Back in the Coachella Valley Again

Welcome back to our story. Our last chapter concluded on Monday, December 10th, when we left Silent Valley Resort after a month-long stay and moved the coach to Desert Hot Springs, California (DHS) and the Desert Pools RV Resort. It was only a 40 mile trip from Silent Valley to DHS, so Jackie drove the car rather than go to the trouble of hooking it up for towing. We were settled into the park with most of the setup done by 1:30 in the afternoon, so we drove down into nearby Palm Springs to Walmart for some grocery shopping.

We also did a quick stop at Petsmart to pick up some things that they had given us coupons for when we adopted Benji a few weeks ago. We got a bag of dry food, six cans of squishy food, two bags of treats, and a new collar, all for two dollars thanks to the various free coupons. Yea! After our shopping trip we went back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the evening.

Tuesday, December 11th, we awoke to a very nice day with temperatures about ten degrees warmer than they were up at Silent Valley. Of course, that is the difference between 3,500 feet elevation and the couple hundred feet that DHS sets at. I spent an hour or so in the morning getting some outside Christmas lights and decorations put up. After lunch we drove into Rancho Mirage for some appointments at our dermatologist. I was just going in for a routine annual skin check and to have a large mole removed. Since I had the melanoma removed back in 2009 I have been very diligent in getting checked by a dermatologist at least once a year. He checked me over and didn’t find anything bad, but he was concerned about a pink spot on my arm that I know I have had at least four or five years, maybe longer. He said it looked like a basil carcinoma, the least serious type of skin cancer, so he scraped the top of it off and burned it with his little arc welder tool. Looks pretty ugly, but it didn’t hurt. He said this is the most common type of skin cancer and rarely aggressive or dangerous unless ignored and allowed to grow for many years. He said his cauterization would take care of that particular lesion for good.

Jackie had gone in to have a couple of skin tags removed, and she ended up having a mole burned off the back of her hand too. This was a big spot that she has also had for a long time. She even had a biopsy done on it about six years ago that came out negative. Nonetheless, the doctor was concerned about how it looked, so he removed it.

After our doctor work we drove over to the nearby Costco for some shopping. We needed to do a Costco run since the last one was over a month ago. After Costco we headed back to the RV park, unloaded the groceries and got everything put away. We had an early dinner and then went down to the clubhouse at the RV park at 6:30 for some Texas Hold’em. I lost my $5 and Jackie lost about a buck, but we still had fun. We met several now people, including some other geocachers that we hadn’t met before. After poker we went back to the coach and watched TV for the rest of the night.

Wednesday, December 12th - 12/12/12. There was a lot of buzz about the date, since this type of repeating date will not be around for another 100 years. The geocaching community likes these kind of kitschy commemorations, so there were 12-12-12 events scheduled all over the world. We had signed up to attend one in nearby Palm Desert, which was advertised to start at 12:12 p.m. and last for 12 minutes. We left the RV park in time to arrive a little early, stopping along the way for a couple of geocache finds. When we got to the event we found that there were about 20 different caching teams or individuals there, some of whom we had met before, many of whom we had not. It is always fun to meet other cachers, especially when you can say, “we have seen your name in caches we have found.” It is fun to put a face with a caching handle.

We spent about an hour at the caching event before leaving and going to a late lunch at the Cactus Jacks restaurant in Palm Desert. Back when we owned our house in Indio we used to hang out a lot a Cactus Jacks in Indio. A couple of years ago George, the owner, opened a second restaurant here in Palm Desert. Unfortunately, our friend who bartends for Jacks was not working, but we still had a great lunch. We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping at different places in Palm Desert. We didn’t want to drive all the way back to DHS because we were also going to another caching event at 6:30, a pizza party in Palm Desert.

We arrived at the Pizza Hut and met up with a lot of the same cachers that we had met at the park earlier in the day. We had some pizza and chatted with folks for about 90 minutes or so before heading back to DHS and the RV park for the rest of the night. Among the other cachers at the events we attended today was the couple that we met at poker last night. They hadn’t known about the events until we mentioned them last night, but they came to both. Very nice people and we hope to stay in touch with them through caching.

Thursday, December 13th, we woke up to a very cold, rainy day. A winter storm has rolled into Southern California and it looks like it’s going to rain all day. We did go out briefly after lunch, during a lull in the rain, to pick up one geocache. We needed to have a cache on this date for our days of the year challenge. Other than that we just stayed in the coach and relaxed for the entire day. Friday the rain had cleared up, but now the wind behind the winter storm had come up, so it was very windy and cold all day long. We decided we really didn’t need to go out for anything, so we spent the whole day in again.

Saturday, December 15th, it was still cool, but at least the sun is out and the wind has gone for the time being. We decided to take a drive into Palm Desert to the College of the Desert (COD) street fair. COD is a large, two year community college and was, for many years, the only college in the Coachella Valley. Now a couple of the State Universities have branches in the Desert. For decades there has been a street fair set up every weekend, Saturday and Sunday, in the parking lot of the school. There are several hundred vendors, many of whom have been there for as long as the fair has been going on. We always try to get to the street fair at least once or twice while we are in the Desert.

We left the coach about 11:00 and drove to Palm Desert for the fair. Being just a week before Christmas, the place was even busier than normal. We finally got a parking place and walked into the vendor area. We only did a couple aisles before we decided to go to the food court for lunch. After lunch we spent a couple of hours walking up and down the rows, checking out the merchandise. We didn’t buy much, a Christmas garden flag, some asparagus from the farmer’s market, and a few other little items. The street fair closes at 2:00 and we finished up our tour just as everything was closing up for the day.

After we got back in the car we decided to spend a little time looking for a couple of geocaches. We looked for four different caches, finding two and not finding two. Two new finds, two new DNFs. Not a good ratio, but it was still fun. After our somewhat frustrating caching we drove back to the coach for the rest of the night. We BBQed some steaks, had the fresh asparagus and enjoyed the evening.

Sunday, December 16th, our sister-in-law Susan’s birthday. Happy Birthday Susan! She and my brother Ken live in Goodyear, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. We decided to go out on this partly cloudy and cool day to do some geocaching in the Desert Hot Springs area. We first tried our hand at a new off-shoot of geocaching, a game called Munzee. Like geocaching, it is a scavenger hunt type game where players hide game pieces and other players try to find them. Unlike geocaching, there is no container involved in the game. A Munzee is a sticker with a square QR type bar code printed on it. The person hiding, or “deploying” as it is known in this game, a Munzee simply picks a spot and sticks the Munzee on the surface. The actual barcode is less than an inch square, so they are not very visible.

Much like geocaching, the Munzee is published on the Munzee.com website with a description and GPS coordinates. With a Munzee application on your smartphone or tablet you can pull up a map, or a list, of nearby Munzees and then go out and search for them. Once you find them there is a scan application within the Munzee software on the phone that scans the Munzee and then sends the information to the website where it is logged that you found that Munzee. One advantage over geocaching, no manual logging required.

We found two Munzees, we got credit for one, but the other was on the back of a street sign and was so far up that I couldn’t get the phone into position to scan the barcode. Without the scan we did not get credit for finding the Munzee, even though I could see it. Right now I don’t see the hobby taking off like caching has. For one, they don’t provide the tools you need to download a group of Munzees from the website like you can for geocaches. You are relegated to just finding Munzees that show up on your phone if you happen to turn the application on. You then have to use the turn by turn navigation function of the phone to get to the place where the Munzee is deployed. The phone is the only GPS needed. Unlike geocaching, the Munzee is always in plain sight, not hidden, so there is no challenge to finding them. At this point, the hobby really doesn’t hold much interest for me.

After our foray into Munzees, we started doing some geocaching. In a couple of hours we were able to get eight new finds, with no new DNFs. We only got eight, because we have pretty much cached the area down to where only very new caches, or those out in the desert and hard to get to, are left. We did get a cache that was hidden alongside the road that winds up 1,000 feet to the top of Edom Hill, which is just north of I-10 between Desert Hot Springs and Cathedral City. Edom Hill is where most of the radio and television stations have situated their broadcast antennas, and there is a roughly paved access road that takes you up the side of the hill on a series of switchbacks. There was a great view of the central Coachella Valley from up near the top. After our caching we headed back to the RV park and spent the rest of the evening in the coach, relaxing and watching TV.
Monday, December 17th, we left the coach after lunch and drove down to Palm Desert. We were headed for the movie theater to see Lincoln. We got into the area a little early, so we decided to do some nearby geocaches before going to the movie. We found a set of six caches that were set out along a sandy road through an undeveloped section of land not too far from the shopping center where the theater is located. The sand was real soft, but our four wheeler Jeep handled it OK. We managed to get all six caches within forty minutes or so. We then went to the movies.

