Diamond Valley Lake

December 27, 2010

On Wednesday it was a beautiful day, so we decided to go for a little sightseeing. First we went to the Winchester Cheese Factory.  All it makes is Gouda Cheese, but it is excellent. The owner came over from Holland and makes it like the old country. We bought 2 varieties. SO good on crackers. YUMM

Next we went to the Diamond Valley Lake Reservoir. It is the largest fresh water reservoir in Southern California. It is 4 1/2 miles long and 2 miles wide. It covers 4500 acres and holds 260 billion gallons of water. It is huge. They also stock it with fish, but your body can't touch the water. This lake can deliver water to all of Southern California.

When they were digging out the lake, they found thousands of fossils and bones from the Ice Age.

 This is the head of Zena, a 16,000 year old mammoth who had not reached full adult size.  Isn't it huge!  Elephants are the descendants of mammoths.

This is the head of Max, the largest mastodon found in the US.  They are a little smaller than mammoths, but still are big. Look at how big the head is compared to Denny.

The dam on the left is the northern boundary of the reservoir.

The mountain on the left is Mt. San Jacinto. It is 10,533'  high. You can see by the white lines how low the reservoir

The dam is 2000' wide and 280' high. It is the western end of the reservoir and its deepest point. As you can see by the sky, it was a beautiful day.

It is amazing how fast it warms up here. It can be 34 degrees when we get up, but in just a few hours, it is over 50 and climbing. Most of our days now are between 60 and 65 degrees. One day it was 70. I know you are jealous.

Stinky, Stinky

December 28,2010

Denny decided we needed new tires so off we went to Costco.  After we got home, we went for our daily walk.  I smelled what I thought were sewers backed up because of all the flooding.  It wasn't too bad, but definitely not a fresh smell. Later we were watching TV.  I smelled something even inside the RV.  I looked at our sinks, nothing there.  I opened the door and, let me tell you, I closed it as fast as I could. The smell was overwhelming.  I finally was experiencing what I had heard about.  There is a dairy farm north of us. I have heard that when the wind is just right, the smell is overpowering. Well, it certainly was.  It was the most potent smell I had ever smelled.  PHEW!  Now that I know what it was, I have smelled it before, just not too bad.  I opened the door, very slowly,  before we went to bed. No smell.  Once the flooding went down, this is a very nice park.  At least it was before the big smell!  It still is, but I could do without the smell. At least it is only once in a while.  We like it enough that we would come again.  On the other side of the dairy farm is a very exclusive gated community.  The front gates face the farm. If we smell it, I'm sure they can. They are just as close. I would think anybody that could afford those homes, wouldn't like the smell. Can't imagine why people would buy there.

This is the view from the back of our RV. There are canals going thru the park

I took this from inside the RV. You can see the glare. This is the view from the other side. The geese slept like this for quite a while

Once they woke up, they walked right in front of me. I took this standing on the steps.  They wander all over the park like they own it.



Denny bought me the flowers. What a surprise. I think I'll keep him

When Denny went to Bank Of America to get quarters for the laundry,  he noticed something a little strange. The tellers are all behind 1 and 1/2" Plexiglas.  They do all the work below the glass in a pass thru at the bottom. Never seen that before.

For  parking at the Rose Bowl Parade and Game, the local golf course opens the greens for cars to park on. I have never heard of that. Golf courses groom the greens so much that I would think the weight of cars would do a lot of damage. There is room for 2000 cars.  We thought it was a little weird.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

January 1, 2011

We really missed seeing any fireworks. We get the LA and New York  feeds on Direct TV.  LA doesn't do anything. I guess they put in all the effort for the Rose Bowl Parade and Game.  New York has the ball drop and a couple of fireworks, not much.  Seattle usually has some spectacular fireworks. Saw a few pictures of it in the Seattle Times. Looked really nice. Speaking of the ball drop in New York, we never saw the ball actually drop. We saw it twice and it was lit up and they had the countdown.  No actual dropping of the ball. What's up with that?

