Another Few Weeks in Silent Valley

Welcome back friends. Our last episode concluded on Friday, May 16^th, while we were parked at the Silent Valley RV Club south of Banning, California. On Saturday we drove down the hill around noon and had lunch at La Casita, our favorite Mexican place in Beaumont. After lunch we went out and did a couple of geocaches, just to stay in practice. We got two finds, one of which was a cache that we had done a DNF on about three years ago. This time we found it. Yea, we love fixing DNFs. After caching we went to Walmart for a grocery run, and then back up the hill to the coach. We spent the remainder of the day relaxing.

Sunday, May 18^th, was another stay at home day. Got a couple of things done around the coach, but mostly just messed around on the computer and enjoyed the day. Monday we left the coach about 11:30 and drove down the hill and then east towards Palm Springs to pick up our mail at the UPS center near the airport. When we got into Palm Springs we went to a restaurant in downtown called Greek Islands. Since Jackie didn't have a real meal for her birthday last week, she picked the place and she loves Greek food. I don't like lamb, but I can usually find something I like on most Greek restaurant menus. We had never been here before, but it turned out to be an outstanding choice. I even gave it five stars on my Yelp review.

To get the coveted quintet from me it has to be a great place, and this one qualifies. Since the weather was nice, we sat on the covered patio. Although I didn't see the inside of the place, the decor on the interior patio was something that I could envision a cafe in rural Greece looking like. The service was spot on, with all of the staff attending to the needs of all of the guests. We had our waiter, but if there was a plate to be picked up or a water glass filled, the next person you saw would take care of it. This is how it should be at all restaurants. The first thing we ordered was the calamari and it was offered breaded and deep fried (normal) or grilled. We have never tried it grilled, or even seen it offered prepared that way, but it was the right choice. It was grilled in a light, butter garlic glaze, perfectly spiced, wonderfully tender, and the best calamari I have ever had, anywhere. They didn't even have a dipping sauce because it was not needed. For entrees Jackie had a pita platter with a traditional lamb mix pita meat and she said it was excellent. I had a dish called Biftekia, which I can best describe as Greek style meatloaf or Salisbury steak. It was a big ground beef patty, nicely spiced with Greek seasoning, and then stuffed with some Fetta cheese. It was outstanding. I wanted to buy a dozen to take home so I could grill them myself. I will be looking up the recipe to make them. This is my new favorite place to eat in Palm Springs.

After our great lunch we went out to cache a little bit. We only ended up with one new find before we decided we better get to the airport so we could get our mail. We went to the UPS center and picked up our mail, then made a couple of quick shopping stops before heading back up the hill to the RV park. After we got back to the park we relaxed and watched TV the rest of the evening.

Tuesday, May 20^th, we decided we needed to have another stay at home day. One of my first chores was to go out and check the power cable for the motor home. Yesterday I had noticed what appeared to be a burn mark from overheating on the plastic of the plug for our 50 amp shore power. This could mean loose connections, so I took the plug apart to check it out. I was shocked to see that the neutral line had come completely loose from the plug and was only making connection by touch. This was what was causing the overheating, which had been so bad the interior of the plug was almost melted. This was not good, because when you are connected to a 50 amp service you have two 120 volt lines coming in, both returning through the common neutral. If the neutral opens up, you end up with 240 volts coming into the 120 volt services in the coach. This would instantly fry all the electronics, TVs, DVRs, microwave, everything. The only thing that was saving us was that the wire was still touching slightly. YIKES!

I knew that this had to be fixed NOW and that I couldn't risk plugging the coach back in until I got it fixed. I started the generator to provide power to the coach and immediately drove down the hill to the RV store in Banning to buy a new plug. I got back up and by 12:00 or so I had the new plug wired in and we were back in business. We really dodged a bullet on that one. And now, thinking back, I suspect that this was the root cause of the problems we had in Casa Grande two months ago, when the inverter blew out and the fuse on the refrigerator blew. I think that was the moment the wire pulled loose and for just an instant there was 240 volts on the line. Then the neutral wire made contact again and the problem disappeared, except for the overheating from the resistance. So I think we were dealing with this “loaded gun” for two months. YIKES AGAIN! I spent the rest of the afternoon on some other repair projects and some household business tasks. Jackie also got a few chores done today.

