Our Wander Years

Walking the cheetah

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Sparky

Great zoos are hard to find. There are good reasons for this, the primary one being cost. Keeping a Siberian tiger healthy and happy takes a lot of money. Another good reason is habitat. Koalas, for example, eat nothing but fresh eucalyptus leaves – you can’t even give them frozen ones. Housing arctic polar bears next to desert camels requires some creative thinking.

So, with all the difficulty facing them, how does a relatively small city like San Diego maintain not one but TWO world-class zoos? I can’t provide the answers, but I can attest to the fact: the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park are two of the finest zoos you will find anywhere. They are certainly on the short list of best zoos in the US and probably both make a “Top 10 Zoos in the World” list.

We invested a Sunday in the San Diego Zoo a couple of weeks ago. It was a beautiful day, as usual, in San Diego, though right on the cusp of requiring a jacket – one of those days where you get too hot if you wear it and get too cold if you don’t. The Safari Park is actually closer to Temecula by about 20 minutes, but is vaster and is harder to see on foot. We opted for the more traditional zoo.

The park is organized around 9 walking trails, named after families of animals. We, of course, went immediately to the Monkey Trail, then hopped over to the Tiger Trail and saw bits of the Orangutan Trail and the Hippo Trail. That took most of the day, with a break for lunch. Then we opted for the free bus tour to see the rest of the park.

San Diego Zoo map

We saw many beautiful and strange animals, of course, including some that I not only had never seen before but didn’t know existed. The highlight, though, was encountering a cheetah on a leash – the park staff regularly takes their cheetahs out for walks around the park, accompanied by a large dog on a leash, who apparently demonstrates proper leash behavior for the wild cheetah.

Sorry about the cheetah shot – I was so stunned by the encounter that I didn’t even think to capture it until the cheetah was nearly out of sight.

Cheetah on a leash

Giraffes

Proud bighorn

Bull elephant

Orangutan

Playful young orangutan

Exotic birds

Silverback gorilla’s right foot

Gorillas

Flamingos

We also saw a very informative presentation on a particular asian owl (I forget the exact breed now, but it was similar to a Great Horned).

Lunch was good, too, and surprisingly inexpensive. But no Tiger Steak on the menu.

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Life on the links

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Sparky

For the first time in my life I am living on a golf course. We are renting a site here at Rancho California RV Resort that is close to the #3 tee. A little *too* close, perhaps. Looking at the site plan, we thought we would be safe from errant shots, but we didn’t take into account the possibility that I would be playing. I almost hit Patience the first time I teed off from #3. Fortunately, I missed. Instead I got a direct hit on my neighbor’s RV.

They weren’t home. I don’t know if there is a dent, but if you see them… mum’s the word.

The #3 tee from our patio

As is fitting for our location, we bought a golf cart. This isn’t just for me to use while golfing (though it works great for that purpose) – it is also our main form of transportation within the park. If we need to run to the store or fill a propane tank, we take the cart (or, to be snooty about it, the “golf car”). We bought it used for about $1,600 and hope to sell it for about $1,300 when we leave. That will keep the cost down to about $100 per month, well below the ridiculous $300 per month that it would have cost to rent one.

Our “golf car”

The golf course is… interesting. It is 14 (yes, 14, not 18) holes, all par 3’s. The longest hole is 210 yards. But what it lacks in distance it makes up for in difficulty. There is water and lots of it: 11 of the 14 holes have water. I lost 6 balls on my first round and 4 on the second. Undulating greens and deep traps compound the difficulty. I won’t tell you my scores, but I will tell you that no pro would have been happy with them, even on a long, impossibly difficult, 18-hole championship course.

The plan for the resort is to eventually have a full 18 holes, but the economy over the past few years has delayed that. There are over 600 sites in the park and it seems that more than half are for sale or for rent. Apparently a few years ago you couldn’t buy in for less than $70,000, but there are many sites selling for less than that now. There is even one priced at $29,000.

