Race Across The Heartland

Well, it's been two weeks since our last post and we have spent that time going through the great central plains, dodging storms all the way. We left Seibert, Colorado for Russell, Kansas and watched the thunderstorms in front of us for the whole trip. The thing about the prairie is that you can see forever, so it makes the skies look a lot worse than they probably really are. Every time it seemed that we were going to drive into a big black stormy area, the freeway would take a jog and we would miss the storm. Lots of lightning to look at though. We found a little campground in Russell, just off the freeway and settled in for a couple days.

Our first stop was the Russell Elks Lodge. Nice big building with some pretty friendly folks. The next day we did some geocaching in and around the town. We found eight caches. The neat thing about geocaching is that it is kind of "forced" exploring of the area. You find the little parks in town, sometimes get to see historical or geographic features you normally wouldn't find, and occasionally learn a little history. This town is right in the middle of the Kansas oil field and one of the caches was inside of the local oil field museum. Learned a little bit about the history of oil exploration in the area. Another one of the caches took us to a huge sink hole just off the freeway. The sink holes are caused when the oil is pumped out of the ground and the ground subsides.

After staying in Russell for two days we were off to Topeka, Kansas, the State capitol. We wanted to go to the Elks Lodge, but the address that we got from the BPOE Elks web site actually took us to a Lodge of the IBPOE of W. This was an organization that we first learned about a couple years ago in Florida when we accidentally came across one of the lodges there. This organization is the Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World. They are also referred to as the "Black Elks". For those who don't know the history, the Elks, formed in 1868, did not allow black members until the late 1960's, so in 1898 a group of black community leaders formed the IBPOE of W. According to their literature they have nearly half a million members nationwide. Their rituals and activities are very similar to the BPOE Lodges. The lodge we came across in Topeka was closed, however, the order does allow BPOE Elks to come into their club rooms - we, along with our friends David and Marianne Conner, went into one several years ago in Ohio. We were welcomed in and had a good time chatting with the folks there and learning a little about their order.

After a couple days in Topeka we moved east to the Kansas City area. Although Kansas City proper is actually in Missouri, we stayed just across the line in Merriam, Kansas, a suburb of the city. The locals talk about KCMO (Kansas City Missouri) and KCK (Kansas City Kansas) as the two parts of the area. The second day we were in town we went on one of our famous Elks Pub Crawls, even though the entire area was under a severe thunderstorm warning and a tornado watch. We stopped in at four lodges on the Missouri side. One of the Lodges, the Northland Elks in North Kansas City had a tornado go through just a few days earlier. The storm had completely demolished a couple buildings right across the alley, but had only knocked a few tree limbs down at the lodge. Very lucky.

Every lodge we went to bought one round for us, so we ended up having at least two drinks in every lodge. We didn't get back to the coach until about 9 o'clock at night. Fortunately, no bad weather came up while we were out and about. We did have a good time and added some pins to our banner. By the way, our banner is up to nearly 300 lodge pins now!

That night we had a storm come through the area with really high winds. About 12:30 a.m. we heard this huge noise and the power went out. We hadn't felt anything hit the coach and it was dark and rainy out, so we didn't see anything outside. When we got up in the morning, the power was still out and we noticed that right across the road from us in the park a huge (five-foot diameter) tree had snapped off and fallen, hitting a trailer directly across from our coach. It was a small camp trailer and fortunately, the owner had gone away for the weekend so the trailer was vacant. The tree smashed down on the back of the trailer, near the bedroom - the weight of the tree lifted the front of the trailer completely off the ground. The limbs of the tree also hit the park's office/manager's house and punched a hole in the wall! It also fell right on the main power lines coming into the park, cutting power to the entire park. I'm not sure how, but the owners of the park had a tree service out there by 8:30 (on a Sunday!) cutting up the tree. We left at noon to go to a couple more Elks lodges in the area and do some sightseeing. When we got back to the park at about 6 o'clock, they had cleaned up most of the tree and the electricians (again, on a Sunday!) had restored the power to the park. Our last full day in KC we spent doing some geocaching in the area. Again, we found eight caches and had a really good time.

On the 13th of May we left the Kansas Ciy area for Saint Louis. The trip was windy and a little rainy, but not too bad. We settled in at the Casino Queen casino in East St. Louis, on the Illinois side of the Mississippi, right across the river from the St. Louis Arch. We had done most of the St. Louis tourist stuff when we were here a couple years ago, so we didn't spend much time in the city. We did go to a couple Elks lodges in the southern suburbs of St. Louis one day, and then a couple of Elks lodges on the Illinois side of the river on another day. We also stopped into the "Mother Lodge" of Missouri, St. Louis #9 for a visit. We had been in this lodge two years ago and found them to be pretty friendly. We made two very short visits to the casino while we were staying in their park, but didn't have much luck. They didn't have any nickel poker machines and the machines we did play didn't give us much back. The Casino Queen advertises the "loosest slots" but they weren't for us! One nice thing, Illinois bans smoking in all buildings open to the public, so the casino was non-smoking.

