Last week, I noticed a vehicle entering the Mission Bay RV Resort with a hang tag that showed a checkout date of 1-31-16. What’s significant about that? Well, Mission Bay RV Resort has a policy of only allowing a stay of 31 consecutive days before you have to leave the park for a minimum of 24 hours.

Later I stopped by the office and asked how someone got a checkout date more than 31 days after entering the park. They told me they’ve altered their policy. If you’ve been here before for a long-term stay, they will double the allowable stay to 62 days. They said the change was made last August. When I made our reservations in September, I thought we were still limited to 31 days. I made a 31-day reservation followed by a second 31-day reservation after a day out of the park. You would think they would’ve mentioned the fact that I could have stayed for 62 consecutive days – they had my history in their system and knew I stayed here frequently.

Monday was our day to leave. I didn’t like the site we were in – I think site 135 is one of the worst in the park, so I looked forward to the move. There’s a large tree at the front left corner of the site. This not only interfered with satellite reception, the tree dropped debris constantly. I could hear stuff falling from the tree and clunking on the roof. Then at night, birds would roost in the tree. This resulted in bird droppings all over the front left corner of the coach and on the windshield cover.

Monday morning I shuttled stuff over to our trailer. They let us leave the trailer in the overflow lot while we are out for our 24-hour “exile” period. I made several trips to put our chairs, grills, ladder and Donna’s bike in the trailer. I parked our scooter behind the security shack and covered it. It’s a secure parking spot.

We pulled out just before noon. Our destination was the Sweetwater Summit campground – part of the Sweetwater Regional Park. We hadn’t stayed there before. Our route took us east on I-8 through Mission Valley to I-805. We followed I-805 south to CA94 east, then CA125 south. It’s about a 45-minute drive. This was uncharted territory for me. Back in the day when I was growing up here, there wasn’t a CA125 freeway. I’m not sure when they built it. The pouring of the concrete on CA125 south of CA94 was poorly executed. It’s like a roller coaster ride. The speed limit is 65mph. I was traveling around 60mph and that was too fast as the suspension was working overtime through the whoop-de-do surface. I’ll avoid CA125 from now on.

The volunteer at the gate at Sweetwater Summit had our check-in package ready and told us that the site we booked – site 129 – is the most requested site in the park. We drove up past the Sweetwater Reservoir over the ridge and down to the northwestern end of the park. The site was a long pull-through, reasonably level and was screened from the nearest neighbor with shrubs. The windshield view was nice.

Sweetwater Regional Park is in a suburban area but it seems like you are far from the city once you enter the park. It feels similar to Santee Lakes Recreation Preserve, but it has more traffic noise than Santee Lakes. We chose to stay overnight here to check out the park for future reference.

We didn’t explore much past our corner of the park Monday afternoon. I watched the Monday Night Football Game – it was dark by the time the game came on. I noticed a few commercial airliners passing just to the north of us. They were flying low as they made the final descent to Lindberg Field. San Diego International Airport, also known as Lindberg Field, is the busiest single runway airport in the country. The runway is oriented east-west. The prevailing wind is from the west, so most of the time, take-offs and landings are to the west on a heading of 274 degrees. We were about 10 miles east of the runway. The jets flying by were throttled back for the descent so they weren’t making much noise.

On Tuesday morning, Donna went out to hike on a trail into the Regional Park. She had asked at the office for a trail map – the map wasn’t very clear, but she got some verbal directions about how to make a loop. I took care of a few chores at the coach, then I went for a hike up toward the water tank on the ridge behind our site.

I saw warning signs to beware of rattlesnakes.

On top of the ridge, I could see the reservoir on the north side. Donna told me later that she spotted a coyote right about here.

Looking back toward our site, I could see many hiking trails. Donna went up over the ridge, down the switchbacks and then crossed under the freeway near the golf course. She followed a trail to the dam and then along the Sweetwater River before heading back to make a loop crossing a pedestrian bridge over the freeway back to the campground. She finished her four-mile hike in time for a phone interview with an editor from Oprah.com at 10:30am.

We pulled out of the campground just before the noon checkout time. I took a different route back to Mission Bay – I didn’t want to bounce down CA125 again.

We checked in and I drove over to our site – we’re in 145 now. Before I could reach our site, a fifth-wheel trailer was blocking the lane. The guy appeared to be struggling to get the trailer aligned with his site – which was next to our site. Donna asked me if it’s possible to jack-knife a fifth-wheel trailer. I told it was and this guy was about to do it. We waited for a good five minutes or more as he jockeyed back and forth and finally got the rig into his site.

As usual, Donna directed me with the Cobra hand held CB radio. I made a three-point turn and lined up perfectly. I love it when it works out like that – especially since all of the neighbors were watching as they were entertained by the guy in the fifth-wheel.

After getting the coach set up and eating lunch, I walked to get  the stuff from the trailer. On the way, I saw our friends Tom and Kris Downey (Open Road 365). I stopped to say hello. Tom offered the use of his Chevy Equinox to haul my chairs and stuff back to our site. I took him up on the offer. I was able to load the chairs, ladder and push broom and drive back to our place. I unloaded then went back for the Weber Q grill. The use of his SUV saved me at least four walking trips out to the overflow area to carry stuff back. Thanks, Tom!

I walked back to the trailer to get the Traeger grill – it was too big to put in the SUV. With that done, all I had to do was get the scooter, then put on the tire covers and windshield cover. By then I was ready for a shower and a beer with the guys at Offshore Tavern and Grill.

This morning we have mostly cloudy skies that should burn off this afternoon and the temperature will reach the 70s. There’s a cooling trend forecast for the coming week with a slight chance of rain tomorrow or Friday.

 

*Just so you know, if you follow one of my links to Amazon and decide to make a purchase, you pay the same price as usual and  I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!