Lincoln was a great film, as most Steven Spielberg films are. Daniel Day-Lewis was magnificent as Lincoln, and the rest of the cast was very good also. I am not enough of a student of the era to comment on the accuracy of the history set out in the film, but fact or fiction, it was extraordinarily interesting and riveting. I do know that the basic differences shown between those who wanted to abolish slavery and those who didn’t are accurate, but I don’t know about the specific individuals portrayed. It will be interesting to see how many Oscars this film will garner. In my estimation it is worthy of several. Excellent film, even for folks like me who usually like their movies a little lighter and/or faster moving. After the movie we went back to the coach and relaxed with the TV the rest of the night.

Tuesday, December 18th was a rainy day in DHS, so we decided to just stay around the coach all day. So that’s what we did, just stayed in and did little things all day. Wednesday morning we woke to exactly the opposite sky. Tuesday you couldn’t see any blue, this morning there isn’t a cloud to be seen. It is still pretty cool, mid-40's, but at least there is no rain. We were both dressed and out of the house by 8:30, believe it or not! We have routine doctor visits scheduled a couple days after Christmas, so we needed to have blood tests taken for our prescription renewals. We drove into Palm Springs to the lab for a 9:00 appointment. Jackie had called our doctor’s office on Monday and requested the lab test orders. Our doctor uses LabCorp, which has electronic submission. As soon as the office enters the order, it is available at any LabCorp in the country. Very convenient. Unfortunately, the clerk at LabCorp said she couldn’t find any orders, for either of us. Jackie got on the phone and called the office and it turns out that our doctor’s assistant, the one she talked to on Monday, hadn’t submitted the order on Monday and had not been in the office since. Jackie was able to convince one of the other doctor’s assistants to submit the orders, so we got our blood tests, but it was a pain in the butt. Not real good customer service, but most doctor’s offices I have dealt with don’t really care.

There is a tendency among doctors to begin to believe that patients exist so that they can practice their hard earned skills and we need to be grateful that the doctor would take the time and effort to treat us. In most practices I think the patient is looked on as a necessary inconvenience. After our lab tests we went back to the coach for our delayed morning coffee. One must fast before a blood test, that means no morning coffee.

After lunch I went out to do what should be a routine chore, I needed to empty the black tank on the coach. A little background for our non-RV owner readers. Most people should be aware that RV’s don’t have flush toilets. There are some newer models that look and sound like they are flushing, but they are still just dumping the contents into a big tank, kind of like a traveling septic tank. Most modern RVs have two, one black for the toilet alone, and one called the grey tank, for sinks and the shower. When you are in an RV park with a sewer hookup, you can leave the valve for the grey tank open if you want. Sink and shower water will go into the tank and right out the bottom through the valve, through your sewer hose, and into the park’s sewer. Not a lot of solids in grey water, other than a few food particles and some grease, so it works OK. Not so much for the black tank, as you might guess. You need to let the black tank get pretty full, so that when you dump it, all the solids get flushed out the bottom with the water flow. There is nothing else besides gravity to get the stuff out of the tank. Our black tank is forty gallons, and it usually takes about eight or nine days to get full enough to have to dump the tank. That was my mission today.

I went out, pulled the dump valve open, and waited for the rush of water and other stuff. Nothing. No rush, no water, no stuff. Now a plugged toilet in a house is bad and messy, but it nothing like a plugged tank in an RV. A plunger or snake into the toilet will usually clear the clog and then everything goes right down the sewer like it should. In an RV you don’t have access from the top, even through the toilet the drain hole in the bottom of the tank is not accessible from above. You can only clear it by coming up from the bottom. But, if you take the sewer hose off of the valve, poke around with your snake you can clear the clog. Unfortunately, once you do so, everything starts pouring out and you don’t have a hose connected to take it to the sewer. VERY messy and VERY icky. I finally worked out a partial solution whereby I cut a small hole in the plastic sewer hose, inserted my snake and worked the clog loose. I still had some yucky water come out of the hole in the hose, but the majority of it went down the hose and into the sewer. I only had a few ounces on the ground rather than gallons, so clean up was easy, but it was still an awful job.

One of the best cinematic presentations of the issues surrounding RV holding tanks is in the movie RV, with Robin Williams. It is about six years old, and can be found on the bargain racks at Walmart. If you have never seen the film, get it and pay special attention to the first time Williams hooks up the sewer hose to the rented RV. One of the most hilarious scenes in movies.

Anyway, what should have been a five minute job turned into an hour long one, but I finally got it finished. I then had to make another repair, the metal scissors arm on the top of the door to the coach came loose and I had to rivet it back into place. I didn’t have big enough rivets to get the job done right, so I had to run into town to buy supplies. I finally got that job done and then just settled in and relaxed the rest of the day.

Thursday, December 20th, we left the coach about noon and drove into Indio for lunch at Cactus Jacks. Last week we met a couple, Bob and Diana Knight, while playing Texas Hold’em at Desert Pools. At the end of the game Jackie mentioned something related to geocaching and Diana spoke up and asked, “are you guys geocachers?” We started talking and learned that they were also cachers, for about the same length of time as us, and we chatted for a while. They left the RV park a couple of days later, moving on to the Thousand Trails RV park, which is in Palm Desert, closer to Indio. We saw them a couple of days later at the caching events we attended in Palm Desert on 12/12/12. They hadn’t known about the events until our conversation at the Park, but were happy to learn of them and be able to attend. At that event we made plans to meet for lunch today at Cactus Jacks.

Regular readers will know that Cactus Jacks was our regular hangout place back when we still had the house in Indio. We sometimes ate there three or four times a week and were there most Friday nights. They have great food and drinks and generally friendly people. We got there a little early, but Bob and Diana came in just minutes later and we had lunch and conversation. We learned a lot more about their story and travels. Like us, they are full time RVers and don’t have a house anywhere. We talked a lot about caching and traded stories about caches, including some very interesting ones that both of us had located at one time or another. We had a great time talking about one particularly frustrating cache in Casa Grande that we had both finally located, both of us with a little help from a third party. It was a great lunch, Jackie had lamb and I had beef ribs, both CJ specialties. We had a good time learning about our new friends, whom I am sure we will stay in touch with and cross paths with in the future.

After lunch we did a little shopping and then we drove back up to Desert Hot Springs. We relaxed for a while before going down to the clubhouse for one more round of Texas Hold’em. Unlike our last two games here in DHS, tonight I had great cards and ended up the big winner. I cashed out almost ten bucks ahead instead of losing most of my five dollar stake. Jackie was still down about three dollars. After cards we went back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the night.

Friday, December 21st, Apocalypse Day, the end of the world, according to the Mayan Calendar. Unfortunately, the Mayan’s weren’t courteous enough to give any details. No time, no method, just the end of the calendar. NASA sees no meteors rushing to collide with earth and initiate the beginning of the end. No apparent international conflicts sufficiently on the edge to precipitate a nuclear exchange and the beginning of nuclear winter. Oh well, just participate in the day and hope the best.

We left the coach after lunch to do some geocaching. End of the world or not, we needed to cache today to fill in the date for our days of the year challenge. We cached in the Desert Hot Springs area, actually only a few miles east of the RV park. We captured about four caches and then found ourselves on a sandy desert road driving through a very interesting canyons area that we didn’t even know was in the area. The road would not be suitable for your dad’s Buick, but the Jeep was doing OK. We wound our way south down a long wash and eventually into a fairly large stream bed before we got to the cache we were looking for. We found a spot which has been heavily used as a gun range, lots of casings laying around, but there was no one in the area today. We did find the cache, even after I slipped and fell climbing up to get it. No damage to me, but I did tweak the outside screen on my phone. Not working so good anymore, although the phone itself works fine. Don’t really need the small outside screen anyway, just flip it open to the regular big screen.

On the way out we discovered four other caches along the way thanks to Jackie’s phone. We hadn’t had them on our list because the terrain rating was higher than we normally go after. We cached for about three and a half hours and ended up with 14 new finds, including find number 4,600 for us. Because most of the finds were out in the desert, on some pretty rugged roads, it took us a while to get from cache to cache. Still had a great day of caching, and discovered an interesting area we were not aware of previously.

