Out and About

Yes, I know – it’s been too long since I posted an update!  But, we haven’t really been doing much that’s newsworthy, at least until earlier this week.  So let’s get caught up…

We found out through the grapevine that we had another recall on our engine.  Jim made a call to the nearby Cummins facility and determined that yes, we needed to have a little adjustment made.  Since we were due our annual oil change anyway, we got an appointment scheduled.  Early Tuesday morning, we had the Castle packed up and ready to take to the Cummins shop, which is thankfully only about 5 miles from the campground and doesn’t involve any freeway travel.

Here we are, nearly the first rig in the lot for the day:

We got all checked in and were told it would be mid afternoon before we could expect to be finished.  With the dogs and our snacks all loaded in the little car, we took off to do some exploring.

I’ve been wanting to drive the back roads up to Aguanga, where there is an Escapees Coop Park, Jojoba Hills.  On the way, we stopped at this little pie shop in Julian, but just looked!  Really!

We found the park, stopped at the office to let them know we just wanted to drive through and look, and then did just that. They have a very nice pool and clubhouse area:

As with pretty much all of the Escapees parks, they don’t take reservations, but almost always have space at least in their boondock area.  This park charges $20 per night (including electric), and has a 28 day per year limit for stays.  We would certainly consider staying here sometime.

After we saw the park, we came back to Santee via I-15 and headed over to the Cummins facility.  Even though we were there before mid-afternoon, the Castle was ready to go.  We got back to our site and all settled in with time to spare before happy hour.

Yesterday, my friend Deb and her husband, Ron, met us in La Jolla for an adventure to the Birch Aquarium at Scripps. Here they are in front of the whale-tail fountain near the entrance: 

Deb was “talking” to the octopus:

Interesting and beautiful fish!

Right now, the museum has an exhibit featuring seahorses, here’s one of the more unusual varieties:

Posing in the shark’s mouth at the end of the tour:

We then went to Torrey Pines State Reserve and walked a short trail to an overlook.  I was able to get my ocean fix!

The Torrey Pine is the rarest pine tree, there are only about 3,000 wild trees growing along the California coastline, most of them in this reserve:

We were just in time to watch the sun set over the Pacific:

And then it was time to join the rush hour traffic back to the shopping center where we had parked our car. We went on in to the California Pizza Kitchen with Deb and Ron for dinner and then parted ways to head home.  It was a wonderful and fun afternoon!