Not that we are thinking of buying. It is a great place with lots to offer, but it is in California. We aren’t likely to retire here. Or even travel here frequently.

What do we like about it? Start with the site we are renting. Compared to our previous site, in San Jose, it is positively luxurious. It has an outdoor kitchen, with a grill, a sink and a refrigerator, and a patio furniture set. It has beautiful landscaping, including some palm trees. It abuts the third hole, with fountains in the pond. The pond is a haven for waterfowl and the hole is a constant source of amusement as we watch duffers even less skilled than I navigate the hazards of the hole. There is enough pavement to accommodate not only Patience and the truck but also the rental car and the golf cart.

The park has 5 pools and 5 laundry rooms. Two clubhouses (one with the largest paperback swap library that we have seen anywhere). Tennis courts. A dog park (where our pups have made some friends). A market and a cafe with a patio. Lots of open space for dog walks and birds everywhere, including hummingbirds, hawks, various ducks, egrets and cranes and the omnipresent coots (a.k.a. mudhens, according to some residents). I have seen a roadrunner and a coyote and I am told that a bobcat was sighted nearby recently. Rattlesnakes in the surrounding desert. It is a good place to learn about and appreciate wildlife.

The weather. Yes, we have had some cold nights and, because it is a desert climate, it gets cold after dark even on warm days. But on balance the weather has been very pleasant and is wildly better than Massachusetts winter weather. If it was a basketball game, Aguanga would be the Globetrotters and Massachusetts would be the Generals.

What don’t we like? Well, as a working man I have to say the the commute is too long. It doesn’t have as many activities as we found at Paradise in Phoenix. And, because it is California, the water tastes like it has been filtered through a greasy rag. And airfares to the east coast are too high.

But the negatives are few and the positives are many. We really like the place. We will be sorry to leave. But we will be gone by June 1, heading back east.

Fishing pond

Patience in the palms

Pups on the patio

Greenspace behind our site

That’s not a statue

The 4th hole

Desert adjacent to the 13th tee

The Lakeside Cafe

Firepit at the lake

One of the pools

Tennis courts

Our patio in the sun

Coots

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Temecula

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Sparky

Temecula is a middlin’-sized town (about 100,000 residents) about an hour from Los Angeles, an hour from Palm Springs and an hour from San Diego. It is about 400 miles south of San Jose, which is why we are here: we were hoping that we would get warmer weather by moving closer to the Mexican border. So far we have been mostly disappointed: the Temeculan weather doesn’t seem much different from the San Josean weather. And, as has been our experience since we arrived in California, the temperatures have been running consistently below normal. Everyone is complaining about the cold winter.

I guess… if 60 is a “cold winter.” It may not be balmy but it is WAY better than a New England winter. I am watching the Weather Channel as I write this, getting an up-to-date account of how “Winter Storm Saturn” is grinding its heel on Massachusetts. I really enjoy watching the misery that I am missing. We have even had a few days above normal, reaching 80 in a couple of cases. It isn’t quite what we hoped – we have worn shorts just a couple of times – but I will take it.

Temecula has long been inhabited by Indians and, of course, has the requisite Indian reservations and casinos. Jett and I have donated a few bucks to the Great Indian God “Slot”. And Jett has partaken of the local Indian cigarettes ($2.50 a pack) which she rates “not bad.” It has an “old town” that would have a Wild West flavor – if antique shops existed in the Wild West. It is an interesting area, though not very large: it runs about 6 blocks.

Jett and I came into town with the dogs a couple of weeks ago and encountered a staged gunfight in a vacant lot. It was very hokey, though it seemed to attract a fair number of tourists with nothing better to do than watch a staged gunfight in a vacant lot. Grace did not enjoy it at all. We had lunch at an outdoor cafe (it was one of those warm days) and she cowered under the table while we ate.

Gunfight at the Vacant Lot

My office building

I have an office in Old Town. It is in a building with a wooden sidewalk. I am subleasing space from a bridal dress shop. I’m not kidding. I work in a pink office with photos of wedding dresses adorning the walls.

