Monday, April 19th we headed down the mountain from Silent Valley, heading for Rancho Mirage in the Coachella Valley, about 35 miles to the East. Jackie had to go for a followup mammogram at the Eisenhower Hospital campus. She had her regular mammogram done in Cottonwood six months ago and the radiologist there had a “concern” about two small shadows in one breast and suggested a six month followup. It took about 90 minutes to get to the doctor’s and Jackie was in there for quite some time. When she came out it was a sort of good news - bad news kind of thing. The doctor said that the shadows the doctor in Cottonwood saw were nothing, and had been on previous films done here in the Coachella Valley in the past. (A hazard of having mammograms done at different locations). However, he did find one swollen lymph node near her armpit which he wants to do a biopsy of. He is not overly concerned since there are no other obvious or clear problems visible in the breast, but he wants to be sure. So, she has to come back in a week for an outpatient needle biopsy. Needless to say, she is a little worried, but I feel that the swelling will be from some other infection and will not be an issue. After the doctor’s visit we headed back towards Banning and home. Monday evening we had cocktails again with Ray and Suzie and they treated us to a dinner of BBQ’d steaks and baked potatoes. It was great.
Tuesday we had to head out again, this time early in the morning, to take Jackie to her regular doctor in Indio. She had some followup to do on her blood tests and wanted to talk to the doctor about some issues she has had recently, such as shakiness. She is concerned that it may be a blood sugar issue. After examining her the doctor suggested that she might have a low blood sugar problem and that she needed to eat something in the morning for breakfast. Neither of us are breakfast eaters, but the doctor said it was very important for people whose blood sugar tended to run low. Overnight the sugar level drops and that’s what causes the shakiness in the morning. He said she HAD to eat something in the morning besides coffee. He also put her on some vitamins and supplements.
After the doctor’s visit we went out to lunch with Les and Wilma Jean Alexander, some friends of ours from several of our FMCA chapters. They have been staying at the Thousand Trails RV Resort in the Coachella Valley and we wanted to visit with them. Wilma Jean is the President of the 3T’s Chapter, which you may remember is the chapter that has the two day rest and relax rally after each FMCA Convention. We were last with them in Albuquerque last month. Jackie and Wilma Jean are co-hosting the 3T’s rally in Oregon after the Redmond FMCA Convention in August of this year. Les is running for the office of International Area Vice President. Almost all of the chapters we belong to are in the International Area because they have no geographical base, but are made up of members scattered all across the country. We had lunch at La Casita, one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. After lunch we headed back towards Banning where we stopped to do some shopping before heading back up the mountain to our coach.
Before we had left to go to the doctor in the morning we had said goodbye to Ray and Suzie who left Silent Valley today to go down to March Air Base in Riverside. Ray is retired military so they can use the RV facilities at the various military bases across the country. They wanted to go down there and get a spot because there is an air show at the base in a couple weeks and all military spots are first come, first served. They wanted to be sure and get a spot before the air show. We may come down for the day to see the show from their patio. Just before we went to bed the rain started. The weather forecast had predicted rain and it finally came. It rained off and on all night.
Wednesday, April 21st we woke up to cold and rain. The weather said it was going to rain for at least the next 24 hours, so we decided to just make it a stay home and relax day. I got caught up on some administrative chores and we both just played on
the computer for most of the day. At one point we did get just a little bit of snow! It was too warm to last, but it did pile up a little in the shady areas and we got some pictures. A little later in the evening it sleeted for a little while too.Thursday the rainy and cold weather continued. It was drizzly on and off all day and the temperature never got out of the 40's, so we just stayed in and relaxed. We did go out and do laundry, but our parking spot is only a few hundred yards from the laundry, so we didn’t have far to go.
Friday, April 23rd we finally woke up to sunshine and no wind. Yea! After lunch we got out of the coach for the first time in several days and went caching. We did some caching along Highway 243 near Silent Valley, and also down in Banning, North of I-10. We garnered nine finds, but we did have two DNFs. First of those in a while. Since we are going to be here for another two weeks we will keep an eye on these two and see if anyone else finds them. If so, we may go look again. After caching we came home and then later in the evening went over to the restaurant here at Silent Valley for dinner. They have very good food here, we have always enjoyed it. They have some of the best liver and onions to be had anywhere. Tonight I had the liver and Jackie had the special, which was pork ribs. Both were excellent. After dinner we headed home as there were not very many people in the bar and we decided it wouldn’t be much fun tonight.