After our caching we drove over to the Desert Hot Springs Elks Lodge for a cocktail. We hoped to run into some acquaintances we have that are members of the lodge. We are members of the RV club from this lodge, which also includes members from the Palm Springs Elks, but we haven’t been on a trip with them in several years. We had a couple of drinks and talked to a couple of people that we knew slightly, but none of our camping friends came in. The Lodge was having dinner tonight, but it was all fried stuff we didn’t want, so we left there and went to a local Mexican restaurant down the street. The bartender at the lodge said the food was good, and Yelp gave it a good rating, so we decided to try it. Since it is a heavily Hispanic area, there are a lot of Mexican restaurants in DHS, but we haven’t found a really good one yet.

We arrived at Casa Blanca and found a very nicely decorated, and clean, restaurant with quite a Friday night crowd. I had the red chili burrito and a taco, which were excellent. The red chili was some of the best I have had. The taco was OK, and the waitress mixed up the order, giving me the chicken and Jackie the beef. Jackie said the beef taco was tasty but tough. The rest of her plate, the chili reallno and the enchilada were average according to her. I though the service was very good, even with the little mixup. Interestingly, if you did a review on the internet while you were there, and showed it to the waitress, you got a 5% discount on your meal. We did it and saved almost two bucks. Interesting concept. I would go back to Casa Blanca and can recommend it to anyone who should find themselves in Desert Hot Springs with a hankering for Mexican. It is on Pearson, just west of Palm Drive. After dinner we headed back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the night. Hopefully, the Mayans will be wrong and we will wake up tomorrow to the same old world.

Saturday, December 22nd, The Day That Was Not Supposed To Be! We awoke, not just to sunshine, but to, well, being awake. The Mayans were wrong, YEA! With a new lease on life, we set out after lunch to do some more geocaching in the Desert Hot Springs area. This was another must cache day for our days of the year challenge, the last for December. We spent about three hours caching and ended up with a dozen new finds and two new DNFs. One of the DNFs, I am convinced, is actually missing. The other I think we missed, but it is by a cacher that can be pretty devious in his hides. Maybe next time. After our caching we went back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the day and evening.

Sunday, December 23rd, dawned a cool and windy morning. I spent a couple of hours in the morning taking down all the Christmas decorations and other outside stuff, getting ready for our departure from DHS tomorrow. After lunch we packed up our dirty laundry and went into town to wash it. After our chores we went back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the evening.

Monday, December 24th, Christmas Eve. Wanting to Santa Claus on his toes, we are leaving Desert Hot Springs this morning and driving to the Indian Waters RV park in Indio, only 27 miles away. As with the last trip, the distance was too short to bother with hooking up the car, so Jackie just drove and followed me down to Indio. We left DHS a little after 11:00 and were settled into the Indian Waters RV Resort, with all the Christmas decorations put back up, by about 1:00.

Indian Waters, up until a couple of years ago, was one of our Western Horizons membership parks. When the park was sold and became a public RV park, the new owner made a policy of continuing to honor WHR members by offering deep discount rates. We can stay here for $12 a night, which is only a few dollars more than what we used to pay in “amenities fees” when it was WHR. The normal rate is in the $50's, so our rate is quite attractive.

After we got set up we relaxed for a while, and then at 4:00 we went over to the clubhouse for Christmas dinner. The park bought the main course, ham, turkey, stuffing and potatoes, and then it was a pot luck for everything else. We brought some cakes for dessert. Other than that, there was no charge for the dinner. Our friends Jay and Donna Blumenthal were hosting the event for the park and Jay was playing Christmas music on his portable keyboard when we got to the dinner. Jay and Donna used to be movers and shakers with FMCA, Jay was a regional VP when we first met them. Now they spend their entire winter at Indian Waters. They go back to their native New York in the summer.

We sat at a table with the current FMCA International Area VP, Al Vormittag and his wife Bobbie. We also know Al and Bobbie from all the rallies we have gone to over the years. After an hour of Christmas carols we had dinner, which was excellent. One of the features of the dinner was that Jay and Donna had found a local family that needed assistance, and had taken donations of gifts and money for the family. Apparently they had lost their house and all their belongings this year in a fire. They had a bunch of kids, I think six, from six to 18 years, and all of them got presents. All the smaller kids got new bikes, it was quite heartwarming to watch. We also won part of the fifty-fifty drawing, netting $20, which was less than what we paid for the cakes. So we had a great time, a good meal, made some new friends, and caught up with some old friends, all essentially for free. A very nice Christmas Eve.

After dinner we went back to the coach and relaxed for the rest of the night, waiting for Santa to come visit. We will be here in Indian Waters for two weeks, after which we will move a couple of blocks to the west to the FMCA Western Area Rally. Since it has been two weeks since our last post, this marks a great time to get this episode published. Until the next time we talk, we wish everyone a great Holiday season and a safe and happy 2013. See ya soon.

A Quiet Month in Silent Valley - Part II

Hello friends and followers.  Welcome back to the story.  Our last chapter ended on Monday, November 26th, as we were half way through our month long stay in Silent Valley, a large RV park in the mountains south of Banning, California.  The primary achievement of this past two weeks was the acquisition of a new six month old kitten, Benji the Bengal.  After a rough first four or five days, Benji and Smokey are now as close to buds as Smokey will ever be, and we are just dealing with the crazy energy of a young cat in a small house.

Tuesday, November 27th, we decided to stay up on the mountain and do our laundry.  They have a very nice facility here so we washed our clothes and played some Skipbo while we waited.  After laundry we went back to the coach and just relaxed the rest of the day and evening.  A very nice, quiet day on the mountain.  Wednesday was a little more active day.  We left the coach about noon and drove down to a great little Thai restaurant in Banning called Zen.  We had discovered this place when we were up in Silent Valley in the Spring of this year.

After a great lunch we did some geocaching.  Since we have done a lot of caching in this area in the past, the caches that we haven’t already found are kind of scattered far and wide.  It takes longer to get to them, meaning we were only able to get eight new finds, along with a new DNF, in a couple of hours.  After caching we stopped at the Kohls in Beaumont and did a little shopping.  We both got a couple of new shirts.  We then went back up the mountain and relaxed in the coach the rest of the day.

Thursday, November 29th, the rain finally arrived at Silent Valley.  The weather gurus have been talking about a “rain event” for a couple days now, and last night it got to us.  Not a lot of rain, just a few sprinkles, but this morning it was cold and foggy up here in the valley.  Everything was wet and it was not a real pleasant day.  We stayed around the house until about 2:00 when we drove down the mountain.  We needed to do some shopping and then we were going to the Elks Lodge in Beaumont to meet our friend Marianne Conner, who lives locally. 

Our first stop was Home Depot to get some things for some repairs and work to the coach.  I still needed some hardware to fix the bed frame and we needed to buy some lightweight material we can fasten to the underside of the dash to keep the cat out.  It is just too much trouble to use the rugs, pillows and towels we have under there now.  Benji is more comfortable with the coach, but I still fear that if we reopen access he will run and hide up under the dash again if he gets spooked.  I got some light plastic mesh that I think will work.  I also got the stuff to fix the bed and some caulk for a small, but persistent leak in one of the slides.  One thing about a motorhome, there is always something to fix.

After our trip to Home Depot we stopped at Walmart for some groceries, most important of which was cat food.  With two cats we are now going through food at twice the pace and since we don’t want to be eaten in the middle of the night we figured we needed to ensure we didn’t run low.  After Walmart we drove over to the Elks Lodge.  We had a cocktail and waited for Marianne to arrive at 5:00.  Marianne Conner is an old friend from when we still lived in Indio.  Marianne and her husband David had a house in Bermuda Dunes, near Indio, and both were also members of the Indio Elks Lodge, our lodge at the time.  In 2005, the same year we sold our house and went out full time, David and Marianne also sold their house and went out on the road in a motorhome full time.  In 2006 we met up with them a couple of times and ended up spending a total of about three months traveling with them, both back East and in the Northwest.  They only stayed on the road for about two years before David got too sick to travel all the time, so they bought a house in Highland Springs, a golf community north of Beaumont.  David died a couple of years ago, but we stay in touch with Marianne and try to see here when we are in the area.

