Up The Southern California Coast

Welcome back to our story. Our last chapter concluded on Sunday, April 7^th, when we moved from near Yuma, Arizona, to San Diego, California. We arrived in San Diego in the early afternoon and got settled into the Sante Fe RV Park, near Mission Bay, just off the I-5. Jackie's brother Dennis, who lives here in San Diego, came over for a visit later in the afternoon. We were pretty tired out from the travel day, so after Dennis left we just watched TV until bedtime.

Monday, April 8^th, was a chores day. Jackie is finally feeling a hundred percent again after her week with the stomach flu. We spent time in the morning doing chores around the house and after lunch we did our laundry. This park has a very nice, large laundry facility, so we didn't have to leave the park to wash clothes. After we finished the laundry, about 2:30 or so, we went out on a grocery run. We ended up having to stop at both Walmart and Albertson's because the closest Walmart wasn't a super center and didn't have all the food stuffs we needed to buy. We finally got back to the coach close to 5:00. We had our evening cocktail and a nice pork roast for dinner, then watched TV until it was time to go to bed. It is sure different to be here in San Diego, where the high today was 63, compared to the low 90's in Yuma. It even rained briefly today. No more shorts for a while.

Tuesday, April 9^th, we awoke to clear blue skies and very cool temps, in the mid-50's. We left the coach around noon, after having lunch, to do some geocaching in the area. This would be the first caching we have done in over a week, since Jackie got sick last Monday. We cached fairly close to the park, mostly in the Pacific Beach area. Pacific Beach, which is actually just a neighborhood in the City of San Diego, is the area that lies along the beach, between the recreational and resort area of Mission Bay to the south, and the very upscale La Jolla to the north. It runs from the beach east to Interstate 5. One interesting thing about the area is that most of the east/west running streets in the area are named after gemstones, garnet, agate, opal, etc.

We were able to get a dozen new finds by about 3:30, all of which were within a couple miles of the RV park. We also stopped at a hair salon in the neighborhood so Jackie could get her hair cut. After our caching we made a stop at Kohl's so Jackie could look for things she wanted. She didn't get anything, but I ended up with a new pair of sweat pants for wear around the house. I wore out my old pair and was having trouble finding them anywhere now that the weather is turning warm. There was a pair in my size on the clearance rack at Kohl's, so I got them for $5. Bargain! After caching we went back to the coach for the rest of the day.

Wednesday, April 10^th, we decided to do a relaxation day and just stay around the coach. After lunch I did take the car down to the car wash for a good cleaning. It has been a while since I had it done because we were in the sand and dust of the desert. When you geocache in the desert you track in a lot of dirt. Now the car looks shiny and new again. We also got our mail today, which didn't hold any big surprises. Paid a couple of bills and did some other administrative chores, while Jackie completed a few of her to-do's as well.

About 7:30 or so Jackie's brother Dennis came over for dinner. Jackie had made a batch of chicken enchiladas for dinner. Dennis is a mostly vegetarian, which means he occasionally will eat chicken and fish. He is vegetarian for health's sake, not because he is opposed to animals as food. We had a great dinner and some very nice conversation afterward. Dennis left about 9:30 and we watched TV until bedtime.

Thursday, April 11^th, we left the coach around noon and drove to Old Town San Diego for lunch. Old Town is the area where the original Spanish explorers founded the town. There is a big historical park there with a bunch of restored buildings from the Spanish period. The area around the park is part residential and part tourist, with a lot of hotels and restaurants. We were headed for a place called New Orleans Creole Cafe, which had been recommended to us by someone. We had noticed that the place had pretty high ratings on the ratings web sites, so we decided we would give it a try.

The restaurant was actually inside of another historical site called the Whaley House. The Whaley House was designed and built in 1857 by Thomas Whaley. The family only lived in the house for a year before moving to San Francisco, however, ten years later the family came back to San Diego and refurbished their old home, which had been left vacant for the entire time. They lived in the home until 1887. During the time whe Whaley family lived in the home parts of it were used at various times as a theater, the San Diego courthouse and as a general store. In 1960 it was purchased by a private foundation which restored the property and founded the current museum. Two of the small outbuildings on the property are leased to the restaurant.

One of the buildings, which are quite small, serves as the kitchen, the other a small dining room. They also have a small patio area next to the kitchen with four tables. The only part open when we arrived was the patio, but it was a pleasant day, so we decided to give it a try. The menu was not extensive, but most of the typical New Orleans dishes were on it. Jackie had the Jambalaya and I had the red beans and rice with Andoulli sausage. Both of the dishes were good, but not very spicy, certainly not like you would get in a restaurant in New Orleans. I think they may be a little afraid of driving away customers not used to the spicy style of cooking that is authentic.

The service was very slow because they only had one cook and one waiter. Lunch took us over an hour, and there were only four tables. It took fifteen minutes before we even had our beverages. The place is very pricy also, with our meal being close to $50 for lunch with just two entrees and a beer. It was a place that I was glad I tried, the food was good, but I wouldn't go back and couldn't recommend it unless you really, really like Creole cooking. After lunch we did a little geocaching in the area, getting six new finds in a little over an hour, along with one new DNF. We then headed back to the coach where we stayed in for the rest of the day.

Friday, April 12^th, we had lunch in the coach and then went out for some more local geocaching. We got a couple of caches in some of the residential neighborhoods just to the east of the RV park, but after being stymied on four caches in a row with lack of parking, we got frustrated and drove back down to Mission Bay to cache in the park there. We went out on Fiesta Island, one of several islands in the bay that make up Mission Bay Park, where there were a dozen caches or more hidden, and cached there. Being a weekday the park was not real busy, so parking in the area of the caches was a breeze. We quit about 4:30 with a dozen new finds for the day. After caching we headed back to the RV park, had happy hour, dinner and then watched TV until bed.

Saturday, April 13^th, our last full day in San Diego. We had lunch at the coach and about 1:00 left to take in a movie. While we enjoy going to the movies from time to time, it has been a while since our last theater experience. The last movie we saw was Lincoln, and that was back in December when we were in Indio. When Jackie's brother Dennis was over the other night he mentioned that he had seen a movie called A Place Beyond the Pines, and that it was a very good movie that wasn't getting a lot of buzz. It stars Ryan Gosling and Bradly Cooper, among others. I have to concur that it was an excellent film. It is basically a story that involves two families that have incidental contact with each other over a period of fifteen years. The film is presented in three distinctly separate vignettes which were very well done, and very nicely integrated into a complete film. I was very happy that we went to see it. After the movies we went back to the coach where I spent a little time getting the outside ready for travel by putting away the decorations and taking the shade screens down. We had dinner and relaxed the rest of the evening.

Sunday, April 14^th, another travel day. We left the RV park at about 10:00 and started north on Interstate 5, heading for Santa Barbara, California, about 216 miles northwest. We have made this trip at least six times since starting to full time RV and I never look forward to the day. The trip takes us up the coast to Los Angeles, through downtown LA to the 101 freeway, and then west to Santa Barbara. Even on a Sunday, which is the day we always try to make the trip, the traffic is bad, the lanes narrow in the urban area, and there are no easy pull off areas. I drove nonstop for a little over four hours and it was a little nerve wracking, but we made it safely.

We pulled into the Santa Barbara Elks Lodge, which is actually in neighboring Goleta, California, about 2:15 and got settled into our site quickly. Fortunately, this lodge is one of the rare exceptions that will take reservations on RV sites, and we had a reservation. The place was pretty full and there were several rigs already waiting for an opening. After we got parked and hooked up we just chilled the rest of the day and night. We had a nice corn beef cooking in the crock pot during the trip, so dinner was pretty much made. We will be here for three days before moving onto our next stop, Santa Maria, California, up in the Central Coast area.

Monday, April 15^th, Happy Tax Day and Happy Birthday to our old kitty, Smokey. We don't know his actual birthday since he was a feral kitten when we adopted him out of the wilds of Cathedral City, California. However, based on the vet's estimate of his age, about five or six weeks, when we got him, we calculated back and picked an easy to remember date that would be pretty close. Our new cat, Benji, has the same birthday as Jackie, May 15^th, and we know that one for fact since he was adopted out of a shelter that had his momma when he was born.

We left the coach after lunch to do some geocaching in the area. It was a nice clear, sunny day, a little cool, but otherwise very nice. We spent a couple of hours out caching in the area around Golita and got a dozen caches before heading back to the Elks lodge. We decided to go over to the Elks for a cocktail at happy hour and while sitting at the bar watching TV is when we first learned about the bombing at the Boston Marathon earlier in the day. When we are out in the car we listen to satellite radio, so we don't get any news. Clearly a terrorist strike to me, but we will see how the investigation pans out.

We only had one drink at the lodge because there wasn't anyone else there except the bartender, and he wasn't too talkative. We went back to the coach for another cocktail and then dinner. We then just hung around and watched TV until bed.

