Day 32-June 26, 2016-Lake Skinner and more vineyards
High of 96 today, but it goes down quickly when the sun sets.
Spent the morning doing some chores and reading. A lot of campers are packing up and leaving. After lunch we drove around the park and found the lake. It’s actually a man-made 1400 acre reservoir created in 1973 when they built a dam. We haven’t seen a body of water in about two weeks, no rivers, lakes, streams, not even a puddle, so we enjoyed seeing this. It’s fed by the Colorado River. You can’t swim in it but you can fish and boat. It’s stocked with catfish and trout and fishing is the big sport here. They have two boat docks and boat rentals and a fishing pier. There are three campgrounds with over 300 sites, including handicapped, and equestrian camping, a primitive camping area, an old schoolhouse now used for nature studies, big picnic areas, open fields where the hot air balloons are set off in late May, a marina, bike rentals, hiking trails, a splash pad, ampitheater and playground for the kids, group camping area and a campstore that stocks all kinds of camping and fishing needs. All this set in the middle of hundreds of acres of “Multi-Species Reserve” land. They say there are mountain lions here. We’ve seen squirrels, rabbits and skunks. Our neighbors said they saw a rattlesnake on a trail when they took a bike ride today. We see and hear lots of birds and the wild howl of coyotes at night. Different trees here, there are trees that look like willows with red berries, trees that have little green bell shaped flowers that are dropping like mad, don’t know if it’s from the heat or drought. We then went to some more wineries. The ones on the main roads still looked busy so we found a few off the beaten path. Beautiful scenery along the way, even some orange groves. The first only had one other couple at it and the owner was doing the tastings. Nice wines, too expensive. She said they just found out they lost 50% of their crops because it’s been so hot. The second we didn’t even taste at, the bottles ranged from $68 and up. The third was Longshadow Ranch, a working ranch with two rescue Belgian horses in a corral. Big sign right near them saying don’t touch. One of the girls from a bus tour decided to get on one of the horses and ride it, it bucked and threw her off and she got very indignant along with all the other people on the bus. The ranch had a security man and a few locals who set them straight and they went on their merry way. Some drama for a Sunday afternoon. Their wines were too expensive also but we did buy a white merlot that was $22. Stopped at a roadside fruit stand and bought some avocados at a better price than the $1.69 each in the grocery store, these were fifty cents each. Went back to the casino to check out the campground, very nice but I like where we are better. Found a Sam’s Club and filled up the gas tank for $2.29 a gallon vs. the $2.79 at other stations. Back to the campground for dinner and enjoyed another campfire and gorgeous stars.