FISHERMAN'S RETREAT - REDLANDS, CA

Yesterday we drove a few minutes down the road to Fisherman's Retreat, a Coast-to-Coast membership park, and as the name suggests it has three fishing lakes.  It's our first time here and although the campground is a little rough, the views are beautiful.

When we were pulling into our site, we hit a branch on the roof that nearly damaged one of our solar panels.  Fortunately, it just had to be screwed back in but Denis had to fill a small hole.  We ended up moving to another site by the lake and I love sitting at the kitchen table watching the water birds.

Denis left early this morning to bring Tony & Mieke to the airport and I had a morning appointment for an insurance physical.  After the physical, breakfast and exercise I walked around the lakes taking photos.  It's still pretty chilly here but rumor has it it's going to warm up soon.

View from the kitchen table.  We have
a train that goes by once in a while.

View without the train

Here we are by the water

 

View from a high point

Looking for treats

 

Resident peacock

JAC IS BACK

Yesterday after going to mass and getting our ashes, we went to picked up Jaclyn.  After four days of basically slave labor and no contact with the horses, Jaclyn decided to bail. I can't believe they were having her wipe down the stall walls with straight bleach without offering her gloves.  She has bleach burns on her hands as a result.  They didn't even provide drinking water for the student workers and the tap water was undrinkable. The room she shared with another student was dirty and smelled of mildew.  Unbelievable!  She worked from 6 in the morning to 6 at night, which she expected but she was promised riding lessons in exchange for her work and that didn't happen.  So she's staying with us until her flight leaves on Saturday morning and we're happy to have her.

It was a sunny day and we all enjoyed a day of reading, talking on the phone and catching some rays.

Doing there thing

Today it's raining and we're all very content to do our thing indoors.  Jaclyn is searching for another co-op job, I'm baking bread and Denis is working on the computer.  Maybe we'll watch a movie later in the day.

What else is there to do on a rainy day?

She seems very happy to not be mucking out the stalls today

The rain doesn't seem to bother this Sandhill Crane outside our window

Talking about movies, what did you all think of the academy award best picture?  We watched 12 Years a Slave the other night and the acting was exceptional but we're just tired of slave stories and the brutality of it all.  I thought Dallas Buyers Club was excellent.

Thanks for stopping in!

ENJOYING THE LIFESTYLE

We've been enjoying the park, the sunshine, reading a good book, taking long walks around the park, the flowers in bloom, good food and the wading birds just outside our window.  Here's the photos to prove it.

This was out first chicken dinner after our 6-day cleanse

Anyone know what kind of tree this is?

I thought this was a wood stork but I'm not sure - anyone?

Here's a quick update on my dad's prognosis.  Dad has been moved from assisted living to the nursing home at the soldier's home.  He's in a wheelchair all the time now and needs help moving from it to his bed or a chair.  He needs help with bathing, dressing and they need to bring his meals to him.  He can still be difficult or confrontational but has lost a lot of his fight.  My Aunt Donna went to visit him and was surprised to see how much he's changed in a month's time.  He's lost about 10 pounds and has developed a hand tremor.  I spent a good part of this morning talking with the nurse, social worker and his primary care physician.  We all decided he shouldn't be leaving the the facility to see outside physicians because it's too much for him.  I felt better after talking with everyone and feel he's in good hands.  I look forward to seeing him in April.  He just had his 85th birthday.

That's all folks!  Thanks for stopping in.

DIAMOND VALLEY LAKE AND LAGUNA NIGUEL, CALIFORNIA

Saturday we took a drive to Diamond Valley Lake which is a lifeline for Southern California in times of drought.  The lake holds enough water to meet the area's emergency and drought needs for six months. The Clayton A. Records, Jr. Viewpoint has a panorama view of the lake near Hemet and South California's tallest mountain peaks, Mt. San Jacinto and Mt. San Gorgonio.   From 1997-1998 the reservoir construction project employed, from start to finish, about 5,000 people. Twelve of the biggest trucks in the world (Caterpillar 789 Model) were used during construction. Each truck cost $1.4 million and, when full, weighs 350 tons.  These trucks were brought to the site in pieces, assembled on site and then disassembled when the job was finished because they're too large for public streets.  What an awesome task.

Diamond Lake

Sunday morning we went to visit our new RV friends, Kurt and Diane Stewart, at their lovely home in Laguna Niguel, California.  The drive through the mountains on Ortega Highway was very pretty and we were glad we were not driving the motor home because the entire highway is comprised of ups and downs with extreme switchbacks.

Kurt and Diane live in a beautiful gated community which they moved into about 15 years ago.  Kurt is quite the handyman and he put a lot of work into the house.  Diane is a fabulous quilter and her work was displayed throughout.

It was a beautiful afternoon and we spent time out on the patio enjoying each others company and the sunshine.  I brought a 4-pound ripe papaya, cut it up and squeezed some fresh lime on it for our afternoon snack.  Diane had already popped a turkey into the oven for dinner and what a coincidence that she did this on Canada's Thanksgiving Day.

Enjoying a cup of tea - notice Bella likes to be the center of attention

 

Diane whipped up a nice green salad, a side dish of quinoa and juicy turkey with her secret sauce - very yummy

After dinner, it was time to walk off some of those pounds.  We had an opportunity to look at those million dollar California homes.

