a howling good time with the wolves!

Hi again. We took yesterday off and did relatively nothing. We had a great lunch. I sautéed a napa cabbage with Vidalia onion and we grilled some fresh white corn that we bought at the roadside stand. That made for a great lunch.

We found a book swap in the clubhouse and each grabbed a new book to read. We will give them something before we leave.

We are really coming to love this camp site. It is pretty isolated off the back of this mountain. We have our own little nature conservancy here. We sat outside for quite some time after lunch yesterday watching the birds and white moths. There is a treasure trove of things to watch.

At one point, I wandered off into the brush to see what was out there. It appeared there was a path but when I got out there it was just the space between the bushes. At some time a few years past, there was a fire here that pretty much cleared out the brush. Many of the trees have been cut down and a lot of the brush is blackened but still there. Many trees seem to have escaped the fire and are those that contain the huge cones.

We have been sitting there with the bird book trying to figure out just what we are seeing. There are many different species from what we are used to. While I was out walking in the brush, I saw a bird with a mottled chest and a black face and neck. The black was ringed in white lines. I watched him for quite a while. He made no effort to leave and just stood on this pile of wood and stared in my direction. I assumed that he had a nest near there and was unwilling to leave it unguarded so eventually I returned to camp. I searched through the bird book and finally decided that it was a California Quail. We also have seen a Mexican Jay (not nearly as noisy as our eastern counterpart), Purple Martins and hummingbirds. I told Cheryl about the Quail and took her back into the brush hoping that if it had a nest nearby, she might see it. We returned to the spot and watched for several minutes. Then, abruptly, the quail and its made came out from a pile of brush and ran away from the nest area. We returned to camp again and saw the 2 birds in one of the pine trees near our camp.

We slept in today and seem to have declared another day off. This is such a great place to sit and watch the birds and check out the plants. No one bothers us as we are about as far from the main part of the campground as you can get. We will, however, head into town in a few minutes to pick up our first shipment of mail and maybe another piece of that great Julian Pie! (there are 3 bakeries in town and we have only tried one of them).

Well, we are back from town. I was wrong (imagine that). There are 5 bakeries in town (and its not that big a town). We had lunch at the Julian Pie Company today. Cheryl had peach/apple crumb pie with vanilla ice cream and a cappacino and I had caramel dutch apple pie with cinnamon ice cream and cappacino. We should have read the sign on the way in. They had a lunch special that consisted of a half sandwich (turkey or ham) with coffee and a piece of pie for desert for about a buck more than a piece of pie alone. We were just too much in a hurry for that pie.

Afterwards, we wandered around the town checking out the stores. We wandered through 2 grocery stores neither of which was worthy of writing home about. Their produce was pathetic and their fresh meat counters were not well stocked. The natives must do their shopping somewhere else. These stores were worthy of convenience store status and that is about that. One, however, made a speciality of the Julian home made pies. They were in the process of loading up a pickup truck full of pies, all boxed up nice and neat. They were listed as being on special but had the same price as everyone else.

There were several antique stores and a couple of stores that appeared to be new merchandise stores but half the stuff in them looked old and used but not necessarily antiques. We did hit one more bakery and bought a loaf of sourdough bread.

We did hit one unusual store. It was called the Birdwatcher. It was a rather large store and carried any number of birdy items. It had just the cutest things all bird related. Great shirts, feeders, houses, towels, kites, stationary, grocery lists, clocks and banners. Whew! I think I covered all the important things. Cheryl just thought everything there was about the cutest. We finished up and headed back to camp. There is a scenic turnout just a mile or two from our campground. We stopped there and vowed to come back and take some pictures. We stopped but the air was too hazy to get any decent pictures. We’ll try again.

We stopped at the “clubhouse” and made some phone calls. This cell phone thing is a pain. We picked up an activity sheet for the weekend and perused it. There are lots of things going on here this weekend. They start tonight with an ice cream social. We arrived a few minutes before it started and were about the only ones there. It started a few minutes late but about the time the first dish of ice cream was layed out on the counter, people showed up in droves and the line went around the clubhouse and out the door. That was fun but it was mostly families who stayed together so we didn’t meet anyone new.

