clear skies. On Friday we went out after lunch to do some caching. Because we are in a remote desert area the caches are far apart and often involve a long drive out into the desert, so we only got three caches. But it was still fun. The desert here is very picturesque. We actually drove the car out into the desert on some pretty rugged desert roads - I am starting to trust the car again. It is still running great. I no longer have a great fear of being left stranded somewhere. On Saturday, We just stayed around the coach and took care of some of our busy work. I started scanning another one of my mom and dad’s photo albums, this one dating from 1978 to 1985. I really enjoy looking at all the old pictures, brings back great memories. I did about two-thirds of the album before quitting for the day. On Sunday, November 22nd we headed out again to do some more caching. This time we were able to find five caches over the course of several hours. Monday was a stay at home day. We did some laundry and I washed the car, which had gotten pretty dirty and dusty from the running around in the desert.
Tuesday, November 24th we decided to take a drive to Wickenburg, Arizona, a nice town about 55 miles Northeast of our location on Highway 60. Wickenburg is also about 50 miles Northwest of Phoenix. Before the freeway (I-10) was built the main road from California through central Arizona and Phoenix was Highway 60, which went up through Wickenburg. It used to be known as the dude ranch capital of the world. That was back in the 60's and 70's. It is quite a bit larger now. Back in my Sheriff’s Office days I was the District Commander for a while for the patrol district that includes Wickenburg. We did some caching along the way and on the way home, finding a total of five caches. We had lunch at the Horseshoe Café in downtown Wickenburg and had a great meal. This is a very small café with breakfast and lunch only and I highly recommend it. It has been a Wickenburg landmark for many years and was recently featured in Arizona Highways magazine as one of the 10 best cafe’s in Arizona.
After having lunch we visited the Wickenburg Elks Lodge. Although we have been to Wickenburg in the past, we were never able to find the Lodge open. This time we were able to get in. We found several people in the bar and the bartender was very friendly. We were also able to get a Lodge pin for our banner. Yea! After visiting the Lodge we hit a couple more caches and did some shopping before heading back to the coach. Wednesday we didn’t do too much, just stayed around the park and relaxed. I went over and spent some time in the hot tub and pool, which was very nice.
Thursday, November 26th, Thanksgiving day. We had signed up for the Thanksgiving dinner at the park on the day we came in. At that time we were number six or seven on the list. By Thanksgiving there were over 80 people signed up to come. Since we are 60 miles from most anywhere, just about everyone in the park is planning Thanksgiving at the rec center. The park was cooking the turkey, dressing and
mashed potatoes, everyone else was supposed to bring a side dish. Jackie made her great wasabi cole slaw. The dinner was at 2:00 so we went over there with a nice bottle of wine and had a great dinner. There was tons of food and the turkey and dressing was wonderful. We had some great table conversations. One of the couples at our table were from a small town in Washington, Shelton, where we had been back in May of this year. This was the place where we found the great little steak house, The Strip. We asked them about the place and they said they had never eaten there, so we told them they really should try it. Here we were 1,500 miles away and giving advice to people about where to eat in their home town. Go figure. After dinner we were too full of food to do anything except sit around the rest of the day. I did spend some time putting together our series of travel bugs for our caching. I’m not sure if I ever mentioned travel bugs and travel coins before. There are really two basic elements to geocaching. One is the caches themselves. These are put out by other cachers and hidden. The “owner” then publishes the information on the cache on the caching website, including the GPS coordinates, and other cachers try to find the cache. They can be almost any size, from micro - the size of the end of your pinky - to large, an ammo box or small barrel. The only real rules are that they can’t be completely buried and they have to have some sort of log book. Of course, the larger caches also have “swag”, which are little trinkets or goodies that people up in the cache. You can take or leave any goodies when you find the cache.
The other element of caching are the travel items. These items have individual serial numbers just like the caches do and are tracked. Any cacher can buy a serial numbered item, usually dog tags or some type of coin or token, and then register the item on the website. Once registered the item is placed in a cache and anyone who finds it can take it and move it on to another cache. When you find a travel item you have to log it on the computer just like you do a found cache, that way the website can track the travel items. You are not supposed to keep trackables any longer than necessary to move them to another cache in another area.