My desk

The pink office wall

My workday commute is 20 miles and 25 minutes each way. That is a longer commute than I wanted but the RV park makes it worthwhile. And the commute is arguably the most interesting thing about living in Temecula. It is a volcanic moonscape, unlike anything you will find in Massachusetts. I haven’t tired of it yet.

As a teaser, I will include one photo from the RV park. More on the park soon.

The view on the commute

Rancho California

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Patience, please

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Sparky

I haven’t written any long blog posts for a while, for two reasons: (1) I have been very busy with work and taxes for the past two weeks and (2) we lost our camera. The camera is not a great loss and, fortunately, it went missing just after I took off all the photos. But it means that I have been using my phone to take pictures and I am not real familiar with it. But I think I have some good photos of the RV park where we are living and the San Diego Zoo, where we went last Sunday.

So be patient, ok?

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The convenience of isolation

Posted on March 3, 2013 by Sparky

When we lived in Medford, MA, we had two major supermarkets within a mile, yet I often found myself looking at the refrigerator an 11 pm and discovering that I had no milk for my morning cereal. We now live in Aguanga, CA, which is ten miles from anywhere and 15 miles from the nearest food purveyor (excluding the RV park market which ransoms off the few items it stocks). Yet I have never been without milk. I guess my awareness of my isolation is sufficient to remind me that I need to stop for milk on my way home.

Now if I could just train my brain to remember stuff when the cost of forgetting is cheap…

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Wile E. sighting

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Sparky

Two days after I saw the roadrunner I saw a coyote, just outside the park gates. I guess those cartoons had more basis in reality than I thought.

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Beep beep

Posted on February 18, 2013 by Sparky

I saw my first roadrunner yesterday. We were walking the dogs around the RV park and it just walked out of the bushes about 20 feet in front of us.

Having been raised on Roadrunner cartoons, I couldn’t help but look around to see if Wile E. Coyote was hiding nearby, perhaps with an Acme Rocket strapped to his back. Didn’t see Wile E., but Grace was going nuts. I’m sure if I had let her off the leash she would have ended up with an anvil on her head.

My neighbor says that this RV park is a “bird watching paradise.” Perhaps I will learn a little about our feathered friends while I am here. But I already know a roadrunner when I see one.

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The trek-ula to Temecula

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Sparky

We left San Jose last Saturday, heading south in search of warmer temperatures. It was a 2-day trek with two wildly different segments. The first day was a bucolic trip down the central valley, a mostly-flat and fairly boring trip. There were a lot of orchards and vegetable fields lining I-5. The only hilly and scenic part was the short hop over the small ridge to the east of Gilroy, just a few miles south of San Jose. There was a very striking reservoir on that 35-mile trip on CA 152.

San Luis Reservoir from CA 152

The overnight destination was the Bakersfield RV Resort in – yes, you guessed it – Bakersfield. This is a great RV park. It has lots of pull-through sites (which figures, as it seems to get a lot of overnight business from RVers traveling between LA and San Francisco), a very nice pool and a very pleasant and courteous office staff. It was also right across the street from a GMC dealer and within a quarter mile of a Camping World, so if I had needed any quick repairs I would have been all set. Fortunately, the rig was doing fine.

The most surprising part of the resort, however, was The Crest Bar and Grill – a very nice cafe, serving excellent margaritas, right on the premises. And the most surprising part of the cafe was live music from a first-rate folk singer, Jim Robinson. He sang Billy Joel, the Eagles and even the Beatles (ok, a little more than “folk”) with the best of them. The food was good, too. I would recommend this resort to anyone who happens to find themselves in need of a place to park an RV in Bakersfield.

