Winter 2015 in Yuma - Part 1

Hello again, welcome back to our story. Our last chapter ended on Sunday, January 25^th, with our departure from the Quartzsite area and our arrival in Yuma, Arizona at the Caravan Oasis RV Resort. This will make the third year in a row we have spent a month here in Yuma in the late winter.

Monday, January 26^th, the predicted rain started around 5:00 a.m. and continued on and off for most of the day. It was also quite cool, in the low 50's, so most everyone, including us, stayed inside for the day. Jackie is still down pretty much, but I went and had cocktails with the group in the Babcock's coach about 5:00. Peggy and Vernon's grandson Troy and his wife Makayla were also visiting. Troy is a Marine stationed at the Yuma Marine Corps Air Station. Ray had made bean soup for everyone, but he delivered ours to our coach knowing the Jackie was probably not going to come out in public yet. After cocktails I went home and we had dinner and watched TV the rest of the evening. Tuesday Jackie was still sick. We stayed home for the day.

Wednesday, January 28^th, Jackie was feeling a little better. We went out after lunch to do some grocery shopping and went to Walmart and Fry's to pick up supplies. Jackie joined the rest of the group for cocktails at the Babcock's coach. We went back to our place for dinner while much of the rest of the group went out for Chinese. We had a nice dinner and watched TV the rest of the evening.

Thursday, January 29^th, Jackie had a bit of a relapse and stayed in for most of the day. I did some work outside, setting out a few decorations and such. I went to the hardware store and got some supplies for a couple of small chores around the house and accomplished several of them. The big thing was that I think, the operative word being “think,” that I finally found the elusive leak in the kitchen slide. We have had a persistent leak there for a couple of years. It does not leak when the slide is retracted, which tells me that the problem was in the top of the slide, not the outside wall.

Ray came over and we spent some time talking about various plans to narrow down the leak. I was up on a step stool looking at the inside edge of the top of the slide after we pulled it in a little ways, and FINALLY! I spotted a small area on the inside edge where the caulking was pulled up from the bottom of a piece of angle. Any water flowing into this open area would be channeled right into the inside of the slide. Ray looked at it and agreed we may have found the culprit. I cleaned the area up and put a good dose of silicon sealant on the area and hope that it will take care of the problem. We will find out soon because they are predicting on and off rain for the next two days. Fingers crossed. I had cocktails with the group because Jackie was still down, but we had dinner at our place and watched TV.

Friday, January 30^th, Jackie finally had a good night. She slept the entire night, in the bed, without coughing. She felt good enough that we were able to get out of the coach about 11:00 and go to the Arizona Marketplace, the big outdoor “swap meet” in Yuma. The rest of the gang went as well. We bought a couple of new outside chairs to replace the one's we have now which are about four years old and falling apart. We also bought a few other little things. After the Marketplace we went to Applebee's for lunch and then stopped at Michael's before heading back to the coach.

We were able to go out for cocktails with the group and stayed out until about 6:30. We then went back to our place for the rest of the night. We didn't have dinner because we had such a late lunch. By the way, the leak in the slide still hasn't reappeared, so I am feeling like I may have finally fixed it.

Saturday, January 31^st, we decided to stay at home today to help Jackie's recovery. I did some chores around the house, and took a quick trip to Walmart to buy a new DVD player. Several years ago the RCA DVD player that came with the coach quit. Since it was also the surround sound provider for the coach we had to replace it with another surround sound DVD system. We put in a Sony DVD home theater system that worked fine until recently. The last couple of times we have tried to play a DVD the player has acted up and won't work. The surround sound works fine, so I didn't want to spend a couple hundred bucks for a new system. I bought a Samsung DVD player for $60 and plugged the sound into the existing Sony and now we have a complete system again.

We spent most of the afternoon watching the movie Boyhood. This is the film that was made over a 12 year period with the same cast so that as time went by the main character grew from an six year old boy into an 18 year old. It was a good movie, a good character study, and the unique way is was made gave it a special twist. However, in my opinion, there was no outstanding acting or strong story lines that would rise to the level of award winning. If you didn't know the back story of the film it would just be a nice, enjoyable movie. Jackie disagrees with me and thought the movie was excellent and very worthy of the hype it has received. I guess there is a movie for everyone.

I had cocktails with the Babcocks and the McKays before dinner. Peggy and Vernon were over at their grandson's house on base for dinner and Jim and Sally were out taking care of some details of their new motor home purchase. They are here in a 26 foot class C, but while here they went shopping and are buying a used 38 foot diesel pusher. They won't get it for a couple weeks because it needs some repairs done, but we are anxious to see it. After cocktails I BBQed some pork chops and we had dinner on our own.

