Hello again. Our last chapter concluded on Thursday, October 31st, when we arrived in Surprise, Arizona, a suburb in the northwest part of the Phoenix area. I grew up in Arizona and lived here for most of my life before moving to Indio, California in 1998. Most of my kids and grandkids are in the Phoenix area, so we try to get through here from time to time to visit.
Friday, November 1st, we went out after lunch to do some geocaching in the Surprise area. We really got slammed today with DNF's, getting four new finds but also four new didn't finds. Yikes. I don't know if it was the 80 degree temperature, the urban caching after a couple months of rural caching, bad luck or just poor searching skills, but we were missing about every other cache. We finally quit about 3:00 and went back to the coach. The picture is of an old covered wagon parked in front of the RV park's office. The sign says, "Very first RV to arrive in Arizona."
At about 4:30 we left the coach again and drove to nearby Sun City to have dinner with our friends Pat and Howie Bates. Up until a couple years ago Pat and Howie were full time RVers like us, but then they bought a house here in Sun City. They still travel about half the year, but decided they needed a home for the winter months. Howie is the immediate past president of the Full Timers Chapter. We saw them a few weeks ago in Pahrump as they were finishing their summer travels and made arrangements to have dinner with them when we got down here to Surprise.
They have a very nice home in the middle of what was the original Sun City. This was the part of Sun City that was being built back in the 70's when I was working for the Sheriff's Office and working both as a beat deputy and a detective in the Sun City area. We had cocktails and chatted for a while before Pat served a very nice chicken cacciatore dish and salad. After dinner we talked until about 8:00 when we left and went back to the coach for the rest of the night.
Saturday, November 2nd, we left the coach early, about 10:30, and drove to the Sun City West development, just across the road from the park. We went for their annual craft fair. All of the Sun Cities have really great recreational and activities centers for their residents. These centers, and there are usually several for each of the different developments, have ceramic shops, wood shops, metal shops, and all sorts of craft clubs. As a result, the residents make huge quantities of crafts over the years. These craft sales are ways to sell the stuff to the general public. There were probably a thousand different sellers and several thousand shoppers. There was some really nice stuff, but nothing we really needed. After our shopping trip we stopped for lunch at Wendy's and then went out and found our geocache for the day.
After we had our cache of the day we drove over to Glendale, another northwest valley suburb of Phoenix, to visit my daughter Tye and her family. They recently moved into a house in a nice neighborhood, only a few blocks from the house my ex-wife and I had in Glendale and in which Tye and my other two kids lived during their high school days. When we arrived I found that my son Roy, who lives in Phoenix a few miles east, had also come over to see us. We got to see Tye, her husband Frank, my son Roy Jr., and two of my grandchildren, Courtney and Jordan. Jordan is my youngest grandchild and is in the 7th grade now. Tye's stepson Daniel is also living with them and was there for the visit.
We had a really nice visit and sat and talked for several hours, catching up on the changes in life, as well as other relatives. Jackie went out and took the two girls shopping for a while and I stayed and talked with Tye and Roy. We finally left about 5:00 because Tye had to start getting ready for work. She works as a medical clerk in a large hospital emergency room and is on the night shift now. She works 12 hour shifts, which I think would kill me, but she likes them because she gets three days off every other week. After our visit with the kids we went back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the evening.
Sunday, October 3rd, we had our usual relaxed Sunday morning with the paper and coffee. About 1:30 we left the coach and drove to the nearby Olive Garden restaurant where we met my brother Ken and his wife Susan for a late lunch. Ken and Susan live in Goodyear, another suburb of Phoenix in the southwest valley, about ten miles due south of where our RV park is. We last saw Ken and Susan in Casa Grande back in March of this year when they came down with their RV for weekend. Susan works for Southwest Airlines and Ken is a code inspector with the City of Goodyear.
We had a great lunch and after lunch we went back to the coach so they could see our remodel work. We sat and talked for a while and then the four of us went out so we could get our cache of the day. Ken and Susan are also cachers, having been introduced to the hobby by us about four or five years ago. They really love the sport and have a number of their own caches hidden now. They don't have the numbers that we do, but then the still have full time jobs, so it is understandable that they can't cache as often. We ended up getting three caches, two of which were new to Ken and Susan as well. After our caching we went back to the coach and just sat and talked until about 9:00 when they left to go home. We watched a little TV until it was time to go to bed. A great visit with my brother and his wife.
Monday, October 4th, we left the coach after lunch with Benji in his carrier and took him to the nearby Petsmart store to get his claws trimmed and the little plastic soft paws covers glued on. As usual he was very calm and well behaved, even though this Petsmart, being in the middle of Sun City, was very busy. There were at least four small dogs getting haircuts in the same room and he was not bothered at all, at least not so you could see.
