Spring 2011 Arrives, Sort Of

Hello friends, glad you came back to the story. This chapter began with our arrival at the Silent Valley RV Resort on Wednesday, March 23rd. We traveled here from Desert Hot Springs. Silent Valley is located in the San Jacinto mountains, about ten miles South of Banning on SR-273. The resort is in a large valley at about 4,000 feet elevation. We got into the resort around noon and spent most of the afternoon getting set up. About 6:00 it started to rain, not a real storm, just a gentle rain. We noticed that about 8:00 the rain had turned
to snow and it was beginning to look like winter. The temperature was not too cold, only about 40 degrees, but the snow was sticking pretty good. By 9:30 it had built up on the satellite dome on the roof of the coach to the point where we lost our satellite signal. We ended up with about an inch or so of snow on the ground by the time we went to bed. About that same time the snow turned back to rain and started to melt the snow.

Thursday, March 24th we woke up to about 48 degrees, overcast and rainy. Most of the snow was gone. There was a little bit on the car and some of the hillsides under the trees, but the rain had melted the majority of it. As a result we didn’t get any good pictures of the snow. Since it was cold and rainy we decided to just stay in and do chores for the day.

Friday, March 25th was still rainy. It had rained on and off most of the night. We thought we might go down the mountain to Banning to a movie in the afternoon. However, the rain continued and then the fog started to come and go. We decided not to go down to the movies. The ten miles down to Banning is all two lane, winding mountain road with lots of blind curves. When is rains it tends to loosen the rocks on the hillsides so you have to be careful not to hit those that get in the roadway. We decided to just stay in the coach again. We have good satellite TV, good internet, and a nice warm, dry coach. Just had a lazy day.

Saturday started cloudy and drizzly again, however, we decided to go down the hill anyway. We went down for a quick lunch at Denny’s in Banning, and then went to the movie theater in Banning to see the movie “Paul”. Paul is a ditzy comedy about two nerdy guys from England who come to the States to visit a Comic-Com convention in San Diego. They are huge science fiction fans, so they decide to drive across country in an RV, stopping at UFO sites, such as Area 51 and Roswell. As they are driving down the ET highway past Area 51 in the Nevada desert they witness a car accident. When they stop to help they find the driver of the car is an alien, a very stereotypical little green man, big head, oval eyes, the whole thing. The alien is CDG, everything else in the movie is live action. Turns out the alien speaks great English, swears a lot, smokes and drinks beer. He crashed in 1947 and has been held at Area 51 ever since. He hitches a ride with the Englishmen and the chase begins. He is being chased, of course, by guys from the government who want to capture him. The bad guys are dressed in black suits of course, which is only the beginning of the alien movie references. The movie is peppered with dozens of references and homages to science fiction movies and discovering them is a big part of the charm of the movie. It is not a hysterically funny movie, but it is hysterical in places. The supporting cast seems to have been largely pilfered from Saturday Night Live, which is not a bad thing for me. I would give it a three out of five Alien Heads and plan to buy it when it comes out on DVD just so I can go through it several times looking for movie references. After the movie we went shopping and then drove back up the hill for the rest of the afternoon and evening at the coach.

Sunday, March 27th was another cold, cloudy day. Although it looked like rain all day, none actually came. Because of the cold and dampness we decided not to cache today. We just stayed around the coach again and relaxed all day and evening.

Monday we finally awoke to sunshine! The winds calmed down and the clouds parted, so after lunch we drove down the hill to do some geocaching.
We managed to find a total of 13 new caches in a few hours. We also had two DNF’s - so sad. After caching we did some quick shopping and then drove back up the hill and to the coach for the evening.

Tuesday, March 29th was another nice sunny day. We decided to go down the hill after lunch and visit the outlet mall near the Cabazon casino, just East of Banning. We spent a couple of hours walking around the mall, which has over 200 stores, and got some exercise. Jackie bought a couple of small things, but all in all we just window shopped. One thing we noted is that a lot of the “ordinary” stores that used to be in this mall years ago have gone. There are no more bookstores, lower end outlet stores such as Big Dog, or other similar stores. Everything now is the high end name brand stuff, Lucky Jeans, Brooks Brothers, Polo, etc. The strategy must be working because the place was crawling with people and a lot of them had bags. The shopping population was well over 50 percent Asian, and I know that there are not that many in the Desert or Inland Empire area. They must be drawing a lot of the Los Angeles/Orange County folks. After our shopping we did a couple of quick geocaches that were in the parking lots for the mall. We then headed back up the hill and spent the rest of the day and evening in the coach.

Wednesday, March 30th we left the park early, about 9:00 a.m., and drove down to Moreno Valley, a little town about 30 miles Northwest. We had to take our Jeep in for repair. The air conditioning stopped working - again. It quit last May when we were here and it turned out to be a leaking condenser. That time it was fixed under the Jeep warranty. We took the car into the Jeep dealer’s service department and got the bad news that it was the condenser - again. Apparently a seam split. The Jeep warranty on the car has expired, but we have an extended warranty on the car with a $250 deductible. We also learned that the battery is leaking badly and needs to be replaced and the drive train needs servicing. Of course, those costs are maintenance and would not be covered under the extended warranty. The estimate was about a thousand dollars for all the work. Eek and yikes! At least they did throw in a free rental for us since they would need the car overnight.
We got our free rental about noon and went to lunch in Moreno Valley before doing some light shopping at Costco and a couple other stores. Moreno Valley is about 15 miles closer to Silent Valley than the Coachella Valley, and they have all the stores that we would ever need to shop in. After shopping we tootled up the hill in our little Toyota Corolla and stayed in for the rest of the day and evening. We were joking that we feel so tiny in the Toyota compared to the view we normally have from our big Grand Cherokee.

Thursday, March 31st I got a call from the Jeep dealer about 10:00 that the car was ready. Since Jackie wasn’t dressed yet, I hoped in the little rental and went down to Moreno Valley to pick up the geo Jeep. After shelling out nearly a grand for the various services and repairs I drove the Jeep back up the hill. At least the A/C is working now. About 4:30 we drove back down the hill to the Banning/Beaumont Elks Lodge to meet our friend Marianne Conner. We met Marianne and her late husband David back in about 2002 when we were all members of the Indio Elks Lodge. They got a motorhome and joined the travel club and we went on many outings together, becoming pretty good friends. In 2005 they sold their house in Bermuda Dunes, near Indio, very close to the time we sold ours, and both of us set off on the full time RV lifestyle. In 2005 and 2006 we spent probably a total of six months traveling with them all over the country. We were in the Dakotas and the Northwest with them, and then later in the Midwest and Northeast with them. David was not in good health and in 2007 they had to get off the road so they bought a house in Cherry Valley, near Banning. David passed away three years ago but Marianne still lives there. We try to get with her when we are in the area. We met her at the Elks for dinner. The place was very full, mostly with people from the same country club where Marianne lives, and we met a lot her friends. We had a great meal, New York steak, for a very reasonable price and had a wonderful time catching up. About 8:00 we headed back up the hill for the rest of the evening.

Friday, April 1st - one third of the new year gone already. Today was a stay at home day. We did our laundry after lunch, but outside of that and a few other little chores around the house, we didn’t do much or go anywhere. Fortunately, the park here has a very nice, large laundry facility, so we were able to get everything done in just a couple hours.

Saturday we decided to take advantage of the nice weather, temperatures in Banning in the high 70's, to do some geocaching. The weather calls for cool, cloudy and a chance of rain for the next couple days. We went down into the Banning/Beaumont area and managed to find a dozen caches in about three hours. Unfortunately, we also had three DNF’s, the most we have had in any one caching session in quite some time. On the plus side, we did hit the 2,300 finds
milestone in this session. Yea! After caching we went back up to the RV park, heading over to the restaurant at the park for dinner about 6:30. I had the liver and onions, which is consistently among the best I have ever had, anywhere. The chef here really knows how to cook liver, very tender, just pink inside and juicy. Jackie had the prime rib which was also good. After dinner we walked back to the coach and watched TV for the rest of the night.

Sunday, March 3rd was overcast and cool, so we just stayed in for the day. Jackie got a couple of chores done around the coach.

Monday we left after lunch and drove to nearby Hemet for some geocaching. We were able to add a dozen more finds in a few hours,
but did have one DNF as well. One of the caches took us to a ranch area where there were half a dozen zebras grazing out in a pasture, along with a couple horses and a donkey. Everyone seemed to be getting along just peachy. After caching we did some shopping and then drove back up the mountain to the coach where we relaxed the rest of the day.

Tuesday, March 5th we again left after lunch for more geocaching, this time just at the bottom of the hill in Banning. We added 13 finds to our list, but had two DNF’s in the process. I think we are getting more DNF’s because we are looking for more caches with the higher difficulty and terrain ratings.
Not an excuse, it’s just that the caches rated with a higher difficulty are harder to find. The photo shows me searching for one of the ones we couldn't find on the side of a hill. I guess we just need to exercise a higher level of geo-sense. (Very Zen, no?) After caching we did some shopping and then went to the Banning/Beaumont Elks to meet Marianne again for dinner. Tonight was their spaghetti night and the food was excellent. We had a couple of drinks, a nice dinner, great conversation and a good time. We headed up the hill around sundown and spent the rest of the evening in the coach.