On Saturday, the 17th of May we left St. Louis and took a long 85 mile jaunt up to Springfield, Illinois, the capitol city. We will be up here for four days, then take off to Indianapolis and our rally at the Indy 500! After we got settled in at the park just south of the city, we headed to the Springfield Elks Lodge. We had learned that the Illinois State Elks Association was holding their State Convention in Springfield this weekend, so we thought we could meet a bunch of local elks. However, when we got to the Lodge there were very few Elks there. (A lot of folks at a wedding reception in their hall, but few Elks) Although the Springfield Lodge was the host lodge for the convention, the events were all downtown at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Today we are going to go out and do some sightseeing in the area. We will also probably do some geocaching while we are here.

In the last two weeks we have gone from Denver to Springfield, Illinois, just under 1,000 miles. We have dodged storms and been wet for the majority of the two weeks, but were lucky and didn't have any really bad weather. Even the wind that blew the tree down in KC wasn't really any stronger than some we have seen in the Indio area in the past. We have come to really rely on our weather radio and the Internet weather radar to keep posted on any possible severe weather. Most of the time we were in Kansas and Missouri the radar showed severe weather and tornadoes to the south of us, about 150 miles or so, but we never had any immediate threats. Hope our luck holds for the rest of the summer!

The next report will be after the Indy. Until then, enjoy every day!

Springtime in the Rockies

Our last episode found us in Silent Valley, in the mountains above the desert floor of Banning. On Thursday, April 17th we left Silent Valley to begin our trip east, with the first stop being in Laughlin, Nevada. We stopped in Laughlin for a weekend outing with our old friends from the Indio Elks Lodge camping club, the Desert Drifters. There were 10 rigs at the Riverside Resort RV Park, and three other couples staying in local hotels because they didn't want to take their rigs up due to the high fuel costs. On Friday night we had a cocktail hour with heavy snacks. On Friday, Jackie and I, Dave and Maryanne, and Bill and Lynette took the jet boat ride from Laughlin South to Lake Havasu and the London Bridge. It was about 70 miles down the Colorado River, much of it through areas not accessible by land vehicle. Although the ride was a little rough in places, it was still great fun. We had lunch in Lake Havasu, did a little quick shopping, then back in the boat for the ride North.

On Friday night we had a pot luck with the group that was a lot of fun and too much good food. On Saturday a bunch of us got together and took a ride up to Oatman, Arizona, an old mining town in the mountains East of Bullhead City. We had lunch and shopped for a few hours, then headed back to Laughlin. Saturday evening the group went out on the little riverboat from the casino for a dinner cruise. It was OK, although the food was only fair and the service not so good. At least the company was good and we talked most of the dinner with the others in our party. Jackie and I went over to several casinos during the evenings of our stay, but didn't do really well until the last night when Jackie hit a Royal on a poker machine and cashed out enough to make us even for the weekend. YEA!

On Sunday, while our friends headed South back to the desert, we packed up and headed North through Vegas towards Hurricane, Utah. Hurricane is a few miles North of St. George, Utah. One of the highlights of the trip is going through the Virgin River Gorge in the Arizona Strip. There is a 35 mile part of I-15 that goes through Arizona between Mesquite, Nevada and St. George, Utah. We had a good trip and checked into the Western Horizon resort in Hurricane for a week's stay. On Monday we did some geocaching in the area and found 11 caches. On Tuesday we took a drive to Zion National Park. It has been many years since I was in Zion and Jackie had never been there. The park is simply breathtaking - a huge red rock canyon with two thousand foot cliffs on both sides. We spent the whole day there taking in the sights. We did a couple of short hikes to scenery sites and took a lot of photos. It is nice because they don't allow cars in the main part of the park, but have a free shuttle that takes you all over the park. We really had a great time.

Wednesday we drove back down to Mesquite, Nevada for a little more gaming. Didn't do very well. We did stop at the Mesquite Elks Lodge for a cocktail and visit. On Thursday we took a drive North to Kolob Canyons, which is another part of Zion National Park. This is a very small area with beautiful canyon vistas. While we were up that way we drove around Cedar City, Utah and stopped at the Elks Lodge there. Friday we did some more geocaching and then went to the St. George Elks Lodge for dinner and drinks. They had karaoke that night, so we ended up staying until about 10 o'clock singing. Saturday we stayed around the coach and Sunday morning we packed up and headed for Salina, Utah, a little town on I-70 about 30 miles East of the I-15 junction.

The original plan was to spend a couple nights in Salina, then head East on I-70 to Grand Junction, Colorado for another couple nights stay. However, we were checking the weather forecasts and learned that there was a winter storm moving into the Rockies starting on Thursday. Since we knew we had to go over the Continental Divide on I-70 (11,100 Ft.) in order to get to Denver, we decided to cut our stays in both Salina and Grand Junction to one-nighters. This put us going over the Rockies on Tuesday in beautiful weather. The climb up the Divide was a little slow in places, but the scenery was spectacular. The weather was clear, but cool, so there was no threat of overheating, even with the long, steep climbs. We stopped at the rest area at the Divide and the snow on the sides of the road were as tall as the motor home. After we went through the Eisenhower Tunnel over the Divide, then I had to work to keep the coach from running away from me on the down side of the mountains. At one point there is a ten mile long, seven percent grade. The speed limit for vehicles over 10,000 pounds was 35 MPH and it was a really good idea!

