Back in the Old Neighborhood - Holidays in Indio Part 2

Hi there, welcome back. Our last chapter ended on Sunday, November 30^th, while we were parked in Indio, California. We have been here at the Indian Waters RV Resort for three weeks and will be here for another six weeks.

Monday, December 1^st, wow, the year is almost gone! We decided to have a stay at home day to relax and get a few chores done. It was a nice day and we got a few things done, including a half hour walk. We have been wanting to try and get a little more exercise. At 5:00 we took our cocktails and visited our friends Doug and Val at their coach, a few spaces down from ours. After our visit we went home for dinner and watched TV the rest of the night.

Tuesday, December 2^nd we left the coach after lunch and went to the movies. We saw the film Interstellar with Matthew McConaughey and Michael Caine. I very much enjoyed the movie. The story line was interesting and emotionally powerful, although the film could be a little hard to follow if the viewer slept through their high school science classes. The special effects were outstanding, I think even better than those in Gravity. The actual science in the movie was a bit muddled, but the twist at the end of the movie was worth the wait. Great film. After the movie we went to Walmart for some supplies and then went back to the coach for the evening.

Wednesday, December 3^rd, we went down to the clubhouse at the RV Resort and presented an Introduction to Geocaching class. We had a Power Point presentation and a lot of display items. We only had three people show up, but they really seemed interesting and complemented Jackie and I at the end for putting on a great class.

After lunch we went out and did our laundry. While we at the laundromat I walked out the back door to the service alley just for some air and spotted a perfect spot for a geocache. We checked and determined that there no other caches within a tenth of a mile, the minimum separation required by Groundspeak, the company that manages the web site for caching. I hid the cache and we noted the GPS coordinates so I could submit the cache for approval later. After our laundry we went to Albertson's because they had some good steaks on sale and then we headed home for the rest of the evening.

Thursday, December 4^th, we were supposed to have the coach washed and waxed but the crew I had talked to didn't show up. When I called them they said that the weather still looked iffy, so they didn't come to do the wash. I was miffed that they didn't bother to call, so I canceled the wash job. I will get it done in Yuma next month. I spent the next few hours putting up our Christmas decorations. We have lots of lights and put some ornaments on the rope light palm tree we have set up on the patio. The decorations turned out really nice.

About 6:00 we went down to the clubhouse for a social get together that was being put on by our friend Jay Blumenthal. The event was called a “Pound Auction” and the idea is that people buy something that weighs at least a pound, wraps it up in a box or bag, and then Jay acts as an auctioneer and sells the treasures. The event is for a local charity, the Coachella Rescue Mission. The bids always start at a quarter, but most of the items went for around $10. One item went for over $30. None of the stuff was worth what people paid, but everyone was happy because it's really just a donation to charity. It was great fun and I paid $10 for a really cool coffee mug that has “Man Cave” imprinted on it. It works well because I have a sign over our bedroom door, which also leads to my office in the back, that says “Man Cave.” I am going to use the mug as a pen holder.

The event was also a pot luck dinner and we had some great food to go along with the auction. You had to be careful though, because Jay explained the auction rules at the beginning that if any part of an arm is raised above the shoulder during the bidding, it is considered a raise of at least a quarter for the item. That is part of the fun because a lot of people got caught taking a drink or scratching their nose and being told they were now the high bidder. When the bidding for some items reached about $20 you could see the people in the audience being very conscious of where their hands were. Kind of funny. There were probably fifty people that participated and we raised just under $400 for the mission.

Friday, December 5^th, I was up and out of the coach by 6:45 in the morning and headed to my dermatologist's office. When Jackie and I went in for our annual skin checks last week he found a small lesion on the back of my neck that he thought might be a skin cancer. He took a biopsy and they called me earlier this week and said it was a Basal Cell carcinoma, a common skin cancer that is not life threatening if taken care of early, and that I needed to come in to have it cut out. I went into the doctor's office at 7:10 and I was on my out the door by 8:00 with a cut on my neck and a few stitches. Easy peasy.

About 1:00 or so our friend's Ray and Suzie Babcock arrived and parked in a spot right behind us. They have a house in Sun City, near Temecula on Interstate 5, but like to get out in their motor home as much as possible. We have traveled a lot with them over the last five or six years. They decided to come to Indio for the weekend to spend some time with us and to be able to go to the International Tamale Festival in Indio this weekend. At 4:00 we all went down to the clubhouse for the Friday social hour on the patio. I took my guitar again and did a couple of songs with Jay Blumenthal who had his keyboard there. The happy hour ended at 5:30 and after a quick stop at the coaches we got in our car and all drove to the Indio Elks Lodge for dinner.

The lodge has a very popular Friday night dinner with a pretty nice menu. We had some cocktails and saw some old friends of ours from the Elks RV club that we used to spend a lot of time with. Ralph and Cece Bogan were having dinner when we came in and Roy and Mary Tweedy came in just after us. We had a great dinner, I had liver and onions and Jackie had a shrimp fettuccine dish that was good. The liver was wonderful. Ray had a really nice steak. We stayed until about 8:00 when we went back to the RV park and had a nightcap with Ray and Suzie in their coach.

Saturday, December 6^th, we were out of the coach about 11:30 with Ray and Suzie and headed over to downtown Indio for the Tamale Festival. This is an annual event where they have about four blocks of downtown streets closed off and booths set up. There are probably forty or fifty booths selling tamales, as well as lots of other craft and service booths. It is a big street fair which also has a carnival with kid rides and a couple of beer gardens for the adults, along with a couple of entertainment stages. We spent several hours walking around looking at things, having a couple of beers and a few tamales and tacos. The weather was great, warm and a little humid, but tolerable, and there were a lot of people walking around the venue.

About 2:00 we were done with the festival and we went back to the RV park and I spent most of the afternoon sitting on the patio in the shade with Ray just talking. About 6:00 the four of us decided the tamales had worn off and we left to go to a local Italian place called Mario's for dinner. We had a great dinner and some good conversation. After we got back to the RV park we had a nightcap at our coach and by 9:00 we were watching TV and relaxing after a fun day.

Sunday, December 7^th, Pearl Harbor Day. Before my time of course, but still historically significant. We left the coach after lunch and went with Ray and Suzie over to the fairgrounds down the street for an RV show. There were four or five local SoCal RV dealers who brought vehicles, about half of which were motor homes. We spent about an hour and a half going through various coaches, some new some used, without finding anything that really impressed any of us. After the RV show we went back to the coaches for a few minutes and then took a drive to Winco with Ray and Suzie for a few things. We had cocktails at our coach at 5:00 and then we BBQed some fish that Ray had caught on a trip to Mexico a few weeks ago. The fish was Dorado, or Mahi Mahi as it is also known, and was quite good. After dinner we sat and talked until about 8:30 when the Babcock's went home and we watched TV the rest of the night. Monday we had a stay at home day. Ray and Suzie packed up and headed back home about 10:30 and we spent the day doing some chores and just chilling.

Tuesday, December 9^th, we left the coach about 11:00 or so and drove to Palm Desert to have lunch with Lynn Gilliam, my boss from when I worked at the Desert Princess Country Club. Lynn was the General Manager of the Country Club and I was the Homeowners Association Manager. She was a great boss and a really nice lady and we have tried to stay in contact with her since I left there in January of 2005. It has been a couple of years since we saw her. We had made arrangements to meet her for lunch at Mario's Italian Cafe, however I thought it was the one on Washington and Avenue 42, but after we were there for 20 minutes and no Lynn, I called and discovered that it was supposed to be at the one at Washington and the Freeway, a couple miles north.

