bands playing and a motorcycle drill team. All and all not a bad festival for a small desert town. We had a good time. Couldn't resist taking the picture shown here. This propane business was just down the road from our RV park. The Passmore Gas Company! Too Funny!Other than doing some more caching and playing poker one more time, we didn’t do too much more while at Salome. We were originally scheduled to leave Salome on Tuesday and go directly to Yucaipa, California, about 50 miles West of Indio. However, we found out that a friend of ours, Lynette Bollier was doing a Cajun party at the Indio Elks Lodge on Tuesday night, which also happens to be Fat Tuesday, the start of Mardi Gras. In addition, our Elks RV club, the Indio Desert Drifters, were holding their monthly meeting right after the party. Since we had decided that we wanted to go with the Drifters on their April outing to Borrego Springs, we thought we needed to attend the meeting to be sure we got signed up for the outing. With all these considerations, we decided to leave Salome one day early, on Monday, and delay our arrival in Yucaipa until Wednesday, and stay two nights at the Indio Elks Lodge’s RV park. So that’s what we did - we left Salome on Monday, the 23rd and drove the 150 miles to Indio and settled into the park early in the afternoon. That gave us time to do some shopping at Costco and Wally World since we had been out in the boonies away from large stores for the last two weeks. We also got to visit with our friends Barry and Colleen that evening. The next night we went to the party and had some great gumbo, met all our old Elks RV friends and had a great time.
That Tuesday night we went to bed knowing that we had to get up the next morning for the long 50 mile drive from Indio to Yucaipa. At one in the morning my phone rang and it was my
brother Dennis letting me know that my mother had just passed away back in Phoenix. He told me that he had been with her at the end and that she went quietly and peacefully. While sad, I knew in my heart that she was now in a better place having seen how she had to spend the last six years wasting away. Alzheimer’s is a horrible disease that robs you of your loved ones while still leaving the shell. I certainly hope that they find a cure for it soon. My mother came from a family of 12, of which eight were girls. To the best of my knowledge, all of the girls in the family who lived past 60 developed Alzheimer’s. My mother was the youngest of the family, so my memories of my older aunts is fuzzy, but I do remember as a very small child hearing talk about my older aunts being talked about as "senile" or even crazy. I remember very clearly my aunt Betty and aunt Bernice going into homes and suffering just as my mother did later. None of the men in the family seemed to develop the condition, so I am not as frightened of what may come in my later years as I know my mother was. I know she knew what was coming and had to be scared, but she never let it show. She just drifted into it, slowing losing everything that was mom, leaving us many years before she actually died. Rest in peace Mom, we love you.The next morning, Wednesday, we sadly packed up and headed to Yucaipa Regional Park. We have stayed here and written about this facility before. It is a very nice San Bernardino County park with full 50 amp hookups. The sites are widely spaced and there is a lot of green. Our reservation at the park was for 12 days, although we had already given up one day by coming in a day late. Since we had no clear idea as to when my mother’s funeral in Phoenix would be, we checked in and paid for the entire reservation. The next day, Thursday we did some chores and laundry and just hung around the coach. On Friday we spent several hours caching in the area and ended up doing about 15 caches, one of our more productive days. We also got a call from Dennis that the viewing for my mother would be on Tuesday, March 3rd in the evening and the memorial service would be the next morning. With that information we made reservations at an RV park in Goodyear, Arizona, very close to where my brother Ken lives. We decided to drive over to Phoenix on Monday and leave on Friday. Fortunately, Jackie contacted the County Park Headquarters and explained our situation and they gave us a credit for the six days we weren’t going to use at Yucaipa. While not a refund, it is good for a future stay and we will probably come back here for at least a week in the Fall after our trip north. Kudos to the San Bernardino County Park folks for being understanding and reasonable.
On Saturday morning, the 28th, we headed out early for San Diego to spend some time with Jackie’s mom. We got there in time to take her out to lunch and then some shopping at the local mall in National City, South of San Diego. We took her back to her group home and chatted for a while before heading back up to Yucaipa. Beverly just turned 90 and is doing pretty well. She has a little trouble walking and uses a walker, but she still wants to get up and out from time to time. While she has some memory issues, they are typical age losses and nothing even close to Alzheimer’s or dementia. The next day we stayed around the coach getting ready for heading to Phoenix on Monday morning. We normally don’t drive over 200 miles with the coach in one day, but we knew that we needed to do the nearly 300 miles to Phoenix in one hop, so we planned to leave about 9 in the morning, which is VERY early for us! Not only was it a six hour drive, but we lost an hour going from Pacific time to Mountain time. The drive went well and we checked into the RV park, Cotton Lane RV Resort, in Goodyear about 4:30 local time. We didn’t visit with any family because we found out after we got there that all of my brothers and their kids and grandkids had driven up to Cottonwood, North of Phoenix about a 100 miles, to spend the day with my brother Dennis who lives there. My brother David and his family, who live in Virginia Beach, Virginia, had driven in for the funeral and were staying with Dennis. Russ, my brother in Vegas had driven down with his daughter and had been staying with Ken in Goodyear, but they had all driven up to Cottonwood that morning. It was far too late for us to drive up there, so we missed the early family reunion.