We finally pulled into the Denver area in the early afternoon and went to the Westminster Elks Lodge. This lodge is about 10 miles from downtown Denver and has a great RV park. They have 40 spaces, many with full hookups. We got one of the full hookup spots and settled in for a five day stay. Wednesday we drove into Downtown Denver for some sightseeing. It was 81 degrees and I was running around in shorts and a tee shirt. We also did some Elks visitations, stopping in at the Denver and Arvada Lodges. The Denver Lodge (#17) was in a huge building, although they only have about 500 members. The bartender showed us around the building. The Arvada Lodge was in a building that had been an old Safeway store, but you couldn't tell after the way the remodeled it. The people we met there were very friendly and gave us a tour.

On Thursday morning we woke up to a gray sky and 40 degrees. At about 9 a.m. it started to snow and by noon we had about two inches on the ground. First time the coach had ever seen snow. We were sure glad that we had modified our plans to get into Denver early because we heard that they closed I-70 over the Divide Thursday afternoon and it didn't reopen until late Friday! By Thursday evening the snow turned to rain and by dark all the snow on the ground was gone. Since we were parked and cozy, it was a fun adventure to see the snow. That evening we went down to the Lodge for cocktails and their taco night. Great food, ate too much!

Friday we drove around some more, picked up our mail at the UPS center, and did some shopping at one of the local malls. Saturday we engaged in one of our famous (and fun) Elks Pub Crawls. The first lodge we went to was Aurora, however, we found the building closed and vacant. We later found out that they had been forced out of the building by the city and were in the process of trying to find another home. After that we went by the Littleton Lodge, the Englewood Lodge and the Lakewood Lodge. The Littleton Lodge was very friendly and had a very pretty lodge building. The Englewood Lodge was OK, small and not very friendly. In fact, we didn't even stay for our free second drink! The Lakewood Lodge has about 1,400 members and is the largest Lodge in Colorado. They had a great building and were also very friendly. We got tours of both the Littleton and Lakewood Lodges.

This morning we left Westminster and the Denver area and again headed East on I-70, starting to work our way across the prairie. We are now headed across the part of the country known as Tornado Alley and it is the height of the severe storm season. We will be sure to keep the weather radio tuned to the right channel and watching the skies. I told Jackie that it was like playing weather roulette - you just hope that your number doesn't come up! This afternoon we stopped in the little town of Seibert, Colorado, population 190. We stopped here because the mileage was right and there is a Passport America RV park. We got a full hookup, 50 amp pull-through site for $15. Hard to beat that when you are on a budget. Very small-town America here too - the guy running the park was very friendly and helpful. We didn't want to unhook the car, so we walked two blocks to the town's only store and when we walked in the lady behind the register said, "hi, you must be the new arrivals in space 2." I guess we had a stunned look on our face because she then told us that she and her husband ran the park and also owned the food store. For a minute we thought they had spies in the trees watching our every move and reporting on us.

We are only here for one night, then on to points in Kansas. Unless something spectacular happens, I will post again in a couple weeks. Until then, I hope we don't meet Toto or Dorothy!

Springtime In The Desert

First I apologize to any of our regular viewers for being so long between updates. It's just that we have been having a very relaxing spring after the hectic February rally tour. The last chapter had us leaving Yucaipa after the last rally and heading for Desert Hot Springs. We were again at the Western Horizon's park, Desert Pools Resort. We had a very pleasant two week stay there, visiting with friends in the Desert mostly. We did begin participating in our new hobby, geocaching. We had first become really interested in the hobby after talking to several people at the Elks International rally in Lancaster.

For those who are not familiar, geocaching is essentially a high tech scavenger/treasure hunt. A "cache" is usually a hidden container of some sort which normally holds a logbook. Depending on the size of the container, it may also contain "swag" or trinkets and booty of any kind. Caches can vary from micro (film canister for instance) to small (Altoids tin) to normal, which can be a large Tupperware container, ammo box, gallon sized plastic container, etc. Usually they are camouflaged in some way. Any member of the geocaching community can hide a cache. When the cache is hidden, they use a GPS device to determine the GPS coordinates of the hiding place and then post the cache on the community's web site, geocaching.com. The entry on the web site will give the name of the cache (usually a hint in itself of where the cache is), the GPS coordinates, and usually a description of the type of cache, size, contents (when first placed) and general location information.

Other geocachers then access the information on the web site, download the coordinates into their own GPS devices, and try to find the cache. If the cache is found, the finders sign the logbook in the cache and rehide it. If the cache is big enough, they may leave some little trinket. Our first few caches we left some ladybug buttons. You can also take something out of the cache if you leave something. We have seen all sorts of odd and interesting "swag" in caches. After an geocaching expedition, you go onto the web site and log in your finds. The web site keeps track of the logs and lets everyone know who has found what caches, and when.

