Wilderness Lakes Campground and visiting friends

We arrived at Wilderness Lakes Campground, a Thousand Trails campground, on Monday the 9th. The park is located about 5 miles out side of Menifee, Ca. This park is quite large with 523 sites. There are a lot pull-through's that made it easy for us to park. The sites are fairly large with picnic tables and a barbecue pedestal.  This place has about everything you could want. 2 swimming pools, one is adults only, two clubhouses, one adults only, and tennis/pickleball courts--we play every day we are in the park-- large pool hall, workout room, card room and a nice store for things you forgot to bring. If the place has a draw back, all sites are 30 amp. They are installing 50 amp service to part of the park at this time. They say these sites should be ready to rent by the end of this month.  There are lots of activities for every age group.  We keep busy with pickleball in the mornings.  Duane plays pool after lunch while I usually swim in the adult pool.  In the evening Duane plays pool with a different group.  I play games with whomever shows up.  If no one comes I work on jigsaw puzzles.  

Our site

 They have 4 pickleball courts.

 The adult pool.

 This place should be called Wilderness Canals. The lakes are laid out more like canals with back in sites all along them. The canals are stocked with cat fish but there is an extra charge if you want to fish.  I passed.

 On Friday the 13th we took off on the bike to visit with long time friend Danny and his wife Sally. We rode about 50 miles to Oceanside, Ca. where we walked out on the pier and a great lunch. 

I first met Danny when my family moved to Dayton, Oh when I was in the 7th grade. We became very good friends and spent a lot of time together. We took several trips to Florida and one trip to California together before he headed off to college and I got married. We have kept in touch every since and try to get together when ever we get close enough to each other.

Ruby's restaurant on the pier.

On Monday we saddled up and headed to Danny and Sally's house for a couple of days. The ride their house took us over the Ortega Highway. After going around Lake Elsinore, we started the climb up the mountain.

The base of the mountain

 First level view of the lake

 Here come the curves

 third level view

 Still going up

 Leaning into the curve. Louise is taking this picture over my shoulder holding the camera level.

The pass tops out at 2665 above sea level.  After climbing up you have to go down, all the way to sea level. The curves kept coming and while I was busy setting up for the next one Louise was enjoying the scenery and snapping pictures.

 This is the road leading in to Danny's house.

 Pulling up to the house.

 Sally, Danny and me

 Tuesday morning we headed in LA to visit the Gene Autry Western Museum.

 The first room we went into was a traveling exhibit on Route 66. This room brought back a lot of memories of when I traveled this route with my Grandmother years ago. This is the route that Danny and I traveled when we went to California in 1967.  In this room and several others photography was not allowed. In the rooms that you could use a camera, you could not use flash so I didn't take very many pictures inside. They had a lot of movie/tv cowboy memorabilia which I really really enjoyed since I grew up watching most of the westerns on display. There was a large gun room with a lot of guns used by famous people such as the Earps and Annie Oakley . The next room was Indian bead and quill work. What magnificent work this was. The last room western saddles, cowboy wear  and antiques. This museum is very well done and I would recommend it to anyone interested in our cowboy/western history.

Wednesday mourning we were back on the bike and heading back over the mountain to our little house on wheels. Friday were off to Big Bear Lake for the day. 

Til next time

Duane and Louise