The next day was very difficult. We went to the funeral home for the viewing at about 3:00 pm. The viewing was scheduled to last until 8:00. Mom looked at peace for the first time in many years, but it was still very emotional and difficult to say goodbye. Over the course of the next couple hours almost all of the immediate family came for the viewing. Mom had five sons, twelve grandchildren, thirteen great grandchildren, and two great great grandchildren. Of these 32 immediate descendants, only two of the grandchildren and one of the great great grandkids were not at the viewing. In addition, there were the various spouses and significant others of the family. Since mom had been pretty much isolated by her condition since my dad died in 2002, we didn’t expect too many others besides family. The man who ran the hospice in which she
spent her last five years and took care of her, did come to the viewing and brought his entire family to the memorial. While these viewings are very difficult emotionally, it was also a time for reunion for our family because we are very widespread and don’t get together very often. In fact, the last time all five sons and their families were together was in November of 2002 when my dad died. One very nice touch that made the viewing easier was a video slide show Dennis had put together from mom’s old photo albums. He had over 200 pictures from 1920's, when mom was born, all the way up to 2002 when dad died. Having this program run gave everyone a natural outlet for conversation and reminiscing about the happy times. I am very grateful to Dennis for all the work he did in putting this nice presentation together. It allowed people to focus on the good times rather than the immediate loss. Among the pictures were the portrait of mom from the mid-1950's above and the picture of mom and me from 1954 shown here. Thank you Dennis, for this and everything else you have done the last seven years for mom and the family.The next morning, 10:00 a.m. was the memorial service. The entire family, as well as a number of other friends and acquaintances, gathered to say goodbye to LaVerne Disch, matriarch of the
Holt/Disch clan. The pastor of the Lutheran Church in Phoenix they used to attend officiated at the memorial. Although he never met my mom, he did a great job on the memorial. Dennis and Ken picked out some good music and it was a very moving service. Mom will be cremated and ashes buried at sea in the same area as dad was seven years ago. After the memorial everyone gathered the flowers and headed to Goodyear and Ken’s house for the wake.Ken and his wife, Susan, did a great job with the wake. Like most wakes, this one became a celebration of mom’s life and a grand reunion of the family. Hundreds of pictures were taken of
the various permutations that come with four generations gathering together. Although Ken and Susan don’t have any kids of their own, they went out and got some stuff to keep the little ones busy and also put on some great food and drink. At one point we all (adults anyway) had a final toast to mom to help her on her way to heaven. Finally, around dark, the family and friends who had gathered started to disburse. We went back to our coach to relax after two very difficult days.The next day, Thursday, we invited Ken, David and Russ and their families to come over to our coach for snacks and drinks. Dennis had gone back up to Cottonwood, but the rest of us spent another several enjoyable hours talking about
our childhoods, mom, families and all the stuff that brothers and their families discuss. Finally it was time to say goodbye for now. David and his family started the long drive back to Virginia on Friday, we headed back to California Friday morning, and Russ and his daughter went back to Las Vegas on Saturday. We all vowed to try to get together more often and no only when someone dies. I hope that it works out and we can stay in closer touch with each other. We have a great family and need to celebrate that as often as we can.Our drive back to Indio was uneventful and, since we had given up our spot in Yucaipa and received a credit, we went back to the Indio Elks Lodge for another couple of nights. Friday night we met with Bill and Lynette for drinks and dinner at Cactus Jacks. Saturday afternoon we went over to Barry and Colleen’s place. The gals played cards, Barry and Roy talked and drank, and we went for a nice boat ride on their little private lake. A very pleasant evening after a tough week.
Sunday morning we headed for Desert Hot Springs and Western Horizon’s Desert Pools RV Resort. It was a long 25 mile trip, but we made it! We got settled into a nice spot right near the clubhouse. We will be here for two weeks before heading up to Silent Valley, our park in the mountains above Banning. Things have been pretty quiet for us here for the first part of our stay. The first four days we only left to run a few errands, do laundry and some shopping at Costco and Wally World. (We ran out of Absolute and THAT absolutely cannot be allowed!!) Thursday I took the car down into Cathedral City to Barry’s shop to have the front wheel bearings replaced. They have been making a terrible racket and I wanted to get them fixed before the big summer trip. After I got back we went out and did some local geocaching. We found 11 caches all within a few miles of the park. Had to do some desert driving, but we have started to enjoy that.
Well that brings us up to date gang. I will probably post again in a few weeks while we are up in Silent Valley. Until then - happy life!
