A Quiet Weekend And A Trip To The Pala Casino

When it comes to weekends, whether we are at home or on the road, we tend not to plan anything.  After many years of working where I was in the midst of big crowds or just big city life, I've found I have little desire to go any place where there may be big crowds.  Of course, there is an exception to every rule.....I love the Disney Parks (which are always crowded), I want to experience New Orleans during Mardis Gras (just once), and a casino will beckon me most any time.  But I'll come back to that......

Saturday and Sunday were spent mostly just doing stuff in and around the rig.  Kim did some "guy" stuff outside.  I didn't ask too much because of course he would feel compelled to explain to me in great detail what it was.  I often borrow Denzel Washington's line from the movie Philadelphia - "Explain it to me like I'm a 4 year old. "  That rarely happens; I guess I look old enough to understand the fine art of mechanics.  I caught up on blogs.  We did laundry.  Video chatted with our two sets of grandsons.  Pardon the Grandma Brag here, but I will share a few more pictures of the darlings now.

Starting with our son's boys.

This is Alex.  He is almost 4.

This is the best 1st birthday invitation ever!  This is Zachary who turned 1 recently.

And these are our daughter's boys.

 This is our honorary (step) grandson, Trystan.  He is 13.

And this is Odin, age 4.

And Torren, age 1.  I swear he will not smile if there is a camera pointed at him.  I was thrilled when his dad captured this shot!

Sunday afternoon, we decided to check out the Pala Casino in Pala, CA.  I had so enjoyed Pechanga (okay, mostly because I won $400 there on a keno machine of all things), I wanted to see if my luck had held.

First of all the road out to Pala from I-15 is pretty winding.  It's hard to believe that at almost 60, I still get car sick, but I do.  It's only about 6 miles off the freeway, but it was uncomfortable for me.  I'm happy to say I held it together.  There were a number of avocado stands along the way.  A bag of 25 avocados for $5!  That seems like a great deal to me, but what in the world would I do with 25 avocados!

We drove up to take advantage of valet parking.  The first thing I noticed was that I could smell cigarette smoke even before we entered the casino.  Not a good thing in my book.  Signage was good, and we were able to find restaurants fairly easily.  We just ate in the cafe.  Kim had his usual second breakfast (eggs, hash browns, toast and a pancake).  I had a BLT with avocado and onion rings.

I've been in my fair share of casinos over the years.  The smoke was bothersome, but I've been in worse and I've been in better.  I would put this casino as middle of the road.  I contributed my $20 to the tribe - no winners for me.  Kim played a nickel machine and was up 5 cents when he cashed out.  I'm not sure how it happened but I ended up tipping the valet, even though Kim was clearly the winner here.  If he thinks I'm not keeping track, he's sadly mistaken (insert diabolical laughter here).  One thing that did impress me was that the valets were very friendly and very funny.  I probably won't go back to Pala, but I would to Pechanga.

We left there, and headed for Ralph's and Lowe's in Oceanside.  Ralph's is a Kroger affiliate just as Fred Meyer's in Washington. We have our rewards card for Fred Meyer's that work at Ralph's and will work at Fry's in Arizona, which score us up to $1 off per gallon of fuel.....when we can find one of their stores with gas pumps.  The last one we saw was in Oregon, but the points don't expire so we will use them eventually.  I really have no reason for even mentioning this in the blog other than to say that Ralph's had good produce.  I wasn't enamored with their meat counter, but the vegetables, both organic and regular, were nice, fresh and well displayed.  And because I did not win at the casino, I felt I needed some lottery scratch tickets.  Spent $20, won $10 and a free ticket.  Time to quit.  Kim ran over to Lowe's to pick up some Allen wrenches, whatever for I have no idea - see paragraph #2.

Monday, we are off to Julian, CA, for pie!

San Diego Zoo's Safari Park in Escondido, CA

When we originally planned our trip, I had been excited to see the San Diego Zoo, Seaworld and Safari Park.  When we arrived here at Champagne Lakes, I was exhausted.  We had the stress of one of the slides not working, the coolant system on the truck needing repair, the unexpected cost/replacement of the awning, and then the frenetic energy here in Southern California.  Kim had agreed to go, but only because I wanted to.  It just seemed to be too much.  I made the decision just to pick one of the parks, and the one I was most drawn to was Safari Park.

We researched the various options and selected the Caravan Safari.  This allowed us to ride Safari Trucks into the field exhibits to meet giraffes and rhinos up close.  It was a 2 hour tour.  The cost was $95 per person over and above the entry fee into the park which was an additional $46 per person.

Let's get my one criticism about of the way:  For the two of us, the total came to $282.  To me, that was a lot of money for a one day excursion.  The park is non-profit and I understand that is probably a fair price.  If I were independently wealthy and did not have to maintain a budget, it would be another thing.

The rest of the story:  We picked a great day to visit the park, at least if you are from the Pacific Northwest.  The weather was perfect for us.  It was in the mid 60s when we arrived, and in the low 70s by the time we left.

Of note, we followed our GPS instructions to the park.  Their website says to take the exit that we also took and to follow the signs.  We never saw any signs.  I'm guessing there was a more direct route than the one our GPS took us down.  We got there, and that's what counts.

First up - They have restrooms right at the entrance - even before you go through the gates into the park.  This is nice for us older folk, and I imagine the same could be said of people traveling with small children.  The restrooms were clean, always a plus!