We finally got to the right restaurant and had a very nice lunch and caught up with everything that has been going on in our lives for the last couple years. Lynn is still working in the HOA management sector, but now she works for a big management company as a VP in charge of a bunch of other on-site HOA managers. After lunch we went out to scout some locations for new geocaches and were able to put out three new geocaches in the area north of the freeway. This now makes seven caches we have put out here in the Coachella Valley. After caching we headed home and stayed in the rest of the evening.

Wednesday, December 10^th, we left the coach about 10:00 and went down to the clubhouse for their craft sale. They had a couple dozen vendors setup in the clubhouse and Jackie spent a half hour or so looking around but not buying anything. We then left the RV park and drove to Menifee, about 80 miles or so west, to our friends Ray and Suzie Babcock for a get together with friends. Ray and Suzie invited Gary and Ramona Wilson and Jerry and Bev King, some other friends we have traveled with over the years, to the house for a holiday get together. Ray and Suzie have a very nice house and Ray made up a big batch of his taco salad for dinner. We had some beers and great conversation until about 5:30 when we decided we needed to leave and head back home. We got home a little after 7:00 and spent the rest of the night with the TV.

Thursday, December 11^th, we went out after lunch to do some grocery shopping. About 3:00 or so I gathered up my karaoke stuff and hauled it all down to the clubhouse for a karaoke party this evening. We had volunteered a couple weeks ago and tonight was the night of the party. I got everything set up and working, then I went back to the coach for a while. We had a quick dinner and changed clothes and were back down to the clubhouse at a little before six when the party was supposed to start. Six o'clock came and went and I was very disappointed to see that only one other couple showed up, and they weren't interested in singing. There was one guy, our neighbor in the park named Jerry, who wanted to do one song. He only did “Tequila” as a novelty song. Normally Jackie does that one, but we let Jerry do it. He is 90 years old and doesn't get around well, but he danced around to the music, did the “Tequila” shouts at the right time, and scared the crap out of most people by falling down at the end of the song. It was all part of his “act” but it startled me because I didn't know it was coming.

Other than Jerry there were no other singers, so I started doing some songs and just sort of put on a show. Another couple came in after about 45 minutes, but still no other singers. I ended up doing all the singing myself for two and a half hours with a total of six people in the room, including Jackie. It was very disappointing, but on the bright side I did get to exercise my voice some and the people that were there did stay and listen. About 8:30 I finally called it quits, packed up most of my stuff and went back to the coach for the rest of the night.

Friday, December 12^th, the next bout of rain for Southern California moved in. Unlike last week, some of the rain actually came across the mountains and we had light sprinkles for most of the day. We went out after lunch and did a Costco run, but other than that we pretty much stayed around the coach. We did go up and fix a one of our new geocaches that was accidentally lost by a cacher. The cach is suspended inside a steel fence post and the cacher dropped it down the pole. Oops. About 5:00 we had Jay and Donna Blumenthal over for cocktails. The Friday night social hour at the clubhouse was canceled because of the rainy weather, but we had nice time talking to Jay and Donna for an hour or so. After that we had dinner and then watched TV the rest of the night.

Saturday, December 13^th, the rain cleared up and we had sunny skies but it was cool. We went out for lunch to meet some old friends of ours from our days with the Indio Elks RV Club. Paul and Barbara Mueller actually live in Huntington Beach, California, but have been members of the Indio camping club for many years. Paul's sister Cece is also a friend of ours and she and her husband Ralph live here in the valley. We haven't seen Paul and Barbara in a number of years, although we do stay in contact through social media. We had a great lunch and spent an hour and a half chatting and reminiscing.

After lunch we went back to the RV park and went down to the clubhouse to help Jay and Donna Blumenthal put together the Christmas packages that the park is sponsoring for the local rescue mission. The park has “adopted” 44 kids, age newborn to 14, for Christmas and are getting donations of toys and clothes for the kids. We were sorting everything out and starting to put together the big gift bags for the kids. Every year the RV park does something charitable and we are always involved in it. After a couple hours of sorting stuff we were finished and Jackie and I went out and did a little local shopping for some little things we needed. By 5:00 we were back home and relaxing in front of the TV for the rest of the night.

Sunday, December 14^th, we had our usual relaxing morning with the newspaper, coffee and morning news shows. About 3:00 or so Jackie's Godson Shane came over for a visit. Jackie was there with his mother Vickie when Shane was born in 1994 and has been involved with him ever since. Shane's grandmother was Nancy Heinrich, one of Jackie's oldest and dearest friends. Nancy died about four years ago and Jackie still misses her.

Shane is now 20 years old, living with his dad and working as a bus boy in a couple of high end restaurants here in the desert. He is now six foot four and skinny as a rail. Some of the skinny comes from the fact that he was diagnosed with diabetes when he was eight and he has been fighting it ever since. Type 1 juvenile diabetes never goes away, you are on insulin for life. It has been nearly two years since we last saw Shane so we spent a couple of hours talking and catching up on what's new in his life. He seems to have a lot of friends in the desert and is doing very well. He and his dad, who wasn't around too much when he was growing up, are getting along great and Shane seems to be enjoying life.

Jackie made a batch of chicken enchiladas for dinner and we ate about 6:00 or so. After dinner we talked for a while longer before Shane headed out to spend time with his friends. Since Shane was only five when Jackie and I got together, he looks on me as an “uncle” as well and he seems like a good kid for what he's been through. The one picture is Shane today, on the couch of the RV while we talked, the other was taken in 2000 when he was six and the kitten on his shoulder is our big cat Smokey, who is now 14 years old. After Shane left we watched TV until bedtime.

Monday, December 15^th, we went out in the afternoon and drove to Palm Desert with some old jewelry of Jackie's to see what we might get for it. After a couple of stores it became clear that what we could get for it today wasn't what Jackie was expecting, and we really didn't need to sell the stuff, we just packed it up and took it home. Maybe another time the price of gold and diamonds will go up. After we got home we relaxed for the rest of the day.

Tuesday, December 16^th, we headed out after lunch to do some geocaching. We were able to get five new finds, along with one new DNF, in a couple of hours. We also had to stop by and replace one of our brand new caches we put out a week ago. We had several finds and then all of a sudden we were getting DNF's from people. When we stopped there today the cache was gone, apparently stolen. I had another container just like the one that was there, so we replaced the cache and we will see what happens. After caching we headed home and stayed in the rest of the day. Wednesday was a laundry day. Did our clothes after lunch and then made a quick trip to Walmart.

Thursday, December 18^th, we went down to the clubhouse about 2:00 to help with the gift wrapping for the park's donations to the kids at the Rescue Mission. There were a dozen people of more wrapping and sorting gifts and then putting them in big gift bags for the kids. We worked a couple of hours and got big bags of gifts ready for 44 local kids. About 5:00 we left and drove down to the Elks Lodge for a cocktail. The reason we came down tonight is that an old friend of ours from our days with the Elks travel group, Ray Purscell, was going to be there cooking and we wanted to say hi. Ray has had some health issues the last couple of years and he and his wife Anita have stopped RVing. We had not seen Ray for a number of years. We had a drink and talked with Ray and Anita for a while. About 6:30 we left the Elks and decided to stop at Cactus Jack's in Indio for dinner since it was getting late. We had a nice dinner and were back home by 8:00 or so watching TV.