Saturday, April 24th we left the coach early and headed South to San Diego to attend the memorial/celebration of life for Jackie’s mom, who you may remember passed away while we were in Tucson last month. Jackie’s brother Dennis decided to have a
memorial at St. Paul’s Senior’s Home, where Beverly lived for almost four years. She still had a few friends living there. When we got to San Diego we stopped for lunch at the Hob Nob Hill restaurant, on 1st Avenue just off of Laurel, for lunch. We have eaten here many times before and it is only a few blocks from St. Paul’s. After lunch we went
and helped Dennis set up the room for the memorial. There were about 25 people in attendance. Most were friend’s of Dennis, along with a couple of ladies Beverly knew from her time at St. Paul’s. It was a very nice celebration, with a number of people sharing “Bev Stories” and remembering her. After the service we headed back North to Silent Valley. Sunday we stayed around the coach and just did some light chores.Monday, April 26th we headed down to the Coachella valley early so that Jackie could continue her medical procedures. We had to stop first at the lab for some blood tests and then we had lunch at Mimi’s restaurant in Rancho Mirage. After lunch we went back to Eisenhower Medical Center so Jackie could have the biopsy done on the lymph node in her armpit. She was in there about two hours and when she came out she said she only had minor discomfort. She did have a big bandage and an ice pack that she was supposed to use for 20 minutes on and 20 minutes off for the next 24 hours. She also couldn’t take a shower for the next 24 hours. We headed back up to Silent Valley and just relaxed the rest of the night, taking care to rotate the ice packs on schedule. She will get the results of the biopsy in a couple of days and we have our fingers crossed that it is nothing major.
Tuesday, April 27th we just stayed in so Jackie could take care of her wound site. It is not very big and she isn’t in much discomfort, but she didn’t feel like doing too much. Wednesday we woke up to more rain and fog so we had another leisure day around the coach.
Thursday, April 29th we finally had some good weather. We headed out after lunch to do some caching down in Banning. We found nine caches in a couple of hours, but also had two DNFs. Hate those we can’t find! After caching we drove East about 20 miles to Moreno Valley to go to the Costco. For the old timer’s who may read this, Moreno Valley, originally called Sunnymead, is where the old Riverside International Raceway was from 1957 to 1989. I remember as a kid and later as a young man watching sports car and NASCAR races at Riverside Raceway. There is now a big shopping center where the old track used to be. Jackie also got the results from her biopsy this morning and everything was negative. YEA!
Friday we did some shopping in Banning getting ready for my Brother Ken and his wife Susan who are coming up to Silent Valley on Sunday to spend some time with us. After shopping we headed home to do some housecleaning. Saturday we spent the whole day cleaning house and getting ready for company.
Sunday, May 2nd, my brother Ken and his wife Susan arrived at Silent Valley at about 9:30. They live in Goodyear, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix on the Southwest side of town. They had a drive of a little over 275 miles, but they made good time. They were originally going to come for a three day weekend, but Susan was called into work on Saturday so they were only able to come over for one night. To make the most of it they left home at about 5:30 a.m. so they could get here early enough to make a day of it. Shortly after they arrived we got into our car and headed South out of Silent Valley towards the mountain resort town of Idyllwild, about 16 miles further on Highway 243. We were going up there to have some lunch, walk around the shops and do some caching. We had introduced Ken and Susan to geocaching when we were in Phoenix just before Christmas last year. They were instantly hooked and are already up over 400 finds in just four months. They had not yet cached in California and were looking forward to going caching with us. I had already lined up about 25 caches in the Idyllwild area and had the files all ready to load into their GPS units when they arrived.
We got up to Idyllwild around 11:00 and did a couple of caches then went to Jo Ann’s Café in the town square for lunch. Since it was still a little early for Idyllwild’s busy season there were not too many people in town. In the summer you have to wait in line to eat in Jo Ann’s. After lunch we spent an hour or so walking around the town center checking out the little shops and galleries. Then we started caching again. All told for the afternoon we found nine caches with no DNFs. We
also hit our milestone of 1,400 caches on this trip. Yippee! After caching we headed back down to Silent Valley where we relaxed and talked until dinner. We did a BBQ with steaks and potatoes and some of Jackie’s great Halibut Chowder. Even though Ken and Susan said they were not real fond of fish, they both loved the chowder and even had seconds. After dinner the four of us played some cards and had a great time. We then pulled out the sleeper sofa and we all headed off to bed. The only one not happy was Smokey the Cat. He was not pleased that there were strangers in his living room, which is his bailiwick after bedtime, and he made a real pest of himself in our bed all night long.Monday morning, May 3rd, we all woke up around 8:00 or so, had some coffee (or at least Jackie and I did) showered and dressed and headed out around 10:00 a.m. for the Coachella Valley. Ken said that they didn’t have to start for home until about 3:00 in the afternoon because that would still get them back home before dark, so we suggested that we drive down to Palm Desert, leave their car, and we would take them on a guided tour of the Coachella Valley. They had never been to this part of California before so they thought that was a good idea. They packed their car and followed us down the mountain and then East to Palm Desert where we left their car in the Costco parking lot. We then drove up through Palm Desert and just drove them around, giving some narrative of our time here and some of the history of the area. We stopped for lunch at the new Cactus Jack’s restaurant in Palm Desert. Regular readers will remember that the original Cactus Jack’s in Indio was our favorite watering hole when we lived here. He opened a second place in Palm Desert. Ken and Susan loved the food. After lunch we drove over to Indio and took them through the Indian Palms Country Club where we lived before we went full-time in 2005. Our old house still looked almost exactly the same as it did when we sold it in 2005. The only thing different was a couple of shrubs in the yard. We then drove down Highway 111 all the way over to Palm Springs. Along the way we stopped briefly in Cathedral City at our friend Barry’s shop so he could meet Ken. Jackie also wanted to pick up a UPS package that we had delivered there.
