We took another weekend trip recently. We had been trying to come up with a plan of where to go. We had been looking at Lake Owens (it's North of us, 4-5 hours, east of Sequoia), but ended up heading to the San Diego area instead, which is about 2 hours south of us. I had not been feeling well & hubby was hesitant to take a trip at all. But I was insistent that we still go on a trip. I'm not gonna be feeling well either way--whether I'm at home or on a trip. So long as it's just 'us' (& I don't have to be playing hostess to anyone) I would rather be not feeling well on a trip than at home like I always am. Oh how I love the mental break I feel from just getting out of the house, even if only for a weekend. Being a stay at home mom is a challenge for me in that sense. Don't get me wrong, I love raising my son & homeschooling my son, but at times I sure do get sick of always feeling stuck in the house.
So hubby had found a couple of places he wanted me to look at & for me to choose one. I did not have time to do this & so I ended up telling him to just pick one & he did. On Thursday I had headed to the RV storage place & turned on the fridge. This was our very first trip where the fridge was properly chilled while I packed the RV & when we took off on our trip. On Friday morning I took Lil J to his swim lessons & then I came home & packed the RV. My back was KILLING me (still is) so I had to do multiple small trips of packing, rather than piling up large loads of stuff & getting done fast like I normally do. So it took me a lot longer to pack for this trip than it usually does. Then when hubby got home from work in the evening we took off. Before leaving we got Lil J ready for bed--brushed his teeth & put him in his PJs. He was very tired on the way there, but didn't want to lay down in his bunk & go to sleep. We got there just before 10 PM & thank God we did, as there is no more access in after 10 PM! I snapped this pic of him trying to stay awake on the seat at the table, I was rubbing his leg in hopes of putting him to sleep.
We stayed at the Santee Lakes Recreation Preserve. I believe it said they had a total of 7 lakes. We didn't get to see all of them. It was a very nice place to stay, I would definitely recommend it. We did have an attempted (failed) break in into our motorhome on Saturday, but that can certainly happen ANYWHERE.
Our motorhome, in it's campsite
There was this little stream running thru our campground (this place was so huge there were actually multiple campgrounds within it).
On Saturday we saw these ducks playing in the stream. The one downside to this place is that the water is not clean. There are warnings everywhere to not drink (& even to not TOUCH) the water. I have to wonder about the health of these poor ducks. (the whole weekend I constantly saw people of all ages in the water splashing & playing & fishing, etc--it really freaked me out)
There were lots of playgrounds within this whole place, but this was the only one that was close to our campsite/campground. We spent some time here on Saturday morning, letting Lil J have some fun. Unfortunately a large portion of this playground was closed, it appeared that they were installing this new equipment, which I thought was pretty cool. I've been to A LOT of parks with Lil J & have never seen pirate ship playground equipment before. Too bad it wasn't open for use yet.
He could climp up, but couldn't figure out how to climb OVER. We waited to see if he could figure it out, but after a while daddy decided to help him with it.
And they did some swinging
And Lil J buried his feet in the sand, LOL, he thought this was sooooo funny
This was the first lake we saw as we went exploring
Hubby said he had tried to get us a campsite on the water, but they were all booked up since we booked at the last minute
They had lots of cabins for rent around this lake, but they also had a few of these "floating cabins", which I thought was pretty cool. And these floating cabins came with their own boats, one boat per cabin, included for unlimited boating on the lake.
We explored through a couple more lakes, until we found the one that had boats we could rent. By then we were very hungry & we had our dog with us (which we couldn't take on the boat), so we headed back to the RV, ate our lunch, & left our dog behind.
Always climbing & being active......
Lil J really liked this trailer that had a Buddy with a flag on it. I think it was called the Americana (or was it the Patriot?). I have never seen this brand of trailer before, can't remember what state they were from.
We rented a pedal boat (they had pedal boats, canoes, & kayaks). And we bought a bag of duck food for $1, which I thought was really cool. It was hard for me to take pics, but this was Lil J feeding ducks. I can tell by his cheek bones in this pic that he was smiling really big here. He really enjoyed feeding the ducks.
Some beautiful scenery.......& hungry ducks following us
We got to go under this bridge, which Lil J & I thought was really cool
This was the best shot I could get of hubby taking a break & me doing all the work LOL
I really like this pic ^^^
We saw lots of pairs of ducks like this. I don't know if one of these is the male & one is the female perhaps. It just seems funny that there were so many "couples" exactly like this.
This is a little blurry, but this bird was being very silly, strutting around with his wings like this. He was doing this for at least 5 minutes. Lil J was cracking up, saying "he's trying to be like Batman!!", which made it even funnier!!
When you toss them food & it goes under the water they go hunting for it, LOL "Bottoms Up!"
This guy was begging for food
For a little while Lil J sat on daddy's lap & leared how to pedal the boat. Then for most of the ride (we rented the boat for an hour) he sat between us & learned how to steer. He did a really good job of steering the boat, I was very impressed.
This is the bird that was trying to be like Batman.
This was our boat.
Lil J exploring little caves
Daddy/Lil J silliness on the way back to our campsite
Lil J being silly with my sunglasses
The next morning we went out exploring & headed back to the nearby stream
Lil J spent some time playing with this little girl, Ava (6) & also her brother Addison (10). They were extremely nice kids. Their license plate was from Washington, but they said they had been travelling so long they couldn't remember how long even. Their dad seemed to have a business selling things on the internet. And for some odd reason the little girl, Ava, had an accent (sounded like Boston to me) but her brother did not. Here, in these trees, they were playing "boyds" according to Ava. Lil J couldn't figure it out & I had to translate it to "birds" for him, LOL.
Little J was building a fire pit. He even collected sticks to burn in his fire pit!
On our way home we went to the Birch Aquarium. It was nice, but Lil J wasn't as excited about it as I had expected him to be. His most favorite part was a thing outside where you play with little boats in the water. I had thought he was going to jump for joy to see octopus, jellyfish, & sting rays!!
Until next time................happy trails to you