Wednesday morning was cold and gloomy as another Southern California storm front moved through. The weather forecast calls for cold and rain for the next couple days, so not likely we will be doing too much. Today we just stayed in for the day. Thursday was more of the same. Rained on and off all night and the ground was way too wet for geocaching. We stayed in the coach all day, played on the computers and played some cards. Jackie won the Skipbo tournament.

Friday, April 8th was a day that featured a cornocopia of weather. We woke up with the now usual overcast skies and cool weather. Over the course of the day we had clearing, with blue skies and scattered clouds, then overcast,
then rain, then about an hour and a half of snow that left a half inch or so on the ground, then more rain, then later in the afternoon hail. The hail was small, about pea size or so, so there was no damage possibility.
Quite a day weather-wise. After dinner we walked over to the Watering Hole, the bar in the village center here at the park, for a cocktail and some karaoke. There were only a couple of singers, so I did about six songs. Of course the audience was small too, there were only about a dozen people in the place, but we had a couple of drinks and some fun out of the coach.

Saturday it was still cold, but it was only partly cloudy, so we decided we needed to get out of the house for a while. After lunch we drove down the mountain and had lunch in Beaumont at La Casita, one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. They have about a dozen places scattered around the South-central California area and we have eaten at most of them at least once. We had not been to the new Beaumont store yet. The food and service were great, as usual. After lunch we drove East to Moreno Valley and the mall there. We spent a couple of hours wandering around the mall, doing some shopping, buying a couple of little things, and just getting some exercise. After shopping we did three quick geocaches that were in the parking area for the mall. We then drove back to the coach for dinner and relaxed the rest of the night.

We still have another week here at Silent Valley before heading back down to Indio and Indian Waters for a couple weeks. Although we have had some bad weather up here, we have still enjoyed our stay so far.
I am going to close this chapter of the story so I can get it published. I will publish again in a few weeks. Until we meet again, keep the faith and watch for that Spring snow!

Waiting for Spring in the Desert

Welcome back friends. This episode starts with our arrival on Wednesday, March 9th at Desert Pools RV Resort in Desert Hot Springs, California. We came up here from Winterhaven, near Yuma, Arizona. We arrived around noon and spent the rest of the afternoon getting set up and settled in. Today was the first day since early January when we didn’t have friends camped next door to us. We had a great time traveling with Peggy and Vernon and will miss them, as well as Miss Belle the puppy.

Thursday, March 10th, we had to drive to Palm Desert because I had a doctor’s appointment. It was a follow-up on some blood work that I had done back in January. My appointment was at 1:00, so we decided to drive into Indio first and stop at Cactus Jack’s, our favorite Indio hangout, for lunch. We said hi to our friend Kevin, the daytime bartender, and had a nice lunch. Ironically, Kevin lives in Desert Hot Springs. We can probably see the lights of his house from where we are staying. After lunch we drove over to the doctor. My appointment only took about a half hour. The doctor gave me some medications for high cholesterol and a slightly elevated thyroid function. More pills. We then went over to Best Buy just to browse around. Jackie’s laptop, which we bought back in 2007, is starting to act up and I suspect may not have too much time left. We wanted to get a feel for what was available in laptops.

After our brief shopping trip we went over to the Motorcoach Country Club to visit with our good friends Barry and Colleen Cohen. Barry has owned a transmission repair shop in Cathedral City for twenty years or so. He has been working on retirement and he has finally been able to sell his business. He is still working a few days a week and has told the owner he would do so for a year, but he is no longer the boss and doesn’t have the headaches that go with it. We are very happy for him. Now all they have to do is sell their property at the resort and they can retire fully and go on the road like us. We had some cocktails and spent a couple hours catching up on things. We last saw them when we left the valley back in January. At sunset we left and drove back to DHS where we relaxed the rest of the night.

Friday, March 11th, I needed a stay at home day to do some repairs to the coach. I did a couple of minor things, but the big deal was to repair some water leaks in the “wet bay” of the coach. The wet bay is where all the water utilities are hooked up and controlled. Fresh water connections and sewer connections. I have has a couple of small, but annoying leaks, in the bay for several months. I have put off fixing them because in order to get to the pipes and connections I have to take off the front panel of the bay, which is a major undertaking. I finally decided that the nice weather and the fact that we have no commitments scheduled for the weekend, gave me the opportunity to finally tackle this job. It took me about an hour and a half to get the panel off and another hour to diagnose the problems. Another hour spent going to the local hardware store and RV supply store for parts. Finally, I fixed all the issues, but decided to wait a day to put the panel back on just to make sure that the leaks were truly fixed. Jackie did some chores around the house while I worked and caught up on some of her television shows. We spent the rest of the evening watching TV and relaxing.

Saturday, March 12th was another stay at home day. In the morning I went out and checked the status of my work in the wet bay from yesterday. Still dry as a bone. Yea, problem fixed! I then spent an hour putting the panel back on and getting everything buttoned up the way it was supposed to be. A little later in the afternoon I decided to go to the pool area for a while. Desert Pools has one of the nicest pool and spa setups of any of the resorts we frequent. It is set up villa style, with a patio inside of an area enclosed on three sides by various rooms. The side of the patio to the North without rooms has a six foot block wall. This design shields the large pool from most of the wind that is endemic in Desert Hot Springs. The pool is kept at a nice warm temperature in the winter. They have three hot tubs filled with natural hot spring water. One is kept at 98, one at 100 and one at 104. The hot tubs are under an overhang and are completely sheltered from the wind, weather and sun. They also had a DJ playing light rock music. There were a lot of people enjoying the patio. I spent some time in the pool and in the hot tub. Very relaxing. We spent the rest of the day just relaxing around the coach, enjoying the day.

Sunday, March 13th, my son’s birthday! Happy Birthday Roy! We awoke to a beautiful late winter desert day, temperatures predicted for the low 80's, no clouds and no wind. We decided to go out after lunch and do some geocaching up in the Morongo Valley area. Morongo Valley is a small community North of the Eastern end of the Coachella Valley in the foothills of the Little San Bernardino Mountains. The community is located on Highway 62, which runs Northeast from I-10 up into the hills to the towns of Yucca Valley and Twenty-Nine Palms. The Morongo Valley is in San Bernardino County, just across the county line with Riverside County, and has about 2,000 people or so. It has an elevation of about 2,500 feet, so it is usually about five or ten degrees cooler than the lower desert, although it is still considered a “high desert” environment.

We have never cached in the area before, which is why we chose it for today’s adventure. We have cached so much in Desert Hot Springs that it is getting hard to find new caches. We ended up getting a total of 17 new finds for the afternoon. Unfortunately, we also had two DNF’s, which we hate, but, we are convinced that both of those caches had been “muggled.” Caching uses the term muggle, from the Harry Potter stories, to mean non-cachers. In Harry Potter muggles were non-wizards. After our caching we cruised back down the hill to the RV park and enjoyed the rest of the evening at home.

Monday, March 14th , is apparently Pi-day. My son posted this on Facebook and it took me a little bit to figure it out. The standard stated value of Pi for most calculations is 3.14. Ergo, March 14th is Pi day. Turns out, it’s also Albert Einstein’s birthday. We needed to do some shopping, so we decided to go down into Cathedral City and go to our favorite Mexican restaurant, La Casita, for lunch. When I worked at the Desert Princess in Cathedral City I used to go there at least once, sometimes twice a week for lunch. Greatest taco salad ever! Jackie called her old boss Carol and asked her to join us for lunch. Most of the time I worked at the Desert Princess, Jackie worked for the company that handled the Indian land leases for most of the condos at Desert Princess. Her office was also in Cathedral City and we car pooled most days. Carol did join us and we had a great lunch catching up.

After lunch we headed for Costco in Palm Desert for some things. We then headed back to Cathedral City to our friend Barry’s old shop to pick up a UPS package. Although Barry sold the business, he is still working there a few days a week, so we can still use it as a local mail drop. A couple months ago the turntable plate in our microwave oven broke. We had a terrible time locating one. There were several places online that sold them, but they all bought from one supplier and they were back ordered. Fortunately, last week Jackie called one of them and they said the plates had just come in, so we ordered one and had it delivered to Barry’s shop. Yea, no more paper plates in the microwave. We then went to Walmart in Palm Springs to finish our shopping and head back to Desert Hot Springs. Later on in the evening we went up to the clubhouse for some Texas Hold’Em. Jim and Lorraine, two of our Canadian friends, had just come into the park today and they were there. Our other friends Marc and Shannon, who were supposed to come to DHS, had to go to Casa Grande because of a friend’s death there, so they were not going to make it. Jackie had a good night and ended up ahead. I didn’t do so well and lost about seven dollars.

Tuesday, March 15th we left after lunch to do some geocaching. This time we stayed in the general area right around the RV park. We had noticed that one of the more active local cachers, whose handle is “WheelerDealers”, had hidden a bunch of new caches back in February. Because they were all fairly close together, and not too difficult to locate, we managed to get 17 finds in just a few hours of caching. We did have one DNF also. We also noticed that several of the caches appeared to be in locations where we had previously found caches. Since caching rules require at least 500 feet separation between caches, we surmise that the old caches were archived, or removed, and the new caches placed to give local cachers something new to look for. The new caches were not in the exact same places, but very near, sometimes only a few feet away, from where the old cache was. Nonetheless, it gives us new things to look for and ups the numbers for us.