After our multi-hour tour of the Coachella Valley we dropped Ken and Susan off right about 3:00 and they started the drive back to Phoenix. We then headed back up to Silent Valley to relax and cool off. It was 94 degrees in the Coachella Valley and the air conditioning on our car was not working. It was good to get back to Silent Valley and 72 degrees! We later got an email from Ken that they had made it home before 7:00 p.m. We really enjoyed our short time with Ken and Susan. He is my youngest brother, actually the same age as my oldest daughter, which means we could actually be their parents. Nonetheless, we have a good time with them. They are avid cruisers, and had just completed a Caribbean cruise last week. While we were at lunch they were telling us about a four day cruise on Princess Cruises that they are thinking about for December. It leaves out of Los Angeles and is just before Christmas. We told them that if they decided to go to let us know because we would probably be interested as well. We had said we weren’t going to go on a cruise this year in order to save some money after our expensive Alaska trip, but a four day is pretty inexpensive and we are usually in Southern California around the holidays anyway, so there wouldn’t be any major travel involved. They would be a lot of fun on a cruise.
Tuesday we decided to stay around the coach for the day and catch up on some chores and rest after the busy weekend. That night Jackie go to do her first night of sleep study. You see, I have been telling her that I notice that there are times when she seems to pause in her breathing at night. I thought that she should talk to her doctor about the symptoms of sleep apnea and see what he thought. At her last doctor’s appointment she talked to him and he suggested a sleep study. A person used to have to go to a sleep center and spend a couple of nights in order to get a sleep study done, but the doctor said he had heard that a home program had been developed. He made some calls and then made arrangements for this “kit” to be sent to Jackie so she could do an in-home sleep study. Essentially it’s a small data recorder, smaller than a lap top computer, which is hooked to three sensors that you have to wear on you body. One is a device that fits under the nose to measure breathing, another is a tube that fastens around your chest to measure respiration, and the third is a blood oxygen sensor that attaches to the end of your finger. Once you get all wired up you get in bed, turn on the recorder and it records all these measurements for the whole night. You have to do this for three straight nights and then pack everything up and send it back to the company where they analyze the data.
When it came time for bed I helped get Jackie “wired up” and started the recorder. The thing on the finger is the most odd because it glows red. She looked like ET with his “Heart Light” on the end of his finger. The other odd thing is that the system talks to you when one of the sensors becomes dislodged or stops working right, so several times during the night we heard a voice saying “check breath sensor” and then “breath sensor OK”. Kind of weird. Needless to say, Jackie didn’t sleep too well with the wires and stuff hanging off of her. I think that’s why they have you do it three nights in a row, so you get used to it and they can get at least one good night’s data.
