to snow and it was beginning to look like winter. The temperature was not too cold, only about 40 degrees, but the snow was sticking pretty good. By 9:30 it had built up on the satellite dome on the roof of the coach to the point where we lost our satellite signal. We ended up with about an inch or so of snow on the ground by the time we went to bed. About that same time the snow turned back to rain and started to melt the snow.
Thursday, March 24th we woke up to about 48 degrees, overcast and rainy. Most of the snow was gone. There was a little bit on the car and some of the hillsides under the trees, but the rain had melted the majority of it. As a result we didn’t get any good pictures of the snow. Since it was cold and rainy we decided to just stay in and do chores for the day.
Friday, March 25th was still rainy. It had rained on and off most of the night. We thought we might go down the mountain to Banning to a movie in the afternoon. However, the rain continued and then the fog started to come and go. We decided not to go down to the movies. The ten miles down to Banning is all two lane, winding mountain road with lots of blind curves. When is rains it tends to loosen the rocks on the hillsides so you have to be careful not to hit those that get in the roadway. We decided to just stay in the coach again. We have good satellite TV, good internet, and a nice warm, dry coach. Just had a lazy day.
Saturday started cloudy and drizzly again, however, we decided to go down the hill anyway. We went down for a quick lunch at Denny’s in Banning, and then went to the movie theater in Banning to see the movie “Paul”. Paul is a ditzy comedy about two nerdy guys from England who come to the States to visit a Comic-Com convention in San Diego. They are huge science fiction fans, so they decide to drive across country in an RV, stopping at UFO sites, such as Area 51 and Roswell. As they are driving down the ET highway past Area 51 in the Nevada desert they witness a car accident. When they stop to help they find the driver of the car is an alien, a very stereotypical little green man, big head, oval eyes, the whole thing. The alien is CDG, everything else in the movie is live action. Turns out the alien speaks great English, swears a lot, smokes and drinks beer. He crashed in 1947 and has been held at Area 51 ever since. He hitches a ride with the Englishmen and the chase begins. He is being chased, of course, by guys from the government who want to capture him. The bad guys are dressed in black suits of course, which is only the beginning of the alien movie references. The movie is peppered with dozens of references and homages to science fiction movies and discovering them is a big part of the charm of the movie. It is not a hysterically funny movie, but it is hysterical in places. The supporting cast seems to have been largely pilfered from Saturday Night Live, which is not a bad thing for me. I would give it a three out of five Alien Heads and plan to buy it when it comes out on DVD just so I can go through it several times looking for movie references. After the movie we went shopping and then drove back up the hill for the rest of the afternoon and evening at the coach.
Sunday, March 27th was another cold, cloudy day. Although it looked like rain all day, none actually came. Because of the cold and dampness we decided not to cache today. We just stayed around the coach again and relaxed all day and evening.
Monday we finally awoke to sunshine! The winds calmed down and the clouds parted, so after lunch we drove down the hill to do some geocaching.
We managed to find a total of 13 new caches in a few hours. We also had two DNF’s - so sad. After caching we did some quick shopping and then drove back up the hill and to the coach for the evening.
Tuesday, March 29th was another nice sunny day. We decided to go down the hill after lunch and visit the outlet mall near the Cabazon casino, just East of Banning. We spent a couple of hours walking around the mall, which has over 200 stores, and got some exercise. Jackie bought a couple of small things, but all in all we just window shopped. One thing we noted is that a lot of the “ordinary” stores that used to be in this mall years ago have gone. There are no more bookstores, lower end outlet stores such as Big Dog, or other similar stores. Everything now is the high end name brand stuff, Lucky Jeans, Brooks Brothers, Polo, etc. The strategy must be working because the place was crawling with people and a lot of them had bags. The shopping population was well over 50 percent Asian, and I know that there are not that many in the Desert or Inland Empire area. They must be drawing a lot of the Los Angeles/Orange County folks. After our shopping we did a couple of quick geocaches that were in the parking lots for the mall. We then headed back up the hill and spent the rest of the day and evening in the coach.
Wednesday, March 30th we left the park early, about 9:00 a.m., and drove down to Moreno Valley, a little town about 30 miles Northwest. We had to take our Jeep in for repair. The air conditioning stopped working - again. It quit last May when we were here and it turned out to be a leaking condenser. That time it was fixed under the Jeep warranty. We took the car into the Jeep dealer’s service department and got the bad news that it was the condenser - again. Apparently a seam split. The Jeep warranty on the car has expired, but we have an extended warranty on the car with a $250 deductible. We also learned that the battery is leaking badly and needs to be replaced and the drive train needs servicing. Of course, those costs are maintenance and would not be covered under the extended warranty. The estimate was about a thousand dollars for all the work. Eek and yikes! At least they did throw in a free rental for us since they would need the car overnight.
We got our free rental about noon and went to lunch in Moreno Valley before doing some light shopping at Costco and a couple other stores. Moreno Valley is about 15 miles closer to Silent Valley than the Coachella Valley, and they have all the stores that we would ever need to shop in. After shopping we tootled up the hill in our little Toyota Corolla and stayed in for the rest of the day and evening. We were joking that we feel so tiny in the Toyota compared to the view we normally have from our big Grand Cherokee.