After Benji was done we took him home and then went out to do some geocaching. We managed to get nine new finds in a couple of hours, along with one new DNF. Once we were done caching we went back home for the rest of the day. Around 7:00 or so we had a group of pretty strong thunderstorms pass over the area. We had about an hour of strong winds and lots of lightning, but not a lot of rain. It sprinkled a little, but not enough to be a concern. We only had to close the windows because the wind was blowing the wet into the coach. After the storms passed over it calmed down for the rest of the evening.
Tuesday was another afternoon with family. We left the coach after lunch and drove over to my grand-daughter Ashley's house to see her and my youngest great grandchild Mckenzie, who just turned three a couple weeks ago. When we got to Ashley's townhouse we found that my son Roy Jr., who only lives a couple miles away, was also there, as was Ashley's roommate. We had a great time visiting and playing with Mckenzie, who was much more friendly and outgoing with me than she was a year and a half ago when we last saw her. She is a typical, rambunctious three year old with boundless energy. We finally left about 5:00 because Ashley had to take a nap as she was working the graveyard shift tonight. She is a nursing assistant at an inpatient mental health facility.
We dropped Roy off at his condo before heading back to the coach. We had picked up a birthday present for Mckenzie on the way over to Ashley's and found our geocache for the day in the parking lot of the Walmart, so we didn't have to go find another cache before going home. We did stop at KFC to pick up some chicken for dinner since we were getting home late. We made it back to the coach about 6:30, had cocktails and dinner and watched TV the rest of the night. Another nice day with family.
Wednesday, October 6th, we left the coach after lunch and took a drive over to Roy Jr.'s condo. He invited us in and showed us around and we talked for a little while. We then went out in the Jeep to do a couple of geocaches. Roy had shown an interest in geocaching when we were talking about it yesterday and we told him we would take him out, show him a couple caches and give him a light introduction. We found out today that he had gone onto the website, looked around a bit and had registered a caching name, the first necessary step.
The first cache we went out to look for was a bit tricky, which is good for an introduction because it shows that all caches are not real easy to find. This one was behind a Phoenix Fire Department station and, although we were on the sidewalk side of the wall, the station Captain came over on his side of the wall and asked what we were doing. We gave him our usual brief description of caching and found he knew nothing. He stuck around and after about ten minutes of searching I finally found the cache, a tiny plastic tube stuck in a crack in the block wall. The Captain came around the wall so he could see and seemed to be impressed. Roy was all excited as he signed the log of his first geocache.
Our second search was unsuccessful and we had to explain to Roy that DNFs were a natural part of the hobby too. The third cache we went to was behind a home improvement store and Roy found this one before we did. This one also had a little tiny toy chicken, which he took as his first “swag” from a cache. After this cache we dropped Roy back off at his condo so we could go do our shopping.
We first stopped at Costco and stocked up on a few things. We took the Costco loot home and unloaded it and stored it. We then went out to Walmart for some more stuff. We leave tomorrow and will be spending two nights in Ehrenberg, Arizona, across the river from Blythe, where there are no Walmarts, and will be going from there to Silent Valley, south of Banning, California. We will be in Silent Valley for a month. Although there are Costcos in Indio and Palm Desert, and a Walmart in Banning, they are not nearly as convenient from Silent Valley as they are from here. We have to drive twelve miles down a mountain road to get to Walmart from there, so we figured we would stock up here. After shopping we relaxed with the TV the rest of the night.
Thursday, October 7th we packed up the coach and headed out for Ehrenberg. It was 146 miles, but once we got out of Surprise it was wide open road for the entire trip. We made a lunch stop at a rest area and got into the Colorado River Oasis, one of our Western Horizon parks, about 2:00. We quickly got settled into a nice site right along the Colorado River, looking into California. It didn't take long to settle in as we didn't do anything other than the basics for our two night stay.
After we cooled off a bit we went out to get one geocache for the day. We are up to 137 consecutive days of caching a figure that our streak will come to an end once we get to Silent Valley. We have cached a lot in that area and there are few close caches to where we will be. Plus, the fire this past summer probably burned up most of the caches right in the area anyway. It has been a good run, but we always said we would quit once it got to where it was a real struggle to get out and get a cache. After finding our cache we went back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the evening. We had a great dinner of pork ribs that had been cooking in the crock pot all day while we traveled.