We finally quit at 3:30 because it was getting hot. Just a few weeks ago we were complaining about cold, now it’s getting too hot. It was overcast and humid, which made it worse. We went home and relaxed. At happy hour our friends Jim and Lorraine came over for cocktails and we sat for a couple hours and chatted. They told us a lot about the rules surrounding Canadian visitors that we didn’t know. To him them talk its almost as if the U.S., or at least the Customs and Immigration folks, don’t want them to visit. As much money as our Canadian visitors spend down here each year I would think they would welcome them with open arms. They told us there are very complicated rules regarding how many days they can stay in the states, and if the border agents decide they have violated them they can just turn them back and can actually ban them from entering the U.S. for any period of time. After Jim and Lorraine left we had dinner and watched TV the rest of the night.

Wednesday, March 16th, we went for lunch to the Desert Hot Springs VFW post. A couple of years ago we learned that the VFW had a great taco lunch on Wednesdays during the snowbird season. We have not been there recently, and decided to go by and try it again. I had a burrito and a couple of tacos and Jackie had a nice taco salad, and the whole bill came to ten dollars. Not a bad deal and the food was decent too. It was a little too windy to go geocaching, so we just spent the afternoon at the coach. I went back to the pool complex and spent some time in the spa. After dinner we went up to the clubhouse at the park for karaoke. There was a volunteer couple with a modest karaoke setup putting on the show, but the equipment was OK and the sound was good. There were quite a few people there watching, but only a couple of singers besides me. I ended up doing a half dozen songs in a couple of hours and had a great time.

Thursday, March 17th, faith and begorra it’s St. Patty’s day! After lunch we went out to do some geocaching not too far from the RV park. We went West a few miles to what is generally called North Palm Springs, although there really isn’t any kind of organized community there. We were able to bag an even dozen caches in about two hours, despite the fact that it was windy. When we were last in Desert Hot Springs back in December we had tried to do some caching in this area one day and the wind was just howling. The sand was blowing so hard it hurt, so we turned around and went back home. Today the wind was fairly mild, and it wasn’t cold, so we stuck it out. About 5:00 we went to the Desert Hot Springs Elks Lodge for their St. Patrick’s Day party. We met with Dick and Ginger Conrad, who are members of that lodge, as well as a couple of other people that we know from the DHS Elks RV club. Although we are members of the Pahrump Elks Lodge now, we maintain membership in the RV clubs of both the Indio and DHS lodges. Before we sold the house we traveled quite a bit with both clubs and we still try to get out with them from time to time on an outing. We had a couple of drinks and then had dinner with Dick and Ginger. They had, of course, corned beef and cabbage, and it was pretty good. I was certainly satisfied when we left about 8:00 and headed back to the coach. Friday morning we woke to a very windy day. It was too cool and windy for caching so we decided to just hang around the coach and do chores. We did get our laundry done.

Saturday, March 19th we drove down to Palm Desert to meet Nancy, Jackie’s girlfriend, for lunch at Casey’s restaurant. The bartender at Casey’s on the weekend is a guy named Duffy who is about 80 years old and used to work at a bar in Marina Del Rey back in the 70's when Jackie was a cocktail waitress there. We had a nice lunch and spent a couple hours catching up with Nancy. After lunch we drove over to Nancy’s daughter’s house to visit with Vicki and her son Shane. Jackie is Shane’s Godmother and she likes to keep up with him when she can. He has been battling juvenile diabetes for about eight years now, but seems to be doing fairly well health wise. We spent about an hour visiting Vicki and Shane and then left to do some shopping. About 3:00 we drove over to the Motorcoach Country Club to spend the rest of the day and evening with our friends Barry and Colleen. Before the sun went down the four of us took the electric pontoon boat out on the waterway and spent an hour or so enjoying the nice weather and just talking. Later the girls went into their coach and started playing cards while Barry and I sat outside and talked, and watched the TV coverage of the problems over in Libya.

Colleen fixed a nice brisket dinner for us which was wonderful. After dinner it was more cards for Jackie and Colleen and more talking and TV for Barry and I. They ended up playing cards until about 11:00 or so and outlasted Barry and I both. Barry headed off to bed and I fell asleep on the couch. We ended up spending the night on their pull-out couch.

Sunday, March 20th, Barry’s birthday! Happy Birthday Barry! After everyone woke up and got to moving around we drove over to Cactus Jack’s in Indio for brunch. We had a good lunch and afterwards we drove back to Desert Hot Springs and our coach. We were kind of beat since we don’t sleep really well when in a strange bed, especially a smallish one, so we just stayed in the coach and relaxed the rest of the day and evening.

Monday, March 21st - the first full day of Spring! Yea, winter is over. Technically, the Vernal Equinox was yesterday at 4:21 p.m. in the Pacific time zone, but who can celebrate a first day of spring that starts late in the afternoon? The only thing that matters is that spring has sprung! It was a bit windy and chilly so we didn’t do too much during the day. About 6:30 we went over to the clubhouse for Texas Hold’Em. Tonight was a tournament instead of the usual game. Normally you have a five dollar buy in, betting limited to no more than 12 chips, and you play for two hours. At the end of the playing time you cash in your chips and are either up or down from your buy in. You can also buy more chips during the game if you are having a bad night. Tonight, with the tournament, it is a ten dollar buy in, no betting limits, no re-buys, and we play until there are only three players left. The player with the most chips gets first place, next most second place, and least chips gets third place. We played until about a quarter to ten and I won the tournament! I got a $70 payout for first place! Yea! Jackie was one of the first to get knocked out of the game, but she stayed in the room and cheered me on as the game progressed and people got knocked out. Several years ago we were at Palm Creek in Casa Grande for a month. They used to have tournaments every Saturday that we played in. I never won there, in fact I only made it to the final table once.

Tuesday, March 22nd we went out after lunch for some final geocaching in the Desert Hot Springs area. We managed to get a dozen more finds in a few hours. We then went back to the coach so I could get stuff put away in preparation for our departure from DHS tomorrow. We spent the rest of the evening in the coach.

Wednesday, March 23rd we got up and packed up the coach for travel. We left DHS about 10:30 a.m. and started West heading for the Silent Valley RV Resort. The trip was only about 38 miles, and the last ten miles are up a winding mountain road, so we didn’t hook the car up. Jackie just drove the Jeep up. Regular readers will remember that Silent Valley is a sort of time share type place where you buy a 1/6800 share of the property. We can stay in the resort for 30 days, then we have to leave for 10 days before we can come back. We can stay for a total of 120 days per year. Although there are annual dues for the membership, there is no charge when we go into the park. All the sites have water, sewer and 50 amp electric. Since the park is at 4,000 feet elevation, we expect it to be a little chilly for the first few weeks. This is the park we were in back in 2006 when the forest fire went thought the area, trapping us in the park for two days with fire all around us. We got into the park and found a very nice site close to the village center where the bar, restaurant, office and rec center are. I spent the next couple of hours setting up. We will be here in Silent Valley for a little over three weeks.

Our arrival here at Silent Valley will mark the end of this episode of our travels. I will publish again in a couple of weeks. Until then, love, laugh and live life large!

Where Arizona, California and Mexico Meet

Hi everyone. The last chapter of our story concluded upon our arrival on Wednesday, February 23rd, at the Pilot Knob RV Resort in Winterhaven, California, just nine miles West of Yuma, Arizona. We traveled here with Peggy and Vernon Bullock from Ehrenberg, Arizona, about 100 miles North on the Colorado River near
Blythe, California. We managed to get two very nice spots right next to each other and basically just spent the rest of the day getting set up. We had happy hour with the Bullocks about 5:00 p.m. and then went into our coach for dinner and TV for the rest of the night.

Thursday, February 24th was a shopping day for us. We hadn’t been to a Walmart since we went to the one in Parker a couple weeks ago. Yuma also has a Sam’s Club and we needed a few things from there. After lunch we went out and hit both of those, plus a quick stop at a Target and a JoAnn’s Fabric store. You could tell it had been a while since we did any shopping. Once we got our shopping done we headed back to the coach. By the time we got everything put away it was happy hour. We went over to the Bullocks for cocktails, and then we each made dinner and brought it over to our coach so we could eat together. We had some T-bones and the Bullocks had lamb, which made Jackie happy because they shared. After dinner we watched TV for the rest of the night.

Friday we went out with the Bullocks before lunch to do some local caching. We did a couple of caches right around the area of the RV park, then we drove into Yuma for lunch. We had lunch at an old diner right on old Highway 80, near old town Yuma. The place was called Brownie’s, and Jackie and I have talked about trying it ever since we started coming to Yuma back in 2007. The place has been open since the 50's, before the freeway when Highway 80 was the road through town. Except for Friday’s, when it is open until 9:00 p.m., the place is only open for breakfast and lunch. The menu is not large and is typical diner fare. Jackie was disappointed with the taste of the gravy on her breakfast chicken fried steak. My burger was OK, but nothing special. Same with the Bullock’s meal. Probably wouldn’t go out of my way to go again.

After lunch we started some caching in the central Yuma area and ended up about 4:00 p.m. with an even dozen finds. We then went to the Yuma Elks Lodge so the Bullocks would know where is was and could get a lodge pin. They were having a rummage sale on the patio, so Jackie and Peggy did some shopping while Vernon and I started drinking. After a cocktail we headed home for a light dinner of hors d'oeuvres with the Bullocks. We then relaxed the rest of the night in the coach.

