On Sunday, January 20th, we left the coach about noon and picked up our friends Robert and Diana Knight at their coach here at the resort. We first met Robert and Diana in Desert Hot Springs while playing cards one night. We discovered that they were also geocachers and we hit it off right away. They are also full time RVers and there schedule had them coming to Pilot Knob a couple weeks ago. They are leaving tomorrow to go to Quartzsite, so today would be the only chance we have of getting together with them.
We drove into Yuma where we stopped at Mimi’s Restaurant for lunch. Normally Mimi’s is a good place to have lunch, but in Yuma during Snowbird season everything is packed, and this was no exception. The service was very slow and a little spotty because the servers were so busy. Nonetheless, the food was good and we had plenty of time to chat with Robert and Diana about their travels and geocaching adventures. After lunch we went out and got a few geocaches in the Yuma area.
We ended up finding six new caches and revisiting one cache that we have been to several times before. The repeat cache is located at a Shell gas station in the middle of Yuma and is a huge electrical control box that is locked with a combination lock. It is a travel bug hotel that always has a huge inventory of travel bugs. We like to stop there at least once on each trip to Yuma to swap out travel bugs. The inventory in the box today was nearly fifty and we swapped seven bugs that we have been carrying around for a while. After our caching we drove back to the RV park and dropped Robert and Diana off at their coach before going home ourselves. We spent the rest of the day and evening doing chores and watching TV.
Monday, January 21st, Martin Luther King Day and my late dad’s birthday. It was also the day that our newly reelected President Obama had his inauguration, so clearly that was the only thing on television all morning. We had a few things to do around the house, so we decided to make today a stay at home day. We did go out about 2:00 and drove a couple of miles into the desert to get one geocache. We needed a cache on this day to help fill in our days of the year grid. This was the last day we needed in January and we are now down to three days in February to fill. Once we get the last February date we will have found at least one geocache on each of the 366 possible calendar dates. After the one cache we went back to the coach and stayed in the rest of the day. Jackie is trying to catch up on some of the TV shows she records that she didn’t have a chance to watch while we were busy in Indio and Ehrenberg.
Tuesday, January 22nd, we left the coach after lunch and drove into Yuma to do some geocaching. We have cached this area pretty heavily over the years, so caches are fewer and further between, but we still got ten caches, and one new DNF, in the course of about two and a half hours. We also stopped by the Elks lodge to pick up a schedule of activities.
After our caching we went to the nearby Walmart for some supplies before heading home. We hung around the house, had dinner, and then left about 6:30 to go to the clubhouse for Texas Hold’em. As usual we had the $5 buy-in and two hours of play. At the end of the two hours I had made 70 cents. Wow, 35 cents an hour, not bad wages. Jackie lost a little under a dollar. We had a great table with some really nice people, a lot of whom are Canadians. We miss our Canadian friends we usually run across in the winter. Both couples are not down here this year due to health reasons. After poker we went back to the coach and watched TV.
Wednesday, January 23rd, the sun is disappearing. Since we have been here we have had cloudless, blue skies, but weather is moving in. The weather weenies would call today “partly cloudy,” but it is clear something more is coming. Today was “sale day” at the RV park and we had a couple of bags of discards stored in the bedroom waiting to go on the sale table. We set up our table in front of the coach and by 11:30 Jackie had peddled about $14 worth of stuff we would have taken to donation had it not been for the sale. Yea! Enough money to buy fuel for our next trip, 22 miles into Yuma. We packed up the unsold stuff for next Wednesday’s sale.
We had lunch at the coach and then about 1:30 we put Benji in his carrier and drove to Petsmart in Yuma for a nail trimming. When we got Smokey almost 13 years ago we had his front claws removed. That was pretty common then for cats that were going to be inside pets only. Now days it is harder to find vets that are willing to do the procedure. The animal rights groups have really made a case against the procedure as cruel. Clearly much more cruel than removing their cajones at three months! Not! But anyway, the agreement we signed when we adopted Benji also said we agreed not to declaw, so despite his tendency to use his claws a little more than I like, we are honoring it. So far. We bought some nail clippers, but he is a little too squirmy yet for us to do it, so for $12 we elected to let the Petsmart girl or guy get clawed up.
We got to Petsmart and learned that the only person who does kitty nails called in sick today. Rats. Damn Flu! I guess we will come back next week. We made a couple of quick stops for supplies and then headed back home with an unclipped cat. We spent the rest of the day doing a few chores around the house and catching up on TV shows.
