San Diego Zoo

We had a great visit to San Diego Zoo on Wednesday. Chris’s second time and my first time. We arrived shortly after the zoo opened at 9 am. The zoo is very well laid out with hundreds of animals to see. We spent the entire day walking about the zoo and were pleasantly surprised at how few people seemed to be there. The parking lot was a little better than half full, but we certainly had no problems getting around on foot. We rode the express bus once and also took the aerial tram to get up to the polar bear and panda exhibit. I was a little disappointed in the bird exhibits. With exception of the aviaries where birds flew about freely, the rest of the birds were in cages with fairly fine mesh at the front, making photography very difficult. The tigers, elephants, panda, koala were very impressive to see. I took lots of photos and am working through them in photoshop as time permits. We didn’t get back to phaeton place until after dark. Both of us were totally exhausted and looking forward to taking Friday off as a rest day around Pio Pico, but that was not to be. More on that later. I’ve added a few photos below as well.

Pio Pico Pickleball

Monday morning, we had eight people for pickleball at Pio Pico, Ed & Sandra, Chuck & Julie, Bob & Julie and Chris & I.  We still only had the one court to play on, on the south side park, but Terry, the recreation director, is back to work tomorrow and will find us a second net to string up on the court next to ours. Al & Trudy are also here but had a prior commitment and couldn't play.  Jim & Jane arrive later today, so we should have a nice sized group come Wednesday, Thursday. The two courts on the south side are the best courts here at Pio Pico.  Apparently, the north side court is lined incorrectly and one kitchen is smaller than the other. 

Looks like we will have 10 people or so for our group Christmas dinner.  The girls are looking after the cooking and the guys are looking after............well.....you get the idea.

We are planning a day at San Diego Zoo and also an early morning trip to the La Jolla cliffs to shoot some pelican pictures.  Hoping to get some nice photos at the zoo as well.  Chris has been there before, but this will be my first time.

Today's photos are from Monday's pickleball.  Ed and I against Chuck and Bob. Chris showing her post service follow through.  Note the missing fence around the courts.  It rained last night and is very cold and windy today, so no pickleball.  I did manage to get a second net strung up this afternoon, so we should have two playable courts once the weather improves.

Mission Bay, San Diego, CA

 

Sunday was a quiet day around Pio Pico.  Only Ed, Sandra, Chris and I to play pickleball in the morning.  We had some good games and it was nice to play without sitting for too long.  Ed and Sandra invited us along for a bike ride around the Mission Bay beach area of San Diego after lunch.  I got our bikes all tuned up and ready to go.  Bob and Julie were just arriving at noon as we pulled away from the main gate, so we said hi and let them know which site we were in.  We toodled along the bike path of Mission Bay, enjoying the scenery for a couple of hours.  Saw quite a few beach volleyball games going.  Not too many people on the beach as it was a little cool, but there were quite a few surfers in the bay.

We parked in the public lot across from Belmont Park where there is an old wooden rollercoaster.  We both passed on riding it, both of us remembering the sore necks we had after riding the wooden rollercoaster at Busch Gardens in Tampa last winter.  Not too much traffic on the roads being Sunday, so we popped into a Starbucks on the way home.

 

Weather forecast is calling for a cooler stretch for the next few days with temps barely in the 60sF.  Certainly better than the snow storms  that went up the eastern seaboard over the weekend.

Pio Pico Hills

We’ve had a busy few days since arriving at Pio Pico.  We spent our first night in a very narrow and uneven site.  Chris got up the next morning, and while out on her power walk around the campground, came up with a new site for us that was being vacated by an Allegro Bus.  We played a few games of pickleball before packing up and switching sites at 1 pm.  The rangers had no problem with our moving, provided we let them know our new site number.  In any event, we have a large, flat site that is plenty big for Phaeton Place.

Pio Pico has two pickleball courts.  We are using the one in the south side park because apparently the court in the north side park is not lined properly.  There are not too many people playing here right now, only 5-6 people, but more are coming.  Bob and Julie should be here tomorrow, while Jim and Jane will arrive on Tuesday.  The adult pool is closed for the season, but the family pool is still open.  A nice 25 meter pool that is just a little too busy for lap swimming until after the weekend. 

 

We are enjoying walking the gravel and dirt roads in the surrounding hills.  Yesterday, we went for a short 40 minute walk just to scope the area.  There are lots of border patrol vehicles in and out of the park throughout the day.  This morning, we went for a 2 hour hike with backpacks, poles and cameras.  The shot above was taken from one of the highest hills overlooking the park.  You can see Phaeton Place in the bottom, middle of the photograph.  What you can’t see is the border patrol surveillance camper truck that was sitting next to me when I took this photo.  They have a view of the entire valley, all the roads are patrolled regularly and the hills are littered with motion detectors, so getting past them is almost impossible in my estimation.