Tuesday, April 16^th, we left the coach about noon and went out for lunch in Santa Barbara, a little exploring, and some more geocaching. We hit a couple of caches on the way to Santa Barbara, which is a few miles east of Golita, where the Elks Lodge is. We parked the car in old town Santa Barbara and just went out and walked the streets for a little while trying to decide where to eat. There are dozens of restaurants in the area, but we finally settled on a Mexican place which was, oddly, called Sandbar. The name struck us because there is a bar and restaurant called the Sandbar in La Quinta, not too far from where our house was. We went there once in a while.

The place was kind of kitschy, which is not too surprising being in the touristy part of Old Town. Most of the seating was outside on a covered patio, but we chose to sit in the bar. The place had a nice comprehensive menu and the food was surprisingly good, and plentiful. The service was a tad slow, but we were in the bar and the bartender had to come out from behind the bar to be our waiter too. All in all we were pretty pleased with our choice, and we certainly got filled up.

After our late lunch we strolled around the Old Town area for a while, did a little window shopping and walked through the big Macy's department store. After that we got the car and did a few more caches in the beach park area of Santa Barbara. We had to bypass a number of caches because there was no parking, but we still ended up with another four finds, giving us six for the afternoon. The beach front area was busy as there was a Princess Cruise ship anchored in the harbor just off shore for the day. We talked to a couple of the passengers, including one geocacher whom we met at a cache near the beach, and learned that the ship was a five day cruise out of San Diego that went up to San Francisco, then Santa Barbara, Catalina, Ensenada and then back to San Diego. Sounds like a fun cruise. After our caching we headed back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the evening.

Wednesday, April 17^th, another travel day. We left the Santa Barbara Elks about 10:30 or so and drove north on Highway 101, headed for Santa Maria, about seventy miles north. It only took about 90 minutes or so for us to arrive at the Santa Maria Elks Lodge and get checked into their RV park. This is a very big Lodge and the RV park has a number of full hookup, 50 amp sites and they take reservations. We made reservations a while back and got a really nice site for our stay. It will be nice because Jackie has an aunt and a cousin that live in the area and we like to stay in the Central Coast area and visit. We will be here nine days, which would have been tough if we had to stay in a spot with no sewer.

We were all moved in and set up in a couple of hours. About 4:30 we left the coach and drove to the Oceano Elks Lodge, about twenty miles north of Santa Maria, to meet Jackie's aunt Donna and her cousin Pia, both of whom live here in the area. Donna lives in Pismo Beach, in a very nice house up on the side of the mountain overlooking the town, and Pia lives in G

rover Beach, another of the many small coastal towns in the area. Donna is nearly 88 years old and was married to Jackie's mother's brother until he died a few years ago. She now has one of her grandsons, Corey, living with her to help her out.

We arrived at the Oceano Elks right at 5:00. This Elks Lodge, which is just steps from the Pacific Ocean, adjacent to the Pismo State Beach, also has an RV park and we used to stay here frequently. However, they have recently raised their rates significantly and, since their sites do not have sewer connections, they have lost their appeal to us. It is closer to where Jackie's family lives, but we can stay longer at Santa Maria because the sites have sewer hookups, and it is less expensive, which is important to us “living on a fixed income” types. We did like to come to their Wednesday all you can eat spaghetti nights, which is the reason we suggested that everyone meet here.

Everyone arrived at the lodge and we got a table for six in the dining room. It was Jackie and I, Donna and Corey, and Pia and her new boyfriend Korby. We had cocktails and chatted, catching up on everything going on in the last year since we saw them. At 6:00 they served dinner and we all had a very nice plate of spaghetti, two for me thank you! We all sat and talked until about 7:30 when everyone decided to head for home. We drove back to the coach and relaxed with the TV the rest of the evening.

Thursday, April 18^th, we left the coach around 11:00 or so and went out for lunch and some shopping. We stopped at a Coco's restaurant so I could have lunch and Jackie could still get breakfast. We do that fairly often when we go out for lunch. After lunch we made several stops to shop, a couple of craft stores so Jackie could try and find some materials for a project she is working on, and Walmart for supplies. As is with the case in a lot of small California towns, there is no big, Walmart Super center in Santa Maria. A lot of these small towns don't like the super centers. Walmart was smart though in that they built a regular Walmart and then a few doors down, in the same shopping center, they built a Walmart Neighborhood Store, which is basically just a grocery store. They end up with the same effect as a super center without actually building one. Clever.

After shopping we went back to the coach and unloaded the groceries and then drove up to Pismo Beach to visit Jackie's aunt Donna at her house. Jackie's cousin and her boyfriend had gone out of town for a couple of days, so it was just Donna and her grandson Corey who were at the house. We visited with them for a couple of hours before leaving and driving back down to Santa Maria. We went home via the “scenic route”, along the coast rather than by the freeway.

Friday, April 19^th, we went out after lunch for some geocaching in the Santa Maria area. By 4:00 or so we had gathered fourteen new finds, along with three DNFs. There doesn't seem to to be a lot of caching going on around this area during the colder months as some of the caches had not been found for many months. Although we found a couple that hadn't been found in six months, a couple of our DNFs were also caches that hadn't been found in a while. It could be that they have just disappeared over the time period.

We did have a good time with the caching, seeing some areas of Santa Maria that we were not familiar with. We have only cached here once before, a couple of years back when we came for the Elks Rodeo. After our caching we made a stop for some groceries that we forgot to get yesterday, then went back to the coach. I made a nice pot of chili for dinner and then we just watched TV until bedtime.

Saturday, April 20^th, the sun was back in the morning and we were looking for temps in the high 70's today. We had lunch at the coach and then headed out to do some more caching in the Santa Maria area. We cached for a couple of hours and ended up with eight new finds, including number 5,200. Yea! Unfortunately, we also got another four DNF's, some because they like to do bush and tree hides here, which can sometimes be very difficult to find, and some because they haven't been found in many months and are probably gone.

About 2:30 we quit caching and went back to the coach to get things ready for dinner. We are going over to Donna's house tonight for dinner with us, Pia and Korby, and Donna and Corey. We are making a bunch of Mexican food and are planning a fiesta! Jackie made her chili rellano casserole, I made some meat for tacos and we also had some tamales in the freezer. About 4:30 we loaded everything up in the car and drove to Donna's. We joked when we got there and unloaded everything that we were the “Holt Catering Service” and were serving tonight.

We had cocktails and talked for a while, watching the sun go down over the ocean. There is a great view of the beach and ocean from Donna's house. About 6:30 dinner was served and everyone enjoyed the fiesta. After we got things cleaned up we talked for a while longer and finally left about 8:30 and drove back to Santa Maria. After we got the car unloaded and everything put away we watched TV for a little bit and then went to bed.

Sunday, April 21^st, we left the coach about 11:00 or so and drove to Nipomo, the next town north of Santa Maria on Highway 101, to visit the big swap meet they have there every weekend. We went there a couple of years ago when we were here and it was fun. The place was packed and it took a little while to get parked and get into the grounds. Once we did, however, we were a little disappointed. Unlike a few years ago, it is now 90 percent imported Mexican crap, the same stuff you see in the Mexican swap meets all over the Southwest. Although it is a big swap meet, it only took us an hour to walk through the whole thing because there wasn't much of interest to us. I did buy a cheap set of wireless mikes for my karaoke stuff. Hopefully they will work, but if not, they were cheap enough to just toss.

After the swap meet we went to a Carl's Jr. for lunch and then went to the outlet mall in Arroyo Grande to walk around. This was much more our style, and we spent a couple of hours walking the mall. We bought a few things, nothing major, but had a good time looking in all the stores. After shopping we did some geocaching in the Arroyo Grande area, ending up with five new finds. For the first time in a couple of trips we had no DNFs today. Yea! After caching we went back to the coach and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon and evening.

Monday, April 22^nd, I woke up about 7:30 and was greeted by fog when I opened the front curtains. We had lunch at the coach and then loaded all our laundry up in the car and headed out to find a decent laundromat for our bi-weekly washing routine. We rejected the first, closest laundry as too dirty, but found another just a mile or so down the road. We got all our laundry done in a couple of hours and then headed back to the coach. It was very cool and breezy today, at least ten or more degrees cooler than yesterday.

One thing we did while waiting for the clothes to dry is walk across the parking lot of the strip mall the laundry was in to visit a local furniture store. One of our coach remodel plans for this summer is to do away with one of our two couches and put in a recliner. Jackie is OK sitting or lying on the couch to watch TV, I want to have a nice recliner. We just wanted to go into the store and check out what was currently available and get some ideas of what kind of chair we want, and what the prices are. We found a couple that were really comfortable, and affordable in the five to six hundred dollar range, but none in the fabric or color we prefer. At least now we have some idea what we might find when we really go out looking.

After we got back to the coach we did a little house cleaning before leaving again about 4:30 to go to dinner. One of our “must do” things when we come to the area is to have dinner at Jocko's restaurant in nearby Nipomo. In my opinion, Jocko's is, hands down, the best steakhouse anywhere in the country. We had reservations at 5:00 for dinner and were meeting Jackie's aunt Donna, Corey, Pia and Korby. Everyone arrived right on time, except Korby decided to bow out of dinner as he was not feeling well.

