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 Arizona was one of the last to recognize Martin Luther King day and that holiday superseded Columbus on the holiday calendar, sometime in the late 80's. We had a relaxing day in the mountains today.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.

At Home in Pahrump - Part 2

Hello readers, welcome back. Our last chapter ended on Wednesday, September 24^th, while we were still in Pahrump, Nevada, our legal residency. We have been in Pahrump for almost three weeks and will be here for another two or so. On Thursday we spent most of the day around the coach. We did go out after lunch to do some shopping and ended up going to both Walmart and Albertsons. We were getting stuff to do planned meals for the next week or so because Jackie's girlfriend Helen, who now lives in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, is coming out to visit. She is in Los Angeles right now visiting family and will be driving out here to be with us on Saturday. She will be staying with us for five days.

We also made a visit to the Pahrump Chamber of Commerce because Jackie got a phone call from the President of the Monaco International Chapter who confirmed that the Chapter will be holding it's March rally here in Pahrump. Since they know that we are “from” Pahrump, and here currently, they wanted us to do a little legwork for them. Our first stop was the Chamber to arrange for them to get 200 tourist packages together before March so they could go in the goody bags that are always given out. We also have a few other chores they want us to do during the next couple of weeks. After all our errand running we went back to the coach for the rest of the day.

Friday, September 26^th, we left the coach after lunch and went out to do our laundry. The laundry took a couple of hours, after which we stopped and picked up mail and did a couple other small errands before heading back to the coach. I went down to the pool and watched a storm move into the area over the mountains between us and Las Vegas. While I was in the hot tub I was visiting with two young couples, one from Switzerland and one from the Netherlands, both of whom were visiting in the states for about six weeks, traveling in rented motor homes. After I got back from the pool Jackie and I went over and sat with Len and Debbie, having cocktails. Our visit was cut short when the rain moved in and we had to go in the coach. It rained really hard for about ten minutes and then it was over. We spent the rest of the night in the coach.

Saturday, September 27^th, we hung around the coach for most of the day doing some cleaning and chores. Around 3:00 Jackie's girlfriend Helen arrived after her drive from Los Angeles. We sat and talked for a while and then about 5:00 we had dinner. Jackie had made a nice meatloaf for dinner and it was great. About 6:00 or so the three of us left and drove down to the VFW for karaoke again. It was much the same crowd as on Saturday, including our friends Len and Debbie. With more than a dozen singers, the rotation was long and I was only able to get three songs in before we left around 9:30. We went back to the coach and talked until bedtime. Jackie and Helen keep in touch by Facebook and phone, but we haven't seen her for over a year, so there is a lot to talk about.

Sunday we had a relaxing morning with the Sunday paper. After lunch we went out to one of the local casinos for a little gaming. Helen likes to gamble, and we are not opposed to a little gaming from time to time. After the casino we headed home and just enjoyed the nice weather. Monday morning we left after lunch and went out to do some geocaching. Helen doesn't cache, but she has been out with us a couple of times and enjoys watching. We got four caches and then Jackie's new phone appeared to go on the fritz and stop working. The screen was dark and we couldn't get it to reboot. We stopped caching and drove to the Verizon store only to find out she had swiped the screen wrong and turned down the light. Oppsie. We then went home and had a nice corn beef dinner that had been cooking in the crock pot all day.

Tuesday Jackie and Helen left about 10:30 for a girl's day. They went to the Lakeside Casino for lunch and some gaming and then went to a nail salon for a mani-pedi. They got back to the coach about 3:30 or so, looking good. I went out and ran a couple of errands while they were gone, including going to the sheriff's office to turn in my paperwork and get my CCW permit renewed. After the girl's got home we went to the pool for a while and then had a nice dinner of chili relleno. A nice relaxing day.

Wednesday, October 1^st, another month gone. We decided to stay home today and relax. We played some cards and just hung around the house for the day. Around 6:00 we left to go out and have dinner. We decided to try a BBQ place called Red Sky BBQ, which has gotten pretty good reviews and was recommended by a couple people we know. It is kind of a small, eclectic place with furniture that looks like it came from a used restaurant store. All the tables and chairs are different, from very formal looking to very casual. The menu is not extensive, but there are lunch sandwiches that you would expect to find and the dinner menu is ribs and steaks for the most part. Jackie and Helen both had the lamb t-bones, which they said were OK. Not outstanding, but OK. I had the rack of baby backs that was very good. The bones were very meaty and the pork was cooked perfectly. It could have used a little more smoke flavor in the meat, but they were still very good and I took half the rack home for lunch the next day. After dinner we went back to the coach and watched TV until bedtime.

