Kicking Off The 2010 Motorcoach Rally Tour

Welcome back loyal followers. Our last chapter ended on January 5th when we arrived at the FMCA Western Area rally in Indio, California. We arrived Tuesday morning and got parked in pretty short order and had a pretty decent spot. Not nearly as close to the activities as we were last year when we were able to get into the handicap area, but this year I had no impending surgery to use as an excuse to get good parking. At least we were in a paved lot with 20 amp electric service. We had not expected any utilities, water, sewer or electric and came prepared. I had a full water tank, empty waste tanks and a full tank of fuel so I could run the generator as necessary. Having the electric meant we wouldn’t have to use the generator. 20 amp won’t run an air conditioner, but it is enough to keep the batteries charged and work the lights and TVs. We are about a quarter mile from the main part of the fairgrounds where the activities are, but the weather is nice and expected to stay nice for the whole week.

None of the activities of the rally started until Wednesday, so we didn’t have too much to do on Tuesday. We were originally going to go to a late lunch with a friend of Jackie’s from church, but about an hour before we were supposed to meet she called and cancelled because she didn’t feel well. Since we hadn’t had any lunch we left the fairgrounds and went down the street to one of our favorite Mexican places, Taqueria Gurerro.. Jose Guerrero is an acquaintance of Jackie’s and he has several taquerias in Indio, as well as a Mexican market. The food is simple, but very good and very authentic. Guerrero’s is always one of the restaurants on our list of “must visits” when we come to the Coachella Valley. The newest one, and the one closest to the fairgrounds is at 48th Ave and Jackson, in a strip mall. When we go there we are usually the only non-Mexicans in the place, always a good sign for a Mexican restaurant. I would highly recommend Guerrero’s to anyone looking for good, fast and authentic Mexican. After lunch we spent the rest of the day hanging out at the coach.

Wednesday afternoon we headed into the fairgrounds for the first of the rally activities, a chapter fair. Chapter fairs are often held at rallies to give the various chapters an opportunity to set up a table and “sell” themselves to the attendees. Almost all of the chapters at this fair would be affiliated with the Western Area of FMCA, which is basically California and Nevada. There were several dozen chapters set up in the hall and we walked around and talked to several. We also ran into a lot of people we hadn’t seen in about a year. We have gotten to know a lot of people from our attendance at various rallies over the years and many of them were here. Most of them we had not seen for nearly a year since we didn’t do any rallies this past year. Our last rally was this same Western Area rally last January. It was enjoyable catching up with many of our friends and acquaintances.

After the chapter fair we walked over to the coach sales area to check out the coaches for sale. They don’t have as many coaches at these area rallies as they do at the big FMCA conventions, but there were probably 30 or 40 coaches to look at. At the conventions there may be hundreds to look at. We spent a couple hours looking at coaches and, as usual, didn’t find anything that made us really want to give up our current house for a new one. After looking at coaches we went back to the coach for the night.

Thursday, January 7th was the day the seminars started and the vendor area opened up for shopping. I walked over for a seminar on tire pressure monitoring systems in the morning. I have been wanting to get some sort of a system for a while now and decided that I was going to get one at this rally. I wanted to do a little research to find the best system. Essentially, the purpose of the systems are to enable you to watch the pressure in all of your tires, coach and tow car, while driving. This way if you have a tire going down you can stop before it gets low enough to blow out and cause damage or an accident. They all work pretty much the same way, there is a sensor that goes on each tire or wheel which transmits a wireless signal to the receiver up in the drivers area. Different systems have different types of sensors, but they all do pretty much the same thing. After the seminar I had pretty much made up my mind which one I wanted and later on during the rally I bought one. The total cost was $500 but I will feel a lot safer while driving knowing what the tire pressures are and having the alarm features letting me know when a problem is developing. After lunch Jackie and I both went over and spent several hours walking through the vendor area. After the vendors and seminars quit for the day we stayed to watch the parade. The Western Area rally always features a parade on the first full day of the rally. Various chapters put together costumes and floats reflecting the theme of the rally for the year. This year’s theme was “Glorious Days of the Silver Screen” and there were some great costumes presenting characters from various movies. The Wizard of Oz was a popular one, there were at least three chapters that did the Wizard. The parade was a lot of fun. After the parade we headed over to Barry and Colleen’s for a quick visit and cocktail.

Friday afternoon we walked around the rally area just meeting people and enjoying the various activities. Friday was the day I bought my tire pressure monitoring system and Jackie also bought a central vacuum system for the coach. She has wanted one of those for a while as well. Friday evening we headed over to Cactus Jack’s for dinner. W e had made arrangements with a number of our friends to have dinner at Jack’s that night and we had a table for 10 reserved. Barry and Colleen were there, as were Dick and Ginger, some friends of ours from Desert Hot Springs. We also had Ray and Suzie and Gary and Ramona, some of our full timer friends. Ray is the vice president of the 100%ers Chapter that I am the president of. We had a great dinner with a lot of nice conversation.

Saturday afternoon we went back over to the activities area and met Barry and Colleen who had come over on a day pass just to do some shopping and look at the new coaches. We spent the afternoon with them, looking at coaches and walking through the vendor area. Barry ended up buying a tire pressure system too, the same one I got. Later we went to Cactus Jack’s for a happy hour cocktail. That night I went out and picked up a Round Table pizza for dinner. Round Table is still our favorite pizza joint.

Sunday was the end of the rally and I heard coaches starting up and leaving at about 6 a.m. We weren’t in that big a hurry and waited until about 10 before we pulled out. We got on the freeway and headed East towards Arizona and our next stop, Brenda, Arizona. We had about 140 miles or so to drive and ended up getting to the RV park in Brenda by mid afternoon. We are staying at the Black Rock RV Resort for a week. Brenda is about 20 miles East of Quartzsite, Arizona, so we will be close enough to go into Quartzsite for some shopping. Quartzsite in January is the scene of several big “shows” including the RV show and the rock and mineral show. There are hundreds of vendors that set up and there are generally close to 100,000 RVs of various types parked in and around Quartzsite. It is really quite a “happening” for anyone who enjoys the RV lifestyle. Black Rock is a full service RV park so we have 50 amp with water and sewer for the week. After our week here we will head into Quartzsite proper for the International Area rally. At this rally we will be dry camping (no hookups), so we wanted to have a nice comfortable week prior. My tire pressure system worked well on the trip over. I was surprised by how much the pressure in the tires rose as a result of driving. The Coach tires went up nearly 20 pounds in pressure and the car tires about 12 pounds. That was driving in pretty cool weather at 55 miles per hour. I can only imagine how high the pressure can get in the middle of summer, in the desert, at 65 or 70, speeds I have seen some idiot motor home drivers doing. Scary!

Monday we decided to take a drive into Quartzsite after lunch just to see what was going on. We stopped at Tyson Wells which is the BIG outdoor shopping area on the South side of the freeway. During the shows (RV and rock) there are hundreds of vendors set up in this area. Since the RV show doesn’t open until later this week most of the vendors were still setting up their booths. We did walk around and look at the couple of dozen that were already set up. We also stopped at the RV supply store and hardware store for some minor maintenance stuff we needed. After shopping we headed back to Brenda and stopped in at the Desert Gold RV park, right across the highway from our RV park, and visited with Bob and Bette Thomas. Bob and Bette are the Secretary and Treasurer of the 100%ers Chapter of FMCA, of which I am the President. We have known them since our first rally in 2005 and cross paths with them several times each year. They are getting on in years, Bob is in his 80's, but they still travel full time, going back and forth across the country every year. They are originally from New Jersey and go back there every summer, then back out to the Western part of the country in the winter.

Tuesday, January 12th was a leisure day. I did spend an hour installing Jackie’s new central vac system, but other than that we just relaxed and hung around the coach. Wednesday we went out after lunch to do some geocaching. We were able to find eight caches in a couple of hours. We also had time to stop and do some shopping in Quartzsite in between caches. We also met another caching couple at one of the caches in Quartzsite. As long as we have been caching, nearly two years now, we find we rarely run into other cachers in the field. This couple is probably only the fourth or fifth we have met. We were at a cache when they drove by and stopped to talk to us. They figured we must have been cachers because they had just found the cache earlier in the day and saw us standing near it, out in the middle of the desert trying to look inconspicuous. Anyway, we had a nice chat with them and promised to come visit them later in the week. They are dry camping in the desert South of Quartzsite with a bunch of other people from Oregon. They are Russ and Nellie and are from Grants Pass, Oregon. They seem like very interesting people. Among other things, Russ is a hot air balloon pilot and they have their own balloon. Since we to the Grants Pass area frequently I see a possible hot air balloon ride in our future. After we got back to the coach we went to the Black Rock Café, which is in the same building as the office for our RV park, and had dinner. They had liver and onions on the special and we both love liver. The dinner was great. We have eaten at this café in the past and they always have great food.

Thursday we decided to be a little more adventurous in our caching. Most of our caching recently has been urban or fairly easy desert caching. Today we put our sights on a couple of caches that were true desert caches. One was in the mountains about 15 miles Northwest of Brenda, called the Yuma Mine Cache. When I lived in Arizona years ago I used to enjoy going out and exploring old ghost towns and mining sites, so I wanted to give this one a try. The cache was about 7 miles off the nearest paved road, but except for a couple of rough spots, was a fairly reasonable gravel road. There were a couple of places where I had to go very slow over some very rocky areas - don’t want to break our nice new Jeep! We finally got to the place and found a true abandoned mine site. There were a number of shafts in the area, both vertical and horizontal, as well as an old mill structure and “residence”, which was really an old dilapidated trailer and shack.