A little background on Jocko's restaurant. The Knotts family has been in the restaurant and saloon business in Nipomo since 1886. Emery Knotts, the founder of the family's first saloon, had eight sons, one of whom was named Ralph, but went by his nickname of Jocko. The current restaurant was built in 1962 by Fred and George Knotts, two of Ralph's kids, and is now operated by Fred's widow and their son Mike, the Great-Grandson of Emory.

In our travels around the country I have talked to a lot of RV'ers about their travels, and anytime the talk involves travels in the Central Coast area, from Santa Maria to San Luis Obispo, the people know of Jocko's and echo my sentiments, that it is the best place for steak anywhere. It is not a fancy place, in fact it is very casual and quite noisy. However, all of their steaks, lamb, and ribs are cooked over a huge wood-fir

ed grill in a shed behind the restaurant. They only have a few cuts of beef, filet, top sirloin, or Spencer, which is a rib eye cut. You can get the sirloin and Spencer cuts in either large or small. The large Spencer, which I had, is about 20 ounces and two inches thick, and is so tender you could almost cut it with a folk. I order mine “blue,” which is blood rare, and it was cooked perfectly. Donna had the small Spencer medium and it too was cooked to perfection.

Jackie and Corey both had lamb chops and Jackie said her lamb was also cooked perfectly medium rare. They give you three big chops on the order, way more than a normal person can eat in one sitting. Pia had the spare ribs and got a full rack of very thick ribs. All of the dinners come with garlic bread, beans, salad, desert and coffee if you want it. Before dinner they bring out a plate of pickles, peppers, carrot sticks and other veggies to munch on. One cannot leave Jocko's hungry, and rarely without a take out box of leftovers. Jackie and I both have enough food left for tomorrow's dinner at home. It's not fancy, it's too noisy for comfortable conversation, it's usually crowded, but if you want great steak, you cannot beat it. After a great dinner we went back to the coach for the rest of the night while everyone else went home.

Tuesday, April 23^rd, Jackie left the coach about 11:30 to spend the afternoon with her aunt and cousin. She drove up to Arroyo Grande and met them at a nail salon where they had pedicures, then they went out to lunch. Jackie got back to the coach in the late afternoon after a very nice day with family. I just stayed around the coach, doing a few little things and just relaxing. After Jackie got home we had cocktails and then dinner with the leftovers from last night. The meat was just as tasty the second day.

Wednesday, April 24^th, we went out after lunch to do a little shopping, but were only out for about two hours. Around 4:00 Corey and Donna came over to the coach for dinner. We had our mail, actually a UPS package, delivered to Donna's house and it was delivered this afternoon. Corey had told us that they would bring the package down to us because he wanted to see our coach. Donna has been in the coach before, but Corey had never seen it. We talked for a while and then Corey and I went out for a KFC run. We picked up a big bucket of chicken for dinner and had a very nice meal. Corey and Donna left about 7:30 or so and we relaxed with the TV the rest of the night.

Thursday, April 25^th, our last full day in the Central Coast area. After lunch we took a drive to San Luis Obispo (SLO), about 30 miles north of Santa Maria on Highway 101, because we had to try and find a new battery for our MiFi internet router. The MiFi is a Verizon telephone device that lets us connect to the internet anywhere that we have phone service. A

couple of days ago I noticed that the MiFi was acting a bit wonky, shutting down and locking up frequently. The only way I could get it reset was to pull the battery out. I finally noticed that the battery had swollen and was puffy, which is not a good thing in these nickel based batteries that phones use. Eventually they can overheat and even catch fire. That is rare, but it does happen. None of the Verizon stores in the area had the battery in stock, but the store in SLO recommended we try a place called Batteries Plus in SLO. I called them and they said they did have replacement batteries in stock that would work. We are pretty much off the grid without our MiFi, so we took a drive up there.

We got the battery and I put it in the device and turned it on to be sure it worked. It did, so we left the store and did a little geocaching. We found one cache in SLO, just so we would have one in that city, then drove south into Pismo Beach and Arroyo Grande, where we found nine more. We also got one DNF for our troubles. About 4:00 we went to Donna's house for dinner and a last visit before we leave the area. Corey made some pizzas and we had a couple of cocktails and an nice, informal dinner with family. We finally left about 7:30 or so and drove back down to the coach. There was still a little light outside, so I spent a half hour getting some stuff packed up for our travels tomorrow. We spent the rest of the night watching TV and relaxing.

Friday, April 26^th, a travel day. Today we are moving to Fresno, California, located about 175 miles northeast of Santa Maria, in the central valley of California. We got out of the campground at the Elks about 9:30, but really didn't get on the road for over an hour. We were low on fuel in the coach and one of the grocery stores in town, a couple miles from the Elks, had diesel for $3.95, which is pretty cheap in California. It is in a shopping center, which makes maneuvering the coach tricky if the car is hooked up, so I drove the coach down there on my own to get fuel. The original plan was to have Jackie follow me and then we would hook up the car after I got fuel.

That all changed, however, when I learned that the MiFi would not charge the new battery. The device worked fine so long as the original charge held out, but when the battery discharged and I went to charge it this morning, it would not work. We decided that the best thing would be for Jackie to just go ahead of me, drive up to San Luis Obispo to the battery store, and see what the problem was. So she went up there and I got fuel. I finally arrived in SLO about an hour later with a full tank of fuel and stopped near the Elks Lodge up there, which is only across the freeway from where the battery store was. Jackie was waiting and we got the car hooked up and started the drive towards Fresno.

It turns out that the original battery in the MiFi must have some kind of chip in it that allows the device to charge the battery. Without the chip, no worky. I guess this is a ploy to make sure that you can only use a genuine Samsung battery as a replacement. Jackie got a refund on the battery that didn't work and got our old, swollen battery back. It still works, we just have to be careful and not leave it charging unattended.

We finally arrived in Fresno about 3:00 and found an RV park that had space. Our original plan had been to stay at the Fresno Elks Lodge, which has a very nice RV park. However, I called the day before and they had no open spaces. I checked around and found another RV park nearby and we set our sights on that one. However, on the way up Jackie called them and they didn't have space either. It turns out that unbeknown to us, there was a big rodeo in Clovis, a suburb of Fresno, and many of the parks were full. This was probably why there were no sites at the Elks , as it is close to Clovis.

Jackie made some calls and finally found a park on the west side of Fresno, actually outside the city limits, what had a space for us, so that's where we went. We arrived and found an older mobile home park that had a few empty spaces available. It is not the nicest park, but it had good reviews and they had space. The first spot we went into had a tree that blocked our satellite, so the manager let us move across the road to another empty spot that worked just fine.

We got the coach hooked up and set up and then about 4:30 we left and drove over to Jackie's cousin's house. Stephanie has lived in Fresno for a couple of years now with her husband and three kids and we visited them last summer when we came through the area. She calls Jackie “Aunt Jackie” and we enjoy being around them. Regular readers may recall that we took the family geocaching last year and the kids, who are ten and thirteen, really enjoyed it.

We arrived at Stephanie's and spent some time visiting with the family. Ron, her husband, is working out of town, ironically in SLO. He is a commercial electrician and has to follow the work. Stephanie's mom Sue, Jackie's first cousin, was also at the house visiting Stephanie. After visiting for a little while we all drove down to a local Mexican restaurant for dinner. It was Stephanie's birthday, so we made it a birthday dinner. While we were waiting to be seated Jackie took the rest of the crowd out to find a geocache that was in the parking lot where the restaurant was located. We had a great dinner and went back to the house for a little while before finally heading back to the coach about 8:00.

We are going to be here in Fresno for five days, so we will have time to do more caching and spend more time with Stephanie and her family. It has been about three weeks since we posted an episode, so our departure from the California coast into the central valley marks a good place to close this chapter and get it online. We will be in California for another couple of weeks before moving into Oregon, at which time we will probably publish again. Until next time, remember to enjoy every day and don't let the little things get you down. See ya.

Back in Yuma Again

Greetings loyal readers, glad you came back for the next chapter. We closed out the last episode on Sunday, March 24^th when we made the move from Tucson, Arizona to Yuma, Arizona after the FMCA International Area Rally concluded. Technically, we are now in California since the Pilot Knob RV park is in Winterhaven, California, just across the Colorado River from Yuma. But since there is nothing but a hundred miles of desert to the west of “The Knob” everything relates to Yuma rather than California. In the winter, when Arizona is on Mountain time and California is on Pacific, Pilot Knob just goes with Arizona time. It doesn't matter in the summer though, because Arizona doesn't do daylight savings, so Arizona time is the same as Pacific time.

It is about ten degrees or so warmer here than it is in Tucson, so when we got here on Sunday it was in the mid-80's and pretty warm. After the long drive and the exertion of getting set up, we didn't go anywhere after we got parked. We had cocktails with the Bullocks, who are in the space right next to us, in the late afternoon and spent the remainder of the evening in the coach.

Monday, March 25^th, we decided that we needed a day to relax and do some chores. It was going to be another hot day, high 80's, so we didn't want to go geocaching. I did manage to get a lot of administrative stuff done, including a first draft of our taxes. Tax day is sneaking up on us. Looks like we won't have to pay this year, yea! Once we get our mail on Wednesday and make sure there is no tax related stuff in it, I will finish the returns and get them mailed.

