Hi friends, welcome back. Our last chapter concluded on Friday, November 22nd, with us about halfway through our month long stay at the Silent Valley Club, near Banning, California. Today is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. Of course, that is pretty much all that is on the news this morning, various commemorations of that day. I remember being a Junior at Maryvale High School in Phoenix that day and hearing the announcements over the PA system. I remember that we were let out early and that we were out of school until after the funeral. Hard to believe that was half a century ago. It is very foggy and cold up here on the mountain and we are expecting quite a bit of rain today, so we decided to just stay at home again. Did a few things around the coach, but mostly relaxed.
Saturday, November 23rd, the worst of the rain has passed. It is still cold, but at least the sun was out for part of this morning. We needed to go down the mountain to do some shopping, so we left after lunch and drove down to Beaumont. We stopped first at Kohl's and bought a few things. I got a couple of new tee's and Jackie got a nice shearling blanket for her couch. We then went to Bed, Bath and Beyond where we got a new heating pad for our bed. Our old one is acting up and not working right. We have had it for several years, so it was time for a new one because it gets pretty chilly up here at night and we don't normally run a heater in the coach after we go to bed. We then went to Walmart for some groceries before heading back up the hill for the night.
Sunday we woke up to sunlight, but when the clouds went away so did the heat. Now in the morning it is in the low 40's because the heat all dissipates overnight. With the rain gone we were able to put the slide back out in the living room so we got our full size house back. We elected to stay at home today and did a few chores and just relaxed again for most of the day.
Monday, November 25th, one month to Christmas. We went down the hill after lunch to do some geocaching. Although cool, in the mid 60's, it was a nice sunny day with no wind, great for caching. We were able to find eight new caches in a couple of hours. One of them was a new travel bug hotel at the fire museum in Banning. It is an old electronic equipment box mounted on the outside of the building with a combination lock. The information on the cache page provides the combination and when you open it there are a dozen or more travel bugs inside. We ended up swapping out ten that we had in our inventory for ten that were in the cache. This will become a regular spot for us to visit every time we are in Silent Valley for a stay. Up until a week or so ago there was a similar one in Yuma, but it just got shut down by the owner in a tiff with the local caching community. Now we have a replacement.
The fire museum is in an old Banning fire station that they are leasing to the museum and the guys that operate the museum are cachers themselves, so everything worked out. After our caching we made a quick stop at Walmart and then Albertsons for some things we forgot the other day, then we headed up the hill for the night. Tuesday was another planned at home day. Got a few more small chores done and had a nice, relaxing day.
Wednesday, November 27th, we had planned to go down the mountain for some more caching today, but the wind was blowing twenty miles per hour and it was quite cool. We decided we really didn't need to be uncomfortable just to do some caching, so we stayed at home again. A few small chores, mostly relaxation. A nice, quiet day at home.
Thursday, November 28th, Happy Thanksgiving. We had received several invites for dinner today, but since we don't like coming up the hill in the pitch dark, we declined and just bought the fixings for dinner with us and our fur kids. Jackie cooked a nice turkey breast and we had it along with potatoes, stuffing, cranberries and the other goodies that make up a good Thanksgiving meal. Even the kitties, who don't normally get table food, got a little bit of fresh turkey. I think I speak for Jackie as well when I say we are thankful for a lot of things, but most of all for our love and friendship, and our ability to live this great lifestyle together. We are relatively healthy, body and mind, and we are together. We enjoy life and don't worry much, so we have a lot to be thankful for. I wish all of our family and friends a great Thanksgiving as well. Other than a great dinner we just hung around the coach and relaxed for the most part. Jackie did some more work on her crafts and I did some bills and things on the web.
Friday, Black Friday actually, the Friday after Thanksgiving. We didn't need to shop for anything and didn't need to fight the crazy crowds, but we had planned on going down the hill to cache while everyone else shopped. The weather had other ideas, however, and it rained on and off all day, so we just stayed at home again. We watched a couple of movies we had recorded and enjoyed the afternoon at home. We had Thanksgiving dinner again as we finished off the leftovers for dinner. Yea!
