San Diego - Party Town.

So stay tuned for more adventures!

After Yuma we took a straight shot to San Diego where we had reservations (I know, the “No Plan Kids” have reservations!!). We are planning on using our Thousand Trails (TT) membership A LOT this year as there are plenty of parks on the west coast. The park in San Diego is not one of the best in the system but it is really busy all year with tourists and snow birds so reservations are a necessity. We even made more reservations for another TT park outside Yosemite at the end of May!! Then in a fit of insanity we booked for the July 4th holiday too at a park in Oregon!!!!!

First stop in San Diego is always Shakespeare's Pub for fish and chips

So if you have followed our blog for a while you might know that we retired from San Diego 4 years ago when we started our full timing adventure and that we come back about once a year to catch up with our old friends and neighbors here.

One of San Diego's oddities the Tower Bar.

A first stop is usually at Ken and Gloria's where they hold open house on Fridays. Mike, Chris, Tammy, Ritchie, Ellen, Zoie and Dana were waiting to greet us and we caught up on the news.

Gloria tries English Scones with Clotted Cream and Strawberry Jam

Dick and Bonita invited a whole crew from the Gold Wing Road Rider Chapter to their house for brats and beer. That had us hooked back up with Ralph and Chrystal, Archie and Elaine who were at Escapades with us last month, plus Henry, Mike and Elma. A super pleasant evening all round.

The whole crew at Dick and Bonita's

Our old neighbors from San Diego Jason and Ruby invited us over for their son Angus's 11^th birthday party. My has he grown! And sister Molly is a lovely young lady now. Happily Jason's sister Sheri was in town from Wisconsin where we had so much fun with her, David and the puppies last year. They have some sheep now and a little black lamb who was born on Barbara's birthday was christened Barbara in her honor! Apparently the wooly Barbara is an “Independent” type so that is obviously a trait for those born on that particular date...

With Sheri

We stopped by the El Cajon Elks Lodge to scout out their camping facilities and as we walked up Don from Shanty Shakers appeared! He's camping there this week and will be in Pio Pico the day we leave there.

Lynne and Wayne dropped us a line and we had dinner at the Chula Vista Elks Lodge with them. We'll see them at the Shanty Shakers breakfast in a couple of weeks and the SS rally in Pechanga at the end of the month too.

Cool old English car at the Pio Pico Car Show

One of the little things that annoy us in the new rig is the combination of a macerating toilet that uses tons of water and a smaller black water tank than the Rexhall had. It's nice to be able to spend a week dry camping or with partial hookups. The Monaco will only go 4 days before we have to go and dump the tanks.

Unhooking everything, driving to the dump station across the campground then driving back again to hookup is a pain. It occurred to me that they made wheeled “Totes” for black water. Basically a 25 gallon plastic tank with connections for the sewer hose and a dump valve it can be (carefully) filled from the RV's tank then pulled by hand to the dump station as often as necessary. It can even be filled with grey water to extend that tank too. We calculate that the extra 25 gallons will give us that 7 days we would want.

Searching on my favorite Craigslist turned up a used tote for $75 as opposed to $200 for a new one. It was hanging out of the trunk of the Miata on the way to the campground but I got it back in one piece.

Soon the 2 weeks in TT was up and as we thought the El Cajon Elks only allow 5 days camping we had to find another spot. (it turned out you can stay 21 days when we actually asked at the lodge!).

Viejas Casino

We have dry camped at Viejas Casino in Alpine CA since our very first days in the Rexhall. A couple of nights there would fit in with our 5 nights in El Cajon and the rally in Pechanga.

It's been probably a couple of years since we were here and we were astonished at the changes. The casino is totally different inside and the exterior has changed too with another hotel and a big parking structure.

We decided to try their Lobster Buffet which is held every Monday. Luckily we went at 4.30 pm and only had to wait about 30 minutes to get in. Later I heard the wait was 2 to 3 hours. All the lobster you can eat. Beer wine and champagne included. Not cheap but the food was really good for a buffet and we both over ate and had acid reflux during the night. Maybe we learned a lesson? Probably not!!

Breakfast with the Shanty Shakers took care of Saturday, Brunch with Mike, Kathy and Sienna took care of Sunday. Where has April gone? We must have gained 10 lbs in weight with all the eating out and partying we've been doing. It will be nice to get on the road again so we can relax, but we can't miss catching up with all our friends here so we'll just have to persevere.