We had a couple of drinks and then sat down for dinner at the Lodge.  This was hamburger night and they have some pretty good burgers.  We ate, drank and visited with Marianne for a couple of hours before we finally started back up the hill to the coach.  It gets dark about 5:00 this time of year, but going up the mountain in the dark is not as scary as doing it in the fog, and there can often be fog on the mountain in this kind of weather.  Fortunately, we only hit fog on the very last part of the trip as we started down into the actual valley the park lies in, and it was only for about a quarter mile.  After we got back to the coach we unloaded the groceries and then relaxed the rest of the evening.       

Friday, November 30th, the skies were still dark and wet when we woke up.  When I first got up around 7:00, the entire valley was filled with fog and mist and you couldn’t see 100 yards in the distance.  It gradually cleared, but the forecast was for drizzle all day.  We decided to just stay in and we got a few chores done.  One of the main ones I completed was getting the plastic screening installed under the passenger side of the dashboard so Benji couldn’t get up there any more.  Looks a lot better than the pile of pillows we had stuffed in there before.  Jackie got some cupboards cleaned out and some cleaning done.  Just another relaxing day at Silent Valley.

Saturday, December 1st, the first day of the last month of 2012.  There were a few brief periods of sunshine, Northern California is getting a lot worse storm than Southern, but it still was cloudy and cool most of the day.  We thought about going down to Banning to see Flight, the new Denzil Washington movie, but decided that Saturday would probably be too busy.  We just stayed around the coach again, and I finished my project to seal off the underside of the coach’s dashboard to keep the new cat from getting up under the dash.  It took a couple of hours, but it is now blocked off with mesh, so the cat can’t get in, but air still can.

Of course, within twenty minutes Benji was under the dash area, checking my work, but he didn’t get in.  Yea!  Jackie got some more cupboards cleaned out so we had a good chores day.  Other than that, we were on the computers, and watching TV all day.  Nice day in the Valley.  By the way, Smokey and Benji are best friends now, play fighting half the day and sleeping close together the other half.

Sunday, December 2nd, we left the coach about 11:00 for a day with friends.  We drove down the mountain and then southwest to the Menifee area to visit with our friends Ray and Suzie Babcock at their house.  Regular readers will remember that we traveled for several months this summer with Ray and Suzie and had a great time.  Although we talk on the phone, we last saw them in early September when we parted company in Kansas.

We arrived at their house in Menifee about 12:30 and spent a couple hours talking and catching up.  They have a very nice home and even have space to park their coach next to the house in the side yard.  Even their dog Casey was happy to see us.  About 3:00 we all went to a nearby Mexican restaurant called Carnitas Express.  We had made arrangements to meet Larry and Renate Mitchell at the restaurant.  Larry and Renate are friends we met through Ray and Suzie, and with whom we spent some time on Thanksgiving when they were camping up at Silent Valley, just a few spaces away from us.  They live in the same general area of Menifee as Ray and Suzie.  When we arrived at the restaurant Ray and Larry noticed that another couple, Jim and Sally, were already there just starting to eat.  They also live in the neighborhood and Jim is also a retired Los Angeles firefighter.  The restaurant set up a table for eight and we all had dinner together.

Although the name Carnitas Express might give the impression of a Taqueria or fast food place, the restaurant is very nice, has an extensive menu, and the food is very good.  We had eaten here once before last year and enjoyed the food.  I had the Chili Colorado and it was excellent.  Jackie had chicken fajitas and she said they were great too.  We had a really nice dinner and then all eight of us drove over to Larry and Renate’s house just down the street.  They also have a lovely home and Renate is a great decorator.  The place looked like a model home.  I did have to chuckle when I later, on the way home, admitted to Jackie that, although both couples had great houses, when I looked around all I saw was work.  I don’t think either of us ever wants the hassle of a house again.  Our little 40 foot condo is fine for us.

We had some coconut cream pie and chatted for a little while with everyone before we hit the road for the drive back to Silent Valley.  It was about 45 miles and most of it was freeway.  There wasn’t too much traffic, so even in the dark it was a fairly easy drive.  Until we started up the mountain.  About halfway up the 11 mile drive we hit fog, and it got really heavy and a little scary.  The road is narrow and curvy and a little intimidating when you can’t see a hundred feet in front of the hood.  Fortunately, there wasn’t much traffic and we made it safely to Silent Valley, albeit a little slower than ususal.  We spent the rest of the evening relaxing, watching TV and the cats playing.           

Monday, December 3rd, we were awakened by something new, at least for the last week, sunshine coming in the windows.  The weather gurus said that today was the last of the rain for Southern California for a while, and our skies seemed to be upholding that promise.  Since everything was still wet, it was a little icky for caching, so we decided to just relax for the day.  We stayed in the coach all day, playing and watching TV and just enjoying the quiet.

Tuesday we finally said goodbye to the wet weather.  We left the coach after lunch, about 1:00 or so, and drove down to Beaumont for the day.  We stopped at Kohls and did some shopping first, then drove over to Banning to catch a movie.  It has been quite a while since we saw a movie at the theater.  I am pretty sure that the last one was Unstoppable, the previous Denzel Washington movie, but neither of us can remember where or when we saw it.  But we do enjoy going to the movies when we can and when there is something playing we want to see.

Today we saw Flight, with Denzel Washington.  We had heard it was a pretty good movie, but I had not heard a lot about the plot, except that it revolved around a plane crash.  It was an excellent movie with Washington playing a veteran airline pilot who crash lands a stricken airliner using unorthodox methods, saving all but six of the more than 100 passengers and crew on the plane.  However, he is an alcoholic and a drug addict and the rest of the movie deals with him working with these demons.  A very powerful movie. 

After the movie we went to the Beaumont Elks Lodge for their spaghetti dinner.  We had told our friend Marianne Conner that we would meet her there, although we would not be there at 5:00 when they start serving.  We got there about 6:15 and Marianne was still there, sitting with a bunch of her friends from Highland Springs, the country club in which she lives.  Although she had already eaten she and another friend of hers came and sat with us for a little while as we waited to be served.  Dinner was very good and by the time we finished we were pretty much the only people left in the bar.  This group eats early and leaves early.  After dinner we drove back up the mountain, without the fog this time, and settled into the coach for the rest of the evening.

Wednesday, December 5th, we stayed in for the day again.  After lunch I tackled the problem with the bed again, this time using bolts to keep everything together.  This time it worked and now the bed goes up and down properly.  The entire structure of the bed still needs to be rebuilt by professionals, one of the projects on our list of things to have done with the coach when we go to Oregon next summer.  Other than that we just relaxed and enjoyed a very nice day in Silent Valley.  The cats are doing fine, a lot of wrestling, but no anger.  Benji now jumps up on our laps from time to time when we are watching TV, wanting some pets and loving.  He has not made any effort to defeat my blockade of the bottom of the dash, so that makes me happy.  All is well at the Holt house.  Yea!

Thursday, December 6th, we left the coach about 11:30 on a beautiful, sunny but cool morning and drove south about 16 miles to the mountain community of Idyllwild.  We always try to get to Idyllwild at least once during any stay at Silent Valley, just to spend an afternoon enjoying the town.  We stopped first for lunch at The Greek Place, a small restaurant on the main square of town.  We have seen this place a number of times over the years but never eaten there.  We are usually up here with friends, so we generally end up at JoAnn’s, the big hamburger joint in the middle of the square.  The food is OK there, but nothing special. 

The Greek Place had a decent menu, but we were surprised to find that they had no Gyros on the menu that had the traditional Greek lamb and beef combo meat.  They only had one lamb dish, a very pricey kabob, everything else was beef or chicken.  Although I don’t care for lamb, Jackie loves it and to me you really can’t call yourself a Greek restaurant if you don’t at least have real Gyros.  I had a beef Gyro that was excellent.  The meat was well spiced and the sauce, the tzatsiki sauce, the standard cucumber yogurt stuff, was very good.  Jackie wanted Mousaka, the egg plant dish, but they were out of it, so she got Loucaniko an orange flavored Greek sausage, that was pretty decent.  Some of the dinner items were pretty pricey, but overall this was a decent place for lunch.

After lunch we wandered around the town square and shopped for an hour or so before starting to do a little geocaching in the area.  We bought some LED Christmas lights and I got a new hat that was on sale at one of the shops.  Jackie got a really nice turquoise scarf too. 

