Jan 23-Feb 12 - Menifee CA

On Friday Jan 23 we rolled northward from the 1000 Trails Pio Pico Preserve about 95 miles, returning to the Wilderness Lakes 1000 Trails preserve north of Temecula, CA. We'd been here in December. The preserve has several hundred RV spaces scattered around some canals and ponds (guess that's the "lakes" part), and is well populated by ducks, geese and coots. It's also next door to a large dairy farm, which is why many folks lovingly refer to the place as "Stinkyville". We were here for almost 3 weeks, with a week away from the RV in the middle while we sailed south on the Norwegian Star for a cruise of the Mexican Riviera. We hoped for warmer weather in Mexico, as Southern California had been on the cool, damp side thus far.

While at Wilderness Lakes, we had some work done on the motorhome - some major, some minor. We'd noticed some strange noises when we applied the motorhome brakes, so a checkup was in order. Result - new brakes all around. We spent most of a day hanging around the 3-chair waiting room at the OK Tire Store while new pads, rotors and calipers were installed. Spendy. Next day, we had the RV washed and waxed - although they had to first rinse some ice off the roof (told you it was on the cool side). Probably the best external cleaning the motorhome has ever had. We'll probably stop back here sometime later in the year and have it done again before next winter. And the day before we left on the cruise, Judy noticed some water under the kitchen sink. Turned out the faucet was going bad. We had the repairman look it over, then left the water turned off while we cruised. He came by upon our return and replaced the faucet. All is now dry again.

We noticed some unusual geese at Wilderness Lakes - and we couldn't find them in our bird book. Looks to us like some of the Canada Geese have been fraternizing with the all-white Snow Geese, resulting in some offspring with strange colorations and markings. These geese also seem to be some of the more belligerent ones in the park. The most common waterfowl in the park is the common Coot, sometimes called a Mud Duck. We'd never encountered them before. Doesn't have webbed feet, doesn't have much of a tail, can't really fly, and makes constant noises that sound like they're grumbling about something. Between the coots and the ducks and the geese, we had little risk of sleeping much past sunrise.

For a report on our Mexican cruise, click here.

After the cruise, and back at Stinkyville, we connected with Dave & Audrey McDougald again. Audrey's still recovering from the retinal separation incident she had before Christmas, but doing well. And early on Thursday, Feb 12, we folded our figurative tents to steal away to Palm Springs. That's when we discovered a very flat tire on the motorhome. Two hours later, the emergency service folks from Good Sam had us reinflated, and we were on the road yet again.

The slideshow for this report contains only about 8 images. You'll find those 8 pictures here. Most of the pictures from this time period are in our Cruise Report.