The campground we were staying at had a small fishing lake. This lake was right in front of our site and the kids enjoyed fishing a couple of times. Tyler caught a big catfish and was sad to let it go (catch and release only), he wanted to eat it :)!
This next thing may not sound like much to most people, or it may even sound like an annoyance (they were loud)...we liked watching the huge military helicopters that flew back and forth over the campground. The kids thought they were really cool :).
We went to the mall for the boys to all get haircuts. Audrey decided she wanted her hair cut short while we were there, so she got hers washed, cut, and styled. The lady that did it was super nice and friendly, Audrey loved it :)! After the haircuts, we went walking around the mall. The kids spotted a carousel and some of them took a ride on it. Little sillies :)...
Ya'll, the food...the food was SO GOOD! We ate out way too much and I don't regret it the slightest bit :)! We made a few return trips to the little taco stand we visited on the first night and the fish tacos were fabulous each time. We had heard about something that is unique to the Imperial Valley called a special quesadilla and we had to try one. A special quesadilla is made from a raw flour tortilla that is loaded up with lots of quesadilla cheese. It is then folded in half, the edges are crimped shut, and it is quickly deep fried. So good and so bad at the same time ;), a delicious treat. Another restaurant that we liked was Sombrero's. The tamales and chimichangas were really good. They also had a salsa bar with spicy pickled carrots. We had to try them :), they were very good (I was shocked).
Our plans were to stay in El Centro through Christmas. We spent Thanksgiving there and just didn't feel like it was where we wanted to spend Christmas. Not because of the town, the town itself was fine. Because of the campground we were staying at. We had booked it without really reading up on it...big mistake. The park was mostly full time residents, there were probably three other sites in the section we were staying that had people like us who were only there for a little while. The full time residents weren't very welcoming of us and we didn't know why...until one day a man told Dan (nicely, but still...) that the park was supposed to be for ages 55+. Oh no! We had no idea that the park was age restricted, the people in the office never said a word to us. We always try to be as respectful as possible of everyone's feelings, but this situation had us feeling like we had to really tip-toe around. So, we made the decision to just leave. We had paid for a month and only stayed for about 10 days...no refund (which is standard at most parks). We learned a big lesson...do your homework :)! We should have spent more time checking the park out online since we planned to stay for about 5 weeks and spend Christmas there. On the bright side, the rate we were charged for the month was such an excellent price that it worked out to be pretty much what we would have been charged for 10 nights at any other campground. Live and learn...
We too have learned not to pay up for a month in advance until we have been there a couple days. We are currently in a campground that seemed nice through the week, but then on the weekend it became packed with some undesirables. The plus is that there are only 8 weekend days in a month :) From now on we are going to stay in a place a couple nights and then pay up for the month if we like it.
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