We had done a little wine tasting the day before. One of the places we went to had a sparking syrah. We bought that for our toast. It was a beautiful red color.  And tasted mighty good.

Such a rich ruby red color

The wine tastings around here are quite expensive. $12 to 15. for 5 tastings. We went  to one place and couldn't even get to the counter.  The next one was busy but we got to the counter. We were talking to the couple next to us. She is the one that suggested the Ruby Curvee. She also gave us an extra ticket for 5 more tastings. That was very nice of her.

The next one we went to because it is the only woman owned winery in California. Unfortunately we really didn't like the wine, except for one, which also turned out to the the most expensive. Her wines were more expensive than any of the other wineries.

We decided to go to the next one because of the history. It is called the Cougar Winery.  It is named after Cougar Mountain in Issaquah.  Small World. The couple lived in Bellevue before moving here and opening up a winery. The logo has cougar prints on it.  We got the glasses as part of the tasting. It was very good and reasonable.

Tomorrow we are going to a Sunday Brunch at the Country Club. We haven't done a brunch in years, but we thought it would be fun. I called on the dress code because we didn't really bring anything real dressy. No suit or dress. It is casual. There are 2 golf courses. They look good, but I know nothing about golf.

Happy New Year to Everybody

Calm, Dry and 65 degrees-YEA!

December 24, 2010

Yesterday was the first nice day we have had in a long time.  It was wonderful to have a good nights sleep with no rain and wind. Felt so nice to be out and about without it raining.  Haven't really slept good for several days because, in an RV, you hear so much more of the rain and wind.  We took a walk in the morning and couldn't believe the difference in water levels.

Today it is suppose to be 66 degrees, but it is only 11:30 and it is already 65.  It is still below normal, but we think it is wonderful. The sun is shining and all is well in Southern Ca, at least here. The damages are the in the billions of dollars in other parts.  The worst day was Wednesday, the day after we got here. Some places had 3" per hour.  It is suppose to be nice for a few days, then a little rain, but nothing like before.

Wednesday  morning we couldn't even get to the Family Center on foot.   We wanted to sign up for the Christmas potluck.They had even closed the park. Good thing we came the day before. Not sure what we of done if we couldn't have gotten in.

This is a nice park, once the water went down. There are canals running thru the park. We are backed up on a canal.  You can fish in the canals. Not us.

I took this same picture yesterday and everything was underwater up to the bottom of the deck.

This happened right after the rain stopped. What a sight. This was taken out the back of the Monster.

I took this yesterday morning. In my last post, I showed this same road completely under water.  The field next to the road is very low, with no drainage. It goes over the road and into the park. I am in the exact same spot as the picture before. The man is Denny.

These geese didn't like us walking near them. They were in the water when we first got there. We never stopped walking. They certainly didn't like us. They were making alot of noise for us to get out of their territory.

We just back from our 2nd walk around the park. We were able to go to areas that we couldn't before today. When I first started this posting, I said it was going  to get to 66 degrees. It is now 71 and we changed into T shirts.  Haven't had those on for a while.  Also have the door open and I am barefoot. Finally!

Have a Merry Christmas everyone. We miss and love  you all

WE MADE IT, BUT IT WAS SCARRY

December 22, 2010

We got to our new campground in Menifee Ca. yesterday.  It had rained all afternoon and evening of the 20th. We were on top of a  hill at the park. We had  to  cross a bridge to get to the entrance of the park. The bridge was washed out. That was our first  indication that it wouldn't be an easy trip.  We had to go out the emergency exit at the back. We decided to stick to the freeways as much as possible because  a lot of the side roads are flooded.  We even had to go through  water just to get to the freeway.  We did okay for awhile but then had to get off the freeway to get where we were going.  The road that I thought would be the best was closed because of flooding. YIKES!  The road we had to go on had A LOT of water over the road. At times the visibility was down to 1/4 mile.  Very stressful. Then we had to get back on another freeway. We were going 5 miles an hour because they had closed 3 lanes to  fill potholes. We had to bypass completely our next freeway because of mudslides onto the road. We certainly had to take a roundabout way. Our easy 2 hour trip turned into a stressful 4 hours. Denny is such an excellent driver in all conditions. I think I'll keep him.

