A Rally and Then Some Relaxation

Welcome back friends. Our last chapter concluded on Monday, January 7th, when we made the exhausting one mile trip from Indian Waters RV Resort in Indio to the Riverside County Fairgrounds, site of the FMCA Western Area Rally. We left the resort about 9:20 and by 11:30 we were parked at the rally and fully set up. One of the better travel days on our annual schedule.

About 2:00 we left the fairgrounds and drove back over to Indian Waters to pick up Ray and Suzie Babcock. Both Ray and Jackie had appointments at about the same time with our dermatologist in Rancho Mirage. Jackie needed to have a small cyst removed from her cheek and Ray needed a couple of potential skin cancers checked and removed. Jackie came out with a small incision and a couple of stitches, but it is not very noticeable. Ray had a few things done and also had several bandages. After finishing at the doctor we drove back to Indian Waters and dropped off Ray and Suzie before going back over to the fairgrounds where we relaxed in the coach the rest of the afternoon and evening.

Tuesday, January 8th, I walked over to the rally headquarters in the morning to pick up our rally bag with the detailed schedules, rally pins and other items of interest regarding the rally. After lunch we did our shopping runs as today is likely the last day that we don’t have anything going on at the rally that we need to work around. We did a Walmart run and then a Costco run. Costco was important since once we leave the Coachella Valley we won’t be near another Costco for almost two months. There is a Sam’s Club in Yuma, which is almost as good, but no Costco. After we got finished shopping we went back to the coach, put away our groceries and then relaxed the rest of the evening.

Wednesday, January 9th, the first official day of the rally. I walked over to the rally area about noon to help out with the Chapter Fair for the Military Veterans Chapter.

The Chapter Fair allows various FMCA chapters to set up tables to try and recruit new members. We hung around the auditorium from about noon to 3:00 helping some with the Veterans chapter and also wandering around looking at other chapter booths.

We took everything down at 3:00 at the end of the fair time and Jackie and I went out to find at least one geocache because we needed one on this date for our days of the year challenge. We got one cache and then went back to the coach to relax for a while. About 5:30 we left again and drove over to Cactus Jacks where we met our friends Gary and Ramona Wilson for dinner. Gary and Ramona had spent the summer on an RV caravan that went down the east coast from Maine to Florida. Our other friends Peggy and Vernon Bullock were on the same caravan, but they stayed back in Florida for the winter. We hadn’t had a chance to talk to Gary and Ramona about their trip.

We had a great dinner and heard some great stories about Gary and Ramona’s trip. We finally finished dinner and left the restaurant about 8:00. Gary and Ramona are not staying at the rally, they are still in Indian Waters. We went back to our coach and relaxed the rest of the night.

Thursday, January 10th, we left the coach about 10:30 and drove over to Bev and Jerry King’s house to help with a social gathering of the Military Veterans Chapter.

Bev is the secretary of the Chapter and tries to hold a social gathering at each Western Area Rally. They own a motorcoach property here in Indio which includes a very nice casita with a great kitchen and patio for entertaining. We, along with the Wilsons and the Babcocks, helped Bev and Jerry get everything set up for the social. The guests started arriving about 11:30 and the party went on until after 1:00. There were probably two dozen people there, a small crowd compared to previous year’s gatherings. It was probably due to the very windy and cold weather we had today.

After helping get everything cleaned up we went back to the rally grounds to walk through the vendor area, which opened for the first time today. I bought one LED light bulb and Jackie bought a couple of small things, but we didn’t get much. There were far fewer vendors than in previous years. I don’t think FMCA is treating their vendors very well because they are getting fewer and fewer at the various rallies. We were going to stay and watch the rally parade at 4:00, but we learned it had been rescheduled for Saturday because of the bad weather. We went back to the coach and had a quick bite to eat before coming back for the evening entertainment.

In past years they haven’t had any entertainment at the Western Area rallies that we had much interest in, however, this year they have a couple of acts that looked interesting. Tonight’s was a Doo Wop group called The Alley Cats. It is a foursome that has been singing together since college, starting in 1987, and they sing completely acapella. No instruments other than their voices and a tambourine for rhythm. They did about a 90 minute show and it was fantastic. They did a whole bunch of 50's and early 60's songs, all of which we knew, and they did them well. They also had some good comedy bits in the act. A very good act and we are glad we came. After the show we went back to the coach for the rest of the night.

