PICKLEBALL AT TT WILDERNESS LAKES, CA

October 10 – We are really enjoying ourselves again at Wilderness Lakes!! We have run into some Pickleball players here. While there are not many there are enough for an enjoyable morning of play!! They begin playing at 8 AM!! A little early for us, but we are trying.

Some of the players we already know from years past. And we’ve met some new friends on the courts.

Al and Ken. Al is the Ranger who met us when we came into the Preserve. We have known him for years.

Anthony and Edie. Edie lives in the surrounding area and comes over to play. We have known her for years from playing here at Wilderness Lakes. Anthony is a relatively new player but he’s a good player and really loves the game!!

Good game guys!! It’s great to be back!!

(I snuck in for the next picture!!)

Carolyn and Junior. Carolyn is our friend from years ago who came into the park the same day we did. Junior is a new, young player.

Paul and Ken. We met Paul a few years ago in Florida!! Great to see one of the East Coast people out here!!

Faye and Ken.

Faye and Paul. I think I missed another shot!! Amazing!! I think I got it!!!

Something new in Hemet!! When we were last here in March 2006, the nearby town of Hemet was in the process of expanding the area around Diamond Valley Lake. Well, now we do not even recognize the place. For one thing, there is a new Parkway leading from just outside of Wilderness Lakes to the Diamond Valley Recreation Center 10 miles away. Several of the Pickleball players from Wilderness Lakes (Al, Edie and Anthony) go over to the Recreation Center to play Pickleball on Friday and Sunday mornings because a group from Hemet play regularly at that time. We joined them this past Sunday.

Here is the group that was there on Sunday with a few action shots. We could tell right away they really enjoy the game and are having a lot of fun playing. We were told that two years ago they had this beautiful facility with two new Pickleball courts but no one played. Then last year Pickleball was introduced into the Hemet Senior Games and locals began to play. Now they have this really fun group of players that get together every Friday and Sunday morning.

With Ken -

And again with me! (See - they didn't even mind having their pictures taken!!)

Anthony playing one of the young locals.

Edie held her own with the young guns!!

Some of you may recognize the silver paddle being used by Ken’s partner, Ron!! I had not seen Ron’s paddle when another player asked me where I had gotten my paddle because he wanted to get one himself. He thought it was like Ron’s who had a friend order the paddle for him from the internet. I told him that mine was made by our friend, Spike who makes the paddles himself. I offered to give him Spike’s number. When I started giving him the digits, he said it was the same number he had gotten from Ron!! I thought that was really neat!!! Someone with no connection to Happy Trails AZ, Thousand Trails, or Spike, was playing with one of Spike's paddles!! Hope we will be running into Spike and Linda sometime this winter!!

It was a fun Sunday morning. We will probably go again on Friday morning!!