Our last morning waking up in Menifee arrived at last. We got all hitched up, said goodbye to the ducks and geese, and hit the road. We had about a four hour drive today which wasn’t too bad timewise, and the actual drive was quite nice, mostly. We did have a little bit of a problem around the San Fernando Valley as we both really had to use the bathroom and there was nowhere for us to pull over. We held on as long as was humanly possible before we saw a sign for services off the next exit. The services turned out to be a gas station that was barely big enough for us to get the trailer around. Mike did manage it with a bit of nifty driving that involved lots of forward and backward motion, and some reassurances from two guys who stopped to watch the maneuver. After relieving ourselves (and man was it a relief) we got back on the road. It was smooth sailing after that along highway 101, and we even saw the ocean. Then the horrible part came; well horrible for ma anyway, we had to go up the San Marcos Pass which is a one lane in each direction road with no shoulder that climbs from sea level to over 2000 feet in about 9 miles. I was clenching the whole way up but Xena did fine (so did Mike), and if there was any doubt about her ability to pull the trailer anywhere, there isn’t anymore.
After about 12 miles we turned off to the camp ground and drove through Los Prietos National Forest for another 5 or so miles, then we traversed another ‘lovely’ road into the park proper. This one had mirrors on it to see round the corners and if we had met anyone coming the other way I don’t think we’d have been able to pass – thankfully we didn’t. After all the anxiety we got to the park around 1 this afternoon and drove around looking for a good spot. The park is on the side of a hill and all the spaces are in rows that are tiered. It was fairly hot when we got here so we found a nice space that has lots of shelter and got all set up. The park is actually a horse ranch and we passed lots of them on the way in. It’s actually not too busy right now but I’m sure it gets fuller on the weekends. It’s a really beautiful place, nestled amongst the mountains; it’s very serene, no traffic noise, just the birds singing and the ground squirrels playing all around. I think it’s going to be an enjoyable couple of weeks here.

Mike:Yeah, Zena, my "Warrior Princess" (I mean Becc, of course!)