Friday, January 11th, we had lunch at the coach and then went out to try and get a geocache or two. We needed a find for this date and we ended up getting two new finds that were fairly close together. After caching we went back to the rally and parked so we could take another shot at the vendor area. Spent an hour or so walking around, but still didn’t get anything. After shopping we went back to the coach to rest for a bit before dinner.

At abut 5:30 we left to drive to the Indio Elks Lodge for dinner. The entertainment for tonight didn’t look interesting to us, so we decided to visit our old lodge with some friends. We invited the Babcocks and Wilsons, along with some friends of the Babcocks, Larry and Renate, and a couple that we met at Indian Waters when we were there, George and Mary Marasco. The lodge was packed, but we managed to put together a table for ten in the bar, so we sat there and had a drink and then dinner.

When I joined the Elks in 2000, and Jackie in 2002, we were living in Indio, so the Indio Elks was our lodge at the time. When we went full time in the coach and moved our address to Pahrump, we transferred our membership up there. We were hoping to see some of our old friends at the lodge, but we only saw two people we knew. There were a hundred people in the dining room and bar, but no one else we knew. Oh well, it’s been seven years since we spent any real time at this lodge, so everything changes.

Dinner was great. Half the table had the liver and onions, which was wonderful, and everyone enjoyed their meal. We sat and chatted with everyone until about 8:00 when the party broke up and everyone headed for home. We spent the rest of the night in the coach relaxing.

Saturday, January 12th, a clear, but very cold morning. Temps in the low 30's this morning and expected for the next few days. It’s 70 on the east coast and 50 during the day here in the desert. The weather is upside down. Jackie went down to the rally grounds just before noon for a craft class and I stayed at the coach and did some administrative stuff. My desktop computer in the bedroom crashed last week and I have been working to restore it. Windows quit completely and I had to reload a new copy of windows and rebuild everything from scratch. Fortunately, I had backed everything up so I didn’t lose any data or pictures in the crash.

We left the fairgrounds after Jackie’s class and went out again to get a geocache because we needed one for this date. We ended up with two again because they were very close to each other. After caching we went back to the fairgrounds and the vendors again. Jackie bought a scarf, but other than that, no purchases. We just don’t need anything that anyone here was selling.

About 3:00 most of the vendors were putting stuff away since this was the last day of the rally. We went out and set up our lawn chairs on the parade route. The Western Area

rally has a tradition of doing a big parade in keeping with the theme of the rally. This year’s theme was “Under the Big Top,” so there we lots of clowns, clowns and more clowns. Also lots of people dressed as animals. A dozen or so of the larger Western Area chapters put together floats and parade entries, and they do a lot of work. There is a lot of imagination set loose for this parade.

One of the more interesting entries was a large elephant costume which held two people, at least judging by the number of legs sticking out the bottom. Every fifty feet

or so the elephant would stop and the person holding up the rear of the animal would squat down a little and toss out a couple of big, brown rubber turds. The elephant was followed by a clean up crew which then picked up the turds. Probably one of the funnier things I have seen in these parades.

After the parade we went home for a quick cocktail before coming back down to the auditorium for the evening’s entertainment. Tonight was a tribute act featuring two guys, one trying to imitate Elton John, and the other Billy Joel. They had two pianos on the stage, along with a full band and some backup singers. The show was supposed to have been one of the top lounge shows in Vegas.

The Elton John imitator was awful. A lot of people got up and left while he and the band were performing. He didn’t look or sound like Elton John, and he didn’t really do justice to the songs either. The Billy Joel imitator was much better. The second half of the act was very good, and was well received by what remained of the audience. After the show we went back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the evening.

Sunday, January 13th, another travel day. I heard coaches starting up as early as 6:30, but we didn’t get everything packed up and ready to travel until about 10:00. We got our of the fairgrounds and started east on I-10 towards Ehrenberg, Arizona, a trip of a

little over 100 miles. Ehrenburg is just across the Colorado River from Blythe, California. We arrived at the Western Horizons RV Resort, Colorado River Oasis, about 12:30 local time. When we crossed into Arizona we lost an hour as they are on Mountain Time. We got our spot and got everything hooked up by 1:00 or so. We spent most of the rest of the day cleaning the coach. Everything was dusty from our time at the rally, so we had to tidy up a bit. We will be here in Ehrenberg for six days before moving on to the Yuma area.