While we were in Desert Hot Springs we purchased a moderately priced Magellen handheld GPS, set up our geocaching account name (we are the TravelingHolts, same as this blog) and did our first searches. We found about six within a mile or two of Desert Pools. As of today, we are up to 34 finds and have searched in Desert Hot Springs, Banning and Idyllwild areas, as well as along Highway 243 between Banning and Idyllwild. We have found this to be an excellent and interesting hobby that gets us out of the coach and into the great outdoors (Yikes! Exercise??) We really enjoy it and look forward to doing it as we take our summer trip back to the Midwest.

One interesting development took place the last week of our stay at Desert Hot Springs. I (Roy) had been dealing what what I believed to be a sinus infection since January. I had periodic intense pain on the right side of my face, right behind my nose. Since we had both had very bad colds (or flu) in January, I assumed that something had "stuck" in my sinuses. While we were in Lancaster in February I went to the urgent care and the doctor there agreed that it was probably sinuses, and prescribed an antibiotic. Nothing changed, I still had the periodic pain. Then in March Jackie needed to go to the doctor for a pneumonia shot so she suggested I go to urgent care there to see what they could do. After giving the doctor my symptoms, and answering a bunch of questions, he finally said that he was pretty sure that I was suffering from "Tic Douloureux" which is a condition involving the nerves in the face. The medical name for the condition is trigeminal neuralgia. The symptoms are basically a sharp, almost electric-like pain around the nose area whenever certain "trigger" points are touched. The triggers can be anywhere on the affected side of the face. (The condition only affects one side) My major trigger points were the lip, cheek and eye. If I touched any of these places, even a light touch, I would feel the very sharp pain in my nose area. It makes it very difficult to eat and even talk when having a flareup.

Apparently there are generally two causes for the condition, the more common being an unexplained inflammation of the nerve, the less common being a tumor of some sort. So, just to be on the safe side, the doc sent me that afternoon for an MRI. Fortunately, the MRI was normal, thereby disproving occasional accusations by my dad that I did not have a brain in my head. The doctor put me on a medication that is normally for epileptic seizure disorders which has also been shown to help my condition. He also referred me to a Neurologist who confirmed the diagnosis a couple weeks later. As of the date of this posting my pain is pretty much gone and the only major trigger point is around my right eye. The doctor has me on an increasing dosage of the medication with instructions that when the pain is gone I level out at that dose. I think I am getting pretty close. There is no cure for the condition, only treatment - I hope I can keep it under control.

On Wednesday, the 19th of March we left Desert Hot Springs and headed up into the mountains above Banning to Silent Valley. Silent Valley is a large time-share type RV resort which we had bought into about five years ago, before we went full-time. We can stay at the resort for up to 120 days per year at no cost other than the yearly maintenance assessment. Owners can stay for up to 30 days and then have to leave for at least 10 days before they can come back. The resort is about 10 miles up State Route 243, the road that runs between Banning and Idyllwild. The park is at about 3,500 feet so the weather is a little cooler than down in the desert area. This is the resort at which we were staying in October of 2006 when the forest fire came through and trapped us in the park for a couple days. It is a very nice park with big sites, full hookups, a bar, restaurant, store and activity centers. We really enjoy staying here and plan to spend our full 30 days this spring and come back in October, after our summer trip, for another 30 days.

The day we arrived I noticed while we were setting up camp that I had a problem with the electricity. It seemed that only half the coach was getting 120 while I was plugged into the shore power. When I started the generator I had good power all over the coach. I spent about two hours trying to troubleshoot the problem and then all of a sudden everything was working normally. A few days later, in the morning, the problem popped up again. Again, before I could figure out what was going on, it started working again. A few days later it went out again and this time stayed out. After about four hours of work, several telephone conversations with RV technicians, I found out that the reel used to store the shore power cord had gone bad. One of the brushes in the reel which transfer the power from the shore power cord to the coach itself had burned and pitted and was no longer transferring current when in certain positions. That was why the problem would go away, apparently I had moved the reel by bumping it or something, moving the burned brush to a new location which allowed current to flow. Since the reel was not repairable, I just removed it from the coach, connected the shore power cord directly to the coach input and now all is well.

We have had a great time up here - Barry and Colleen came up and spent a couple nights with us and we have gone down to the valley to visit friends and take care of various errands. We have also done geocaching on several days as there are several hundred caches within 10 miles of the park. One day we drove down to San Diego to visit Jackie's mom. Had a very nice visit. Her Aunt Donna, who lives in Pismo Beach, was also down in San Deigo. The picture shows (L-R) Jackie, her mom, Bev, her brother, Dennis, and her aunt Donna. Dennis also lives in San Diego. One Sunday we drove to Garner Valley, which is South of Idyllwild to the Pathfinder Retreat closing ceremony. Pathfinder was the church sponsored retreat program which Jackie and I were pretty heavily involved in prior to our selling the house and going on the road. The group has retreats two or three weekends a year. The retreats, which go from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon, are very spiritual and uplifting. Jackie had been involved with the group for about 20 years and I got involved shortly after I moved to the desert in 98. The closing ceremony on Sunday is very moving and since we were so close (only about 30 miles) we decided to go and see our old friends. We had a very nice afternoon.