Sunday, February 1^st, the first month of the new year now officially gone. We went for lunch with Peggy and Vernon to a place we like here in Yuma called Chicken on the Run. Jackie likes it because they have fried chicken livers and gizzards. That's what Peggy and Jackie had. Vernon had fried chicken and I had corn beef hash and eggs for breakfast. We really enjoyed the meal and after a few quick errands we headed back to the coach to get ready for Super Bowl. We also got one geocache that happened to be right next door to the restaurant.

Mid-afternoon I cooked a big, double batch of chili for halftime dinner. We set up all the chairs for our group outside Ray and Suzie's coach and Ray setup his outside television for the big game. By kickoff time the ten of us staying here at the park were ready for the big game, as well as the Bullock grandkids, Troy and Makayla. I did a pool and had everyone buy in so we would have some gambling going on. Most of the rest of group brought nibbles and we settled in for the first half.

At halftime we served up the chili and fixings and Vernon brought some homemade corn bread. Everyone ate and enjoyed the meal and then we settled in for the second half of the big game. Everyone was astounded at how the game ended. Seattle basically gave away a sure win in the last 30 seconds. Too bad. Troy won the first quarter of the pool, but Ray and Suzie won the rest of the money between them. Lucky, lucky. After the game was over we cleaned up the area and settled in for the rest of the night in our coach.

Monday, February 2^nd, we had the coach washed and waxed, as well as the car. The crew showed up about 10:00 or so and by early afternoon we had nice shiny vehicles. We had lunch and then went out to do our laundry. We were finished with laundry about 4:00 and headed back to the coach. We had cocktails with the group around 5:00 and then everyone had pulled pork sandwiches prepared by Judi. Dinner was great and we all stayed out until about 7:30 when it started getting chilly. We went back to our coach and watched TV until bedtime.

Tuesday we went out for lunch to the local taco stand, only a half mile or so from the RV park. We discovered this place the first time we were here two years ago and we go back often. It is a real “street taco” place with beef, fish, shrimp tacos and a few other things. Everything tastes very authentic Mexican. We had a great lunch and then did some geocaching around the area, finding nine caches in a couple of hours. We went back to the coach and rested for a bit before going out for cocktails with the group. After cocktails we went out with Ray and Suzie to the nearby truck stop restaurant, which is excellent, for dinner. Three of us had the special, which was beef tips and noodles, and Jackie had a steak. Everyone was very pleased with the food and we enjoyed the company. After dinner we headed back to the coach for the rest of the night.

Wednesday, February 4^th, we left the coach a little before noon and headed down to a local restaurant called Parrish's for lunch. Peggy and Vernon came with us and we were meeting another couple from our Full Timers Chapter of FMCA, Mike and Darlene Neighbours. Mike is currently the Vice President of the Chapter and will take over as President later this year. In addition, the two of them are the newsletter editors. We haven't seen them for about a year, but stay in contact with them through email and social media. They are here in Yuma for a week or so and wanted to get together for lunch. We had a great lunch and spent an hour an a half talking and catching up. We will getting together with them and some other friends on Monday as well.

After lunch we dropped Peggy and Vernon off at the RV park and we went to Walmart for some shopping. We later had cocktails with the group at 5:00 and then everyone grilled burgers for dinner. Jackie made some wasabi coleslaw, Peggy made some pasta salad and Vernon made a veggie frittata.
We had a great meal and stayed outside until about 7:30 when it started to cool off.

Thursday, February 5^th, Happy 68^th to me! Jackie and I went out after lunch to pick up some special geocaches that were put out as part of this coming weekend's big caching event here in Yuma. They are called Lab Caches and are temporary caches put out solely as part of an event. There were six of them that were located from the far east part of the metro area to the park near downtown where the big event is being held on Sunday. Several of the caches were out in the desert and took a while to get to, and all of them were very clever and innovative. We had a great time and it took over three hours to get all six caches.

After caching we headed home for cocktails with the group. I had originally planned to go to a restaurant for dinner tonight for my birthday, but I decided that having ten or twelve people trying to eat in a restaurant was too much of a pain. So, I decided we were just going to have a pizza party at the RV park. Our group ordered a bunch of pizzas from the nearby Pizza Hut, had them delivered, and then we just had a great time visiting and eating pizzas. It was a much more enjoyable way to celebrate. About 7:30 everyone drifted off to their own coaches and we watched TV until bedtime.

Friday, February 6^th, we left the coach about 11:00 and met Peggy and Vernon, and their granddaughter in law Makayla, at the taco stand for lunch. Although Makayla and Troy live here, they live on the base over in town and don't get out this way. Peggy wanted her to try these tacos to compare with the one's she gets over in central Yuma. After lunch Peggy and Makayla went to get pedicures, Vernon went back to the coach and we made a quick stop at the coach for a bathroom break and then went out to do some geocaching.

