Palm Springs, CA to San Diego, CA - Slow Trip

We’re finally on the move. Yesterday, our trip consisted of 8 miles from a campground to a casino out lot. Gary teases me that all the singers from our generation are now singing in casinos: Bonnie Raitt, Dion, Moody Blues.

Today, we leave Palm Springs, circle north around the San Jacinto mountains through the pass where the wind has calmed down and south to the San Diego area. Not a long trip but we manage to make it last a day. Actually, we stopped about 1/3 of the way here to replenish our coffee and spied a Verizon. Gary had some questions and it was convenient and so we stopped in. And, guess what, today, when we got there, we were eligible for 3 upgrades. Not just 1 but 3. Surprise, surprise, surprise. We keep our stuff so long that we’re always eligible for upgrades. So we bit and spent about 45 minutes there getting our wi-fi gadget upgraded. A free upgrade and a $50 Visa card to boot. But this Verizon stop sure put us behind schedule.

Then we spent about 45 minutes trying to get directions to the campground where we’re headed. One of the rangers there gave us directions from the wrong direction. We were coming from the west on Interstate 8 and he gave us directions for coming from the east on 8. We had our I Pad, our I Phone, several maps out and couldn’t find any of the roads he was referencing. No wonder, we were about 25 miles off. We called back and got the correct instructions. Finally we were off, but about we’re about now 2 hours behind schedule. Yeah, you say, who has a schedule when you’re retired? Yes, I say, but do you want to be driving down the freeways in San Diego during rush hour? We sure don’t so we wanted to be on our way.

Riding in an RV where we’re up high gives us a spectacular view of the scenery around us, the hills, the valleys, the cliffs, etc. But it also gives us a spectacular view of the traffic around us. We can see all the jerks who weave in and out, who decide that their exit is right here when they are still in the passing lane, who cut others off and who pass and jump right in front of you. Can they not see us? Are we not big enough? Sometimes, I’m amazed that there are not more accidents than there are. We saw a motorcycle cut in front of us and then in front of a semi as he tried to get to the exit 3 lanes away from his. Wowsa, wowsa.

But, the trip passed without incident unless you count my nibbling my fingernails to the nub an incident. No, actually, my fingernails are fine but sometimes the traffic in large cities after 3:30 when you are driving a 57’ rig is a ‘bit’ hectic.

Actually, our campground is in Jamul, the far south western outermost suburb of San Diego, probably about 4 or 5 miles from the border. Firstly we are in a winding valley in amongst some high foothills and secondly, we are so far ‘outermost’ that we can get only NBC on our TV but not without some gyrations. First let me explain that we have an antenna which lies on the top of our RV when we are on the road. When we get to a campsite, I turn a knob and raise this antenna so that it is about 2’ above our rig. And, that’s how we get TV reception. Many RV’ers have dishes and get their reception that way. I’ll admit that we do have a dish on our rig, installed by the previous owner. But, we don’t watch TV enough to use this and pay for any reception. So, we take what we can get on the TV antenna.

However, here at this campground, even when we can get our one station, it plays for a while and then breaks up. That means that I've got to adjust the antenna. Once, when the picture on the TV was breaking up, I reached for the antenna knob to turn it a different direction and just my reaching towards it cleared up the picture. Now, when the picture breaks up, I stand, reach up and the picture clears up almost immediately. 

Of course, we do get lots of other stations but they are all in Spanish since we’re only 4 miles from the border. Have you ever listened to Bart Simpson in Spanish? Well, I have and I’m not so sure that he’s any smarter. We also have no cell phone service and our own Verizon wi-fi gadget just twirls and twirls searching for a satellite. We can use it in Belgium but we can’t use it in Jamul, CA. Here we are, we’ve just got this exciting new gadget which will give us faster wi-fi and we can’t get wi-fi at all. Even Verizon doesn’t reach this far.

So, as you can guess, we are OFF the grid.

But here’s the interesting part. 8 miles through the canyon, around the reservoir and up the hill is a huge mall with Lowes, Costco, grocery stores, Starbucks, Target and anything else you might imagine. Thousands of homes surround this mall and I’m sure they have all kinds of service. But, hey, we’re camping, aren’t we? Since when did the criteria for a good campground become wi-fi coverage, TV reception and cell phone service? But, but, but, what are we going to do?

Wouldn’t you guess, my clever husband, downloaded all the nearby hikes when we were in Palm Springs and had great wi-fi coverage. They’re on his cell phone and we can find them to hike.

5.35 through the campground, it' a big campground.