Friday we left the park after lunch and went out to get a couple of caches. We have cached a lot in this area over the years and there is not a big group of cachers in the area putting out new caches. As a result, most of the caches we haven't found are way out in the desert or other areas where it is a real hassle to get to them. We were able to get two newer caches that were pretty close into town, only about five miles out or so, and then we said that was enough. Everything else was way too far out.
We headed back to the coach and relaxed until dinner. After dinner, a little before 7:00, we went down to the clubhouse for karaoke. There wasn't much of a crowd, the DJ, Jackie and I and two other guys. Since there were only four singers, we all got to sing a lot. I probably did ten songs for the night. On one of them my granddaughter Courtney, whom we had seen last week in Phoenix, called Jackie and got to listen on the phone while I sang. She didn't even know I sang karaoke. We sang until 10:00 at which time we packed up and went back to the coach for a little TV and then bed.
Saturday, October 9th, we had the coach packed up and ready for another travel day by 10:30 or so. We made a quick stop at the truck stop just inside the Arizona border for the last cheap fuel, then got on the I-10 and crossed the Colorado into California again. Our destination was Silent Valley, about 150 miles to the west. Silent Valley is our ownership park, the closest thing we have to owning property. We actually have one twelve hundredth of a share of a forest service lease, but hey, it's property. We pay $600 a year in dues and for that can stay up to 120 days a year in the park with no additional expense. The park has full hookup, 50 amp sites and is a very nice place to spend time. We try to spend at least a couple months a year here to make it worth our while to keep the dues up.
The only drawback is that it is eleven miles of winding, mountain road to get to the place from Banning on the freeway. The park is about 3,700 feet elevation, so it is a little cooler than the desert floor, and true to it's name, it is quiet. No trains, no planes, no traffic, nothing. We arrived at the park about 2:00 after getting hung up in construction traffic on the hill for a short while. This past summer there was another big fire in these mountains, one which started right at the edge of Silent Valley and threatened the park for a while. You could see the results of the fire on the hillsides as we came up the hill. Luckily, it didn't do any damage in the park and the park only lost one small outbuilding in the fire, a shed that was across the road from the entrance. We were here in October of 2006 when they had the last big fire in the area. We were trapped in the park for two nights with the fire burning all around us. Fortunately, the park was spared in that fire too and we were allowed to leave after the two nights of being sheltered in place by the fire department. 
We got one of our usual spots close to the community center and got settled in. You pick your own spot when you come up here and this time of year there are not a lot of people up here, so we got a nice spot. Fortunately, the fire didn't burn any of the hills except to the north of the park, so the views from down in the valley are still nice. We will be here for 30 days before moving back down to the Coachella Valley for the holidays. We also didn't get a cache today, thus ending our consecutive caching streak at 138 days. Not too bad when you consider that our goal was only to improve on our previous record of 6 consecutive days. The problem is that most of the caches up in this area that are accessible without having to drive 20 miles have been found by us. In addition, the fire destroyed a lot of the caches on the north side of the mountains, so it just would not be at all convenient to try to keep the streak going. Caching is a hobby for us, not an obsession, so the streak is ended.
November 10th, the 238th Birthday of the United States Marine Corps. Like all Marines, this date is seared into my brain and celebrated. Happy Birthday and Semper Fi Marines! We had a very quiet day planned for up here on the mountain. After lunch I spent a couple of hours finishing our outside decorations and accommodations. Since we are up here for a month, we put out our ground mats, I put up my flags, of course the U.S. and the Marine Corps. I put out some lights, including our rope light palm tree, which we got back in 2006 when we were visiting Jackie's friend Helen back in Massachusetts. After my outside work we did some chores inside, but mostly just relaxed for the day.
Monday, November 11th, Happy Veteran's Day and a great big thank you to all who have served. Never forget that all gave some, but some gave all. We had another beautiful Indian summer day up here, with temps approaching 80 degrees. We stayed in the coach all day again, doing chores and enjoying the quiet. I managed to get our malfunctioning ice maker out of the refrigerator so that I can try and get a replacement when we are down in the desert. To get it out I had to defrost the freezer, so it took well over an hour to get the job done. For dinner we had some chicken cooked on the BBQ. Life is good!
Tuesday we left the coach about 11:30 and drove down the hill to Banning for the first time since we got here. We went to lunch at one of our favorite Mexican restaurant chains, La Casita, which has a place in Beaumont. We love their taco salad there and that is what we always get. We usually go to one of the La Casita stores every couple weeks when we are in the Coachella Valley area. They have about six stores located around the desert area.
