April 30, 2011 -

We spent a wonderful few days up at a favorite rv park in the mountains last week. We had reserved three nights at KQ Ranch near Julian, CA. We took three granddaughters with us...Hannah 9, Jessie 8 and Deanna 7. We arrived at the park on Tuesday in the afternoon and set up camp high on a ridge at the back of the park. There was a special reason that we picked this particular spot to park our 5th wheel. We were surprising the girls with a visit to the California Wolf Center and the ridge overlooked the Center.

That first day we set up camp and went to explore the park. We checked out the clubhouse and went to swim in the pool. Unfortunately the pool had just been drained, cleaned and refilled to get ready for the summer campers. It was really cold!! The girls wanted to try swimming anyway so Ed and I endured about a half hour of girlish screams as they jumped in and quickly out. That night as we had dinner and played games we found out why so few people camp high on the ridge. The winds start up and get quite brisk up there. We weren't able to have a campfire so to lessen the disappointment for the girls, we told them our special surprise. They were very excited and wanted to see the wolves that instant. Well, a bit of the outer wolf enclosure can be seen from the ridge so we took out our binoculars and tried to spot an elusive wolf. Alas, no luck but later in the wee hours, I awoke to hear the wolves howling and quickly got up to wake the girls. Jessie woke up and said "Oh yeah", Hannah woke up and said "I hear them" and Deanna didn't wake at all.

On Wednesday after a wonderful big breakfast of bacon, eggs and hashbrowns cooked by Grandpa on our outdoor griddle, we drove out of the park towards the town of Julian. We spotted the turnoff to take to Anza Borrego first and decided to drive down a bit to see the desert. We spent about an hour driving down and back up, saw beautiful cactus flowers, walked a bit in the desert and collected some neato rocks which the girls put in their collecting boxes. In Julian we stopped first at The Miners Diner for lunch and then off to walk the streets and see what we could find. Down the street was the Witch Creek Winery where we purchased a delicious bottle of Muscat per the request of Jessie's mom and then to the Bird Watcher where DD found a couple of windup toys to buy. Jessie ended up with a fairy at another shop and Hannah wanted the candy cigarettes back at the Diners little store (thought those were a thing of the past!). That night after dinner we suddenly started hearing the wolves howling at about 8pm. We decided a night hike was in order, gave the girls glow sticks and took off in the direction of the howls. The girls were quite brave and only clung to our hands a little bit. We walked down the road to where we could hear the howling a little better and it was a lot of fun.

Thursday was our Wolf Center Day. We had a lighter version of breakfast and met the young man, Kevin, giving our tour at the KQ Ranch gate at 10am. He took us down into the Center grounds and we walked with him over to the enclosures. The wolves kept nearest the buildings and where the public are able to view them are the wolves least likely to be relocated back into the wild. We viewed an Alaskan gray wolf pack and a Mexican gray wolf pack consisting of three sisters. Wolves are amazingly shy around human beings. Kevin explained to us that human beings smell badly to wolves. Their sense of smell is much more acute than ours and they can smell what we had for our last meal as well as our lotion, toothpaste and the sunscreen we put on that morning. So catching a real good glimpse of the wolves was tricky. In the Alaskan wolf enclosure, we saw a male wolf lying on the ground being lazy and one of the female wolves walking around in the middle. The three female Mexican wolves were a little more curious about us, especially the three girls. Kevin told us that wolves love youth and are even excited by young humans. The Alpha or dominant female came near to us and rubbed on the fence with her body and opened her mouth widely and sort of bit at the fence. Kevin said that she was leaving her scent on the fence as a sort of marking her territory. Two of the Mexican wolves kept walking by doing "drivebys" and checking us out with their peripheral vision. We were told that wolves will not look directly at a human but use their side vision which is much better than ours. Back at the Alaskan wolf compound we spotted one of the male wolves who had taken down a raven and was tearing it apart. One of the females hopped into their water trough to cool off and get a drink. Kevin said that there were other wilder wolves in the back enclosures where we couldn't venture and that they were wolves that would likely be released into the wild at some future time. It was preferable for these wolves to have very little human contact. One of the wilder wolves was a female who is pregnant and due to give birth some time in the next month. After our visit outside with the wolves we entered the Center building and Kevin showed us skulls and fur pelts. All in all, our visit to the California Wolf Center was well worth the time and money spent!!

Later that day we took a major hike down to the main area of the park to check out the temperature in the pool (still too cold!!) and the clubhouse. There was a April birthday celebration and pot luck planned which we were lucky enough to take part in....delicious food and wonderful chocolate cake. Too soon Friday came and we packed up to go home. Back at Soboba Springs (our home) the girls were finally able to swim in a warm pool. Our pool is being kept at a comfortable 82 and even Ed and I jumped in for a little swim around.

Creation Day

I've just started a new blog after being absent from blogging for quite awhile. I'm excited about our future travels. We'll be leaving soon to start our meander north up California and Oregon to Washington. In Washington, we'll pick up three young beauties (our granddaughters) and head for Yellowstone and Mt. Rushmore. We'll post descriptions, short stories and pictures as we travel. Should be interesting......!!