Saturday the rain had moved on and we woke up to sun. It was still going to be cool, but at least it was sunny. We left the coach about 10:30 or so went over to the activities center and looked at the stuff put out for the RV park's craft fair. We didn't see anything we needed, so we left and drove down the hill for the afternoon. We did a few geocaches first, finding four, then we stopped at Grandma's Country Kitchen for lunch, or actually breakfast. Jackie and I both had Mexican breakfast entrees, I had the Machaca and Jackie had Chiliquilies. Both were very tasty, although they could have been a little spicier, but then this is a country place, not a Mexican place. After breakfast we went out for some more caches. We ended up with ten new finds, including two “fixed” DNFs, caches that we had been unable to find on previous searches, and one new DNF. After caching we stopped at Walmart for a couple things, then went back up the hill for the rest of the day and evening. A very nice day and a little exercise after being cooped up for a few days because of the weather.
Sunday, December 1st, Holy Moly! 2013 is almost gone! The weather was still nice, so we left the coach after lunch and drove down the mountain to do some geocaching. We found a nice series of caches west of Beaumont and in just a few hours had gotten 27 new finds and one new DNF. A good day of caching. After caching we drove back up the hill and relaxed the rest of the night.
Monday we went down the hill for some shopping. My computer in the back of the coach, in the office, is a regular desktop and it has been acting really weird for some period of time. It freezes up, reboots, gives me the Blue Screen of Death, and it is at unpredictable times. Sometimes it won't even start or boot right. I finally got tired of it and we talked and decided that I needed a new computer. We stopped first at Kohl's because Jackie was also looking for a pannini maker and Kohl's had one on sale. We didn't like the one they had so we went to Walmart and looked. We ended up buying a smallish George Foreman grill that is also set up to do pannini's. I looked at the computer selection at Walmart and saw a couple, a laptop as well as a desktop type, that might work, but nothing that shook my world. We decided to go to Best Buy, right next door, and we were looking at their stuff. I was real undecided until Jackie found a desktop that was on sale. It was about $450, a little more than we planned to spend, but not too much and it was a great deal. It has a really good AMD quad core processor that is twice as fast as the one in my current unit, a huge hard drive and lots of memory, plus it has a graphics unit that will let me play a lot of the newer games that wouldn't work on my old computer because it was too slow and not enough memory. It is really hard to live this lifestyle without having good computer access, so we consider it a necessity. We ended up buying that unit and then drove back up the hill to the RV. I didn't do anything with the computer tonight except unpack the box. Tomorrow will be a stay in day, and for me a set up the new computer day.
Tuesday the weather was supposed to get rainy, but nothing ever showed up. I spent the entire day setting up my new computer. It works really nice, but it has Windows 8, an operating system I have never used. It took me an hour or so to figure out the basics, and now I can navigate around it pretty easily. I don't like it as much as Windows 7, but it will do. The worst part about a new computer is reinstalling and setting up all the applications. I have copies of the setup files for all my major apps, so I don't have to use a lot of time downloading, but it is still a pain to find the serial numbers, install it, and then get it reset to the way I like it. It took me all day, but I finally got all my work-type applications installed and set up. I didn't do any games yet, they can come later, but I got most everything else working now and I am happy. Jackie made a big batch of clam chowder, using basically the same recipe she used for her Halibut chowder. It really turned out well and made for a great dinner.
Wednesday, December 4th, we had another stay at home day. I did some more work with the computer and also did a few chores around the coach. Although we were supposed to stay up here in Silent Valley until Monday, another four days, we decided that the cold, rainy weather that was moving into southern California for the weekend, coupled with the fact that we wanted to go to the tamale festival in Indio this weekend, gave us the idea to leave a little early. We couldn't go to Desert Pools yet, because we are only allowed 14 days and that would throw the rest of our schedule off. I did some checking and found that there was a Passport America park right across the road from Desert Pools in Desert Hot Springs that took PA for a maximum of seven days. I called them and was able to get in starting tomorrow. We will stay there for four days, then move across the street to Desert Pools on Monday as scheduled. It all works out. Yea! For dinner we had some chicken breasts cooked on the new George Foreman. They turned out great.
Thursday morning we woke up to snow on the ground. Not a lot, just a light dusting, but still fun. The air never got below freezing, so the roads were clear and our water supply didn't freeze. We decided that since it wasn't icy we would go ahead and leave as planned. While we were packing up the coach and getting ready we had more snow, but it quickly turned to sprinkles and soon all the white stuff was gone. We had the coach packed up and we left Silent Valley a little after 11:00 headed for Desert Hot Springs. It's only a 40 mile trip, so Jackie drove the car and followed me. We arrived at Caliente Springs RV Resort about 12:30 and quickly moved into our space. We got the basics set up, then went into Desert Hot Springs for a quick lunch and a few groceries. It's nice to not have a 30 mile drive round trip just to go to the store. After we got back to the coach we finished getting setup and relaxed the rest of the day.