After lunch we went out to do some caching. Although we have done a lot of caching in the Banning-Beaumont area over the years, there is an active caching community here that is always putting out new caches, so we had a lot of new caches to go look for. We were able to get ten new finds in under two hours, along with a couple of DNFs. After our caching we stopped at Walmart for some supplies, then headed back up the hill. We spent the rest of the day at the coach.
Wednesday, November 13th, we stayed in Silent Valley for the day. Went down to the laundry after lunch and washed clothes and played a great game of Skipbo while we waited.
Thursday we left the coach and the park about 11:15 and made the fifty mile drive to Indio so we could have lunch with our good friend Barry Cohen. Barry and his wife Colleen were pretty much our best friends since shortly after I moved to Indio from Phoenix in 1998. We spent a lot of time with them, both before and after we started our travels. They were full time RVers several years before we started, the difference was that Barry still worked full time in his transmission business so they didn't travel in their motorhome much. They lived in a very upscale RV resort in Indio.
Their dream was always to be able to travel freely as we do and they spent a long time working towards that goal. A couple years ago Barry was finally able to sell his business and last year he quit working all together. Early this year they finally sold their property at the RV resort and got enough money to be able to pay off all their bills. They also got an unimproved lot at the same resort, free and clear, as part of the sale. It looked like they were finally going to be able to live their dream and travel.
In May we got a phone call from Barry telling us that Colleen had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and probably only had a few months. We were traveling at the time, but kept in touch with them as much as possible. About nine weeks later Barry called us and told us that Colleen had died. They had been married for nearly 50 years. Lunch today was going to be the first time we have seen Barry since Colleen's passing. In keeping with her wishes, there was no funeral or service. We have talked a lot on the phone, but not actually been with him.
We picked Barry up at his RV and drove to Cactus Jack's bar and grill in Indio, our favorite watering hole when we still had the house here. We had a very nice lunch, talked a lot about Colleen and how Barry is holding up. We all shed a few tears but also had some laughs. While we were having lunch Colleen's sister Janet and her husband John also came in to have lunch. We talked with them for a little bit too. Barry seems to be doing as well as can be expected at this early date. He is clearly lonely, but seems to be coping. He still talks about traveling with the RV some, and we are trying to encourage him to come out and travel with us for a little bit this coming year.
After lunch we went back to Barry's place and had another cocktail and talked some more. We finally left about 4:00 so we could head back to Silent Valley and get up the mountain before it got completely dark, which is about 5:30 this time of year. We made it home just before 5:30 and relaxed with the TV the rest of the night.
Friday, November 15th, we decided to stay at home for the day again. After lunch I went up on the roof and tried to discern the location of the water leak over the dash. It occurred to me that the leak became apparent after we had our new satellite dish installed in the summer of 12, so I concentrated on the dish and it's connections. Sure enough, upon very close examination, I spotted an area where they ran the wires from the dish through the roof where there appeared to be a tiny area that was not caulked properly. I got out my caulking gun and resealed the area as best I could. Now we just have to wait until the next rain and see how it comes out.
After I finished with the roof I just played games and worked on the computer the rest of the day. Jackie worked on some crafts for most of the day and we had a very nice, relaxing day. It was getting cloudy and for the first time since we have been up here it stayed cool, under 65 degrees, most of the day.
Saturday I woke up to see the entire valley shrouded in mist. After a few hours the mist lifted to where it was just covering the surrounding mountain tops and we started getting an off and on sprinkle that lasted most of the day. Not a lot of rain, but enough to get everything wet and make puddles. Also enough to make the leak in our slide start up and we had to work with that most of the day, keeping dry towels in the cabinet to keep the water from dripping out onto the counter and couch. The good news is that the leak over the dash, the one I thought I fixed yesterday, didn't leak. I guess I got that one. I don't have the ladders or tools to fix the one on the slide. It will have to wait until we get down to the desert in a few weeks. None of the mobile RV service techs will come up to Silent Valley this time of year. Too far to travel and not enough business to merit it.
Since it was cold, wet and foggy, we just stayed in for the day. Jackie worked on crafts and watched her shows on TV. I did a few chores, including one that has been on my to do list for a while. There is a small opening under the sink for access to the plumbing, kitchen and shower, and the water heater. It has a louvered door that allows air for the furnace to come in. Jackie wants to use some of the space under the sink for storage, so I put some hinges on that panel so it became a door. Now she can get in there to put stuff. Other than that, we just relaxed on a cool, rainy day.