TT Pio Pico

No pickleball for us this morning at TT Wilderness Lakes.  Instead, we were packing up and heading for TT Pio Pico near San Diego for a couple of weeks over the holiday period.  We were on the road shortly after 10 am, heading south on I-215/15.  Traffic was fairly light but picked up some when we got close to San Diego.  I-15 is getting quite a facelift around San Diego. We turned east on CA-52, CA-125, and then onto Hwy 94 east to Jamul.  We missed one right turn as we approached Jamul, but our GPS got us back to Otay Lake Rd and we were soon pulling into the ranger station around 1 pm.

 

This is our first time at TT Pio Pico.  Friends at TT Wilderness Lakes this morning, told us we would be better to stay there instead.  Apparently, Pio Pico has gone down hill in recent years, but we like to make up our minds, so here we are.  The park is divided into two parks.  North park (no sewers) on one side of Otay Lake Road and South park (full hook ups) on the other side of Otay Lake Road.  We opted for full hook ups but were hard pressed to find a big enough site that was level and also had properly functioning electrical power.  Apparently, there were 10 vacant full hook up sites available when we arrived, but we could only find half a dozen as we drove around.  Finally, there was a late departing rig and we snapped up that site immediately.  The pool and pickleball courts look pretty good and there is a fully stocked country store on site as well.

 

Looking forward to our stay and for the rest of the gang to arrive next week. 

Birds at TT Wilderness Lakes

We had a great day yesterday.  Little pickleball in the morning to start with as usual, followed by some lunch and then a run out for some gas for the Vue and a few bits.  We found a Super Target just down the road which had a pretty good fresh produce section and a Starbucks nearby as well.

Once we got back to the campground, I packed up a few things outside and then we both grabbed our cameras and had a walk around the canals of Wilderness Lakes.  There are quite a few birds here.  Lots of ducks, geese and moor hens but we also saw a Great Blue Heron, a Snowy Egret, a Great Egret and at least 3 Black –crowned Night Herons.  They all seemed to congregate near one site, so we stopped by to check it out.  The lady there has a father who works at the local soup kitchen.  Once the kitchen’s bread is stale, she takes it all to feed the birds here at the park.  There were boxes of it and the birds needed to be fed, so we grabbed a loaf and started feeding them.  We got some great pictures.  All the birds enjoyed the bread except the Great Blue Heron, who would not take any.  About ten minutes into the feeding, a gaggle of geese arrived.  It was so funny.  They came waddling around the corner, honking away, like a gang of bullies and bullied their way right up to us, just to ensure they got bread.  We threw it as fast as we could before deciding enough was enough.  They were getting just a little too close for comfort.  I’ve added a few photos above.  I invite you to please leave a comment if you enjoy the photos or to click on the Star rating bar under this post, to indicate how much you liked the photos.  Kind of a little survey.

We can hear shotguns going off this morning.  There is a big pond between the park and the cattle station, so I suspect the duck hunters are out.  We are off to TT Pio Pico later this morning until the New Year.  Have decided to give I-15 a go until we get near San Diego.   

TT Wilderness Lakes

We left TT Palm Springs on Sunday morning after saying our goodbyes at the pickleball court and headed back west on I-10 to Banning, where we headed south on CA 79 to Hemet.  It was a little windy until we got off I-10.  All the wind turbines were spinning as we headed back into the hills.  There was a little construction on CA 79 near Ramon Expressway but traffic was light so it wasn’t a problem.  We arrived at TT Wilderness Lakes at 12:30 pm and saw quite a bit of water laying around on roadways and also in the fields.  Apparently, they experienced very heavy rain on Saturday night.   This is our first visit to this park, so we unhooked and drove around in our Vue to find a good site.  We settled on site 168, a large gravel site backing on to one of the canals in the park, and coincidentally, not too far from the pickleball courts.  The neighbouring cattle station is not too busy and the smell is hardly noticeable.

We saw some familiar faces at pickleball this morning.  Brian and Judy, Richard, Al and others from TT Palm Springs.  Ed and Sandra also popped in to play a few games on their way down to TT Pio Pico.  It was a little cool playing on the shaded court but the sunny court was fine.  Kind of nice not having to sit for too long between games too.  Ron and Phyllis arrived in their rig just as we finished.

 

This afternoon, we went for a drive into Lake Elsinore and popped into the Outlet Mall on I-15.  A little disappointing really, but we did find some shorts for Chris.  Not very busy at all.  We stopped by Diamond Valley Lake off CA 79 on the way back.  There is a huge lake behind the dam, but unfortunately the view point is only open Thursday to Sunday, as was explained to us by a security guard.  Looks like we’ll have to see it another time, as we are only here until Wednesday.