“Platter” and a couple of new guys. The one “original” was a guy who had joined the group in the early 70's as the lead singer (the third in the group’s history). Since he had been a member of the original group he had the legal right to use the name. They also had a woman, who had a great voice. They didn’t only sing Platter’s songs, they did a lot of stuff from the 50's and 60's and let each of the four singers do a couple of numbers as lead. The woman and the bass guy were great. When they did the Platter’s tunes the original guy sang lead and I didn’t care for him. I didn’t think he really sounded like the original group. Jackie thought they were pretty good.On Sunday morning Barry came over to help us move the coach from the fairgrounds down to the Elk’s Lodge (about 3 miles) where we were going to be staying for the next 10 days. We got out of the fairgrounds easily because they opened a gate right near where we were parked so we didn’t have to drive all the way through the grounds and all the coaches parked all over the place. However, when we arrived at the Elks, the place was in chaos. A lot of people leaving the rally who were Elks were looking for a place to stay, or a place to dump, or both. The motorhome traffic was backed up out to the street. We were supposed to relieve Tom and Joan as park hosts, however, because they were so busy they had not been able to move their coach out of the host’s spot. It was two hours before Tom was able to move his coach and Barry was able to back our’s into the spot. It was a real hassle also because the host’s spot is pretty tight and we ended up having to park the coach at an angle to keep it from sticking too far out into the driveway. The part of the park where the host spot is really isn’t made for large coaches, but we got it in. It was crazy busy the rest of the day and most of the next day, however, after Monday it settled down into a pretty easy routine that, had it not been for the fact that we had to be out of the coach for work by 8:00 a.m. would have been completely enjoyable. One nice thing, the camp hosts get free lunch and dinner every day as well as free camping while they are hosting, so the week cost us nothing.
On Tuesday afternoon, Jan 13th, we went to doctor to get the stitches taken out of my surgery area. However, the doctor wanted to wait another week or so to let the wounds heal and dry out some more. He told us to stop putting any ointment on the site and just let it dry. We made an appointment to come back the following Monday so the nurse could remove the stitches. He did tell me that the pathology from the tissue removed in the second surgery came back completely negative for suspicious cells, so the cancer had not spread beyond the original mole. Good news.
The rest of the week as hosts went kind of slow because we really couldn’t go anywhere. On Sunday we moved our coach to another spot to open up the host spot for Paul and Barbara Mueller, our replacements. They had been on a camp out with the Desert Drifters and were coming back on Sunday afternoon. Finally, on Monday morning, we were relieved as camp hosts and could sleep in for the first time in a week. YEA! That afternoon we went back to the doctor and the nurse took out my stitches. She really had to work and pick at the wounds because several of the stitches had actually healed over and she had to remove the scabs and skin to get at them. Although the incisions are healed well, she made me a little sore with the picking. This also meant that I could now take a real full shower for the first time in two weeks. I have been taking sponge baths from the waist up - it was nice to be able to just stand under the water again.
Tuesday morning I took the coach down to the tire store in Thousand Palms to have the tires rotated. The two front tires were showing some bad wear on the outside edges and one appeared to be out of balance type wear. I had them remove the two front tires and put them on the right rear and had the two right rear tires put up front and balanced. Hopefully that will help the tires last at least through our Alaska trip this summer. We also had the coach washed - someone at the Elks had given us a certificate for a free wash at the truck wash which was right next door to the tire shop.
On Wednesday morning we packed up to leave the Elks and head East to Quartzsite, Arizona for a five day stay during the big RV show. As I was checking the tire pressures before leaving the Elks I found that one of the rear tires that had been changed from the front the day before was down to 38 pounds from 110 yesterday. That means a leak. Duh! I filled the tire back to 110 pounds and we made a brief detour to the tire store again. Turns out the braided extension for the tire was leaking. They took that off of the tire stem and no more leak. Now I have to find a new extension because they sure make it easier to check the pressure and fill the dual tires on the back axle.
We hit the freeway from Thousand Palms finally headed to Quartzsite and I drove the coach up the Chiriaco grade East out of Indio, then pulled into the rest stop at the top of the hill. At that point I turned the helm over to Jackie for her first taste of actually driving the coach. She was
VERY nervous at the beginning and I told her to just relax, set the cruise for 55 and get the feel of the coach. For the first 15 minutes she had a death grip on the wheel which caused her to weave in the lane a little as she over corrected - however, after the first 15 minutes she started to relax, got the feel for the center of the lane and did very well. She said she was still nervous, a quote was “the bottom of my feet are sweating”, but she did good. She has only driven the coach very short distances in an RV park in the past and we decided that she needed to at least learn enough to be able to handle the coach in a situation where I can’t drive. My surgery brought that to mind because we weren’t sure at first how long I wouldn’t be able to drive. Anyway, she drove for a little over an hour, a total of 63 miles on the freeway, then pulled into the rest area just West of Blythe to turn the helm back over to me. Hooray for Jackie!We pulled into Quartzsite and our RV park late in the afternoon, so we didn’t do anything on Wednesday. Although thousands of Rvers travel to Quartzsite and boondock in the desert, we
had decided we wanted hookups on this trip so we had reservations at the RV park in town. Good thing we made our reservations early (back in July) because several of our friends tried to find a place to stay at a park in town a couple weeks before the show and there were no vacancies anywhere in town. On Thursday we headed over to what is called the “big tent” which is where all the RV oriented vendors set up during the RV show. We walked around the tent for a couple hours, bought a few odds and ends and met some friends. We had lunch with Ray and Suzie Babcock, the new VP of the 100%ers and our other friends, Gary and Ramona Wilson, who were camping with them out in the Desert. Later that night we met up with the four of them again at Silly Al’s Pizza for dinner.On Friday we headed out to the Tyson Wells shopping area which is basically a huge swap meet type area. Took us most of the afternoon to do that area. Friday night we went to a restaurant called the Grubstake North of town on Highway 95. On Fridays they do an all you can eat fish
fry. I have never seen a plate of fish and chips as big as what they give you there. Although it is all you can eat, the first plate was truly all I could eat. We met some new friends there, some folks we met at the Elks Lodge the week before with whom we had some mutual friends. We had a very enjoyable evening, including some karaoke after dinner. Saturday we did some more shopping and also did a couple of geocaches in the area late in the afternoon. On Sunday we did some serious geocaching finding a total of 15 caches. One of the caches was the tomb of Hi Jolly, a 19th century camel herder who worked for the US Calvalry. In the 1800's the Army tried using camels for transportation in the desert. That night we had some Mexican food in town and went back to prepare to leave for Casa Grande on Monday.Monday morning we headed to Casa Grande, Arizona and one of our Western Horizon’s parks for a two week stay. My original plan was to let Jackie drive again for a little while, but the wind was blowing pretty strong and I didn’t want to put too much on her plate too early. We are now settled into the Casa Grande park and ready to enjoy a two week stay. At this point we plan to go up to Phoenix a couple times because we need to visit my mom and two brothers who live up there. Ken lives in Goodyear and Dennis lives in Cottonwood, up north, but he comes down to Phoenix frequently to visit my mom who has Alzheimer’s and is confined to bed in a home out in Surprise, Arizona, a Northwestern suburb of Phoenix. We will also arrange to visit my daughter, Tye, and son, Roy, who live in Glendale, along with several of my grandkids and great grandkids. We will report on all those visits in our next blog episode.
Until the next time, enjoy life - it’s a journey, not a destination.