We found the cache and then decided that this was a good place to do some target shooting. I have a very nice old Colt 1903 hammerless .32 Cal. automatic that I had gotten from my dad when he died. Although I didn’t get the entire story, I remember him telling me that he had gotten the pistol from some criminal he had arrested back in the 50's when he was a cop with the Milwaukee Police Department. He said back in those days the courts would give you guns that you seized after the court proceedings were complete. I have done some research on these weapons and found that, according to the serial number, the one I own was made in 1920. This particular weapon was very popular with criminals and gangsters back in the 20's, 30's and 40's because it was small and light and easy to carry. In fact, it is referred to as a “pocket pistol” in the literature. All of the famous gangsters, Capone, Dillinger, and others were said to have carried one of these Colt automatics in their pocket as a “spare” gun.

I have had the gun in storage since my dad died in 2002, but I decided that, since I now had my Federal concealed weapons permit, I would get it out and carry it in the car. I already have a 9mm that I keep in the coach. I got the old .32 out of storage in January, but I hadn’t had a chance to shoot it yet. Frankly, I wasn’t even positive it worked. It does. We shot up a few dozen rounds just to make sure everything was working right and it performed very well for a 90 year old! Even Jackie got to shoot. She had never shot a gun before and was very excited to be able to shoot a few rounds at a stick. Since the gun is a small caliber, .32, it doesn’t have too much of a kick, so it’s easy to handle. Now that I know the weapon works I will feel more confident with it in the glove box of the car.

After driving out of the desert from that cache we went out to another desert cache that required us to drive about 3 miles out into the desert and then walk another quarter mile. We found this cache also. So for the whole afternoon we only got two caches, but we had a great time and saw some wonderful scenery. By the way, the car (which regular readers will remember had its problems early on) performed flawlessly. Yea!!

Friday, January 15th we headed back into Quartzsite after lunch to do some shopping at Tyson Wells which was now fully opened. We also had plans for dinner with Doug and Linda Stoudt, some friends from our Alaska caravan this past summer. Doug and Linda were the “tailgunners” on that trip. The tailgunners are the caravan staff that leave a campground last and make sure that nobody gets left behind or has problems on the road that go undetected. We hit it off really well with them on the caravan and, although we have been in email contact, have not seen them since the caravan ended in British Columbia back in August. After about two hours of walking around looking at stuff, we met up with Doug and Linda, and some friends of theirs from another caravan they had worked. Allen and Tina are from Calgary, Alberta and had gone with Doug and Linda on a caravan to Mexico. The six of us then went to a great restaurant called Grubstake, which is located about a mile North of Quartzsite on Hwy 95. I wrote about this place last January as having the BEST fish and chips I have ever tasted. Friday is all you can eat fish night, although the portions they give at the beginning don’t usually necessitate having to ask for seconds. The only problem is that the place is packed every night, but especially on Fridays. We got there early and were lucky to get a table quickly, but it still took over an hour to get our food. This was not a problem, however, because we had drinks and had a great chance to talk and catch up with Doug and Linda and to get to know Allen and Tina. As it turns out, all three of us had the same model of motor home, the Monaco Knight. Doug and Linda have the same floor plan we have, but theirs is an 06. Allen and Tina have an 05 like ours, but a different floor plan. Small world. After a very nice dinner we headed back the 20 miles to Brenda and settled in for the night.

Saturday was a chores day. We did our laundry for the first time in two weeks. Having clean clothes is not the problem, we have enough clothes for six weeks. The problem is having a place to put all the dirty clothes. After two weeks the corner of the bedroom we lovingly call our hamper gets pretty full. We know its time to wash when the dirty clothes start to approach the edge of the bed. We also put all of our outside stuff away in preparation for our move to Quartzsite on Sunday.

Sunday, January 17th we left Brenda and headed 20 miles to the Southeast to Quartzsite. We will be going into a rally on Monday and we had wanted to stay one more day in Brenda, but the park just couldn’t find a space for us Sunday night. We left Brenda about 10:00 a.m. and it only took about 30 minutes to get to Quartzsite where we found a dry camping spot in the same RV park where the rally will be held. Since we will be dry camping (no water, electric or sewer connections) it didn’t take too long to set up. Park, put out the slides and level the coach. Done! After getting set up we headed to the “big tent” and the Quartzsite RV show. The annual RV show had started on Friday and the “big tent” is just that, a huge tent in which all of the RV related vendors set up shop. The show runs for two weeks. We spent several hours walking the tent and looking at all the vendors. Some of them had also been in Indio the week before, so we saw some of the same stuff. One of the repeat vendors was the guy I bought the tire pressure monitoring system from, which was nice because I had found that one of the sensors in my set was leaking. The leak was very minor, but was a problem nonetheless. I took the sensor with me and when I mentioned it to the guy he immediately took it and gave me a new one. Good customer service. After our shopping trip we went back to the coach and relaxed for the rest of the night.

Monday, January 18th was the first day of preparation for the International Area Rally for FMCA. The rally is being advertised as a “back to basics” rally, which essentially means that most everyone will be dry camping in a big empty lot and the activities will be held in a big temporary tent. The actual rally activities don’t start until Wednesday afternoon, but the rally organizers have asked Jackie and I to help out as volunteers. I will be handling the making and placing of the various signs for the rally. This includes directional signs on the roads coming into the rally area and the various signs needed in and around the tent. I will also be the sound man for various activities and the MC of the talent show. They also want me to do karaoke one night. These are pretty much the same things I did for the International Area Rally in Oshkosh, Wisconsin back in the summer of 2008.

I got busy making and putting out the directional signs, which kept me busy most of the day. The tent company came out and worked on putting up the tent and the rally parking crew was out marking the parking areas for the coaches. They are expecting about 400 coaches at the rally, so it will be busy. The major problem for the day is that some of the rally participants are coming in while the rally organizers are still trying to get organized. Normally, the various volunteer groups get to come in several days before the rally participants so that everything gets set up before the “customers” start to show up. This time, because of some contractual glitches with the RV park owner, the first day of early parking for the rally participants is Monday, the first day that any of the organizers can get in to start getting ready. Needless to say, it was a very confusing and sometimes frustrating day as coaches starting coming in looking for someone to help get them parked before the parking crew even had the parking laid out. Yikes.

The next day, Tuesday, I had pretty much completed my sign work so we took the afternoon off and headed back into the shopping areas to do walk around and do some more shopping. Later on that evening the rally had a hot dog and hamburger dinner for the volunteers in the tent. Unfortunately, late Tuesday (actually early Wednesday morning) we were awakened by a phone call from the lady who runs the nursing home in San Diego where Jackie’s mom Beverly is living. She told Jackie that on Monday Beverly had fallen while trying to walk without her walker. She didn’t seem to be in too much distress, so they didn’t call for medical assistance. On Tuesday morning when Beverly woke up she found she couldn’t get out of bed. The paramedics came and took her to the hospital where they found she had broken her hip. The lady at the nursing home said that she had trouble finding Jackie’s phone number, so that is why the call was so late.

Wednesday morning Jackie went over to the information booth for her volunteer duties. Later on she called the hospital to check on her mom and found that she was resting comfortably and in no immediate danger or distress. Since we will be going back to the Coachella Valley on Sunday, and had already planned to go down and visit Jackie’s mom on Monday, we decided that no immediate changes in our plans were needed.

Wednesday was the first “official” rally day and the registration and information booth was pretty busy. Later on that afternoon the wind came up pretty heavy and I had to spend some time running around repairing my directional signs on the roads. The wind would knock them down and I had to go out and nail them back up again. Thankfully, by Wednesday night most everyone who was going to come to the rally would be there and I wouldn’t have to worry about the signage on the roads anymore. That afternoon it started raining, but it wasn’t too bad. The grounds we are on are fairly flat with quite a bit of rock, so the mud is not too bad. Unfortunately, the tent doesn’t have a floor, so the inside of the tent was a wet and muddy as the outside because the water just runs under the sides of the tent. It wasn’t bad enough to stop the evening bingo session, however. Jackie and I both played, but didn’t win anything. For the coverall game one of the RV dealerships had donated a $500 prize which would have been nice to win.

Thursday, January 21st we woke up to rain. It had rained on and off most of the night and was still raining. I had to get up and out early, about 7:30, because I had to set up the sound system in the tent for the Frustrated Maestros. The Maestros are a chapter of FMCA that is comprised of people who like to sing and/or play instruments. They entertain at the various FMCA rallies. The International Area rallies always provide a breakfast in the morning and the Maestros play and
sing for an hour as entertainment. I was the sound guy for the show. Not too long after breakfast the rains really picked up and by 1:00 p.m. it was a deluge. We were experiencing the same severe storm system that had hit Los Angeles the day before. The rally had several evening events scheduled, including a hot dog cookout for all rally attendees, and a chapter fair, talent show and karaoke session, which I was going to MC and host. However, the rain never let up and only got worse. About 3:00 p.m. or so the rally organizers decided that they needed to cancel all the events for Thursday evening. The water was six inches deep in the tent and the rain was coming down so hard we could hardly see the tent, and we were only parked about 100 feet away from it! All of the activities were rescheduled to Saturday afternoon and we had the evening off. Not that we were going to go anywhere in the terrible storm. The wind was blowing 50 mph and the rain was coming in sheets. We had a very nice little river running right through the parking lot in front of our coach. We had also heard from some friends who were working a booth in the “big tent” at the RV show that the tent had been evacuated and the show closed because of the storm. The water was coming in a flooding the floor and they tent was blowing around so bad they didn’t think it was safe to keep it open.

