Jamul, CA - Crossing Over

Hey, do you know how to pronounce Jamul? Well, I certainly didn’t since I really wasn’t thinking that it was a Spanish name. I mispronounced it with a hard J as in Jack and the accent on the second syllable. Nope, it’s Hamul with the accent on the first syllable. Now I know.

There are two sides to the campground. One side, the south side, has full hook-ups and is obviously the most popular side. The north side has only water and electric hook-ups, with no sewer. We had a reservation and were guaranteed a site but, by the time we arrived yesterday, all of the full hook-ups sites were taken and we had to go to the north side. Now, we can handle not having a sewer and there actually was a dump available. However, we’re leaving for Hawaii in about a week and want to do our laundry before then and will need a sewer to do that. So, we put our name on a list for ‘crossing over’ to the south side.

Here’s the process. We were 7th on the list which meant that today at 8:00 am we were supposed to meet at the Ranger Station with all the others who wanted to 'cross over.' The Rangers would know by then what RV’s were going to be leaving today and what sites were available for new RV’s. However, of the 10 people on the list, only 4 showed up and, instead of being # 7, we were 3rd. Thus, #1 and #2 chose the sites they wanted and we chose site #8. We went to look at it, deemed it fine for our uses and went back to our rig to ready it for the move to the other side of the campground. You can see our rig in our new campsite above. 

And, we have ‘crossed over.’ Sure sounds like a religious experience to me but, it was far from that. The views from our site are great, since we can see up to the hills circling our valley. But, remember, hills are a real magnet for us. We look up to the highest point, Otay Mountain, and want to be there. Yep, there it is - off in the distance, the highest hill - on the left, luring us on. We can see the road near the top, circling the final curve. That’s certainly do-able. At least that’s what we thought. Are we all set, or what? In fact, Gary’s already singing s ‘Climb Every Mountain’ from the Sound of Music.

Meanwhile we walked the campground, it’s about 2.3 miles from end to end. And, we added some as we walked, exploring it all. We found one of the 2 pools.

We found the ‘high’ point by the basketball court where the best reception was and there are already 2 chairs up there for people to sit although that chair looks almost impossible to sit in. You can see one of our neighbors making a call. He had run over the electrical hook-up at his site the previous day. This is not a common occurrence but it does happen. Gary is standing near the antenna further up the hill.

We found the restaurant where we will have breakfast some morning.

There is a lot of storage where we figure San Diegans store their RV’s for the time when they get vacation and can take a week or two up here. One of the storage lots has electrical hook-ups and, we’ll put our RV into this storage when we leave for Hawaii.

5.3 in the campground