We ended up getting eleven new finds, and one DNF, in a few hours of caching. About 4:30 or so we drove to the Yuma mall for a caching event. We were early for the 5:30 event so we walked around Penny's for a while. After that we walked over to the part of the mall near the movie theaters and waited as several hundred other geocachers gathered on the sidewalks. At 5:30 everyone's phone alarm sounded and the geocaching flash mob event for this year began. For this flash mob everyone was supposed to bring a banana and set a phone alarm for 5:30. When the alarms sounded everyone took out their banana and held it up like a phone and started shouting “can you hear me now?” at the top of their lungs. Someone then fired up a boom box with the song Shout going and we all walked out into the traffic circle and danced and sang. There were a couple of hundred participants and it was great fun. After a couple minutes the music shut off and everyone walked away from the area.

After the flash mob we went to another event, a meet and greet, at a bar and grill nearby called the Landing Zone. They have a bunch of old military helicopter parts scattered around the property and a bunch of military memorabilia inside. It was very crowded and very loud, so we only stayed for one drink, but we did sit with five people that we know from the Coachella Valley caching group that came to Yuma for the weekend's events. About 6:30 we left and headed back to the coach for dinner and an evening in front of the TV.

Saturday, February 7^th, Happy wedding Anniversary to us, eleven wonderful years. We stayed around the coach for most of the day, but left about 4:30 to drive to yet another caching event. This one was in old town Yuma at a restaurant called Lute's Casino. It's not really a casino, but was during the frontier days of Yuma. Today's event was another meet and greet. We got there early enough to get a seat at a table with some friends of ours from the Coachella Valley, Roy and Darcy, and a couple other Coachella cachers. There were a couple hundred people in the restaurant and we talked to a number of other cachers that we have met along the caching trail.

We had a couple of drinks, but it was way too crowded to try and get food, and I'm not that crazy about their menu anyway. We left about 6:30 and drove to another place in Yuma called El Rancho for some great Mexican food. We have eaten here before and never been disappointed. We had a great anniversary dinner and then drove back to the coach for the rest of the evening.

Sunday, February 8^th, another of our many anniversary dates. Today marks the 17^th anniversary of Jackie and I getting together. We were up and out of the coach by 8:30, headed to a park along the Colorado River just west of downtown Yuma. This is the location for the 12^th annual Southwest Arizona Geocachers (SWAG) geocaching event. This is also the third year that the event has grown large enough for Groundspeak, the company that supervises the geocaching hobby, to consider it to be a “mega event.” The requirement if for over 500 attendees. We have been to all three mega events and were at a couple of the SWAG events prior to them being classified as megas.

We arrived at the park a little after 9:00 and hooked up with our friends from the Coachella Valley in a shady area of the park. We had brought chairs and coolers with food and drink and we were ready for the day. We participated in a couple of contests early in the event, an X marks the spot contest and a poker run. In X marks the spot they give the team a small flag, like the one's landscapers use to mark sprinklers, and a set of coordinates. You then have to plant your flag as close to the coordinates as your GPS device will let you. It is a contest because every GPS device reads and interprets the signal a little differently. Even a it's best a GPS is only good for about a ten or fifteen foot radius. In the end, I was about ten or twelve feet off the mark.

The poker run has each team find five caches hidden in the park. Each cache has a bunch of small envelopes with a playing card in it. You gather one envelope from each of the five caches and then go back and they open the envelopes to see what kind of five card poker hand you get. We had an ace high hand, no where near enough to win anything. After the contests we walked around and checked out different booths, exchanged travel bugs, and visited with people that we know from caching. There were a couple dozen people at the event that we have met somewhere along the line since 2008.

We had some lunch and enjoyed the event until everything shut down at 2:00.

We headed back to the coach and relaxed for a little while. About 4:30 some of our Coachella Valley caching friends came over for a BBQ. Roy and Darcy, Kevin, and Rex and Vicki all came over for the party. We all partied with our regular group here at the park, and a couple of other people came over from other sites as well. We ended up with about 20 people sitting around talking and drinking. We BBQed some hamburgers and had some side dishes and everyone had a great time. The Coachella group left about 7:30 and headed back to where they were staying in Yuma. They are headed back to the Coachella Valley tomorrow. We relaxed with the TV for the remainder of the evening.

Today marks two weeks since we arrived here in Yuma, so it is a good place to close out this chapter and get it published. We are here in Yuma for another two weeks yet, so expect another episode of Yuma adventures in a couple weeks. Until the next time, remember that laughter is like a windshield wiper, it doesn't stop the rain but allows us to keep going. See ya next time.