Around 5:00 we had cocktails with Peggy and Vernon and then had dinner at our house for the four of us. We had some tamales, some of which we bought at Costco and some that Peggy had bought at a Mexican place in New Mexico. She also had some chili rellenos from the same place. We had those and some rice and had a very nice dinner. After dinner the Bullock's went home and we watched TV the rest of the night.

Tuesday, March 26^th, we left the coach after lunch and drove into Yuma to do our laundry and some shopping. We got the laundry done by 3:00 or so and then made stops at Frys and Walmart for groceries. We got back to the coach about 5:30 and after putting away the groceries joined the Bullocks for cocktails outside. In the late afternoon it is very nice outside so long as you sit in the shade. We had a late dinner with Peggy and Vernon of steaks, sweet potatoes and asparagus. We had leftovers because both Jackie and Peggy had made appetizers, not knowing the other was going to make anything. Jackie cooked some lobster cakes that we had bought a while back and Peggy made some bacon wrapped jalapeno poppers. Everything was good, but by the time the steaks were ready the edge was off the appetites. We still had a very nice dinner and good conversation with friends. By 9:00 everything was cleaned up and we watched TV until bed.

Wednesday, March 27^th, we stayed around the coach most of the day doing light chores and such. I did get our taxes done for last year. Good to have that out of the way. After lunch we made a quick trip into Yuma with Benji, the younger cat, to get his claws trimmed and have the little plastic covers glued on his claws. Our older cat, Smokey, was declawed in the front when he was a kitten, but now days it is difficult to find a vet who will declaw, even just the front. When we adopted him we agreed not to have him declawed. The animal rights folks have gotten everyone to believe it is cruel to take the front claws off. For the past thirty years I have always kept my cats indoors and had them declawed in the front and none of them has seemed to much care after the first 24 hours. Oh well, progress, I guess.

It was still too hot to geocache and Peggy and Vernon are having a lot of service people over for various repairs. They had some issues lately while traveling and this is the first time they have had a chance to get some repairs done. They lost one of their topper awnings in Texas, they need a new satellite dish, and they have major electrical problems, including one dead A/C and a dead washing machine. Yikes! They did get a new satellite dish installed today. Same brand as ours, but a little newer model. Now Vernon doesn't have to set up the outside, portable dish every time they settle somewhere. He is happy about that. The guy for the awning came out and took measurements and they are still waiting for the electrical guy. We sat outside at 5:00 for happy hour and then Peggy served dinner in her coach for the four of us. She made her penne pasta dish that I really like. Just a pasta primavera with lots of cheese and spices, but very tasty. We chatted for a while and then we went back to our coach and watched TV the rest of the evening.

Thursday, March 28^th, Peggy and Jackie left a little after 11:00 for a girls day on the town. They were going into Yuma for lunch, then the nail salon and then some shopping. Vernon and I stayed home and just hung around the coaches. I took a quick drive to Winterhaven to drop the taxes at the Post Office, but other than that I just did chores and relaxed. About 1:30 or so Ray and Suzie Babcock pulled into the park, finally leaving Tucson after Ray's little health scare.

I mentioned in the last episode that Ray, who has had a lot of heart problems in the past, was not feeling well the last couple of days at the rally in Tucson. He went into the ER on Saturday and ended up being in the hospital all weekend. On Monday they installed a couple of new stents in his heart and he was feeling a lot better. He got out of the hospital Tuesday afternoon and they finally decided he was up to the drive, so they left today to come join us for a few days. They will be here through Easter and then leave for their home in Menefee, California on Monday.

The girls got back late afternoon with pretty toes and happy after a day out. We had happy hour at 5:00, this time with the six of us. Ray is looking much better now. About 6:30 we all crammed into our coach for dinner. Jackie made a chicken casserole that was very good. That and a salad was all we needed for a very good dinner. By 8:00 everyone had left to go back to their own coaches and we watched TV the rest of the night.

Friday, March 29^th, the six of us left the RV park about 9:30 or so and drove into Yuma to go to the Arizona Market Place swap meet. It will be closing next weekend, the same time we leave, and we wanted to shop one last time this year. Peggy and Vernon rode with us and on the way we stopped at the Yuma Marine Corps Air Station so they could get permits to go onto the Barry Goldwater Range. We are planning to cache tomorrow on the range and the regulations require that everyone get a permit.

We shopped until about 1:00 or so and then the six of us went to a restaurant called Day Breakers. It is located right next door to the RV park at which we spent a month earlier this year. We had gone there once while we staying at the nearby parked and liked the food. It is really a truck stop cafe, but the food is very good. Everyone was very happy with their selections and we had a great late lunch. After lunch we drove back to the RV park and relaxed around the coaches for a while. Ray and Suzie went to the nearby Indian Casino in the late afternoon and missed happy hour, but we spent it with Peggy and Vernon. None of us were interested in dinner after the big lunch, so we talked until dark and then went into our coaches for the rest of the night.

Saturday, March 30^th, Jackie was showered, dressed and out the door of the coach at 8:00, that's 8:00 a.m.! We had decided to go out and do some geocaching today with the six of us. We needed to go today because tomorrow is Easter and we have a big dinner planned for the six of us, and the Babcock's are leaving for home on Monday morning. We needed to go early because it was forecast to be very hot, in the low 90's, by mid-afternoon. The morning was actually very pleasant with overcast skies to dim the sun and a light wind to keep it comfortable.

We were headed for the Barry Goldwater Range, on the east end of Yuma, for which we had all obtained the necessary permits. The range covers a huge area of southwest Arizona. There is an east range, which is north and east of Yuma and south of Gila Bend, and the western range, which is just east of Yuma, runs from about three miles south of Interstate 8 all the way to the Mexican border. Most of the west range is open to the public by permit. The east range is more active as a military range and is closed to public access. There are hundreds of geocaches hidden on the public access areas of the west range.

This area is all sand and rock desert and, while actual four wheel drive is not usually necessary, it is handy to have and high clearance is a must. We took our Jeep, with Ray and Suzie in the backseat, and the Bullocks took their Jeep. We actually hit the range border about 8:30 and started south on one of the trails, picking up caches along the way. We only drove about three miles south on the trail, but it seemed like 20 because it took a little over three hours to drive it. We were stopping every tenth of a mile or so, getting out and walking to caches, which were usually a hundred yards or so off the road. In addition, the trail was very rough and rocky and I had really be careful and take my time. Our Jeep Cherokee is four wheel drive and has a decent ground clearance and even has skid plates on the underside, but the suspension is very soft. We call it our “Gentleman's Jeep.” If I drive really rough, rocky terrain too fast it bottoms out, which is not good. If I take my time and watch for big rocks, we can maneuver most trails with little problem. The Bullock's have a Jeep Wrangler, so he doesn't have to be quite as careful, but Vernon has a lot of four wheel experience, and he knows not to get in a hurry either.

About noon we turned back and took a different route back north and out of the range. The return route was a sand road for the most part and we were back out of the range within twenty minutes. For the three hours of so of caching we did we got 26 new finds, a pretty decent average for this kind of terrain. After we got off the range and back into civilization we stopped at a little cafe in the Foothills area called “Mr. Fish.” Ray and Suzie had been there and recommended it. It was just a little hole in the wall in a strip mall, but the seafood was very good. Everything is fried, so you need to like that, but the fish and shrimp that I had were outstanding. A couple of people had calamari, which they said was very good too.

After lunch we made a stop at Walmart for a few supplies and then headed back to the RV park. We were back in the park by 2:30 after a great morning of desert exploration and caching. We just relaxed in the coach until about 5:00 when the six of us met for happy hour. About 6:00 we started cooking dinner. A few days ago Jackie and I were shopping in Fry's Foods in Yuma and they had pork ribs on sale. If you bought one rack of ribs you got two racks free. We couldn't pass that up since all six of us like ribs, so we bought three full racks of baby backs for about $25. Vernon has a lot of experience cooking ribs, so he was designated the chef for the day. We set up both his and our BBQs next to each other and he proceeded to slow cook the ribs. He had already marinated them most of the afternoon and put a nice rub on them before cooking.

Jackie made some wasabi cole slaw, which is extremely tasty and not as hot as it sounds. Ray made up a batch of baked beans and some broccoli. About 7:00 or so dinner was ready and the six of us sat outside in the shade and had a wonderful dinner. The ribs were cooked to perfection and everything else was great too. A very nice dinner with friends on a wonderful spring evening in Arizona. We finally cleaned everything up and went back to our coaches about 8:30 or so. A long, but great day with friends.

Sunday, March 31^st, Happy Easter! The six of us had gotten together and planned a big Easter dinner for today, so we all decided to spend the day at the RV park. I did have to drive into Yuma early to get Sunday papers, but other than that we didn't leave the park. We all did a few chores and spent time relaxing until about 5:00 when we had happy hour. Dinner was about 7:00 at the Babcock's coach. The wind was blowing all day and it was too windy to eat outside again.

Ray and Suzie did a big ham on the rotisserie, Jackie did sweet potatoes and cranberries, Peggy did scalloped potatoes and a salad. All together we had an excellent meal. We all finally went back to our own coaches about 8:30 or so after a great day and evening.

