For those who are not familiar, geocaching is essentially a high tech scavenger/treasure hunt. A "cache" is usually a hidden container of some sort which normally holds a logbook. Depending on the size of the container, it may also contain
"swag" or trinkets and booty of any kind. Caches can vary from micro (film canister for instance) to small (Altoids tin) to normal, which can be a large Tupperware container, ammo box, gallon sized plastic container, etc. Usually they are camouflaged in some way. Any member of the geocaching community can hide a cache. When the cache is hidden, they use a GPS device to determine the GPS coordinates of the hiding place and then post the cache on the community's web site, geocaching.com. The entry on the web site will give the name of the cache (usually a hint in itself of where the cache is), the GPS coordinates, and usually a description of the type of cache, size, contents (when first placed) and general location information.Other geocachers then access the information on the web site, download the coordinates into their own GPS devices, and try to find the cache. If the cache is found, the finders sign the
logbook in the cache and rehide it. If the cache is big enough, they may leave some little trinket. Our first few caches we left some ladybug buttons. You can also take something out of the cache if you leave something. We have seen all sorts of odd and interesting "swag" in caches. After an geocaching expedition, you go onto the web site and log in your finds. The web site keeps track of the logs and lets everyone know who has found what caches, and when.While we were in Desert Hot Springs we purchased a moderately priced Magellen handheld GPS, set up our geocaching account name (we are the TravelingHolts, same as this blog) and did our first searches. We found about six within a mile or two of Desert Pools. As of today, we are up to 34 finds and have searched in Desert Hot Springs, Banning and Idyllwild areas, as well as along Highway 243 between Banning and Idyllwild. We have found this to be an excellent and interesting hobby that gets us out of the coach and into the great outdoors (Yikes! Exercise??) We really enjoy it and look forward to doing it as we take our summer trip back to the Midwest.
One interesting development took place the last week of our stay at Desert Hot Springs. I (Roy) had been dealing what what I believed to be a sinus infection since January. I had periodic intense pain on the right side of my face, right behind my nose. Since we had both had very bad colds (or flu) in January, I assumed that something had "stuck" in my sinuses. While we were in Lancaster in February I went to the urgent care and the doctor there agreed that it was probably sinuses, and prescribed an antibiotic. Nothing changed, I still had the periodic pain. Then in March Jackie needed to go to the doctor for a pneumonia shot so she suggested I go to urgent care there to see what they could do. After giving the doctor my symptoms, and answering a bunch of questions, he finally said that he was pretty sure that I was suffering from "Tic Douloureux" which is a condition involving the nerves in the face. The medical name for the condition is trigeminal neuralgia. The symptoms are basically a sharp, almost electric-like pain around the nose area whenever certain "trigger" points are touched. The triggers can be anywhere on the affected side of the face. (The condition only affects one side) My major trigger points were the lip, cheek and eye. If I touched any of these places, even a light touch, I would feel the very sharp pain in my nose area. It makes it very difficult to eat and even talk when having a flareup.
Apparently there are generally two causes for the condition, the more common being an unexplained inflammation of the nerve, the less common being a tumor of some sort. So, just to be on the safe side, the doc sent me that afternoon for an MRI. Fortunately, the MRI was normal, thereby disproving occasional accusations by my dad that I did not have a brain in my head. The doctor put me on a medication that is normally for epileptic seizure disorders which has also been shown to help my condition. He also referred me to a Neurologist who confirmed the diagnosis a couple weeks later. As of the date of this posting my pain is pretty much gone and the only major trigger point is around my right eye. The doctor has me on an increasing dosage of the medication with instructions that when the pain is gone I level out at that dose. I think I am getting pretty close. There is no cure for the condition, only treatment - I hope I can keep it under control.
On Wednesday, the 19th of March we left Desert Hot Springs and headed up into the mountains above Banning to Silent Valley. Silent Valley is a large time-share type RV resort which we had bought into about five years ago, before we went full-time. We can stay at the resort for up to 120 days per year at no cost other than the yearly maintenance assessment. Owners can stay for up to 30 days and then have to leave for at
least 10 days before they can come back. The resort is about 10 miles up State Route 243, the road that runs between Banning and Idyllwild. The park is at about 3,500 feet so the weather is a little cooler than down in the desert area. This is the resort at which we were staying in October of 2006 when the forest fire came through and trapped us in the park for a couple days. It is a very nice park with big sites, full hookups, a bar, restaurant, store and activity centers. We really enjoy staying here and plan to spend our full 30 days this spring and come back in October, after our summer trip, for another 30 days.The day we arrived I noticed while we were setting up camp that I had a problem with the electricity. It seemed that only half the coach was getting 120 while I was plugged into the shore power. When I started the generator I had good power all over the coach. I spent about two hours trying to troubleshoot the problem and then all of a sudden everything was working normally. A few days later, in the morning, the problem popped up again. Again, before I could figure out what was going on, it started working again. A few days later it went out again and this time stayed out. After about four hours of work, several telephone conversations with RV technicians, I found out that the reel used to store the shore power cord had gone bad. One of the brushes in the reel which transfer the power from the shore power cord to the coach itself had burned and pitted and was no longer transferring current when in certain positions. That was why the problem would go away, apparently I had moved the reel by bumping it or something, moving the burned brush to a new location which allowed current to flow. Since the reel was not repairable, I just removed it from the coach, connected the shore power cord directly to the coach input and now all is well.
We have had a great time up here - Barry and Colleen came up and spent a couple nights with us and we have gone down to the valley to visit friends and take care of various errands. We have also done geocaching on several days as there are several hundred caches within 10 miles of the park. One day we drove down to San Diego to visit Jackie's mom. Had a very nice visit. Her Aunt Donna, who lives in Pismo Beach, was also down in San Deigo. The picture shows (L-R) Jackie, her mom, Bev, her brother, Dennis, and her aunt Donna. Dennis also lives in San Diego. One
Sunday we drove to Garner Valley, which is South of Idyllwild to the Pathfinder Retreat closing ceremony. Pathfinder was the church sponsored retreat program which Jackie and I were pretty heavily involved in prior to our selling the house and going on the road. The group has retreats two or three weekends a year. The retreats, which go from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon, are very spiritual and uplifting. Jackie had been involved with the group for about 20 years and I got involved shortly after I moved to the desert in 98. The closing ceremony on Sunday is very moving and since we were so close (only about 30 miles) we decided to go and see our old friends. We had a very nice afternoon.As of this writing we have a little less than a week to go here at Silent Valley. The weather has been generally good, cool for the most part with evening temps in the 30's. Just today it has started to warm up, although it has been very windy on many of the days up here. Nonetheless, we have really enjoyed our time here and look forward to coming back in October. When we leave here on the 17th of April we will be heading for Laughlin for a rally with our old friends in the Indio Elks Lodge RV club. We used to travel quite a bit with this group when we had the house and the small RV. We will be in Laughlin for three days and then we start our summer trip back east.
Our first stop is one of our membership resorts near St. George, Utah. We will be there a week. This resort is less than a hundred miles from a couple of National Parks, including Zion and Bryce Canyon, so we will have a good time sightseeing. We will then be going east through Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri and into Indiana, where we have reservations to attend the Indy 500. After that its up through Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota. In July we have a whole series of rallies in Minnesota, the same groups that we rallied with in February in California. This journey will be right at six thousand miles by the time we get back into Nevada in September. We are really looking forward to the trip (except for the fuel costs!) and I am sure that I will have blog material out the ying yang for our readers to enjoy.
Until the next time, this is the TravelingHolts bidding you a great day!