As of this writing we have a little less than a week to go here at Silent Valley. The weather has been generally good, cool for the most part with evening temps in the 30's. Just today it has started to warm up, although it has been very windy on many of the days up here. Nonetheless, we have really enjoyed our time here and look forward to coming back in October. When we leave here on the 17th of April we will be heading for Laughlin for a rally with our old friends in the Indio Elks Lodge RV club. We used to travel quite a bit with this group when we had the house and the small RV. We will be in Laughlin for three days and then we start our summer trip back east.

Our first stop is one of our membership resorts near St. George, Utah. We will be there a week. This resort is less than a hundred miles from a couple of National Parks, including Zion and Bryce Canyon, so we will have a good time sightseeing. We will then be going east through Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri and into Indiana, where we have reservations to attend the Indy 500. After that its up through Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota. In July we have a whole series of rallies in Minnesota, the same groups that we rallied with in February in California. This journey will be right at six thousand miles by the time we get back into Nevada in September. We are really looking forward to the trip (except for the fuel costs!) and I am sure that I will have blog material out the ying yang for our readers to enjoy.

Until the next time, this is the TravelingHolts bidding you a great day!

Spring 2008 Rally Tour - The Final Two!

On Friday, the 29th of February we left the Pomona Fairgrounds and headed a couple of miles south to Puddingstone Lake in San Dimas for the 3Ts rally. The 3Ts chapter always holds a two day rally immediately after the FMCA conventions as a sort of "R&R" from the hectic conventions. This was a small (six coaches) rally and very relaxed. We had a pot luck the first night and went out to a steak house for dinner the second night. We had a chance to wash clothes, clean house and just rest from the FMCA rally.

On Sunday, the 2nd of March we left San Dimas for the long 45 mile journey to the Yucaipa Regional Park in Yucaipa for the 100%ers rally. The 100%ers Chapter is comprised of folks who are true full-timers and live in their coach 100% of the time. We only had five coaches represented at Yucaipa for our three day rally. Jackie and I were the wagonmasters. On Sunday we had a heavy appetizer dinner after everyone got set up. We relaxed on Monday and then had a pot luck dinner. On Tuesday we all went out to the Olive Garden restaurant in San Bernadino. This was a very relaxed and easy going group so we had a pretty good rally.

The 100%ers was the LAST rally for the spring tour! On Wednesday we left Yucaipa and headed for the Western Horizon park in Desert Hot Springs, Desert Pools Resort. We will be here for two weeks and then plan to head up the mountain to Silent Valley, our time share park in the mountains. We hope that this visit to Silent Valley will be less exciting than our trip in October of 2006 when we were trapped in the park for two days with a forest fire raging all around us.

Until the next time, remember - life is a journey, not a destination - enjoy the trip!

Spring 2008 Rally Tour - The Big Three

The Elks International Chapter rally started on Wednesday, February 13th. The rally was held at the Lancaster Elks Lodge, which has a very nice, large RV facility. The lodge itself is very nice and has a fun bar with very friendly people. Dinner was provided in the Lodge each night of the rally and on Wednesday night they had a singer entertain after dinner. On Thursday a number of the rally attendees went on a "field trip" to the Rexhall motorhome plant which is located in Lancaster. It was a very interesting trip. They are a small company, only producing a few coaches per week. They have a number of coaches which have full-length wall slides on both sides of the coach. The slides are very unique and really open up the inside of the coach. At the current time they are only producing smaller coaches, in the 34 to 37 foot range.

Thursday night was fish and chips night and the Lodge was absolutely packed. It seems that everyone in Lancaster comes to the Elks on Thursday night for the fish and chips. It was quite good. On Saturday night I volunteered to set up the karaoke equipment and we had a really good time. There were about five people who chose to sing and most were pretty good. The Lodge's bar manager, Bobby came in and sang a couple songs, including one very risque version of "My Way", which he sang to Jay Blumenthal, one of the area Vice-Presidents for FMCA. Bobby was an entertainer in Vegas many years ago and has a great voice and stage presence.

We didn't do a lot during the day while in Lancaster. Jackie played cards a couple of the days and the rest was pretty much rest and relaxation except for the trip to the motorhome factory. We did go out to eat lunch a couple of times and found an excellent little Mexican restaurant in downtown Lancaster.

On Sunday we undertook the grueling five mile drive from the Elks Lodge to the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds where the Monaco International Chapter rally was being held. We got settled in quite quickly as the Monaco Chapter volunteers in charge of parking really had their act together. There was nothing much going on at the rally on Sunday or Monday so we were able to relax a little bit. The rally started on Tuesday and since we had volunteered to be mentors we had to start at 8:00 a.m.! The mentor program pairs up volunteers with first time attendees at Monaco International rallies so that they feel welcomed. The mentors also let them know about the activities and services that are available at the rallies. We had some very nice mentors at our first Monaco rally in Greensboro, NC, and we wanted to give back to the program.