Saturday, February 26th we went into Yuma around 12:30 or so to attend a geocaching event at a restaurant in old town Yuma. The Yuma area has a very active and very large geocaching association called SWAG, or Southwest Arizona Geocachers. They put on a big annual event every February. They do it in the winter because a lot of their members are snowbirds who only come down to the area in the winter. When we were in Pilot Knob last February we attended the Saturday event, which was held in the same restaurant, Lute’s Casino, right on main street in old town. The place is very quirky, with old crap all over the ceiling and walls, but the food is very good. The Bullocks went with us and we got into the restaurant early, so we were able to get a decent table. This event, which was Yuma Event #8,
was a two day deal, just like year’s past. The Saturday get together is just a lunch meet and greet with no activities. We ran into several people we know, including Nellie and Russ from Grants Pass, Oregon. We visited them last year when were up there in the summer. We also met several caching teams whose names we have seen on logs in various caches in the area. After a very nice lunch Peggy and Vernon headed out to do some chores and Jackie and I walked around main street for an hour so looking in the antique stores. After that we headed back to the coach for a quiet evening at home.

Sunday, February 27th we again left early, this time about 9:30 a.m., and drove into downtown Yuma for the main geocaching event. The event was held at the Gateway park, which is right downtown on the bank of the Colorado River.
It is located in the area between the new I-8 freeway bridge across the river and the old Highway 80 and railroad bridges across the river. It is a very nice park with a lot of grass, covered pavilions and tables. There were probably 400 people at the gathering, which is a lot. It really reinforces what we already knew, that geocaching is a very popular hobby, especially with retired people. There was one guy there who has found over 33,000 caches. The sport is only 10 years old, so he has been busy. After signing in for the event, along with the Bullocks, we participated in the poker run. They had hidden five ammo boxes
around the park area that had a bunch of envelopes in them. The GPS coordinates for each box were on a piece of paper and each team had to find each of the five boxes and take one envelope from each. After you got back to the pavilion a member of the organizing committee would open your envelopes and see what your poker hand was. We had a busted straight, i.e., nuttin honey. The Bullocks ended up with a pair of kings, also not much of a hand. The top three winning hands were a full house, an ace high flush and a queen high flush. Oh well, it was fun.

We spent some time trading travel bugs. One of the standard things at geocaching events is that everyone brings their travel bugs, coins and other trackables with them and they trade them off to other cachers. We traded off all of our new ones that we had just created and published, as well as a couple of others that we have had for a couple months. We now have a nice new stock of trackables. We visited with a lot of very nice people. One thing about a gathering of this type, you know you have something in common with everyone else there.
Around 12:00 they served a very nice lunch, which was BBQ tri-tip, beans and cole slaw. The nice thing is that there was no charge for the event, even for cachers who were not members of SWAG. They do fund raisers and 50/50 drawings all year to get the money to put on the event. They also had a whole bunch of very nice door prizes. The grand prize was a new $500 GPSrx. Unfortunately, we didn’t win anything, but we had a great time and met a lot of great people.

After the event Jackie and I went out to do some geocaching and managed to get five finds in an hour or so. We then headed back to the RV park and had cocktails with the Bullocks, who had also gone out caching on their own after the event. After happy hour we settled into the coach and watched the Oscar show on TV.

Monday, February 28th, another month of the new year almost gone. We decided that we needed a day off after the busy weekend so we stayed around the coach for most of the day. I did all my routine maintenance checks and some minor repairs in the morning. After lunch we and the Bullocks took a quick drive into town to the Marine Corps Air Station to get our range passes for caching on the Barry Goldwater military gunnery range. Regular readers may recall back in December of 2008 we did some geocaching out on the gunnery range with our friend John Ham. It is a military reservation, but it is open to the public by permit. The permit doesn’t cost anything but is only needed to help keep track of people who go out on the range. We always laugh and say it just makes it easier for the Border Patrol or Military Police to identify you body if you die out there. We plan to go out on the range with the Bullocks sometime in the next few days so we decided to get our permits early.

We came back to the coach after getting our permits and I did a few more chores. Later we had cocktails and then dinner with the Bullocks in our coach. I made some pulled pork and fries. After dinner we just watched TV until bedtime.

Tuesday, March 1st, we left the coach around 10:00 a.m. with the Bullocks and drove the three miles South to Algadones, Mexico. Regular readers will know that Algadones is a small Mexican border town near Yuma that is “dedicated” to dentists, optometrists, pharmacies and liquor stores. At least ninety-five percent of the clientele are older, usually retired, folks. We have been there numerous times and get all our dental work and eyeglasses there. The Bullocks had never been there, so we took them today just for a taste. We walked around and did a little shopping. We bought a new bag for our caching stuff, I got a couple of tee shirts. Peggy bought some nice silver jewelry at our favorite store down there, The Mine. It is the only place in Algadones where I would buy jewelry because you know what you get there is real silver and gemstones. Peggy and Vernon also visited a vet down there to get some medications for their puppy Belle. We had lunch at our favorite restaurant, La Ranchito, bought some booze and headed back into the U.S. around 2:00 p.m. We also did the three geocaches that are down in Algadones. One was new to us, we had done the other two, but the Bullocks had not. These are their first foreign caches. The line was really long and it took about an hour to get back across the border.

After caching we were pooped. We had walked a lot, stood around a lot, and it was starting to get warm, actually almost hit 80 today. I actually laid down and napped for about 20 minutes when we got back, and I never take naps. We had happy hour with the Bullocks and then went down to the clubhouse to play Texas Hold’Em. Our Canadian friends Marc and Shannon, and Jim and Lorraine, were back at the park and we played cards with them. I lost most of my five dollars, Jackie almost broke even, but we had a great time.

Wednesday, March 2nd I stayed around the coach all day doing various small chores. Jackie and Peggy drove into Yuma after lunch to get pedicures and do some shopping. Later on in the evening we got together for happy hour and then a BBQ of beef and chicken carne with all the trimmings. Had a great dinner and then relaxed the rest of the night.

Thursday morning we got an early start for a big day of caching. We and the Bullocks and their geo-dog Belle, got into the car and left the park about 9:00 a.m. headed for the Goldwater military range South of the Foothills area of Yuma. The Foothills is an unincorporated retirement area East of the City of Yuma and is about 20 miles from our location at Pilot Knob.
As I have explained in the past, the Goldwater range is a military gunnery range for Air Force, Marine and Navy aircraft. There are two parts, the West range, which runs East from the Yuma city limits for about 140 miles, almost to Casa Grande, Arizona. The East range is further North, just South of Gila Bend, Near Phoenix and runs South nearly to Tucson. The entire range is over 3,000 square miles, the vast majority of which are closed to the public. The area we go into just East of Yuma is only a few hundred square miles, but there are hundreds upon hundreds of geocaches hidden there. We were on the range about five hours and managed to get 25 finds, which makes our personal best day yet! While we were out on the range, having the picnic lunch we packed, a couple of Marine AV-8 Harrier attack jets came out and were making low level passes over the area we were
caching in. They were actually using the target range South of where we were, but they had to pass over us to get there. We got our own personal air show for about 20 minutes, with the aircraft no more than a couple hundred feet off the ground. Pretty neat stuff. Also pretty neat were some of the caches we found. Since there is no a lot of traffic down on the range some folks were pretty ingenious with their caches. There were a couple of very cute wooden cache containers that someone clearly spent a lot of time and effort in making.

After caching we went back to the park and pretty much crashed. The temperatures were in the high seventies, low eighties, so we were pretty wore out. Peggy cooked a nice dinner of green chili chicken enchiladas, which was wonderful. After dinner we watched TV until bedtime.

Friday, March 4th we stayed around the coach until about 3:00 p.m. when we and the Bullocks drove into Yuma to watch the Midnight at the Oasis classic car cruise. Midnight at the Oasis is Yuma’s big weekend-long classic car event and is held every year. We have never been here during the event in the past.
It is similar to Hot August Nights in Reno and other big classic car gatherings around the country. On Thursday the organizers had set up a huge inflatable movie screen and created a “drive-in” and on Friday was the cruise, basically a parade. I have been to a lot of car shows where you walk around and look at the cars, but I have never been able to attend a cruise, where you can see and hear the cars as they drive. We got to the parade route early enough to be able to
get front row parking in an old Kmart parking lot and set our chairs out on the sidewalk to “claim” our territory. We had some time to kill before the parade, so we found a couple of geocaches in the parking lot. Once the parade started it ran for about an hour. We found out later that there were 500 cars in the parade. Every kind of restored car, hot rod, and cruiser you could imagine was in the parade. It was very enjoyable. After the parade we stopped and picked up a pizza and went back to the coach for a late dinner with the Bullocks.

Saturday, March 5th we went out with the Bullocks after lunch for some geocaching and managed to get nine more finds. The Bullocks reached the 300 find milestone. Congratulations to Team 2 B’s! After caching we went back to the coach to get ready for dinner. Our friends Ray and Suzie Babcock were back in Yuma and they came over about 4:30 to have dinner with we and the Bullocks. Jackie made a big batch of her risotto with shrimp, mushrooms and asparagus and it was great. The six of us had a great time catching up and enjoyed a wonderful dinner. We have not seen the Babcocks since December back in Indio. After dinner we played a few rounds of the game “Catch Phrase” which we had first been introduced to back in Ehrenberg by Ray and Del Menard. After we played the game with them we went out a few days later and bought one for ourselves. We had a great evening. About 8:30 everyone left and we relaxed the rest of the night.

