Aguanga, CA

Next in my travels was a stay in Aguanga, CA for 10 days, leaving Feb. 27.  Aguanga is a tiny town in southern California.  It is about 2000’ elevation and it’s been a bit colder than I expected.  In the higher mountains around here there has been snow.  We just got rain. Just minutes before arriving at the campground, I saw this.

My first thought was I’m in California and I’m coming up on a wildfire.  But then I realized it was not wildfire season, actually this is considered the rainy season.  I later found out that these were prescribed burns.  The campground is very nice and I have a great view of the mountains from my site (actually I had a good view of the fire).  By the way, when driving to the next town (a much larger one!) I drove through an area that was burned by wildfire in 2007.  In fact the RV park I am staying at was evacuated during that time.  To make things worse after an area burns they have to worry about mud slides when it rains because all there is is dirt, no vegetation to hold the dirt in place.

While there, I went to Dana Point and went on a whale watching trip.  The gray whales are migrating and don’t stay on the surface for long so most of my pictures just show waves in the water where the whale was just a second before I took the picture.  This is one of just a few where you can actually see the whale. 

In addition to whales (we say 3), we also saw sea lions and dolphins. 

One day, I went to the San Bernardino National Forest and did a bit of hiking and scenic drives.  

You would think I would be used to this by now, but seeing cactus in the mountains still amazes me.  There was a minor earthquake  (3.something) with the epicenter about 5 – 6 miles away from the campground while I was there.  It was close to the national forest mentioned above.   I slept right through it!.

I have found that California has some interesting speed limits.  There have been many places that I would expect maybe 35 - 45 MPH and it is 55.  A great example of this was this road. 

You may need to click on the picture to enlarge it to see the road.  Another view is from my GPS -

Yes the speed limit here was 55.  It did have signs to slow you down on the curves but some people didn’t.  I pulled over many times to allow others to pass me.

Below is a picture of my RV, with the reflection of the beautiful sunset.

On the day that I was to leave, I did my laundry and when finished went back to my RV to put my clothes up.  While doing so my propane detector went off.   I didn’t smell propane, but I opened a window and the door to air out the RV just in case.  The alarm went off and back inside I went.  Then a few minutes later it went off again   This time I thought I noticed a very faint propane smell.  To make a very long story short, Mike and Lisa Sylvester checked my RV out and said it did not have a propane leak.  So it was either a bad detector or I had picked up some propane fumes from somewhere.  Mike suggested we pull the fuse and put it back in later.  If the alarm went off it would be a bad detector.

What luck that this happened where there was someone I knew who could help me.  I put the fuse back in a couple of days later and it is still in and working. 

My drive  was less than 80 miles to the next stop in La Quinta (Close to Palm Springs).