Our first timers were a fairly young couple from Southern California who were attending with the wife's parents and some other friends. They were nice folks, but they were having a real tough time with major problems on their new Camelot coach. They were so bitter over the problems they were having with Monaco that they were having a little trouble enjoying the rally.
As with all Monaco International rallies, the three nights of the actual rally featured an open bar, catered dinners and great entertainment. Tuesday night's entertainers were the Marlins, a 50's-60's group that was terrific. The audience was dancing in the aisles most of the evening. The second night's entertainment was a comic who was pretty good. The third night was a country group and we left early because they were only so-so.

Unfortunately, the weather for most of the Monaco rally was terrible. It rained the first couple days, and for the rest of the rally it was cold and very windy. With daytime temps in the low 50's and 25 mph winds, it was very uncomfortable to be out. After we toured the couple of dozen new Monaco coaches they had on display, we pretty much stayed in the coach during the day and only ventured out for the happy hour/dinner/entertainment in the evenings.

On Saturday, February 23rd it was time to head to the LA County Fairplex in Pomona for the FMCA convention. We decided to caravan with the Monaco group from Lancaster to Pomona because of the distance and the confusing directions for getting into the Fairplex. It is in the middle of town and I was not familiar with the streets and didn't want to end up wandering all over on city streets looking for the right way into the fairgrounds. We had to start forming up for the caravan at 7:00 a.m., so neither of us looked our best, but we managed to get buttoned up and into line. We were coach number 35 of 115 coaches! It made a very impressive line of motorhomes. We were on freeway for most of the 100 miles and the CB chatter from the truckers about all the coaches was fun to listen to.

Once we got into the fairgrounds it took a while to get parked because there was some confusion about where the attendees who wanted electric service (like us) were supposed to go. The caravan took us to the parking area for those who just wanted to dry camp. We finally got parked and set up - it was nice to be on asphalt for a change. Most of our previous FMCA conventions have had us parked on grass/dirt and it invariably rained and turned the area into a muddy mess. We had a little rain on Saturday and Sunday morning, but for the rest of the rally it was very sunny and warm. After the cold weather in Lancaster we were very happy to be warm again!

Since this was our fourth FMCA convention since starting our full-timing life, we had been to most of the training and education seminars that were of interest to us. So this rally we decided to volunteer and help out some of the various chapters to which we belong. On Sunday night FMCA put on a very nice volunteer appreciation dinner for all the hundreds of volunteers who help put on the rally. Just about everything going on, from parking to security to most of the entertainment and seminar presentations are done by volunteers. On Monday morning we were representatives of our 100%ers Chapter at the Chapter Fair. The fair allows any chapter of FMCA to set up an information booth so that convention attendees can learn about the various chapter activities. There are over 500 chapters in FMCA, but only about 50 or so set up booths at the fair. The 100%ers, of which I am the current vice president, is a chapter for folks who live in their motorhomes 100% of the time. We set up a nice booth and hopefully recruited a few new members for the chapter.

Tuesday we had several meetings of some of our other chapters during the day. The entertainment for the evening was pair of tribute bands, one a tribute to ABBA, the other to the Bee Gees. The Bee Gees group was very good, the ABBA one not so much. A lot of the folks walked out on the ABBA group, which thankfully performed second. Had they been up first the folks leaving would have missed a pretty entertaining performance by the Bee Gee group.

On Wednesday we had some time to check out the several hundred vendors who set up shop to sell stuff. We didn't buy much - we don't need much for the coach anymore. At noon we went to work as servers at the ice cream social. Normally, the servers just hand out ice cream bars or ice cream sandwiches to the crowd and it goes pretty smoothly. Unfortunately, the caterer screwed up and delivered the stuff too early and it all melted! An emergency call to the Sheraton Hotel on the fairgrounds produced a whole bunch of cartons of ice cream and bowls and we ended up having to scoop ice cream for several thousand attendees. It was actually a lot of fun talking to the folks as they came though the line and we enjoyed the experience. We have already committed to being the co-chairs of the ice cream social at the FMCA convention in St. Paul, MN this summer. Oh joy! I hope this one goes smoother!

Later on in the afternoon I chaired the business meeting of our 100%ers chapter. Our chapter is so small now that we only had six coaches represented and that was enough for a quorum. It looks like I will be nominated as president of the chapter for election in July at St. Paul. I hope we can build the membership of the chapter back up to what we have been told it was a few years ago. The entertainment on Wednesday night was Peter Noone and Herman's Hermits, the group from the 60's. When we went we didn't expect much, figured they would play some of their pop hits and that would be it. Turned out to be a great show! They did play some of the Hermit's hits, but they also covered a lot of other 50's and 60's stuff and Noone did a lot of interaction with audience. We really enjoyed the show and it seemed that most of the other attendees did as well.

