On to Yucaipa - Mar 15, 2009 - Yucaipa, California, United States

Boy! Did we ever not want to leave Borrego Springs! It is hard to believe that we spent a month there. We know that we didn’t get to see a lot of areas we wanted to nor did we get to take all the hikes we wanted to. There is something peaceful about this little town that is refreshing. It has no franchises. They have so far successfully blocked condo development and a lot of the private homes that are here are well to do. It is quite a place.

Carolyn and Sam left early this morning to 1000 Trails Park in Indio and when we drove through, we saw their rig all set up. JoAnn said our goodbyes to Keith and Marilyn, our other neighbors and they were getting quite a kick out of all the traffic down where we were staying by the earth oven. Guess that shows the power of the blog that Al and Kelly wrote. It got into the Boomer group and now is a major attraction.

We awoke this morning to a continuing heavy wind that had been rocking us all night. We did some preliminary getting ready to go. Larry came over to check the calibration on our voltage meter and found that it was very accurate so that he did not have to do anything. We told him we were going to go into Calico’s and get our pizza that we couldn’t get last night and we would wait to see if Joyce wanted to go when she got back from church. She didn’t so we took off.

Calico’s is just a store front sandwich and pizza shop but it was the only restaurant in town that stayed open all year last year and the locals really appreciate that. There was a steady stream of people coming in to order food the whole time we were there and finally the owner had to shut it down temporarily because they were running out of food. That was the same thing she did last night when we came in. We suppose they would restock somehow and reopen. At any rate, we had the veggie pizza again and it was excellent. Even the dough is prepared fresh after we place the order.

Back at the rig we were in the process of stowing the generators and hooking up when Gord and Paulette drove up. They fussed at us for not being out of their site yet. They are going to spend a few days at Borrego as a result of reading our blog and then may head over to Yucaipa.

We had an uneventful trip, (the best kind) and got to the Yucaipa Regional Park just at 5PM, closing time. We had no trouble getting into our site or setting up. There was little wind and the temperature was 15-20 degrees cooler due to an increase in altitude. That is better than the 90’s forecast for BS this week.

We took a walk this evening. Laurie and Odel are parked just a few doors from us they stuck their heads out the window to chat as we went by. Fillmore was extremely interested in the conversation, or was it the smell of their cat, Luna?

Once we set up we remembered that we had a 50 amp hook up and we were not paying extra for the electricity. JoAnn turned on all the lights in the house and started the washing machine. Doug turned the electric water heater back on and we look forward to showers tonight…long hot showers. Yes, we are proud of our green living, but hot water and a sewer connection can be pretty nice too.