Safari Park is immaculate.  The signage is good.  The exhibits we saw were well marked.  We were scheduled for a 10am Caravan Safari which gave us an hour to look around.  Be prepared to walk.  It is a big place.  We elected to walk up to Condor Ridge.  We hadn't done our morning constitutional before leaving the RV park, and this certainly made up for it.  The walk took us up through native vegetation.  They were working on the Tiger Territory exhibit which is due to open after Memorial Day.  There were orange cones and warning signs all over, and we weren't really sure which paths (some paved, some note) we were to take.  That said, it was a delightful walk up with many of the different types of trees and bushes identified.

This beautiful guy was injured in the wild.  He was brought to the park and rehabilitated.  Unfortunately, his injuries left him unable to fly.  I have never seen a bald eagle up this close.

We eventually made it up to the Condor Ridge.  These pictures are for our friends Janet and Winston who have been hiking recently around the Santa Cruz area, hoping to see a condor.

I wish I could have seen well enough to get a better picture but the sun was shining on the camera screen.  He is sitting in the middle of the picture toward the top.

Who knew there were so many types of condors?

We headed back down the trail to sign in for our caravan safari tour.  Restrooms were right by the check in area.  Everyone was encouraged to "just try just in case" as we tell our grandsons.  We would be driving around for 2 hours.  The main highlights of this tour were the opportunities to feed giraffes and rhinos and see them up close.

We were asked not to reach and pet the giraffes.  One, because you don't want to get slimed - some of them are heavy droolers.  Second, because they could do serious injury to your head and neck if they decided to nudge you or be aggressive.  It hasn't happened, but they do warn you about it.  I did get to pet/touch the rhinos though.  It was kind of cool, but they feel like they look.  Hard and rough.  Think the heel of your foot with 100 layers of callous.

We were lucky the rhinos interacted with us.  Ours was the first caravan tour of the day, and apparently rhinos like to sleep in.  If you are considering doing this tour, I would take the second or third one of the day.  We later saw what I think was the third tour, and there were only three people, other than the guides, in the truck.  We had 14 in our truck.

We drove by other animals but did not have the up, close and personal experiences with them that we had with the rhinos and giraffes.  Our guide Stephanie and our drive Barb were quite knowledgable on all the animals.

After our tour was over, we went back to the truck to have our picnic lunch.  Be sure to get your hand stamped for free re-entry.  I had read reviews of the park where the majority held the opinion that the park food was just so-so, and was expensive.  We brought our own sandwiches and drinks and just enjoyed them (and the nice breeze) while sitting in the truck.  After lunch, we went back into the park, and headed for the African Tram, which was included in the $46 entry ticket.  I really enjoyed this tram ride.  It took you around the park to see many of the animals.  The driver was very, very informative.

I almost enjoyed the tram ride more than the caravan tour.  We have a great zoo in Seattle, and you can feed the giraffes there for $5.  The extra $95 for the caravan tour was wasted on me.  It was interesting, and I'm glad I did it, but once will be enough.  If you are on a budget, you will definitely enjoy the park without taking a caravan tour.

Below are pictures I took from the walking tour and from the tram (sometimes a challenge because they only stop here and there for pictures).  We were toward the back and it often seemed like there was a tree or bush blocking any shot I wanted to take.

All in all, it was a good day.  If I go again sometime in the future, I'd probably just stick with the African Tram which comes with entry fee; maybe I'd spring for the Asian Tram; and if I was feeling particularly brave, I might even try the hot air balloon (which I thought was reasonable priced at $12).  I see they have an overnight camping option which got really good reviews, but was way outside my budget right now.  Maybe I will go buy a Power Ball ticket and see what happens.......

San Diego Museum Of Art Or Not

One of the things I have wanted to do on this trip was to visit some art museums.  This is really not high on Kim's list of things to do.  I like to look at paintings and photography.  His taste runs more toward artifacts and history.  I'm lucky he has been willing to visit the California Missions.  I get to enjoy the artwork and tranquility of the missions and gardens, and he gets to look at and read about the history.

Convincing him that he should visit the San Diego Museum of Art with me was a lost cause.  Lucky for me, I have a friend here in the area that is an artist and she agreed to take me.   So on Wednesday morning, we were off!

And the lesson for that day was "Check the website to make sure the museum is actually open"  Yes, that's right.  We made our way to Balboa Park only to find out the museum was closed on Wednesdays.  Disappointed, yes, but nothing we could do about it.  Looking for the positive in the experience, we found excellent parking right by the Balboa Park Shuttle at Inspiration Point.  Parking was free.  The park itself is free, and absolutely beautiful!  And huge!  The Timken Art Museum was open, and free to the public.  It's a smaller collection but some lovely pieces.   It was fun to go with an artist who could actual point out things that I would have missed.  I wish I could have taken pictures so I would not have to resort to links to share this artwork.

One of my favorite pieces was done by John F Peto called In The Library.

http://www.timkenmuseum.org/collection/american/library-1900

And this one by Emanuel de Witte called Interior of the Nieuwe Kerk

http://www.timkenmuseum.org/collection/dutchflemish/interior-nieuwe-kerk-amsterdam

And this still life by Anonymous

http://www.timkenmuseum.org/collection/italian/annoymous

We also were able to take in the Botanical Building, where I was able to snap some pictures.

Some flowering plants - mostly orchids I think.

And some others that looked cool

This one (below) is my favorite!

This one comes in a close second!

These shots are random ones of the grounds and buildings around the Botanical Building and the Art Museum.

And to prove to Kim that there was something for him to enjoy.....

To see everything there was to see here, would take a few days.  Some day I will go back, and take Kim with me.  There are far more of "his kind" of museums there than there were "mine."