Thursday, January 24th, we are now at “mostly cloudy” but still fairly warm for a January day. No rain predicted for today, but the next two days are more iffy. The temps are still in the low 70's through. We left the coach at noon and drove into Yuma for the afternoon. Our first stop was the In and Out burger joint. In and Out is one of my favorite hamburger places and I wanted to have lunch there. I missed the opportunity to eat at the one in Indio, but I wasn’t going to miss this one. Up until the early 2000's the chain was solely in California, but over the last decade or so they have been gradually expanding and are now in Nevada, Arizona, Texas and Utah as well.
Another reason I wanted to eat at the Yuma In and Out was to get a tee shirt. Each year the In and Out chain produces a new tee shirt design. I have several of the old ones in my collection. Although the design on the back is the same all over, the small front logo has the state written below the corporate logo. All of the shirts I have now have California on the front and I wanted an Arizona this time. We had a great lunch and I got my new 2013 shirt and it has Arizona on the front.
The other main reason we came into town today was to take Jackie to a doctor’s appointment. When she had her exam in Indio last month the doctor told her she needed to go to a pulmonary specialist to be evaluated to see if she had COPD. She has been getting increasingly out of breath over the last couple of years. We didn’t have time to have it done in Indio before we left, so she made an appointment for down here. We had about an hour before her appointment time, so we did a few geocaches to fill the time. We were able to get five new caches and we are now within five finds of our next milestone, 4,700 finds.
We arrived at the doctor’s office at the proper time and Jackie got into to see the doc in short order. All he did today was talk to her, get familiar with her case, and then schedule her for a formal breathing test in a week or so, along with a followup appointment with him after the testing. He also set up an ECG appointment. We will be running to the doctors a lot for the next couple of weeks. Good thing we are in the area for six weeks.
After the doctor we headed back home to relax and then have dinner. After dinner we walked down to the clubhouse for Texas Hold’em again. Unlike Tuesday night, we both got our asses handed to us tonight. I lost four dollars and Jackie went down almost ten dollars. I won the very first hand of the game, with four of kind no less, and then only won a couple of hands the rest of the night. Jackie couldn’t buy a good hand all night. After poker we went back to the coach and watched a bit of TV before bed.
Friday, January 25th, another very cloudy morning. A look at the radar maps shows that we an expect to see rain sometime in the afternoon. About 11:00 or so our friends Ray and Suzie Babcock arrive at Pilot Knob and park in the space next to us. That space had just opened up earlier in the morning and Jackie called the office and asked that they save it for the Babcocks. The Babcocks had stayed in Indio when we left after the FMCA rally, and then moved to Quartzsite for a week of boondocking before coming here to Winterhaven.
We had lunch and let the Babcocks get settled in and then around 1:00 we all left the park in our car and drove the couple of miles to the Mexican border by the town of Algodones. Regular readers will know that Algodones is a small Mexican town that is a haven for snowbirds looking for eye glasses, dental work, prescriptions and/or trinkets. Half the businesses in town are eye clinics, dental offices or pharmacies. Because it is small and frequented primarily by older folks, it seems to be a very safe place for Mexico.
Jackie and I had appointments for about 2:00 at our dentist. We got there a little early and walked around looking at trinkets for a little while. We went for our appointments and Jackie got her teeth cleaned first. I went in and got my cleaning and then talked to the dentist about having my top partial dental plate modified to account for a tooth I had extracted last year at this same office. Everything was healed nicely and I needed the gap in the plate fixed. I had thought it would be a multi-appointment job and probably a hundred dollars or more for the repairs. Turns out to be a 90 minute job that cost $40. Yippee. The dentist took an impression of my top jaw, sent it and the plate to the lab and told me come back at 3:30.
The Babcocks also went in to get there teeth cleaned, so Jackie and I went out and wandered around some more looking at stuff. By this time the expected rain had arrived. It was not raining hard, but it was drizzling enough to get everything wet and a lot of the street vendors were packing up. It was clear that the day’s tourist flock was also starting to leave, as the streets were getting emptier. About quarter to four we met the Babcocks back at the dental office and I got my newly repaired plate and I was happy. The four of us went to one of the local restaurants and had a great Mexican dinner. There are a couple of places down in Algodones that have outstanding food.
After our early dinner we got two of the four geocaches that are in Algodones. We had already found both on earlier trips, but the Babcocks, who are newer to caching, did not have any Mexican finds yet. We then walked to the border crossing and were pleased to find that the rain had chased everyone home early and we were able to walk right up to the inspector’s station, show our passports and walk back into the States with no delay whatsoever. We drove back to the park and spent a few minutes putting away our stuff before we walked over to the Babcock’s coach for a cocktail. We chatted and drank until about 7:30 when we went back to our coach for the evening. A very nice and productive day, even if it was a little damp.
