April 3rd through April 10th, 2022 - Week Fourteen- San Diego California

Destination number: 93/173/31

Remi and I returned to the great state of California this week and for the first couple of weeks, we are in San Diego California. The name of the unincorporated town we are actually in is a town called Jamul. Though we are supposedly in a town, the only thing of it that I have seen is the Pio Pico RV Park run by Thousand Trails. I've traveled from one end of Otay Lakes road all the way to the other, and no sign of the Ace hardware and supposedly a few other merchants that this town is supposed to have, but there must be a side road that leads to those gems. :-) 

The RV park is smack dab in the middle of a Canyon and Cell service for AT&T is horrible to say the least, and Verizon is even worse. If I have a work call to get on, I've had to drive 5 miles to get to a lake at the end of the canyon that has a clear shot to the cell tower. Even talking to other RV'ers with those special cellular antennas that has what looks like a can to hold golf balls on the end of it find they are not able to get any service, so I don't feel bad. Other than the lack of cell service, it is a nice little park here. Like most of the Thousand trails parks, this one is undergoing some extensive renovation, specifically in getting an electrical upgrade for this park. There is Park WIFI so I am able to telework from the motorhome, but it does drop out once in a while, and if your paid weekly subscription runs out, you have no option to either reformat your hard drive, go out and do a registry hack on the computer at the very least, or call the vendors technical support to resolve the issue. I must admit, regardless of the approach, it is pretty involved and poorly designed if you ask me. But, the view of the lake almost makes the commute worth while! 

There is a nice two and half mile hiking trail that runs from one end of the property to the other, but I've been warned more than twice that there are rattle snakes that have been spotted, so I've now opted to stay in the open areas and keep my eyes on the ground. 

The work week was productive and the temperatures have ranged from the 40's at night to the high 90's during some of the days, so all in all the week has been a good one, but the weekends adventures is what I truly look forward too! And the adventures this weekend did not disappoint. We started out early Saturday morning headed towards the Cabrillo National monument. I didn't know this, but you actually have to go onto the San Diego Naval base in order to get to the Cabrillo National Monument. Remi and I got there about 30 minutes before the monument opened, so we spent some time visiting Fort Rosecrans, which is a National Cemetery here in the San Diego area. Predominantly, these hollowed grounds are filled with the remains of service members laid to rest here. However, there are a very small number of plots which are allocated so that spouses of those military members laid to rest here can also be interred here. 

The Cabrillo national monument grounds are a great place to visit... not only is the monument here, with it's expansive views of the San Diego bay. The visitors center done by the national parks system is very well done, as they all are. Our national parks system is truly something to be proud of and once again, I was able to put my Annual National Park Pass to good use! 

Additionally here at this national park is the Point Loma Light house. Many might argue that if you've seen one light house, you have seen them all, but one must keep in mind that each one is designed for it's specific location and this one is no different. Due to the lack of city water back in the day, they built a catch basin to collect rain water. The water that was caught by the catch basin drains into a cistern below ground. Then a water pump can be used to pump the water up into a bucket to be used by the occupants. The light house exhibit in and of itself can easily stand alone, and it is great to have two stops like this right next to one another. 

Right behind the light house, there is a communications installation that was built in the 1910's and later used for communicating weather information to incoming ships as well as working to identify if those incoming ships were "Friend" or "Foe"

Additionally on these grounds are some tidepools that are down at the beach below the light house. Unfortunately, because of safety issues, they do not let you take your dog down to the tidepools. The reason this is a safety issue is because due to the slope of the rocks that you have to travel down to get to the tidepools, you could very easily lose your footing and fall to the jagged rocks below. That would make for a very bad day. :-(

After we finished exploring the Cabrillo National Monument, we traveled to La Jolla to check out the cove and beach up there. California is truly fortunate to have so much beautiful coast line. Remi and I went to La Jolla and explored the cove which was full of tourists and out on the flat rocks in the cove, lots and lots of sea lions! I'm not entirely sure that Remi really ever saw a Sea Lion. Usually if she ever sees any wildlife, she takes off after it, most of the time she is just interested in checking out the ice plant. 

After we finished exploring the La Jolla Cove and the subsequent beach area further south, we then went to Sunset Cliffs Natural park. This was another very beautiful coastal area here in San Diego. It is amazing to see how over the millennia, how the ocean has slowly carved this coast line. 