On Thursday we spent the morning going through some of the new coaches in the display area. They had a couple hundred coaches there, so we only saw a fraction of them. We were really impressed with the new American brand coaches. They had some very nice floor plans - they may be on the short list in a few years if we decide to upgrade to a newer, larger coach. Later in the day I was a panelist at a seminar for full-timers, or those thinking about full-timing. My portion of the panel dealt with communications, phones, mail, computers, etc. We had a pretty good turnout and I enjoyed the experience. Later that evening we helped host the Elks International Chapter's social hour. Jackie bar tended. I was supposed to be there to help, but I was late getting to the event because we had to get a leaky tire fixed and the service truck was late getting to the coach.

After being on the run for most of the week, we decided to skip the entertainment on Thursday night. It was a country group, the Bellamy Brothers. Probably a good thing because the next day we heard nothing but bad things about the show. The sound was bad, the singing was bad and a large part of the crowd walked out early.

Friday morning we buttoned up the coach and got ready for the grueling three mile drive from the fairgrounds to the RV park in San Dimas where the 3Ts Chapter rally was being held. This chapter always has a two day "rest and relaxation" rally right after the big FMCA conventions. Before we left the fairgrounds we went over and had the coach weighed again. The last time we were weighed was a year ago in North Carolina. It is important to know what the weight of the coach is at each wheel position so you can set the tire pressure correctly. As in North Carolina, we found we were about a thousand pounds under the maximum rated weight for the coach and pretty well balanced, so I was happy with the results.

We are now resting at the 3Ts rally. We had a pot luck last night and we are going out to a restaurant as a group tonight. When we leave here on Sunday, we will be going to Yucaipa for the 100%ers rally. That is all the report for now.

Keep the shiny side up and the greasy side down!

Starting the Spring 2008 Rally Tour

After leaving Winterhaven we headed up to Desert Hot Springs, to the Desert Pools RV Resort. This is one of our membership parks, but this is the first time we have stayed here. It is a fairly nice desert park, not too far from Desert Hot Springs proper. We didn't do a lot in the 10 days we were there, but we did have lunch with our good friend Jimmy Hanson. His wife Lynn was supposed to have been there, but ended up on jury duty instead. We were very happy to see Jim because early last year he was critically ill and most were not giving good odds on his recovery. He is now doing quite well and they are traveling in their RV again, so we are very happy for him. He is one tough old MARINE! Semper Fi, Jimmy.

On February 5th we left Desert Hot Springs for the great town of Joshua Tree for the first stop on our "Spring 2008 Rally Tour." We went up there to attend the rally of the Full-Timers Chapter of FMCA. This chapter is made up of folks who live full-time, or at least most-time, in their RV's. There were about 20 rigs in attendance. The rally was held at the Sportsman's Club in Joshua Tree, up in the high desert North of the Coachella Valley. There were a lot of games and activities, and one day we took a bus tour of the 29 Palms Marine Corps Base. We had a Marine guide who showed us around the base, took us to the PX for souvenirs, and lunch at one of the mess halls. The food was surprisingly good, much better than I remember from my Marine Corps days in the 60's and 70's. We also visited the Yucca Valley Elks Lodge for a couple drinks and a lodge pin. We tried to visit the 29 Palms Lodge, but they were closed.

On the last night of the rally I set up the karaoke system and we did several hours of singing. There were not a lot of singers, but those that did sing did so with gusto and often. During the rally we celebrated both my birthday (the 5th) and our fourth anniversary (the 7th) with the group. Both nights the cooks came up with celebratory cakes! All of the dinners were provided at the rally and most were cooked by volunteers from the chapter. Very good food, good company and a lot of fun. All in all we had a great time and look forward to the group's rally in Minnesota in June.
On Saturday the 9th we left Joshua Tree for Hesperia, a town near Victorville on the I-15, North of San Bernardino. We had four days between the Full-Timer's Rally and our next rally stop in Lancaster, so we decided to spend a couple days in the Hesperia/Victorville area since neither of us had spent any time there. We did a little sight seeing around town and visited both the Victorville and Hesperia Elks Lodges. Both were very nice and very friendly lodges.

On Tuesday the 12th we headed over to Lancaster and the Lancaster Elks Lodge. We will be attending the rally of the Elks International Chapter of FMCA being held at the Lancaster Lodge. The Lodge has a very large RV facility. We have stayed at this lodge in the past with the RV club from the Indio Lodge. The last time we were here was about four years ago and we had a great time. The Elks International Chapter is composed of members of FMCA who are also Members of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. While the Chapter has no official affiliation with the BPOE, the members of the chapter must be members of an Elks Lodge somewhere. We arrived at the Lancaster Elks Lodge a day early so we could get set up and settled in before the rally starts on Wednesday.

The Elks International Chapter rally runs for four days and then we will be moving on to the Monaco International Chapter rally, also being held in Lancaster, at the fairgrounds about four miles from the Elks Lodge. I will try to post another entry after we finish the Elks and Monaco rallies, before we head down to the big FMCA Convention in Pomona.