We were so glad to get here, only to find that a majority of sites were under water. We were lucky to find a site on a little higher ground. We went for a walk after we got here to check everything out. Couldn't believe all the water. We just got back from taking another walk and couldn't believe how much more water there is than yesterday.

 We have to dry out our shoes and socks every time we go out. I discovered  I  have a hole in my shoes!

Denny ready to go for a walk. You can see how wet the ground is

 My O My!  This is the road in front of the park that we came on yesterday

OOPS! Somebody didn't realize where the ditch was

I know you have all heard about the wind and rain in California. Well, it is worse than you can ever imagine. We are right in the middle of it. It is worse than I have ever seen in Seattle. California roads and houses are not built with rain in mind, that's why it is so much worse when it happens. So many houses have been destroyed from the mud. LA had almost 7" in 5 days. The whole town of Laguna Beach is under water.

We came for warm, dry weather.  When is that going to start?  Didn't know we should have brought knee high rubber boots.  We have been gone over a month and had 2 days of nice weather. We could have stayed home. Hopefully Palm Springs is better.

RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY

December 20, 2010

AND COME BACK ANOTHER DAY!

Except for the one day we went sightseeing, there has  been heavy winds and rain for over a week..  California hasn't had this much rain for decades. Just our luck! There are mud slides everywhere.  The wind and rain  hasn't stopped for over 24 hours.  We are leaving tomorrow for Menifee. It is southeast of LA and close to Palm Springs. I'm a little nervous about leaving because there is rain over parts of the roads. The roads are not built to have a lot of rain.  We went today to fill up on gas and  had to go through quite a bit of water. Not sure if it will be better down south.  I hope so, but it is happening all over Southern California.  Palm Springs is even  a lot cooler than usual.

We will probably take a different  route than we were going to. We were going on some side roads but I think we'll stick to more freeways.  The side roads have more of a chance of  having water over the road.

Wish us Luck

 

La Brea Tar Pits

December 16, 2010

Last Thursday was the best day to go sightseeing.  It was sunny and clear.  The days before and since have had pouring rain. We  decided to buck the traffic in LA and go see the La Brea Tar Pits.  Very surprising to see them  in the middle of expensive Beverly Hills.   Of course, they were there long before Beverly Hills.  They were first discovered around 1905.  In just 5 years they unearthed over 1 million bones of prehistoric animals.  The animals went down to get water and got stuck in the tar and couldn't get out. Then the predators came and couldn't get out either.  The tar is a thick sludge. In the museum there are tubes to try and lift out. No way.  We saw young guys who  couldn't even do it.  To get there we went on Wilshire Blvd, thru  Beverly Hills and onto Rodeo Drive. It is the most expensive 3-4 block shopping area in the United States. Amazing to see how the "other people"  shop.  On our way out we went thru the not so good areas of LA and Hollywood. Quite a difference. The traffic in LA is crazy, crazy. Cars pass you on the shoulder to get past the back ups.

 The colored flags are where they have located bones of the prehistoric animals. If you look closely, you can see the shape of the bones.  The dark areas are tar, not water. This is Pit 91, where they have found the most animals

This is a lake at the front of the property. The small dark areas in the lake are tar bubbling up to the surface.

These are crates full of tar they found when they were digging for a parking garage at the County Museum next door. Each 5 x 5 crate weighs 3 tons.  The bigger ones are 12.  They are filled with tar and bones.

We had seen the real touristy sights many years before and had no desire to fight traffic another day.