer to our goal of retiring, and fulltiming in our Newell....20 months to go!!


We had a very pleasant Christmas day.....all of the kids, and grandkids came for breakfast, and gift opening ceremonies. My oldest son gave me a set of wrenches to keep in the motorhome. These wrenches feature the ratcheting closed end....very cool!

One of my grandaughters

Chris and Elaine

The kids

Today, December 26th, Elaine and I decided we needed some exercise, so we loaded up the Cannondale tandem and headed down to the SART (Santa Ana River Trail). There is an entrance at about 12.5 miles north of Newport Beach near Angel Stadium (the baseball Angels). We arrived at the starting point around 12:30pm. Normally on individual bikes it takes us about an hour and fifteen minutes to ride the 12.5 miles down to Newport Beach, but on the tandem we can average around 17 mph, so it takes us around 45-50 minutes to do the same distance. The return trip is uphill and our miles per hour average suffers a little.

Repleat with our wired headsets...makes communication much easier!

Giving our posteriors a break..about 24 miles into the ride.

Total round trip ride time was 1 hour, 49 minutes....not bad for a couple of 60 year olds.

The Cannondale Tandem.....like our Newell, we found this beauty on Craigslist!

A short video for your enjoyment!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

96% of Americans celebrate Christmas, whether, or not they are Christians, so I know this salutation will possibly only offend a few narcissists who occupy the 4% of the remaining population. As Spock so famously said near the end of The Wrath of Kahn, "....the needs of the few are outweighed by the needs of the many...".

This is my favorite time of year....my attentnion is refocused on the meaning of this time of year and of life, things slow down at the office, and I am able to spend more time with family and friends. There is a sense of renewal and optimism in the air. Yes, even in spite of what I call "the religious left"and the fervor with which they are attempting to impose their religious belief upon a majority of the population who don't want what they are peddling. It takes an amazing act of faith for them to believe what they claim will be the outcome of their pending legislation. Especially when we examine the history of every single government program, and must acknowledge there is not one single instance, ever, of a government program saving money, reducing the deficit, and costing less than projected. The only way one could "believe" that the result of the Democrat healthcare/insurance reform will be a reduction in the deficit, reduction in healthcare costs, and the cost of health insurance is through an act of faith. There is no evidence whatsoever that any of what they believe will ever come to pass. The only thing the "evidence" and/or history shows us is the complete opposite result will occur. Nevertheless, I am optomistic for the future. This healthcare/insurance debate has brought the leftists out of the closet, and the majority of Americans see them, now, for what they are. The 2010 election cycle will provide the opportunity to undo what they have wrought.

We may be heading out on the road later next month, but it will be a short trip, like up to Ventura with my brother, Philip, and his family.

I recently have opened a Facebook account.....something I never thought I would do. If you are interested in what is happening in our life separate from exploring the U.S. in our Newell please check in there: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?ref=profile&id=100000569786506

Cleaning, and cleaning, and cleaning.....

All Clean again.....

Sunday turned out to be sunny, so I began to tackle some of the cleaning. The last time I had opened the engine bay doors I was mortified at how dirty the bay areas had become over the course of this trip. Of course, when you are driving through snow, slush, and rain day after day it does get dirty inside, and out. I wish I had taken pictures of what it looked like before I started, but these pictures will give you an idea of what it looks like when it is clean.


I, also, installed an additional reading light for the coach area that had come in the mail while we were gone.



Oil resevoir....

This door was filthy....

Integrity Mobile Detail will be coming to my home tomorrow morning to wash the exterior of the coach....they charge me $50 to wash and detail the exterior, and it takes them about 2 hours....it takes me most of the day....lol!!

Home!!!

I was up before Elaine, as usual...about 6:30am.....the coffee was done brewing, and its seductive aroma drew me to the kitchen. The tide was quite high...waves were breaking just a few feet in front of the coach. I poured a cup of coffee, and sat down to gaze at the sullen gray skies swallowed up at the horizon by the Pacific Ocean. Well, today we will definitely make it home...although there are a couple of RV parks between us and home....but, seriously, we will arrive home today for sure.

The diesel turned over easily and rumbled to life one more time....while the suspension system aired up to ride height I disconnected from the 50amp outlet one more time...the last time for a while. We eased out of site #22 at Faria Park, and climbed the short, steep hill to Rincon Parkway, and then south to merge with HWY 101 once again. As we approached cruising speed it began to rain.....it would rain every single mile home....fortunately the Saturday morning traffic was very light. We arrived home around Noon, and began to unpack in the rain......BUT it's 55 degrees....that's a heat wave for us!!

The last 22 days on the road living in our motor coach were wonderful. I can say it now.....we had NO mechanical issues....not one single one in over 3,400 miles many of which were travelled in freezing temperatures, even when it was sunny. Tomorrow I will begin to scrub 3 weeks of road grime off the exterior of our moving home, while dreamig of the next "voyage". When I wake up tomorrow morning I will probably be a little disoriented, and wishing we were still on the road.

The trip exceeded our expectations. We were concerened about weather on the Olympic Peninsuala, as well as the Oregon and California coasts, but were blessed to have 11 days of sunshine....who would have thought? Our decision to just make it up as we went worked out well....not one reservation was made. The only change we made was to continue going south past Crescent City on HWY 101, instead of northeast through Grants Pass over to HWY 395 and south along the eastern Sierra Nevada....we had had enough of snow, and sub freezing temperatures....although it was still cold along the California coast, it was pleasant and sunny, even it if was in the 40's most of the time.