Saturday, January 26th, we awoke after a night of on and off rain. It never rained really hard, but there were periods of steady rain most of the evening. I was pleased when I got up that our living room slide had not leaked. A couple months ago we started having a small, but annoying and potentially damaging, leak in the kitchen side slide. Water was coming in and then dripping through the cabinets onto the end of the couch and sink. That side has both the big, main patio awning and a slide topper awning attached and I don’t have the tools or skill to really check all of the places where these items attach to the slide wall. I decided that the best way to diagnose the problem somewhat, before calling a service guy, was to close the slide the next time it rained and see if the leak stopped. If it still leaked, that means the leak has to be on the outside wall, the only part exposed to the rain when the slide is in. If it doesn’t leak, that means the leak is on the top of the slide, under the topper somewhere. Since it didn’t leak, I can now tell the service guy to concentrate on the top of the actual slide box rather than the outside wall.
About 10:00 Jackie and I walked down to the clubhouse where they were holding a rummage sale. We picked up a few odds and ends that I thought would make good geocache containers. We plan on putting out more caches sometime soon, maybe some here in Yuma. After the rummage sale we loaded into the Babcock’s car and drove into Yuma to the big “Marketplace” swap meet. It is not really a swap meet, more of an outdoor market with almost all new stuff, but it is fun to go through. I bought some new belts and Jackie bought a couple little things, but nothing major.
When we were done with the swap meet, about 1:30 or so, we drove to a Chinese restaurant for lunch. This was a menu place, not a buffet, and it was excellent. It used to be called Mandarin Palace, but the name has now been changed to Yuma Palace. It is right were the main drag through Yuma, Business Loop 8, curves from 4th Avenue to 32nd Street. If you go you can’t miss the place. It is a large oriental style building with a bright green tile roof. The lunch portions were large and some of the best Chinese we have had in a while.
After lunch we stopped at a couple of sporting goods stores so Ray and Suzie could look at guns. There house in the Temecula area was burglarized back in the summer when they were traveling with us in the mid-south, and the thieves took his entire gun safe from the garage, and all the guns in it. They recently applied for concealed carry permits from Arizona and they are looking to buy a couple of new guns, a shotgun for home protection and some small handguns. They can’t buy anything in Arizona until they get there permits because Arizona will only sell to people with Arizona identification, but they wanted to look at what was available and the costs.
After our gun shop stops we headed back to the RV park. About mid afternoon the rain stopped and the skies appear to be clearing up a little. I think the rain has moved on and we should have some nice days coming up. About 5:30 we went over to the Babcocks for happy hour, but we didn’t have any dinner because of the large, late lunch we had. We went home about 7:30 and watched TV the rest of the night.
Sunday, January 27th, we woke to fog, at least for a little while. The skies were partly cloudy but all the water still on the ground from the rains created a period of fog in the morning that was pretty thick. It burned off by 9:30 and it looked like we were in for a pretty nice, if cool, day. Being Sunday we got the Sunday papers. Ray drove into the edge of Yuma and picked up both the Yuma and the Phoenix papers. The girls like their Sunday coupon pages. We decided that this would be a stay at home day. Ray was happy for that also since his last couple days were pretty busy.
I did a few chores, including working on the bed frame again, trying to patch it together until we can get to the service center in Oregon this summer to have it rebuilt. Jackie did a few things around the house too, but mostly we just relaxed and played. Ray cooked a curry dish for dinner. We had both bought packages of crawfish when we were back east this summer and he used both of those, plus a package of shrimp, and we had crustacean curry. Jackie made some rice and that was dinner. It was wonderful.
Unfortunately, Suzie didn’t come over to our place for dinner because she was down all day with a cold. At least we hope it’s a cold and not the flu. After dinner Ray went back home to be with Suzie and we just watched TV and enjoyed the evening.
Monday, January 28th, we left the park about 12:30 or so and drove into Yuma to Jackie’s physical therapy session. Another of her doctor’s recommendations from back in December was to get at least a month’s worth of physical therapy for what the doctor believes to be spinal stenosis, an issue with arthritic degeneration of the spine. Jackie found a therapist here in Yuma and will be going for the rest of the time we are here.
We also took Benji, our new cat, with us so we could stop at Petsmart and get his nails trimmed. We have tried to do it, but he wrestles around too much and we decided it was easier to just take him in and let someone else do it. Benji and I waited in the car, me reading and he sleeping, while Jackie did her therapy. Benji is very comfortable in his carrier, so taking him places is easy. After Jackie was done we drove to Petsmart, only to realize when we got there that we had forgotten to bring his medical records and they won’t do anything with him unless they see a rabies vaccination certificate. We discussed waiting for a few days, but finally decided we would just bite the bullet and drive back to the RV park, get his certificate and get the trimming done. It took us 45 minutes to get back, get the certificate and return to Petsmart, but at least they got him right in for his trim. The young girl that did the nails didn’t have any problem controlling Benji. We also had her put on the plastic tips that are now available for cats. They go on with super glue over their claws and serve to eliminate the sharpness that exists even when the claws are trimmed. Benji didn’t seem to mind that process either, although he got a little impatient towards the end.