We are not really permitted to place caches because the folks who run the hobby at the website like to know that the owners are going to be able to service the cache after they place it. Sometimes the containers break, the log gets full or wet, or something else happens that needs to be attended to. That is the responsibility of the owner. Since we travel all the time and almost never get anywhere more than once or twice a year, it’s not practical for us to hide a cache because we couldn’t take care of it. However, we can do trackables and now have seven that we have put into circulation. It will be fun to track them as they travel around the world.
Friday I spent several hours in the afternoon getting things taken down so we can leave Salome on Saturday. We are headed from Salome down to Winterhaven, near Yuma, Arizona. Its only about 150 miles so it should be an easy trip. Other than that, we didn’t do much.
Saturday, November 28th. Woke up this morning with major lower back pain, to the point where I can barely stand or walk without shooting pains. I had noticed on Friday when I was putting stuff away that my back was getting sore and stiff, but I didn’t give it too much thought since there was a lot of bending and reaching involved. For the first time Jackie had to do most of the outside work getting ready for our final departure, things like disconnecting the water, sewer and electric, and hooking up the car. I felt bad just standing there, but I could not bend over to do any of it and could only advise her on what to do. We finally got everything ready and we pulled out of the RV park around 11:00. We stopped in Quartzsite for fuel, which I was able to do myself since it didn’t involve any bending over, and then headed South on US-95 out of Quartzsite towards Yuma. I mention this only because I lived in Arizona for much of my life and had never been on this particular stretch of road before. Never had any reason to travel between I-10 and I-8 in this part of the state. We arrived at the Pilot Knob RV park around 3:00 and got settled in with the minimal amount of hookups. Jackie had to set up the water, power and sewer again and did a great job. I spent the rest of the night on my back in bed.
Sunday morning I woke up in real pain. I spent 90 percent of the day in bed because as long as I was lying down my back didn’t hurt too badly. Jackie went out to Sam’s Club in Yuma for an emergency vodka run, but other than that we didn’t do anything. I was really glad that the car was finally running well and acting reliably, Yuma is about 10 miles East of the park on I-10 so I didn’t have to worry too much about Jackie having car problems. By the end of the day I was feeling a little bit better, but still was having problems standing or sitting without quite a bit of pain.
Monday, November 30th I woke up feeling a little better. By lunch time I felt good enough to go ahead and go grocery shopping in Yuma. I think the walking around helped a little bit because I didn’t feel too bad most of the day. I still hurt and couldn’t bend over much at all without quite a bit of pain, but just walking was more uncomfortable than painful. We did our grocery shopping and then spent the rest of the day at the coach. Tuesday was even a little better. We went out to the mall and I spent about three hours walking around. Every day it gets just a little better. I hope to be back to normal in a few more days. We want to be able to go out and do some caching and other stuff that we can’t while my back is sprung.
Wednesday, December 2nd I finally felt almost healed. It is fortunate too, because we were invited to John and Rita Ham’s house for dinner. They are fellow Monaco owners and are also, technically, fulltimers. I say “technically” because they own a lot in the foothills area of Yuma, on the East end of town. They have a casita on the lot, but it doesn’t have a bedroom, only a living room, kitchen and bath. They park the coach next to the casita and sleep in the coach. We visited them last December when we were in Yuma. We went over to their house about 2:00 p.m. and met John and Rita and two other couples who were also there. One of them, Wilma Jean and Les we know from our FMCA travels and rallies. The other, Gary and Shirley, are also RVers, but we had never met them. Both of them are currently staying on John and Rita’s lot. John has two full hookup areas on the lot. John’s RV is in Phoenix being repaired, so he had room for both couples to stay on the lot for a while.
We had a very nice dinner. Rita made stroganoff out of some elk meat that Gary had provided, as well as noodles, rice and salad. Jackie brought over a big pot of Halibut chowder. We spent several hours visiting. Les and Wilma Jean, and John and Rita are big geocache fans. We had gone geocaching with John and some of his other friends last year. While we were there John took us out to the desert near his home to show us a very unique cache. John also had one hidden in his front yard, so our dinner visit also netted us two cache finds! We will probably cross paths with all these folks several times over the next year as we make the motorcoach rally circuit.