Sunday, March 6th Jackie and I went into Yuma after lunch for a quick Sam’s Club shopping trip. On the way back home we decided to stop at the Quechan Casino, which is on I-8 just a mile from our park, for a little gaming. It didn’t take us too long to spend our $25 each, a little less than an hour. Oh well, hard to win in these places. Our plan had been to do some caching, but by the time we got home it was 3:00, so we decided to just stay around the coach. Not too long after we got home we saw a coach stop in the road in front of us, presumably to park in the empty space next to us. Another quick look and low and behold it was our friends Gary and Ramona Wilson! They were coming into the park for a week and the office put them in the spot next to us just by chance. We last saw Gary and Ramona back in January when we drove up to Silent Valley with Peggy and Vernon to visit them and Ray and Suzie. Gary and Ramona have been up in the Northwest visiting family and we knew they were headed back to this area, but we didn’t expect them to show up next door.

Later on in the evening we had happy hour with the six of us. We then all got together in Peggy and Vernon’s coach for dinner. Peggy made a great salad and we BBQed some chicken. After dinner we played about an hour of “Catch Phrase” again. Gary and Ramona had never played it before and they enjoyed it as much as we did the first time we saw the game. About 9:00 everyone went back to their own coaches for the rest of the night.

Monday, March 7th we woke up to howling winds. Actually, the winds had blown all night and were still going 25 or 30 MPH. We had originally decided to cache today, but the wind, along with the dust it was stirring up, put the kibosh on that idea. We decided to just go into town with Peggy and Vernon for lunch and some last minute shopping. We went to a nice Chinese buffet called the Grand Buffet. Very inexpensive, but very good. Not as extensive a selection as some buffets we have been to, but what they did have was excellent. After lunch we went to Walmart and then made another stop at Sam’s Club for Peggy and Vernon. They are leaving tomorrow and needed some stuff. We went back home for the rest of the afternoon and then had a nice happy hour with the six of us again. We didn’t do dinner because we were full from lunch.

Tuesday morning we sadly had to say goodbye to Peggy and Vernon and Miss Belle. We have been traveling with them since early January and had a wonderful time. They left this morning heading for Casa Grande, Arizona and then points East for a while. We will see them again in October at the Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque. We headed into Yuma late morning to do our
laundry and some other chores. The first stop was a hair salon where I got my first haircut in nearly six years. My last haircut was sometime in April of 2005, when we knew that we were retiring. My hair got down to my waist and had to be braided
every day by Jackie. The first thing the girl at the salon did was cut off a little over ten inches of the braid so we could donate it to “Locks of Love”, a group that makes wigs for cancer victims. She then trimmed everything up, leaving a nice five or six inch pony tail. I don’t think I will let it get that long again. It was fun once, but I think I will just keep a nice “tail” from now on. There are some before and after pics posted here.

After that we grabbed a bite to eat and then did our laundry. It has been fourteen days since we last did it, so it was beginning to pile up. After laundry we headed back to the coach and I spent some time putting away the outside stuff in preparation for our departure in the morning. We had a last happy hour with Gary and Ramona and then went down to the clubhouse to play Texas Hold’Em. I had a good night for a change and ended up about five dollars up. Jackie lost just a dollar or so. Had a good time playing with our Canadian friends.

Wednesday, March 9th we were up early and had the coach packed up and ready to travel by 9:30. Today we are going about 170 miles Northwest, back to Desert Hot Springs. We had an uneventful drive, except for having to put in fifty gallons of diesel at over $4 a gallon. Yikes. Them Arabs need to settle down or we’ll have to turn our coach into a park model. We arrived at Desert Pools, one of our Western Horizons parks, about 12:30. We gained an hour coming into California,
but we will have to give it back on Sunday when daylight savings time kicks in. We got a nice site near the clubhouse, just a couple down from where we were in November. I spent the afternoon getting set up and moved in. We will be here for two weeks.

With our arrival at Desert Hot Springs I will end this Chapter of the story. I will publish again in a couple of weeks. Until then, keep the faith, dance like no one is watching and enjoy every day to the fullest.

Down By The Riverside

Welcome back friends and followers, our story continues. Our previous chapter concluded on Wednesday, February 9th, after we arrived in Ehrenberg, Arizona, located on the Colorado River just off of I-10, across the river from Blythe, California. We are staying at the Colorado River Oasis RV Resort, one of our Western Horizon parks and we will be here for two weeks. Peggy and Vernon Bullock are still traveling with us and we got side by side spots at the back of the resort, only a couple hundred feet from the river. We spent most of the afternoon getting settled in. About 3:00 p.m. we got together in Peggy and Vernon’s coach along with Doug and Linda Stoudt, some other friends of ours. We spent the evening talking, catching up and having a light dinner of tacos and rice.

Thursday, February 10th we awoke to a little bit of a breeze and moderate temperatures. After lunch we drove into Blythe, California, just across the river, to do some shopping at Kmart and Albertsons. We were also scouting a laundromat because we have a bunch of laundry to do and don’t want to spend all day in the small laundry at the RV park. After we finished our shopping we went home where I finished “redecorating” the coach. When we cleaned out our storage unit in Indio back in December we kept a few pictures and art stuff the Jackie wanted to use in the coach. We had been making a few changes over the last few weeks and today I finished changing the pictures around so the place looks a little different.

Around cocktail hour we went out behind our coaches on the grass and watched the sun go down over the river. Doug and Linda joined us and the Bullocks and we sat outside for about an hour until it got too chilly. The day was good, just slightly cool, but as soon as the sun goes down it gets cold. We went into Peggy and Vernon’s rig and Peggy cooked up a meal of pasta and salad for the six of us. It was great and we had a good time until about 8:30 when everyone wandered off to their own coaches for the rest of the night.

Friday, February 11th we decided that it was time to do some laundry. We packed everything in the car and headed across the river into Blythe. Our first stop was Garcia’s Restaurant on Hobsonway and 2nd street. Peggy and Vernon had eaten there on Thursday and said the food was good. The restaurant is very small, but the food was excellent. I had a red chili burro and it was one of the best I have had. The service was also good and the prices reasonable. I would highly recommend the place. When we walked into the restaurant it was lunch time and the place was packed. I didn’t think we would get a seat until we noticed that our friends Linda and Doug were already there. They had just ordered, so we sat down and had lunch with them.

After lunch we went to a pretty decent coin laundry and spent a couple hours getting all of our clothes, towels and bed linens washed and dried. We then headed home and relaxed outside in the nice weather until sundown. At about 7:00 p.m. we went over to the recreation center here at the park for karaoke. We had been here last year and gone to the Friday night karaoke and it was a lot of fun. The park bought the equipment and it is pretty good stuff. The rotation of singers was fairly short, although nearly all were very good singers. Because of the short rotation I got to do about seven or eight songs, so we had a very good time. We didn’t quit until the place closed up about 10:30 at which time we headed back to the coach and went to bed.

Saturday, February 12th was another caching day with Peggy and Vernon. After lunch we drove over into California in search of some more First To Find (FTF) caches. When I checked the Blythe area I found two caches that had just been placed within the last week and neither showed any finds yet. The first cache was about 23 miles from the park, South of Blythe, and was out in a flat desert area that appears to have been used as a dumping ground for the last 50 years. There were hundreds of acres that just glistened with broken glass and trash. You could tell that a lot of it was old, for instance there were numerous rusty beer cans with holes in the top made by an old fashioned church key opener. I mean, how long has it been since beer cans were steel or tin? The coordinates took us to a point in the dump and then it was up to us to figure out where the cache might be. It turned out to be very clever and we searched for about 20 minutes before I finally spotted it. There was an old refrigerator lying on the ground, on its back with the door open. It was full of bullet holes from people doing target practice. I finally spotted a bolt screwed into one of the holes in the bottom of the fridge. When I took it out of the hole I saw a tiny version of the geocaching symbol printed on the head. The bolt came apart and inside was the log! And - we WERE the first to find! Yea! The cache was called “Wasteland” and it certainly was.

After that find we continued South, heading into the hilly desert at the North end of the Imperial Dunes area. We drove about eight miles on a desert Jeep trail to an area where rockhounds looked for a type of rock called Pastolite, a pastel colored granite. This was where the other FTF cache was supposed to be. We found the cache, however, someone else had beat us to it earlier in the day, so we missed getting the FTF. On the way back we spotted one of the wild burros that inhabit the area. After that cache we did a bunch of caches in the Blythe area, ending up with a total of ten finds for the afternoon. After we got home the four of us went over to Doug and Linda’s coach for dinner. Linda had made a batch of spaghetti, along with both a meat and sausage red sauce, and a shrimp white sauce. Both were excellent. We had a great meal, chatted for a couple of hours and enjoyed the evening. After dinner we went back to our coach for the rest of the night.

Sunday, February 13th was a day of leisure. Other than going outside around sunset for an hour or so of evening cocktails with the Bullocks, we didn’t go anywhere. Monday was Valentine’s Day and again we decided on a quiet day at home. Jackie and I exchanged cards and had a very pleasant day. Jackie was watching the Emmy awards on TV when Barbra Streisand came on singing her song “Evergreen,” which was one of our first romantic songs from back in the seventies when we first met. We had a very nice romantic dance in the kitchen of the motor home as Barbra sang. Later Jackie played a song called “Connected at the Heart” by a group called Ricochet, which was one of our later romantic songs. Once again we danced. We concluded the day with a nice steak dinner on the BBQ with just the two of us. All in all, it was a very quiet, romantic day.