Arrival at the Bakersfield RV Resort

Neighbors walking the dogs

The pool

Putting green

Restaurant patio

Leaving Bakersfield

The second day of the trek was the opposite of the first: rather than being flat,rural and mostly serene, it was mountainous, urban and very, very bumpy. So bumpy that the contents of every cabinet got scrambled and the toaster walked off its perch on the lower bunk, scratching the bunkhouse closet door. So bumpy that the gooseneck lamp on the edge of the dining room table dipped down and made repeated contact with the surface, digging a shallow trench in the table top. We will call that the “Temecula Trench”. Bumpy.

It’s not like we were traveling country roads; the route was down CA 99 out of Bakersfield, then I-5 over the mountains to the outskirts of LA, then zig-zagging southeast to Temecula on I-210, CA 57, 71 and 91, I-15 and, finally, CA 79 to the RV park in Aguanga (pronounced “a-wanda”). Total distance: 437 miles, pretty evenly split between the two days. These were major roads and well-maintained. But California likes concrete and concrete needs frequent patching, particularly in the mountains where it drops below freezing and particularly on I-5, the major north/south truck route in southern California. Countless 18-wheelers have taken their toll on that road and our spines (and dining room table) paid that toll.

The Temecula Trek route

But the route was indisputably scenic. Starting with a very flat and very straight 20-mile stretch on CA 99 out of Bakersfield, it merges with I-5 and then dramatically swoops up into the mountains.

I-5 swooping into the mountains

Climbing

The pass topped out at nearly 4,200 ft. There was even a little snow at the pass.

Approaching the pass

The pass

After an abrupt 15-mile drop down the other side, we entered the vast urban area that is metropolitan LA. We traveled through the newer suburbs, so it was wall-to-wall Walmarts, Targets, Home Depots and Carl’s Jr. No pictures are necessary – it was just like the urban sprawl you see everywhere. The route became rural again, briefly, as we dropped from Corona to Temecula.

The final stretch was the 20 miles from Temecula to Aguanga. This is now my daily commute as I have an office in Temecula. It is arguably the most interesting portion of the trek, but I will describe it later, along with Temecula and our new home, the Rancho California RV Resort. Both the town and the RV park deserve their own posts.

As we were in search of warmer temperatures, our initial impression was a huge disappointment: the temperature when we left Bakersfield was around 60, but had dropped to 49 by the time we got to the resort. It has warmed up since (the forecast high for today is 81 in Temecula), but, as elsewhere in California, everyone is complaining about how cold the winter has been. The normal high in late February in Temecula is 70 and the forecast for the coming week has highs around 60, so it will be running about 10 degrees below normal.

But I don’t expect a lot of sympathy from those of you who are still digging out from the blizzard.

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Temecula address

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Sparky

For those (very few) of you who want to write and/or send gifts, here is our new address:

General Delivery
Aguanga, CA 92536

I will describe the new place and our trip down here soon.

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A dog’s life

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Sparky

We leave tomorrow to head down to Temecula. We are looking forward to the drive as sitting still for two months seemed unnatural after three straight months of travel. But it will be just two days of travel, then 3 to 4 more months of staying put.

Although they haven’t said so, we believe the dogs are looking forward to the trip as well. Their life here at Coyote Valley RV Resort has been pretty quiet, with just a few events to break the routine, the “routine” being:

Wake up and poop
Eat
Sleep
Wake up and poop
Eat
Sleep
Wake up and poop
Sleep

This sounds pretty boring, but the fact is that it is not any more boring than their former life in Medford where the daily routine looked pretty similar. The things that break up their routine are:

Playing in the RV – either with me or with their toys.
Meeting other dogs at the dog park. And there are a lot of dogs here.
Taking a walk in the field behind the RV park. This is the only place where Grace can run off the leash and she loves that.
Going on road trips. I mentioned that I took them on my Monterey trip. I also took them on a 3-mile hike in Santa Theresa park, a Santa Clara county park just a few miles away. It was a slow hike because 3 miles is probably equal to the distance that Cha-Cha walked in the previous year. Cha-Cha is deeply committed to living a sedentary lifestyle.

Anyway, this post is a good opportunity to share some of the dog photos that I have accumulated over the past two months.