#388 Gingers home, Boondockers Welcome, Rancho Manana Murrieta, CA

We didn't know what to do or where to go so we looked at boondockers welcome. We found a possible site and the owner was named Ginger. When we spoke to Ginger she was so kind and let us come right away she was even pretty nice about staying two weeks.

She mentioned that there were some railroad ties that she had just put in that might be a little tricky but I told her I would check it out and make sure I felt comfortable with it. The road goes up a bit of a hill to a plateau where we would park.

We had done a dry run the day before and saw no problems so we were on our way.

The drive around held because it was a bit of a twisty turny little dirt road and knowing what you were doing before the day you got there sure does help.

In fact when we were in the truck alone looking I had gone to the wrong address and it was proving that the dry run was a great idea.

To get up the hill we had to give it a little bit of a running start and then once underway we did find I did notice that when I got up there the kayak strapping had rubbed against the railroad ties and cut to pieces but nothing bad happened.

We settled in and later met with Ginger and she was great and we just talked and carried on and everything was great so we settled in for a little bit of a stay. She said you can use water anytime you want it was a garden hose nearby which was extremely wonderful. She didn't supply electricity but we didn't need it anyway.

During our stay there even though she said it was okay I always felt like one was better off putting the water in after dark after things kind of got quiet and putting the hose back away so that it would like to be less of a thing so that's what I did but it made for unlimited water and it was great.

We did several excursions and we were still kind of looking for a long-term place so one day we went up to a place called Crestline and looked at an RV spot. On the internet, it looked amazing but in person, it was kind of a dump. It was at least a one-hour drive one way up a really scary hill and then the actual RV park was a dump. The whole thing was a bust. While we were well on our way I'd say it was about an hour out we got a phone call from Ginger. She said my daughter says that she just got through looking at your rig and there's some smoke pouring out and the smoke detectors are going off and I would love to know where you are and why is your rig about to burn down. I said oh my god and so I could not figure it out. She said the daughter opened the door and she saw something on the stove sizzling so then it occurred to me as we were about to leave I had put a little metal cup with coffee on the propane burner to warm it up. I forgot it and left, It continued to be warming until all the coffee was evaporated, and then it turned to tar, and then I guess it began to begin smoking so this was me trying to destroy the RV by fire.

I asked if your daughter doesn't mind, could she open the door remove the cup and just leave the door open. I said we're so sorry and she said I suppose but she was pretty testy and she said I don't want a rig burning down on my property. I said we are insured so at least there's that but I'm so sorry and I feel like an idiot and it was lots of stress and that sucked.

When we came home the daughter had removed the problem and had left the door open and the smoke was mostly gone, at least it's smoke detectors were off but I'm sure Bert wasn't that happy. It was probably traumatic that was a really bad day and I began to think that he was gonna ask us to leave the property. She said as long as you really careful from now on that's fine but then within a few days she said something about she had decided to go to Utah and it would be better if we found a new place.

While in Murrietta I went to a Walmart and I was impressed with their use of solar as a way to shade the cars in summer but also creating lots of green electricity.

We kept looking around and I called a place called Lake Skinner as nobody was open for RV camping. Somehow I got into longer conversation with the lady at Lake Skinner and we told her we were full-timers. She said well if you're full-timers we can make an exception and you can come by. I made a reservation and soon we left Gingers and went to Lake Skinner for a while. The only thing we did there were hikes and different things like that but sort of uneventful for the most part. We were just happy Ginger had rescued us as a transition from Fallbrook. Who knows what's our next thing but that was about it for Murrieta Springs.