Monday, January 14th, we had a little trouble adjusting to the time change. We both ended up sleeping in until after 8:00 because the sun doesn’t come up until about 8:00 here at the western edge of the Mountain Time Zone. It also doesn’t go down until about 6:30 or so, which is a welcome change from California.

We decided to just stay in today and rest. It is very cold, in the 50's, and very windy, so a good day to stay indoors. We just caught up on chores and TV watching. After dinner, about 7:00 or so, we went over to the clubhouse at the resort for a sock hop. There weren’t a lot of people there, a couple of dozen or so, but for the first hour there was some dancing and nice 50's tunes. About 8:00 a lot of the audience drifted out to go home, so the DJ, who also does karaoke at a bar in Quartzsite, changed over to karaoke.

Our friends Len and Debbie, who full time in a pull trailer and who we frequently cross paths with, were there and they are big karaoke fans too. Turns out most of the people that were left sang, so we had a nice rotation of about six singers and I got to do three songs. My voice is back and I managed to hold off the dry cough during my songs. Yea! About 9:30 they shut the place down, so we walked back home and relaxed the rest of the evening.

Tuesday, January 15th, we another night of nearly freezing temperatures here in the desert. It actually went a few degrees below freezing just before sunrise, but not long enough, or low enough, to freeze the water supply hose. But it was still cold, and very windy which made the wind chill even colder.

We left the coach after lunch to do some geocaching despite the cold and wind. We needed to get at least one cache today for our days of the year challenge, so we braved the cold. We actually ended up getting eight new finds in about 90 minutes. It was cold, but we persevered. After our caching we drove back into Blythe and went to the grocery store for a few items before going back across the river to home. We spent the rest of the evening in the coach relaxing with the TV.

Wednesday, January 16th, it is finally warming up a bit. It was up to a balmy 37 degrees this morning when I got up. We left the coach about 12:30 and picked up our friends Sharon and Curt Minard who are also here at the RV park. We have known Sharon and Curt, whom we met through the Bullocks, for about three years now. They are part time RVers who live in the Sacramento area.

The four of us went to Garcia’s, a very nice little Mexican place in downtown Blythe that we have been to before. We had a great meal and some nice conversation with our friends. After lunch we went back to the coach and relaxed for the afternoon. About 7:00 or so we walked down to the clubhouse for a night of karaoke.

Curt and Sharon also came down. Curt doesn’t sing, but Sharon used to sing professionally with a country band years ago and has a great voice. There were a number of great singers

on hand, so the rotation was pretty long. I got to sing four songs that I chose, along with one that someone in the audience had requested. I also sang a couple of duets, one with Sharon and one with the DJ. The one with the DJ was fun because we did “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before” by Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias. The DJ did Willie and had the head band and phony braids and I did Julio, accent and all. I let my hair down to enhance the effect. We had a great night and sang until after 10:00. We went back to the coach, watched a little TV and went to bed.

Thursday, January 17th, we left the coach after lunch and drove the 20 miles to Quartzsite, Arizona for a geocaching event. Quartzsite is the town in Western Arizona where thousands of RVers come for part, or even all, of the winter months. Towards the end of January there is always a big RV show in town, what they call “the big tent,” where all kinds of vendors set up and sell stuff for two weeks. For the last four or five years we have stopped in Quartzsite during the RV show and stayed for a week or so. The past two years we camped in the desert with the Minards, the Bullocks and some of their friends.

This year, with the Bullocks spending the winter in Florida and Curt and Sharon being the only one’s of the group coming, the boondocking thing didn’t sound like much fun. We were pretty burned out on Quartzsite anyway, so we decided to just skip it this year. However, when we learned that there was a geocaching event at the town activities center today we decided to drive in for the day. We also had to get a geocache for this date for our days of the year challenge, so it seemed like a good day for caching too.

We stopped and picked up one cache just a block from the activities center before we went to the event. We got to the event, put on by some local cachers, just before 1:00 and were surprised at the number of people in attendance. There appeared to about 100 people or so at the event. They had the two hour event set up sort of like a “speed dating” room in that you were assigned to a table and then every 20 or 30 minutes you would switch to another table. That way you would have new people to talk to. There were a couple of cachers there that we already knew, but most we hadn’t, so the table switching was fun. They had a lot of drawings for prizes, but we didn’t win anything. It was a great event and we met a lot of nice people with the same hobby as us.