Thursday, October 2^rd, Helen left to head for Las Vegas about 8:00 this morning, so we were up early to see her off. She is going to spend a few days in Vegas before flying back home. After lunch we went out and did a few geocaches, finding six in a couple of hours. Caches around here that we haven't gotten yet are out in the desert and often far apart, so the caches per hour rate goes way down. After caching we picked up our mail and did a quick Walmart run before heading back to the coach. We watched TV the rest of the night, catching up on some of our shows that we didn't watch while Helen was here visiting.

Friday we had a quiet day at home. We did a load of laundry, but mostly just relaxed. At around 5:00 we went over to the pool for a night of karaoke. The park has music most of this weekend in conjunction with the Grape Stomp which is going on at the winery right next door. There were only about six singers tonight, including our friends Len and Debbie, and I got to sing four or five songs. It was a very nice evening, after which we went back to the coach and watched TV until bed.

Saturday, October 4^th, after lunch we walked over to the winery next door to the RV park to take in the Grape Stomp. Grape Stomp is an annual event in Pahrump, held usually in early October, that has been going on for eleven years. It's called Grape Stomp because the core of the festival is the stomp contests where two person teams try to stomp the most juice out of a given amount of grapes in two minutes. One team member stands in the tub and stomps while the other kneels in front and pushes the mushed grapes around to allow the juice to flow out of the hole in the tub into the measuring pan. Of course, the unofficial “mascot” for the festival is Lucy Ricardo from the I Love Lucy episode where they are in Italy. Every year there are one or two Lucy and Ethel teams. Many of the teams do dress in costumes and some are pretty funny.

The festival also has lots of craft booths, wine tastings, food booths and live entertainment for the periods in between stomps. They usually have four sessions each day with daily and overall winners. I think the winners last year got over a liter of juice in two minutes. We spent most of the afternoon there, looking at booths, watching the stompers and listening to the band. About 4:00 we went back to the coach and cooled off, it was a little hot today, and had an early dinner. Just before six we went over to the pool area for more music and karaoke. It was originally going to be only a dance party, but the DJ decided to include karaoke. Unfortunately, they had some equipment problems and the music and singing didn't start until after 7:00. I got to do two songs before we decided to call it a night at 9:00 and went back to the coach. It was a fun day and evening. Sunday was a stay at home day. The Grape Stomp was still going strong and we could hear the band all day. We did the newspaper in the morning and just hung out for the afternoon.

Monday, October 6^th, was another moving day. Our month at Wine Ridge was up and we had to face the arduous 3.3 mile trip to the Preferred RV Resort in Pahrump so we could be at the Beat the Odds Chapter rally. On the way I stopped and filled the coach with fuel because when we leave here this coming Saturday we are headed on a longer journey, all the way down to Silent Valley, south of Banning, California. I didn't want to have to worry about filling the tank when we left for a long day's drive.

We got settled into the Preferred Resort pretty quickly. This resort is in the center of town, right near the three big casinos. The Beat the Odds Chapter of FMCA is a smallish chapter that holds two rallies a year, one in the spring in Laughlin, and one in the fall here in Pahrump. They area always three day rallies with a slot tournament. We went to our first one last year when we were here in Pahrump. We had learned about the chapter when we were at the Chapter Fair at the Western Area rally in Indio a couple years ago. We had gotten on their mailing list and we found that the Pahrump rally is always in early October and the last couple years we have been in Pahrump during that time. We found the group to be a lot of fun and we actually won a few bucks at the rally last year, so we decided to go again.

After we got set up we went out for some lunch at a cafe called Mom's. We had been there a few years back and it was pretty good. They give you lots of food for a moderate price. Service was good, but they are not super friendly. Probably has something to do with the fact that they are a popular breakfast spot so they are probably tired by lunch. After lunch we went back to the coach until the pot luck with the rally group at 4:00. Everyone gathered in the clubhouse and they had some welcome speeches and went over the rally schedule before everyone ate. It was supposed to be heavy appetizers, but there was some pretty good food brought in. After dinner everyone went back to their coaches and we watched TV until bedtime.

Tuesday, October 7^th, we were up early and out of the coach by about 8:30 because we had to be in the Nugget Casino by quarter to nine for the rally slot tournament. When you register for the rally you pay $50 each to be in the slot tournament. Last year both of us did well enough to get our money back, but didn't win any of the bigger prizes. The tournament is divided into two sessions, morning and afternoon. I suspect the casino does that in an effort to get you to spend more time in the casino. Jackie went in the first morning session at 9:00. The session is five minutes of play, a short break and then another five minutes. Unfortunately Jackie got just over a thousand points between both periods. Not very good. I went with the 9:20 group and only managed about 1,500 points, again not good.

