Hemet, California

We headed off to Hemet this morning, primarily in search of Vanilla Nut Maxwell House International Coffee and my new favorite oatmeal from BetterOats called Lavish Dark Chocolate.  As long as we were there, we might as well stop at the bank.

The first topic of discussion was why Hemet was there.  Well, actually it started when we went through Winchester, just before Hemet, where we found an easy access post office to mail some post cards and bills I've been carrying around.  All we saw on the main street was the post office, a market,  a gas station and two restaurants.  This all brought on the question, why is this here?  Apparently, Winchester is primarily an agricultural community and services sprung up in response to needs of the community.  There is a population of approximately 2500 people.  And what about Hemet you ask?  Hemet has a population of 78,000+.  The four main industries are retail trade, health services, educational services and government.  The biggest employer is the school district.  I'd have to guess that this is generally a bedroom community that services bigger cities (with large industries) in San Diego and Riverside Counties.

At any rate, we found the post office in Winchester, and a Super Walmart and a US Bank in Hemet.  We also found a Polly's Pies.  Kim swears I plan all outings based on my stomach so that he is forced to buy me lunch.  With every kind of restaurant available, I picked one I'd never heard of.   It was a good choice.  Having my mind on pie, I ordered a half grilled ham and cheese sandwich and a cup of pea soup.

Kim chose the deluxe grilled cheese (4 different kinds of cheese) sandwich and fries.

We had the discussion of whether or not to get pie to go; we were too full to eat anymore right then.  The Diet Angels won out, and we decided against pie - a decision we regretted at about 8pm that evening.

We have friends in the Seattle area that asked us to keep an eye out for a special top shelf tequila and a top shelf brandy.  Liquor prices are much much cheaper in California than they are in Seattle.  Interestingly, however, beer and wine prices are comparable to what we pay at home.  Anyway, we found a store called Mega Liquor (at least that was what the website was called - the store name might have been something else), where we found the brandy, but alas not the tequila.  What I loved was the sign above the front door:

I guess we passed the test as they most graciously served us, and went out of their way to see if they could find that tequila.

Because I was whining the other day about missing all the spring blooming flowers in our yard, my daughter sent a few pictures.  My daffodils are out.  The dogwood has not yet bloomed.  The grass is definitely greener (and longer) than when we left.

I wonder if the weeding angels will visit before we get home?  The flower beds need some cleaning up it appears.

Very happy to see some flowers on the forsythia as it had a major pruning last fall.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring........................

Saturday At Champagne Lakes RV Park

Kim was up and at 'em and out the door at 5am.  He has and appointment in Hemet to have a Ford Master Mechanic work on our truck's cooling system.  We are about an hour from Hemet, and then the truck has to sit for two hours to cool down before they can start work on it.  They figured it was about an 8 hour job, not including travel and cool down time.

This means a day by myself.  Score!  God forbid it could go smoothly.  Our relatively new Toastmaster Hot Water Pot quit working.  And shortly after that, the brand new heater wouldn't work.  Crap!  Then I noticed the refer had switched to propane.  What the heck was going on?  As I have mentioned before, the mechanic gene is missing from my family.  The only mechanic gene I knew was up in Hemet.  We have poor cell phone service at this park and I was afraid I wouldn't get through.  I had already figured out a breaker had tripped, but for the life of me, I couldn't get the panel open.  I got through to Kim who gave me instructions.  Hanging up, I had a "you are such a dork, Betsy" moment - saw the latch which was right in front of me all the time, opened it up, flipped the breaker, and voila - electricity in the galley and heat to my tootsies.

So much on my to-do list today.....and so little accomplished.  I should be used to it by now.  I am easily distracted.  I did spend time catching up on some RV blogs I've been following, and then explored some more.  I caught up on Facebook.  Yesterday we finally got the DirecTV Satellite to pick up the signal, so I had programs I had recorded before we left that I wanted to watch.  Checked those things off my list.  I was looking for an envelope to mail a check, and I stumbled on my sketch pad and colored pencils.  There went a couple of hours.

Next up, downloading a Nikon Coolpix S3300 manual, and trying to navigate it on screen.  Silly us, we remembered to bring the printer, but we forgot to bring paper.  Reading a manual on-line, sucks!  But the good news is that I did figure out how to move pictures from the camera into iPhoto.  Now I can share a few pictures from the park that I have taken.

Champagne Lakes RV Park is a 50 acre privately owned park.  It is about 10 miles north of Escondido, CA, just off old Hwy 395.  There are 139 large sites with 3 small catch and release lakes, a pool, laundry facilities, showers and restrooms.  Lots of trees and shade.

This is the new laundry facility.  Three washers ($1.50) and four dryers ($1.25 for 45 minutes).  I think there is another laundry somewhere on site, but I have not visited it as I was told that the one in this pictures was the one with newer and nice machines.

This is the new restroom facility (the women's side anyway) attached to the laundry.  Nice big shower with two toliets and a baby changing station.  These facilities are kept very clean.

The view out my back window, down to the creek.  Not much water running right now, but there is a little babble here and there, and not just from the birds.

And yesterday on a trip to Camping World for the replacement plug for the water heater, some how this made its way into the cart.  Most of the chaise lounges don't fit my short frame, but I do like to put my feet up.  This fits perfectly!

We are here for two weeks.  This allows us time to do a few things, see a few friends, and just veg out.  The weather this weekend and Monday is to be in the 80s.  That's a little warm for a Seattle girl, but we are down in a canyon with lots of trees, and so far, so good.