Wednesday was another stay at home day. After lunch we went over to the laundry at the RV park and did our laundry. Despite the fact that the park is packed, there was only one other couple in the laundry, and they were almost done when we came in. Most people don't come up here for a long enough period to worry about doing laundry.

Thursday, May 22^nd, our friends Bob and Gloria Baron brought their coach up for a couple of weeks and, despite the fact that the place is very busy, managed to get a space right behind us. We said hi, but didn't want to bother them while they were getting set up. We left the coach about 11:30 and drove down the hill for the afternoon. Our first stop was a place called Patsy's Country Kitchen in Banning, just off the freeway on Highland Springs Road. Peggy Bullock had told us about Patsy's a few weeks back because their friend Bonnie had taken them there for breakfast sometime last year and Peggy had really enjoyed the food. It is just a breakfast and lunch place, but it still has a pretty extensive menu, especially on the breakfast side. I had a half pound burger that was huge. It had to be more than a half pound. The patties were nice, fresh, hand formed burgers with lots of flavor. Jackie had the chicken fried steak and eggs. They used a sausage gravy that didn't have much flavor, but everything else on here plate was great. We would probably come back here again.

After lunch we went out and did a few geocaches. In about an hour and a half we found five caches, including one we had DNFed back in April when we were here. We also got a new DNF, so it was a break even on those. After caching we stopped at Walmart for some supplies and then headed back up the hill. The weather forecast said it was likely to rain this afternoon, but all we saw were clouds. We heard some thunder in the distance, but it was over the mountains and didn't seem to be headed our way.

At cocktail hour we walked over to Bob and Gloria's coach and chatted for a couple of hours. They have a new (to them) coach and we hadn't seen the interior yet. Their old coach was a ninety's model 2 slide Fleetwood Discovery. Their new one is the same model, but is a 2006 with four slides. It is very nice inside and much roomier than their old coach. After visiting with the Baron's we went back to our place for the rest of the night.

Friday, May 23^rd, we stayed around the coach for the day. About 5:00 we walked up to the Village Center to the bar, which is now open on weekends. We walked up there with Bob and Gloria and when we walked into the bar met up with Roy and Mary Tweedy, who were already there. Roy and Mary are also old friends from our Indio Elks RV Club. They were one of the couples that influenced our decision to buy a spot up here back in 2002. We managed to get a table in the bar, which was quite crowded, and sat and had a couple of cocktails and chatted.

After a while the six of us moved into the restaurant and ordered some dinner. Jackie and I both had cheeseburgers, which were OK, but could have been warmer. The restaurant was very busy and the staff at the grill were having a hard time keeping up. I think some things were coming up way before other parts of the same order, so some things were getting cold. This is only their second weekend, so they still need to work out a few bugs. After dinner we walked back to the coach and watched TV until it was time for bed.

Saturday, May 24^th, I was up, showered, dressed and out of the coach by 9:00 so I could go over to the Village Center and listen to the candidates for the Silent Valley Board of Directors introduce themselves. Today is the annual meeting for the club, which is organized like a Home Owner's Association, with a Board of Directors, CC&R's, and other governing documents, and a legal requirement for an annual meeting. Although we have been members up here for about a dozen years, we have never been to an annual meeting. We have been to a couple of monthly Board meetings, but never the big meeting.

Since there were only three people running for three open seats, the introductions and statements didn't take long. No one asked any questions because there were no decisions to be made, all three would be elected. I went back to the coach and had another cup of coffee and waited until 10:00 when the actual annual meeting was to begin. By that time Jackie was dressed too, so we walked over just before 10:00 for the meeting. The meeting was pretty uneventful and lasted an hour. It took another ten minutes to vote and we were done and headed back to the coach for lunch. Silent Valley has been having a couple of bad years financially because the population of owners is aging and the economy has limited the ability of the club to bring in new people. The Board from last year finally made some inroads into stopping the fiscal bleeding by doing some cutbacks. This year it looks like the club will at least break even. We would hate to see the place go belly up because we are just now beginning to use it to our advantage and getting our money's worth out of it. If we stay two or three months over the course of a year it gets our daily cost down to $10 or less, which is great for a nice, full hookup 50 amp RV site.