Today was a day we had to get a cache to fill the date on our days of the year challenge, but there are not too many caches left in the Idyllwild area that we haven’t gotten, at least not caches that don’t require heading out on one of the many hiking trails in the area.  We did manage to get four caches in an hour or so, after which we started back towards Silent Valley.  Once home we settled in for the rest of the evening.  A very nice day in the mountains.

 Friday, December 7th, Pearl Harbor Day.  We decided that we would just stay in today and relax, do a few chores and enjoy the nice day up in Silent Valley.  So we did.  Saturday we noticed started out a bit cooler, it was in the mid-40's when I got up.  Good thing we only have a couple more days up here on the mountain.  We decided to take one last day for caching in the Banning area and drove down the mountain after lunch.  We had a pretty good afternoon, getting a total of 13 new finds in a couple of hours.  Most of them were part of a fairly new series of caches along an abandoned road by the Cabazon Outlet Mall.  They were all placed along old Route 99, which still runs along the south edge of the I-10 freeway, but is no longer maintained as a roadway, although most of the pavement is still there.  We also got two new DNFs, and one cache that was an unusual sort of in-between. 

One of the caches in the series was a small, plastic bison tube that had been dropped down into an old tubular piece of fence tubing.  The tube had a metal ring on the top and the way you got it out was to use a magnetic probe, which we have as one of our TOTTs (Tools Of The Trade) in our caching bag.  We got that one.  A few caches later, in the same series, there was a similar hide, except that whoever found it last put it in the pipe in such a way as it was jammed in and too far down for the length of our magnetic probe.  I could see the cache with a flashlight, but couldn’t reach it.  This really wasn’t a DNF, since we did “find” it, but we couldn’t take it as a find because we couldn’t retrieve it and sign the log.  So we didn’t do either.  We just wrote a note on the site for the owner of the cache, telling him that it was not currently reachable and needed to be attended to.  After our caching we headed back up the mountain and relaxed the rest of the day.

Sunday, December 9th, our last full day in Silent Valley.  I spent an hour or so in the morning taking down all the outside decorations, mats and so forth.  After lunch Jackie and I went down to the laundry center and did our clothes and linens.  That will hold us for a week or so.  Other than spending part of the day doing chores and getting ready for travel tomorrow, we just watched TV and enjoyed the weather.

Monday, December 10th, we had the coach buttoned up and ready for travel by about 10:00 and then departed Silent Valley.  The ride down the hill in the coach is always exciting, but went off without a hitch.  We only had 40 miles to travel today, so we didn’t even hook up the car.  Jackie just followed along behind.

Since this was Benji’s first time traveling in the coach, and since I was going to be alone in the coach, we decided to put him in his carrier for the trip.  He didn’t seem to mind, and just settled in and laid down for the whole trip.  I never heard a peep out of him.  An ironically, Smokey, who doesn’t travel well and spends a lot of time meowing and walking around when there is a lot of road noise and such, also just laid down next to Benji’s carrier and he never said a peep.  I guess they worked off each other and were soothed.  Pretty cool.

We arrived at the Desert Pools RV Resort about 11:30 and were parked and completely set up by about 1:00.  This is one of our Western Horizons membership resorts and we will be here for two weeks before moving on to Indio.  After we got set up we drove into Palm Springs to the Walmart store for some grocery shopping.  After shopping we went back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the day.  It is about 10 degrees warmer here than up on the mountain, so the weather is very nice.  Not shorts weather, but certainly not jacket weather either.

Our move down off the mountain marks a great time to put this chapter of our story to bed.  We will be here two weeks, so the next episode can be expected in about two weeks.  Of course, if the Mayan’s were correct, this will be the last episode of ours, and everyone else’s story, so if that’s case, it was nice knowing you.  If we make it past the 21st unscathed, we will continue to enjoy each day as it comes along.  See ya soon - I hope!

A Quiet Month in Silent Valley - Part 1

Hi there, welcome back to our story.  Our last episode concluded on Monday, November 12th, with our arrival at the Silent Valley Club, our membership/ownership RV resort in the San Jacinto Mountains, eleven miles south of Banning, California.  We were last here in May of this year, when we spent a month.  We will be here for another month this time.  We arrived at Silent Valley just before noon since we had a fairly short trip from Hesperia, California, where we had spent the night at the Elks Lodge.

The procedure at Silent Valley is you check in with the ranger at the gate and then you drive into the park and pick your site.  There are over 800 sites in the park and they are randomly scattered around this large valley.  There are a lot of trees,
so if you have satellite, as we do, you have to be a little careful where you park.  Fortunately, there are not a lot of rigs up here this time of year, so we had a lot of choices.  We picked a nice spot on the dry creek, a spot we have used before, so we know the satellite will work.  We spent the rest of the afternoon getting set up.  Since we will be here for a month I put out more outside decorations, mats and so forth to dress the place up a little.

Tuesday, November 13th, we left the coach about 11:30 and drove down the mountain to Banning.  It is only 11 miles from Banning to the resort, but it goes up over 1,500 feet in elevation and it is a fairly narrow, winding road.  We stopped at the La Casita restaurant in Beaumont, the next town over, for lunch.  La Casita has restaurants all over the Coachella Valley and Banning/Beaumont, and they have the best taco salad anywhere.  We really miss La Casita when we travel out of the area.

After lunch we headed east on US 60 to Moreno Valley, about 20 miles or so east of Banning.  Moreno Valley is the closest large city with major stores like Costco and Sam’s Club.  We needed to go to Costco because we were almost out of Absolute, and that can absolutely not be allowed to happen.  Before we went to Costco we stopped at Petsmart and then the local animal shelter to check out kitties.  As I have said in recent past chapters, we are considering getting another cat to keep us and our cat Smokey company.  Smokey is going on 13 years old, so we figure we need to bring another cat into the house to keep the lineage going.

We saw one very nice two year old female at Petsmart that seemed nice, but the adoption agency that places the cats there didn’t have anyone on site to let us hold and play with her.  We may come back and take another look at her on Saturday when they have adoption day.

After looking at cats for a while we went to Costco and did our shopping.  While we were in the Midwest, and even in Albuquerque, we had found a Kirkland brand vodka in Costco stores that was excellent, every bit as good as Absolute.  Kirkland is Costco’s in-house brand and this was called American Vodka and it was made by a company in California.  It sold for at least a third less than the Absolute.  Kirkland also has a French made vodka, but it is as much, or sometimes more, than the Absolute.  This store didn’t carry it!  They had the French stuff, but no American Vodka.  Fortunately, the Absolute was on sale, so we still got a bargain.  We are going to contact the store manager to see if they can stock the American Vodka.    After Costco we headed back to Beaumont and stopped at Walmart for some supplies also.  Once we had our chores done we went back up the mountain, getting back to the coach just as dark approached at 5:00.  We relaxed and watched TV the rest of the evening.

Wednesday, November 14th, we had a stay at home day.  After lunch we packed up our dirty clothes and went down to the laundry at the park and did our washing.  They have a very nice, big, laundry facility here at Silent Valley, which makes it convenient.  Other than laundry we didn’t do anything other than some chores around the coach.  A nice relaxing day.  We did BBQ some really nice, big T-bones on the grill for dinner.  Because we have been moving around we haven’t had the BBQ out much lately, it was nice to cook something for a change.  Thursday was also a leisure day.  We like coming up to Silent Valley because it gives us a chance to really relax.  We try to keep “busy” days down to two or three a week and find time to just relax, play and enjoy the quiet.  Did a few administrative chores in the afternoon, but not much more than that.

Friday, November 16th, we awoke to a few clouds and very light sprinkles.  The weather gave a slim chance for rain today, so we decided to go down the hill into Banning/Beaumont to do some caching and some errands.  We left the coach after lunch and went down the mountain, noticing that the skies were beginning to clear and it no longer looked like rain.  Our first stop was a house in Beaumont where the residents had three young cats that they were trying to give away.  We have been sort of looking for another cat companion, and Jackie had checked Craig’s List and found a lady here in Beaumont who had to move and couldn’t take her three cats.  They were all from the same litter and all about five months old or so. 

It was two gray, or mostly gray males and one white and gray female.  They were all pretty tame and friendly, but they just didn’t quite click with us.  One problem with getting a cat like this is that you don’t know if they are really healthy, and we would have to make arrangement to get whatever cat we picked neutered.  The people who had the cat were nice enough, but the house and their appearance were pretty trashy, so we were a little concerned about the health of the cats.  We left without a kitty.