After the caching event we drove over to the big swap meet that is set up every year and spent a couple of hours walking through the various vendors. We bought a few little things, mostly caching stuff. They shut the vendors down about 4:00 or so and we left there and went out to get a couple more caches before it got dark. We found two more caches in the desert at the edge of town.

After our caching we drove to the north end of town to the Grubstake Restaurant, one of our favorite places to eat in Quartzsite. The Grubstake is best know for their fish and chips. It is kind of a rustic bar and grill and we have been there a number of times over the years. This time we noticed that the service was very slow and the waitress told us that there were only two servers for the whole place, and she was new, having been there only three days. She also said the kitchen was short staffed and there was a trainee in there too. It took over an hour to get our fish and chips dinner out. The food was still excellent, but the service left a lot to desire. What we found out when we left is that the place has changed hands, the guys who used to run it have left. It appears that the new owners don’t have a handle on the place yet. I hope they get there act together, because we really like the place. By the time we got out of dinner it was dark, but the way back to the RV park was mostly freeway, so the drive was no big deal. We got home about 7:30 and just relaxed the rest of the night watching TV.

Friday, January 18th, our last full day in Ehrenberg. We went out after lunch to the laundry facility here at the RV park and did all of our laundry. Once we had our clothes done, about 2:00 or so, we drove into Blythe to collect a geocache for the day. We needed at least one today for our challenge. We got the one and then headed back to the RV park. We got our clothes put away and relaxed for the remainder of the afternoon.

A little before 7:00 we walked down to the clubhouse for another night of karaoke fun. There were about nine people in the rotation and a number of them were very good singers. Our friends

Len and Debbie were there, as well as Curt and Sharon. We all got to sing at least five songs, so it was a fun night on stage. After the show, which was after 10:00, we went back to the coach and crashed.

Saturday, January 19th, moving day. Because the big RV show in Quartzsite starts today we couldn’t get our normal two week stay here in Ehrenberg. I didn’t call early enough to beat the rush, so we were only able to get six days. We packed up the coach and got ready to move south to Winterhaven, California, a very small town just across the Colorado Rive from Yuma, Arizona. We have stayed at the Pilot Knob RV Resort almost every year since we have been traveling.

We stopped on the way out of the RV park to fill up the propane tank. We filled up when we arrived in Pahrump back in late October, but we have had a lot of cold weather, so we have burned through quite a bit of gas. After we got our propane we started south and the 83 mile trip to Winterhaven.

We got into Pilot Knob about noon, got a nice spot and spent the rest of the day getting set up and just relaxing. We are going to be here for a full two weeks before moving about 20 miles east into Yuma proper for a month long stay. We really enjoy Yuma and are looking forward to our six weeks here in the area.

Our arrival here in the Yuma area marks a great place to close this chapter. We will publish again in a couple of weeks. Until next time, stay well, be happy and enjoy every day life gives you. Bye.

Holidays In The Desert

Hi friends and followers.  Welcome back to the story.  Our last chapter concluded on Christmas Eve day when we moved from Desert Hot Springs to Indio and the Indian Waters RV Resort. The move and setup were uneventful and we had a very nice Christmas dinner at the park that evening.

December 25th,  Merry Christmas Everyone!  We got up at our normal time and followed our normal routine.  Jackie and I decided fifteen years ago, at the very beginning of our relationship

together, that we would not exchange gifts;  birthday, Christmas or any other holiday.  Cards were OK, but we didn’t need to do gifts because we generally can have anything we really need or want (within reason, of course) when the idea comes up.  We don’t need holidays to exchange our love, we do that every day.  This year we didn’t even have cards because both of us had forgotten to buy them because we have been busy doing other stuff.  We had a good laugh about that the night before when I told Jackie I needed to go to the drug store after dinner because I forgot a card.  The look on her face was priceless when she said, “I didn’t get one either!”  We decided to not even bother with that since we both forgot anyway.

We decided that we were going to have a nice, quiet Christmas day at home, and we did.  We didn’t go out anywhere at all.  Late in the afternoon our friends, the Blumenthals, came over for a visit.  Because they had been hosting the party we didn’t really have a chance to talk to them too much last night.  We visited for about an hour before they left to go back to their coach for dinner.  We had a sort of traditional Mexican Christmas dinner of tamales.  We had bought a dozen tamales when we went to Costco a couple weeks ago and saved them for Christmas.  They were great.  After dinner we just relaxed and watched TV the rest of the night.