Friday, December 19^th, we spent most of the day at home doing a few chores. At 5:00 or so we left and drove to the Elks Lodge again, this time for dinner with our friends Bev and Jerry King. They were down for the weekend at their Indio RV lot from their home in San Dimas and had called to see if wanted to have dinner tonight. The King's were not at the lodge when we arrived, but we did run into an old friend, Eric Baalrud in the bar. We knew Eric and his wife back when we still had the house and were very active in Elks activities. Eric had been the Exalted Ruler of the lodge some years back and he and Linda had moved up to Yucca Valley not too long after we went full time.

Jackie keeps up with Eric on social media, but we hadn't seen him in probably seven or eight years. We chatted with Eric for a while until the King's arrived. The five of us had cocktails and talked until 6:00 when our dinner reservations came up. We and the King's went in and had a very nice dinner and talked for another couple hours. After dinner we headed home and watched TV the rest of the night.

Saturday, December 20^th, we left the coach about 3:00 and drove to Palm Desert for a late lunch at Olive Garden. We had a much better early dinner experience at this Olive Garden than we did at lunch in Moreno Valley. The food was tasty, the service great and both Jackie and I left quite full and satisfied. After eating we did a little shopping at the mall nearby before heading to the Palm Desert Greens Country Club for a Christmas party.

We arrived at the club right at 6:00 and checked in with the hosts, Roy and Darcy. Roy and Darcy are local geocachers and sort of head up the informal Coachella Valley Geocachers group. Other than a Facebook page there is no formal organization, but Roy and Darcy always have a caching Christmas party the week before Christmas. This was also an official Geocaching Event, so we got credit for a cache find by attending.

We walked around and visited with other guests, all of whom are either local geocachers or RV types like us that pass through the Coachella Valley almost every year. There were probably 50 people at the party and we at least recognized the caching handles for the majority of them. Many of them we have met in the past at other caching events. We sat at a table that included two other full, or almost full, time RVer couples and had some great caching and traveling conversation. Roy and Darcy had a lot of giveaways for door prizes and also had several people get up and tell interesting or funny caching stories. We ended up getting five door prizes, three nice trackable coins, a tool kit and an LED headlamp. They did have dinner available at the party, but since we had already eaten we didn't partake.

After the party wound down around 8:30 Roy led those who were interested on a car caravan through the country club to look at Christmas lights. There were about ten properties that had really gone all out with Christmas decorations, including Roy and Darcy's house. By a little after nine we were headed back home after a very nice day and a great party.

Sunday, December 21^st, we had a relaxing morning then did a little house cleaning. About 2:00 our friend Barry Cohen came over for dinner. We sat around, had some cocktails and chatted for a couple of hours. Barry is recovering well from loss of his wife Colleen almost two years ago. He is staying active and seems to be generally in good spirits. We have been worried about him. About 4:30 or so I served up a nice dinner of corn beef and cabbage that I had been cooking all day. Corn beef is one of Barry's favorite dishes. After dinner we chatted some more and Barry left to go home about 6:30. We watched TV the rest of the night.

This is now about three weeks since our last posting, so a good time to get this episode online. We have another couple weeks here at Indian Waters, then another week at the rally before leaving Indio. Until the next time remember, the words of Angel Williams; “The answer to having a better life is not about getting a better life, it’s just about changing how we see the one we have right now. “ See ya soon.

Back in the Old Neighborhood - Holidays in Indio Part 1

Hello again, nice to see you back. Our last chapter ended on Monday, November 10^th, when we left Silent Valley Club near Banning, California, and traveled 50 miles east to the Indian Waters RV Resort in Indio, California. Indian Waters is located only a mile from the country club where our house was back before we went on the road full time. We are settled into a nice spot at Indian Waters and will be here for a full two months, about the longest we have stayed in the Coachella Valley since leaving here in 2005.

Tuesday, November 11^th, Happy Veteran's Day and thank you to all the Veterans out there. I myself served nine years in the Marine Corps, four active duty and five reserve. My dad was a 35 year Navy man. We went out after lunch and took Jackie to the doctor to see if he could find some way to relieve the almost constant headaches she has had for the last month or so. The doctor told her that it could be a sinus infection, and gave here some antibiotics for that, but also said that she is very tightly knotted up in her upper back and shoulders. He suspects that this may also be a contributing factor and prescribed some muscle relaxers and some exercises to help loosen up the back. After the doctors appointment we stopped at the grocery store for some supplies and then went back to the coach.

For our 5:00 happy hour we walked over to a friend's coach just down from ours to chat. Jay and Donna Blumenthal had been big movers and shakers in the Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA) and Jay was President of the International Area of FMCA when we first got to know them. They are originally from Long Island, New York, but they have been coming out to the desert for many years in the winter. A few years back Jay finished up his responsibilities in FMCA and now they just travel back and forth between New York and Indio. They are true full timers, no house, but they pretty much just go back and forth now. They did a few hundred thousand miles traveling for FMCA business, so they are ready for a quieter lifestyle now. Since we almost always come back to Indio for the holiday season, we are always around them this time of year. We had a nice chat, catching up since we last saw them back in May of this year. After talking with Jay and Donna for a while we went home and I went and picked up a pizza for dinner and we relaxed in the coach for the rest of the night.

Wednesday, November 12^th, we did some chores around the house and ran some light errands after lunch. About 3:30 we left and drove to the Jackalope Ranch, a nearby restaurant to meet with some friends we had first met at our Full Timer's Rally in Oregon back in July. Bob and Diane Beatty are fairly new full time RVers, only on the road about a year, and our rally was one of the first they attended. They are really friendly people and we had learned through an email conversation after we arrived in Indio that they are also here, at the Thousand Trails RV park a couple miles north, but they are leaving on Thursday. We made arrangements to meet them for happy hour at Jackalope.

We arrived and, since it was a very nice evening, got a table out on the patio. Bob and Dianne arrived shortly after and we had drinks and then some dinner. We spent about three hours with them, talking about our journeys and our life stories. We had talked to them some at the rally, but since we were the hosts we couldn't spend as much time as we would have liked. It was very nice to have an opportunity to chat with them uninterrupted for some length of time. We finally left about 7:00 and went back to the coach for the rest of the night. We will probably next see Bob and Dianne at the FMCA rally in Pomona in March of next year.

Thursday, November 13^th, we decided to stay around the house today. I got a half a dozen small chores completed and Jackie did as well. Although we didn't do any big things, and didn't leave the coach, we both were vary happy with what we accomplished. For dinner we had a nice pot roast that had been cooking in the crock pot all day. We spent the rest of the evening with the TV. About 8:30 I heard a series of gunshots, what sounded like handguns, that also sounded fairly close. With my law enforcement background I knew it was gunshots.

We had the windows open because it was a nice night, but because of the echo effect, I wasn't sure where the shots were coming from. There are a number of lower middle class housing areas around the RV park. Not too much later we heard a lot of sirens, which went on for a half hour or so. I never did hear any shouting, or squealing tires or loud engines, so I didn't think it was a drive-by or anything too close to us. I decided it was likely someone shooting into the air, you get that a lot here on New Years. We just closed the front door, in case someone involved jumped the wall into the RV park or something, and watched TV until bed.