On Thursday we headed into Yuma to do some urban caching. We went just after lunch and in the course of a couple of hours had 12 more finds to our credit. After caching we went to the Yuma Elks Lodge for a cocktail. In the year since we last visited the lodge they completely remodeled the bar and dining area. They added a new section and moved the bar into it. They then turned the area where the old bar was into a new dining room. The new bar is much bigger than the old one, but it has lost all of its character. The old bar was a long, old fashioned wood bar with an antique mirrored back bar. The new bar is a simple horseshoe in a big, plain room. It has little visual appeal and the acoustics are terrible. If I was a member of the Yuma Lodge I would not be happy, but since we only visit there a couple of weeks a year, its not my business. It is still a nice, friendly lodge with great meals.
Friday afternoon we headed out to do some desert caching. We only found six because the caches were much more spread out. For several of them we had to walk a ways into the desert to find the cache. We found each one we set out to find though, no DNFs. After caching we headed home and changed clothes with the intention of heading into Yuma to the Elks to have their Friday night seafood buffet. On the way we stopped at the new Indian casino located a couple of miles East of our RV park on
I-8. We gambled a little bit and as we were getting ready to leave the casino we ran into John and Rita and the other two couples we had dinner with on Wednesday. They told us that they were in the casino to go to the seafood buffet there. They told us it was wonderful and when they told me that the buffet featured king crab, I was sold. We stayed in the casino and had dinner with the group. Since we had players club cards the buffet for both of us was only $31 and the food was very good, especially the king crab. I certainly got my money’s worth! After the big dinner we were too full to go anywhere else, so we headed home. I did stop briefly at a $1 poker machine to “spend” the $10 credit the casino had put on my players club card. Within a couple minutes I had it up to $25 so I cashed out and we went home. Saturday, December 5th we left the coach about 11:00 and headed into Yuma to go to a BBQ rib festival. Jackie had seen the festival, which is held every year, in the newspaper a few days earlier. The festival is a fund raiser for Yuma Catholic High School and was held on their campus. There were about 10 booths there selling BBQ pork ribs and there were a lot of people. They charged $10 per person to get in, but then gave you each 10 tickets which could be used to buy food and drink. One rib was one ticket. We tried ribs from several different vendors and they were all pretty good. We ended up eating about six ribs each at the festival, plus we took about 20 ribs home for dinner. While we were at the festival we ran into Charlie and Sharon Anderson, some of our old motor homing friends. We had met them several years ago at a Monaco rally and have crossed paths with them several times. They have a home in Illinois, near the Iowa border, but they winter in Yuma every year because they have a lot there also. We had last seen them in Tucson at the Monaco rally in October.
After the BBQ festival we did some shopping in Yuma and then went to a late matinee movie. We saw “Old Dogs”, with Robin Williams and John Travolta. It was a very funny movie. We also wanted to see the movie “2012", but the timing on the showings didn’t work for us. We will try to see that one later in the week. After the movie we headed home and had some of our pork ribs from the festival. Yum!
Sunday, February 6th was a leisure day, just hung around the coach. Monday afternoon we drove into Yuma to see another movie. This time we went to see “2012" which was a very good movie. It was a typical disaster movie as far as the characters and plot line went, but the special effects were outstanding. With the latest computer generated graphics its hard to not believe that you are really seeing California slide into the ocean. Very spectacular movie. Tuesday, February 8th was our Mexico day. We drove down to Algadones about 11:00 a.m. so we could have lunch at one of our favorite restaurants just across the border. Algadones is only about 10 minutes from the RV park and the local Indian tribe maintains a huge paved parking lot on the US side of the border. You park your car for $5 for the day and walk across the border. Everything in Algadones is within easy walking distance of the border crossing. The first place we went was our dentist’s office to see if we could get an appointment for cleaning. I had sent an email to the dentist when we first got into Winterhaven, but had never received a response. Fortunately, it was a slow day and they were able to get us both into see our dentist immediately and both of us had our teeth cleaned. You can’t beat an exam and cleaning for $30. After our dental appointment we headed over to the eye doctor and made an appointment for Jackie to get an exam and new glasses. My glasses are still working well, so I didn’t need anything this trip. We had an appointment for after lunch, so we went over to the Pueblo Viejo restaurant for lunch. While there we also visited a geocache that is maintained in the restaurant. After lunch we went back and Jackie picked out her new frames and got her exam. We then had a couple hours to kill while they made the glasses, so we walked around some of the shops. Jackie ended up buying a purse and we both got some gold jewelry. She got an anklet and a necklace and I got a bracelet and necklace. The guy also threw in an extra necklace for Jackie.