Wednesday, December 26th, we had another nice desert day on tap.  A little cool and breezy, but comfortable.  We left the coach about 2:00 to go for some routine doctor visits at our primary provider.  We both needed to do an office visit to get our prescriptions renewed for the coming year.  I was really happy with the results of the tests and exam.  My blood pressure is normal, my cholesterol is l7 9, and everything else is doing good too.  I was only in with the doctor about ten minutes, a quick chat, some new prescriptions and I was good to go.  Jackie got a consult to a couple of specialists, one for her increasing difficulty with shortness of breath, the other for some back pain that has recently started.  Nothing serious, but things that need to be attended to.

After our doctor’s appointment we stopped at an X-ray lab for some X-rays that Jackie needed.  Since we were close after the X-rays, we went to Nei1’s Lounge, a bar on Highway 111 in Indio that we used to hang out at and is now owned by some friends of ours, Jim Babington and his wife Jackie.  Jim was there behind the bar and we had a nice chat.  We haven’t seen him in person in over a year.  Jackie wasn’t there as she had family in town.  We had a couple of drinks and I tried one song on karaoke.  I am having a bout of allergies, so I didn’t sound so good, so I kept it at just one.  After cocktails we headed home and relaxed the rest of the evening.

Thursday, December 27th, we decided that we needed to get out and get at least a little exercisetoday, so after lunch we went out for some geocaching.  We cached for about three hours or so and managed to get a dozen new finds, along with a couple of DNFs.  One of our finds for the day was a cache that we had DNF’d back in April when we were in the Coachella Valley, so at least we fixed an old one.  After caching we stopped at Walmart for some supplies before heading back to the coach for the rest of the evening.

Friday, December 28th, we decided to have a stay at home and do light chores day.  Since the beginning of the week I have been arguing with either a head cold or allergies.  I don’t sleep well because of the coughing and decided I needed a day of mostly rest.  Both Jackie and I got a few administrative chores done, but nothing major.

Saturday, December 29th, we left the coach about 2:00 and drove over to the nearby Motorcoach Country Club where our friends Barry and Colleen Cohen have a place.  Regular readers will remember that Barry and Colleen have been very good friends with us since I moved here in 1998.  They actually became full time motor homers in 2002 when they sold their house and bought their lot at the Country Club, which at that time was called Outdoor Resorts.  It is a very upscale RV development.  They were very atypical full timers, however, because Barry still owned and worked at his transmission repair shop, so they very rarely traveled.

For the past couple years they have been trying to change things up so they could start to travel and actually enjoy the RV lifestyle, but it has taken time.  Barry was finally able to sell his business about a year ago, but he is still working there because they were not able to sell their lot in the bad economy.  Now it appears there may be light on the horizon.  They finally got an offer on their lot and are waiting for everything to be completed.  We are very happy for them.

We spent all of the afternoon and evening with Barry and Colleen, catching up on all the things going on in our lives since we last saw them in the Spring of the year.  Colleen BBQed some lamb for her and Jackie, and Barry made some of his special meatballs and pasta for he and I.  We don’t care for lamb.  We had a great time with good friends, and it was very special this time because we were able to share the excitement of the good news that they may be able to get on the road now.  Yea Cohens!

Sunday, December 30th, we left the coach about 10:30 and drove over to Palm Desert to walk through the College of the Desert Street Fair again.  We had gone there a couple weeks ago when we were staying in Desert Hot Springs, but it is fun to walk around and look at stuff.  I bought a tee shirt and a few little things to use as geocache containers, but we didn’t buy much.  We finished the street fair about 1:00 or so and then went over to the Palm Desert Cactus Jacks restaurant for a late lunch.  Jackie had been contacted earlier in the day by a close friend, Vicki Heinrich, who was going to come and join us.  Vicki is the mother of Shane Cooper, Jackie’s Godson.  Shane just turned 18 last month and the little baby that Jackie saw born is now six-four and all grown up.  Vicki is also the daughter of Nancy Heinrich, one of Jackie’s closest friends.  Nancy died a little over a year ago and Jackie and I miss her dearly.  We always looked forward to getting together with her when we got back to the Coachella Valley.  It’s just not the same without her.

We had a nice lunch with Vicki, catching up on what’s been going on the last year.  We also made arrangements to pick up Shane at the restaurant in Palm Desert where he works.  Vicki works at the same place, but she was just going into work and Shane was getting off the day shift at 4:30 and needed a ride home.  Vicki left to go to work and we decided to do some geocaching to fill the time before we needed to pick up Shane.  We were able to pick up six new caches in a little over an hour.