Friday, November 14^th, we read in the morning paper that the shots we heard last night came from about two blocks to the west and were from an Indio Police officer shooting at a suspect. The suspect was only wounded and the paper didn't have much more to say about the shooting. We left the park about noon and drove to a restaurant in Indio, called TKB Deli, to meet with some friends for lunch. Shortly after we settled in Indio on Monday we heard from Charlie and Sharon Anderson, some friends we met about six years ago at a Monaco International Rally. At that time they had a Monaco coach and we would cross paths with them from time to time in our travels. A year or so ago they sold their coach and now have a home in Yuma in addition to their original place is central Illinois. They are in the Coachella Valley spending a week at a time share in North Indio. We set up a time to meet for lunch. It has been a couple of years since we have seen them in person.

The restaurant we went to is a sandwich shop that is rated by Yelp to the number one rated restaurant in Indio. They also have a bakery in addition to the sandwich choices. They have a very eclectic sandwich menu, ranging from vegetarian to meat lovers. I had an Italian type hero that was very good. Jackie had the special, which was a chicken salad that she said was OK, but nothing special. I would like to go back sometime when we are here because there are a couple of other choices on the menu I would like to try. We sat and talked to Charlie and Sharon for almost two hours. They are sort of splitting there time between Illinois and Yuma with a lot of short side trips. They traded their big 40 foot motorhome for a smaller travel trailer that they only use when they are actually traveling between destinations. They don't live in it. They seem to be doing a lot of time share and cruise travel and really seem to be enjoying their life.

After saying goodbye to Charlie and Sharon, who we will probably see again in Yuma in February, we went out to do a few geocaches. We were able to get four new finds, along with two DNFs in a couple of hours of searching. As the sun started going down we stopped at Walmart for a few things and then decided to make a stop at the Indio Elks Lodge. The Indio Lodge was where both Jackie and I joined the Elks, me in 2000, she in 2002. We went into the bar and, although the place was very busy with a sold out Friday night dinner service, we only saw three people in the whole hour and a half we were there that we knew. There is a whole new crowd of members and visitors. After a couple of drinks we headed back to the coach and watched TV the rest of the evening.

Saturday, November 15^th, we left the coach about 11:00 and drove into Palm Desert to the College of the Desert Street Fair. This large street fair is active every Saturday and Sunday throughout the year, although in the summer it gets a lot smaller. There are several hundred vendors, many of them fairly high end, that come out and set up booths. We always like to go there at least once of twice during our stays in the Coachella Valley. We ended up buying a few things, some small metal tubes that some people use for pills, they are called bison tubes, which are also very handy for geocaching. We bought some plastic insect finger puppets that we are going to turn into geocaches that we can hide around the Coachella Valley. We need the bison tubes so we have somewhere to put the log which every cache has to have. I also bought a Marine Corps hat and Jackie got a new pair of shoes in exchange for a pair she bought last year that broke.

After we went through the street fair we drove to the nearby Red Lobster restaurant for a late lunch, early dinner. The Red Lobster was built a year or so ago and we haven't been to this particular store yet, so we thought we would try it out. The service was good, although a touch slow at the beginning. I had a fisherman's platter with fish, clams, shrimp and scallops that I thought was very good, up to the standards I expect from Red Lobster. Jackie had a New Orleans salmon dish that she said was good, but not as hot as she had expected. I also had a cup of the clam chowder which was outstanding. For the most part we were happy with the experience, much more so than at their sister restaurant Olive Garden a few weeks back.

After lunch we went to the shopping area nearby and stopped at Bed Bath and Beyond looking for a few things. Jackie got a new cleaner for our laminate flooring, although we didn't find what we actually went in there to find. Jackie then went to the clothing store next door and I went into the Guitar Center store in the same shopping center. I started playing guitar back in 1967 when I was stationed in Hawaii with the Marine Corps. I just taught myself and wasn't especially good, just basic rhythm chords, but I enjoyed playing and singing along, mostly oldies and folk music. I 1998 when I moved from Phoenix to Indio my guitar didn't make it on the truck and my ex got rid of it, so I just let it lapse. Now, 16 years later I have been getting a hankering to pick it up again, so I have been looking.

At the music store I found a nice Alverez acoustic guitar with electronic pickup on sale, almost half price, from $300 to $159. It was a pretty guitar and played well, so I talked to Jackie and ended up buying it, along with a soft case and strap. So now I have to get my finger callouses back, relearn the basic chords, and have a good time. We run into a lot of “jam sessions” in our travels and I am looking forward to eventually being able to get in with them and play and sing. After our shopping we headed back to the coach where we relaxed the rest of the night.

Sunday, November 16^th, we had a relaxing morning with the Sunday paper and left the coach about 2:00 to go visit with our friend Barry Cohen at the Motor Coach Country Club. We stopped at the store to pick up some salad mix and then went over to Barry's place, which is only a couple miles from our RV park. It was a little too cold and windy to sit outside, so we sat inside with Barry and just talked about everything from his summer travels to what we might do next summer and everything in between. We had a couple of drinks and around 5:00 or so Barry heated up some of his famous meatballs and sauce and we had salad and spaghetti with meatballs. Although Barry is Jewish, he cooks great Italian food. We had a great visit and finally left about 6:30 and headed home and stayed in the rest of the evening. Monday we did a few chores around the house and in the afternoon we did a Costco run. Tuesday was a stay at home day. I got a number of chores done, as did Jackie.

Wednesday, November 19^th, we left the coach after lunch and drove to Rancho Mirage to go to the movies. We went to see Birdman, starring Michael Keaton. Jackie's brother Dennis had raved about the movie and the great acting, and Jackie and I are both Keaton fans, so we thought we would give it a try. I am normally not into message movies, I generally go to films for entertainment, not to try to figure out what the writer and director are trying to tell us about life and living. That said, the acting in this film was great and I think it will be an Oscar contender this year. The base story is about a washed up actor, Keaton, whose only real film glory was playing a super hero called Birdman, trying to put together a Broadway play. Keaton's character wrote the adaptation from the book, and is the director, producer and lead actor in the play. Keaton's character also has some psychiatric problems as well, which are really mystifying for the first half of the movie, until you figure out what's going on. I am no theater critic, far from it, but in my estimation the movie is really a treatise on the perceived shallowness of Hollywood actor's and their art and the pretentiousness of theater artists. I thought it was an excellent movie.

After the theater we made a stop at the Palm Desert Cactus Jack's so we could see an old friend, Kevin. Back when we had the house in Indio and were at Cactus Jack's four or five times a week Kevin was the night bartender. I played golf with him a few times and we were good friends. A couple years ago Kevin moved over to the new location in Palm Desert, so we try to get by to say hi at least once or twice when we get back to the desert. After having a drink and talking to Kevin for a bit we left and headed home where we watched TV the rest of the evening.

Thursday, November 20^th, we left the coach after lunch and went out to do some geocaching. We were able to get eight new finds in a couple of hours. The interesting thing about today's caching was that six of the caches were what are called “Challenge” caches. The cache owner comes up with some sort of geocaching challenge and then publishes the challenge as a geocache. For instance, one of the challenges we completed today was to find and log geocaches where the name of the cache begins with one of the letters of your caching handle. In out case, Travelingholts, we would have to have found 14 caches, one of which started with a “t” and another with an ”r” and so forth.