The list of activities was long. Friday morning, they have cinnamon rolls for $1 each. We figured to hit that. We got up late this morning and were reading in bed. Cheryl got up and checked the activity sheet. Cinnamon rolls were from 8 to 9 and it was 8:45. We got dressed and hurried right down there. They were home made rolls and were about the size of a 9 or 10 inch plate. They were right out of the oven and were great. We met a couple from San Diego and sat and talked with them. The woman had spent some time in Portland, ME and had been to Old Orchard Beach (in the 30s). She talked about taking the train from Portland to OOB. They had also been to Alaska a couple of times so we shared war stories about Alaska. They had been to the Kenai and to Chicken. Another man stopped by since we were talking about the bears in Alaska and told us his bear story and about staying at his uncle’s place in the wilderness.

It was quite a while before we returned to camp but eventually we did. I have some maintenance things to do on the camper. I need to check the batteries for the coach electrical system and most likely add water. We took showers and I finished my book. I am terriaking a piece of salmon that I thawed out. And we will have that on a salad for lunch (or dinner if you subscribe to the idea that dinner is the big meal of the day and lunch is a smaller meal at noontime and supper is a smaller meal in the evening). Personally, I have never quite worked out what is what although the previous description is about as close as I can come. A meal is a meal no matter what you call it.

The wind has switched and is coming out of the southeast. So far, the wind has come from behind the camper and now it is coming from the front. The awning is banging around some and I may have to take it in. The wind usually blows so hard here that I take it in when we are not here anyway.

Well, off to work.

Back again. I’m sorry this isn’t more exciting but we are very content just enjoying this place. I finished putting water in the coach batteries. I used nearly 3 quarts in 2 batteries. They were pretty low. We went down to the clubhouse for breakfast. They had scrambled eggs, French toast and bacon for $3. There is a steak or chicken dinner tonight but I think we will cook out here at the campsite.

I hope the roast beef supper went well last night. We had Taco Salad, Tostadas or burritos. Cheryl had the taco salad and I had the burrito. They were about the same (they gave you the shell (or taco) and refried beans and meat and you finished building the thing. We met up with our newfound friends from San Diego. They had a large camper but are getting along in years and didn’t feel comfortable driving it any longer so they bought a Pleasure Way (something like the Roadtrek that we looked at but with the Mercedes turbo_diesel engine. They get 21 mpg but have to live with a very small camper. They only go out for a few days at a time so it doesn’t matter too much.

We signed up for a tour of the wolf ranch. There is a facility next door that raises grey wolves and then sets them free in different places. They give public tours on Saturdays but the campground has its own tour on Sundays. We have heard that this is a great tour so we are looking forward to it.

We have been without our cell phones and our wireless modem all week. It seems that Sprint doesn’t work here in the park (naturally). We have been using the pay phone and a calling card and the wifi in the clubhouse. That has made it a little slow getting stuff out on the computer but then we haven’t done much either.

None of the places we have stayed at has had cable tv. We have run into cable at a lot of the places we have stayed at in the past but so far we have been limited to our regular antenna. I may regret not getting the satellite service hooked up to the camper (I have a dish but have never used it). Oh well, we didn’t come out here to watch tv now did we?

The air over our mountains and desert has been getting hazier each day. The radio this morning said the haze in the air is a result of the fires further up in the state. You can’t smell fire in the haze but if it gets much heavier I am sure we will be able to.

My allergies have been acting up all week. I took an antihistamine last night and have been “out to lunch” all day. It isn’t much fun and I feel like I have lost a whole day. The interesting part is that I took one before we left and had the same reaction but have taken them a couple of times since and had no reaction at all (other than the favored one-clearing up of the allergies).