We spent the afternoon just relaxing around the coach and then went back over to the Village Center at 6:00 for their Memorial Day Veteran's recognition ceremony. They read a few poems and information about the history of Memorial Day, which I still remember as being Decoration Day when I was very young, and then some Boy Scouts did a flag folding ceremony. Then they had all the vets get up on stage, introduce themselves and talk about their branch of service, years, and so on. One of the Boy Scouts played Taps on the bugle and the ceremony was over. They gave all the vets and their spouses small American Flags as mementos. I took those back to the coach and planted them in the grass next to the coach. All in all a very nice ceremony. After that we went back to the coach, had dinner and watched TV the rest of the night.

Sunday, May 25^th, We started out the day by getting out about 9:30 and walking over to the Village Center to go through the swap meet they had set up. Jackie bought a couple of things, I just looked and people watched. When we got back to the coach I started watching the Indianapolis 500 race. I am not too much of an open wheel race fan, but I do like to watch the Indy just because of the history and spectacle. Back in 2008 Jackie and I were able to attend the Indy 500 when we were back in the Midwest on one of our rally tours. It was really quite a fun weekend. Around noon or so we walked back over to the Village Center for lunch. This year is the 40^th anniversary of Silent Valley and they decided to put on a party for the owner/members. Out back of the restaurant they have a big pavilion and BBQ area. They were making hamburgers and hot dogs and serving them with a bag of chips and a drink, all for free. We picked up our food after a short wait in line, then sat at a table with the Tweedy's and ate lunch. In addition to the free food they had a huge blow up fun house for the kids, face painting, and other activities.

After lunch we went back to the coach and I finished watching the Indy race from the DVR where I had recorded the last quarter of the race. I took a break for a few hours, then late in the afternoon I put on the NASCAR race, which was the Coca Cola 600 from Charlotte Motor Speedway. The Coke 600 is the longest race in the NASCAR schedule and is always an interesting race to watch. We also have a connection to this race in that back in 2006 we went to an FMCA Rally that was held at the Charlotte track. We spent a week walking around the race track and the facilities.

A little before 7:00 we once again returned to the Village Center with our chairs and a couple of cocktails to watch the evening entertainment. During the summer months Silent Valley brings up local bands for evening entertainment. Usually they are classic rock or country bands, and they especially like tribute bands. Tonight's band was called Hollywood Stones, and not too surprising, they were a Rolling Stones tribute band. The lead singer was quite good and you could tell he had watched a lot of Mick Jagger. He had most of the moves down, tried to speak with a real heavy Cockney accent, and did a

pretty good job of singing too. The crowd, most of which were baby boomer types, really enjoyed the music and there was a lot of dancing. We left not too far into the second set after the band's break, because, although the band was good at what they did, it was a little boring to just here Rolling Stones songs when there are so many other good 60's and 70's songs. A group with a little wider repertoire would have been preferable. We went back to the coach and watched TV for an hour or so before heading to bed.

Monday, May 26^th, Happy Memorial Day. We stayed around the coach until about 2:30 when we drove down the hill to go to our friend Marianne Conner's house for a holiday BBQ. Marianne and her late husband David were friends from the Indio Elks RV group and had also traveled with us for a while when we first started full timing. She now lives in the Highland Springs Country Club, a few miles north of Banning. We stopped and picked up a bottle of wine for Marianne, then went to her place, arriving just after 3:00 or so.

There were a total of 14 people at the BBQ, most of which were friends who live there in the same country club. There was one couple that we knew from past gatherings with Marianne, but everyone was very nice and easy to talk to. We spent several hours having snacks, cocktails and great conversation on the covered patio overlooking the golf course. Around 6:30 or so Marianne served dinner, which was BBQ ribs, beans and cole slaw. Again, we had a great meal and good conversations.

After dinner they set up a small karaoke machine and several people took turns singing. They didn't have a lot of disks, and I had forgotten to bring mine, but there were a couple of songs I knew and I sang a few times. We finally had to leave as it got dark around 8:30 so we could get back up the hill before it got completely dark and late. The rest of the group was still singing when we left. It was a very nice afternoon with some old friends and new.

Tuesday, May 27^th, we had a stay at home day. Jackie put some chicken legs in the crock pot for dinner and we did things around the coach. After lunch I spent a couple of hours installing all the parts I needed to make our current satellite dish compatible with the newer Direct TV receivers. A couple of weeks ago I had learned that we were eligible for an upgrade from Direct TV and that we could get a new “Genie” system that would let us record and or watch up to five different channels instead of the two we currently have. It would also allow the TV in the bedroom to access satellite TV independent of what was being watched in the front.