Now we have over 6,500 finds, so to meet this challenge we only had to go back in our records and find the required caches. Once we did that we could go out and find the actual container, sign the log and then log the cache as found. All six of the challenges we logged today were one's that we had met the requirements already with our caching history. There are a few more out there that we actually have to go out and find specific new finds in order to meet the logging requirements. It is just an interesting twist on caching that keeps the sport interesting. After caching we stopped at Walmart for a few things then headed home for the rest of the night.

Friday, November 21^st, we left the coach after lunch and went out to do our laundry. About every two weeks or so we need to wash clothes, and we don't like to do it on the weekends because the laundromats get too crowded with working people. We finished our laundry about 3:00 and headed back to the coach. About 4:00 we went over to the clubhouse area of the RV park for the Friday night social time. Our friend Jay Blumenthal had his electronic keyboard setup and was playing some light music. I did a couple of songs with him and another guest of the park brought his guitar and did a couple of songs. I didn't bring my guitar yet as I am still working on remembering the chords and also getting my finger callouses built up. I am not quite ready for prime time yet. About 5:30 we left the social and went back to the coach for the rest of the night.

Saturday, November 22^nd, the day JFK was shot. Fifty years ago I was a junior in high school in Phoenix when the news came over the intercom. One of those days you never forget. We left the coach about 10:00 and drove to Palm Desert and the College of the Desert Street Fair. We had just been there last week and normally wouldn't be going back this soon, but Ray Babcock had called the other night and said they wanted to go and would like to meet us to spend some time with us. We met them at the street fair and spent a couple of hours walking around. We bought a couple of little things, nothing much, and about 1:30 or so left the college and drove to Sherman's Deli for lunch. Sherman is a kosher deli that has been around in the Coachella Valley for decades. There are two, one in Palm Springs and one in Palm Desert. Both Ray and I had New York style Hot Pastrami sandwiches which were outstanding. A half pound of lean pastrami on rye bread. Jackie had corn beef and chopped liver. Suzie had a breakfast of French toast with bacon, yes they serve bacon to the non-Hebrew crowd. I know there are some kosher delis who won't serve pork products, but Sherman's keeps all it's options open. Better for business. After a very nice lunch with friends we parted company and the Babcocks drove back to Murietta and we went back to the coach for the rest of the night. Sunday was a stay at home day. We spent the morning with the newspaper and did a few odd jobs and chores in the evening. A nice, relaxing day.

Monday, November 24^th, I left the coach about 9:45 and drove to the Sam's Club in Palm Desert to get the tires on the Jeep rotated and balanced. We had these new tires put on in Yuma back in February and normally I would have waited a little longer to do the rotation, but I also had a slow leak in one of the tires and wanted to get it fixed. As long as I was there I figured I might as well get the rotation done too. It turned out the leak was a bad valve stem core, so it was a quick, easy fix. After I got back to the coach we had lunch and then went to Costco and Walmart for some shopping. Once our shopping was done we went back to the coach for the rest of the night.

Our evening was spent glued to the television watching coverage of the riot in Ferguson, Missouri when the grand jury there refused to indict the police officer that shot the young black guy a couple months back. With respect to all of those who read this blog I will keep most of my opinions to myself since this is a friendly travel blog, not a political one. I will question the wisdom of releasing the findings at 9:00 at night, knowing that there was a powder keg waiting to explode in that city. It just makes it easier for those with ill intent, not lawful protest, to do their deeds under the cover of darkness.

Tuesday, November 25^th, we left the coach about noon and drove to Cactus Jack's in Indio for lunch with some friends. At the happy hour here at the park last Friday we were talking to a couple who are from Vancouver Island, British Columbia and are here at Indian Waters for the first time. Doug and Val are about our age and a very nice couple. We had made arrangements to “introduce” them to Cactus Jack's by meeting us for lunch today. We had a very nice lunch and ended up sitting with them for about two hours talking. While we were there the owner of the place, George Bishop, who is a friend of ours, came in and we were able to introduce Doug and Val to him.

After lunch we went back to the coach and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon. About 6:00 we left and drove down to the Indio Elks Lodge. Tonight is the regular meeting night of the lodge's RV club, the Desert Drifters. Back when we had our house here and were members of the Indio Elks, we were members of the Drifters and went on three or four outings a year with them. I was even the President of the club for a couple of years. We kept our membership for a couple years after we left in 2005, but when we transferred our Elks membership to the lodge in Pahrump we realized that we were not likely to be going on any outings with the Indio group, so we dropped the membership.

Although there are a lot of new members in the group, there are still a handful of people who had been members when we were and we wanted to go to the meeting just to see some old friends. We were able to see Tom and Joan Bolaris, Monte and Pat Montez, and Joe and Barbara Daily. All of the other people are the meeting were new to us. We had a couple drinks while we were there and enjoyed seeing our old friends. After the meeting we went back home and watched TV the rest of the night.

Wednesday, November 26^th, we were up and out of the coach by 9:00 or so headed to Rancho Mirage for a doctor's appointment. Both Jackie and I were doing our annual check up with our dermatologist. I have been going at least once a year since I had a melanoma removed from by back in 2009. Jackie had a couple of bumps and blemishes she wanted checked too. The doc sprayed a bunch of places on both of us with nitrogen to burn off some non threatening stuff, and he found a spot on my neck that he said looked like a skin cancer, a basil cell cancer, which is not as dangerous as the melanomas. He took a biopsy and said that if it turned out to be a cancer I would have to come in and have it removed completely.

After the skin doctor we did a few geocaches and then stopped for a light lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Palm Desert called Los Pepes. We had never been there before. The food was good, but a little on the pricy side, probably because of the location. After lunch we stopped at a music store to pick up something I had ordered and then did some more caching in the area. We ended up with eight new finds, including reaching the milestone of 6,700 finds. Yea us! We quit caching about 2:00 and headed back to the coach.

About 4:30 we went down to the clubhouse at the RV resort for  dinner. There were more than 150 people in the room for Thanksgiving dinner. The park provided turkey and ham, as well as the wine, and the guests brought the stuffing, potatoes, salads and other side items. We brought a big bowl of mashed potatoes. I helped our friend Jay Blumenthal with the 50/50 drawing, selling tickets before dinner. We ended up with over $400 in the kitty, half of which went to a local charity mission. The dinner was really good and we had a chance to talk to some new people who happened to be at our table. By 7:00 or so we were back in our coach relaxing for the rest of the night.

Thursday, November 27^th, Happy Thanksgiving. We spent the day at the coach with Jackie working on a Thanksgiving dinner in the later afternoon. About 5:00 or so Jay Blumenthal came over for cocktails and dinner. Jay's wife Donna had flown back to New York yesterday for some family commitments, so, since Jay was alone on the Holiday, we invited him dinner. We also had our Canadian friends Doug and Val over. The five of us had a cocktail and then Jackie served dinner. We had a big turkey breast, sweet potatoes, stuffing, cranberries, and lots of gravy. We even had a pumpkin pie with whipped cream for desert. Everyone ate their fill and then we sat and talked until about 9:30 or so.

Jay is Jewish and his father had been a Rabbi. Jay had also taught in Hebrew school, so he is very knowledgeable about Jewish history and culture. The five of us spent about three hours talking about what I could best describe as “comparative religions” and the cultural and historic basis for many of the Jewish and Christian beliefs. It was a fascinating and educational discussion that I think everyone enjoyed. And, a really great way to celebrate Thanksgiving. After everyone left we watched a little TV and then headed off to bed.

Friday we decided to make a stay at home day just to avoid the “Black Friday” shopping crowds. There wasn't anything we needed to buy and neither of us were interested in fighting the crowds for some of the bargains, so we stayed home and took care of some chores around the house. We had leftover Thanksgiving dinner for dinner and had a very quiet and enjoyable day.

About 4:00 we went down to the clubhouse for happy hour. I took my new guitar with me and played in public for the first time in about eighteen years. I played and sang about three songs and played along with Jay on his keyboard for a couple of others. Jay also had one of his son's, Mark, at the happy hour. Mark also played guitar, but a whole lot better than me. He also did a couple of solo songs. All in all it was a fun night.

Saturday, November 29^th, we went out after lunch for some geocaching, but today we were not searching for caching but rather were looking for places to hide some new geocaches. We currently have a dozen or so geocaches hidden in the Pahrump area, our home base. However, since we also spend at least three or four months in Southern California every year, we decided to hide some here too. The caching rules require that we designate someone as the “emergency maintainer” who lives in the area, but we know a number of geocachers who live in the Coachella Valley area and would be willing to check on a cache that needed maintenance if we were not around.

We ended up getting three caches hidden after a couple of hours of searching for good spots. The rules require at least a tenth of a mile separation between geocaches, and there are a lot of caches hidden in the Coachella Valley, so it takes a bit to find an available area that is also a good place to hide a cache. Our last cache was hidden in a Walmart shopping center parking lot, so we made a stop for a couple things and then went home for the rest of the night.

Sunday, November 30^th, we had coffee and the Sunday paper in the morning and then went out to Cactus Jack's for a nice Sunday brunch. After lunch we did some geocaching, getting four new finds and one DNF. Sadly, the DNF was one that we couldn't find almost two years ago. It has since been found a couple of times, but we struck out again. Boo hoo! We also took the time to hide one more geocache in between searching for caches. After caching we headed home and I prepared the four caches we hid the last couple days and then submitted them to geocaching.com for publishing to the caching community. Normally that process takes a couple of days and then people will see them online and can start looking for them. We watched TV the rest of the evening.

This being the last day of the month, and it has been almost two weeks since we posted, I think it is time to get this episode out in public. We are still here in Indio for another six weeks, so we will be out with another chapter in a few weeks. Until then, travel safely, enjoy life and never do anything that you wouldn't want to have to explain to the paramedics. Ciao for now.

Silent Valley Club - Relaxation in the Mountains, Part 2

Welcome back readers. Our last chapter concluded on Sunday, October 26^th while we were parked at the Silent Valley Club RV Resort in the mountains south of Banning, California. We are about half way through our month long stay here.

Monday, October 27^th, we had a leisure day at home. The park is now about two thirds empty and much quieter than it was over the Halloween weekend. We did a few chores, including taking down the Halloween decorations. Even though the actual holiday isn't until this coming Friday, it is over up here. We won't have any trick or treaters on the 31^st. Tuesday was also a stay at home day.

Wednesday, October 29^th, we left the coach about 11:30 and drove down the hill and headed east towards Palm Springs. We stopped first at the UPS service center near the Palm Springs Airport to pick up our mail. After getting our mail in hand we continued east to the Cactus Jack's restaurant in Palm Desert to meet with our friend Barry Cohen. Barry and his wife Colleen were our closest friends when we lived in Indio. Colleen died a little over a year ago and we have been worried about Barry living alone. They were high school sweethearts and had been married for close to 50 years when Colleen died.

Regular readers will know that Barry and Colleen have actually lived full time in an RV longer than us, however, they seldom traveled. Up until a couple years ago Barry worked full time running his transmission repair shop and they had a beautiful lot at the Motor Coach Country Club in Indio. Barry finally sold his shop and just before Colleen died they sold their big lot and got a smaller lot in the same resort. We were worried that Barry wouldn't want to go out on the road without Colleen, but we were pleased when he went out this past summer and traveled for several months. He went to Denver and spent a month or so with his daughter, then drove up to Idaho and Washington State to meet with friends. He only got back to the resort in Indio a few weeks ago. We had talked to him on the phone a couple times over the summer, but this was the first time we were able to meet with him and talk about his experiences.

We had a great lunch and talked about his travels and his family. He really seemed to enjoy traveling with his friends from the resort and I think he will probably continue to try to get out of the desert during the hot summer months. After lunch with Barry we stopped at the mall and shopped for a while before heading back to Silent Valley for the rest of the night.

Thursday, October 30^th, was another stay at home day. About 1:00 or so we had a visit from an old acquaintance of mine from my Maricopa County Sheriff's Office days. Bob McCullum and his wife Lola had just arrived in Silent Valley in their RV and had come over to visit. I have a lot of people from the Sheriff's Office on my Facebook page, including Bob and he had sent me a message a few days ago that they were going to be up here and would come by to see me.

Bob and Lola just started full timing in their trailer back in June of this year. They are not members of Silent Valley, but are up here on one of the affiliate programs for a week. I did not know Bob well back in the 1970's, he had started a couple of years before me and he worked mostly on the east side of the county, Mesa, Chandler, that area, while I worked on the far west side of the county. Back in those days it was almost like two different Sheriff's Offices, not of lot of interaction between the patrol divisions on opposite sides of the county. The substations were sixty miles apart and unless you worked downtown you never ran into someone from the “other side” of the county. Bob also retired nine years before me, so I had probably crossed paths with him two or three times in the early part of my career.

Nonetheless, we knew all the same people and had a good time playing “where are they now” with a lot of folks I know. Jackie and Nola talked about their efforts to go out full time in their RV and what some of their future plans were. After a couple hours of pleasant conversation they left to go back to their trailer. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in the coach.

Friday, October 31^st, Happy Halloween. We left the coach after lunch and went down to Banning to do some geocaching. We had a good afternoon of caching, getting 13 new finds and one DNF. After caching we stopped at Walmart for some supplies before heading back up the hill for the rest of the day. No trick or treaters up in Silent Valley tonight, no one walking around at all.

Saturday, November 1^st, was another stay at home day. It had started raining pretty hard about 3:30 in the morning and it rained on and off for most of the morning. Our passenger side slide leak came back again, dripping water into the kitchen. Not a drenching, but enough to be concerning and using up a lot of towels. We played some cards and watched a couple of movies we had taped. A good day to stay indoors.

Sunday, November 2^nd we got an extra hour to sleep thanks to daylight savings time and going back an hour. We wanted to get off the hill today, but thanks to yesterday's rain it was too wet to geocache, so after lunch we drove down the hill to Banning and went to the small theater in town for a movie matinee. We saw Ouija, a horror flick starring no one you would know. It was pretty generic and typical, but it did have a number of “jump” moments and an interesting plot line with a twist I didn't see coming. At least it was a horror movie with no slasher moments, no nudity and not much foul language. It has been a while since we saw a movie and although this was not Oscar material, we still enjoyed the afternoon. After the movie we stopped at the grocery store for a newspaper and a few other things and then headed up the hill for the rest of the day. Monday was another stay at home day.

