Heading East by Going West.

Dinners and lunches at our favorite places, shopping (that’s what we come to Yuma for) and it gets us into the right frame of mind for the rest of the year.

The run from Yuma to San Diego was routine and boring as we chose to drive Interstate instead of the back roads simply because we haven’t towed the new car very far and so we took the easy way.

Happy Hour with the Shanty Shakers.

Our destination was the Pechanga Casino in Temecula CA about 40 miles north of San Diego. This is a full feature RV Resort and, pleasantly, gives Passport America discounts for week day stays so we have already paid for our $40 annual dues in discounts!

Pechanga RV Resort, nice park.

The purpose of this stop is a rally organized by our great friends “The Shanty Shakers” the San Diego chapter of our favorite RV club The Escapees.

Another happy hour

Everyone was ready for a good time after being locked up for the last year and it showed at the daily “Happy Hour”. We had a lot of catching up to do with everyone, it’s been about 3 years since we saw everyone. We also met some of our RV neighbors who were full timing with their kids, they hadn’t found the different discount camping places, or the apps to find camping and the cheapest gas so we wrote everything down for them. A day later we met a second couple and did the same for them. We love to share the resources.

The Bourbon, everyone wants the bottle!

We all went to Ritchie’s Diner in Temecula for lunch and it was really good. Later there was an auction to support the CARE facility in Livingston TX. Those who wanted to donated wrapped gifts worth between $50 and $100 then we all bid on them but didn’t know what was in the packages. I lucked out and won a large fancy bottle of Willets Kentucky Bourbon. Best of all we raised about $1000 !The week just flew by.

Ritchie's for lunch.

We moved south to the Thousand Trails (TT) Pio Pico park near Jamul. Not one of our favorite places but as we have to pay TT annual dues and we didn’t use them even one time last year, we need to make maximum use of their parks this year to break even. I’ve said plenty of things (Usually bad) about Pio Pico so I won’t repeat myself!

Pio Pico

We called our friends Gene and Annette Stout and got invited to join them at the El Cajon Elks on Saturday for the Taco Lunch. When we got there the half of the Shanty Shakers who weren’t at Pechanga were there at the Elks! It was like another rally. In the evening we went round to Ken and Gloria’s for Kens tasty Smoked Pork and to hang out with Mike, Dana, Fey, and Tammy and catch up with all the shipyard and motorcycle news. 

Plans were made and re-made but life happens and we move on. This gave us a chance to visit some of our old haunts like Torrey Pines. Barbara worked across the road at UCSD and I flew paragliders there for a couple of years. Not much has changed there, it’s still a very tranquil place.

Torrey Pines paragliders

Less tranquil but still a fun place has been Shakespeare's Pub down on India Street near the airport. This has been the scene of many office and personal parties and still has the best Fish and Chips in San Diego. We sneaked in for lunch the day before we had a reunion of the old crowd there, more happy memories!

We strolled thru the area called Seaport Village and were pleased to see it has been tidied up since the last time we visited as it had become pretty run down.

The Star of India on the Embarcadero

I’m out of practice writing the blog and clean forgot to take pictures of the reunion! It was amazing. I am proud to say that our colleagues are also our friends and a bunch of them showed up! Barbara, Travis, Dean, Amin, Marcos, Carlos, Steve and Eric amongst many. Thanks so much.  I didn’t know which way to turn there were so many conversations going on! I hope nobody thought I was ignoring them. Everyone wanted to talk about our adventures and where we were going next. By the time we left I thought it was around 7pm, but when we got back to the rig it was 10.30pm!

Breakfast with the Shanty Shakers was followed by dinner with our ex neighbors and good friends Jason Ruby, Mike and Cathy and their kids Molly, Angus, and Sienna. How great to see everyone again.

Barbara and I with Mike Cathy, Jason, Ruby and Sienna, Molly and Angus

We squeezed in a couple of trips to our favorite places Balboa Park, Old Town, Seaport Village, The Embarcadero, Mount Soledad and Coronado.

Balboa Park Arboretum

Gene and Annette took us to their favorite lunch spot, The Junction in El Cajon. Ken and Gloria had us over again to work on the Edge to fix the lighting socket and more food.

And suddenly 3 weeks had gone by!

Thanks EVERYONE for a great time.