Wednesday, May 5th - Happy Cinco De Mayo! I got up and out early to take the car down to Cathedral City in the Coachella Valley for service. The air conditioning decided to stop working and there is a Jeep dealer down there. The car is also due for its oil and filter change. I got into the service center about 9:30 and dropped the car off. I had their shuttle drop me off at my friend Barry’s shop a couple miles away so I wouldn’t have to just sit around the dealership for hours. While at Barry’s I read and then walked down to Boys Restaurant a few blocks away. Boys was one of the places at which I used to eat lunch frequently when I worked at the Desert Princess Resort in Cathedral City. They have pretty good food, but my favorite is their pastrami sandwich. I have yet to find a pastrami sandwich anywhere that is as good. I had a great lunch and then headed back to Barry’s for a while. Around 2:00 Barry said he didn’t have any work he could do because he was waiting on parts. Barry owns and operates a transmission repair shop and is the “builder”, the guy who actually rebuilds the transmissions. He has other staff to work with customers and to remove and replace the units from the vehicles. He left the shop foreman in charge and we headed off in his car to Cactus Jack’s in Palm Desert for a cocktail. After a couple of drinks he took me back to the dealership and dropped me off. Just as I got to the dealership they were parking the car so I talked to the service writer. He told me that they had done the oil change but had to order a condenser for the A/C and I would have to come back in a few days. The A/C will be covered under the warranty, but the oil change cost nearly $200! One of the down sides of having a diesel. They go longer between oil changes, but they are more expensive and you can’t go to the local Quicky Lube because they don’t have the right oil or filters. Oh well, it gets good mileage too. I then drove back up to Silent Valley to relax for the rest of the night.
When I got back up to Silent Valley I found that Ray and Suzie Babcock had returned and were parked in a spot right behind us. We went over there for cocktails and chatted about their adventures. They had left Silent Valley last week and gone down to the March Air Force Base in Riverside, about 30 miles away. He is a retired Air Force guy so he gets to camp on military bases with RV parks. He wanted to be there for the air show which was this past weekend. They said the air show was great. We were originally going to go, but when Ken and Susan said they were coming to see us that weekend we cancelled. That night at bedtime we hooked Jackie up to her sleep machine again for the second night. She slept a little better this time.
Thursday, May 6th we had company for the afternoon. Our friends Ray and Anita Purcell came up about 11:00 to spend some time with us. Ray and Anita have been owners here at Silent Valley Club for many years and were instrumental in getting us to join back before we went full time, when we still had a house in Indio. Ray and Anita are members of the Indio Elks Lodge and their RV group and we used to do a lot with them back before we left to travel. We have also met them on the road a couple of times and spent some time with them. We enjoy their company. They had lunch and stayed until late afternoon when they headed back home. Later in the afternoon we had Ray and Suzie over for cocktails. We were going to go to the Silent Valley restaurant for dinner, but because of the big late lunch we had we decided to stay in for the night. That night Jackie did her last night of her sleep study.
Friday we left early for Indio to go to Cactus Jack’s and meet Jackie’s girlfriend Nancy for lunch. We had a very nice lunch and spent a couple hours chatting and catching up. After lunch we did some chores, going to the RV store for some parts, dropping Jackie’s sleep study package at the UPS store, and going to Walmart. After all that we headed over to our friends, Barry and Colleen, for the evening. We have not been able to spend much time with them since we got back into the area and we were looking forward to a fun night. Although it was hot, about 93 degrees, we went out on a boat ride shortly after arriving and fixing some cocktails. You may remember that Barry and Colleen live in their motorhome full-time in a very luxurious RV country club in Indio. The club has some interior lakes and waterways and Barry and Colleen have a waterfront lot and an electric party boat. We spent about an hour out on the water talking and drinking before heading back to their coach. Barry and I sat and talked for hours while the girls played cards in the motorhome. Colleen had fixed corn beef and cabbage, one of my favorite meals, and we had a great dinner. We ended up staying up talking and playing cards until midnight. Needless to say we didn’t want to drive the 50 miles back to Silent Valley at midnight so we slept on their couch. It was not a particularly comfortable night, it was hot and a little cramped, but it worked OK.
Saturday morning we woke up and had some coffee and then the four of us headed over to Cactus Jack’s in Indio for lunch before we started back up towards Silent Valley. After lunch we made a brief stop at Jackie’s “adopted” niece Vickie’s house. Vickie’s son is Shane Ryan and Jackie is his godmother. Vickie is Jackie’s old friend Nancy’s daughter. Although Jackie is not related to any of them by blood, she considers them all family, as do I. Shane is 15 and in high school now. We had a nice visit with Vickie and Shane and then started back up the road for Silent Valley. Shortly after we got back to the coach Ray and Anita Purcell drove up. You may recall they had been up for the day on Thursday. They were on their way up to Idyllwild with some friends and just stopped for a quick hello. One of the friends with them was Russell, whom we met several years ago up in Washington State one summer. Russell is an old friend of Ray’s and they all happened to be staying in an RV park in the same town in Washington when we were up there. We have not seen Russell since then. With them was Russell’s girlfriend. They only stayed for a few minutes and then continued on their way to Idyllwild. Jackie and I spent the rest of the day lazing around the coach catching up on our rest from our busy last couple of days.
