Poking Around Vail Lake Resort in Temecula

On Sunday, December 1, we arrived at Vail Lake Resort in Temecula, California.  The Thanksgiving weekend had just ended.  While over half of the 500-plus sites in the campground had been occupied during the weekend, they had virtually emptied out by the time we arrived Sunday afternoon.

Of course, three RV's remained, and one of them was staying late in our site.  After some discussions with campground management and the mobile delinquents, we hung out down the road with the cats while they packed up, and eventually we moved into our site.

We woke up Monday and it was VERY cold.  The thermometer showed 28F!  We didn't think Southern California was supposed to get this cold.  So we bundled up and started a long coffee walk around the campground before breakfast to get to know our new home.

Next to the campground is an artist's studio named "Jurassic Park Studio."  It's so named because the artist creates sculptures in welded steel.  Many of them are horses in action --

-- but some are dinosaurs suspiciously reminiscent of the eponymous lead characters of the movie:

Still others are primitive people --

-- or phantasmagorical phigures:

The campground is full of these huge figures, and some even grace the hillsides above Highway 79 which leads east from Temecula toward the campground.

Today is Wednesday, December 4, and we expanded our horizons by bicycling 2 miles or so out to Vail Lake.  We had to pedal up over a range of hills and then down again - guaranteeing that we would have the same epic journey back from the lake.

At the crest of the hills, we could see across to the East, toward Arizona:

The view west toward the center of the campground was perhaps less inspiring, but it shows some of the dirt roads that the campground visitors' BMX bike tear around during the summer and on big holidays.  Thank goodness we haven't had all of that noise and activity while we've been here.

The lake itself was a beautiful blue, reflecting the clear sky today.  The resort landscapes and waters certain sections of the grounds, and you can see the sprinklers working away in this photo:

Here is another view from the lake shore looking East:

And another one:

The purples in the far mountains echoed in the near hills, and even in the water of the lake:

Back from our lake ride, we kicked back and enjoyed happy hour.  Here's a first:  a Shadow Happy Hour:

We're nearly the only ones in our section of the campground.  Baxter enjoys the peace and quiet, but he misses the activity of other rigs, and doesn't have any strangers' tires to sniff.  Because two hawks have taken up residence in the area, we don't appear to have any squirrels, chipmunks or other ground critters.  We do have some loud crows, who torture Baxter endlessly.  Baxter also loves to watch the leaves dance and run in the wind.  He thinks every one of them might be some small critter trying to escape his rifle gaze and his quick chase (NOT).  Here's Baxter reconnoitering in front of our trailer and truck:

By 4:30, the sun had gotten so low that it was getting quite chilly outside, so we repaired to the living room, turned on the fireplace, and are listening to Christmas carols while we work on our blog entries.  Ta ta for now.