Adios for now.

Southern California - Part II

As I said in the previous post, we arrived in San Diego on the 7th of January for a two week stay. For the first couple days we still weren't feeling 100 percent, so we hung around the coach. On the 10th we finally got out for a little sight-seeing and took a drive around Mission Bay, Pacific Beach and out onto Point Loma where we stopped at the Cabrillo National Monument. Interesting place with a lot of information on the early history of the San Diego area. The park is on Point Loma hill so there are some great views of San Diego Bay and the city.

On the 12th we went to Old Town San Diego and spent the afternoon walking around the shops. We have been there several times before, but always enjoy the area. There is a transit station in Old Town and one of our plans had been to take the red trolley down to Tijuana, Mexico. You can ride the train down to San Yisdro for a buck, walk across the border into TJ and then take the train back up for another dollar. However, recent news stories from TJ indicate that there are major drug gang problems including shootings in the streets. We decided we didn't need any Mexican stuff that bad.

On the 13th we ventured out to the Sycuan Casino out in El Cajon. Didn't win anything, but didn't lose a lot either and had a good time. Afterwards we visited the El Cajon Elks Lodge. Very nice and friendly lodge. The lodge has over 2,000 members which makes it huge by most lodge standards.

On the 15th we finally felt well enough to feel comfortable visiting Jackie's brother and mom, both of whom live in San Diego. We stopped at Dennis' condo then went over to the senior center where Jackie's mom lives. Had a very nice visit. For various reasons it has been a while since we had seen her. She looks pretty good for nearly 89 years old. After our visit we went by the San Diego Elks Lodge for a cocktail and visit. Much to our surprise we ran into an old acquaintance from Indio, Jeff Albright. It has been at least four years since we last saw him. He had moved from the Desert up to Oregon, however, he moved back down to San Diego a year or so ago to be with his mom. We had a very nice visit. While we were there we called Barry and Colleen because we had met Jeff through them back in Indio. They were quite surprised to talk to him too.

On the 16th we decided to go on one of our famous "Elks Pub Crawls" and took off for a day of lodge visits. We stopped first at the Santee Lodge and had a nice visit. This is a very friendly lodge - in fact, we weren't sure we were ever going to get out because everyone wanted to buy us a drink. A number of the people at the bar were actually members of the El Cajon Lodge which is only a few miles away. After Santee we went North up to the Poway Lodge. Although this was a much smaller lodge, it too was very friendly and welcoming. For those Elks visiting the San Diego area we have found all of the lodges in the county to be very welcoming to visitors. After hanging out at the Poway Lodge for a while we drove over to the Encinitas Lodge, which was actually in Cardiff. Unfortunately, Wednesday was bingo night and because they allow the public in to play bingo, the bar (a private club) was closed. To add insult to injury, they didn't even have any lodge pins for our collection!

On the 19th we took Jackie's mom over to the Seaport Village for lunch and then out for some shopping. She likes to get out, although she doesn't usually want to stay out too long. On Monday the 21st we packed up and headed east to Winterhaven, just over the border from Yuma, Arizona.

We had a very uneventful trip, although we stopped at the truck stop located on the Indian reservation at the top of coastal divide about 60 miles East of San Diego. It is located at over 4,000 feet and it was COLD! I thought I was going to freeze to death standing outside putting fuel in the coach. We arrived at the Pilot Knob RV park in the early afternoon and got set up pretty quickly. We are only going to be here for five days and came down here primarily to go down to nearby Algadones, Mexico to get our teeth cleaned and get new glasses for Jackie.

After we got set up we drove over to Yuma, AZ, about 8 miles East of the park and visited the Elks Lodge. We wanted to get a copy of the Lodge calendar for the week so we would know what might be going on. We ended up staying for dinner since they had their spaghetti night. All you can eat for six bucks. We don't eat pasta at home much so it had been a while since I had a nice big plate of spaghetti - was quite good.

On Tuesday the 22nd we went down to Algodones. The border crossing is only about three miles from our park. We were able to get our teeth cleaned and get Jackie some new glasses in one day. That is good, because it is a long wait to get back across the border. The walk-across line was about a half mile long and it took us an hour and a half to get to the border. For those not familiar with Algadones, it is a fairly small town on the border which is about 70 percent dentist offices and eye doctors. The remainder is made up of pharmacies, liquor stores and shops with the usual Mexican merchandise. Every day the place fills up with folks going down for dental work and eye glasses. We were there last March and I got new glasses and new dentures for a fraction of the cost in the U.S. and the quality is quite good. They don't want to kill the golden goose I guess.

We will be leaving here on Saturday the 26th to head back up to the Desert. We will be going to Desert Hot Springs to stay in another of our membership parks, the Western Horizon's Desert Pools RV Resort. We'll post again in a couple weeks and let you know what's going on.

We didn't have a lot of pictures for this post, so I thought I would throw in a shot of our kitty, Smokey, curled up with his stuffed buddy.

That's it for now - talk to you soon!