Monday, April 1^st, the first quarter of 2013 finished! We had originally planned to leave early today for some geocaching, but Jackie woke up at 3:00 with some kind of stomach bug and was up and down all night sick. She was still very sick in the morning, so we stayed home. The Babcock's had planned to leave today, but they decided to stay for a couple more days to spend more time with us. They and the Bullock's went out and cached most of the day while I stayed home and took care of Jackie. She was sick all day and still sick when I went to bed.

Tuesday, April 2^nd, Jackie is still really sick. She slept all day yesterday and all night, except for the frequent trips to the bathroom. I finally got her up and out of bed to have some chicken broth and crackers. She watched TV for most of the afternoon, but still had stomach pain. She stayed up for most of the day, finally going back to bed around 9:00 or so, still not doing well. If she is not better tomorrow we may have to go to urgent care. Jackie had a little bit of soup for dinner and I had a cocktail outside with the rest of the gang. I later went over to Ray and Suzie's for dinner, ham and cheese sandwiches made with the leftover ham from Easter.

Wednesday, April 3^rd, Jackie had a better night, not having to get up to go to the bathroom. She is no longer throwing up, but still has severe diarrhea and stomach pain. She finally decided she wanted to go to the urgent care, so I found the closest one in Yuma. We got there and there was only a couple of people in the waiting room. It still took half an hour for her to get in to see the doctor, or PA, on duty. When she came out she said that he diagnosed it as a stomach flu that is going around town right now. He said that he has seen many, many cases just like hers. He prescribed a couple of medications for the nausea and diarrhea. We stopped at a local pharmacy and got the prescriptions and I went to the store for some more chicken soup, which the doctor also told her to eat, along with toast.

After the visit we went back home and Jackie rested the remainder of the day, trying to get better. I had cocktails and dinner right outside our coach with the Babcock's and the Bullock's. Peggy and Vernon made some cheeseburgers and Peggy made a macaroni salad that was very good. It's too bad Jackie couldn't eat any. After dinner I went back to our coach and we watched TV until bedtime. Hopefully, Jackie is on the road to recovery now.

Thursday, April 4^th, Jackie was a little better when she got up. The worst of the symptoms have passed, but she says her stomach still hurts. I did get her to eat a whole can of chicken soup for lunch, along with some crackers and white soda. She had the same thing for dinner and didn't show any signs of throwing up. Ray and Suzie pulled out this morning, heading for home near Temecula. Jackie felt really bad that they stayed over for three days here in Yuma and she didn't get to do anything with them. Friday morning I think Jackie turned the corner. She woke up feeling much better, not great, but better, than she has all week. By lunch she was hungry enough to make a couple of scrambled eggs and some sourdough toast. She still wasn't up to going out of the coach, so we stayed home all day. For dinner I made some chicken pot pies and she ate most of two small pies, her normal meal. I think she is finally better. Yea!

Saturday, April 6^th, our last full day in the Yuma area. Jackie was feeling much better, probably at 90 percent now and feeling a bit of cabin fever. I spent a couple hours in the morning getting the outside ready for travel, putting away the flagpole and other decorations. After lunch Jackie and I drove into Yuma to do some shopping and just get out for the first time in nearly a week. We stopped at a couple of craft stores so Jackie could try and find some things she needed. We also stopped at Target. We didn't end up buying anything except some toilet paper at Target, but it was good to get out of the coach for a few hours and get some exercise.

After shopping we went back to the coach and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon. At 5:00 we had happy hour with Peggy and Vernon outside and Jackie had her first, albeit light, cocktail since last Sunday, and came outside and socialized. Yea! We later had dinner with them in their coach. Peggy made up a batch of homemade macaroni and cheese that was wonderful. We also had salad and garlic bread and Jackie ate some of all of it. I think she is over the sickness and now just needs to get the digestive tract back to normal. About 8:00 we went back to our coach for the rest of the night.

Sunday, April 7^th, another travel day and a day of parting company with our friends. Peggy and Vernon are leaving today too, but they are heading north out of Yuma, working their way back to their home in northern California. We got out early, about 9:30, and started west on I-8 to our next destination, San Diego, California. We finished the 170 mile trip about 1:00 and got checked into the Sante Fe RV Park, which is right off the I-5, not too far from Mission Bay, pretty much in the heart of the San Diego area. We stay here almost every year because Jackie's brother lives here.

We got parked and settled in and about 3:30 Jackie's brother Dennis came over for a visit. We only get to see Dennis once a year or so, but Jackie talks to him on the phone all the time. We had a nice visit, catching up and talking about family and our travels. Dennis had to leave about 5:30 and we spent the rest of the night watching TV.

Our arrival here in San Diego marks a good point for us to close this chapter and get it published. Being in San Diego also serves as the “official” point where our 2013 summer travels start. We kind of break up our travels into summer and winter. We tend to spend most of the winter, starting in September or October, in the southwest, Nevada, Arizona and the California desert around the Coachella Valley. The summer is when we travel to other areas of the country. This year we will be on the west coast again, up through California, Oregon and perhaps Washington. We had maintained this pattern every year except for our first full year on the road, 2006, when we spent the winter in Florida.

We will publish again in a couple of weeks as we chronicle this year's exploration of this great country of ours. I am going to close out this episode with one of my favorite quotes, from “Through the Looking Glass,” by Lewis Carroll.

One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. "Which road do I take?" she asked. His responses was a question: "Where do you want to go?" "I don't know," Alice answered. "Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter." Take a road, any road, friends. Just keeping on moving though life. See ya soon.

A Couple Weeks in Southern Arizona

Hello again, welcome back to our story. Our last chapter concluded on Tuesday, March 5th, when we moved from Yuma Lakes RV park to the Casa Grande RV Resort, 180 miles east of Yuma. We didn't get into Casa Grande until mid afternoon, so after we got settled in and setup, we just hung around the coach for the remainder of the day.

Wednesday, March 6th, we elected to have a stay at home day to try and get some chores done. I spent most of the day in the office working on administrative stuff, bills, correspondence and publishing the blog, and doing some minor repairs around the coach. Jackie was busy in the front, mostly working on making new fabric covers for our driving seats in the front of the coach. The seats are synthetic leather and get pretty dirty from the cats being on them all the time. They are also hot in the summer months, so we decided a while back to make fabric covers. The first set, which have been on about six months, were charcoal gray and Jackie decided that they were too dark in color. We bought some new, lighter color fabric the other day and she worked on getting them fitted to the seats. She got the drivers seat done and started on the passenger. The new color is beige and is almost the same shade as the dashboard of the coach, so they look very nice. Other than me making a run to Home Depot for parts, we didn't leave the coach all day.

Thursday, March 7th, we left the coach after lunch to go out and do some geocaching and then chores. We did a group of caches that were recently put out in the area of the Casa Grande airport. The airport is only about a mile north of the RV park. We were able to get nine finds in less than two hours. After that bit of caching we stopped at a couple of grocery stores to stock up. We also stopped at the Elks Lodge for a few minutes. We wanted to pick up a schedule of activities for the month and thought about having a cocktail there, but the place was packed and there was no room at the bar.

After we left the lodge we stopped at one more geocache which was just a block or so from the lodge. We were a little apprehensive about tackling this one because the difficulty rating was 4.5. Caches are rated by the owner for difficulty, which is how hard it is to find, and terrain, which is how hard is it to get to the cache. The ratings are from 1 to 5 at half increments. The terrain ratting on this one was only a 1 as the cache was in the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant. The GPS took us to the area of the cache and while looking around I saw a green irrigation control box set in the ground. This is sometimes used as a hiding place, so I took the top off of the box and saw the main water line for the restaurant and a shut off valve. There was a very serious looking box attached to the valve which appeared to be an automatic shut off device, similar to what you might find if someone wants protection from flooding do to a broken pipe. It all looked very official, so I put the top back on and continued looking.

We looked around some more, but we couldn't find anywhere the cache might be, just an empty parking lot. I went back to the box and looked inside again at the stuff. When I reached in and started touching stuff I discovered that the bolts that held the shutoff device in place were not connected to the concrete base, they were phony. A little more moving around stuff and I finally figured out that you had to disassemble the shutoff device, which was not real, and the cache log was inside. Had it not been for the fact that we had found a similarly devious hide in Casa Grande last year, I would not have attempted to move this thing around as much. Very sneaky hide, but we did get it, bringing our count for the day to ten. After that victory we went back to the coach.

After a quick dinner we left again at 6:30 or so and went down to the clubhouse for Texas Hold'em. We had a fun table, only six of us, but everyone had a good sense of humor and it was fun playing. I was the big winner on the table for the night, ending up with about five dollars above my initial five dollar buy-in. Jackie didn't do so well, but still only lost three dollars. We had a good night.

Friday, March 8th, the rains came to town. It started raining sometime in the middle of the night and it pretty much didn't quit all day. We just stayed in the coach, doing projects and chores and playing games. In the early afternoon the main part of the storm front moved over us and we had really high winds, 40 mph with 60 mph gusts, and thunderstorms. We didn't have any thunderstorms directly over us, but we could see and hear them off to the west. Kind of a nasty day, but other than a little bit of leakage in one slide, we got by with nothing more than a day in the coach.