Some time in the middle of the night the rains slowed and then stopped. Although the wind was still blowing pretty strong, it was not 50 or 60 mph anymore. We woke up Friday morning to overcast but dry skies. I had to get up and get the sound system going for the Maestros again at 7:30 a.m., but at least the grounds had dried somewhat. There was still some mud, but most of the standing water had gone. The breakfast and morning entertainment went off without a hitch. By 9:00 or so the sun was actually peeking out from time to time and the skies were only partly cloudy. Once I was done with the Maestros in the morning I didn’t have any more duties for the day. Jackie had a ladies luncheon at 1:00 p.m., but I just hung around the coach playing on the computer. Friday evening we headed into Quartzsite to eat at Silly Al’s, a pizza joint that we go to whenever we are in Quartzsite for a few days. Like everything in Quartzsite this time of year, the place is packed. We made arrangements to meet three other couples there for dinner, Ray and Suzie and Gary and Ramona, who are our Monaco friends. They have been mentioned in the blog before. Also invited were Doug and Linda, our friends from the Alaska caravan who were the tailgunners for the trip. We waited about an hour for a table and then had some pretty good pizza. We got the gigantic size for us so that we would have some leftovers. The pizza was not as good as it has been in the past. They seem to have cut down on the ingredients and it shows in the taste. Not too much topping and very little sauce. May be the last time we do Silly Al’s.

After dinner we headed back to the coach and noticed that the evening’s entertainment was still going on. The entertainment was The Rivoli’s, a husband and wife singing act. We missed most of the first hour, but caught the second half of the act and found them very entertaining. They are full-time motorhome people and did a lot of parody songs about the RV lifestyle. I would describe them as very Branson-like entertainers, and, in fact, they have played Branson several times.

Saturday, January 23rd, was to be a busy day. First I had my 7:30 a.m. call to action to provide the sound equipment for the morning Maestro’s performance. Then we had all the activities that we were supposed to do on Thursday night scheduled for Saturday afternoon. At 1:00 p.m. I had set up all my equipment to do the talent show and karaoke, as well as be the MC for the Chapter Fair. We had a very poor turnout for the talent show - I suspect it would have been better in the evening had it not been rained out. However, we did have a couple of singers and even one guy who came up and played a couple of songs on his mandolin. I was able to do a couple of songs as well. Later on I was judged as one of the top three performances and got a $50 WalMart shopping card. Yea! Free groceries. After everything wrapped up about 4:00 p.m. I tore down all my stuff and stored it away again.

Saturday night we had left over pizza for dinner and then went to the entertainment about 6:30. The Rivoli’s were playing again and this was their night for their Patriotic Show. They sang a lot of patriotic and American songs and did a tribute to the veterans in the group. Again, they were very entertaining and it was a worthwhile show to attend. After the show we headed back to the coach to rest and get ready for the next day’s travels.

Sunday, January 24th was our next travel day. We packed up and headed out of Quartzsite about 10:00 a.m., headed West on I-10, back to the Coachella Valley. This time we were headed for a Western Horizon’s park in Desert Hot Springs on the West end of the valley. It was only about 140 miles and we gained an hour when we crossed into California and the Pacific time zone, so we got to the park about 11:30 a.m. Because of the recent storms all of the mountains surrounding the Coachella Valley were covered in snow. As you come into the Valley from the East and go down the Chiraco Summit grade you get a great view of the valley. With all the snow it was very pretty. Once we got to the park we quickly checked in and got our spot, a nice corner space with lots of room. We are going to be here for two full weeks, so I spent some time putting out a lot of our outside decorations, like our flagpole and patio rug. After the travels and the setting up I was pretty bushed, so we just stayed in the rest of the day.

We are now in Desert Hot Springs and finished with the first two of our 2010 motorhome rallies. With that I will end this chapter of our blog. We will be in Desert Hot Springs for two weeks, and then head back down to Winterhaven, California, Near Yuma, Arizona, for another two weeks. I will probably publish another chapter of our lives in a few weeks. Until then, be happy, stay safe and enjoy life.

Happy Holidays And Goodbye 2009

Greetings faithful readers. At the end of our last chapter it was Saturday, December 19th and we were leaving San Diego, California and headed North to the California desert and Indio. We headed North about 10 a.m. and drove the 160 miles or so of familiar freeway. Most of our readers know that Indio, California was our home prior to 2005 when we sold the house and hit the road. I had lived there since 1998 and Jackie since 1981. Since Jackie’s mom and brother have lived in San Diego County for many years, there was a lot of travel between Indio and San Diego over the years.

We got to Indio in the early afternoon and checked into the Indian Waters RV Resort. We got a really nice corner site right near the clubhouse this time. Indian Waters is one of our Western Horizon’s membership parks and is located only about a mile and a half from our old house in Indian Palms Country Club. After getting everything set up we headed over to the Motorcoach Country Club, just a couple miles away, where our best friends Barry and Colleen live. You may remember we had last seen them when they came up to Pahrump to spend a few days with us in October. We had a nice visit with them and went up to their clubhouse for a cocktail and some dinner. Jackie’s “niece” Vicki is the food and beverage manager at that club. Vicki is the daughter of one of Jackie’s oldest friends and the mother of Jackie’s godson, Shane. Shane has always called her “Aunt Jackie”. Jackie had a chance to visit briefly with Vicki as she was working when we went up to the clubhouse. We had a great evening with everyone.

Sunday I dug our Christmas decorations out of the storage bay and we decorated for the holiday. We already had our Christmas tree up because we had bought a new one in San Diego, but I had to get the outside decorations up. We don’t have a lot of stuff, only a couple of strings of rope lights and some garland, and we put Santa
hats on our mirrors, but it is enough to make the coach look festive. Sunday evening we headed over to the Indio Elks Lodge for the Lodge’s RV Club, the Desert Drifters, Christmas party. Jackie and I both joined the Order of Elks in Indio and we were members of the Indio Lodge up until we changed our residency to Nevada. At that time we transferred our membership to the Pahrump Lodge. However, we had been members of the Desert Drifters since joining the Elks and had continued our membership with them even after we changed lodges. There were probably 70 people at the party, many of them old friends we have known for years, including Barry and Colleen. The food was very good, lobster and prime rib, and the only thing we had to pay for were the drinks. After dinner we had the traditional blind gift exchange. The Drifters have been doing this for as long as we have been members. Everyone brings a gift worth $10 or so and after drawing numbers start selecting gifts to open. A person can get an unopened gift from the table, or “steal” one from someone who has already opened a gift. This evening’s gift exchange was fairly calm, with only a couple of gifts meriting stealing. In past years the gift stealing could get pretty wild and funny, depending on what was up for grabs. The party was a lot of fun and it was great to see some of our friends that we haven’t seen in a year or so.

Monday, December 21st we met Jackie’s old friend Nancy for lunch. Nancy is Vicki’s mother and Jackie has known her since the 60's when they worked together in the L.A. area. We went to Cactus Jack’s Bar and Grill for lunch. CJ’s was our hangout when we lived in Indio, although the place has changed quite a bit over the years. It is no longer the local’s hangout as much as it is the wealthy snowbird’s hangout. Nonetheless, we still enjoy the place. We always run into people we know there and the food and drinks are great, although a little more expensive now. When we walked in we also ran into Colleen’s sister Janet and her husband John having lunch. They also live in Indio and we had not seen them since last year. We had a very nice lunch and visit with Nancy. After lunch we took a drive through the Indian Palms Country Club where we used to live. Our old house still looks exactly the same, although the trees and shrubs have become more overgrown. We know that the people who bought it from us lost it when the recession hit and it sat vacant for almost two years. Someone bought it again about 18 months ago. The rest of the country club looks pretty much the same as it did last year when we drove through. This was also the last place I worked before I retired in 2005. I was the homeowners association manager for most of the homes in the place, about 3,000 homes. I can’t say I miss working and I certainly don’t miss that job!

Tuesday we went out to lunch again, this time with Vicki and Shane. We had lunch at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants, La Casita. It is actually a local chain, they have about 8 or so all over the Coachella Valley, but the food is the same at all of them and it is great! I can highly recommend La Casita for anyone visiting the Coachella Valley. Shane is now 15 years old and a freshman in high school. Jackie is amazed at how big he has gotten, only a couple inches shy of six feet now. He will probably hit over six feet when he is fully grown because his mom is fairly tall and his dad is well over six feet. He is a typical modern teenager, not very talkative or outgoing with adults. We did have a nice visit though. After lunch we did some shopping and then headed home for the rest of the day.

Wednesday, December 23rd we headed out after lunch to do some geocaching with friends. When we had arrived at Indian Waters on Saturday we had noted that some of our “road buddies”, other RVers we have met in our travels, were also staying in the park. Jay and Donna Blumenthal are originally from New York and have been full timers for many years. They have both been highly involved in Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA) activities for many years. Most recently Jay was the Area Vice President for the International Area of FMCA, one of 10 areas in the organization. Most of the FMCA Chapters we belong to are part of the International Area. We first met Jay and Donna several years ago at a rally and we usually cross paths with them several times each year at various FMCA functions. We usually see them around the holidays in Indio because, like us, they come out here most every December. Jay and Donna are also geocachers, although they don’t go out as often as we do, so when we talked to them after arriving in Indio we made plans to go geocaching one afternoon. The four of us went out in our car and had a great time. We never went more than about five miles from Indian Waters and we managed to find 12 caches in about three hours. We also had a very nice visit afterwards over cocktails. It was nice to be able to catch up with them about the last year.

Thursday, December 24th, Christmas Eve. When we had checked into Indian Waters on Saturday the office staff told us that the park was having a Christmas Dinner on the 24th. They decided that was easier than trying to do it on Christmas Day when some of the people staying in the park might be out with family or other friends. Since we didn’t have any Christmas dinner plans, we bought tickets. The dinner actually started at 3 in the afternoon and was attended by at least 100 people. They had turkey and all the fixings and the food was wonderful. It was not a pot luck, the park provided everything, and I guess it was all cooked in the kitchen at the park by volunteers. We met some really nice people at our table who had been full timers for about 10 years but had just bought a house in Utah. That is the nice thing about going to these activities and dinners at the RV parks - you meet some really nice people and automatically have something in common, RV travel. Makes for very comfortable dinner conversation even with strangers.

