Wake up at 6:45, tend the park, bike around town, go wine tasting, find the closest pet store, set up yard, close park.  Feel the burn in your legs from walking the park, biking several miles, and working outside.  Feel the fresh air blow through your hair and the sun warm your skin.  Relax at night with thoughts of the next day.

Ramona, CA is a town that was made for us.  Everyone is so welcoming and the small-town feel is awesome; the town is small enough to be regulars at a place and have people know your name but large enough to have everything you need.  We worked our first park shift on Wednesday and it seemed to go well!  We are training ourselves to wake up earlier in the morning, giving us time to have a small bite to eat and some coffee before completing our opening routine at the park.

After we open up, we come back and make a bigger breakfast/lunch.  On Wednesday, we biked around town to explore where things were.  I finally got my bike fixed again after it was destroyed (for a second time) on the back of the Jeep.  We visited the local feed stores and dreamed about having chickens one day; one of the stores had babies and they were so cute it was hard to resist!  We had fun planning out what our chicken coop will be like when the day comes.  We also checked out what kind of pet food is available in the immediate area and, like the dork that I am, I compared prices and ingredients from place to place.  PetSmart trained me well.

We found a thrift store that sells books for $0.69!  We stocked up on 13 new books and juggled them on our bikes on the way home.  We’ve been wine tasting twice now but at the same place, so I guess you can’t say we did a tasting the second time, we just had a glass of wine!  When we rode up on our bikes, the woman running the tasting room flung open the door and said, “Andy and Angie are here!”  We felt like regulars even though we have only been there once before and it was an amazing feeling.

When people find out that we are the new hosts, they immediately open themselves up, introducing themselves and others, welcoming us to Ramona.  We’ve gotten tips on where to eat, where to shop, where to hike.  Everyone seems so truly happy here and we just ride on the wave of good vibes and pleasant company.

The downsides: since this is a day park, there are no camp showers so we had to convert our greenhouse/soap curing space back into an actual shower.  So there is a temporary halt on soap producing until we figure out where to set it all up and we are getting used to showering in our home.  We thought that being at a park in town would bother us because of all the noise (road noise, etc.).  We have found that this isn’t the case at all!  Eventually, we will find our plot of land in the woods and build a home in the middle of nowhere but for now we are having fun visiting with people and getting to know our new community!

An update on our hydraulic spring: we are ordering the part for it but now more of a fix needs to be done; we are leaking hydraulic fluid at quite a fast rate.  For now, we have the front jacks retracted so that it doesn’t leak but that means that our home feels like the vehicle it is as it shifts side to side with movement.  It’s not bad really, just a bit more rocky.  Once the part comes in and Andy works his magic, we will be back to four jacks down and fully stable!

Another piece of the RV that broke: one of our nice living room blinds.  They are pricey to replace so we will see if it can be repaired.  We love having the double-blinds for more options with light and privacy.

Today we started cleaning up our yard and garden areas.  We found some pretty interesting bugs while moving the wooden pallets around (some of them were more terrifying than interesting—like the piles of cockroaches and earwigs).

We’ve started planning what we want to plant and where to put things.  It’s starting to come along!  We spent some time picking up the yard and getting rid of anything that could hurt the dogs, including these wonderful pokey things:

We set up our picnic table with a new table cloth and Piper immediately tore a hole in it.  The perks of having dogs I guess.  But they are really enjoying the yard!  And we are really enjoying not having to harness them up just to take them to the bathroom!

I wanted to include a video of the dogs enjoying their new yard so enjoy!

And one of Ellie, begging to go outside and roll in the dirt: