We closed our last chapter on Saturday, December 14th while we were staying at Desert Pools RV Resort in Desert Hot Springs, California. We have been here in DHS a little over two weeks.
Sunday, December 15th was a relaxation day. We had the Sunday paper in the morning and then spent the rest of the day alternating between some light chores and being on the computer. Monday we decided to buckle down and do some more geocaching, we are still trying to reach 6,000 finds and also set a new “best year” for 2013. When I did the cache list this morning I noticed that there was a brand new cache listing for a cache down in Palm Springs. We don't get to many FTFs (first to find) because we don't jump up early and the morning and run out to get them. We have about a dozen to our name for the five years we have been caching. But, here was one sort of dropped in our laps, so we headed there first. Sure enough, we were the first to find. Yea. After that we got seven more caches, ending up with a nice even eight new finds for the day. We are now within ten of the 6,000 mark. After caching we stopped at Walmart and picked up some groceries before heading back to the coach, where we stayed in the rest of the evening.
Tuesday, December 17th, we were up very early and were both dressed and out of the coach by 8:00. We have our annual doctor's checkups next week and both had to go to the lab to get some blood drawn for tests. We made appointments at a lab in Palm Springs, but when we showed up at 8:30 we found our that their computer system was down and they couldn't do any tests. We left disappointed and drove into Cathedral City to the Chrysler/Jeep dealership to have the car serviced. That ended up taking way longer than we anticipated and we didn't get out of there until about 11:30. Once we were done with that we headed home and stayed in for the rest of the afternoon.
We did go down to the clubhouse at 6:30 for the Texas Hold'em game. Jackie broke even, I lost all of my $5 buy-in over the course of the two hours of play. I couldn't get a decent hand to save my life. I did win a couple of pots, but I lost some big ones by coming in second place. Oh well, that's why it's called gambling.
Wednesday morning we left the coach about 10:00 and once again tried to get our lab tests done. This time we went to the Rancho Mirage office of the lab company. Their computers were finally back online, so we were able to get our tests done quite quickly. After our tests we drove into Palm Desert and met our friend Barry Cohen at the Cactus Jacks restaurant for lunch. He just returned from a three week trip to see his daughters, one in Denver and one in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The daughter in Arkansas also has his only granddaughter. We talked a lot about his trip and also a lot about how he is dealing with his wife Colleen's passing, now about six months ago. Colleen was one of Jackie's best friends and we have been really close with the Cohen's since I moved out here in 1998.
We had a wonderful lunch and great conversation, and we finally left about 1:00 so I could go back into Rancho Mirage for an appointment with my dermatologist. I have been doing annual appointments with my dermatologist since I went on Medicare because of my 2009 bout with melanoma. I have been really careful with watching my skin since that time. He gave me a good looking over, a full body check, and only found a couple of areas on my face that he was a little concerned about. If anything they were per-cancerous basil cell spots, but he sprayed them with liquid nitrogen to burn them off and said they were nothing to worry about at this time. Once we were done with my doctor we headed back to the coach and stayed in the rest of the day and evening.
Thursday, December 19th, we left the coach about 12:30 and drove down into Palm Springs so I could get the MRI on my knee. That appointment took about 45 minutes, after which we went out and did a couple of geocaches in the Palm Springs area. We found two new caches, including one that we had done a DNF on two years ago. We then drove back up to DHS for the rest of the afternoon. We had a nice dinner of pot roast, which had been cooking in the crock pot all day, then went down to the clubhouse for Texas Hold'em. Both Jackie and I pretty much broke even tonight. I lost a quarter and I think she lost a buck. We then went back to the coach and watched TV until bedtime. Friday was another stay at home and relax day. I did go and sit in the hot mineral water tub for a while, which made my tweaked knee feel better.
Saturday, December 21st, we were up and out of the coach by about 10:30 or so and headed for Palm Desert and the College of the Desert street fair. We try to get to this large street fair at least once or twice on each of our winter visits to the Coachella Valley. We didn't buy much, I got a tee shirt, Jackie got some lipstick, but we had fun walking all the booths and looking at stuff. My knee was aching, but didn't hurt too bad. It took us about two hours to walk the whole fair, after which we drove to the Elephant Bar in Palm Desert for lunch.
The Elephant Bar, or E Bar as it's known, is one of a national chain that used to be pretty good. If this one in Palm Desert is any example, they have gone down hill. The food was fair at best. Jackie had lamb shanks which were very fatty and her rice and veggies were cold. I ordered a Philly cheese sandwich, which was tasty but didn't have a lot of meat and was very sloppily built. The service was poor too. Our waitress was very non social, and didn't seem really interested in being a waiter. I ordered the French onion soup and it had not arrived yet when she brought both our entree's. I asked about the soup and she was almost snippy when she said, “it's coming.” I said, “well, soup usually comes before the meal,” to which she said simply, “sorry.” The soup finally came a few minutes later and it was clear she went into the kitchen and rushed it because it wasn't as hot as it should have been. The cheese was barely melted. All in all, it was not a good experience and is probably the last time we will be at the E Bar.
After lunch we went out to do some caching in Palm Desert. We were able to get nine new finds in a couple of hours, including the one that put us over the 6,000 finds milestone. Yea! Now we only have to get about ten caches or so before the end of the year to set a new high for total caches in a calendar year. After caching we drove back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the evening. Sunday was mostly a leisure day, but I did spend a couple hours in the afternoon getting all the outside decorations and stuff packed up and ready for our travel tomorrow.
Monday, December 23rd, we were ready to travel by about 10:00 or so and headed out of Desert Pools and started southeast to Indio and the Indian Waters RV Resort in Indio. The trip was only about 27 miles, so Jackie just drove the Jeep down there. We were registered and parked in our spot by 11:30. After a quick lunch I put the Christmas decorations back up on the coach so we would look festive, and then we went out to do some quick shopping. We stopped at Costco for a couple things, and then went to Walmart for some groceries.
After shopping we finished putting the house together for our two week stay here at Indian Waters. This used to be a Western Horizons park, but it sold a couple of years ago. The new owner still gives really good rates to WHR members, only $14 a night, which is almost free compared to other RV parks in the Coachella Valley. About 5:00 we took our cocktails down a few coaches to visit with some old friends, Jay and Donna Blumenthal. We know Jay and Donna from our FMCA affiliations. Jay was a big wig in FMCA for many years and we struck up a friendship with them several years ago. They have now settled into “snowbird” mode, staying in their native New York during the summer and then driving out here in the Fall, where they stay at Indian Waters for about five months. We had a good time catching up with what they have been doing for the year and we ended up staying until after 7:00. We finally went back to our coach, had some dinner and then watched TV the rest of the night.
Tuesday, December 24th, we went out after lunch for a little while to do some geocaching. We found three new caches, along with getting one new DNF, before going back to the coach. We quit caching early because we needed to change clothes and get food ready for the Christmas dinner tonight at the park's clubhouse. Jackie was making sweet potatoes in the crockpot for the dinner. The park was providing the meat and then everyone attending was bringing a side dish.
We went down to the clubhouse for dinner about 4:30 or so. Jay Blumenthal was playing the piano and doing Christmas carols. He recruited me to lead the singing, so I took the mike and we sang carols for about a half hour. Not too many other people got involved, they were too busy visiting at the tables, but it was still fun. They finally started serving about 5:30 and the food was plentiful and tasty. They had both ham and turkey and just about any kind of side dish you could imagine. We had some very nice people at our table and had a good time visiting. We even worked on recruiting a new motor home traveler to FMCA. We finally left around 7:00 and went back to the coach for the rest of the night.
Wednesday, Christmas Day. Merry Christmas everyone. This is Jackie and I's 15th Christmas together. As always we shared cards in the morning. We don't do gifts, just cards. Since we already had Christmas dinner last night we decided that we would have lunch and then go do some geocaching. It was a great day for caching, high 70's, clear skies, and hardly anyone on the streets. No muggles at all in any of the commercial areas we cached in. We ended up after a couple of hours getting ten new caches, and one DNF. We also broke our record for most number of caches in a calendar year. Last year, our previous best year, we had 1,368 and we finished the day at 1,376. Yea! And still six more caching days before the end of the year. After caching we went back home and relaxed the rest of the night.
Thursday, December 26th, we left the coach after lunch and drove to our doctor's office in Palm Desert for our annual checkups. We were both quite pleased with the results of our lab tests and checkups. Other than some of the physical stuff I have, like the tweaked knee and the floaters in my right eye, my heart and other internals are working just fine. All my labs are in or very close to the normal range, as are Jackie's. That's the kind of doctor news you like to get.
Later on in the afternoon we went with a group of people from the RV park, about eight couples, to a local restaurant, the Cliff House, for happy hour. The Cliff House is in Palm Desert and is a very nice place with a great view of the valley. We were there a couple hours and met some very nice people who happened to be at our table. They are full timers like us, having been on the road about a year longer than us. We only had a couple of drinks and an appetizer at the Cliff House and when everyone left about 7:00 we stopped at Cactus Jack's restaurant to visit with George, the owner. We decided to stay and have dinner there, like in the good old days when we lived in the valley and were in Cactus Jack's several times a week to eat. We finally got home about 8:30 and just watched TV the rest of the night.
Friday, December 27th, we left the coach around noon and drove to Mario's, an Italian restaurant in Indio, to meet with some geocaching friends of ours, Roy and Darcy. We have known them for several years and we went to a holiday caching event put on by them back a few weeks ago. We wanted to have a chance to be able to visit with them one on one, so we set up a lunch. We had a good time, sharing caching stories and talking about future plans. They will be coming to Yuma in February for the big annual event there, so that will likely be the next time we see them.
After lunch we went back to the coach for a while before heading over to the clubhouse at the resort for Friday happy hour about 4:30. Jay Blumenthal had his keyboard set up and was playing and singing, along with a couple of other guys who had brought guitars. After a while I joined the group and sang a couple of songs too. We stayed with the happy hour group, visiting with other RVers and having a good time, until about 7:00 when the group broke up and we went back to the coach for the rest of the night.
Saturday, December 28th, we left the coach after lunch and went out to do some geocaching. We went into the desert area north and east of Indio for some caches, and ended up finding five new caches. There were a lot of people out in the desert shooting guns, I guess they were the Christmas guns or something. After caching we stopped at Winco for some groceries before heading back to the coach.
Around 6:30 Shane Ryan, Jackie's Godson, came over to visit and have dinner. Shane was about four when I moved out here and now he is 19 and is six foot four. He barely fits in the motorhome. We had a nice time catching up with him and talking. Jackie made a wonderful dinner of chicken enchiladas and we had a great meal. Shane left about 8:00 or so and we just watched TV the rest of the night.
Sunday was a relaxing, stay at home day. Read the paper, did a few chores, but mostly enjoyed the nice day. Monday we had to do laundry, about three weeks worth, so we left the coach after lunch and drove to the local laundromat. After we were done with the clothes we stopped at the grocery store and then headed home. By the time we got home our friends Peggy and Vernon Bullock had arrived at the park. We knew they were coming today and we found that they were parked just one street over from us in the park. We did a quick hello and then left them to get set up. We got together with them at happy hour and had cocktails while we caught up with them since the last time we saw them. We last saw the Bullocks at their 50th anniversary party in July back in Mineral, California. We stay in touch by phone and email, but we still had a lot to talk about. Jackie fixed a chili relleno casserole for dinner and we had a great dinner. They left for their coach about 8:00 and we watched TV the rest of the night.
Tuesday, New Year's Eve, the last day of 2013. I started the day by going to a doctor's appointment at 11:30. This was the followup with orthopedic surgeon about my knee. He told me that the MRI confirmed that the inside meniscus of my knee was torn, and also that I had some wear and tear and a tiny bit of arthritis, buy nothing to get worried about. Since I got the cortisone shot a couple weeks ago the knee has not been bothering me nearly as much. We talked for a bit and I finally decided that I would not have any arthroscopic surgery right now. I decided to wait and see if the bad pain comes back or if the knee gets better over the next month or so. I can always come in for the surgery when we get back into the area in March.