After checking out the cats we did some geocaching in the Beaumont area, finding a total of seven new caches, but also getting two DNFs.  The sad part is the two we didn’t find were repeat DNFs, caches we had looked for last year and couldn’t find.  We still couldn’t find them.  Rats.  After caching we did some quick shopping before heading back up the hill before dark.  We then watched TV the rest of the evening.

Saturday, November 17th, we left the coach a little before 10:00 and went down to the village center area of Silent Valley for a meeting of the Board of Directors.  The Village center is near the entrance to the park and is where the store, restaurant, bar, laundry, administrative offices, amphitheater and several other buildings are located.  We expected that there would be a big turnout for this meeting, and we weren’t disappointed.  There were several hundred people in attendance, a big change from meetings in past years where you might get a couple dozen. 

The issue is, what else, money.  Over the past couple of years the club has been having financial difficulties, some of it apparent mismanagement by the Board, a lot of it owner/members who are not paying their annual dues.  This is a very large park in a fairly remote location and it takes a lot of money to run.  The bulk of the revenue for the club comes from the annual dues paid by the member/owners.  This is a somewhat unique type of membership RV park in that the land on which the facility is located is leased by the club from Forest Service on a 99 year lease that started in 1974.  When you become a member/owner here you actually purchase a deeded interest in that lease, and are obligated by the contract for the entire term of the lease, basically forever.  There are 6,800 “shares” of this leasehold and you actually get a recorded deed for an undivided 1/6800 of the leasehold.  We were told about this place by a number of our friends at the Indio Elks Lodge who had RVs and were owner/members up here.  When we bought our membership 2004 we paid about $750, which included the transfer fee, title fee, and the first year’s dues, which were around $300 a year at that time.  About four years ago they went up to $625. 

The problem with finances has come because over the years more and more owner/members have defaulted on their obligation to pay dues.  Right now there are 970 owner/members who are in default and they expect another 189 to default in the coming year.  In addition, the Club itself holds 813 “shares” that were buy-backs, foreclosures, or are otherwise unsold interests in the leasehold.  This means that of the 6,800 individual shares, almost 1,800 of them are producing no revenue, this is 26 percent of the total shares that are not paying, and if their predictions hold true, that will go up to 29 percent by the end of next year. 

A lot of this problem stems from the fact that the share you buy is an obligation forever, unless you can sell or give it away to someone else who then takes title to the deed.  The people that bought into here 20 or 30 years ago are aging to the point where they no longer RV and they haven’t been able to dump the obligation, so they just default.  In addition, even if you die, the obligation remains to your estate and heirs, and unless they are RVers, they will likely just let it go into default too.

A couple of years ago the club had a $200 special assessment, which caused a spike in defaults, and this year they assessed another $400 on top of the normal $600 assessment.  They have gone through a couple million in reserves over the past several years and basically bleeding money.  That was the reason for the huge turnout at the Board meeting, the owners want the Board recalled and the park turned around.  Of course, it’s all a lot more complicated than most of the members understand, but they don’t really care - they just want to not have to keep paying special assessments. 

My background and experience in homeowner association management gives me a little better insight into the problems the Board is facing, but I too have to criticize them for trying to maintain the country club lifestyle in these poor economic times.  The last few years the restaurant, bar and other activities, which are supposed be self supporting, have been hemorrhaging money.  In my opinion, instead of focusing on the primary goal of operating an RV park, they have spent too much time and money trying to keep activities and amenities going.  Until the economy gets better they need to just run this place as an RV park, not a country club. 

Anyway, we went to the meeting and listened to everyone yell and scream at the Board, and heard the Board promise to do better.  Other than that, there is not much we can do about it right now.  Being retired and full timers, we at least get to use the place a couple months a year, which is about the break even point for the normal $600 assessment.  The extra $400 hurts that equation, but we want to continue to use Silent Valley for the foreseeable future, we like it here, so we will pay it.  If you don’t pay, you don’t get to come up here.

After the Board meeting we drove down the mountain and over to Moreno Valley, about 20 miles west of Banning.  We stopped for lunch at a place called Jason’s Deli.  The reason I picked this place is that I had found it on the internet while doing a search for places in Southern California that had muffelletas on the menu.  Up until our visit to New Orleans this summer I had never heard of a muffuletta, but I sure learned to like them while we were in the South.  I talked about it in a blog episode from summer, but it is a very large sandwich with ham, salami and Provolone cheese, served on a big, round special bun that is called Muffuletta bread, with a special olive spread.  They are usually about 12 inches across, so they are big.  Normally you buy a half or a quarter Muffuletta.  Only two people can finish a full one.

I had a hankering for a Muffuletta and found Jason’s Deli featuring them at one of their restaurants in Moreno Valley, I knew we had to go.  Jason’s are all over the country, but I didn’t know about them until I found them online during the Muffuletta search.  I had a bowl of French onion soup and a half Muffuletta, Jackie had a chicken Panini and a cup of seafood gumbo.  The food was excellent.  Jackie complained that her sandwich was dry and she had to go hunt down some mayo for it, and it didn’t have as much chicken as she would have liked.  The gumbo was outstanding and would have made a great meal by itself.  The Muffuletta was as good as I remembered, as just as big.  I ended up taking half of mine, a quarter Muffuletta, home for lunch tomorrow. 

I can recommend Jason’s Deli as a great place to eat.  Typical deli, where you stand in line to order your food and then they bring it to your table.  The menu is mostly sandwiches, but a great variety of regular deli fare, lots of soups, a big salad bar, and, of course, great Muffelletas.  There are Jason’s in Indiana, Nevada, Texas, Arizona, California and several other states.  Look them up and go there if it’s close by.  I think we will be regular customers when we get close to one.

After lunch we drove over to the Petsmart store, which was right down the street from Jason’s.  I mentioned earlier that we had stopped at Petsmart on Tuesday checking out the cats up for adoption.  We had liked one of the cats, a little yellow female about a year old.  We had talked to the lady who runs the adoption company, called TLC of IE (Tender Loving Care of the Inland Empire), and she told us that they only come down to Petsmart on Saturdays and when she did come down they would have a lot more cats than the few they had “stored” at Petsmart.

We got into the store and when the TLC folks came they did indeed have a lot of cats.  We were pulling different cats out, playing with them and cuddling, trying to see if there was one that clicked with us.  The little female we had liked turned out to be very skittish once the cage was opened, so she didn’t work.  TLC doesn’t have a shelter, they keep a few cats at several local Petsmart stores, but most of their cats are in foster homes.  The foster moms bring them to the store on Saturdays where people can look at them a play with them.  Jackie was talking to one of the foster moms, telling her what she wanted in a new cat, and she suggested we check out one of her foster kitties, a six month old male that was a Bengal mix.  She brought the cat out and he was gorgeous, light and dark gray, with very pretty stripe and spot marking.  He had the Bengal traits of very narrow body, long back legs and a pointy nose.  He was also extremely mellow.  We both held him and he didn’t squirm around or want to get down, he just lay there and let us pet him.  He never meowed at all, just very laid back.  After a while we decided he was a keeper, so we started the adoption process.  At that point Jackie got a look at his papers and his birthday was the same as her’s, May 15th.  Jackie decided that it was fate we found this cat.

After we got the papers completed and paid the $85 adoption fee we a new cat, whose name at this point was Chargraytoo, given to him by his foster mom.  We decided that name had to go, but we haven’t settled on a new one yet.  We had brought our cat carrier, so we bundled up the new cat and headed back to Silent Valley.  The cat, who is very used to cages, didn’t mind the drive at all.  Never meowed and just laid down and took a nap during the drive.  Again, very mellow.

Once we got home things kind of changed.  We left the new cat in the carrier and put it on the floor and Smokey, our other cat, was NOT happy.  He walked over, looked in and started hissing and growling, and scared the crap out of the new little guy.  Smokey went back into the bedroom and sulked the rest of the day, and the new cat found a hiding place under the dashboard of the coach and refused to come out.  At one point I didn’t know where he went, and even though I was sure he couldn’t get out of the coach from anywhere under the dash, I still wanted to know where he was.  After searching for about 30 minutes I finally found his hiding hole.  Smokey, being a big 17 pound cat, could never get up where the new cat was hiding, which I think was his idea.  I took him out once and Jackie held him for a few minutes, but as soon as she let go he ran back into his hiding place.  We decided to just let him be and we never saw him again.