Friday, December 6th, we left the coach after a great lunch of leftover clam chowder. We first drove into Rancho Mirage, just south of Desert Hot Springs, to I could make an appointment with my dermatologist for my annual checkup. Since my bout with melanoma back in 2009 I have been watching my skin much more closely. Since I went on medicare two years ago I go to the skin doc at least once a year for a check. I had tried to make an appointment with the dermatologist a couple weeks ago, but I kept getting an intercept message on their phone number. When I went by the office today it was business as usual and they didn't know anything about any phone problems. Must have had something to do with us being up in Silent Valley, although we didn't have problems with any other numbers. Oh well.
After the doctor's office we went to do some geocaching in the Desert Hot Springs area. We have done a lot of caching in this area over the years, our very first cache was in DHS, but there is a very active caching community in the Coachella Valley, so we always have new caches to find every winter. We cached for a couple of hours and ended up with 16 new finds and no DNFs, a pretty good caching afternoon. It was really cool out, we were caching with jackets on, the first time that's happened this year, but that's better than being too hot. It was really only in the mid-50's, but that's cold to desert rats like us. After caching we went back to the coach and spent the rest of the day inside.
Saturday, December 7th, Pearl Harbor day. I was interested to note that there was not a single mention of Pearl Harbor this morning on the news. Being retired I don't pay much attention to the date for the most part, so I didn't even remember it was December 7th until I started to write the blog for the day before and noticed the date on the computer. I guess with most of the survivors of WW-II gone the commemoration of the battles of that war are becoming outmoded.
The weather today was predicted to be really crappy and it didn't disappoint. The temps were in the low 50's and the cold front was pushing the wind through the pass into the valley at 40 mph, with gusts in the 50's and even 60's. The coach was rocking and the slide topper awnings were flopping. It was way to nasty to go out and cache, so we just stayed in for the day. We did leave about 4:30 to drive into Rancho Mirage for a geocaching event, a Christmas party put on by some of our caching friends here in the Coachella Valley. The event was at a local restaurant, Mimi's, in Rancho Mirage, so the weather didn't matter.
We stopped on the way and bought a toy for the toy collection that was part of the event. They were collecting for Toys for Tots. There were about a dozen caching teams at the party, more than half of whom we already had met at other events over the years. We had a really good time and won three different travel coins in various drawings. We had a couple of cocktails and dinner along with the event and really enjoyed seeing some friends and meeting some new people. We finally left about 8:00 and were back home in the rocking coach by 8:30. We watched TV the rest of the evening.
Sunday, December 8th, we got the Sunday paper and enjoyed that with our morning coffee. We left the coach about 11:00 or so and drove into Indio to attend the International Tamale Festival. The city always holds the Tamale Festival the first weekend in December and we used to go all the time when we still had the house there. I don't think we have been to one since we sold the house and went out full time in the RV. The timing is just never right for us to go. We were looking forward to going this year.
We found a parking lot very near the venue, which is along several of the streets in the old downtown area of Indio. We spent about three hours walking around, looking at the arts and crafts booths and sampling tamales from time to time. Jackie tried one of the avocado ones, I had one that was BBQ beef that was really tasty. We nibbled our lunch over the course of the three hours and had a really good time. After the festival we drove back to DHS, stopping along the way to pick up four geocaches that happened to be along the road we were driving. One of the caches was one of the biggest ammo cans I have ever seen. That is me sitting on the cache. Not too hard to find. The guy poured a hundred pounds of cement in the bottom of the box to prevent anyone from carting it off. We are getting very close to our 6,000 finds mark and may also have our best year in terms of the number of finds. Yea.
Monday was another moving day. We had to move from Caliente Springs to the Western Horizons park across the road, a total trip of maybe a quarter mile. We packed up and left Caliente Springs about 11:00, moved across the road and got set up in our new place pretty quickly. I spent most of the afternoon getting set up for our two week stay here in Desert Pools. Since we are going to be here until two days before Christmas I set up our Christmas decorations so we would look festive. We didn't go anywhere after getting setup in Desert Pools.
Tuesday, December 10th, we left the coach about 11:00 and headed for Indio. On Sunday, while we were at the Tamale Festival, we had signed up at a booth for a time share presentation for Wyndham resorts. Normally we don't bother with these kinds of promotions, but this one included lunch and they were offering a free four day Carnival Cruise. We have been talking about doing another cruise, it has been a while, and we figured the worst we could lose was a couple hours.