Friday, December 25th- Merry Christmas! Woke up on Christmas day and decided we really didn’t have anything to do. We have never bought presents for each other, our theory being that either of us can get pretty much anything we want (and can afford, of course) any time of the year. There is no need to have “special” presents for birthdays or Christmas. Our friends Barry and Colleen are out of town with their kids, Nancy, Vicki, Shane and the rest of their family are going out to one of the fancy Christmas buffets at a local country club. We did go to church for the Christmas day service at 10:00, an early start for us. Their weren’t too many people at the service - the church had held a Christmas Eve mass too, but there were a few of our old church friends there.

I will take a couple paragraphs to go off on a tangent about our church. When I first moved out to the Coachella Valley in 1998 to be with Jackie she was very involved in a group known as Pathfinder. Pathfinder at that time was a group that held spiritual retreats several times a year at a ranch in the mountains South of the Coachella Valley. The group got its name from the ranch, which was called the Pathfinder Ranch. The retreats ran from a Friday evening through the following Sunday afternoon and was a very powerful serious of talks, small group sharing, and other activities to help someone deal with various types of personal issues. The activities were organized and led by a team of volunteers and Jackie had been on the team for a number of years. The Pathfinder movement was founded and headed by a Catholic priest by the name of Ned Reidy. Father Ned was a priest at the Newman Center, a small Roman Catholic church located in Palm Desert near the campus of the College of the Desert Community College. This was, of course, Jackie’s church as well. Although I was not a particularly religious person, I did go to church regularly with Jackie and got involved with the Pathfinder group, first as a participant and later as a member of the team.

Sometime around 2003 or so Father Ned had a falling out with the Roman Catholic church because of his liberal beliefs, primarily with regard the church’s treatment of the gay community and the function of women in the church. As a result, the Catholic church removed him from the Newman Center as was going to send him somewhere else in the country. Father Ned gave up his position with the Roman Catholic priest and became affiliated with a group of other disenfranchised Roman Catholics who had formed a “new” denomination called the Ecumenical Catholic Church. They practiced most Roman Catholic rituals and sacraments, but were much more liberal, allowing priests to marry and have children, ordaining women as priests, and being very inclusive of all lifestyles. Ned also continued the Pathfinder movement since it had not been officially a part of the church.

Ned started his own congregation as part of the Ecumenical Catholic movement in Palm Desert and immediately drew several dozen congregants, most part of his Pathfinder group. Within a year one of Jackie’s best friends, Kathy McCarthy was ordained in the Ecumenical Church and joined Father Ned in his church. The Church has grown over the last few years and now has its own property and building. Since the Pathfinder movement was still active the Church is now called the Pathfinder Community of the Risen Christ and is doing fairly well. While we don’t go to church much, this is what we still consider to be our church and we always try to go at least a couple times when we are in the Coachella Valley. After church we stopped in Cactus Jack’s restaurant for brunch and then went home for the rest of the day.

Saturday we decided to do some geocaching. We didn’t want to go shopping because we figured the stores would be packed with after Christmas shoppers and we really didn’t need anything anyway. We went out after lunch and managed to find eleven caches in a few hours. Sunday, the 27th we did go to the mall just to walk around and get some exercise. The mall was still pretty busy though. We spent most of the afternoon there and on the way home stopped at a couple of geocaches which were on our way. We found two and had one that we couldn’t find.

Monday was an errands day. We drove over to Cathedral City on the West end of the valley for lunch at a little place called Boy’s Restaurant. I worked in Cathedral City for seven years at a country club just a mile or so from Boy’s and used to eat lunch there a lot. I still believe that they have the best pastrami sandwich in the country. Their hamburgers and other stuff are good too, but their pastrami is so good that I tell Jackie that I have to go there at least once each time we come to the Coachella Valley so I can get a pastrami sandwich. I cannot recommend Boy’s too highly for a great lunch spot. It is not a fancy place at all, but the food is great. It’s on the corner of Landau and Ramon in Cathedral City, California.

After lunch we took the car over to our friend Barry’s transmission shop which is also in Cathedral City, just down the street from Boy’s. Although the car is still running fine I wanted to have Barry put the analyzer on it just to see if anything was coding in the car that might indicate a problem. The car got a clean bill of health. Yea! From there we ran a couple of other errands, including taking a set of old sterling silver flatware into a metal trader for an estimate. Jackie has had this flatware, which had been her mother’s, for years and almost never used it. She has not yet decided if she wants to sell it to the metals trader, but she has not had any luck selling it on the open market. We also stopped at Westkin Property where Jackie used to work and visited with her old boss Carol. Carol is one of our loyal readers, so HI CAROL! We had a nice visit and talked about our trip to Alaska. After a couple other errands we headed home, again stopping on the way and picking up a geocache find.

When we got back to the coach we noticed that the floor near the refrigerator was wet. Since the only water supply near that area is the line for the ice maker I figured that had to be leaking. I quickly found a pinhole lead in the plastic line and shut off the water until I could fix it. I replaced that same line about three and a half years ago for the same reason. I think the heat in the compartment at the back of the refrigerator weakens the line over time until it develops a leak. We put a fan down to dry out the carpet and area under the refrigerator.

Tuesday, December 29th was our “doctor day” and we both had appointments in the afternoon for general physicals. I went out in the morning and got the tubing I needed to fix the ice maker line. It is not a lot of work, it took longer to drive to Home Depot than it did to replace the tubing, but it is still a pain. Our afternoon physicals went fairly well. The doctor didn’t find anything wrong with me this year. Last year at this time he found the small melanoma on my back, but the only thing I came out with this time was a mild prescription for slightly elevated blood pressure. Jackie also got an almost clean bill of health. She does have to have a followup mammogram in four months because the one she had in November showed an “irregularity” but the doctor was not too concerned. She is prone to cysts and could be that or it could just be a shadow on the film. Nothing to panic about now. Tuesday night we went over to the Elks Lodge for the monthly meeting of the Desert Drifters, our old RV camping club from the Lodge. There were not a lot of people there because of the holidays, but we did see a few people we hadn’t seen in a while. After the meeting we headed over to Cactus Jack’s for a late dinner and then home.

Wednesday we just did some shopping and spent most of the day around the coach. Thursday, December 31st - New Year’s Eve! We planned to spend the end of 2009 much the same way we spent the end of 2008, a small party with Barry and Colleen. This year we went over to their lot at Outdoor Resorts. We spent a couple of hours in the afternoon geocaching before going over to the Cohen’s. We were able to add a final eight finds to our 2009 totals. We got over to Barry and Colleen’s about 4 p.m. and had a great evening. There was only one other couple there for the night’s celebrations, Chuck and June. We have known Chuck and June for many years and they used to be part time residents of the Coachella Valley. They also had a home near Reno and Lake Tahoe. A few years ago they started a company that makes plaques that one puts on the ladder of their RV and they now travel around the country going to rallies selling their plaques. The plaques can be for different RV clubs, RV brands, or just decorations. We have seven on the back of our coach, one for the Elks, one for the Marine Corps and several for various chapters we belong to. Last year they sold their house in Reno and are now officially full timers like us. We pretty much just hung around Barry and Colleen’s coach eating and drinking and watching the various new year’s celebrations across the country. We actually left their place about a quarter to twelve because I wanted to be back in our RV park before the midnight hour to avoid any problems with drunks. We got into our coach at the stroke of midnight and then listened to ten minutes of gunfire from the surrounding neighborhood. Luckily, nothing came down on top of us. I have never been sure where the dummies that shoot guns in the air think the bullets are going to go. Sooner or later they have to come down.

Friday, January 1, 2010! A new year and a new decade. It seems like just a few years ago we were worried about Y2K and all our computers shutting down. Now it’s 10 years later. Yikes. We didn’t have any big plans for the day. I did get out in the early afternoon and took down all of the outside decorations because we have to leave on Saturday to go over to the Elks Lodge for a couple days before the rally. Our time at Indian Waters is nearly over. Saturday morning we got out of Indian Waters about 10 a.m. and headed over to the Elks Lodge. The Indio Elks has a large RV lot in back with about 56 spaces. They are usually quite full this time of the year, but people move in and out everyday so we were lucky to get a spot. It’s only water and electric, but we will only be here for a couple of days before heading over to the fairgrounds and the FMCA rally. Jackie drove the car over to the Lodge to get a spot for us and I had to take a short side trip to the service station to get some propane. I knew that we were going to be doing a lot of dry camping in the next month and would need a full propane tank. Once we got the coach parked we headed out and did some shopping. Our intent was to relax the rest of the day but we got a call from Barry to come over to Cactus Jack’s about 2 p.m. for a drink. Barry and Chuck had been golfing and they always stop at CJ’s for a drink after. The six of us had a drink at CJ”s then went back over to Barry and Colleen’s place again. Barry and Colleen’s lot is on the little waterway that runs through the country club and they have a nice electric party boat. The six of us loaded up in the boat and took a nice ride through the park. While we were “cruising” we stopped at the clubhouse and went up for a drink. While there we had a chance to talk to the bartender, Gary, who is Shane Ryan’s dad. Shane is Jackie’s godson. Shane’s mom is the food and beverage manager for the club at Outdoor Resorts and Gary works part time as a bartender. After a couple of drinks we headed back to the coach for the evening.

Sunday, January 3rd we went into the lodge for the big Sunday breakfast. It really wasn’t breakfast for us since we went in about 11 a.m. and ate with the volunteer crew that put on the breakfast. Back when we owned our house in Indio we used to do a lot of volunteer work at the lodge, including the Sunday breakfasts. After that we went to the coach to spend a well deserved “veg” day. We really need to dry out - it seems that all we have been doing the last week is partying and drinking! Chuck and June are parked right behind us at the Lodge so we did have them over for one cocktail at happy hour, but other than that we just read and played on the computers.