Tuesday, February 15th, we went out with the Bullocks after lunch to do some geocaching in the Blythe area. The caches were pretty far apart, and some were difficult to get to, so we only ended up finding five caches, along with one DNF, for the afternoon. One of the caches took us to the California side of the river, right across from our RV park. After our caching we went into downtown Blythe to try and visit the Elks Lodge there. By way of background, we have been trying to get into the Blythe Elks Lodge for the last five years. We have never been able to find it open, or even figure out conclusively when it is open. Our Elks travel book, which is a couple of years old, says it is open on Tuesday evenings before Lodge meetings, and on Friday evenings for meals. We figured that it would open about five or so on Tuesdays, but nope. Closed, even at 5:30 p.m. We will try one more time on Friday evening to see if we can get in for a visit. After our attempt at the Elks we headed back to the park for cocktails, dinner and relaxing the rest of the night.

Wednesday, February 16th we woke up to cloudy skies and brisk winds. The weather forecast called for a chance of showers and wind all day, so we decided not to try and go out to do any caching. I spent a couple of hours doing our taxes and cleaning up the records for 2010. For the first time in a couple of years we don’t have to pay any additional Federal tax. Yea! Late in the afternoon we started making dinner for the group. We had picked up a couple packages of chicken at the store a few days ago and decided that this was the day we would do a BBQ for everyone. In addition to the Bullocks and the Stoudts, our friends Dave and Karen were coming over. We met Dave and Karen last month at Quartzsite during our campout with Peggy and Vernon’s friends. After Quartzsite Dave and Karen had gone to Yuma, Parker and Lake Havasu, and had just arrived here in Ehrenberg today. We had some snacks with cocktails and then I BBQed the chicken for dinner. Jackie also made a batch of wasabi cole slaw and some broccoli. All eight of us ate inside our coach because it was too cool outside. It was a tight fit, but we got it done. Dinner was great and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. For desert we had ice cream and some of the strawberries that we had gotten direct from the field in Santa Maria back in June of last year. We froze them fresh and they kept great. After everyone left we watched TV the rest of the night.

Thursday, February 17th we stayed around the coach for the day. I spent some time getting five new travel bugs ready for distribution the next time we go caching. Jackie spent a few hours with Peggy doing some sewing and clothing alterations. At 4:00 p.m. the four of us went down to the clubhouse to listen to Doug and Linda give their travelog talk for Fantasy RV Tours. You may recall we met Doug and Linda when they were the “tailgunners” for our Alaska tour in 2009. A few years back Fantasy was bought out from Western Horizons by the employees and Doug and Linda are now among the owners as well as employees of the company. The talk they gave this afternoon was about the 45 day Mexico Yucatan tour, which looked pretty interesting. Although I would not want to do it for a couple of years yet, that is one Mexico tour I might be convinced to embark on. We will see how things go in Mexico. After cocktail hour all of us gathered in Dave and Karen’s rig for dinner. She fixed pork steaks with sauerkraut, mashed potatoes and salad. The dinner was wonderful and we all hung around and chatted until about 8:30 when everyone headed off to their own coaches for the night.

Friday, February 18th we went out after lunch to do some geocaching. Peggy and Vernon took Dave and Karen, who are fairly new to caching, in their Jeep and Jackie and I went out in ours. We took a route South down the Arizona side of the Colorado river to do a series of caches that are hidden along that route. The levee road we were on was gravel, but it was fairly smooth. Ultimately, we ended going about 25 miles or so South of Ehrenberg, as far as the town of Cibola and the Cibola National Wildlife Refuge, and ended up finding nine caches for the afternoon. One of the caches was Dave and Karen’s 200th milestone cache. We also discovered that there is an old one lane bridge across the Colorado that is still in service just North of Cibola. This is also a place where the course of the Colorado River has changed and there is a small piece of ground, a few square miles perhaps, that is on the West side of the river, but is part of the State of Arizona. There is a county park over there, so there is a La Paz County park on the West side of the Colorado. There was a cache right by the old bridge and while we were looking for it we saw a La Paz County Ranger come across the bridge from the park. A nice piece of trivia to use in a bar game sometime.

After caching we went back to the RV park for a quick dinner and then went over to the clubhouse at the park for karaoke. While we were out caching two of the other couples we met at our outing in quartzsite arrived at the park. Curt and Sharon, and Ray and Del were parked just across the road from us. All of us ended up at the karaoke and Sharon, who you may recall is a former professional singer, sang a couple of songs. The rotation was a little longer tonight than it had been last week, but I still got in about six songs for the night. Sang and danced until about 10:30 when we headed home for bed. While we were in karaoke the rain we have been expecting came in and the ground was already a little wet.

Saturday, February 19th started out as a very wet day. It rained the entire night, sometimes fairly heavy. Sometime in the early morning hours there was even a thunderstorm that rolled through. I had my window open just a little so I could hear the thunder, and the rolling echoes off of the mountains to the East. I only saw slight flashes of lightning, so the storm was not directly over us, but I enjoyed listening to the show for a while. It continued to rain hard until shortly after lunch when the skies started to clear. Because it was still pretty cool, and the ground was very wet, we didn’t try to go out and do anything today. In the early evening we went over to Peggy and Vernon’s coach for dinner, along with the rest of group. We had a total of ten people. She fixed a pork roast, stuffed with greens, along with rice and beans and it was wonderful. We stayed over visiting with them after dinner until about 10:30 when we went home and went to bed.

Sunday we stayed at home all day because I wanted to watch the Daytona 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup race. This is the first race of the season for the Cup cars and is usually a pretty good race. Today’s was no exception. The race was won by a rookie driver named Trevor Bayne who had just turned 20 the day before. This was only his second Cup race start and he is the youngest driver ever to win at Daytona. Great race! My favorite, Mark Martin finished in the top ten and had a good day too. We had afternoon cocktails outdoors again now that the wet weather has passed. For dinner we got a couple of pizzas from a little lunch trailer that is parked inside of the RV park. For evening entertainment we went over to Doug and Linda’s coach, along with Peggy and Sharon, to play some cards. We played Hand and Foot, which I haven’t played for over 20 years. My ex and I used to play with my parents a couple times a month when I lived back in Phoenix. It took a couple rounds to remember the game, but Jackie and I came in second. Had a very enjoyable evening.

Monday, February 21st promised to be a nice day, so we decided to do a final day of caching in the Blythe area. When I downloaded the results of my query for the day’s caching I noticed that two days prior someone had put out seven new caches along Highway 95, just North of Blythe. As of the time the query ran no one had logged them yet, so there were seven potential First To Finds (FTF) out there! We also decided that we wanted to have lunch one more time at Garcia’s Mexican restaurant in Blythe, the great little restaurant we found the first week we were here. We went out as a crew, with Doug and Linda in our car, and Karen and Dave with Peggy and Vernon in their Jeep. We all met at Garcia’s, along with Curt and Sharon who just wanted to try the restaurant. After lunch, which was once again great, Curt and Sharon went off to do some errands, while the other four couples headed North to try and catch the FTF’s. When we reached the first one we were disappointed to find that two other caching teams had hit the cache at about 8:30 in the morning, thus earning the FTF. Oh well, at least we got the cache. All seven of the new caches were along about a six mile stretch of the highway and they were all very easy caches. After all four of our teams had found the seven new caches we split up. Peggy and Vernon took Karen and Dave to some caches in the area that were new to Karen and Dave, although Peggy and Vernon, and us, had already found them. This was to help Karen and Dave get their numbers up. Meanwhile, we, along with Doug and Linda, headed Northwest of Blythe along Midland road to some caches about 20 miles away that were new to us.

We had never been up in this area before and we found that the paved road out of Blythe ended in the foothills of the mountains about 20 miles or so Northwest of Blythe at what used to be the community of Midland. From 1925 to the late 1960's Midland was a U. S. Gypsum company town. It was started as a tent city with miners in the middle of the Mojave desert digging gypsum out of the Little Maria Mountains to meet the demands of movie studios. All the winter scenes during the golden age of Hollywood were filmed with “snowflakes” from Midland. The population was approximately one thousand and there were approximately three hundred and thirteen houses. The gypsum plant was leveled in the 1970’s and the houses were sold and moved to Blythe, California and Parker, Arizona. All that is left of the town are some cement foundations left from houses, tennis courts, and some of the mining buildings, and the tallest thing in the area is the elementary school smoke stack. The cache was placed by a woman who’s family lived in Midland most of the time the town was in existence. She was the one who provided most of this history.

After our caching, which netted us ten finds, we went back to the RV park for cocktails and dinner. Dinner tonight was served by Ray and Del in their 5th Wheel and was salad and scratch made lasagna. The lasagna was wonderful. We also played about an hour of a game called “Catch Phrase”, which is kind of like the old “Password” TV show. Give hints to try to get your team guess the phrase you are trying to convey. We had some really good laughs, especially when Doug used the hint “oral sex” to try and get us to guess “Sodom and Gomorrah”. By the way, once he added “biblical cities” I got the answer! After dinner we headed home for the rest of the night.

Tuesday, February 22nd we spent the afternoon getting ready to leave on Wednesday. We did our laundry at the park’s laundry and then I spent a couple hours packing up the outside decorations. We had our usual happy hour on the grass behind the coaches watching the river roll by. We were surprised to find that Darrel Larson had come to the park yesterday. We had met Darrel last April when we were here in Ehrenberg. He was a couple coaches down from us and we had cocktails with him and several other couples almost every night. He is a single traveler who used to be a commercial fisherman in Alaska. When his last boat sank in a storm he decided to retire and travel in warmer climes. We knew he was in town because he is now caching and he picked up one of our travel bugs. We get notified when someone moves a bug we own, and on the log he mentioned that he met us last year here in Ehrenberg. We asked him to come to happy hour and he did. It seems that back in April we talked so much about geocaching that he got interested and became hooked. He already has over a thousand finds. We got another convert! Yea us.