Saturday, March 9th, we woke up with the skies still cloudy, but no rain. The rains had quit overnight and the weather gurus were claiming that by this evening the skies would be clear. It was pretty cold today, the high was only supposed to be 59. About noon my brother Ken and his wife Susan arrived with their RV. A while back, when they found out we were going to be in Casa Grande, they made arrangements to take a couple days off work and come down for a long weekend with us. They live in Goodyear, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix, and it is less than a 50 mile drive for them to come down to Casa Grande.

We have had them visit with us on various occasions over the years, but they always had to stay with us and sleep on the couch. This time they bought their own RV. Last year they bought their first RV, a 30 foot camp trailer, small enough for them to pull with their Honda truck, but big enough to make a nice weekend RV. Ken said this was only the second time they have been out with the trailer, and it is the first time he has ever backed it into an RV space. We had saved the space right next to us and it wasn't a pull through. He was anxious about parking, but actually did a very nice job of getting it in pretty quickly and easily. Susan helped with directions, as Jackie does with me, and I just stayed out of it, only watching to help if he got into trouble.

We had lunch and let them get their trailer set up and then about 2:00 or so we went out to do a little geocaching in the area. They are our caching “children” in that we were the one's who introduced them to the hobby. They immediately became fans and now have almost 2,500 finds and eleven hides in just four years. We first went to two caches we had already found here in Casa Grande that were very interesting and challenging finds. We let them look for them on their own and only gave a hint when they seemed to get stuck. Eventually they figured both of them out and got themselves two new finds. We then went out and went after some other caches in the area that were new to us as well. In just a couple of hours we had eight new finds, along with a new DNF. It came out even though because one of our finds today was a cache that we had DNFed last year when we were here.

After caching we went back to the RV park and they came over for cocktails and dinner. Jackie made some chicken enchiladas and we had a very nice dinner and sat and talked until almost 10:00. They left and went back to their trailer for the night. We were almost ready to go to bed when Ken knocked on the door and said that he was concerned because the carbon monoxide alarm in his trailer was going off. I went over to help and figured out that there couldn't be a problem with CO because he had turned off the propane completely, so there was no combustion going on, and the front door, which was only a couple feet from the detector was open. There was no way there was a sufficient amount of CO in the trailer to activate an alarm. We read the manual but didn't learn much. I finally had them pull the fuse for the alarm, let it set for a minute and then put the fuse back in. The alarm went back to normal and seemed to be reset. I think it is just a bug with the alarm. The trailer is new and still under warranty, so they will have the dealer look at it when they go back home. With them taken care of I went back to our coach and we went to bed.

Sunday, March 10th, we left the coach at noon with Ken and Susan in our car and drove east to the town of Florence, Arizona to do some geocaching. Florence is a fairly small town, about 25,000 population, and is the county seat of Pinal county, the same county in which the much larger Casa Grande is located. However, it is the presence of the Arizona State Prison which makes Florence notable. The prison complex near downtown Florence was the first state prison in Arizona, having been opened in 1908, four years before statehood. Prior to that the territorial prison for Arizona was in Yuma.

The prison in Florence is still in use today and is the site of the original execution chambers for the state. Until 1933 hanging was the method of execution used in Arizona, however in 1930 a woman named Eva Duggan was hung for the crime of murder and when she dropped the noose popped her head off, much to the horror of the 70 witnesses. After that incident the legislature changed the method of execution to the gas chamber, which was built at the Florence prison with inmate labor and first used in 1933.

I remember from my days with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office transporting prisoners from our jail in Phoenix down to the prison in Florence. At that time it was the only State prison. The woman's unit was right across the street. There are now 13 prison complexes scattered around Arizona, but Florence still claims the original as well as the State's “supermax” high security prison, located about three miles down the road from the old prison unit.

We came to the Florence area to cache because there was a series of caches placed on a road running east out of Florence into Gila County on which someone has placed 300 caches, all located about a tenth of a mile apart. We knew we would not be able to get all 300, but we started down the series and started finding caches. The caches were all fairly simple, small container under a pile of rocks just off the road, and the road is not heavily traveled, so there wasn't much traffic to contend with. We actually started caching about 12:45 and finished cache number 100 at about 5:30. We had also picked up five other caches along the road which were not part of the series, giving as a total of 105 finds in less than five hours. This was a new “best day” for us. Ken and Susan had a 250 find day a year or so ago, so they didn't break that record. However, we also hit our 5,000 finds milestone today, and Ken and Susan hit their 2,500 find milestone. So it was a record breaking day in many ways.  One of the caches we found was located near a rare, crested saguaro cactus.  Experts claim that only one in 10,000 saguaros develops the unique crested top.

We were exhausted after jumping in and out of the car 105 times in five hours, so we drove back to the RV park, took a quick break and then the four of us drove into town to Mimi's restaurant for dinner. We had a nice dinner, and some nice conversation, before going back to the park and crashing for the night.

Monday, March 11th, we spent part of the morning relaxing and reading the Sunday papers from Phoenix and Casa Grande. About 10:30 we packed up Ken and Susan again and we drove back to Florence for some more caching. The reason we are driving to Florence, which is about 30 miles from Casa Grande, is that we have pretty much found all of the geocaches in Casa Grande. We come here for a couple of weeks every year, so it doesn't take long for us to get the few new ones that are placed between our visits. We had not cached much around Florence, so it was a cache-rich environment for us. We didn't want to do the same kind of “power-caching” we did yesterday, so today we stuck to finding the various regular geocaches hidden in and around Florence. We found a few caches, stopped for lunch, and then cached until 4:00. Even without a power trail we still got a total of 37 new finds for the day, a pretty nice afternoon of caching.

Several of the caches were located around the Casa Grande Airport and were interesting because a couple of them were located in and among the ruins of the old WW-II vintage Casa Grande Army Airfield. One was next to the old base swimming pool and another was in the foundation of the toilet and shower hut near the remains of the old barracks buildings.

After caching we drove back to the RV park, arriving just in time to celebrate happy hour with our friends Peggy and Vernon Bullock. Peggy and Vernon had arrived in the park around noon today and were parked just a few coaches down from us. We had been expecting them to arrive because both they and us are going to Tucson this weekend for the FMCA INTO area rally being held there next week. We last saw Peggy and Vernon in Indiana in August at the FMCA rallies. They headed east out of Indiana and spent the rest of the summer and the entire fall and winter on the east coast and in Florida. It was great seeing them, and their little dog Belle, we really missed them. We enjoy traveling with the Bullocks and have spent many weeks traveling together since we first met them in 2009 on our trip to Alaska.

The Bullocks already had dinner on, so about 6:30 we left with Ken and Susan and went to Eva's Mexican restaurant, located near the RV park. We have been to Eva's before and enjoyed the food, but tonight the service was terrible and the food only OK. I don't think I can recommend it anymore like I used to. We probably won't be going back again. After dinner we went back to our coach and watched TV the rest of the night, as did Ken and Susan.

Tuesday, March 12th, I got up early and left about 8:30 to take our Jeep to the nearby dealership to, once again, get the air conditioning fixed. On Sunday, while we were doing the power trail I noticed that the A/C had stopped blowing cold air. This will make the fifth time the A/C on that car had broken since we bought it in 2008. We complained to Jeep, but the only thing they did for us was give us a “good will” gift of two years of free routine service, oil changes and the like. They would not take responsibility for what has to be a design flaw which causes the A/C condenser to always break.

After the dealer shuttle dropped me off back at the RV park we drove with Ken and Susan, with Peggy and Vernon following in their car, to the Palm Creek RV Resort on the other end of Casa Grande, for their monthly craft show. Palm Creek is a very upscale RV resort, but we had stayed there for a month a couple years ago because we won a month for $199 at an FMCA rally. The normal rate is four times that. Each month during the season they have their craft show and get a hundred or so vendors to come in and set up booths. It is mostly clothing, jewelry and craft type items. We spent about two hours there before driving back to the RV park.

After we got back to the park Ken and Susan finished packing up their trailer and left for home about 1:00. It was great having my brother come down to spend some time with us. We had a great time. We spent the rest of the day in the coach doing chores. The dealership had called me and told me that the A/C condenser had a couple of holes in it, but that they didn't appear to be from something hitting it. They were in an area where the condenser would be protected from rocks and so forth. He wasn't sure what had caused the problem, which is the same issue as the last four times, condenser failure, but that it would have to be replaced and he had ordered the part. They would keep the car overnight and fix it tomorrow when the part came in.

About 5:00 Vernon came over for cocktails. Peggy was at a nail appointment and came over when she was done. We talked and had dinner, pork in green chili. We talked after dinner until about 8:30 when the Bullocks went back to their coach and we watched TV until bedtime.

Wednesday, March 13th, my son Roy Jr's birthday. Hard to believe my youngest is now 39 years old. Where does the time go? I asked Vernon to take me down to the Jeep dealer about 9:00 so I could take him the receipt for the last repair of the A/C condenser, which was only seven months ago at the Jeep dealer in Springfield, Ohio. The service writer here in Casa Grande thought that he might be able to get the part covered since Jeep warranties all their parts for one year or 12,000 miles, and we had not exceeded either limit.