Monday our friend Nancy came over to the coach for lunch. Jackie wanted to cook some of the escargots that she got in Canada. She and Nancy used to go to a restaurant here in the Indio area called The Nest for escargots. Jackie had also made a big batch of her Halibut chowder. We had a very nice lunch (no snails for me, thank you) and visit. After Nancy left we went out and did our laundry. Monday evening we went into the Elks Lodge for taco night. The place was absolutely packed. That was not too surprising since the RV park at the Lodge was completely full and there were hundreds of people at the fairgrounds, many of whom were probably Elks. Nonetheless, it was fun to see that many people in the Lodge for a dinner. Barry and Colleen, who are also Elks and members of the Indio Lodge, came over and joined us for cocktails and tacos.

Tuesday morning we got up early and packed up the coach for the arduous two mile trek from the Elks Lodge to the Riverside County Fairgrounds where the FMCA Western Area rally was being held. We got in around 10 a.m. and were parked within about a half hour. We were very surprised to find that we had some electricity available in the parking lot. It is only 20 amps, basically a house-type plug, but with the mild weather it would be more than enough to keep the batteries charged and run the TV’s and computers.

With our arrival at the rally I am going to close out this chapter of our travels. The next chapter will deal with our experiences at the Indio rally and our travels to Quartzsite, Arizona. Until the next time, have a wonderful life!

Fall in the Desert

Hello readers, welcome back. Our last chapter ended on Thursday, November 19th with us arriving at the Desert Vista RV Resort in Salome, Arizona, out in the Western Arizona desert. Since we only had a short drive, less than 50 miles, from Tonopah, we arrived in Salome around noon. We spent the day relaxing and getting the coach set up for our stay. The weather here is perfect, low 70's and beautiful clear skies. On Friday we went out after lunch to do some caching. Because we are in a remote desert area the caches are far apart and often involve a long drive out into the desert, so we only got three caches. But it was still fun. The desert here is very picturesque. We actually drove the car out into the desert on some pretty rugged desert roads - I am starting to trust the car again. It is still running great. I no longer have a great fear of being left stranded somewhere.

On Saturday, We just stayed around the coach and took care of some of our busy work. I started scanning another one of my mom and dad’s photo albums, this one dating from 1978 to 1985. I really enjoy looking at all the old pictures, brings back great memories. I did about two-thirds of the album before quitting for the day. On Sunday, November 22nd we headed out again to do some more caching. This time we were able to find five caches over the course of several hours. Monday was a stay at home day. We did some laundry and I washed the car, which had gotten pretty dirty and dusty from the running around in the desert.

Tuesday, November 24th we decided to take a drive to Wickenburg, Arizona, a nice town about 55 miles Northeast of our location on Highway 60. Wickenburg is also about 50 miles Northwest of Phoenix. Before the freeway (I-10) was built the main road from California through central Arizona and Phoenix was Highway 60, which went up through Wickenburg. It used to be known as the dude ranch capital of the world. That was back in the 60's and 70's. It is quite a bit larger now. Back in my Sheriff’s Office days I was the District Commander for a while for the patrol district that includes Wickenburg. We did some caching along the way and on the way home, finding a total of five caches. We had lunch at the Horseshoe Café in downtown Wickenburg and had a great meal. This is a very small café with breakfast and lunch only and I highly recommend it. It has been a Wickenburg landmark for many years and was recently featured in Arizona Highways magazine as one of the 10 best cafe’s in Arizona.

After having lunch we visited the Wickenburg Elks Lodge. Although we have been to Wickenburg in the past, we were never able to find the Lodge open. This time we were able to get in. We found several people in the bar and the bartender was very friendly. We were also able to get a Lodge pin for our banner. Yea! After visiting the Lodge we hit a couple more caches and did some shopping before heading back to the coach. Wednesday we didn’t do too much, just stayed around the park and relaxed. I went over and spent some time in the hot tub and pool, which was very nice.

Thursday, November 26th, Thanksgiving day. We had signed up for the Thanksgiving dinner at the park on the day we came in. At that time we were number six or seven on the list. By Thanksgiving there were over 80 people signed up to come. Since we are 60 miles from most anywhere, just about everyone in the park is planning Thanksgiving at the rec center. The park was cooking the turkey, dressing and mashed potatoes, everyone else was supposed to bring a side dish. Jackie made her great wasabi cole slaw. The dinner was at 2:00 so we went over there with a nice bottle of wine and had a great dinner. There was tons of food and the turkey and dressing was wonderful. We had some great table conversations. One of the couples at our table were from a small town in Washington, Shelton, where we had been back in May of this year. This was the place where we found the great little steak house, The Strip. We asked them about the place and they said they had never eaten there, so we told them they really should try it. Here we were 1,500 miles away and giving advice to people about where to eat in their home town. Go figure. After dinner we were too full of food to do anything except sit around the rest of the day.

I did spend some time putting together our series of travel bugs for our caching. I’m not sure if I ever mentioned travel bugs and travel coins before. There are really two basic elements to geocaching. One is the caches themselves. These are put out by other cachers and hidden. The “owner” then publishes the information on the cache on the caching website, including the GPS coordinates, and other cachers try to find the cache. They can be almost any size, from micro - the size of the end of your pinky - to large, an ammo box or small barrel. The only real rules are that they can’t be completely buried and they have to have some sort of log book. Of course, the larger caches also have “swag”, which are little trinkets or goodies that people up in the cache. You can take or leave any goodies when you find the cache.

The other element of caching are the travel items. These items have individual serial numbers just like the caches do and are tracked. Any cacher can buy a serial numbered item, usually dog tags or some type of coin or token, and then register the item on the website. Once registered the item is placed in a cache and anyone who finds it can take it and move it on to another cache. When you find a travel item you have to log it on the computer just like you do a found cache, that way the website can track the travel items. You are not supposed to keep trackables any longer than necessary to move them to another cache in another area.

We are not really permitted to place caches because the folks who run the hobby at the website like to know that the owners are going to be able to service the cache after they place it. Sometimes the containers break, the log gets full or wet, or something else happens that needs to be attended to. That is the responsibility of the owner. Since we travel all the time and almost never get anywhere more than once or twice a year, it’s not practical for us to hide a cache because we couldn’t take care of it. However, we can do trackables and now have seven that we have put into circulation. It will be fun to track them as they travel around the world.

Friday I spent several hours in the afternoon getting things taken down so we can leave Salome on Saturday. We are headed from Salome down to Winterhaven, near Yuma, Arizona. Its only about 150 miles so it should be an easy trip. Other than that, we didn’t do much.

Saturday, November 28th. Woke up this morning with major lower back pain, to the point where I can barely stand or walk without shooting pains. I had noticed on Friday when I was putting stuff away that my back was getting sore and stiff, but I didn’t give it too much thought since there was a lot of bending and reaching involved. For the first time Jackie had to do most of the outside work getting ready for our final departure, things like disconnecting the water, sewer and electric, and hooking up the car. I felt bad just standing there, but I could not bend over to do any of it and could only advise her on what to do. We finally got everything ready and we pulled out of the RV park around 11:00. We stopped in Quartzsite for fuel, which I was able to do myself since it didn’t involve any bending over, and then headed South on US-95 out of Quartzsite towards Yuma. I mention this only because I lived in Arizona for much of my life and had never been on this particular stretch of road before. Never had any reason to travel between I-10 and I-8 in this part of the state. We arrived at the Pilot Knob RV park around 3:00 and got settled in with the minimal amount of hookups. Jackie had to set up the water, power and sewer again and did a great job. I spent the rest of the night on my back in bed.

Sunday morning I woke up in real pain. I spent 90 percent of the day in bed because as long as I was lying down my back didn’t hurt too badly. Jackie went out to Sam’s Club in Yuma for an emergency vodka run, but other than that we didn’t do anything. I was really glad that the car was finally running well and acting reliably, Yuma is about 10 miles East of the park on I-10 so I didn’t have to worry too much about Jackie having car problems. By the end of the day I was feeling a little bit better, but still was having problems standing or sitting without quite a bit of pain.

Monday, November 30th I woke up feeling a little better. By lunch time I felt good enough to go ahead and go grocery shopping in Yuma. I think the walking around helped a little bit because I didn’t feel too bad most of the day. I still hurt and couldn’t bend over much at all without quite a bit of pain, but just walking was more uncomfortable than painful. We did our grocery shopping and then spent the rest of the day at the coach. Tuesday was even a little better. We went out to the mall and I spent about three hours walking around. Every day it gets just a little better. I hope to be back to normal in a few more days. We want to be able to go out and do some caching and other stuff that we can’t while my back is sprung.

Wednesday, December 2nd I finally felt almost healed. It is fortunate too, because we were invited to John and Rita Ham’s house for dinner. They are fellow Monaco owners and are also, technically, fulltimers. I say “technically” because they own a lot in the foothills area of Yuma, on the East end of town. They have a casita on the lot, but it doesn’t have a bedroom, only a living room, kitchen and bath. They park the coach next to the casita and sleep in the coach. We visited them last December when we were in Yuma. We went over to their house about 2:00 p.m. and met John and Rita and two other couples who were also there. One of them, Wilma Jean and Les we know from our FMCA travels and rallies. The other, Gary and Shirley, are also RVers, but we had never met them. Both of them are currently staying on John and Rita’s lot. John has two full hookup areas on the lot. John’s RV is in Phoenix being repaired, so he had room for both couples to stay on the lot for a while.

We had a very nice dinner. Rita made stroganoff out of some elk meat that Gary had provided, as well as noodles, rice and salad. Jackie brought over a big pot of Halibut chowder. We spent several hours visiting. Les and Wilma Jean, and John and Rita are big geocache fans. We had gone geocaching with John and some of his other friends last year. While we were there John took us out to the desert near his home to show us a very unique cache. John also had one hidden in his front yard, so our dinner visit also netted us two cache finds! We will probably cross paths with all these folks several times over the next year as we make the motorcoach rally circuit.