At 4:30 we went over to Palm Desert, picked up Shane, and drove him home.  We
stayed and visited with him for a while.  It was exciting to listen to his plans now that he is an adult and through with school.  He seems to have a pretty good head on his shoulders for a kid with a rough childhood.  He has battled with juvenile diabetes for ten years, been in two auto accident with severe injuries, and still seems to moving forward. He thinks of himself as a survivor with some mission in life that is yet unfulfilled.  He says he just needs to find that mission.  After visiting with Shane we went back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the night.

Monday, December 31st, New Years Eve, the last day of 2012.  After lunch Jackie took a drive over to her doctor’s office to pick up some meds.  She had been prescribed a COPD medicine last week and she found that it was pretty expensive and her insurance didn’t cover it.  The doctor’s office said they had some samples they could give her, so she drove over to pick them up.  Turns out she ended up with about a year’s supply of samples.  While she was gone I started getting all the karaoke gear out of it’s hiding places in preparation for the party at the clubhouse tonight.

We had done the music, mostly karaoke, at this resort last New Years and, since we were going to be again anyway, we agreed to do it again this year.  After Jackie got back I packed it all up and took it over to the clubhouse.  I spent the next couple of hours getting everything set up for the evenings merriment.  Jackie came over also and helped some of the other people at the park decorate the room and get everything set up for the party.  Last year we had about 25 people for the party, this year they were expecting close to 100.  After I got everything up and working properly we went back to the coach and relaxed for a while before changing clothes for the party.

Sometime in the early afternoon our good friends Ray and Suzie Babcock pulled into the park and got a spot right behind ours.  They had been planning to come her on Wednesday, but we talked to them and told them about the party, so they packed up their house and left a couple days early so they could come to the party.

We went over to the clubhouse again at 6:00 and waited for people to come in.  Most of the
crowd came around 7:00 and we gave them some time to eat before starting the music.  About 7:30 we started with some karaoke, and then for the rest of the evening alternated between dance music and karaoke.  We only had about six people singing, but most of them were pretty good and wanted to do a lot of songs.  We did some line dancing and even had a twist contest.  We probably did have close to 100 people and they all seemed to have a good time.  Ray and Suzie, and Donna and Jay were at the table with Jackie most of the night.  I didn’t have a chance to spend much time with them because being the DJ kept me pretty busy.

We celebrated the East coast New Years at 9:00 and by 10:00 most of the crowd had left so we closed down the show.  By the time I got everything disassembled and packed up to take back to the coach it was 11:00.  We were in bed by 11:30 and I slept through the actual California New Years.  Around Indio it always sounds like a war zone, with guns and firecrackers going off.  I didn’t hear anything.  We had a great night, stayed in the park where we were safe, and enjoyed our New Years Eve.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013, Happy New Years!  We had a pretty good 2012 despite the problems the country is going through.  We had a few minor rough spots, but overall it was a good year and we hope the 2013 will be as much fun, as interesting, and as good or better than last year. 

We decided that we were going to spend most of the day around the coach.  I got a few things done and Ray cleaned the outside of his coach.  He is a retired fireman and they seem to have a thing about cleaning when they have nothing else to do.  I sit and read a book, he cleans his coach.  It’s a fireman thing.

About 5:00 Ray and Suzie came over to our coach for happy hour and we talked.  We didn’t have a chance to visit much at the party last night.  It has been since just after Thanksgiving since we saw the Babcocks, so we spent some time trading stories.  About 6:15 we left and drove to Cactus Jacks for dinner.  We had a good dinner and talked some more.  After dinner we went back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the evening.

Wednesday, January 2nd, we left the coach with the Babcocks about 1:00 or so and went out to do some caching.  We introduced the Babcocks to geocaching about nine months ago and they got hooked.  They don’t cache as often as we do, unless they are with us or one of our other mutual friends that cache, but they are still up over 300 finds already. We were out for a couple of hours and managed to get a dozen new finds, and one DNF for us.  One of our finds was a DNF from the other day, so that evened things out a bit.  The Babcocks scored 14 because we stopped at a couple of caches that we had gotten the other day, but we wanted to let them find them since we were driving right past them anyway.