Tuesday, November 4^th, Happy Election Day. We already voted in Nevada by absentee ballot, so we decided to take a drive to Idyllwild, a small mountain community about 16 miles south of Silent Valley. They have a number of nice restaurants and shops there and we like to visit at least once during each stay at Silent Valley. We had lunch at a place we had not visited before, the Mile High Cafe. It had pretty good Yelp reviews so we thought we would give it a try. It was interesting in that it seems to be owned by a Korean family, so there is Asian food as well as the usual American food on the menu. I had a Reuben sandwich that was very good. Jackie had a veggie omelet breakfast that she also said was good. The portions were not very large and the prices were a bit higher than we would normally expect for what we ate, but the service was good and the food was very tasty.

After lunch we did a little bit of geocaching. We have cached up here in Idyllwild a lot, so there are not a lot of caches close in town for us to go for. We struck out on our first two efforts, getting DNFs for both caches. On the third try we finally found one. Yea! Since we were running out of daylight we settled for the one find and went into town to walk around a couple of shops. We spent an hour or so shopping, but didn't buy anything. About 3:45 we headed back to Silent Valley since it now gets dark up here by 5:00 or so with the loss of daylight savings. We stayed in and watched TV the rest of the evening.

Wednesday, November 5^th, we left the coach a little before 11:00 and drove down the hill to visit with a friend ours who lives in the north part of Beaumont at the Highland Springs Country Club. Marianne Conner and her late husband David were friends of ours in Indio when we lived there and they also went full time in their RV in 2005. We traveled on and off with them for a couple years before David got sick and they had to buy a house and get off the road. David died about four or five years ago but we still try to see Marianne whenever we can.

We drove to her house and visited for a few minutes and then the three of us went to a restaurant in the nearby community of Cherry Valley for lunch. We went to Flo's, a place that is fairly new to this area, but has had a place in Chino for fifty years. It is a breakfast and lunch place that has very good reviews. The service was good and Jackie's chicken fried steak breakfast was enough for two people. She said it was very good. I was not as happy with my beef dip, which was small and a little light on meat. When we checked in on Yelp we got a free piece of pie, which was apple and very good as a closer for the meal. After we ate we sat and talked for an hour or so before we went our separate ways. We made a stop at Home Depot for some lights and then went back up the hill for the rest of the day.

Thursday was another stay at home day. Did a few things around the coach and spent some time in the hot tub. My old work acquaintance Bob and his wife left this morning for one of their parks on the Colorado River.

Friday, November 7^th, we left the coach about 11:30 and started down the hill enroute to Moreno Valley to meet our friends Gary and Ramona Wilson for lunch. We had arranged to meet them at the Olive Garden near the mall. We arrived about the same time they did and went into the restaurant for lunch. The last time we had seen the Wilson's was back in April, the last time we were up here in Silent Valley. We do stay in touch by email and Facebook, but it is still nice to meet in person from time to time.

We had a very nice time chatting with the Wilson's about everything going on with them. They had quit full timing a couple years ago, and had sold their motor home, but now they were getting the urge to get back into the lifestyle. Their health issues were somewhat resolved and they told us they are shopping for another motor home as we speak. I hope they can find something and get back on the road because we always enjoyed traveling with them.

The meal at the Olive Garden, where we met for lunch, was not so great. I was disappointed and dismayed. We were seated quickly and a server was right there and overall service was not bad, with one exception, unexpected and, in my mind, covert up-selling. We ordered drinks and the server brought an order of bread sticks, as always. She then asked if we would like some marinara or Alfredo sauce for the sticks. I didn't think anything of the offer, thinking it was just Olive Garden being the old Olive Garden I remember. We said, sure bring some of each. It wasn't until we got the bill at the end of the meal that I saw they charged $3.79 for each sauce! The waitress never mentioned there was an extra charge and I don't recall seeing it on the menu. To top it off, the marinara wasn't even very good. It was more like a weak tomato basil than a thick, rich marinara I expect from a restaurant claiming to be authentic Italian. I ordered the seafood Alfredo and it was OK, except that the bay shrimp and bay scallops in it were very tiny and there were not many of them. The portion was also much smaller than I remember, even for the lunch portion. I was very disappointed in both the quality and quantity of the meal.

I have heard rumors that the stockholders of the Darden company, the owners of both Olive Garden and Red Lobster, have been unhappy with the performance of the company and that some major stockholders, finance people, not restaurant people, have been visiting the restaurants and then passing on "ideas" to the restaurant management people regarding how to cut back on expenses and increase profits. I saw a lot of this going on today, compared to the last time I visited an Olive Garden, about a year ago. One small, but telling example is there is no longer any fresh ground pepper offered. That is a small, personal touch but clearly some bean counter decided it was not profit generating, so dump it. Olive garden used to be one of my favorite places to go for a good meal, no more. I will not be back and watch people who no nothing of food try to run what was a fine restaurant chain.

After a long chat with Gary and Ramona we left the restaurant and made a couple stops at stores in Moreno Valley. This is the center of retail shopping in the Inland Empire and they have just about everything you could want. After shopping we headed back up the hill and relaxed win the coach the rest of the night. Saturday we stayed in Silent Valley. We went down to the Village Center after lunch and did our laundry. We didn't have much competition for the laundry facility as there are probably only thirty or forty RVs in the entire park, which has over 850 spaces. We wanted to get our laundry done now as we head down to Indio on Monday and didn't want to have to do laundry down there right as we settled in.

Sunday, November 9^th, we stayed around the coach, cleaning house and putting stuff away in preparation for moving tomorrow. Monday, November 10^th, Happy 239^th birthday to the United States Marine Corps. We were packed up and leaving Silent valley about 11:30 enroute to Indio, about 50 miles east. Since we only had a short distance we didn't hook up the car and Jackie drove behind me for the trip. We arrived at the Indian Waters RV Resort about 1:00 or so and quickly registered and were led to our site. We are going to be here in Indian Waters for two months, one of our longest stays since we moved to full timing in 2005. We got the basics set up, utilities, slides out, TVs working, that kind of thing before heading to the nearby Cactus Jack's Restaurant for a late lunch, early dinner. We called our friend Barry Cohen, who only lives a mile or so west, and he met us so we could chat. We had a great lunch and a good time talking to Barry.

We then went back to the coach and did a little more settling in. I wanted to get the sun screens up since it is still in the 80's here in the desert. After we got settled in we just relaxed for the rest of the evening. Our departure from Silent Valley after a month marks a good point to get this episode of the blog published. We will update the blog from time to time during our stay here, every couple weeks or so. Until the next time, remember the words of journalist Franklin Jones, “Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again.” See ya next time.

Silent Valley Club, Relaxation in the Mountains - Part 1

Hi there, nice to see you back. Our last chapter concluded on Sunday, October 12^th, with our arrival at the Silent Valley Club in beautiful Poppet Flats, California. The resort, which is sort of like of time share, is in the San Jacinto Mountains at 3,800 feet about eleven miles south of Banning, California.

Monday, October 13^th, Happy Columbus Day. Back in my Sheriff's Office days this was one of our official 11 state holidays. Arizona was one of the last to recognize Martin Luther King day and that holiday superseded Columbus on the holiday calendar, sometime in the late 80's. We had a relaxing day in the mountains today. I spent a little time outside setting up decorations for our month long stay here and then the rest of the day in the Man Cave, doing administrative work, playing and watching Saturday's NASCAR race off the DVR. Jackie also did a lot of little chores around the coach.

