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# 17 December 10, 2011
Today is the 6 month anniversary of our Walkabout.  We are currently at Wilderness Lakes TTN near Menifee, CA and enjoying nice sunny days and cool nights, but I am getting ahead of our adventure.

My last post was back in October as we were moving from Lake of the Springs TTN to Lake Minden TTN near Yuba City, CA.  While we were at Lake of the Springs the days were generally in the upper 80s and surprisingly when we went to Lake Minden on the valley floor the days were in the upper 70s.  While we were at Lake Minden they had 2 special events.  The first was hydroplane boat racing and the second was radio control boat racing

The hydroplane boats were in several classes & it was fun to watch as they raced up & down the lake.  They had drivers as young as 14 and one driver in his 80s. The RC boats were out the next weekend & raced around their course at one end of the lake.
While we were at Lake Minden we spent a couple of days geocaching & we found some very entertaining caches.  The people who put out the caches are very creative in where they place the caches & some of the caches themselves show a lot of ingenuity, creativity & workmanship. We also usually learn something about the history of the area in the descriptions of the caches.
After our 3 week stay at Lake Minden we went to Oakdale, CA where we stayed at Ron & Jan's.  They have a driveway with 2 very nice rv pads next to their house and graciously allowed us to spend 2 nights with them.  While at their place we took an afternoon to do some geocaching (do you see a pattern developing here?).  Anyway, we found some interesting caches with Ron & Jan, who are also getting involved in geocaching.

On Oct 25 we continued on our Walkabout to the Morgan Hill TTN.  Morgan Hill has a large flock of resident wild turkeys who wander through the canpsites.

We had a nice campsite & we noticed that fall had arrived.  The preserve is full of broad leaf trees that were changing color & the leaves are falling to the ground.

After we had been at Morgan Hill for a week we got an email from Ron with information about a used toolbox for the pickup bed that someone he knows wanted to sell.  We decided it was something we could use so we drove back to Oakdale & with Ron's help installed it.

Guess what? we did some geocaching while we were at Morgan Hill.  Several of the caches were at Mt. Madonna County Park.  One cache was near a pen where there were a herd of White Fallow Deer.

In 1934 William Randolph Hearst donated 2 pair of these deer to the Henry Miller estate & these are descendant of those deer.
I had spent quite awhile looking for the cache with no luck while Barbara took pictures of the deer.  After she finished with her picture taking she came to the ground zero area & quickly found the cache in a place I had already searched.

Another cache we found told the history of Charlie Parkhurst.  Charlie was a well known stagecoach driver in the 1800s, after Charlie died in 1879 it was revealed that Charlie was a woman.  We found out that Charlie was buried in Freedom, CA just down the hill between Monterrey & Santa Cruz so the next day we drove over Mt. Madonna to Freedom & searched the pioneer cemetary until we found the grave.

We saw an article in the Escapee magazine about a camping club called "Harvest Host".  This is a group of farms, wineries & ranches across the US & Canada that allow rvers to stay on their property overnight at no cost.  We looked into the organization & decided to join for an annual dues payment of $30.
We did not want to make the trip from Morgan Hill to Rancho Oso in one day so I found Rio Seco Winery at Paso Robles that participates in the Harvest Host program.  I called them to confirm that they had space for us & they said to come on down.

They showed us to a nice level place near their guest house where we had a pleasant view overlooking their vineyard.  After we got setup we went to the tasting room & while tasting their wines were told the history of the winery.  They gave us the run of the place.  That day they were bottling wine from 2007.  The owner told us that she had emailed wine club members, family & friends to ask for volunteers to help with the bottling & they had a fantastic response.  More people showed up to work than they needed so they were able to lighten everyones work. 
We were up early the next morning Nov 16 & continued to Rancho Oso TTN.  Rancho Oso is a working ranch raising cattle & they have a large area for boarding horses.

This preserve is on tiers so you overlook the tier below.

With the large window in the back of our Big Country we enjoyed our view of the hill across the Santa Ynez River.  We did some geocaching along Paradise Road from Hwy 154 to Rancho Oso.
We had an excellent Thanksgiving dinner put on by Rancho Oso.  They catered a full meal & every group was asked to bring a potluck dessert to share.  Barbara made an excellent blackberry pie.
We went into Santa Barbara & had lunch on Stearnes Wharf.  After lunch we visited the Presidio and learned about the founding of Santa Barbara.  We joined a 4th grade class from Ventura for part of their tour & heard some interesting facts about the Presdio & life in the late 1700s & early 1800s.
Then we went to the Old Mission & took the self guided tour.

 
The gardens & cemetary are peaceful & serene.  In the cemetary is a very large Australian fig tree.

On Dec 3 we went into Solvang & went through many of the stores.  Solvang is very picturesque but we did not take any pictures. On Dec 6 we left Rancho Oso and came to Wilderness Lakes TTN.  We will be here until Dec 27.