The downside was that, even though it was only two years old, our satellite dish could not provide the type of signal the new system required, something called “Single Wire Multiplex”, or SWiM. However, I did some research and found that with the addition of a few inexpensive parts, I could upgrade the output of our antenna to meet the requirements. I ordered the parts, which amounted to less than $75 on Amazon, and I finally had all of them in hand. I got everything installed and when I connected it to our current receiver, which happened to be SwiM compatible, it worked. Yea! So now I can order the new receivers. After my successful installation I spent the rest of the day playing on the computer and doing some admin stuff. We had a nice dinner and watched TV until it was time for bed.

Wednesday, May 28^th, was another stay at home day. My major chore was to finish up the installation of the new satellite equipment on the roof. I had to wait for the Gorilla glue that I used to fasten the switch to the roof to set up. Today I went up and used some caulking sealant to fasten the wires and reinforce the switch. I was able to get everything installed and fastened down without having to make any new holes in the roof. Other than that, we just relaxed, Jackie got some chores done and we had a good day.

Thursday, May 29^th, we left the RV park about noon and drove 16 miles south to the mountain community of Idyllwild. Founded around the turn of the century, Idyllwild has always been primarily a tourist destination. There were limited early efforts at logging and mining, but a cool summer retreat for the people living in the surrounding lower elevations has always been the main draw. We like to visit for the restaurants and shops and try to get up here at least once a year.

We stopped for lunch at the Lumber Mill Bar and Grill. This place has been here for a couple of years, but this was the first time we have tried it. It had good Yelp reviews, so we thought we would give it a go. It is mostly burgers and appetizers, but they do have a dinner menu with most of the usual cafe comfort foods. Jackie had the fish tacos which looked good and, according to her, tasted very good. I had an Ortega burger which was outstanding. Big, hand formed fresh patty and all the fixings. We will definitely come back here again.

After lunch we did some shopping in the main part of town. We ended up with some shirts and jewelry, the usual souvenir stuff. We also did a couple of geocaches while we were in the area. About 3:30 we headed for home and then just relaxed with the TV for the rest of the night.

Friday, May 30^th, we left the coach about 11:30 and drove down the mountain and then east to Palm Desert. Our first stop was Cactus Jacks, where we met our friend Barry Cohen for lunch. Barry is getting ready to leave on Sunday on his first motor home trip since his wife Colleen died last July. He is driving up to Denver to spend time with his daughter. He is planning on staying there for a month or two. He seems really excited to be getting back on the road again and is taking a friend of his with him on the first leg. His friend Joe has other friends in Denver, so he is riding along with Barry and then will fly back to the Desert when he finishes his visit.

After lunch we drove to a satellite TV store and picked up the new Genie HD DVR for our coach. This is the final piece of the upgrade that I have been working on for a few weeks. After picking up that equipment we did a couple of other errands, banking, fuel for the car, and Walmart. Once we were done with all our errands we headed back to Silent Valley.

After we got back to the coach I spent about an hour installing the new receiver and moving our old HD DVR to the bedroom. I was really pleased when everything worked as it should the first time I turned everything on. We now can record as many as seven programs at the same time. It is not likely that we would do that, but we have had conflicts in the past when we had our only two inputs busy recording something and we wanted to watch something else on TV, like the news. This will end these types of conflicts. After finishing the project we just relaxed with the TV the rest of the night. Saturday was another stay at home day. I spent the day reprogramming the new DVR and doing some other small chores around the coach.

Sunday, June 1^st, we left the coach about 10:30 and headed down the mountain and then southwest about 60 miles to the town of Temecula. Temecula is about halfway between San Diego and Riverside, and is mostly a distant bedroom community for the San Diego metro area. This town has seen huge growth over the last fifteen years or so. We drove there to have lunch with Jackie's brother Dennis. In the past we have taken the coach down to San Diego and stayed for a week or so, but Dennis is working six days a week in property management and probably wouldn't have time to see us more than once anyway, so we just decided it was easier and less expensive to drive the car down there and meet him for lunch.