It was kind of a slow day in Algadones, which if mostly doctors, dentists and opticians along with the usual pharmacies and liquor stores. They have very little crime there because 95% of the visitors are seniors or near seniors, not the normal illicit drug or party seekers you see in most Mexican border towns. There were less than the normal number of people in town for some reason and it only took us about 10 minutes to get back across the border. We have waited as long as 90 minutes in line to get back to the US in the past.
Wednesday the 9th we headed into Yuma to have lunch with Charlie and Sharon Anderson at Chretin’s Mexican restaurant. We had eaten at Chretin’s about four years ago when they were in an old building in Southwest Yuma, pretty much in the barrio area of town. At that time the food was great, especially the red chilli. They have closed that place and opened a brand new restaurant on 16th Street near the freeway. We ate there last year and the food was not nearly as good. I passed it off because I had eaten the buffet and I figured that the mass produced food probably wasn’t as good a the menu stuff. This time I ordered the red chilli off the menu and it was not nearly as good as I remember from the first time at the old place. Chretin’s is now off of our list of places to eat in Yuma. I don’t know if they changed cooks or recipes when they moved or what, but the food is now mediocre at best. We did have a nice chat with the Andersons. We will probably see them in Tucson at the next Monaco rally in March. After lunch we went out and did some more local caching. We were able to find seven and had two DNF’s. Fortunately, one of the finds we had was a cache that we couldn’t find when we were last here in December of 2008. So at least we made up that DNF!
Thursday was a relax day and Friday we went out for one last surge of caching. We are due to leave on Saturday morning to go to San Diego. We found another six caches with only one DNF. After caching we headed home and I had enough daylight left to take down the outside stuff, like the sun shades, and store them away for our travel to San Diego in the morning.
Saturday, December 12th we woke up to cloudy skies and predictions of rain. We headed West from Winterhaven about 10:00, bound for San Diego. The rain started about halfway to San Diego, as we started up the hill West of El Centro. The rain wasn’t real heavy, but it was enough to have to keep the wipers going. We also ran into some fog as we went up towards the pass, which is at about 4,500 feet. We got into San Diego at about 2:00 and checked into the RV park. We are staying at the Sante Fe RV park which is right in the middle of metro San Diego, just off the I-5 freeway near Balboa Avenue. We are only a few minutes from Mission Bay, Pacific Beach and the ocean, and only 5 miles from downtown San Diego. It is a great location and it’s a Passport America park which means we can stay at half price. Even half price is moderately expensive, about $26 a day, but given the location and the cost of the other San Diego RV parks, it’s a bargain. We are going to be here for seven days before heading up to the Indio area. We come to San Diego because this is where Jackie’s mother and brother live. Fortunately, the rain quit long enough for us to get parked and set up. We stayed in for the rest of the day and by evening the rain had started in earnest. I woke up at 3 a.m. and noticed that it was pouring rain and the power was out. I had to outside in the pouring rain and reset the power on the pedestal. It only took me a couple minutes, but I was soaked by the time I got back into the coach.
In the morning I noticed a problem with the power. Even though we were plugged into the 50 amp circuit we didn’t have power to one of the air conditioner/heat pump units and some of the 120 volt receptacles in the coach were dead. I did a little trouble shooting and fount that sometime during the night the power pedestal we were plugged into had gone bad and we had lost one leg of our power circuit. I changed over the 30 amp receptacle and we got good power back into the coach, we just have to watch we don’t have too many things turned on at the same time. The office said they didn’t have anyone working on a Sunday to fix the problem but would have someone come out and check the box on Monday.