We spoiled the casino's plans by leaving not too long after we had our sessions. We did play the regular slots for a little while and Jackie left forty bucks to the good, I lost twenty. We went out and did a couple errands, then went back to the coach for lunch. A little before 1:00 we were back in the casino for the afternoon session. This time Jackie didn't even make a thousand between the two periods. I did a little better, getting a little over four thousand for the two periods. This put my total at just under six thousand points, which MIGHT get me my money back. Sadly, I think Jackie is out of the running. After the afternoon session we headed back to the coach and just relaxed for the rest of the day. There were no other rally activities for today.

Wednesday, October 8^th, we didn't have any morning activities so we were able to sleep in this morning. At 1:00 we went down for the Bunco tournament at the clubhouse. Warran and Marla, the same people who ran our Bunco tournament at our rally in July, were hosting this session. We played three sets in a couple of hours and I ended up with 12 wins and 6 losses, along with two Bunco's, a score I didn't figure to put me in the winners group. Nonetheless, it was a lot of fun and we got to meet almost everyone at the rally as we moved from table to table. Right after the Bunco session I drove down to the Nugget Casino to set up my music equipment in the banquet room where the rally is doing dinner tonight. I had volunteered my services to the rally hosts to provide music tonight. They didn't want to do karaoke, only background music before and during dinner. They also didn't expect that anyone would hang around after dinner to dance. I got the equipment set up and working and then headed back to the coach to change for dinner.

Dinner was very nice, an hour of cocktails before and then a buffet with chicken, pork and veggie selections, as well as a salad and potatoes. I had music playing very low in the background and didn't have to attend the music much as it is all automated. I was surprised to find that my Bunco score of 12 wins was in a four way tie for most wins, the first time it ever happened according to Warren. I got $25 for that achievement. Not surprisingly, given our scores, neither Jackie nor I won anything with the slot tournament, despite them going down to 28^th place for prizes. After the money was given out everyone left the ballroom, so I packed up my stuff and Jackie I gamed in the Casino for an hour or so before heading back to the coach for the rest of the evening. This was the last of the activities for this rally, but we are staying on at the park for another couple of days.

Thursday, October 9^th, we went out after lunch and did our laundry. After the laundry was done we went back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the day. About 5:00 our friends Len and Debbie came over for dinner. We sat outside and had cocktails and talked for a while, then went inside and had dinner. Jackie made some chicken enchiladas which were wonderful. After dinner we sat outside again until about 8:30 when Len and Debbie headed back to Wine Ridge and we went in the coach to watch TV until bedtime.

Friday we spent the afternoon doing some errands. We stopped at the Gold Town Casino to cash in our player's card points before we left town. I only had about 4,500, so I got a couple of tee shirts. Jackie had over 16,000 because Helen had been playing on a copy of her card while she was here and she plays higher denomination games than Jackie does. They didn't have any prizes, mostly home appliances, that interested us, so Jackie just used her points for free play, trying to win some money, but alas, she struck out. Oh well. We then picked up our mail and did a Walmart run before heading back to the coach for the rest of the evening.

Saturday, October 11^th, was another travel day. We left the RV park about 10:00 and headed south towards Hesperia, California, about 190 miles. We stopped in Baker, California, a small desert town about two hours southwest of Las Vegas on I-15, for lunch at the Mad Greek restaurant. Any time we go out of Pahrump in this direction we stop at the Mad Greek for lunch. Great food. We ended up getting into Hesperia about 2:30 or so. We stopped at the Elks Lodge, which has nice pull through spots so we didn't have to unhook the car for our one night stay and got the basics setup for the night.

About an hour after we got setup the power went out. At first I thought I had forgotten to turn something off because the Elks here only has 30 amp power. However, when I went outside I saw the breaker wasn't tripped. I also noticed that there were people outside the Elks lodge looking at the power boxes and I realized their power was off too. About the time I noticed the traffic signals down the block were out too I heard sirens and figured that someone must have smacked a pole and caused a general power outage. The police and fire all stopped about a block away. I turned on the generator so we would have A/C because it was still hot. After about 90 minutes the power came back on and we just stayed in the coach for the afternoon and evening.

Sunday, October 12^th, we left Hesperia and drove down the Cajon Pass on the freeway into the I-10 corridor and then on to Banning and Silent Valley. This part of the trip was only about 77 miles and we got to the gate of Silent Valley about noon. We quickly found a spot and got setup. I did the basic stuff, including the sun screens, because it was about 90 degrees, but I saved the decorating for the next day. We will be here in Silent Valley for a month before moving down to Indio for a couple of months.

Our arrival here in Silent Valley sort of marks the end of our summer travels for this year and is a good point to close this chapter of the blog. Until next time, remember the wise words of singer Eddie Cantor. “Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.” See ya next time.