FEBRUARY 2011

Early February brought some real cold weather, especially at night, when the temperature fell below freezing which caused our water faucet to freeze and crack!
The days were still beautiful though, clear and sunny, and we were outside most of the day. Later this month we had some huge storms passing through our area. They brought us a few good down pours and when the clouds disappeared we discovered snow on the mountains towards Julian.
The view was gorgeous!

                                                     

San Diego and Los Angeles flood and even Borrego Springs have some good rain. Hopefully this will give us some good wild flowers this spring.

We took another trip in the area and visited ‘Ghost Mountain’ in Blair Valley.
On top of its summit, Marshall South, a writer and an artist, built a cabin in 1932 and began ‘an original experiment in desert self-sufficiency’. He lived here for 14 years with his family, ‘of the grid’ and ‘off the land’ and lived as close to ‘nature’s universal code’ as they could, which also meant they wore little to no clothes.
They wrote about their experiment and were published in various magazines.
There’s little more than some ruins left now and it’s a rather strenuous hike up a steep slope. The view is great from the top though and we could actually see our campground far down below!

                                                           

In the same valley we found some ruins of the Kumeyaay Indian villages and a few pictographs.

                                                           

James and I are both working on his next project which is to restore the wildlife drinking fountain/waterfall that has stopped flowing because of a possible leak ‘somewhere’. He’s also replacing the old stone pond, which is also leaking, with a plastic one and re-’scapes’ the landscape around the whole feature.

                                                       

I’m also thrilled to announce that this month I got my much awaited washer and dryer! It took me all this time to find one on Craigslist that was stackable, 110 Volt and not wider than 32”, but I finally did!
James brought it back with him from one of his, unfortunately rather too frequent, client-trips to Lake Arrowhead. Bye, bye, Laundromat!

We also got a generator and James installed a wrench on the truck so he can lift his heavy tools in and out without breaking his back.
We’re both very happy campers!

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We’re spending a lot of enjoyable hours with Joe and Deanna. We got them hooked on ‘coffee time’ in the mornings and somewhere around the weekend we’re always having a BBQ followed by a campfire made by Joe who is the absolute master of campfire-makers. These times are certainly the most memorable and precious of our stay here!
We learn so much from them and they're just great people to be with!

                                                           

JANUARY 2011

 Happy New Year!

We celebrated the New Year at coffee time with Joe and Dianna and a Dutch delicacy called ‘oliebollen’. That would translate to ‘oil balls’ what really doesn’t sound too good but I’d say they’re sort of a doughnut or fritter and traditionally eaten on New Years day. James learned to make them from my Dad and he’s gotten pretty good at it over the years. They were delicious!

                                

The weather so far has been pretty good. We discover it can be very windy in the desert and it does rain but practically every day starts out beautifully sunny.

We had a few downpours which are normal for this time of the year but overall it has been cooler than normal, which is something that’s been going on all over the west-coast for the last 2 years or so. We’re very happy with our roof structure; we can still be outside even when it rains!

Since this campsite is listed as being horse friendly but wasn’t really set up for it, students from the Americorps installed some horse corrals this month and James worked on 2 bins for the manure.

                                       

We’ve been taking some trips in the area during our days off. We went to Julian, a little town about 40 minutes from here at about 4000 feet in the Mountains east of San Diego. 

It’s known for its ‘world famous Julian apple pie’ from its many apple orchards and has a cute historical center with beautiful old houses from it’s heydays during the short gold-rush in the 1860’s.

Off course we have to try 2 different pieces of pie! 

After touring some of the scenic mountain roads we did a little wine tasting at 2 of the vineyards for which this area is also known. 
The weather was gorgeous and we can sit outside in the late afternoon sun overlooking the vineyards on the hills. Not a bad life!

This winery was called: 'the blue door' (surprise, surprise)

                                                           

We also brought a visit to the Anza Borrego Desert State Park. It is the largest State Park of California and home to the Bighorn (or desert) Sheep and many other desert critters and is famous for its big display of wildflowers in the spring.

It has a beautiful visitor center and the short video they show about the park is well worth watching to learn a little about this beautiful area.

It is close to Borrego Springs, California’s first Dark Sky Community. There are no big box or chain stores. It is a wonderful quaint, quiet home for many ‘snowbirds’, people from colder climates that stay here for the winter. 
Personally I’d much rather be here than in busy Palm Springs for instance, where so many snow-birders seem to go.

Oh, ...and James celebrated another Birthday this month!

Are those some grey chest hairs honey  .....?

DECEMBER 2010

Since James still had to commute back and forth to Lake Arrowhead quite frequently to finish up his projects I do all of the ‘host work’ by myself so James can spent the hours he has to make on the various projects they want him to do.

The first one he tackled consisted of making 4 new horseshoe back boards to replace the ones that were falling apart. They wanted it done before the busy holiday ‘season’. He did a great job!

                                                           

I usually clean the bathrooms real good on Monday after most people have left and spiff them up on the following days when needed.
Since there weren’t too many people staying during the week there wasn’t much else to do so I started working on weeding the cactus gardens, pruning back bushes and cleaning up the sites which is an ongoing project over the winter months.

                                                        

Joe and Deanna are a great source of information about workamping and the RV lifestyle and we spent many evenings together around a campfire, picking their brains. They also introduced me to a domino game called ‘Mexican train’, lots of fun and apparently a must to be able to play as a workamper and also to ‘s mores’, which I had never had before! Yummm!
I, at my turn, introduced them to ‘coffee time’, which in Holland means a sit down coffee around 10 or 10.30 in the morning (every morning) drinking 2 small cups of coffee with some cookies while exchanging gossip and how your day is going so far.

On Christmas Eve we grilled steaks and stayed up late. It was a crystal clear and very cold night so we bundled up in blankets wearing shawls and gloves. It was absolutely gorgeous. Not a sound to be heard, the stars were out in full force and we think we even saw one falling, or was it Santa …?

                                                   

On Christmas day we had our 2^nd potluck at Agua. I’m glad I inherited a lot of great recipes from James’ Mom who always had a lot of church potlucks to go to. This time I brought a fruit salad with cream also known as ‘Ambrosia’. No calories in this one!

                                                                                                                                                                          Of course we had sold most of our christmas decorations but I had kept a few small ones so I had put  

the RV somewhat in the 'Christmas spirit'.  Merlin always loved to climb our trees in the previous years so after we came back from the potluck it was no surprise that he had tackled this one too,        

and  had knocked it over!         

                                                                                                                                                                

Who, me..? Nahhh...

                                                                                                                    

Also, we had been keeping an eye on new jobs posted on workamping.com for next summer and had sent our resume to a few 'contenders'. We'd like to spent some time at the beach if possible and were thrilled to get a call from Turtle Rock RV resort in Gold Beach, OR, just after Christmas.

We set up a little telephone conference during which we were both interviewed by the owner and were approved on the spot!

It's great to have something 'secured' for next season, one less thing to think about!