We are hoping that eventually he will stop being afraid and come out to interact with us.  We are going to give him a day or two of total peace, not looking for him or trying to coax him out.  Just let him get used to the sounds and smells or his new home and hope he decides to come out.  Stay tuned for updates.  We watched TV for the rest of the night while Smokey sulked in the bedroom and new cat hid.  Fun, fun, fun.

Sunday, November 18th, had a relaxing morning, watching news and reading the Sunday paper.  We decided to have a relaxing day at home, maybe trying to bond with the new cat.  We have finally settled on a name agreeable to both of us, Benji.  Benji the Bengal.  Now we just have to get the cat to interact with us.  I finally got him out of the dashboard and into his carrier, where he seemed to be quite content for the most part.  I spent an hour with carpets, pillows and masking tape sealing up the dashboard area so he can’t get back in there.  He really enjoys being petted and handled while in the carrier, and Jackie even held him on her lap for about 30 minutes and he loved it.  We were successful in sealing the dash, he tried all his previous routes and found them blocked, so he went back to the more conventional hiding under chairs.  I did get him to come out and relax and play with the laser dot for about an hour.  He really liked playtime with the laser and even played with the toy mouse and rat we had for Smokey that he pretty much ignores.

Unfortunately, even after we got him mellowed a little with play, he still wouldn’t come to us or jump up on our lap.  He walked around the house, but was VERY easily spooked.  Any hand motion or sharp noise would startle him and he would run to a hidey hole.  He came over near us, but just couldn’t bring himself to actually come to us.  This is unfortunate, and I hope it works out after a few days.  We can’t have a cat that just hides and never wants to interact.  That is not why we got another cat.  He is really cute and nice, but he needs to settle down.

After cat proofing most of the house we spent the rest of the day in the coach, playing, relaxing and on the computer.  Jackie caught up on some of her recorded TV programs too.  We had a great day and had pork ribs cooking all day in the crock pot for dinner.  They turned out really well.  The evening was spent on the coach watching TV and watching the new cat.  He was at least out exploring the living room area, although still very timid.  Smokey had gone back into the bedroom and was on the bed, so Benji had the run of the living room.

We went to bed about 10:30 and woke up early in the morning, around 4:00 or so, and heard Benji meowing.  This was the first time he was really crying out.  He was walking around the coach just meowing his head off.  I got the impression he was lonely and wanted to be with us, but he was still too afraid to come up on the bed.  Even though Smokey was on the bed, and would hiss and growl from time to time, Benji would still walk in the bedrooms and walk around the bed.  He doesn’t seem to be hiding from Smokey anymore, so I guess that’s progress.

Monday, November 19th, we woke up not knowing where Benji was hiding.  Although I know I had heard him moving around the house, even meowing, as late as 5:00 a.m., he was no where to be found when we got up.  All of the defenses I put around the dashboard area seemed to be intact, so I didn’t think he had gotten up there.  I did find one spot of vulnerability where two pillows were not as tight as I would have liked, so I check a few spots that I could see without tearing the whole blockade down, and didn’t see him.  Checked everywhere else we could think of and could not find the cat.

We decided that we know for a fact that there is no route out of the coach except by door or window, so he was within 40 feet somewhere, and we were just going to let him be.  We had to get a cache today for our days of the year challenge, so we decided to go down to Banning and do some caching.  Benji and Smokey have shown no signs of wanting to kill each other, so we were pretty confident there would be no bloodshed while we were gone.

We left after lunch, about 1:00, and went down the hill into Banning.  We were able to find nine caches within a couple of hours.  The caches were all in rural settings, rough dirt roads, and several miles apart, so that’s why it took so long to get nine.  We also got one new DNF.  After caching we stopped at Walmart for a few things and then went back up to the RV park.

When we got back to the coach there were still no signs that Benji had gotten out of his hiding place, so we just went about our normal routines.  Shortly after 5:00 I was sitting on the couch, having a cocktail and watching the news when I heard some noises from under the dash and saw slight movement on the face of the radio in the dashboard.  The damn cat was under the dash after all.  I guess the vulnerability I had found was, in fact, an entrance.  I took down a couple pieces of the blockade and went back to the couch and within a couple minutes Benji’s head popped up and he came out.  While he wandered around the coach I fixed the blockade, hopefully for good this time.

After dinner, while we were on our couches watching TV I spent some time playing with Benji with the laser, the feather toy and his mouse.  Smokey had come into the living room and was sitting on the floor just watching the cat race back and forth, watching carefully, but not hissing or growling.  Smokey finally got up on Jackie’s couch and curled up by her feet and ignored the new cat.  After a couple hours Benji had gotten comfortable enough to come over to the side of the couch, both mine and Jackie, to let us pet him.  Then I could pick him up and have him on my lap for a while, and then he started where he would jump up on my lap on his own.  Didn’t stay long, but I think that has more to do with the fact that he is a six month old kitten with boundless energy rather than that he is afraid.  At one point he was even up on Jackie’s chest getting cuddles while Smokey was still down by her feet.  All in all, real progress was made today.  Yea!

Tuesday, November 20th, we elected for another stay at home day up here in the cool autumn of Silent Valley.  We did a couple of little chores, but mostly just relaxed, I played on the computer and Jackie watched TV and played on her computer.  Benji spent most of the day out in the open, running around the coach and exploring.  Doesn’t seem to be trying to find a way under the dash anymore, but still goes under chairs when he wants to hide.  That’s not a big problem, because if we get worried about him, he’s easy to find now.  Last night he was in and out of the bedroom all night and even made a couple of quick jumps onto the bed, although he didn’t stay long.  That’s where Smokey sleeps at night, so Benji backs off pretty fast.

During the evening we got him to play more and spend more time on our laps.  He does not seem to be intimidated by Smokey much anymore.  He walks and runs right past him, and even jumps up on the couch when Smokey is on the other end.  Smokey will hiss and show his teeth and Benji just looks at him like he can’t figure out why he doesn’t want to play.  It is clear that they are both using the same litter box, which is a big deal that we were worried about, and they are sharing the food and water.  Not at the same time, but they are both stopping off when possible.  Benji is being a little less spooked by movement and sound, but is still pretty on edge.  Smokey is pissed, but not aggressive.  He has never lifted a paw or made a move towards Benji.  He just stands, or lays, his ground, hisses and hopes for the best.  As I said, Benji doesn’t seem to be much impressed by Smokey’s hissing anymore.  Progress continues.  Yea!

Wednesday, November 21st, another great morning in Silent Valley.  Last night was a little restless in that Benji came up on the bed several times during the night, but not to sleep, to play.  Smokey would hiss at him, but he ignored that for the most part.  He wanted to bat my feet under the covers every time I moved them.  I have to keep telling myself that he is just a kitten and that is what kittens do, play.  Haven’t had a kitten in a long time, forgot how much patience you have to show, but it is fun to watch sometimes.

For the first time Benji made breakfast.  The routine for Smokey, since he was a kitten, is that he always has dry food and water out, but in the morning I give him a quarter can of squishy food.  The small, tuna can size.  He also gets a quarter can of squishy at night, about the time we have dinner.  Of course, Smokey knows this routine and when I get up he is walking around meowing and raising hell that he wants his food.  This morning, when we walked into the kitchen, Smokey at my heels, there was Benji, standing by the sink meowing and rubbing my ankles too.  They both got some squishy food, in separate bowls of course, and both had a good breakfast.  It was funny to watch that after they were both done, they walked away briefly, then went back and each checked the other’s dish to be sure he didn’t leave anything.

The morning was calm in that Smokey went to his daytime resting place, under the comforter on the bed.  He normally goes in there in the morning and doesn’t reappear until late afternoon.  Benji continues to be more outgoing, spending a lot less time hiding and more time walking around checking things out.  He is still a little skittish if you get up and look like you are moving towards him, or make a sudden movement or sound.

