Palm Sunday 2012

Since it was Palm Sunday yesterday, we thought we would try one of the local churches. The Presbyterian church is almost within walking distance and it has been years since we attended one of those services. It was an excellent choice as the service was one that was very unique to us.

This church - Grace Presbyterian Church - had two services. The first one, and also called the Traditional service , started at 9 AM and the second service, which was called the Contemporary service, started at 10:30 AM. We can't imagine what the second service was like, but the first one was about as contemporary as you can get. The Pastor was very interactive with his wireless microphone and there was a screen that projected the whole service - words to all the passages, and hymns, and even a video about Jesus' journey into Jerusalem with the donkey.

There was Communion which was performed while the congregation stayed in their pews - a procedure that we had forgotten is unique to the Presbyterian Communion services.

Following the service was a "parade" on the patio behind the church. The parade depicted Jesus' entry into Jerusalem:

He then gave a mini sermon to the children who were gathered around him:

That was complete with biblical characters portrayed by other members of the congregation:

It was a wonderful service and experience and we will most likely return to this church for services that we attend while here in Vista.

Following church, we traveled to two of the Thousand Trails Preserves that we wanted to check out for storing and basing our fifth wheel for days that we have off. The first one - Oaksanita Springs - was in the hills east of San Diego and about 1.5 hours from our community. It was very nice, but it wasn't "big-rig friendly". In other words, the roads were narrow and some of the turns were very sharp and some of the sites were located on top of steep inclines. Our conclusion was that we would pass on this one.

The second Preserve - Pio Pico - is another preserve located in the foothills just southeast of San Diego. It is about 1.25 hours from Vista and was exceptionally nice. There is plenty of storage space and the sites are a nice size and will probably be our choice for moving our fifth wheel. There is a special on now for monthly storage - $65 vs $167 where we now have it located. Combined with the money we save by camping for free when we are off vs paying for other private campgrounds, it's a no-brainer for making the move. We just pull it out of storage, set it up on a site and place it back in storage before heading home. We will move the rig to this location next weekend - probably. Our only hesitation is that it is in the opposite direction from all of the other communities if we get transferred for any reason. It is definitely better than the other option up north near Hemet, and will be cooler in the summer months. We'll see what happens with that.

Nothing is planned for today except some local errands and enjoying our last full day off this week...