My last post described my trailer electrical connector repair on Friday. We closed out the day with dinner over at the gazebo again. Donna prepared beef ragu served over whole wheat spaghetti. She added some extra fresh herbs and crushed red pepper and it came out even better than usual.

Donna working her magic on the induction cooktop

It was pleasant dining outside. Although the dry camping sites are cramped, having this sitting area is nice. There are many amenities at Jojoba Hills and we really like this place. There are hiking paths with sitting areas around small ponds, pickleball courts, a great swimming pool with a beautiful view, a clubhouse that they named Friendship Hall and a well-stocked library.

Dining al fresco at the gazebo

We started the day Saturday with pickleball games once again. After lunch, we headed to the pool to read and soak in the sunshine. We sat in lounge chairs on the south side of the pool. Twenty minutes of direct sun was all I could take. I moved to the shady north side of the pool and read for over an hour while Donna stayed in her lounge chair. She took a dip in the pool to cool off. Even with SPF 30 sunscreen, she ended up with some sunburn.

Donna’s view from the south side of the pool

I moved into the shade – Donna is in the second chair from the right

On Sunday morning, I got to work on the hot water heater. I shut off the water pump, opened the hot water kitchen sink and bathroom faucets and went outside. I removed the anode rod from the hot water tank and drained the tank. I didn’t see any debris come out of the tank. The 1-1/6″ socket I bought to install the new anode rod was the right size for the new rod. But it didn’t fit the adapter I had to remove from the tank. I assumed the adapter was the same size hex as the new rod. You know what they say about assuming. So, once again I re-installed the old anode rod and refilled the tank. The hot water flow was still restricted.

I gave up on that task and loaded the trailer in preparation for travel. Meanwhile, Donna was out on the pickleball court. She came back around 10am and showered at the park showers before prepping the inside of the coach for travel. That’s how we work it – she preps the interior while I load the trailer, dump the tanks and take care of the outside work. We were ready to pull the slides in and light the fires at 11:30am. Fifteen minutes later, we were on the road again.

We drove west on CA79 (which is technically a north/south route) through Temecula and took I-15 south to San Diego where we hit CA163. I pulled off CA163 at the Balboa Avenue exit. I remembered a Chevron station on the corner of Balboa and Mercury Street where we were able to get the coach in and out without any fuss. There was a problem though. The exit for Balboa Avenue doesn’t really come out on Balboa. It exits onto southbound Mercury Street near the Balboa intersection. There is an island dividing Mercury Street and I couldn’t access the Chevron station. So we turned east on Balboa Avenue, crossed CA163 and drove about a mile before I could turn around in an industrial park. Coming back west on Balboa I had easy access to the fuel station. Problem solved.

I put 49 gallons of fuel in the tank at $2.89/gallon. As usual, I treated the fuel with Biobor JF. I wanted to have the fuel tank as full as possible before sitting at Mission Bay for a month to help prevent condensation in the fuel tank. The rest of the drive was uneventful and we pulled into Mission Bay RV Resort at 1:45pm.

After checking in, Donna and I walked to the overflow parking area to reconnoiter a spot for the trailer. Nearby Mission Bay Park was teeming with people. The grassy areas were filled with EZ-Up canopies, volley ball games and barbeques. The beach at the RV park was also full of people. Apparently many of them parked in the RV overflow lot and the lot was full. This was a problem for us. Mission Bay RV Park requires us to leave our cargo trailer in the lot.

We talked to the security guy at the guard gate. He suggested leaving the trailer in the lot behind the office. I told him that wouldn’t happen, because the last time I did that, Dirty, Rotten Thieves stole my trailer and all of its contents. We found an open spot in the overflow lot that wasn’t really a marked parking space, but the trailer would fit. The security  guy agreed to let us park it there temporarily. We would have to move it later when the crowd thinned out. We dropped the trailer and moved into site 112.

Our friends Bob and Sini Schmitt from Edmonds, Washington are in a site a few spaces away from us. This proved to be fortuitous. Bob has a vintage Chevy K5 Blazer with a trailer hitch. He let us use it to move the trailer after legal parking spaces had opened up in the lot. We scored a primo parking space. Close to the water with a no parking zone behind the trailer. This will make it easy to transport the kayak to the water with no worries of someone parking too close behind the trailer. I need to be able to open the rear ramp door for access to the kayak and bicycles and for re-loading the trailer when we leave.

Our home for the next month

When I got up this morning, I noticed that the ground was wet. I thought it was the normal dampness found along the beaches and bays in the morning at this time of year. Donna said a a light rain started falling just after she got up at 7am.  It’s dry now though. We should see a high temperature in the  mid 60s today. We have a few errands to run. I also need to find an RV technician who can solve the hot water issue.