After the Petsmart visit we made a quick stop at Walmart for supplies and then went back to the coach. Benji was kind of funny to watch for the first hour or so as he shook his paws because he felt something on them. After a while he must have gotten used to the feeling, because he stopped trying to shake them off. It was funny to watch the first time he tried to use his claws to help climb up on the bed and he slid off with a look on his face that said “huh?”
Jackie made a nice chili rellano casserole for dinner and we invited Ray and Suzie, but Suzie is still under the weather and Ray decided to stay home with her. We had a nice dinner with just us, and then spent the rest of the evening in front of the TV.
Tuesday, January 29th, we left the coach about 9:30 and drove north to Quartzsite, Arizona, for a geocaching event. Ray went with us, but Suzie was still sick and decided to stay home with the dog. From our RV park it was about 90 miles to the event, which was sponsored by the Escapee’s Geocaching club. Escapees is another large, national RV club, but unlike FMCA is open to owners of any RV. FMCA is only for motor home owners. Escapees tend to be a little more down to earth and the club is known for it’s members love of boondocking, camping with no facilities. The event was out in the desert west of town where several dozen of the club members were boondocked.
We arrived at the event about 11:00 and they were having a seminar on cache preparation and hiding. We saw several
We decided to start back towards Yuma about 3:00 and we stopped a few times along the way to pick up geocaches that were hidden near the highway. We ended up with six new finds for the day, one of which was number 4,700, our latest milestone.
Wednesday, January 30th, we left the park about 1:30 and drove into Yuma for Jackie’s physical therapy session again. She will be having these twice a week for the rest of the time we are here in Yuma. Hopefully it will alleviate the back pain some. After she was done with her session we did some geocaching in Yuma, finding five new caches. One of them was hidden in the courtyard of a very interesting looking Mexican restaurant called Julienne’s. It is kind of hidden in a residential area off any of the main streets. Much of the seating is courtyard and they have a number of large parrots on display and a couple of huge peacocks wandering around loose. It looks like a nice place to eat, we may have to try it sometime while we are here.
We headed home around 4:00 and then got together with the Babcocks for cocktails around 5:00. Suzie joined us tonight, the first time she has been socializing for about three days. Her cold was finally clearing up. About 6:00 we all went into Yuma again for dinner at the Famous Dave’s BBQ restaurant. Ray and I both had the rack of pork ribs and they were great. Some of the best spare ribs around. We both ate half the rack and brought the other half home for lunch the next day. After dinner we drove back to the park and went to our respective coaches for the rest of the evening.
Thursday, January 31st, Jackie’s late mom’s birthday. Both Jackie and I woke up with what feels like the beginnings of a cold. Eek! Our friends the Minards and Suzie Babcock are just getting over colds and we really didn’t want to get one too. Oh well, colds happen. We didn’t do too much except hang around the house in the morning and early afternoon. About 1:30 we drove into Yuma so Jackie could get an Echo Cardiogram (ECG) that had been ordered by her COPD doctor. It is basically a sonogram of your heart. Jackie said it was kind of neat to watch because you could see your heart pumping and the blood flowing in and out. She said she had never seen that before and it was cool to watch.
After the doctor we stopped at Walmart, which was just across the street, and then went back to the RV park. We had cocktails with the Babcocks and then went home for dinner. We had thought we would go down to the clubhouse tonight for Texas Hold’Em, but we both decided to just stay home and rest as neither of us were at a hundred percent. We just watched TV and sort of felt sorry for ourselves.
Friday, February 1st, a whole month of 2013 gone already. My how time flies. We spent most of the day hanging
About 3:30 everyone gathered us, Ray & Suzie, Curt and Sharon, and Sharon’s uncle Sonny, who has a park model in Yuma where
Saturday, February 2nd, our two weeks here at Pilot Knob have come to an end. We packed up the coach, said goodby to our neighbors, the Babcocks, and started the grueling 22 mile trip to the other side of Yuma and the Caravan Oasis RV Resort. We left about 10:00 and by 11:00 we were parked in our spot at the resort. We are going to be here at Caravan Oasis for a full month. This will be the first time we have spent a month in Yuma. We like the town, so I think we will enjoy our stay.
After we got parked we spent a couple hours getting set up and moved in and then we just chilled for the rest of the day, nursing our colds and enjoying the weather. Our move after two weeks marks a good place to end this chapter and get it published. We will probably publish a couple of times during our stay here in Yuma. Until the next time, stay safe, be happy and have fun. Bye.