Sunday, November 17th, the clouds are mostly gone, but so are the warm temps. It was breezy and cool today, but we decided to get out and go to a movie. We headed down into Banning after lunch to the old Fox theater. This theater was built back in the 40's, but a few years back was remodeled and turned into a tri-plex, with three small, but comfortable theaters. We went to see the movie Last Vegas, which stars Morgan Freeman, Micheal Douglas, Robert De Niro, and Kevin Kline as four best friends, who met in Brooklyn in the 50's. They are all now approaching 70 and end up going to Las Vegas for a bachelor party. It's sort of a geriatric “Hangover” movie. It is pretty much a formula romantic comedy, or perhaps a bromantic comedy since most of the drama is between Douglas and De Niro over a girl from their past and a new one they meet in Vegas. It is a heartwarming and funny movie, with some really good lines for actors not known for their comedic roles. We enjoyed the movie. Those who think movies need to be serious, meaningful, and full of important messages will probably think it is inane, but we thought is was pretty funny and entertaining, the entertaining part being the reason we go to movies.
After the movie we went to Walmart for some supplies before heading up the hill before dark. We also looked for a geocache before the movie because we had a few minutes to spare, but we ended up having to DNF it. Oh well.
Monday, November 18th, we woke to another mostly clear day with temps expected to be in the high 60's. We decided this would be a good day to do some caching, so after lunch we drove down the hill to Banning and started caching. We cached about three hours in the Banning and Cabazon areas and in about three hours we had managed sixteen new finds. We were within one find of getting our number 5,900 milestone, but our last two searches ended in DNFs, and the sun was going down. We will have to get the milestone another day. We headed back up the hill and made it back to the coach before dark and before cocktail hour.
Tuesday was another relaxation day. We stayed around the coach, did a few small chores and just enjoyed the day and each other's company. Life is good!
Wednesday, November 20th, we left the coach about 11:00 and drove down the mountain, then headed west to Moreno Valley, the town near the intersection of the 60 and 215 freeways. It is actually the closest major shopping area to Banning at about 30 miles as opposed to 40 or so to Palm Desert to the east. We were headed to a place called Jason's Deli to meet our friends the Babcocks and the Wilsons for lunch. Regular readers will remember Ray and Suzie Babcock and Gary and Ramona Wilson as fellow Monaco Motor Home owners, travel companions, and caching friends for many years. Although both couples were full time RVers at one time, they have both moved back into stick houses recently. The Babcocks have a house down in Menifee, about 35 miles south of Moreno Valley, and the Wilsons have a house in Ontario, about 20 miles west. The Babcocks still travel in their coach about half the year, the Wilsons are considering giving up motor home travel for health reasons.
The last time we saw both these couples was back in July when we were all in Mineral, California at Peggy and Vernon Bullock's 50th anniversary party. Since we were all fairly close by, we decided to arrange a lunch so we could get together and catch up. We picked Jason's because of the fact that they serve muffulettas, a New Orleans specialty sandwich that Ray and I both fell in love with a couple summers ago when we were traveling through that area together. It is ham and salami on a big round bun with an olive spread for garnish. Outstanding and hard to find outside of Louisiana.
We all arrived at the restaurant around noon and spent the next couple of hours talking and enjoying lunch. Ray and I had muffulettas, everyone else had something else off the menu. Lunch was good, although the service today left a little to be desired. The help got the order mixed up and it was like pulling teeth to get them to figure out what they needed to do to make it correct. After lunch we went out and got one geocache in the parking lot of the restaurant. This was our number 5,900 and we wanted to celebrate it with caching friends. We introduced both the Babcocks and the Wilsons to caching and they are both still avid caching teams. After finding the cache we called Vernon Bullock on the phone so we could all sing happy birthday to him. The Bullocks are still in the Redding area, we won't see them until January in Indio. Once everyone went their own way, Jackie and I went over to Walmart to return a couple of things, and then did a quick Costco run before heading back up the mountain for the night.
Thursday, November 21st, we awoke to fog and cool, damp weather. It had rained on and off most of the night and was forecast to rain most of the day. With that in mind, we just stayed in the coach and did chores and played and watched TV. When we read the forecast last night we pulled in the curb side front slide, the one that has been leaking, and I was pleased to find that there was no water this morning despite the on and off rain. The front leak I fixed was also dry. It rained a lot today, including some periods of pretty heavy rain, and the slide did not leak at all. This will be useful as a diagnostic tool to find the leak.
Friday it is still wet and rainy and we are still staying in. Did a few things around the coach, but mostly just relaxed. I did some work on our geocaching travel bugs and Jackie did crafts.
Today marks about the halfway point for our stay up here in Silent Valley, and is a good place to close this chapter and get it published. We will put out the next episode in a few weeks when we head down to the Coachella Valley for the holidays. Until then remember the words of the author Henry Miller, “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” Go see something in a new way. Bye.