On Sunday, I ventured out by myself to check out the San Diego Maritime Museum. In all the times I've been to San Diego, I always see the signs for this place, but have never taken the time to check it out, but I'm sure glad I made the time on this trip. There is a old Ferry from the late 1800's called the Berkeley which was the first successful propeller driven Ferry on the west coast. It houses the nautical museum with lots of artifacts and scale models of ships of all purposes, and vintages. In the video link at the end of this entry where I have video for the week, you will also see some sections of the engine room. 

Then there is the USS Dolphin. A military research submarine used by the Navy to test different submarine components and design approaches to see how deep a submarine could potentially dive. This diesel electric sub holds the record for the deepest dive ever recorded to this date. It carried 3 officers, 18 crew and 4 scientists on any given mission. 

Next was the Star of India, a tall sailing ship here in the San Diego bay. It was so interesting to walk around the different compartments of this ship and see how those who use to travel the "High Seas" lived back in the 1700's and 1800's. There were staterooms, a sick bay, and of course a galley and even a captains quarters. 

As with all of my previous stops, this one here in San Diego has been just as memorable as the ones before it. I still have another week here in San Diego and am truly looking forward to spending time with my niece Mia as we explore the USS Midway. So check in next week for that installment.  

Here is the video from last weeks adventures. 

Safe Travels all! 

Remi and Eric Too! 

March 26th through April 3rd, 2022 - Week Thirteen- Yuma Arizona

 

Destination number: 92/172/30

Before departing Tucson, I had worked a 16 hour day on Friday, and a 18 hour day on Saturday working to get the latest version of CDCR’s Esri Software installed on the servers. With the critical systems back up and running Sunday morning, Remi and I left Tucson and headed to Yuma Arizona  towards our last stop outside the state of California. Since Yuma is on the back end of my trip and not part of the orginal plan, I wasn’t sure that there would be anything to see in Yuma. As I have been with all of my stops, I was pleasantly surprised with this next destination! Just driving to Yuma, took us through a large valley surrounded by mountains in virtually every direction.

The RV park that I had selected, didn’t have very good reviews on www.rvparkreviews.com, but I’ve always had the approach that if there was water, electric and sewer, that was all that mattered. Everything else was gravy! The reviews were that there a lot of “Permanent” residents in the park and that it was a trash heap. The most recent review was that a new owner had taken over the park and that they were “Trying” to clean things up. When I arrived, the park was sparsely populated. There were probably only 12 RV’s in the park, but more than 80 available pads available. Admittedly, the “Self Service”

A few minutes after I arrived, the new park managers (also from California) came out and greeted me. They explained that I paid for the space up front, and then at the end of the week, they would read the meter and let me how much more I owed for the electrical service during my stay. They also warned me that there was an active Rail Line on the south side of the property. I assured them that most of the RV parks I have stayed at have either been next to a highway or a railway, and that usually after the first night, I don’t even notice it. Though I was right, that I had no problem sleeping through the trains that passed through during the night, I had no idea just how much rail traffic came through, but I was about to find out. Since I would telework during the day, and with my desk facing the railroad tracks, I was easily able to see every train that passed through. I would say that easily, there were 5 east bound trains which had departed either Long Beach or San Diego headed for points east and an equal number of trains, with a number of empty rail cars, heading west to pick up more cargo. About the only rail cars that I could tell were loaded on the west bound trips, were the ones carrying new automobiles and light trucks.

After we arrived and got camp set up in Yuma, I worked another 6 hours on Sunday to address some of the less critical, but still important tasks before the start of the work week. The rest of the work week was fairly uneventful and I had all of the production systems back up and running by Tuesday of the week. So, I took Wednesday off to do some exploring around the Yuma area. I had four places I wanted to visit in the Yuma area that I had identified on Tuesday night by looking at “Things to do…” in Yuma that I found by doing a Bing search. Two places I could take Remi, and two places I could not. So, Wednesday morning, Remi and I set out first for the “West Wetlands Park” which is in the city of Yuma. Someone had posted that if people had dogs that liked water, this was a place to go. The park was very well cared for and nicely architected. There was a number of hiking trails and a boat launch area. Remi wasn’t much into the beach area adjacent to the boat launch area, apparently here only interest in water is the splashing of the surf that we found on the Oregon coast.