At about 4:30 our friend Barry came over to go to the party with us. This is his first holidays without his wife Colleen, so he was a little down. We went to the party about 5:00 and I played music for about an hour while everyone visited and ate dinner. About 6:00 I started doing karaoke and got the party started. There were only a handful of people who wanted to sing, besides me, but we still had a good time. I would stop every once in a
while and do some dance music and contests just to keep things hopping. We kept this up until 9:00 when we watched the ball drop in New York. For these parties we always do the East Coast New Years because most of this crowd don't want to be up until midnight local time. After the ball drop we did another hour or so of music before quitting a little after ten. I left the equipment to be picked up in the morning, went back to the coach and headed to bed. We had a pretty good crowd and I think most everyone had a good time. Good close to the year.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014, Happy New Year! I left the coach about 9:00 or so and went up to the clubhouse to disassemble the music stuff and bring it back to the coach. By about 10:30 I had everything put away and cleaned up. After lunch I spent another hour or so cleaning up and putting away all the Christmas decorations inside and outside of the coach. By mid-afternoon I was all done with my cleaning chores.
We had cocktails with the Bullocks in their coach about 5:00 and then later we BBQed some nice steaks and ate dinner over there. We had a great dinner and went back to our coach about 8:30 or so with a nice New Year's dinner under our belts. We finished the first day of the year watching TV.
Thursday we went out caching with the Bullocks after lunch. We were able to get eleven new finds, along with one new DNF, on our first day of caching in the new year. After caching we went back to the coach and relaxed for a while. About 6:00 we picked up the Bullocks and drove to Cactus Jack's for dinner. Peggy and Vernon really like Cactus Jack's and always like to have dinner there at least once when they come into town. Vernon had lamb and Peggy had prime rib, both specialties of the house. I had the beef ribs, as usual, and Jackie had the seafood platter. Jackie's was the only dish that was not, in my estimation, up to par. The fish was kind of overdone and tasteless. We still had a great dinner and didn't get home until after 8:00. Great dinner with great friends.
Friday, January 3rd, Jackie left about 11:00 to go to the doctor's for her annual mammogram. Peggy went along with her and the two of them made it a shopping and “girls day out.” I got a couple of chores done around the coach. They came back about 4:00 and Jackie had bought a new lamp for the table next to my chair. Peggy and Vernon came over about 5:00 for cocktails and then we BBQed some hamburgers and put some fries in the oven for dinner. We had a great meal and when they left about 8:30 or so we watched TV until bedtime.
Saturday we went to Walmart after lunch and then did a few chores around the house. Our friends Ray and Suzie Babcock checked into the park while we were at the store. They are also here for the rally, but they are staying in the RV park, not at the rally. About 5:00 the six of us got together in Peggy's coach for cocktails and then dinner. We had a nice salad and Peggy made her penne pasta dish that everyone loves. We visited until about 8:00 when we went home and watched TV for the rest of the evening.
Sunday the six of us left the park about 10:00 and drove to the College of the Desert for the street fair. We had been there a couple of weeks ago, but the other two couples wanted to go and we are always up for a walk around the swap meet. We were finished about 1:00 and then the six of us went to a Mexican restaurant in La Quinta for lunch. We went back to the park after lunch and stayed around the coach for the rest of the afternoon. We got together with the group for cocktails at 5:00, but didn't have any dinner because everyone was still full from lunch. We were back in our coach about 8:00 again.
Monday, January 6th, was moving day. We had the coach packed and ready about 10:00 and finished the difficult 1.7 mile journey to the fair grounds about fifteen minutes later. We headed over there to attend the FMCA Western Area rally, which will be going on all week. It took the parking crew a while to get us parked, but we were in and pretty much set up by noon. About 1:00 we left to do a Costco run. We needed to stock up because when we leave Indio next week we will not be near a Costco for about six weeks. When we got back from the store we stayed around the coach and finished getting set up. We have a spot fairly close to most of the activities at the rally, and we have 30 amp electric, so we don't have to run the generator for power. About 5:00 we left the fairgrounds and drove back to the Indian Waters for dinner with the group. The Bullocks are coming into the rally, but not until Wednesday. We had dinner at the Babcocks and had mostly leftovers from the dinner on Saturday. Again we were back at our coach about 8:00 and watched TV the rest of the evening.
This marks a good point to get this chapter published. It has been about three weeks since our last post. We will be here at the rally for a week and then moving on into Arizona. Until the next time, work on your happy and enjoy life. As George Bernard Shaw said, “We don't stop playing because we grow old; We grow old because we stop playing.” Bye for now.
