San Diego, part 4 - Santee Lakes Recreational Preserve

Roger here...  This post has been a long time coming for a couple of reasons: 

 First, we have had very little free time.  Busy does not fully describe the pace of our recent activities (Future posts will confirm this).

Second, the preview screen on my Mac froze, eliminating the possibility for me to add pictures to the blog.  Last night, our daughter, Robyn, figured out that I needed to update my software.  Problem solved.  Duh!

This post covers our campground time at Santee Lakes Recreational Preserve, twenty minutes outside of San Diego.

Serious Sudoku session for Dianne....

We had a large, pull-through site in this large and elongated RV park --- plenty of room for outdoor relaxation.  The views from our site were of local hillsides.

If you have read our past few posts, you know that we kept ourselves busy during our stay;  however, we did find some time to relax at the campground during the last day of our stay.

The park is in a residential area.  It is quite long (2+ miles), but quite narrow.  It took several confusing turns to find out where to register.  Finding our loop among the seven lakes was also an adventure.  However, the confusion during registration was worth it.The central element of the park is the seven fishing lakes filled with recycled water.  Conservation rules!

EVERYTHING was coded.  We even needed a code to exit the park.  (Exiting also required doing a three-point turn in the middle of the roadway to reach the keypad for entering the code.)  Oh well, still worth it.

We decided to take a long walk with the dogs on our last day.    

Boat Rental Area on one of the lakes.

The scenery along the way was nice....

Nice looking great blue heron

... So was the wildlife.






We found this bridge to a picnic island in one of the lakes intriguing.  I love the boulders surrounding the island.

It was time to relax with a book after our four-mile walk.  The view of the sky from my recliner was a study of azure blue and white.  The sky actually had a similar appearance every afternoon.

As the afternoon moved to evening, the sky continued to put on a tranquil show --- a perfect way to wrap up our time in San Diego.

The next morning we hit the California highways for a white-knuckle drive to Malibu (via a route through the center of Los Angeles).  I am not sure I would make that particular drive in a motor home again, but we arrived without injury or even dents.  A good friend of ours advised us to pick a lane and stay there, so we did.  We were thankful when we finally turned onto the Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica.

What it looks like when traffic is running smoothly -- NOT rush hour

The next several posts will represent our frenetic, and wonderful, activities in Los Angeles with Robyn and Atul.  

Pet Picture of the Day...  This is an ubiquitous shot of Tequila during a walk.  When she wants to show off, she lays down and refuses to move until people laugh at her.