We had lunch at a place called Lazy Dog. It is an eclectic bar and grill that is apparently part of a California chain, although we had never heard of the place before. As the name implies, it is dog themed and they even allow dogs to be in the place with their owners on the outside patio. They have a very nice menu with a wide variety of food types, from vegetarian to standard pub fare. I had the fish and chips and the fish was some of the best breaded and fried fish I have had. The fries and slaw were OK, but nothing special, but the fish was wonderful. Jackie had fish tacos. They were made with rare ahi tuna, which made them look interesting, but Jackie said they were just OK.

We spent a couple hours over lunch and had a great visit with Dennis. Although Jackie stays in pretty close touch with him, talking on the phone about once a week, it was nice to see him in person and be able to have a conversation. He seems to enjoy his job as a property manager in that there is always something going on and there is a lot of variety. He also expressed some of the same concerns with dealing with people that I had when I was a homeowner's association manager. You sometimes run into some really strange situations and/or people. Keeps the job interesting.

After lunch with Dennis we stopped at the Costco that was just a block or so from the restaurant and then started back towards the campground. We stopped at a couple stores in Banning before going up the hill, getting back to the coach just before 5:00. We relaxed with the TV the rest of the evening.

Monday, June 2^nd, we decided to stay home for the day. Yesterday Jackie had learned that her “adopted” niece, her best friend Nancy's daughter Vickie, and her ex were camping at the Thousand Trails Park in Idyllwild. They have been up there a week, but Jackie only knew because of a post on Facebook yesterday. She called Vickie yesterday and she said that they were leaving tomorrow, but that they would stop by and see us for a bit. I went down and put their name in as visitors. They wouldn't be able to bring their motor home in, but there is a big dirt parking lot right across from the gate where they could park. Later in the afternoon Jackie got a call from Vickie who told her that when they got to Poppett Flats Road, the road that goes down into Silent Valley, there was construction and they couldn't make a left turn, so they were not able to stop. Other than that we just relaxed and enjoyed a nice quiet day in Silent Valley.

Tuesday was another relaxing, stay at home day. Wednesday we left the RV park about 11:30 and drove down the hill to Banning to go to the movies. We saw the film A Million Ways To Die In The West. A long name for a very funny film. It is very much a parody of the Western genre of film, in same spirit as Blazing Saddles, one of my all time favorite pictures. I think this one may too become a bit of a cult classic. Like Blazing Saddles, you have a story that takes place in the old west, in this case 1860's Arizona, and characters who are talking and observing as if they are in current times. I thought it was a great film and will see it again when it hits HBO or DVD. After the movie we went to the Beaumont shopping area and hit a couple of stores just to kill some time and get some exercise walking around. Since we hadn't had lunch, other than a big bag of popcorn in the movie, we stopped for an early dinner at Gramma'a Country Kitchen. The food and service we good, as usual, and after dinner we headed back up the hill and spent the rest of the evening in the coach.

Thursday, June 5th was another stay at home day. After lunch we went over to the laundry in the park and did our clothes. Other than that it was pretty much a relax and enjoy day. Friday we also stayed in Silent Valley all day. In the afternoon we visited with some other friends of ours from the Indio Elks, Billy and Gwen Watson. The Watson's were in the Desert Drifters when we were and we did a lot of outings with them prior to our going full time. Like the Tweedy's, the Watson's are British, although they immigrated way back in the 60's. Billy is a pretty successful businessman and land owner in the Indio area and is also very involved with the Elks organization. He has been the Exalted Ruler of the Indio Lodge, a District Deputy and a State President. He still does a lot of traveling and lodge visitations around California on behalf of the Elks.

Around 5:00 we, the Watson's and the Tweedy's all walked over to the bar for some cocktails. We had a couple of drinks and talked for a while. About 6:30 we went into the grill and ordered some dinner. After dinner I did a couple of karaoke songs in the bar before we headed back to our coach around 8:00 for the rest of the night.

Saturday, June 7^th, we left the coach a little after 10:00 and drove down the mountain to our friend Marianne Conner's place in Highland Springs, north of Banning. We met with Marianne and then drove into Beaumont to attend the annual Cherry Festival. The festival was at one of the big parks in town and we got there right at the noon opening. There were all kinds of booths to walk through, some selling stuff, some non-profits touting their organizations, even our Silent Valley RV Resort had a booth there. We had lunch at one of the food vendors and ended up spending a couple of hours walking around the festival. They also had local entertainment going on at the stage and had a big carnival with rides and games, but we don't partake of those activities. I have a motto that I will never ride a thrill ride that is put together in two hours by a guy that looks like he should be in prison. Disneyland, OK – carnivals, not so much.