Tuesday, October 14^th, we left the coach around 11:30 and headed down the mountain on a run to Moreno Valley and the Costco. When we got to Moreno Valley, which is about 20 miles west of Banning, we stopped at the BJ's Brewhouse for lunch. We have been to a couple different BJ's around California, but this one was a disappointment. Jackie had a Caesar salad that had no romaine and some of the iceberg lettuce was wilted. Her bison burger was OK, but not very big. I had clam chowder, which was quite good, but the portions on the fish and chips was small for the price they charged. We may reconsider coming to BJ's in the future. After lunch we went to Costco and stocked up on vodka and other staples, then headed back to Beaumont and the Walmart before heading back up the hill. We spent the rest of the day in the coach.

Wednesday was, for the most part, a stay at home day. We did leave the coach a little after 5:00 and drive down the mountain to meet some friends for dinner in Banning. We met two couples, Dave and Sharon, and Monte and Carolyn, who were caching friends that we have met off and on at geocaching events for the last couple of years. Dave goes by the geocaching handle Dashon, and Monte by ActiveFire. They both live locally here and between them have hundreds of caches hidden in the area. We met them at a small Mexican place which they told us was one of their favorites. We had never been there, but Tortilla's turned out to be an OK place. The food was good, solid Sonoran style Mexican, tasty but not quite spicy enough for me. The service was good and we would probably come back as it was about the best we have found in the Banning area.

We had a very nice dinner and talked about caching and some of the adventures of the other couples. Dave and Sharon are into missionary work and have been to Africa and South America helping locals. Monte and Carolyn just spent the summer traveling and geocaching. After dinner we drove back up the hill and relaxed the rest of the night.

Thursday, October 16^th, we got a call in the morning from our friends Ray and Suzie Babcock asking if we wanted company for the day. They live Murrieta, California, about ninety minutes away and are also members of Silent Valley. We had last seen them in Redmond, Oregon at the FMCA rally in August. We said come on up and about 1:30 or so they arrived for the day. We spent the afternoon talking and visiting and then had cocktails and dinner. Jackie

had put some chicken legs in the slow cooker in the morning, actually before we knew they were coming up, but there were plenty for four people. They left to go back down the hill about 7:30 or so and we watched TV the rest of the night. It was a very pleasant day and nice to visit with friends. Friday was a stay at home day. A nice relaxing day with a few light chores thrown in for good measure.  We also decorated the coach for Halloween.  Since we don't have the storage space, our decorations are modest, but they do show we are in the spirit of the holiday.

Saturday, October 18^th, we left the coach and headed down the hill about 11:30. Our first stop was the La Casita restaurant in Beaumont, our favorite place for taco salad. We always try to go here at least once during each stay in Silent Valley. After lunch we went out to do some geocaching for the first time in close to two weeks. We cached in the Banning area and were able to get eight finds, along with two DNF's, in about three hours. It took so long for a couple of reasons. We have cached this area heavily over the last few years, so the caches we haven't found are further apart, and some of the caches took us a while to find. At any rate, we had fun and went back up the hill a little before 4:00. When we got back to the coach we stayed in the rest of the evening.

Sunday was another stay at home day. Although they don't sell newspapers up here on top of the hill, we had picked up an early Sunday edition of the local paper yesterday so we had a Sunday paper to read. We stayed in the coach for the day. I got a lot of travel planning done for our planned trip back to Wisconsin next summer. The FMCA Convention is in Madison and we haven't been back to the Midwest for a couple of years now.

Monday, October 20^th, we left the coach after lunch and headed down the hill for some more local geocaching. We were able to find seven new caches, with no DNFs. A couple of the caches were rated three for difficulty, which is pretty hard, and they were tricky. After the caching we made a Walmart run and then headed back up the hill for the rest of the evening. Tuesday was another stay at home day. A few chores, mostly relaxation.

Wednesday, October 22^nd, Happy Birthday to my brother David. David lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia and unfortunately we don't get back to the east coast very often, so we haven't seen each other for several years. After lunch we headed down the hill to Beaumont to get haircuts. Jackie gets her hair cut every six weeks or so, I get mine every six months or so. After our haircuts we went to Kohl's to do a little shopping and then went out and did a couple of nearby geocaches. After getting our two caches we headed back up to Silent Valley and stayed in the rest of the night. Thursday was another stay at home day.

Friday, October 24^th, the first day of the Halloween celebration here at Silent Valley Club. Halloween is always one of the biggest weekends for Silent Valley. They always celebrate the first full weekend before October 31^st. With Halloween falling on a Friday this year, it meant that the celebration up here was almost a week before the actual holiday. People all around the park, especially those parked along the main roads, have been setting up very elaborate Halloween displays. Lots of cemeteries, spiders, skeletons and dead people all around. Some of these people must have whole storage sheds at their home base dedicated to just Halloween decorations.

We had a relaxing day around the house, there wasn't anything going on during the day today. At 5:00 we went over to the main activities area and the bar. We were early enough to get a seat at the bar so we could see everything going on. The adult costume contest was scheduled for 7:00 and over the time period people drifted in, many wearing some very elaborate and nifty costumes. There was a lot of imagination and effort put in some of the costumes. Jackie and I both picked the eventual overall winner as soon as she walked in. Dressed like “Death” she was pushing a hand cart with a coffin on it containing body parts. Yikes!

We had dinner at the bar, although it took two hours to get the food. They only have one guy cooking hamburgers and making sandwiches and the poor guy was slammed. We didn't mind because we were going to be at the bar anyway. After the costume contest they started karaoke. I got to sing about five or six songs because there wasn't much of a rotation. Not too many people were paying attention, it was a pretty crowded and noisy place, but at least I got to exercise the

old voice. They also gave out prizes for the best decorated RV site, but we didn't hear who won. We finally left and headed home just before 10:00 after a very fun evening.

Saturday, October 25^th, the second day of the Halloween weekend at Silent Valley. This morning they had a big craft fair at the Village Center. The fair started at 7:00, but we didn't go down until around 10:00. Jackie bought a couple pair of inexpensive sandals, but that was the extent of our shopping. At 2:00 the trick or treat parade started. Up here they close all of the roads to vehicle traffic, except for emergencies of course, and hundreds of kids and adults walk around getting candy. All the other campers set up chairs and sometimes tables alongside the road and for two hours everyone just wanders around begging.

There were some really good costumes, even among the kids, and we sat giving out candy and having a good time. We went through six pounds of misc small candy in exactly 33 minutes. After our candy was gone we walked the streets taking pictures of the costumes and of some of the great outdoor decorations that have been set up. It is clear that some people have spent thousands of dollars on stuff, including lots of animated displays. Some people really get off on Halloween. After the trick or treating closed down at 4:00 we went back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the day. There was a live band

in the bar tonight, but we decided it wasn't our kind of music and we didn't want to spend the whole night drinking again like last night.

Sunday, October 26^th, we watched people all morning packing up rigs and driving out of the park after the holiday weekend. We decided to go down the hill after lunch to do a few geocaches and we were part of a parade going down the hill, mostly RV's from the park. We were able to get five new geocaches, and one DNF, in a couple of hours. One of the caches was a DNF from last year. Yea! After caching we stopped at the grocery store before heading back up the hill for the rest of the night. We had a nice dinner of country ribs that had been cooking in the crock pot all day.

We have now been here for two weeks and still have another two weeks to go. This would be a good point to stop and publish this chapter of the blog. We will publish again after we leave Silent Valley for Indio. Until next time remember that life is what you make of it, so make it enjoyable. See ya next time.