On Sunday morning we headed to the University district to go to the street fair. It was not huge, but it was a nice fair with lots of vendors. Jackie’s brother Dennis met us there and after walking around the fair we headed over to the Whole Foods market to do some shopping and to have lunch at their deli. For those not familiar with Whole Foods, it’s a specialty store featuring high end organic foods and gourmet-type fare. It is similar to a Trader Joe’s or Henry’s, but larger. We had a nice lunch there and a nice talk with Dennis. After lunch we drove over to see Jackie’s mom. She is 90 years old and living in a assisted living home. The last time we saw her was in April when we were in San Diego just before leaving on our Canada/Alaska tour. She is starting to look very frail and is beginning to have some memory and medical issues. She also seems very depressed and angry, probably because she is in a situation where she is not in control of her life. I guess it has to be hard to be dependent, but it makes it difficult for Jackie and I to spend too much time with her because she is very negative, angry and argumentative. We spent several hours visiting with her. Dennis also came over while we were there.
After visiting Jackie’s mom we went over and visited with Margie Johnson, and old friend of Jackie’s who lives in San Diego also. Jackie and Margie met back in the early 70's and have stayed in touch over the years. We went to her house and had a nice visit for a couple hours. After that we headed back home, stopping at In & Out for dinner. Yea! It has been a while since we had In & Out burgers.
Monday, December 14th, I woke up and decided that I needed to go to an urgent care facility to have my right ear looked at. I had been having some pain for the last couple days and during the night Sunday to Monday it really starting hurting. I was pretty sure it was an outer ear infection, what is sometimes called “swimmer’s ear” because I have had that in the past and the symptoms were consistent. I went to one of the CVS drug stores in Pacific Beach because they have a clinic with a Nurse Practitioner or Physician’s Assistant on duty to treat minor illnesses or injuries and they are significantly less expensive than an emergency room or even a regular urgent care facility. After about 15 minutes the nurse looked at me, agreed it was probably an outer ear infection and prescribed some ear drops for me. I was out the door with my prescription in hand in less than an hour. I would have still been waiting had I gone to an emergency room.
After lunch my ear was feeling a little better so we headed out to do some caching. The area around where the park was is teeming with caches and we were able to find 14 caches within about three hours. We also had a couple of DNFs, but we had fun and never had to go more than about 5 miles from the RV park.
Tuesday after lunch we went back over to see Jackie’s mom again. She visited with her for about an hour and a half before she had enough of the complaining and negativity and decided to leave. Afterwards we took a drive out to Santee and stopped at the Costco there. Wednesday we stayed in except for a quick trip to the grocery store. Jackie’s friend Margie came over to the coach after work for dinner. She has never seen our house. Jackie made a nice chile rellano casserole and we had a very nice visit with Margie.
Thursday, December 17th we made another visit to Jackie’s mom. She was in a little better mood this time. After that we headed back to the coach and did our laundry at the park. This park has a very nice laundry facility. Friday morning, the 18th, we went to a local burger joint in San Diego called the Crazee Burger. It is located a block South of El Cajon Boulevard on 30th street. We had heard about the place on a television show we watch, Guy Fieri’s “Diners, Drive in’s and Dives” which is on the food channel. He visits all these quirky restaurants and diners around the country and the Crazee Burger was one of his “finds” in San Diego. Their claim to fame is that they have burgers made from all sorts of exotic meats, like buffalo, venison, alligator, ostrich, and kangaroo. Jackie had a kangaroo burger
and I had a crab burger. Both were pretty tasty, but the kangaroo didn’t have any different taste than any other type of hamburger - it was just very lean. The crab was good. Although the food was good, I wouldn’t recommend the place only because it was pretty expensive. For two “exotic’ burgers with fries and a pop the bill was over $28. Unless you are dying to try an ostrich or gator burger I wouldn’t bother to go here. After our “exotic” lunch we went out and did some more San Diego caching. In a couple of hours we were able to collect nine more finds with two additional DNFs.This brings us to Saturday morning, December 19th. We leave San Diego and head North and East to Indio and the holidays. This is also where this episode of our travel blog will end. I will be back in a couple weeks to document our holiday visit to the California desert. Until then, keep the faith, share the love, and collect the joys of life.
