Palm Springs RV Park, Palm Desert CA 1/1-2/13/2014; Wilderness Lakes RV Park, Menifee CA 2/13-3/6/2014

 Palm Springs RV Park, Desert Palms CA 1/30-2/13/2014

We left Emerald Cove and headed to Palm Springs, with Larry & Elaine coming with us. The park was really full, but we ended up with two sites across the street from each other.  They were near the top of the park where the freeway noise and train noise is pretty bad, but we seem to get used to it after a few days.  We had a good time--Elaine and I went to several craft and beading classes and learned some new ideas.  We even learned to arm knit! 

 

Elaine & Larry met up with some friends and we went to dinner with them.  We also all went to Thousand Palms State Park.  We had been there before, but it was fun going again.  It is a big palm tree oasis out in the middle of the desert.  It even has a lake in the lower part of it.

 

Terry's niece and nephew, Debbie (and Debbie's friend Gary) and Gary were in town at their brother, John's, home.  We went and saw them and had dinner with them.  They were on their way home from Gary having chemo treatments.  He was doing pretty good.

 

Wilderness Lakes RV Park, Menifee CA 2/13-3/6/2014

Our next park was Wilderness Lakes.  We have been there many times and really like the park.  We had heard about the flooding that takes place when it rains a lot.  It is surrounded by farm land and a dairy and all of the drain water runs into the canal system in the park.  Then when it rains a lot, the canals flood.  

 Our site didn't get flooded too badly.  But, there was a pond on one side that the geese really liked!

 

This RV across the street was not so lucky.  Their car and their coach were both in the middle of their "pond."  We have kind of been looking to upgrade our RV for the last little while so when Elaine put this picture on face book, the kids thought we had upgraded and were going to surprise them!  We pull a little red car behind our Journey, so it could have been!

 

These poor people had to use waders to get out of their RV! 

 

Some of the roads in the park were pretty much impassable. It took several days for the water to recede back into the canals.  Now we have experienced the flooding at Wilderness Lakes!

 

The park is not too far from San Diego, so we went to the temple one day.  It is my favorite temple!  It looks like a castle and is so beautiful inside.  This is the actual picture that I took with my camera!

 



After we were finished at the temple, we went to Old Town San Diego.  They have a historical site for the Mormon Battalion, the volunteer unit of LDS men who served during the Mexican-American War of 1846.  During their service, they made a grueling march of nearly 2,000 miles from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to San Diego.  Even though they never fought a battle, they were instrumental in opening up several routes to California.  When the presentation started, we were all sitting on benches in this room with about a dozen pictures on the opposite wall.  As the narrator was talking, all of a sudden one of the people in a picture came to life and started talking.  After that, the people in the pictures all told their stories, via really cool technology, as we traveled along with them.  It is an amazing center and we really enjoyed seeing it.  I am posing in a replica of one of the wagons they used.

 

At the end of the tour we got to play at washing clothes in a tub . . .

 



 . . . and panning for gold.

 

 We were made "honorary members" of the Mormon Battalion and had our picture printed on this postcard.  What a great day!