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.