After lunch we decided the cats would be OK on their own and we drove down the mountain to do some geocaching in Banning.  We got ten new finds in two hours, with no new DNFs.  After caching we made a trip to the Dollar Tree to find some trinkets for leaving in caches.  Some caches are big enough to leave little things.  We have, for the last couple years, been leaving little blue policemen.  They are like the old fashioned Army men, except they depict police.  I have always been able to get a bag of 20 or so for a dollar at Dollar Tree, however, both the one in Banning and the one in Beaumont no longer had them in stock.  To tide us over I bought some little dinosaurs, but I would rather have policemen.  We also bought a couple of cat toys for Benji, some balls and a little mouse.

We then made a stop at Walmart and picked up a couple of things, mostly for the cat again.  After Walmart we stopped at the Banning/Beaumont Elks Lodge.  We almost didn’t get in, they didn’t answer the door bell and Jackie had to call them on the phone to get the bartender to answer the door.  She had been back in the kitchen and didn’t hear the bell.  We were the only ones there for a while, but the bartender was very nice.  We had a cocktail and picked up a copy of the bulletin and schedule for the lodge so we would know when they had meals if we wanted to come back. 

After the Elks we drove back up the mountain and settled into the coach for the night.  Benji and Smokey spent the night ignoring each other mostly.  A few hisses from Smokey when Benji gets too close, but Benji is clearly showing signs that he wants to be friends and is not really fearful of the much bigger cat.  Benji continues to show more affection for us, jumping up on our laps for pets and hugs.  He loves his belly rubbed, which is something Smokey will not tolerate.  Yet another day of progress in Raising Benji.  Yea.

Thursday, November 22nd, Happy Thanksgiving Day!  A little breezy up here on the mountain, but the skies are blue and the temps cool, but comfortable.  Since it was Thanksgiving and we were planning a big traditional dinner for the two of us, we decided to stay around the park today.  There were a lot of RVs coming in over the last couple of days and it was clear that a lot of families were planning Thanksgiving get-togethers up here in Silent Valley.  It certainly looks more traditional Fall-like than around most of Southern California, with a lot of deciduous trees that are dressed in their fall colors and the piles of colorful leaves on the ground.

Benji the kitten has quickly learned the breakfast routine and was waiting patiently by the sink when I left the bedroom.  Jackie and I spent most of the day watching TV and working on the computers.  Both cats decided to take long daytime naps, so we didn’t see much of them until mid afternoon.  Jackie put our turkey, actually just a breast, in the oven timed for an early dinner.  That way we could skip lunch and be ready for a big meal around 5:00 or so.  We did leave the coach for an hour or so and walked over to some friends who were parked nearby.  Larry and Renate Mitchell are friends that we met through Ray and Suzie Babcock.  They also have a diesel motor home and Larry is a retired fireman that used to work with Ray in Los Angeles.  We have not spent a lot of time with them, a few visits up here in Silent Valley and they were also at the Good Sam Rally in Phoenix this Spring.  They are very nice and we sat and chatted with them for about an hour.  They had invited us to eat dinner with them, but they had their two sons, both of whom are firemen also, and their families up, so we told them we were doing our own dinner.  Ray and Suzie had also asked us over, but again we didn’t want to interfere in other families gatherings.  We are perfectly happy celebrating how thankful we are to have each other, our love, our lifestyle, our kitties and all the other things that make life great.

Dinner was on at 5:00 and we had the turkey, stuffing, two kinds of potatoes, cranberries and rolls.  It was all great and we stuffed ourselves.  Didn’t have any desert though, have to watch our waistlines.  It’s easy for me because my waist sticks right out there where I can see it all the time.  We spent the evening watching TV and watching the two cats become more at ease with each other.  Smokey only hissed a couple of times today and on a couple of occasions actually appeared to be interested in playing a little with Benji.  Of course, Benji wanted to push the envelope and came up to lay next to Smokey on the couch, cuddle a little if you will, and Smokey didn’t care for that idea, so he yelled at him and Benji left to go cuddle with Jackie.

As Benji gets more comfortable with the house and the routines he is more and more affectionate.  He is a real cuddle kitty, which is just what Jackie wanted.  He lay curled up with Jackie for over an hour in the evening while she watched TV.  I finally feel fairly confident that things are going to work out OK with Benji. 

Friday, November 23rd, Holy Black Friday Batman!  Of course, Black Friday has now morphed into Gray Thursday as some stores are opening on Thanksgiving evening, not even wanting to wait until midnight.  We are 15 miles from the nearest shopping and happy as hell about it.  It was enough to watch all the TV coverage of the crazy crowds at the sales.  We woke up to a pretty windy day, although it was supposed to be warm, so we decided to just stay at home for the day again.  The cats had breakfast together and are actually starting to interact a little.  Smokey actually goes looking for Benji at times and they are growing more tolerant of each other. 

We had leftovers for lunch, yum!  The cats spent the afternoon sleeping, but by evening they were actually playing with each other in a limited fashion.  They would both lay on their backs, looking out at the other upside down and lightly moving paws in each other’s direction.  I read that as the first submissive behavior, or play behavior on Smokey’s part and a really good sign.  We didn’t do too much during the day, a couple chores, Jackie got her hair colored, but mostly just relaxation and enjoying the quiet.

Saturday, November 24th, we stayed in again, just enjoying a quiet day.  At 3:00 there was a little Christmas Parade here at Silent Valley.  Basically it was the Silent Valley Fire Truck and a couple of other SV vehicles pulling flatbed trailers, all of which were decorated by some of the kids who are up here this weekend.  Then the kids all rode on the trailers, waving to the people as the drove through the park.  Not very big, it took two minutes for the entire parade to pass by, but I am sure it was a fun event for the kids.  Mr & Mrs. Claus brought up the rear of the parade, driving in their nicely decorated golf cart.  Other than the excitement of the parade, we just relaxed for the entire day.

As far as a new cat update, the two cats are now playing together for brief periods and chasing each other back and forth through the coach.  Benji is still easily startled, but I hope that will pass with time. 

Sunday, November 25th, we were awakened by the two cats playing chase on the bed.  Clearly the animosity is gone and they are now friends, or whatever passes for friends in catdom.  We left the coach after lunch to do some geocaching in Banning.  We had to find a cache today for our days of the year challenge.  Our first find was actually just up the road from Silent Valley.  There are not too many caches on the winding road between Banning and Idyllwild, but there was one that had just been placed earlier this year.  We found it after a bit of searching and had a cache for the day.  We continued down into Banning where we found four more in an hour or so for a total of five for the day.

After caching we went to Beaumont, where all the shopping is, so Jackie could go to Supercuts for a haircut.  I browsed Best Buy next door while she got her hair cut.  I ended up with a new video board for my computer, the old one was acting up, but wasn’t tempted by any of the Holiday buys.  After Jackie got her hair cut we did a little shopping at Ross and then Walmart before heading back up the hill.  Once we got back to Silent Valley we relaxed for the rest of the evening.

The cats are now getting along just fine and Benji is doing a lot less hiding.  Benji spent some time tonight cuddling with both Jackie and I and appears to really like being a lap cat, at least when he doesn’t have anything else to do, which is typical cat thinking.

Monday, November 26th, we decided to have another day around the coach.  I got some chores done, including trying to fix the bed.  The top of the bed, where the mattress sets, is hinged so you can lift it up and access the storage area under the bed.  The construction of the bed is very flimsy, wood framing with light paneling tacked onto it.  The top is cracking, the sides are coming loose and it really needs some work.  There are two struts built into the bottom of the bed that are supposed to hold the bed in the raised position while you access the storage area.  One side of the board the struts are fastened to came loose and I tried to screw it back together.  Unfortunately, the wood is so thin, and so full of holes, that all the screws came loose as soon as I put the bed back down.  I need to get some bolts the next time we go into town to make a proper fix.

The cats are now doing fine.  Benji is a typical kitten, full of energy and nosey as all get out.  He is investigating every square inch of the coach.  We sometimes have to yell at him for climbing something he shouldn’t, or being on the table or sink counter, but mostly we just watch him checking out his new environment.  He and Smokey are settled their differences.  Smokey plays some, but he gets tired of Benji pretty quick and then goes off somewhere to nap.  I think Benji is going to work out just fine.  We are having trouble getting good photos of him because he is still a little nervous and doesn’t like to stay in one place if you are not holding him.  I did get a photo of the two of them on the dash watching the birds.  It gives a good perspective on the size difference between the two.

Today marks the end of the first two weeks of our month long stay here in Silent Valley, so it is a good place to stop and get the episode published.  I will post another chapter at the end of our stay here.  Until the next time, enjoy life and work on your happy.  See ya.