On Thursday we headed into Yuma to do some urban caching. We went just after lunch and in the course of a couple of hours had 12 more finds to our credit. After caching we went to the Yuma Elks Lodge for a cocktail. In the year since we last visited the lodge they completely remodeled the bar and dining area. They added a new section and moved the bar into it. They then turned the area where the old bar was into a new dining room. The new bar is much bigger than the old one, but it has lost all of its character. The old bar was a long, old fashioned wood bar with an antique mirrored back bar. The new bar is a simple horseshoe in a big, plain room. It has little visual appeal and the acoustics are terrible. If I was a member of the Yuma Lodge I would not be happy, but since we only visit there a couple of weeks a year, its not my business. It is still a nice, friendly lodge with great meals.

Friday afternoon we headed out to do some desert caching. We only found six because the caches were much more spread out. For several of them we had to walk a ways into the desert to find the cache. We found each one we set out to find though, no DNFs. After caching we headed home and changed clothes with the intention of heading into Yuma to the Elks to have their Friday night seafood buffet. On the way we stopped at the new Indian casino located a couple of miles East of our RV park on I-8. We gambled a little bit and as we were getting ready to leave the casino we ran into John and Rita and the other two couples we had dinner with on Wednesday. They told us that they were in the casino to go to the seafood buffet there. They told us it was wonderful and when they told me that the buffet featured king crab, I was sold. We stayed in the casino and had dinner with the group. Since we had players club cards the buffet for both of us was only $31 and the food was very good, especially the king crab. I certainly got my money’s worth! After the big dinner we were too full to go anywhere else, so we headed home. I did stop briefly at a $1 poker machine to “spend” the $10 credit the casino had put on my players club card. Within a couple minutes I had it up to $25 so I cashed out and we went home.

Saturday, December 5th we left the coach about 11:00 and headed into Yuma to go to a BBQ rib festival. Jackie had seen the festival, which is held every year, in the newspaper a few days earlier. The festival is a fund raiser for Yuma Catholic High School and was held on their campus. There were about 10 booths there selling BBQ pork ribs and there were a lot of people. They charged $10 per person to get in, but then gave you each 10 tickets which could be used to buy food and drink. One rib was one ticket. We tried ribs from several different vendors and they were all pretty good. We ended up eating about six ribs each at the festival, plus we took about 20 ribs home for dinner. While we were at the festival we ran into Charlie and Sharon Anderson, some of our old motor homing friends. We had met them several years ago at a Monaco rally and have crossed paths with them several times. They have a home in Illinois, near the Iowa border, but they winter in Yuma every year because they have a lot there also. We had last seen them in Tucson at the Monaco rally in October.

After the BBQ festival we did some shopping in Yuma and then went to a late matinee movie. We saw “Old Dogs”, with Robin Williams and John Travolta. It was a very funny movie. We also wanted to see the movie “2012", but the timing on the showings didn’t work for us. We will try to see that one later in the week. After the movie we headed home and had some of our pork ribs from the festival. Yum!

Sunday, February 6th was a leisure day, just hung around the coach. Monday afternoon we drove into Yuma to see another movie. This time we went to see “2012" which was a very good movie. It was a typical disaster movie as far as the characters and plot line went, but the special effects were outstanding. With the latest computer generated graphics its hard to not believe that you are really seeing California slide into the ocean. Very spectacular movie. Tuesday, February 8th was our Mexico day. We drove down to Algadones about 11:00 a.m. so we could have lunch at one of our favorite restaurants just across the border. Algadones is only about 10 minutes from the RV park and the local Indian tribe maintains a huge paved parking lot on the US side of the border. You park your car for $5 for the day and walk across the border. Everything in Algadones is within easy walking distance of the border crossing. The first place we went was our dentist’s office to see if we could get an appointment for cleaning. I had sent an email to the dentist when we first got into Winterhaven, but had never received a response. Fortunately, it was a slow day and they were able to get us both into see our dentist immediately and both of us had our teeth cleaned. You can’t beat an exam and cleaning for $30. After our dental appointment we headed over to the eye doctor and made an appointment for Jackie to get an exam and new glasses. My glasses are still working well, so I didn’t need anything this trip. We had an appointment for after lunch, so we went over to the Pueblo Viejo restaurant for lunch. While there we also visited a geocache that is maintained in the restaurant. After lunch we went back and Jackie picked out her new frames and got her exam. We then had a couple hours to kill while they made the glasses, so we walked around some of the shops. Jackie ended up buying a purse and we both got some gold jewelry. She got an anklet and a necklace and I got a bracelet and necklace. The guy also threw in an extra necklace for Jackie.

It was kind of a slow day in Algadones, which if mostly doctors, dentists and opticians along with the usual pharmacies and liquor stores. They have very little crime there because 95% of the visitors are seniors or near seniors, not the normal illicit drug or party seekers you see in most Mexican border towns. There were less than the normal number of people in town for some reason and it only took us about 10 minutes to get back across the border. We have waited as long as 90 minutes in line to get back to the US in the past.

Wednesday the 9th we headed into Yuma to have lunch with Charlie and Sharon Anderson at Chretin’s Mexican restaurant. We had eaten at Chretin’s about four years ago when they were in an old building in Southwest Yuma, pretty much in the barrio area of town. At that time the food was great, especially the red chilli. They have closed that place and opened a brand new restaurant on 16th Street near the freeway. We ate there last year and the food was not nearly as good. I passed it off because I had eaten the buffet and I figured that the mass produced food probably wasn’t as good a the menu stuff. This time I ordered the red chilli off the menu and it was not nearly as good as I remember from the first time at the old place. Chretin’s is now off of our list of places to eat in Yuma. I don’t know if they changed cooks or recipes when they moved or what, but the food is now mediocre at best. We did have a nice chat with the Andersons. We will probably see them in Tucson at the next Monaco rally in March. After lunch we went out and did some more local caching. We were able to find seven and had two DNF’s. Fortunately, one of the finds we had was a cache that we couldn’t find when we were last here in December of 2008. So at least we made up that DNF!

Thursday was a relax day and Friday we went out for one last surge of caching. We are due to leave on Saturday morning to go to San Diego. We found another six caches with only one DNF. After caching we headed home and I had enough daylight left to take down the outside stuff, like the sun shades, and store them away for our travel to San Diego in the morning.

Saturday, December 12th we woke up to cloudy skies and predictions of rain. We headed West from Winterhaven about 10:00, bound for San Diego. The rain started about halfway to San Diego, as we started up the hill West of El Centro. The rain wasn’t real heavy, but it was enough to have to keep the wipers going. We also ran into some fog as we went up towards the pass, which is at about 4,500 feet. We got into San Diego at about 2:00 and checked into the RV park. We are staying at the Sante Fe RV park which is right in the middle of metro San Diego, just off the I-5 freeway near Balboa Avenue. We are only a few minutes from Mission Bay, Pacific Beach and the ocean, and only 5 miles from downtown San Diego. It is a great location and it’s a Passport America park which means we can stay at half price. Even half price is moderately expensive, about $26 a day, but given the location and the cost of the other San Diego RV parks, it’s a bargain. We are going to be here for seven days before heading up to the Indio area. We come to San Diego because this is where Jackie’s mother and brother live. Fortunately, the rain quit long enough for us to get parked and set up. We stayed in for the rest of the day and by evening the rain had started in earnest. I woke up at 3 a.m. and noticed that it was pouring rain and the power was out. I had to outside in the pouring rain and reset the power on the pedestal. It only took me a couple minutes, but I was soaked by the time I got back into the coach.

In the morning I noticed a problem with the power. Even though we were plugged into the 50 amp circuit we didn’t have power to one of the air conditioner/heat pump units and some of the 120 volt receptacles in the coach were dead. I did a little trouble shooting and fount that sometime during the night the power pedestal we were plugged into had gone bad and we had lost one leg of our power circuit. I changed over the 30 amp receptacle and we got good power back into the coach, we just have to watch we don’t have too many things turned on at the same time. The office said they didn’t have anyone working on a Sunday to fix the problem but would have someone come out and check the box on Monday.

On Sunday morning we headed to the University district to go to the street fair. It was not huge, but it was a nice fair with lots of vendors. Jackie’s brother Dennis met us there and after walking around the fair we headed over to the Whole Foods market to do some shopping and to have lunch at their deli. For those not familiar with Whole Foods, it’s a specialty store featuring high end organic foods and gourmet-type fare. It is similar to a Trader Joe’s or Henry’s, but larger. We had a nice lunch there and a nice talk with Dennis. After lunch we drove over to see Jackie’s mom. She is 90 years old and living in a assisted living home. The last time we saw her was in April when we were in San Diego just before leaving on our Canada/Alaska tour. She is starting to look very frail and is beginning to have some memory and medical issues. She also seems very depressed and angry, probably because she is in a situation where she is not in control of her life. I guess it has to be hard to be dependent, but it makes it difficult for Jackie and I to spend too much time with her because she is very negative, angry and argumentative. We spent several hours visiting with her. Dennis also came over while we were there.

After visiting Jackie’s mom we went over and visited with Margie Johnson, and old friend of Jackie’s who lives in San Diego also. Jackie and Margie met back in the early 70's and have stayed in touch over the years. We went to her house and had a nice visit for a couple hours. After that we headed back home, stopping at In & Out for dinner. Yea! It has been a while since we had In & Out burgers.