There was also a very nice fishing pond that kids can go to and capture a number of different species of fish that it is periodically stocked with. There was a lot of wildlife that obviously feels very comfortable with the environment there. I must admit, it felt very quiet and peaceful in the park, and I can see why people in the community enjoy it so much.

After exploring the park a little bit, Remi and I loaded up in the Jeep and drove to the “Castle Dome Mine and Ghost Town”. One of the other locations I wanted to visit while in Yuma is the Yuma Proving Grounds Heritage Museum, but they don’t allow dogs. As we were making our way to the ghost town, we drove through the middle of the proving grounds including its main gate. The last 8 miles of road to the Ghost town and Mine, are traversed on a dirt road off the main highway.  The first 6 miles are military roads and there were signs all over the place saying “DO NOT TAKE PICTURES” and “WARNING, LIVE ORDINANCE MAY BE FOUND IN THIS AREA, DO NOT LEAVE YOUR VEHICLE”. The last two miles of the road, were on a Wildlife preserve. No section of the dirt road was better than another. Yes, the picture on the dirt road was taken in the Wildlife preserve area, not in the Proving grounds section. :-) 

As I arrived at the Mine and Ghost Town, if felt a little odd, because you have to drive through this small RV park to get to the Mine and Ghost Town. I was really wondering if someone was going to fill me full of lead or not. After I finished going through the RV park, I arrived at the parking lot and after asking if it was ok for Remi to go through the Ghost Town as well, we started exploring. The very first thing I noticed was as I entered the building where you pay your admission to go through the Ghost Town, these old style single pane glass windows that “Appeared” to date back to the 1800’s. The glass was full of ripples and Imperfections, much like early glass panes appeared before glass was factory made.

The whole Ghost town was amazingly pristine. Obviously weathered over the decades since the 1800’s, but I was surprised just how well preserved everything was. There were a number of Cabins, an old stamp mill (for crushing the ore), a church, a sheriff’s office, a hotel, a mercantile store, a ladies garment store and countless other store fronts. The vast majority of them you could go into. About the only exception was that you could not go upstairs in the hotel.

In Central California, near the Nevada border, there is a ghost town called Bodie. Bodie is very spread out in comparison to the town of Dome Rock City, but this down is much better preserved. But, Bodie is a state park, where as this Ghost Town is on private property where they charge $15.00 for every person that walks in. This location is amazing, and I encourage anyone who comes through this area to come check out this ghost town.

After we finished exploring the Ghost Town Remi and I returned to camp for the remainder of the day. The rest of the work week was un-remarkable and on Saturday, I set out to the Yuma Territorial Museum and the Yuma Proving Grounds Heritage Museum.  But before I left, I wanted to find out what their hours were. A quick check told me the Prison opened at 9:00 AM, but the Proving Grounds Museum was only open Tuesday through Friday. BUMMER! I should have looked at that earlier in the week. Oh well. Un-deterred, I gave Remi a frozen peanut butter bone and set out to the Yuma Territorial prison.

The prison has been closed since the early 1900’s but it was the first prison in the state of Arizon, thanks to a little sneaky move by an Arizona State Senator who was present as Arizona was initially laid out for statehood. The plot of land assigned to the Prison was bordered by the Colorado River and due to the river on one side, the newly constructed railway on another side, and some geological challenges on the other two sides of the plot of land, the size of the prison was fairly limited. None the less, this prison has a storied history including how the prison and its occupants ended up contributing to the name of the Yuma Highschool and it’s team mascot, but you will just have to watch the video for that juicy tidbit.

This prison was in some ways considered revolutionary for it’s day. For the early 1900’s the medical care was some of the best and the treatment of the prisoners was considered extremely humane… at least for the early 1900’s.

Once I got home on Saturday from exploring the Yuma Territorial prison, I had time to get the motorhome packed and ready to go for the next leg of our trip. I actually had too much time, you see, I was just kind of standing around on this wonderful warm Saturday afternoon, wondering what to do and I decided, Remi needed a bath. So, much to her disappointment, Remi got a bath. She was after all, pretty dusty from the visit to the ghost town.

Tune in next week for my update from our first week in the San Diego area.

Here is the video from this week.

Safe travels all!

Eric and Remi too!