After our caching adventures we stopped at the Winco grocery store before heading back to the coaches.  We got our groceries put away and by 5:30 we were at the Babcock’s coach for happy hour.  We talked and had a good time until dinner was ready.  Ray had cooked some pork loins and we had those for dinner.  Great food and great company.  After dinner we talked for a little while and about 8:30 we went back to our coach for the rest of the night.

Thursday, January 3rd, Jackie went to Walmart with Ray and Suzie right after lunch while I stayed at home and did a couple little chores.  After they got back Ray and Suzie came over and we played cards for about three hours.  We played tournament style Skipbo and team Ray/Roy won both games.  Yea!  After happy hour cocktails we had dinner at our coach.  We had been cooking a bunch of pork ribs in the crock pot all day and we had those with rice for the four of us.  We had a great dinner, a great day, as a matter of fact, and after the Babcocks left we just relaxed the rest of the night.

Friday, January 4th, we awoke to a clear, but very cool morning.  Nothing like back east of course, but still in the high 30's, which is cold for out here.  We elected for a relaxing day for the most part.  We left the coach about 2:15 or so and drove to Rancho Mirage so Jackie could get a mammogram, which only took about 15 minutes.  We were back home before 4:00 when we fixed a drink and walked over to the clubhouse at the RV park for the Friday evening happy hour.

There were probably 30 people at the happy hour and lots of nice snacks.  Our friend Jay Blumenthal was playing the keyboard for entertainment.  We stayed until a little alter 5:00, chatting with folks and enjoying the camaraderie.  We left the happy hour and went back to our coaches to feed the animals and clean up a little before going out to eat.

About 5:30 we left with the Babcocks and drove down to the Augustine Casino, about five miles south of the park.  This is an Indian Casino, but it is kind of off the beaten track and a little smaller than the ones up by the freeway.  It considers itself more of a locals casino destination.

We played for a half hour or so and then went in for the weekend seafood buffet. Augustine has a reputation for good food, so we thought we would try the big weekend buffet.  Ray really wanted to go because they had lobster tails.  It is all you can eat, but they only give you one at a time.  You can go back as many times as you want.  I think Ray ended up having close to a dozen.  Two was enough for me, along with lots of shrimp and other goodies.  After a great dinner we stayed and gamed for another hour or so before finally leaving the casino at about 9:00.  We went back to our coaches and relaxed the remainder of the evening.

Saturday, January 5th, another nice day in the desert.  We were having friends over for the afternoon, so we spent some time in the morning cleaning house and straightening things up a little.  About 3:00 our friends Barry and Colleen Cohen came over and we started happy hour. About a half hour later Ray and Suzie Babcock walked over from their coach and the six of us sat around and talked.

About 6:00 I served up dinner.  I had been cooking corn beef and cabbage all day and it was wonderful.  Everyone had their fill and we had a great dinner.  Ray and Suzie left shortly after dinner while the Cohen’s stayed for a little longer.  Jackie and Colleen played a game of Skipbo
while Barry and I talked.  Normally we would have gone in the back of the coach and sang some karaoke, but my allergies haven’t let up and I still don’t have a voice and I have a very annoying dry cough that flares up when I try to talk (or sing) too much.  About 9:00 everyone was gone and Jackie and I just relaxed the rest of the night.

Sunday, January 6th, we left the coach after lunch and went out to do our laundry.  On the way to the laundromat we stopped and picked up some geocaches.  We needed a cache on this date for our days of the year challenge and there were a few close by the RV park. We ended with three caches in about 20 minutes.  We finished our laundry and went back to the RV park where, after we put our clothes away, we just relaxed the rest of the day and evening.  Neither of us are feeling a hundred percent yet, probably allergies, but we just wanted a quiet evening.

Monday, January 7th, another moving day.  Today is a monumental journey of about ten blocks.  We are only moving from the RV park to the Country Fairgrounds just down the street for the FMCA Western Area Rally.  We got out

of Indian Waters about 9:30 or so and fifteen minutes later we were waiting in line to get parked at the fairgrounds.  We got into our spot pretty quick and we were moved in and set up, ready to camp, by 11:30.  Although they are parking rigs today, the rally really doesn’t start until Wednesday, so we have a few days to chill before we start rallying. 

With our departure from Indian Waters we have a good spot to close this chapter and get it published.  We will be about a week in the rally and then another week in Ehrenberg, Arizona, so the next chapter will be in a couple weeks.  Until next time, stay safe and be happy.  See ya soon.