Hemet, CA January, 2016

January through April 2016

Hemet, CA, located 42 miles from Palm Springs, CA, 98 miles from LAX, 85 miles from San Diego, and 62 miles from the ocean was our home for four months.   

We have planned to come here for a few years now, hearing about it over the last few years from our friends Barry and Kathy Bilderback, from Wenatchee.  There are a lot of fun things to do here, and we jumped in with both feet.  

There are lots of activities in this park.  There is water volleyball and sand volleyball, pickle ball, which we had a lot of fun learning and playing, they had regular entertainment come in.  We went to a couple of concerts.  They also have pool parties every couple weeks where they have live bands and food vendors come in.  There is shuffle board, a nice big work out room with lots of equipment, and regular classes if you want to do that.  They have Farmer's Market at the park every Tuesday and it goes on!  Here are some pictures of the park:

There are also a lot of great places to motorcycle ride around Hemet and we got a lot of rides in.    These pictures are from our ride over the Ortega Highway  looking back at Lake Elsinore.  Beautiful ride over a windey road and you end up at Dana Pointe on the beach.  Beautiful place!

John and Renee with Kathy and Barry Bilderback

In January we went to Oceanside to visit sister-in-law Ruth Zirkle who was visiting the area.  She rented a great condo right on the ocean and near the Marina.

Look closely you can see all the surfers out in the water waiting for a good wave!

Here are some pictures of a pickle ball tournament we played in at a resort in Indio.  It is really a fun game.  A cross between pingpong and tennis.  Easy to play, but can get quite competitive.

Here is John in the bright green shirt.

While we were in Hemet, we also got a couple opportunities to visit some of our friends fromWashington.  This picture was taken in the Palm Springs area where we met up with Doug and Lynn Pederson and Marv and Nelda Stierlen.  Great people, taught us a lot of great card games.  Anybody want to play?

We also went to a museum in the Palm Dessert area with Marv and Nelda and their daughter and son-in-law.

 

Other friends that visited us while we were in Hemet were Tim and Shirley Erickson.  We had a great couple of days with them. I hope they will come back again next year,  I think they would love the retirement lifestyle of our park.  Thanks for comingTim and Shirley.

Another fun thing we did was go to Balboa Park to ride bicycles along the boardwalk.  We did this with a few new friends we met at the Park, Dave and Sherry and Grant and Thea, and our friends Barry and Kathy.  John had to rent a bike since his got stolen, so you can see he is having fun with this old time bicycle!

John and I spent a day in Palm Springs.  We did a little shopping at the Outlet Mall and then went into town and played a little mini-golf, then went to the Thursday night street fair.  If you are in Palm Springs, it is an every Thursday night thing, you should take it in.  Lots of vendors and lots to see.  

 

We also got to spend a day in Palm Springs with Dean Willows and his girlfriend Judy.  We went to Shermans Deli, it was great food and amazing desserts!

John and I went to Sea World for a day.  It was just like I remembered minus the water skiers!  But it was fun and we enjoyed spending the day near the beach.

 

 


And, who can be so close to Disneyland and not take a quick day trip there!  We got there at 8:30 a.m. and stayed until 9:00 p.m.  We got a hopper pass and went on all my favorite rides and then some.  Can't miss Soar'in, Cars, Pirates of the Caribbean, or the Parade.  We logged over 8 miles according to my cell phone app.  Great day!   Thanks Barry and Kathy for the invite, I had a great time!

The end of March, Renee went on a girls trip to Puerto Vallarta to help Ruth Zirkle celebrate her 60th birthday.  What an amazing time.  Here are just a few of the many pictures we got from this really fun girls week!  Thanks Ruth for such a great time.

 

Puerto Vallarta Extreme Adventures

 

 

Swimming with the Dolphins!

Another great night was our Birthday Dinner party at Casa St.Angel's restaurant in old town Puerto Vallarta.  They have a wonderful mariachi band on Friday ad Saturday nights.  Well worth making this night a priority if you go to PV. This is the view from our table at the restaurant.

Ruth being serenaded for her special day!

After my trip to Puerto Vallarta to celebrate Ruth Zirkle's birthday, and a drive home to Olympia for John to do some snowmobiling, John brought Ethan and Bella back with him and they spent spring break with us.  

Another fun thing we did before leaving Hemet was to go to the Outlaws Races at the Paris, CA Speedway.  Lots of races and cars.  Really Fun!!

We had some more fun adventures with our grandkids! See the Spring Break Post for pictures!

Just before we left Hemet to head north we visited our friends Erin and Kelsey Sass down in Oceanside and got to spend Sunday with their family and Erin's parents our friends Larry and Shirley Sullivan.  Great day, Great bar-b-cue!  

The end of April we took off out of Hemet to head North!  Stay tuned for more adventures!













What an amazing time we have had in southern California.  Love having the time to go exploring and visit with friends,  Retirement is GREAT!  Loving our new lifestyle!