Sunday, May 9th was Mother’s Day. This was Jackie’s first Mother’s Day since her mom died and the second since my mom died. We spent the day at home relaxing. Monday we headed down into Banning for lunch at Chili’s. We had gotten and email coupon for a free appetizer and it was expiring in a couple of days so we decided to use it. After lunch we headed over to the Hemet area to the South of Banning to do some geocaching. We got10 caches for the afternoon. After caching we headed back up to Silent Valley and cocktails with Ray and Suzie. They had left for the weekend (in their car) to visit with their kids in the LA area.
Tuesday morning I got up and left early and headed back down to Cathedral City by myself to get the air conditioning on the car fixed. They had to order a new condenser. It took most of the day to get it fixed, but we finally have A/C again! Yea! It was covered under warranty too, so it didn’t cost anything. Double Yea! Wednesday we headed back to the Coachella Valley again after lunch. Jackie had a late afternoon doctor’s appointment in Palm Desert so we decided we might as well go down a little early and get some caching in. We had a good afternoon and found 15 caches. Then we did some shopping and finally took Jackie to the doctor. She got the results of her sleep study and it confirmed that she is suffering from sleep apnea. The study shows that she is only getting a couple of hours of good sleep each night and has a lot of episodes of apnea, where she just stops breathing. This causes the blood oxygen to go down. This is not a good thing. The doctor is going to recommend a CPAP machine. We are going to do some research to see what is in store for her. Ray is on a CPAP, so he should be a good resource. After the doctor’s visit we headed back to Silent Valley for the rest of the night.
Thursday, May 13th was a leisure day. We did our laundry and some minor chores. Jackie was contacted by a medical supply company who advised that they would be the company providing Jackie with the CPAP machine and oxygen. They were only waiting for the final Medicare approval. They said that they could come out next Monday, when we are in Yucaipa, to deliver the equipment and train Jackie on it’s use. We are a little concerned about the oxygen, the doctor had not mentioned that when Jackie was there. However, his office later confirmed that the doctor wanted her on night oxygen. I guess we will have to figure where to keep the stuff.
Friday our friends Barry and Colleen came up about 3:30 to spend the weekend with us. That evening we went over to the Silent Valley restaurant for dinner. Ray and Suzie went with us and the six of us had a very nice dinner. After dinner Colleen
and Jackie played their usual Skipbo (card game) tournament while Barry and I sat in the back and sang karaoke. We had a great time drinking and singing. We actually stayed up until after midnight, which is highly unusual for any of us. Barry and Colleen settled into the sofa bed for the night.Saturday, May 15th was Jackie’s birthday. Yea Jackie! After everyone got their coffee and got cleaned up we headed South to Idyllwild, about 18 miles up the road from Silent Valley. Although we had just been up their with my brother Ken and his wife a couple weeks back we always enjoy visiting. We drove around the
neighborhoods for a while looking at all the neat houses and then stopped for lunch at Arriba, a Mexican restaurant in town. We had never eaten there before, but it had been recommended by Ray and Anita so we thought we would try it. Although Ray had told us the food was great, we were less than enthusiastic. The food was OK, but pretty generic without any big flavors. We probably won’t eat there again and will not recommend it to anyone. After lunch we did some shopping around town before heading back to Silent Valley. Before we left Idyllwild we picked up a pizza to have for dinner. Barry and Colleen had decided to stay Saturday night as well since this is probably the last time they will see us before we start our summer travels up North. Again, Barry and I sang while the girls played cards. We had another great night, although we didn’t stay up past 11:00 this time. Sunday was to be a day of travel for us. Our 30 days in Silent Valley were complete and it is time to move on. We are leaving today for Yucaipa where we will be staying at the Yucaipa regional park. Since we only have about 30 miles to drive we didn’t get into a big hurry to leave. We had our coffee and relaxed for a little bit before Barry and Colleen packed their stuff and headed off to home. We then packed up the coach and got ready to leave. We ended up leaving around 11:00, which is only about an hour later than our normal leaving time. We didn’t even bother to hook up the car. I kidded Jackie that she needed to drive the 30 miles to Yucaipa to requalify for her driver’s license. She doesn’t drive much since we retired and are almost always together.
The trip down the hill and into the park only took about 45 minutes. We are going to be here in Yucaipa for 10 days. We only had to pay for five days since we had a credit with the park. This is where we were staying last Spring when we learned that my mother had died back in Arizona. We left the park early and they were nice enough to give us a credit for the days we didn’t use. We spent the rest of the afternoon getting set up and settled into our new home for the next 10 days.
And this, dear readers, is where we will leave you. After our time in Yucaipa we begin our summer travels, so look forward to new adventures and discoveries. Until the next time, be happy and enjoy the journey of life.