We arrived at the Wyndham Resort in North Indio about 11:30 and got signed in. They did give us a buffet lunch which was pretty good. We then met with our sales consultant who spent an hour or so explaining how their timeshare program worked. The bottom line is that it is very expensive to buy into and you need to be the type of people who really enjoy the resort lifestyle. We aren't and I think our sales consultant understood that. There were no high pressure tactics or a second person to come in and try to strong arm you. She just said, it's not for everyone and I guess you are in that group. They gave us our cruise and we were on our way. The cruise is probably not a big bargain, I think we can probably find a better one cheaper, but we were only out an hour of our time.
After the presentation we stopped at Best Buy and Kohl's in Palm Desert to do some shopping. We then went to Walmart for supplies before heading back to the coach. I cooked up a nice pot of chili for dinner and about 6:30 we walked down to the clubhouse for Texas Hold'em. There were quite a few people there, many of whom we have met in previous years at different RV parks. We had two tables of nine people. Both Jackie and I had good nights, I finished up a buck and a half and she was up two fifty. We had a great two hours with friends and then went back to the coach and the TV for the rest of the evening.
Wednesday we went out after lunch to do laundry. We went to the local laundry in DHS and spent a couple of hours washing clothes, then went back to the coach. Didn't go anywhere else today.
Thursday, December 12th, we headed out after lunch to take care of some errands. Our first stop was Sam's Club in Palm Desert where I had the tires on the car rotated and balanced. It took about an hour, so we wandered around the store and shopped a little. After Sam's we went across the street to the other big box, Costco. We picked up a couple things there and then both Jackie and I got our hair cut at the Supercuts in the same area. We did everything within a few block radius.
After our haircuts we headed back to Desert Hot Springs, stopping on the way to get a few geocaches. We got four new finds before the sun got too low in the sky and made looking difficult. We headed home, had dinner and at 6:30 went back down to the clubhouse for another round of Texas Hold'em. I didn't have the luck I had Tuesday, but I was only down by less than a dollar at the end of the two hours. Jackie had another good night, ending up about $2.50 ahead again. At this rate we may win enough for a gallon of fuel for the coach by the time we leave the park.
Friday I left the coach early, about 8:30, and drove into Rancho Mirage to visit an orthopedic surgeon about my knee. I twisted it back in August when we were in Lodi and it has been bothering me ever since. I went to an urgent care in Santa Maria about it in September, they took x rays and said it didn't appear to be serious. It has never gotten better and I don't like having a limp and the knee always aching, so I decided to go to an orthopedist. I went to the Desert Orthopedic Center on the Eisenhower Hospital campus, which is one of the best in the valley. It is a huge practice and I was there for a little over two hours.
They took another series of x rays and when the doctor came in he pretty quickly made an initial diagnosis of a torn meniscus, the cartilage that cushions between the femur and the tibia. He said that it was not a major issue, but would probably need an arthroscopic repair. He said that these normally don't require any casts or braces and only a little bit of physical therapy after. He set up for me to get an MRI on the knee, which would confirm the actual problem, then set up the surgery if needed. He also gave me a cortisone shot which he said should relive much of the pain and aching.
After the doctor's appointment I stopped at one of my old favorite lunch spots in Cathedral City, a place called Boys, and had a pastrami sandwich. Yum. I then went back to the RV park and we stayed in the rest of the day taking care of some chores and just relaxing. I did get the MRI scheduled for next Thursday.
Saturday, December 14th, the weather was getting warmer, now in the upper 60's up here in DHS, and my knee was feeling better. We went out after lunch to do some geocaching and decided to finish up a series of desert caches in DHS that we had started a couple of years ago, but didn't finish. It was called the Easter Egg series and is 12 caches set out in the desert and if you look at the series on a map it looks like a large egg, about a mile across. We had done four of the caches back in 2011 and went out today to get the other eight. It took us about two hours to get the eight caches because there was a lot of walking. The sand was really soft out where the caches were, and even with the four wheel drive it was iffy going too far off the trails. Since my knee was not hurting, it felt good to walk. The first time since August that I could get around without a lot of pain and limping. After we finished the eight egg caches we got two more close by caches to bring our total for the day to ten. Once we had our caches we went back to the coach where we stayed in the rest of the day.
It has been about two weeks since we published the last episode, so this would seem to be a good place to close this chapter and get it online. We will be here in DHS for another week before moving on to Indio, about twenty miles down the road. We will probably put the next chapter up online after the holidays, so if you are reading this, have a great Christmas and a very happy and safe new year. See ya soon.