#19 - Coveys Great Adventure - December 2015 - Simi Valley and Aguanga, California

December, 2015

As faithful readers may recall we spent last December parked in Perris, California. This year has been a little more hectic; we’ve moved four times.

We pulled out of St. George on November 30^th to go to Simi Valley to catch up with our many friends in SoCal. To avoid arriving n the LA area during rush hour we stopped that night at Shady Lane RV Camp near Barstow. We had called ahead to be sure that they could accommodate our coach. I’m glad we did, because the first thing we saw when we pulled in was a sign saying that the maximum length allowed was 35’, but hey had one site that we could squeeze into with a little creative piloting.

Shady Lane is an older park in a fairly sketchy area that could really use a facelift. It’s far enough from I15 to be quiet at night, a nice change from the park in St. George. Everything worked, the manager was friendly and competent, but the roads and the parking areas are dirt and have not seen any gravel in years. Don’t go there if it is raining, the place will be a sea of mud. All-in-all, a good place to stop for the night, but we wouldn’t stay any longer.

We pulled out fairly early and made great time getting to Simi. I really don’t like driving the Cajon Pass and the 210, so we turned off of I15 in Victorville and cut across to CA14 in Palmdale via CA18 and 138. It’s a short, easy drive from there on CA14 to connect with the 118 to Simi Valley. We pulled into Tapo Canyon County Park, got settled into site 11, and headed right over to Judy Powell’s house in Thousand Oaks, the first of several visits with good friends. The dogs were really disappointed not to be invited along.

The next ten days passed very quickly. We drove over 1,000 miles and never got beyond Pasadena or Ventura. One day we made four round trips to Thousand Oaks. “It’s a great life if you don’t weaken”, certainly rang true. We danced at the American Legion hall in Woodland Hills, enjoyed a slide show about Japan in Pasadena, ate Nepalese food in Ventura, Italian food in Simi, and Chinese, fabulous beef and sushi in TO. I think I gained 10 pounds, but we had a really great time.

On the 10^th we headed to Temecula, actually Aguanga, to Jojoba Hills RV Resort, another of the Escapees Coop parks. On the way, we stopped in San Pedro (Peedro, not Paydro) to see Mary Lucik, our neighbor and close friend. We had lunch down at the harbor at Utro’s, one of the real locals’ places that make San Pedro such an interesting place to live.

It has been about 15 years since we left San Pedro and the transformation that has taken place is striking. West Channel and Watchorn Basin have been completely gentrified. All of the commercial docks, the Navy fueling terminal and the “cannery row” marinas like Holiday Harbor where we kept our boats have been replaced by shiny new county run slips and charmless buildings. I’m sure the power now works and the docks don’t sink occasionally, but I’d rather see the character and weathered friendliness of the old facilities. I wonder where all the characters and their very colorful and eclectic vessels ended up? I do miss that place.

A small part of the Jojoba Hills Resort

Jojoba Hills RV Resort is a very impressive place. It’s located on 140 acres in Aguanga, about 12 miles east of Temecula, CA. Like Saguaro in AZ, Pair-a-Dice in NV and Evergreen in WA, Jojoba is an SKP coop park. Unlike the others, it has a heated pool, two spas, an air rifle range, four pickle ball courts, two dog parks and over 400 planned activities a month. Everyone can find something to do, or they are welcome to start their own activity. The night we arrived we went dancing to a live band in the meeting hall. I’ll bet there were close to 300 people there.  

Everyone volunteers

Jojoba Hills takes the cooperative park concept about as far as it can go. Everyone volunteers to do something. Even major projects like storm drain cleaning and repair, utilities maintenance, propane delivery, and landscaping and building maintenance are handled by the members. Jojoba owns tractors, backhoes, chippers and all the other gear needed to handle everything themselves short of paving the streets. The skill set among the residents includes pilots, engineers, bankers, lawyers, farmers, mechanics, welders, teachers and about anything else you can think of, so they handle virtually everything themselves.

Speaking of paving, we arrived at Jojoba to find the gate closed and paving trucks and equipment everywhere. One of the contractors directing traffic routed us to an alternative

Pool (86 degrees year 'round) with a view

entrance, carefully giving us directions that lead right into a dead end. I suspected that we were in trouble when I noticed the slightly bemused expressions on the folks we passed by. Finally one of them flagged us down just as we arrived at the road block where the new pavement was being rolled out. That job was being “supervised” by 30 or 40 folks, so we had an instant audience. We felt a little like the circus arriving in town. We couldn’t drive on the fresh road and we can’t back up with the car and dolly attached, so while two people  got on the phone to the office to see what to do with us, Kayeanne and I made short work of unloading the car and switching the dolly from the coach to it. We were then able to back the coach up the road a ways to a spot to get turned around. I think we disappointed a few folks by how quickly and easily we extracted ourselves.

Sites average 50x70'

We were lucky to arrive just in time to get an unoccupied leased site in the main park. After walking around for an hour and meeting so many friendly people we decided to cancel our reservation in Perris for Christmas week and stay through the holidays in Jojoba Hills. We had a great time, and are considering getting on the waiting list for a site.

Kayeanne left the dogs and me on our own for a couple of days and headed up to Long Beach to go cocktail cruising in the harbor with Judy Powell and friends, and then to spend the night with Mary Lucik in San Pedro. I know she had a good time, and so did we. Lucy got to sleep on the coach all night, a rare treat

Zack and Ed focused on hitting target 500 yards away

Aguanga is “only” 70 miles or so from San Juan Capistrano where Christine and Ed Woznicki live. Ed discovered a pretty unique shooting range near Lake Ellsinore, about half way between us and we spent a couple of afternoons turning vast quantities of ammo into noise and empty brass.  We even managed to hit a few things, too. On the second visit his son Zackary joined us. I hadn’t seen Zack in almost a year, so that was an added treat. One day Ed brought his industrial strength cable crimping tools to the coach and helped me replace the main power cable to the house battery bank that had become badly corroded. We spent Christmas Eve at their lovely home and ended the evening sitting in front of the fireplace after a terrific dinner. Really, really great time. I hope we can hook up in Arizona in February before we head east in March.

Paul and Brenda hosted the Xmas day festivities at their place in Hemet. Lucy and

Christmas at Paul and Brenda's house

Schroeder got to go, too. They were very happy. P & B have three good sized dogs, so a couple more just blended in. Liesa and Luis met us there, and Ed Wiklund, Kayeanne’s third nephew also arrived. Paul cooked a perfectly done beef roast and everyone contributed delicious side dishes. By popular request, I made popovers for breakfast the next day.

Ripley's holiday trimmings

On the 28^th we packed up and pulled out, bound for Yuma to return to Los Algodones, Mexico for our annual dental work. I’ll pick it up there next month.

Bob