After happy hour we all went over to Curt and Sharon’s coach for dinner. They have a Knight like ours but a year newer. The twelve of us had a pot luck dinner that was very good. Around 9:00 or so we called it a night and headed back to our coach.

Wednesday, February 23rd was another travel day. We packed up the coach and left Ehrenberg about 10:00 a.m. on our way to the Yuma area. We are actually going to Pilot Knob, one of our membership parks, which is located about nine miles West of Yuma on the California side of the border, in a town called Winterhaven. We have been to Pilot Knob many times in the past and we really like the Yuma, Arizona area. The trip was about 110 miles South on U.S. 95 and took us a couple of hours. We arrived at Pilot Knob around noon and managed to get two very nice North-facing spots side by side with the Bullocks, who moved down to Winterhaven with us. We will be here for two weeks.

With our arrival here in the Yuma, Arizona area I will close this episode out and get it on line. Thanks for reading our story and until the next Chapter, stay happy, be safe, and enjoy every moment of life.

Chilling (Literally) In the Arizona Desert

Greetings again readers. Welcome back to our story. Our previous episode ended on Thursday, January 27th with our arrival in Salome, Arizona at the Desert Vista RV Resort. This is one of our membership parks in the Resorts of Distinction (ROD) network. It was recently sold to a company called Encore Resorts, but they kept the ROD affiliation. We were happy about that because, even though the place is pretty remote, we enjoy coming here for a couple weeks each year. There is a lot of desert to explore and it can be a relaxing place. The RV park is actually located a couple of miles South of Salome on U.S. Highway 60 in a community called Harcuvar, named after a local mountain range. Salome is a small ranching community, founded in 1904 by a guy named Charles Pratt and two brothers, Earnest and Dick Wick Hall. Pratt was founding the town as a support base for a new railroad through the Eastern Arizona Territory and was speculating on where the railroad would lay its tracks, Unfortunately, he miscalculated by a mile so the community had to be moved to its present location a couple years later. The Post Office was established April 14th, 1905, and later moved to the current town site in 1906.

Dick Wick Hall was a widely known wit who published many stories in the Saturday Evening Post. Born in 1877 in Creston, Iowa, Dick's given name was DeForest Hall, He was a well known journalist and "political operative." In honor of his mentor, Henry Wickenburg, the miner after whom the town of Wickenburg, Arizona is named, he changed his name to "Dick Wick Hall." Hall died suddenly in 1926. You can find Dick Wick Hall's grave site in Salome on Center Street 2 blocks North of Hwy 60.

After settling in on Thursday we decided to just stay in for the rest of the day. We did some house cleaning to get rid of the dust we accumulated during our stay in Quartzsite. We got together with Peggy and Vernon Bullock, our friends who have been traveling with us for the last month, for cocktails and a dinner of leftover sushi and Halibut chowder which Jackie had made for the group in Quartzsite.

Friday, January 28th was also designated a day of leisure. It seems like we have been on the run and busy ever since our arrival in Indio before Christmas, so we felt we needed a down day. Salome is a great place to do that and the weather was perfect, temperatures in the low seventies and clear blue skies. We spent the entire day around the coach, just playing games and watching TV. Jackie made an enchilada casserole for dinner and we had cocktails and dinner with the Bullocks.

Saturday we loaded the car with us, Peggy and Vernon and their puppy Belle and left before lunch for a road trip. We needed to do some light shopping and wanted to go to a Walmart, the closest of which was in Parker, Arizona, on the Colorado River about 50 miles Northwest of Salome. We decided to make a day of it and did some caching along the way to Parker. When we got into town we stopped for lunch at a great Mexican restaurant called El Serape. We didn’t know where to eat and while we were looking for cache in a city park in Parker there was a Border Patrol agent parked in the parking lot watching traffic. Jackie and Peggy walked over and asked her where to eat. She said that there always seemed to be a lot of cars in the parking lot of the El Serape, but she had never eaten there. Since we all love Mexican food, and a lot of cars is usually a good sign, we went there. The food was excellent, as was the service. It was also reasonably priced. We would highly recommend the place which is right on U.S. 95, which is Riverside Drive, South of the airport.

After lunch we did some more caching in the Parker area. We ended up with a total of eight caches with no DNFs. We then made a quick stop at the Parker Elks Lodge for a refreshment. We had been to this lodge back in 2005, but had not been back since. Peggy and Vernon got a lodge pin for their budding collection, however, we already have one on our banner. After the lodge visit we hit Walmart and then drove the hour back to Salome. The lunch was so good, and so filling we didn’t even do dinner.

Monday, January 31st - Holy cow, the first month of the new year already ending! The weather this morning was cool and very windy, not good caching weather in the desert. We decided to do our laundry after lunch right here at the park. Later in the evening we joined Peggy and Vernon for cocktails and then BBQed some burgers for dinner. Peggy and Vernon had gone out in the afternoon to do some geocaching on their own. After finding their first cache in Salome, they headed out into the desert for their second and ended up punching a hole in one of their Jeep’s tires. End of caching for the day. Bummer. When he took it to a local place for repair they told him the tear was in the sidewall and was not repairable. I guess we will be out with them looking for a tire somewhere in the next day or two.

Tuesday, the 1st day of February already. The morning was again cool (40 degrees) and windy. Vernon has decided to just wait until we get to Ehrenburg, Arizona, near Blythe, California, next week to get tires. There is no where close to where we are in Salome to get a used tire of the right size to use as a spare. After lunch, when it warmed up a bit, the four of us went out to do some caching. We were doing desert caching which greatly increases the time between finds, so we were only able to get six caches in a about three hours. Nonetheless, we had fun and rode some interesting Jeep trails out in the desert, including one that led to an old mine site. The cache was inside of the remains of an old rock cabin. Very cool. After caching we went back to the RV park, had cocktails with the Bullocks and then spent a relaxing night at home.

Wednesday, February 2nd we woke up with no water because the supply hose outside was frozen solid! The outside thermometer said it was 27 degrees and there were icicles hanging down from under the coach near the bay where the water and sewer connections go in. I have a slight water leak and when the water hit the outside air it froze. Yikes. The wind is still blowing too, so I am guessing the wind chill temperature is in the teens. Way too cold for Arizona. Fortunately, the furnaces worked to heat up the coach and I had water in the fresh water tank so we were able to turn on our internal water source and didn’t have to rely on the outside supply. I also ran down to the store and bought an inexpensive automotive work light and a 100 watt bulb to use to keep the bay with the water pump and bottom of the fresh water tank, from freezing. Since the bay is closed in, putting a lit 100 bulb inside produces enough heat to keep the interior above freezing, which would be bad for the internal plumbing of the coach since it is all plastic piping.

We decided it was way too cold and windy to do anything, the weather forecast said it was only going to get up to 42 today. We stayed in until after lunch when the four of us, we and Peggy and Vernon, went down to the park’s pool/card room and we taught them how to play Texas hold’em poker. They knew basic poker, but had never played the hold’em variety. We played for a couple of hours and had a good time. I then went home and made a big pot of chili for dinner. Peggy and Vernon came over for cocktails and dinner with us. The chili turned out great, especially nice on a cold day. After dinner we chatted for a bit and after Peggy and Vernon left we relaxed the rest of the evening.

Thursday, February 3rd was another very cold morning, 25 degrees this time. The outside water supply was disconnected so we didn’t have to worry about not having water this time. My light bulb heater in the water bay kept everything down there from freezing, so we still had water for showers and such. About 10:00 a.m. the four of us got in our car for a day of caching and sightseeing in Wickenburg, Arizona, about 55 miles Northeast of Salome. We had a little issue when we first started out because the tire pressure monitoring system on our Jeep was showing a low tire. I was fairly certain that it was only because it was so cold outside - tire pressure is temperature sensitive, getting lower with the cold. The indicator showed it was only one pound below the “low air” threshold, so I drove the car on the highway for a mile or so and watched as the pressure came up like it should as the tire warmed up from the driving. I stopped for fuel and afterwards all the tires showed normal pressure, but my warning light was still flashing. I really didn’t want to drive over 50 miles with a warning light, even though I was fairly certain the pressures were OK, so I started back towards the park. About halfway there the sensors finally decided the pressures were OK and the light went out. I then turned back around and started towards Wickenburg.

We did one geocache about halfway between Salome and Wickenburg, but after arrival in town headed for the Horseshoe Café in downtown Wickenburg for lunch. We had eaten here last year and found it to be a great little café. It is a small, hometown type place with a dozen tables that seemed to be a favorite of the locals. It has also been cited by Arizona Highways, a very respected publication, as one of the ten best places to eat in Arizona. We again had a great meal, with great prices and wonderful, friendly service. Peggy and Vernon agreed that it was a great place to eat. Anyone in Wickenburg around breakfast or lunch (not open at night) could not do better than the Horseshoe Café right on Highway 60, a block East of the Highway 93 turnoff.