This morning we visited the California Wolf Center at Julian. It sits right here next to our campground. They raise wolves and use them in various repopulation projects. They were involved in the Yellowstone Repopulation project that has culminated in the removal of wolves from the endangered species list in Yellowstone. That has been kind of a mixed blessing as now that the wolves have been removed from the endangered species list in Yellowstone, they no longer get money to raise wolves and their wolves are no longer required in Yellowstone. Their project now is the reclamation of the Mexican Yellow Wolf population in Arizona and New Mexico. They are raising a group of pups for release in those areas. They have a population of wolves that are not appropriate for release into the wild. They use these for viewing by the people who come to the center to learn about the wolves. They have populated areas such as Yellowstone and Denali in Alaska. They do great work and the wolves on exhibit are fascinating.

They told us that when you work with the wolves on a regular basis, you can see them think. One wolf stood with 2 feet on the ground and 2 on a tree. They watched the wolf look up the tree and around the branches. As they watched, the wolf climbed up the tree and layed along a large branch parallel to the ground. He layed there for a couple of hours then jumped down and went and took a nap.

Ok, I feel a little dumb. When we came into Julian, we went up a long narrow steep road that pretty much intimidated us since we were pretty much out of gas and I got a little worried about running out of gas on the steep hills. When we went to San Diego, we went down the road that our campground was on. It was steep downhill and really curvey but we were in a car and it wasn’t too bad. That left 2 roads out of town. The map showed one of them as really steep and curvey so now we were down to one. We took off today in search of another vegetable stand and headed out the only remaining road. Guess what? It was steep and curvey. Just how are we going to get out of here in a reasonable manner?

OK. Lets just think about this a little. The base unit of the campground is 4,600 feet above sea level. That pretty much means that there is no easy way out of here. We have explored all 4 of the roads leading to or leaving here. They are all pretty much the same; steep, winding and very much down hill. This will continue to be an adventure so we will take whatever road is the best for us to get to Bullhead City Arizona. That appears to be the road we came in on. Any of the other roads out of here are much longer.

On our journey, we found some fresh corn from El Centro. It looked much better than the corn we had the other day. We stripped off the husks and stripped the corn off the cobs. Then I sautéed the corn in butter until it was done. We had the left over black beans and rice from yester day and some hot dogs from the freezer. It was a great meal.

When we got back from our trip, the campground had pie and ice cream. I believe that I mentioned that Julian, CA was famous for its apples and its pies. Well these pies came from Julian and were great. I had mountain berry and Cheryl had cherry. They were great. That is 3 days of pie we had since we got here. They were all good and we had all of them with ice cream.

Tomorrow we pack up camp and head for Bullhead City Arizona. That is just across the border from Laughlin, Nevada. Laughlin is a newly developed city that is trying to rival Las Vegas although it is years away from doing so. Las Vegas is only an hour and a half from where we will be. We are planning to spend the 4th of July in Las Vegas if we can determine where the best fireworks will be. We do want to spend at least one day in Las Vegas. We want to see the strip under lights. We will probably skip the Cirque du Soleil shows. With the cost of gas, we are trying to do things to keep the costs down.

Last night, they had Karoake down at the “Clubhouse”. It was mediocre at best but at 9:00, the Astromomy Club of San Diego filled the tennis courts with telescopes and invited all of the denizens of KQ Ranch to come see the stars. Each of the telescopes was pointed at something different. We saw Jupiter and several of its moons. The bands on Jupiter were visible but we couldn’t see the big spot as it was on the other side of the planet. They said that if we stayed around long enough, we would be able to see it. They showed Saturn, complete with its rings but we were too late to see it. It had dropped below the horizon. We saw several groups of stars that were designated by numbers. One of them was an area where stars were born. One of the gentlemen had a very large laser pointer and was pointing out the constellations. The altitude here and its distance from any major light sources made the stars very visible in the sky. This was the first time, I was able to see the constellations. The major stars in the groupings were clearly visible where at home all of the stars seem to be pretty much the same. The milky way here is very visible with clear definition between the stars where the milky way at home is kind of muddled.

It is time to close and to start to get ready to move. Tomorrow we are off to Bullhead City and another week. I think we will do much more next week. We really liked this campground and love our campsite out here in the middle of no where. Catch ya later.