Surprisingly, I got a call about noon from the service writer that they had finished fixing the car and it was ready to pick up. The best news was that there was no charge at all. He not only covered the part under the warranty, he covered the labor and incidental charges as well. He said, “you already paid for the installation once” and he didn't think it was fair to charge me again to reinstall the same part. Yea! I had fully expected to pay for the labor and was delighted with this dealership's attitude towards customer service. Happy to have A/C again too, as the temps are going to climb into the 90's this weekend.

I had Vernon make another trip to drop me off at the dealer, it was only a mile from the RV park, and I picked up the car. Shortly after I got back Jackie and Peggy took off to go do some grocery shopping. I stayed at the coach and did a few chores. About 5:00 we went down to Peggy and Vernon's for happy hour and then later BBQed some steaks on the grill. We ate at their coach and had a delightful evening with old friends. About 9:00 we finally packed up and went back to our coach for a little TV before bed.

Thursday, March 14th, a great desert morning that was forecast to turn into hot by afternoon. The area is supposed to have it's first 90 degree day of the year today, and the next couple days are forecast to be the same. We didn't do anything until after lunch when we and the Bullocks took a drive to the shopping center. We didn't want to go caching because of the heat and the fact that Vernon does not do well in hot weather.

We made a couple of stops, Petsmart, Penny's, and Walmart, before heading home after a couple hours of shopping. About 5:00 we went over to Peggy and Vernon's for cocktails and Peggy asked me to take a look at her new computer and try to show her how to do some things that she couldn't figure out. Her old computer was Windows Vista and her new one was the new Windows 8. Well I found out pretty quickly that I couldn't figure out anything about Windows 8 either without spending a lot more than an hour or so looking at it. The program is completely changed from prior versions and very confusing and user unfriendly. I tried installing some programs that you would think would work, like Google Earth, and got very confusing and unhelpful error messages. I spent a very frustrating hour with the computer before finally telling her I couldn't help her, at least not right now. I needed to do some reading about Windows 8 first.

The four of us then went back over to our coach for dinner. We did some cheeseburgers on the BBQ, and some fries and beans and just had a simple, but fun, dinner. About 8:30 the Bullocks went back to their coach and we relaxed with the TV the rest of the night.

Friday, March 15th, I went out in the morning, before the heat came, and put away most of the outside decorations and stuff. We are leaving here in the morning and want to get an early start, so I tried to do as much as possible to get ready. After lunch Jackie and I went to the laundromat and did our laundry. We ran a couple of other errands after laundry, but didn't do any geocaching. It was a little to warm in the afternoon and any caches we haven't found are way out of town.

After we got back to the RV park we noticed that some other friends of ours, Bev and Jerry King, had arrived at the park for an overnight stay. We are all, us, the Bullocks and the Kings, going down to Tucson tomorrow for an FMCA rally. About 6:00 the six of us went out to dinner to Macayo's Mexican restaurant in Casa Grande. Macayo's is a big Arizona chain of Mexican places and the food is pretty good. When I was a kid there was one of the original Macayo's not too far from our house and we used to eat there quite a bit. We had a nice meal and good conversation. We last saw the King's in Indio in January at the FMCA rally there. After dinner we went back to our house and sat with the Bullocks for a night cap. About 9:00 they went to their coach and we watched TV until bed.

Saturday, March 16th, we had the coach packed up and ready for travel early and were on the road by 9:30 or so. We, the Kings and the Bullocks, are all traveling to Tucson, about 80 miles south on I-10, to attend the FMCA International Area Rally. The Bullocks left about 90 minutes before us and the Kings left the same time, but had to stop for fuel, so we weren't traveling in caravan. We got into the Lazy Days RV Resort just before 11:00 and were assigned our spot. We were able to get parked and get completely set up before 12:30, which was good because the weather said it was going to be close to 90 today. We are parked right next to the Bullocks, but the Kings are in handicap parking down closer to the park office.

After lunch we left the park to do some shopping. We stopped at Camping World, which is actually on the same lot as the RV park, and bought a couple of things we needed. We then made a trip to the nearby Costco to stock up on some things. We hadn't been close to a Costco since January, so we bought quite a bit of stuff before heading back to the coach. Later in the afternoon we went over to the Bullocks for happy hour. The Kings came up to visit as well and we had a nice get together. We were kind of tired from the travel day and shopping, so we just had dinner in our coach and watched TV the rest of the night.

Sunday, March 17th, Happy St. Patrick's Day! We dressed in green for the holiday and left the coach around noon with the Bullocks to go for lunch and do some geocaching. Our first stop was the My Big Fat Greek restaurant for lunch. MBFG is “must do” restaurant for us for whenever we come to Tucson. I am not a big fan of Greek food in general because I don't care for lamb, but they have other Greek oriented food that is not lamb that is great for me. I have had the stuffed peppers before, as well as a couple of different Greek dishes made from beef, and they are all wonderful. Since we went for lunch today I had the steak and cheese pita, a sort of Greek Philly cheesesteak. The steak was tender and cooked perfectly. Jackie, Peggy and Vernon all had the traditional Gyro and they also loved their meals.

After lunch we did some geocaching in the area around where the restaurant was located. We cached for a couple of hours and ended up with 13 new finds, as well as one DNF. After caching we went back to the RV park and found that our other friends, Ray and Suzie Babcock, had arrived at the rally and were parked right across the street from us. We went over there for happy hour, and were shortly joined by the Bullocks, the Kings, and Clark and Judy McKay, some close friends of the Babcocks whom we have met a couple of times. We managed to get all ten of us in the Babcock's coach for happy hour. After cocktails some of the folks went out to eat while we went back to our coach for a light dinner on our own. We were still full from lunch, so we didn't have much. We spent the rest of the night relaxing in the coach.

Monday, March 18th, we left the coach about noon, this time with Ray and Suzie Babcock in our car, to do lunch and some geocaching. Peggy and Vernon had to hang around the RV park because they are having some problems with their coach and needed to wait on a service tech. The four of us went to the Jason's Deli for lunch. Jackie and I had first discovered the Jason's Deli chain when we went to the one in Moreno Valley, California. We went there because I had discovered through the Internet that they were known for their muffalettas, A muffaletta is a New Orleans specialty that I first tasted last summer when we were in Louisiana. It is ham, salami and cheese, and an olive salad spread, served on a special, large, twelve inch round bun. It is toasted and served hot and, because it is so big, is usually available in a half or quarter. We were traveling with the Babcocks in Louisiana and both Ray and I fell in love with the dish.

The one I got in Moreno Valley was very authentic, and very good, and I knew that they had a couple of locations in Tucson, so when I knew that the Babcocks were going to be at this rally with us, I made sure that we made time to get to Jason's. I had a half muffaletta, Ray ordered a full. He ate half and took the other half home for a lunch on a later day. Jackie had a very nice looking beef and cheese dip, and Suzie had a ham sandwich that was huge. Jason's has great food and big portions, so come hungry.

After lunch the four of us went out for some geocaching in the area. We cached about two and a half hours and got a total of ten new finds, along with a couple of DNFs. The weather has changed to partly cloudy with temps in the low 80's, which is perfect caching weather. After caching we went back to the RV park and then over to the King's coach for cocktail hour. We sat around and talked until about 7:00 when everyone went off to their own coaches. Since we had such a big lunch we didn't even have dinner. We just watched TV until bedtime.

Tuesday, March 19th, Jackie and I were up, showered, dressed and out of the coach by 8:45 this morning. We went down to the sales center for Lazy Days RV to attend a free RV driver's training course. The RV park in which this rally is being held is owned and operated by Lazy Days RV as an open, public RV park. They offer this free course three times a week during the winter season to anyone staying in their park, or buying an RV from the company.

The instructor was a retired Pima County Sheriff's Office Commander. Although I knew a few Pima County guys during my career, I had never met him. We chatted a little during one of the breaks, but learned we had apparently never crossed paths. He was a very good instructor for the classroom part of the training, although the large class size, due to the rally being in the park, threw his timing off and he ran about an hour and a half over the normal time.

The course also includes some driving time within the RV park in one of the dealership's RVs, but we had probably 40 people in the class and he couldn't do all of them in one day. Most of the people who are already fairly experienced drivers, like myself with over 60,000 miles behind the RV wheel now, bowed out of the driving. I did encourage Jackie to do the behind the wheel part and she did. She got about fifteen minutes of time behind the wheel, mostly doing sharps turns and curves around the RV park. This was good for her because she doesn't have much experience with the coach in a confined environment. She has driven on the freeway, but never in traffic or a tight area like an RV park.

About 5:00 we went over to the McKay's coach, which is right across the street from us, for a potluck out on the patio. There were five couples, us, the McKays, the Babcocks, the Bullocks and the Kings, in the party. We had happy hour until 6:00 when everyone brought out the food. Jackie made her taquito casserole, Peggy made enchiladas, Ray made taco salad, and we had all kinds of side dishes to go along with everything. The meal was great and I ate way too much. We partied and talked until about 8:00 when everyone packed up and went back to their own coaches for the night. A great time with good friends.