Monday, December 14th, I woke up and decided that I needed to go to an urgent care facility to have my right ear looked at. I had been having some pain for the last couple days and during the night Sunday to Monday it really starting hurting. I was pretty sure it was an outer ear infection, what is sometimes called “swimmer’s ear” because I have had that in the past and the symptoms were consistent. I went to one of the CVS drug stores in Pacific Beach because they have a clinic with a Nurse Practitioner or Physician’s Assistant on duty to treat minor illnesses or injuries and they are significantly less expensive than an emergency room or even a regular urgent care facility. After about 15 minutes the nurse looked at me, agreed it was probably an outer ear infection and prescribed some ear drops for me. I was out the door with my prescription in hand in less than an hour. I would have still been waiting had I gone to an emergency room.

After lunch my ear was feeling a little better so we headed out to do some caching. The area around where the park was is teeming with caches and we were able to find 14 caches within about three hours. We also had a couple of DNFs, but we had fun and never had to go more than about 5 miles from the RV park.

Tuesday after lunch we went back over to see Jackie’s mom again. She visited with her for about an hour and a half before she had enough of the complaining and negativity and decided to leave. Afterwards we took a drive out to Santee and stopped at the Costco there. Wednesday we stayed in except for a quick trip to the grocery store. Jackie’s friend Margie came over to the coach after work for dinner. She has never seen our house. Jackie made a nice chile rellano casserole and we had a very nice visit with Margie.

Thursday, December 17th we made another visit to Jackie’s mom. She was in a little better mood this time. After that we headed back to the coach and did our laundry at the park. This park has a very nice laundry facility. Friday morning, the 18th, we went to a local burger joint in San Diego called the Crazee Burger. It is located a block South of El Cajon Boulevard on 30th street. We had heard about the place on a television show we watch, Guy Fieri’s “Diners, Drive in’s and Dives” which is on the food channel. He visits all these quirky restaurants and diners around the country and the Crazee Burger was one of his “finds” in San Diego. Their claim to fame is that they have burgers made from all sorts of exotic meats, like buffalo, venison, alligator, ostrich, and kangaroo. Jackie had a kangaroo burger and I had a crab burger. Both were pretty tasty, but the kangaroo didn’t have any different taste than any other type of hamburger - it was just very lean. The crab was good. Although the food was good, I wouldn’t recommend the place only because it was pretty expensive. For two “exotic’ burgers with fries and a pop the bill was over $28. Unless you are dying to try an ostrich or gator burger I wouldn’t bother to go here. After our “exotic” lunch we went out and did some more San Diego caching. In a couple of hours we were able to collect nine more finds with two additional DNFs.

This brings us to Saturday morning, December 19th. We leave San Diego and head North and East to Indio and the holidays. This is also where this episode of our travel blog will end. I will be back in a couple weeks to document our holiday visit to the California desert. Until then, keep the faith, share the love, and collect the joys of life.

Enjoying Central Arizona

Welcome to the next chapter of our lives. Our last episode ended on Friday, October 29th, with us leaving Tucson after the Monaco rally and headed North to the Phoenix area. We had 140 miles to travel on I-10 to the West end of the Phoenix area. Our friends Vernon and Peggy had also made reservations at the Cotton Lane RV Park in Goodyear and shortly after making a fuel stop near Casa Grande, about 60 miles North of Tucson, I noticed a coach behind me that looked like theirs. They had still been in Beaudry’s when we left, but we had stopped at the Flying J for fuel and for lunch, so we lost about 90 minutes. I sort of guessed it was them because when we got into the Phoenix Metro area and the traffic got bad I noted that every time I changed lanes, they changed lanes. They also stayed right behind me despite the fact that I never drive over 58 mph, even when the speed limit is 75. It is very rare for any vehicle to stay behind me for more than a few miles, much less over an hour.

We had to drive right through the heart of metro Phoenix but the traffic wasn’t too bad until we hit the West side of town. There was an accident on the freeway that had traffic tied up in knots for about 5 miles. Once we got passed that we had smooth sailing until we reached our destination in Goodyear. When we pulled off the freeway I finally saw the tow vehicle behind the motorhome in back of us and it was Vern and Peggy. Since they were not familiar with the Phoenix area I guess they just decided to follow us all the way. We both got settled into the park by mid afternoon and took a little break. When we got in I called my brother Ken, who lives just down the street from the park, and told him we were settled in. He said that he and Susan, his wife, were going out to dinner around 5:30 and asked us if we wanted to join them. We were dirty and tired, so I told him no, but come by the coach after dinner for a few minutes.

About 7:00 p.m. Ken and Susan came by and we introduced them to Vern and Peggy, with whom we were having a cocktail outside in the nice weather. After that we had a nice visit with Ken and Susan until about 10:00 when they needed to leave. Susan has to get up at 4 a.m. for work, so she needed to get home. We agreed that they would come by again Sunday afternoon for a cookout. My kids and grandkids were coming over Sunday for a visit and we were planning a cookout for everyone.

Saturday, October 31st. After relaxing in the morning we decided to take Vern and Peggy out for some geocaching and then we needed to do some shopping. We were able to find one cache close to the RV park and then the damn car started acting up again. We were pulling onto the freeway and it started smoking and running rough and the check engine light came on. As we continued down the freeway the engine smoothed out and seemed to be running ok, but the light stayed on. We went ahead and drove into West Phoenix to the Costco and then stopped at a grocery store. About the third time I started the car, the check engine light went out and stayed out. This car is going to drive me insane with its problems.

That evening we had a very nice cookout with Vern and Peggy. We did some pork ribs on the BBQ and had that along with a salad. Vern, Peggy and Jackie all had escargot and said it was great. I skipped the snails again. After dinner the four of us just sat around and chatted until about 10:00. Although it was Halloween, there were no kids going around the park because it is a 55 plus RV park. We did hear a lot of barking dogs in the surrounding subdivisions early in the evening which was probably the kids all running around trick or treating.

Sunday, November 1st. Shortly after lunch my oldest daughter, Tye, her husband Frank, my youngest granddaughter Jordan, (Tye’s youngest) my son, Roy, my oldest granddaughter, Crystal (Tye’s oldest) her husband Tyrell, and their son Tyrell Jr., my great grandson, all came over to visit. We pretty much had a houseful, but we had a great time. We had last seen the family in March at my mom’s funeral. It was nice to visit under better circumstances. Little Tyrell is 18 months old now and walking! Later on in the afternoon we had a very nice BBQ and the gang stayed until about 8:00 or so. Because of our lifestyle of travel we don’t get to see family too often, so its nice to have a fun visit. Everyone seems to be doing pretty well considering the economy. Crystal and Tyrell had lived in Scottsdale the last time we were here, but they recently bought the trailer next door to Tye, so they are much closer to the rest of the family in West Phoenix now. Little Tyrell was a little more outgoing than he was last time also. Although he is still a momma’s boy and wouldn’t let me hold him without crying, at least he would interact with me while Crystal was holding him. Before they moved closer to Tye, Crystal and the baby weren’t around many people, so he was very withdrawn and shy. He sure is a cute little bug.

Monday my brother Ken came over to the house after lunch to do some geocaching. He said that they hadn’t come over on Sunday because Susan had gotten a cold. She also didn’t come over Monday, but Ken said he wanted to learn something about caching because it sounded interesting and fun. He already had a very nice handheld GPS. I spent about an hour with him on the computer, going over the basics, then the three of us went out and found about six caches fairly close by. He really seemed to enjoy it and said that he wanted to start doing it as soon as he recovered from his surgery. He is going in for a minor hernia operation on Tuesday. It’s an outpatient procedure, but he will still have to take it easy for a couple of weeks.

Tuesday, November 3rd we packed up and headed North out of Phoenix for Camp Verde. We are going to be staying at the Western Horizon resort near Camp Verde for the next two weeks. The longest we have been in one place since early in the year. YEA! It only took a little more than two hours to go the 100 miles from Goodyear to Camp Verde. This Western Horizon park is technically our “home” park, the park where we bought the membership. We bought it in 2005, shortly after we bought the coach, but we have not been back since. It just never worked into our plans. We pulled into the park and got registered into a nice 50 amp full hook up site near the clubhouse. While I set up the camp Jackie did our laundry. It was about 85 degrees and sunny so I worked up a pretty good sweat. We hadn’t come up here in the past because we were afraid that it would be too cold in the fall or spring when we are in the area. Guess we need not have worried. One of the reasons we wanted to be up here for a while is that my brother Dennis lives in Cottonwood, only about 15 miles up the road from the park. I also love the Central Arizona mountains because it is where I recreated when I was growing up in Phoenix. Sedona, Prescott, Flagstaff, Oak Creek Canyon and Payson - all hangouts for much of my life - are less than 100 miles away.

Wednesday was to be mostly a relaxation day. I called my brother Dennis and made plans to meet him at his house on Saturday to spend the day. He works for a bank in Sedona, so he was not available during the weekdays. Jackie and I later took the short drive into Cottonwood to do some shopping, but other than that we just hung around the coach and relaxed. One thing we did do was firm up an appointment at the Jeep dealer in Cottonwood to take the car back into the shop next Monday so they could check on the various engine problems we have been having.

Thursday we were going to go out and do some local caching, but Jackie woke up with a scratchy throat, headache and congestion. She thought she was getting a cold and didn’t want to go out and do anything. She really didn’t feel well. Fortunately, whatever she has hasn’t affected me - yet anyway. She slept most of the day while I just caught up on stuff and played on the computer. Friday morning, November 6th, Jackie woke up feeling a little better and we decided to take a drive up to Sedona. Our friends Vern and Peggy had also come up to the Verde Valley area and were staying at the Thousand Trails RV park, just about five miles up the road towards Cottonwood. We knew they were only here until Sunday, so we called to see if they wanted to drive up to Sedona with us. They did so we went by and picked them up. We drove through Cottonwood and were about three miles down the road towards Sedona when the damn car went crazy again. It started running rough, blowing black smoke out the back and worst of all, the oil pressure warning light came on. Only briefly, but it did light up, twice. I stopped the car and checked the oil level and it was fine. When I restarted the car it ran rough for about a minute, then settled down and was running OK again. Nonetheless, we didn’t want to chance driving the 30 miles to Sedona, so we turned around and took Vern and Peggy back home. We visited with them for a while, then went back to the coach for the rest of the day. This car is really starting to piss me off. A two year old car with only 20,000 miles should not be this unreliable. Our old 10 year old Jeep with 150,000 I would drive anywhere, this one I hesitate to go around the block right now. Poop!