After lunch we started doing some geocaching in the Wickenburg area. We ended up with a total of 10 caches for the afternoon, including the one we did on the way to town. We found a couple of interesting places including the Hassayampa River Preserve, just South of town on Highway 60. The Preserve is on the site of a turn of the century dude ranch and includes a visitor’s center with nice exhibits on the flora and fauna of the central Arizona desert, and a series of nice hiking trails. We toured the visitor’s center to get the clues we needed for the cache find, but didn’t do any hiking. It was still in the low 40's so it was a little chilly for walking around. We also did a cache on the site of one of the original Arizona highway rest stops. Highway 60, which runs Northwest out of the Phoenix area to Wickenburg, and then back Southwest out of Wickenburg back towards I-10 and into California, was the main route from Phoenix to Los Angeles up until the 1980's when they finally put I-10 through from Quartzsite to Phoenix. Back before freeways Arizona used to put up rest areas along the main highways which consisted of a parking area with a couple of ramadas with picnic tables which had palm fronds on the roof for shade. Some had BBQ grills for cooking lunch. The one along Highway 60 about ten miles South of Wickenburg still has the original low stone wall which used to separate the rest area from the road, along with two large stone BBQ fireplaces. The ramadas and picnic tables are no longer there and the rest area is located on what appears to be a hill above the road. Actually, when they built the new four lane divided road back in the 70's they cut through the hill, so the rest area is actually on the original grade of the road. We would have never noticed the rest area except for the cache because it is a dozen feet above the current road grade. After caching we did a little light shopping and then headed home where we crashed for the night. By the way, our caching efforts today put us over the 2,100 finds milestone. Yea!

Friday, February 4th, the freeze has finally lifted! We woke up to a temperature over the freezing mark. Not very far mind you, 34 degrees, but nonetheless above the ice point. We decided to have a “home” day, so we just stayed in, watched TV, working on the computers, and took care of some light chores.

Saturday, February 5th - Happy Birthday to Me! I woke up this morning with “will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four,” the lyrics to Paul McCartney’s “When I’m 64," going through my head. They stuck with me all day. That, and the thought that in a 360 days I will be on Medicare! Yea! About 1:30 in the afternoon we got in the car, along with the Bullocks, and headed for Quartzsite for some caching and my birthday dinner. We cached for a couple hours, finding a total of five caches. We also made a couple of shopping stops in Quartzsite. Around 4:00 we stopped for dinner. I had decided that I wanted to go to a place called The Grubstake in Quartzsite. It’s a rugged cowboy bar and restaurant on the North end of town that we have eaten at a couple times during previous visits to Quartzsite they have a lot of stuff on the menu, but I haven’t had anything other than the fish and chips, which is their trademark item. On Fridays during the RV show period, which is when we are normally in Quartzsite, the line to get in the place is an hour or more for their all you can eat fish dinner. It is, by far, the best fish and chips dinner I have had, anywhere, ever! Although it is all you can eat on Fridays, I don’t believe I have ever seen anyone order more. The initial order, which is the normal portion (available anytime), is two huge pieces of Haddock, a giant pile of fries, and some coleslaw. It is more than enough for most people, including me. I managed to finish mine, but Jackie took some home with her. After dinner we drove back to Salome, about 40 miles, and made it home before dark. Weather point, it made it up to 70 today - the cold spell has passed. Yippee.

Super Bowl Sunday, February 6th, dawned showing promise of another mild day. We spent the morning and early afternoon relaxing in the coach. About 4:00 p.m. Peggy and Vernon came over to watch the big game with us. We would have liked to watch it on the big screen outside, but with the game being late in the afternoon it would be a bit too chilly. We set out the snacks and cocktails and watched my Green Bay Packers take the Steelers to school! I think they did quite well for an underdog team. Although I grew up for the most part in Arizona, I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and have always been a Packers fan. I mean, it’s not like I am a huge football fan - the super bowl is probably the only game I watch end to end all year - but if someone had asked who I was rooting for, it would have been the Packers. Go Cheeseheads! After the game Peggy and Vernon headed back to their coach and we chilled the rest of the night.

Monday, February 7th was our seventh wedding anniversary. We don’t exchange gifts on any holidays, birthdays or anniversaries, but we did exchange cards. Happy, happy us!! After lunch we got into Peggy and Vernon’s Jeep for an afternoon of caching. Peggy and Vernon have a Jeep Wrangler, the four door version, and enjoy getting out on the back roads. Unfortunately, they have been hobbled for the last week without a spare tire. As I mentioned about a week ago, they went out geocaching on their own one morning and cut a tire and have had problems finding a replacement spare. Saturday, while we were in Quartzsite we stopped at a tire shop and found that they had a used tire of the right size. Yesterday Vernon took the Jeep in and had it mounted and now they are back in business, so today we are going out to do some “real” Jeeping. (Some Wrangler owners don’t think Grand Cherokees are “real Jeeps”)

Today’s destination was Alamo Lake, a large manmade lake about 45 miles North of Salome on the Bill Williams River. Back in the 80's I used to go fishing at Alamo Lake a lot. It is (or at least used to be) one of the best big mouth bass lakes in the state. I also recall from camping up there a couple times that it is also the rattlesnake capital of Arizona, at least in the winter. I saw more rattlers up there in one weekend than I saw all the rest of the time I lived and camped in Arizona. We picked up one cache off the road on the way up to the lake and then got seven more around the lake itself. Surprisingly, we found three FTF caches up there. FTF means “first to find” and in caching is considered a big deal. The first person to find a new cache after it is published gets the FTF. In all of our caching we only have two and both were from back in 2008 in Iowa. I had seen these FTFs almost a week ago, but we didn’t think we would get up to Alamo. When we decided to go up there the caches still did not show anyone having found them. Sure enough, when we found the caches there were no signatures on the logs. YEA! Since Peggy and Vernon are fairly new to caching we let them take two of the FTFs and we took one. On the way back from caching we stopped at two other caches just to round out the numbers to ten finds. After we got back to the RV park we sat outside with Peggy and Vernon until sunset having cocktails and chatting. This was the first time it was nice enough in the late afternoon to sit outside and enjoy it. After dark we went in the coach for dinner and TV.

Tuesday, February 8th was another anniversary of sorts for us. February 8th was the day I reunited with Jackie after being out of contact for 21 years. I had first met her in Hawthorne, California back in 1976 while on a prisoner transportation trip. I worked for the Sheriff’s Office in Phoenix and was assigned to the fugitive apprehension unit. We saw each other off and on over the course of a year or so until I was transferred to narcotics enforcement and stopped traveling out of state. In early 1998 I relocated her on the internet through her real estate license, which I remembered she had, contacted her and ultimately went to visit her on February 8th, 1998. Six months later I moved from Phoenix to Indio to be with her. We have always celebrated this “reunion” anniversary.

Around mid-morning we climbed back into Peggy and Vernon’s Jeep and went out to do some back country caching. Vernon likes to visit old mines and ghost towns and we had told him about a cache located near an old mine called the Yuma Mine. I told him it was a couple of miles up into the mountains on some rough trails, but that we had visited it last year and enjoyed it. It was also only about 20 miles or so from the RV park. They were game so we headed up there, ultimately arriving at the Yuma Mine. We found the cache and were looking around the mine area when a big four wheel drive truck came up the road and stopped. Since the road dead ends at the mine, we knew they were coming here. It turned out to be a couple of older guys who have leased the mine, along with a number of other mining claims in the area. We chatted with them for quite a while, learning the history of the mine, which we had never known. It turns out that the mine, which was a horizontal shaft into the mountain rather than the more common vertical shaft, was a copper mine. It was originally started during WW-II and produced copper ore for the war effort. The usable copper ran out, but the owners continued until the 90's working the mine for semi precious stones such as malachite and chrysocolla. The guys we were talking to were looking for more veins of these type of stones in a number of them mines in the area.

After the mine trip we drove back down towards the RV park and did a couple of other caches before driving into Salome and eating a late lunch/early dinner at the diner there. The restaurant, now called the Salome Café, started out as Sheffler’s Café and Soda Fountain back in the 40's when Highway 60 was the primary route from Phoenix to Los Angeles. There is still a Sheffler’s motel right across the street from the café. The food was pretty simple diner fare, but pretty tasty. After lunch we went back to the park and I spent a hour or so packing things up in preparation for our departure the next day.

Wednesday, February 9th was another travel day. We were only going 54 miles, from Salome, Arizona to Ehrenberg, Arizona located on the Colorado River just off of I-10, across the river from Blythe, California. We left Salome about 10:00 and arrived an hour or so later at the Colorado River Oasis RV Resort in Ehrenberg. Since the distance was so short we didn’t even hook up the car in tow - Jackie just followed me. This park is another one of our Western Horizon parks and we will be here for two weeks. We got a nice spot at the back of the resort, only a couple hundred feet from the river. I can see the river flowing by out of the back window of the coach as I write this. Very soothing. Peggy and Vernon, who are still traveling with us, got a spot right next to ours. We spent most of the afternoon getting settled in. About 3:00 p.m. we got together in Peggy and Vernon’s coach along with Doug and Linda Stoudt, some other friends of ours. Regular readers may recall that Doug and Linda were our “tail gunners” on the Alaska trip back in 2009. The tail gunner is part of the staff that takes care of the caravan participants. This was the same trip that we first met Peggy and Vernon on, so it was a reunion of sorts. We spent the evening talking, catching up and having a light dinner of tacos and rice.

Our arrival here in Ehrenburg will close this episode of our travel chronicle. We will publish again in a couple weeks when we leave here and head South to the Yuma area. Until our next chapter, stay safe, be happy and enjoy every day to the fullest.