After the festival we stopped at Walmart for some supplies and then headed up the hill. When we got back to the RV park we found that our friends Ray and Suzie Babcock had arrived and were parked a couple of spaces down from us. They had been in Yuma for a week, doing some medical procedures in Algodones, Mexico, and they had told us that they would stop in at Silent Valley on their way back home to Menifee. We chatted for a while in the afternoon, catching up on things since we last saw them in Indio a couple of months ago. About 5:30 we walked down to the restaurant in the village center for dinner. Ray and Suzie had not yet eaten at the newly reopened restaurant here at the park and wanted to try it. We had an OK dinner, it's fried stuff for the most part, but not too bad. While we were there several of our other friends who are staying up here came in for dinner too. After dinner we went back to our coach and watched TV the rest of the night.

Sunday, June 8^th, a big happy birthday to my brother Dennis. He is the one that lives in Cottonwood, Arizona. We stayed around the coach for the day. I spent most of the day working on the computer plotting out a tentative travel plan for next summer. We are considering whether to go back east, mostly to the northeast US and Canada area. We need to figure out what kind of time and money we need to make the trip. Ray and Suzie are considering going with us if we go. Jackie spent a good part of the afternoon making a big pot of clam chowder. We are going to have a chowder dinner tomorrow night and it always tastes better when it has a day to rest before eating.

About 5:00 we went over to Ray and Suzie's for dinner. Ray made shrimp and crawdad curry with rice and it was really good. We had cocktails and then dinner and had a good time. We left their place around 7:00 and went back to our coach for the rest of the night.

Monday was a stay at home day. Got a few things done around the coach, but mostly relaxed and played on the computer. Around 5:00 we had happy hour outside and started getting setup for dinner. We had us, the Watson's, the Tweedy's, the Babcock's, and the Baron's all over for dinner. The weather was very nice and by the time we ate the picnic tables we set up were in the shade. We had a great dinner and great conversations. Around 8:00 everybody drifted off to their own rigs, we cleaned up and then relaxed the rest of the evening.

Tuesday June 10^th, was another stay at home day. We spent a lot of the day working on reservations for this summer's trip and stuff for the Full Timers Rally and the Redmond FMCA rally. There was a lot of coordination with our friends and a lot of time on the phone. About 5:00 the Watson's and Babcock's came over to our place again for happy hour. We BBQed some hamburgers for us and Ray and Suzie and Billy and Gwen had some baked salmon. We had another great meal outside and enjoyed our time with friends. Again by 8:00 or so we were back inside and watched TV until bedtime.

Wednesday we also stayed around the coach for the day. I went out in the morning for a couple hours getting stuff put away in preparation for our departure tomorrow morning. We have stayed our 30 days and the time has come for us to move on and to start our summer travels for this year. Ray and Suzie came over for happy hour and then around 6:30 or so the four of us walked up to the restaurant for a quick dinner. The restaurant is nothing special, but they have pretty decent burgers for a good price. After dinner we went back to our coach and relaxed for the rest of the night.

Thursday, June 12^th, the official start of our summer travels. We are getting a late start this year, but have enjoyed our time here in Silent Valley. We had the coach packed up and ready for travel just a little after 10:00. Ray and Suzie, who are headed back to their house in Menifee, left just a few minutes before us. We went down the hill and then headed west on I-10, headed for Fullerton, California and the Elks Lodge there. We called about an hour before we were to arrive to check to be sure they had a spot. They told us they had one vacancy, so we took a chance and went on to the lodge. The space was still open when we got there so we checked in and got setup.

We are going to be here for three days. We are going to do some touring of the Los Angeles area, checking out some of Jackie's old childhood haunts, houses and hangouts. We have been wanting to do this for several years and it just worked out for this year. The Elks here in Fullerton has full hookup 50 amp sites, so we should be nice and comfortable for the three days we will be here.

This kick-off for our summer traveling marks an excellent spot to close this chapter. We will be here for three days, then on to Santa Barbara for a few days and then two weeks in Santa Maria, near the Pacific coast. We will try to publish again in a few weeks. Until the next time, remember that a true friend is one who thinks you are a good egg even if you are half-cracked. See ya next time.