Thursday, March 31st I got a call from the Jeep dealer about 10:00 that the car was ready. Since Jackie wasn’t dressed yet, I hoped in the little rental and went down to Moreno Valley to pick up the geo Jeep. After shelling out nearly a grand for the various services and repairs I drove the Jeep back up the hill. At least the A/C is working now. About 4:30 we drove back down the hill to the Banning/Beaumont Elks Lodge to meet our friend Marianne Conner. We met Marianne and her late husband David back in about 2002 when we were all members of the Indio Elks Lodge. They got a motorhome and joined the travel club and we went on many outings together, becoming pretty good friends. In 2005 they sold their house in Bermuda Dunes, near Indio, very close to the time we sold ours, and both of us set off on the full time RV lifestyle. In 2005 and 2006 we spent probably a total of six months traveling with them all over the country. We were in the Dakotas and the Northwest with them, and then later in the Midwest and Northeast with them. David was not in good health and in 2007 they had to get off the road so they bought a house in Cherry Valley, near Banning. David passed away three years ago but Marianne still lives there. We try to get with her when we are in the area. We met her at the Elks for dinner. The place was very full, mostly with people from the same country club where Marianne lives, and we met a lot her friends. We had a great meal, New York steak, for a very reasonable price and had a wonderful time catching up. About 8:00 we headed back up the hill for the rest of the evening.
Friday, April 1st - one third of the new year gone already. Today was a stay at home day. We did our laundry after lunch, but outside of that and a few other little chores around the house, we didn’t do much or go anywhere. Fortunately, the park here has a very nice, large laundry facility, so we were able to get everything done in just a couple hours.
Saturday we decided to take advantage of the nice weather, temperatures in Banning in the high 70's, to do some geocaching. The weather calls for cool, cloudy and a chance of rain for the next couple days. We went down into the Banning/Beaumont area and managed to find a dozen caches in about three hours. Unfortunately, we also had three DNF’s, the most we have had in any one caching session in quite some time. On the plus side, we did hit the 2,300 finds
milestone in this session. Yea! After caching we went back up to the RV park, heading over to the restaurant at the park for dinner about 6:30. I had the liver and onions, which is consistently among the best I have ever had, anywhere. The chef here really knows how to cook liver, very tender, just pink inside and juicy. Jackie had the prime rib which was also good. After dinner we walked back to the coach and watched TV for the rest of the night.
Sunday, March 3rd was overcast and cool, so we just stayed in for the day. Jackie got a couple of chores done around the coach.
Monday we left after lunch and drove to nearby Hemet for some geocaching. We were able to add a dozen more finds in a few hours,
but did have one DNF as well. One of the caches took us to a ranch area where there were half a dozen zebras grazing out in a pasture, along with a couple horses and a donkey. Everyone seemed to be getting along just peachy. After caching we did some shopping and then drove back up the mountain to the coach where we relaxed the rest of the day.
Tuesday, March 5th we again left after lunch for more geocaching, this time just at the bottom of the hill in Banning. We added 13 finds to our list, but had two DNF’s in the process. I think we are getting more DNF’s because we are looking for more caches with the higher difficulty and terrain ratings.
Not an excuse, it’s just that the caches rated with a higher difficulty are harder to find. The photo shows me searching for one of the ones we couldn't find on the side of a hill. I guess we just need to exercise a higher level of geo-sense. (Very Zen, no?) After caching we did some shopping and then went to the Banning/Beaumont Elks to meet Marianne again for dinner. Tonight was their spaghetti night and the food was excellent. We had a couple of drinks, a nice dinner, great conversation and a good time. We headed up the hill around sundown and spent the rest of the evening in the coach.
Wednesday morning was cold and gloomy as another Southern California storm front moved through. The weather forecast calls for cold and rain for the next couple days, so not likely we will be doing too much. Today we just stayed in for the day. Thursday was more of the same. Rained on and off all night and the ground was way too wet for geocaching. We stayed in the coach all day, played on the computers and played some cards. Jackie won the Skipbo tournament.
Friday, April 8th was a day that featured a cornocopia of weather. We woke up with the now usual overcast skies and cool weather. Over the course of the day we had clearing, with blue skies and scattered clouds, then overcast,
then rain, then about an hour and a half of snow that left a half inch or so on the ground, then more rain, then later in the afternoon hail. The hail was small, about pea size or so, so there was no damage possibility.
Quite a day weather-wise. After dinner we walked over to the Watering Hole, the bar in the village center here at the park, for a cocktail and some karaoke. There were only a couple of singers, so I did about six songs. Of course the audience was small too, there were only about a dozen people in the place, but we had a couple of drinks and some fun out of the coach.
Saturday it was still cold, but it was only partly cloudy, so we decided we needed to get out of the house for a while. After lunch we drove down the mountain and had lunch in Beaumont at La Casita, one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. They have about a dozen places scattered around the South-central California area and we have eaten at most of them at least once. We had not been to the new Beaumont store yet. The food and service were great, as usual. After lunch we drove East to Moreno Valley and the mall there. We spent a couple of hours wandering around the mall, doing some shopping, buying a couple of little things, and just getting some exercise. After shopping we did three quick geocaches that were in the parking area for the mall. We then drove back to the coach for dinner and relaxed the rest of the night.
We still have another week here at Silent Valley before heading back down to Indio and Indian Waters for a couple weeks. Although we have had some bad weather up here, we have still enjoyed our stay so far.
I am going to close this chapter of the story so I can get it published. I will publish again in a few weeks. Until we meet again, keep the faith and watch for that Spring snow!