That night we watched the movie Hemingway and Gellhorn, a drama centered on the romance between Ernest Hemingway and WWII correspondence Martha Gellhorn, Hemingway's inspiration for For Whom the Bell Tolls.  Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman performed some pretty steamy sex scenes, which surprised me.  The movie was a long 2 1/2 hours which seemed to drag on in some places but the overall movie was pretty good.

A special treat for us was the guest bedroom with a king-size bed. When I laid down that night, I told Denis I felt like a princess floating on a cloud.  I think this was due in most part to the thick, soft coverlet on the bed and those softer than a baby's butt sheets.  Needless to say, we slept great. This morning after breakfast we all went for a walk along the beach working up a big appetite for lunch at Diane's favorite Mexican restaurant.

The next thing we knew it was time to say our goodbyes and get back to the park.  Thank you Kurt and Diane for your warm hospitality.  We look forward to catching up with you again in Palm Springs.  Enjoy your trip to Europe and be safe.

Blogger Contessa asked how far into Mexico we're planning on going.  Can't answer that question yet because we're leaving the travel plans in the capable and experienced hands of friends that travel there every winter.

That's all folks!  Thanks for stopping in.

A PERFECT DAY FOR REST AND RELAXATION

White Sulphur Springs, MT - Happy Father's Day

Woke up to sunny skies and a day of leisure.  St. Bartholemew Church was only five minutes away and they had one mass at noon.  You know you're in Montana when the men in the parish put on a clean pair of jeans, a western shirt with snaps and their dirty cowboy boots.

Interior of St. Batholemew's Church

This is where we're staying - very pretty and well maintained park

Not much to write about because we just dilly-dallied around the campground, read, sat in the sunshine, walked the parimeter of the park and practiced with my camera lens.  They have a small gift shop at the office and I went there without Denis hoovering over my shoulder.  I've been looking for a honey pot and found one made by a local potter.  I also bought a bracelet made of braided horse hair with turquoise stones and some locally made moisturizing goats milk soap and lotion.  Ahhh ... the luxuries in life.

These photos are a compilation over the last few days.

Plover - This mom kill-deer has been guarding her nest in the gravel driveway

I wonder how this train got here?

Less than one week old colt

These guys make great watch dogs

I just liked this shot

Both Christi and Daniel called Denis to wish him a Happy Father's Day (and I didn't even have to remind them).  It was nice to see them on ooVoo and catch up on what they've been doing.  I was happy to hear that Daniel is seeing a chiropractor/doctor that found out why he's been having back pain and they have a course of treatment.  Christi spent most of our conversation obsessing about a relationship that may not be a good one for her.

That's all folks - thanks for stopping in.

HANGING OUT

Denis and I use two cameras.  He has a small Nikon Coolpix with an wide optical zoom and I use a bulky Nikon D5100 digital camera.  I think I may need another lens for birding but for now I think the bird pics are pretty good for an amateur.   Yesterday we forgot to download my pics and I had some nice shots that I'd like to share with you.  Any birders out there? 

Mountain Bluebird

I looked through my North America bird book and cannot identify this mystery bird - anyone?

Western Meadowlark

I like this shot with the three calves - no hump, so they are younger than two months

People brought carrots to feed this little guy - so gentle for a wild burro

Don't you love how interested they are in us?

Til tomorrow, thanks for stopping in.

BUSY DAY VISITING NEBRASKA'S NATIONAL MONUMENTS

Remember we slept at Walmart in Sydney, NE last night and woke up to the sound of diesel engines. When I peeked out the window, we had a truck parked (length wise) just inches from our front bumper, another truck on our right and rows of trucks parked everywhere else.  I bet there were at least 30 maybe even 50 huge cargo trucks parked at this Walmart.  I've never seen anything like it, have you?   As soon as the truck driver in front of us moved, we got out of there for fear another truck would take his place.

That's our motor coach stuck between the trucks

Today we drove about 175 miles but we made lots of interesting stops along the way.  Our first stop was the most-remarked-upon landscape by some of the 400,000 people during the Great Western Migration in the 1800's.  Chimney Rock is a 120-foot sandstone spire atop a 200-foot mound.  I got a kick out of what the local Indians called this formation ... "elk penis".

Next stop was the Agate Fossil Beds National Monument near the Wyoming border.  The Visitor Center has full-size skeletons from the bones of animals they found in this fossil bed. Animals that they didn't even know existed.  One of the most interesting and well preserved was a Palaeocaster, a dry-land beaver, fossilized and preserved in its spiral-column-like burrow.  Amazing.

The tree was full of these colorful Goldfinch

Fossilized Burrow

It was a little chilly today with high winds and showers - nothing stops us

 This land was part of James H. Cook's Agate Springs Ranch in the late 19th century.  He made friends with Chief Red Cloud, Chief Crazy Horse and other Oglala Lakota (Sioux) Indians. The Visitor Center has a beautiful 200-piece collection of items he collected and received as gifts from the Indians.

This was Chief Red Cloud's Wife's Dress Made of Elk Skins

This jacket was Chief's Red Clouds

This depicts the battle of Little Big Horn

Along the North Platte River in western Nebraska is Scotts Bluff National Monument and that was our next stop.  Scotts Bluff is a remnant of the ancestral high plains - hundreds of feet higher than the present Great Plains - that formed in the continent's interior after uplifting the Rocky Mountains. 

Our total sightseeing miles for the day was 4.7 - that's a good hike for just walking around checking out the sights.

We had planned at stopping at Fort Robinson State Park to see the free-range bison but by the time we got there we were both pretty tired and decided to just get to the next Walmart in Chadron, NE.  

Thanks for stopping in.