Saturday morning Jackie had a relapse and woke up not feeling well again. I still feel fine and she was OK with me going and spending the day with my brother, so I went over to Dennis’ house. We went out to lunch in Cottonwood and had a really nice visit over lunch. We then went back to his house and spent about four hours just talking and looking at pictures of our Alaska trip. We really had a good time. Dennis’s girlfriend, Mona came over about 3:00 so I got a chance to visit with her also. I left about 5:00 because I still didn’t trust the car and wanted to head back to the RV park before dark. Jackie was still feeling poorly, so I cooked dinner and we stayed in for the night.

Sunday, November 8th, we were planning to go spend the day at Dennis’s again, but Jackie still wasn’t feeling good. I called Dennis and told him that we would get together on Tuesday. He had told me he was planning to take a couple of days off next week so he could spend some time with us. Hopefully by Tuesday Jackie will be back to par. We spent the day just hanging around the coach. I caught up on some chores - like this blog - and played. She watched TV and relaxed.

Monday Dennis had to work and I was scheduled to take the car into Cottonwood to the dealership late in the afternoon. They wanted to have the car Monday night so that they could run it Tuesday morning while it was cold. We just stayed around the coach until I took the car in about 3:30 p.m. The dealership gave me a ride back to the coach and we just stayed in since we had no car.

Tuesday, November 10th Jackie woke up feeling much better. In the afternoon Dennis and Mona came over to the coach and the four of us went out geocaching. Dennis was one of the first people to mention geocaching to us several years ago, and he has a caching name. However, he has not really done any caching. He only has a few on his record, and they are all the “out in the middle of the woods” type of caches. We wanted to show him what urban/suburban caching was all about. In the course of about three hours we had found 11 caches (as well as one DNF) and Mona was very excited about caching again. While we were caching I got a call from the Jeep dealer who told me that they had found a bad fuel injector and a bad oxygen sensor, a part of the emissions system. They said that they had to order the parts and that the car would not be ready until Friday. Since we were in Cottonwood caching anyway we had Dennis drive us by the Enterprise car rental place to see if we could get a car. The lady there told us she didn’t have a car for us but that she would have one on Wednesday afternoon. We knew we would be together with Dennis and Mona again on Wednesday so we said OK.

After the caching we went to Walmart and got some pizzas and chips and dips for dinner. We went over to Dennis’s house and had a very nice informal dinner. After dinner we listened to some music on Dennis’s neat jukebox he restored and then had Dennis drive us home about 9:00.

Wednesday afternoon Dennis and Mona came over and picked us up at the coach again and we went back out for some more geocaching. Both of them seemed to really enjoy getting out and searching for caches. This time we found 12 caches in just a few hours. Late in the afternoon we went back to the Enterprise place and picked up a rental car, a nice little Chevy Cobalt. It’s a little compact car but seems to have all the gadgets. It was almost new, with only 2,700 miles on it. It didn’t even have license plates yet. After we got the car we visited at Dennis’s house for a while and then went to one of the local Mexican restaurants for dinner. We have eaten at the Hacienda before and the food is always very good. After dinner we drove our little car back to the coach for the night.

Thursday, November 12th we drove over to Dennis’s and picked he and Mona up and we all took a drive to Sedona. We went to the uptown area and spent several hours shopping and sightseeing. After walking around all afternoon we were whipped, so after we drove back to Cottonwood and dropped Dennis and Mona off, we just headed home.

Friday we decided to take a relaxation day and just stayed around the coach most of the day. Jackie made up a big batch of Halibut chowder for the next day. About 3:30 I got a call from the Jeep dealer that the car was ready so we drove into Cottonwood to pick it up. Thankfully, all of the work was covered under warranty. I had a long talk with the service tech who said that they had replaced two fuel injectors. After replacing the first one they found that a second one had also failed. He also told me that the bad injectors had caused fuel to contaminate the engine oil and that I had at least a quart of diesel fuel in the oil, which was what caused the oil light to come on - the oil was too thin at high RPM. Because of that they also changed the oil and oil filter. When I glanced at the invoice as I was signing it I noted that the cost of parts on the invoice was over $1,300 - just parts, no labor. Sure glad the warranty covered the repairs! As we were driving the car home I noticed that it seemed to be like a new car. No rattling noise, no smoke, just a nice smooth ride. I hope that this has taken care of the problems!

Saturday, November 14th Dennis and Mona came over to the coach after lunch to spend the day. Dennis and I did some karaoke in the back while Jackie and Mona visited. We then fixed a really massive meal for the four of us. Jackie first made salmon dip for an appetizer, then some escargot for she, Dennis and Mona. After that we had some of Jackie’s Halibut chowder - it was SO good. Everyone had more than one bowl so we decided to postpone making the BBQed Halibut we had planned. We decided that we would do that on Sunday. After dinner we sat around a talked for a while until Dennis and Mona headed home.

Sunday we drove over to Dennis’s house in the early afternoon and picked him up to go out and do some caching. Mona was not there because she was not feeling well. We were surprised to find Angela, Dennis’s youngest daughter at his house when we got there. She and her boyfriend were up in the area for the weekend and just stopped by to say hi. After a brief visit with Angela, we headed out in our Jeep to do some caching in the area. We were able to once again find 11 caches in about three hours. AND - the car was running great. I am very happy. We went back to Dennis’s house after caching and did some karaoke on his home system, a great system I might add. About 5:30 the three of us headed back to our coach for dinner. We had some more chowder and then did some Halibut on the BBQ and some Salmon in the frying pan. We had way too much food for the three of us, but it was great eating! After dinner we just visited until Dennis had to leave.

Monday Dennis had to go back to work so we took care of our chores. We drove into the Cottonwood Medical Center in the morning so Jackie could get her annual mammogram taken care of. After that we went back to the house so I could pack everything up for Tuesday’s departure from the Verde Valley. That took me about three hours. I had to laugh because when I got up at 7:00 a.m. the outside temperature was 30 degrees. By the time I got done packing everything back into the coach it was 70 degrees and I was sweating! Welcome to Arizona weather! After finishing my work we drove back into Cottonwood to do some grocery shopping. We will be spending the next two weeks in Salome, out in the Western Arizona desert, and will be far from any big stores. We wanted to get most of what we thought we might need before heading out. After shopping we went over to Dennis’s for one last visit before we left. Mona was feeling better and had picked up some KFC for dinner. We had a nice dinner, did some karaoke and then headed home about 8:00 or so. This has been a very nice visit. It has been a long time since I have been able to spend this much time with my brother.

Tuesday, November 17th - travel day. We left Camp Verde about 10:45 a.m. and headed back South towards Phoenix. The plan was to spend two nights in Tonopah, Arizona, about 30 miles West of Phoenix, before heading to our membership park in Salome, Arizona. We got into the Saddle Mountain RV park about 1:30 p.m and got settled in for our two night stay. After about an hour the 50 amp breaker on our power pedestal went out. The maintenance guy came out and checked it and told us that he couldn’t fix it until the power company came out to turn off the master power to the pedestal. The 30 amp circuit was still working so I told him that we would rather stay put with 30 amps then pack everything up and move to another 50 amp spot. We spent the rest of the day just relaxing and enjoying the rest. The next morning, Wednesday, the maintenance people showed up around 10 a.m. to fix the power. It only took them about 20 minutes to put in a new breaker and we were back on 50 amp again. After lunch we went out to do some shopping in Buckeye (about 30 miles East) and some caching. We were able to find nine caches within a couple of hours. There is one series of several dozen caches located along the Sun Valley Parkway running North from I-10. The caches are less than a quarter mile apart and most are fairly quick finds. After caching we drove out to the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, located several miles South of the RV park. Jackie had never seen the place close up. I had the opportunity to tour it while it was under construction in the 1980's while I was with the Sheriff’s Office. It is a very impressive sight close up. There are three separate facilities and together they are the largest nuclear generating plant in the Western hemisphere. After that tour we went back to the coach for the night. By the way, the car performed perfectly! We had it up to 70 on the freeway and it continued to run great. In the past it was usually at highway speeds that it would start to act up.

Thursday, November 19th we headed out of Tonopah Westbound towards Salome, Arizona and our next stop. We only had about 50 miles to travel so we didn’t have to leave until just before 11 a.m. We are headed for one of our membership resorts, Desert Vista, which is located just South of Salome on Highway 60. This puts it pretty much out in the middle of the Western Arizona desert. We had been there in February and enjoyed our stay, although there isn’t too much to do out there. This time we were only going to be there nine days. Because we didn’t have far to go we got to the park shortly after noon and quickly got settled in to a nice full hookup 50 amp site. The weather is wonderful, in the low eighties, and the views are gorgeous. Being here will give us a chance to catch up on some of our “homework” that we have been putting off because we have been busy. One of the things I want to work on is to continue scanning my parent’s old photo albums. While we were with Dennis I picked up three more photo albums to scan. I have already done two. Once I get them done I will distribute the photos on CD to all of the family. Looking at the old photos sure brings back memories.

With our arrival in Salome, Arizona I am going to close out this chapter of our travels. As I mentioned, we will be here a little over a week, then in Winterhaven, California (just West of Yuma, Arizona) for a couple of weeks. Those three weeks or so will be the subject of our next episode. Until then, treasure every day and keep smiling!