Wednesday, March 20th, we left the coach about 11:30 or so with Peggy and Vernon in our car to do some sightseeing and caching in the old, historic part of downtown. Our first stop was a little patio cafe called La Cocina which was in the Presidio neighborhood of Tucson. A Presidio was basically a Spanish frontier fort and was usually built as soon as the Spanish explorers came into a new area. Tucson was founded in 1775 with the construction of Presideo San Agustin del Tucson. During the Spanish period of the presidio, attacks were repeatedly mounted by the local Apache Indians. Eventually the town came to just be called Tucson and became a part of Mexico after Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821. Tucson was not included as part of the Mexican Cession of 1848. It was with the later 1853 Gadsden Purchase that Tucson became a part of the United States of America.

Today Tucson is the second largest city in Arizona, after Phoenix, with a population of over 525,000. The city covers an area of over 225 square miles and is 60 miles north of the Mexican border. Tucson is home to the University of Arizona, which was a land grant university founded in 1885 when Arizona was still a territory,

After lunch we looked through some of the shops near the cafe and then did a little driving and geocaching in the historic area. We ended up with six new finds, along with one DNF. It was a little difficult getting around near downtown as Tucson has a lot of renovation and construction going on in and around the downtown area. We also visited the train station, which is home to a transportation museum and has an old Southern Pacific steam locomotive on display.

After caching we drove back to the RV park for a little rest before happy hour. About 5:00 we went down to the King's coach for happy hour. We stayed there until about 7:30 when we went back to our coach and sat outside with our little group until almost 9:00. The weather was very nice and it seemed a shame to be cooped up in the coach when it was so pleasant outside. After everyone left we went in and watched TV until bedtime.

Thursday, March 21^st, we witnessed a miracle. Jackie walked out of the coach at 8:05 a.m. to go to breakfast. The breakfasts are included in the rally fee, so we decided since we paid for them we might as well eat them. We walked down with the rest of our gang, the Babcocks, Bullocks and McKays, to the big tent where we had a nice buffet breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes, and pancakes. We had a nice breakfast and chatted with several friends.

After breakfast we went back to the coach and Jackie showered and got ready to go out into the full world. We kind of hung around the coach and relaxed for the rest of the morning and early afternoon. We did spend some time decorating the front of the coach for a contest. The theme of this rally is “Fiesta” and we had bought some paper flowers when we were in Algadones last month along with a cheap looking flower arrangement. We had also bought some very festive looking cloth with chili peppers on it at a fabric store. We set up a table with the flowers and table cloth and then brought out two pink plastic flamingos we had bought the other day. We put bandanas on the flamingos and put the whole package on display in front of the coach. Turned out kind of neat.

About 2:30 we went back down to the big tent where all the activities are and helped with the Chapter Fair. I helped with the booth for the Full Timers Chapter, of which I am the vice president. Jackie helped out at the Military Veterans booth. The fair lasted for an hour, after which we helped take down the booths and get everything packed up. We went back to the coach and had happy hour with our group out in front about 5:00. We stayed out there until after dark when everyone went back to their own coaches for the rest of the night.

Friday, March 22^nd, I went down for breakfast about 8:00 but Jackie decided to stay in the coach this morning. While I was eating she was getting ready so we could go out and do some geocaching as soon as breakfast was over. After I got back we took the Bullocks and went out to do some local geocaching. We cached mostly around the edges of nearby Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Davis-Monthan was established in 1924 and has been an active Army Air Corps and U.S. Air Force base, with a variety of various commands and missions, ever since. It is probably most well known as the home of the Air Force Materiel Command's 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group, the command which is responsible for the storage and recycling of old military aircraft from all branches of the service. This activity is better known as the “Aircraft Boneyard” with thousands of old military aircraft stored on hundreds of acres of flat desert within the boundaries of the base. Surrounding the base are dozens of private recycling companies which purchase surplus aircraft and parts and recycle the metals and parts.

We only cached for a couple of hours and ended up with six new finds and two DNFs. We got back to the RV park just before noon and met with the other four couples of our little core group at the RV park's restaurant for lunch. Ray Babcock had managed to get his hands on some free lunch coupons which provided free lunch for our entire group. We had to pay for beverages and any extras, but the main entree was free. Yea! We had a very nice lunch which was only marred by the fact that Ray told us he had been having “weird” feelings in his chest for the last couple days and had decided he needed to go to the ER to get checked. He has had a lot of heart problems in the past, including several surgeries, so he didn't want to take any chances. He is also a retired EMT, so he knows the signs to watch for.

After lunch Jackie and I went back to the coach and relaxed for few minutes before hosting a social hour at 3:00 for the Full Timers Chapter of FMCA outside our coach. We had about twenty people at the height of the social hour, including one older couple that we hadn't seen in five years. They gave up traveling and now live in Tucson, but they drove over for a visit with old friends.

At 4:00 we left the Full Timers social gathering, which was still going on, and drove over to the King's coach for the Military Veteran's social hour. There were probably a hundred people at that one. We stayed there for about 90 minutes, visiting with friends and enjoying the group, before heading back to our coach. We sat outside with Peggy and Vernon for a little while, but we were pretty tired and soon went into the coach for the rest of the night. We talked to Suzie later in the evening and she told us that Ray was in the ER, seemed to be stable, but they wanted to keep him at least overnight for observation.

Saturday, March 23^rd, the last full day of the rally. Jackie and I were both up, showered, dressed and out of the coach by 8:15 so we could go to breakfast. The breakfast was OK, although, like most buffet lines, the food was not very hot and Jackie likes her food hot. After breakfast we went back to the coach, picked up our caching supplies and the Bullocks and went out to try some more geocaching. Peggy and Vernon had been out exploring the desert west of Tucson a couple days ago and had noticed that there were a couple of geocaching series, or power trails, along some of the roads out there. I had downloaded some of the caches and we thought we would go out and try to do the series. Usually a series, where one cacher hides a number of caches in close proximity, usually about a tenth of mile apart, is fairly easy. They are usually put out there so cachers can get high numbers of finds.

This series, however, was different. We tried six caches of one of the series and found only three and had to DNF three. The caches were hidden in the desert, amid the bushes and rocks, and the three that we found were hidden inside of trash, old cups, bags, that kind of thing. This part of the desert, because it is at the edge of the city, is full of trash. We finally got tired of digging through trash and being frustrated at not being able to find the caches. We tried one from one of the other series in the area, but we had to DNF that one too. Turns out it was by the same guy who did the first series, and the caches were of the same type. We then started doing more conventional caches in the area with better success. We ended up nine new finds for the day, along with the four DNFs, which we didn't like. At least one of our finds was a cache that we had DNFed a couple days ago. The owner had emailed a hint to us, so we went back out and grabbed it. Yea!

After caching we went back to the RV park where I spent some time getting the outside stuff put away in preparation for our leaving tomorrow. Jackie did the same for the inside. We want to get an early start because we have over 250 miles to travel. We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging around the coach. At 5:00 we drove down to the events area for dinner. They had two dinners at the rally, both of which were an extra cost. We had only bought tickets for the one on Saturday. We sat at a table with our group, the Kings, the Bullocks, and the McKays. The Babcocks would have been there, but Ray was still in the hospital and Suzie didn't want to come to dinner without Ray.

The meal was pretty tasty, with roast beef, potatoes, veggies, and chicken. After the meal we stayed for the entertainment, which was a trio that played light jazz and Broadway music. The gal who was the keyboard player and lead singer had an excellent voice, although the music was a little slow for me. It was very reminiscent of what you used to hear in the sixties in nice bars and nightclubs that had entertainers. We stayed mostly because they were drawing door prizes and a fifty-fifty raffle after the entertainment. I did win a door prize, which was a copy of the very first FMCA magazine, printed in 1964. It looks like it will be an interesting read. We didn't win the raffle. After all the drawings we went back to the coach for the rest of the night.

Sunday, March 24^th, we got up early, got the coach packed up and were on the road by 8:30. We were heading west, back to the Yuma area. The trip was 254 miles, so we wanted to start early to make sure we got into the park by early afternoon. We made one lunch stop, and stopped for fuel on the outskirts of Yuma to fill the coach. Diesel is about seventy cents or more cheaper in Arizona than California, and after Yuma we are headed to San Diego. We wanted to make sure we started with a tank full of cheap Arizona fuel.

We arrived at the Pilot Knob RV park about 2:00 and got registered and parked. Pilot Knob is one of our membership resorts and we had been here about two months ago. The Bullocks also came to this park and we ended up with spaces right next to each other. After we got parked I spent a couple hours getting settled in and set up and then we just relaxed. It is about ten degrees warmer here than Tucson, about 87 degrees today, so we didn't spend a lot of time outdoors. We did go out for cocktails in the shade about 5:00. It was not too bad out of the sun, and we sat and chatted with Peggy and Vernon for an hour or so before going back into our coach for the night.

The start of another stay in the Yuma area marks a great place to close out this chapter and get it published. We will be here for two weeks before moving on to San Diego. Until the next time, remember what the great Lawrence Welk once said. “There are good days and there are bad days, and this is one of them.” See ya next time.