Back in Mesa

Hi everyone.  Sorry for the delay and will try to catch you up on what has been happening.  From Camp Pendleton we went on to a Thousand Trails park called Wilderness Lakes.  It is in the valley about 50 miles from Hemet, CA.  It was a kind of quiet stay, did a little geocaching, a square and round dancing near Riverside and some Line Dancing there in the park.  One day, we took our bikes to go geocaching.  It seemed like a pretty level area but we found out different.  We were glad to get back to the park and from then on we only used our bikes to go from the MH to the Recreation Hall.  

We moved from there to the Thousand Trails park in Palm Desert.  We had an opportunity to have dinner with my nephew Larry Pfander and to see his beautiful new digs.  Did a little geocaching there but before time to move to the Fairgrounds for the Square Dance Festival we have been looking forward to all year, Gary came down with the crud.  I don't know what it was, maybe the flu.  He had such a cough that he had trouble getting his breath and would almost pass out.  Unfortunately he still had it when it was time for the festival and spent the first two days in the motorhome.  I found a partner so got to do a little dancing but was certainly was glad when he was able to join me on the floor.  

We spent one night at a Coast To Coast park near the CA/AZ Border on the way back to Mesa.  With his illness it was a good thing we didn't have far to go that day.  On Monday, Nov 11 we came back to the same spot we had last year.  Of course once we got in I caught the bug Gary had so it was another couple of weeks before we felt much like doing anything.  We did a little dancing once we figured we were no longer contagious but it took a long time to really feel good. 

 These are three different views of our site.  You can understand, when you see them why we like the park so much.  Lots of room all around you. 

 It wasn't long after we arrived before we had some rain, and lots of it.  Then had another rain a couple of weeks later.  The desert is really green now.  Sorry these pictures showed the clouds instead of the sunshine we are seeing now. 

With all this space we have lots of room for company to park.  Come see us!










With the holiday weeks we have finally found some time to do more than dance.  This was our first really strenuous hike.  On the right you will notice the saddle in the mountains.  That turned out to be our goal.  It was a mile and a half with an 800 ft elevation change and lots of rocky paths.  We were so glad, at the end to see this trail that was no longer rocky.  

Here is the saddle again as we moved along the trail.  We found geocaches all along the way and when we got to the saddle Gary went to one on the left, up quite a ways and around the side of the mountain.  I went to one on the right that was about half way up the mountain on the right, then we met at the saddle to make our descent. 

 On our right was this view.  It was a beautiful day and as you can see from the pictures the desert is really green right now.  I just realized, with this size picture it looks like there is a little lake in the photo.  It isn't, if you click on any of the pictures you will see larger ones. That was a water tank in the middle. 
I'm not sure why Gary is pointing that direction except that the car was down there.  We are heading up the Lost Goldmine Trail.  Another good geocaching route. 

The rabbit ears were kind of cute, see his nose too?  Pretty rugged terrain in the background.

I love me!

 




 Just a view along the way.

Do you see the animal face up there?  Don't know what it would be but thought it kind of cute.

We thought this was really unusual, how the sagauros were right on top of the mountain.  First of all it seemed like it would be too cool for them to grow, secondly the birds must have carried the seed up unless it was an uplift?  Who knows?

This guy was running up as we came down, then he was back by the time we got back, ran all the way. 

Here we are, almost back to the car.  Did more than 6 miles this day, not nearly so steep as the other hike.

This was the turn around point for our hike and cache hunt yesterday.  It looks like someone had a good time after the rains.  Yesterday was  slightly over 2 miles each way.  Found 7 caches.  As you can see from the sky, it was a beautiful day.  Some of the hike was trails, some was just across the desert.  It is really unusual to see the desert so green. 

We may not be updating the blog again until we begin to move again in April.  The dancing here in Mesa keeps us busy with only a down day now and then for caching.