Santee Lakes

Well I am happy to report that we made it through LA without incident and arrived at Escondido which is north of San Diego.

The drive down the coast was very pretty.

Once again we stayed at the Moose Lodge.  This lodge had actual hookups and there were about 7 campers there at a cost of $15 per night. We have family in Escondido that recently moved there so we will stay in the area for the holidays. 

On Friday we went around checking out the campgrounds.  The parks were not to our liking so we decided to go to Santee Lakes and check it out as we have heard alot about it.  It turned out to be just what we were looking for and we were lucky to get a spot as it is a popular location.  We have one site for a month and then have to move to another, no problem.  It is 30 minutes to Escondido and 2 miles from the public transit system into to San Diego and all the shopping you could want.  There are 7 lakes with walking/biking trails and stocked fishing lakes.  We will move on Sunday.  Saturday was spent visiting Christo, Alida and Andre.  They moved here about 5 months ago from Wilmington NC and spent some time in their camper until they found a house.  Their camper was our last one before we bought the new caravan.  It was kind of wild to pull in their driveway and see it.  We have all spent holidays together in the past on the east coast and will now be together this year on the west coast, it's funny how things work out.  They are our nephews in-laws.

It's been nice to just chill out and not work.  I have started a walking program while we are here as we have a perfect place to walk.  We get up in the morning and walk along the lakes watching the ducks, people fishing and just enjoying the bright sunny mornings. 

One thing I do have to comment on is the people.  I really didn't notice it back at the Sugar Barge but the folks here are not as friendly.  Now being a good southern girl I always say "Hi, how are you'll doing?"  I would say 50% of the folks will acknowledge you and the other percentage just walk on by with their heads down.  I just don't get how saying "Hi" is that painful. 

We do have a very large site that accommodates all of our stuff and have space to spare.

  Across from us there is a large grassy island, this is where we set up the corn hole boards.  Our site is across from the camper gate so we see a major portion of the campers coming and going.  The park is very quiet compared to the Barge, people stick to them selves and aren't sitting outside enjoy the day.  Seems kind of strange to me but it doesn't stop us from hanging out with the music playing, cocktail in hand and a fire going.  Oh speaking of music...I am proud to report that I have entered the 20th century...I now have Pandora radio on my Ipod.  I am so impressed with myself, aren't you proud of me Karen?

There is a wonderful trolley system here that we have taken advantage of which takes us into the city, round trip is $5, plus it is kind of cool to take the trolley.  This past week we went to Old Town San Diego.

 It is considered the "birthplace" of California. San Diego is the site of the first permanent Spanish settlement in California. It was here in 1769, that Father Junipero Serra came to establish the very first mission in a chain of 21 missions that were to be the cornerstone of California’s colonization.

We were very lucky to be there on the Mexican holiday know as "Day of the Dead."  The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died.  They build private altars containing the favorite foods and beverages, as well as photos and memorabilia, of the departed. The intent is to encourage visits by the souls, so the souls will hear the prayers and the comments of the living directed to them.

We did wander through the old buildings and displays but the altars were more interesting.






Now if anybody knows me personally you know that I am always looking to make a buck and if an opportunity presents it self I will jump on it.  Well the other morning I went to take my trash to the dumpster and look what I found sitting in a tote bag.

Yes thats right, a Coach bag that looked like brand new!  Well I listed it on Ebay and sold it for $100.  And just to clarify for some of you I was not Dumpster diving, the tote bag was sitting on top of the closed dumpster. 

Our son Ryan flew out to visit us for 5 days.  It was so nice to have family with us.  He came in on Sunday so on Monday we just hung out around the campground, played cornhole and grilled out.  He gets up at 4:30am on the east coast as he owns a bread route so it is up early and to bed early, then you have the 3 hour time difference.  As always he was a trooper but by 7-8pm he was ready for bed.

On Tuesday we went to the San Diego Zoo and had a wonderful time.  We took the Trolley to downtown then hopped a bus right to the Zoo.  The zoo was beautiful, very clean and the displays were great.

I won't bore you will all the photos I took, just a few!

Look at those eyes, I won't want her to be looking at me!

We were lucky enough to see the lions get fead, cool but kind of scary.

My favorite was the Pandas.

The next day we went go kart racing at an indoor track.  I have to admit it was pretty fun, the karts were battery operated and they could move, 20mph.  Ryan bet both us and we had a great time.  Then we headed to Christo and Alida's for dinner.  On Thursday we again took the tollery to downtown and went to the Maritime Muesum. 

Star of India.

  It doesn't look that big from the photo here but once you got inside it was hard to believe you were on a ship.

Now that's alot of ropes.

This ship was the "Surprize" and it was in Pirates of the Carribean.  We will have to watch the movie again and try to find it.  Note the submarine behind it, we toured that as well.

Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the steam ship Berkeley which was awesome.  It was huge and served as the muesum as well.  It also is rented out for parties and weddings.

This ship was a floating city. 

We had a wonderful time exploring several other ships and subs but ran out of time to do the USS Midway.

Diffently add the muesum to your list of things to do when you are in the area.

                       Thank you son for taking the time out of your busy schedule to come visit us.
                                              We love you and will see you again in March.

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In my spare time I have been busy setting up my Etsy store for my jewelry.  It has turned out to be alot more work than I thought it would be, but I like a challenge.  My next step is taking really good photos so I bought a DVD to learn the secrets of good photography which then lead to a tripod and silver fill cards.  Now I have everything I need and as soon as I get this blog updated I can start taking photos.  So soon, very soon I will have the store up and running.  I will provided you with a link from the blog so you can check it out.

                   Thank you all for following and I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.