Lary is feeling just fine once again

Forgot to mention that Lary is feeling just fine once more, thank heavens.

Christmas lunch at Agua Caliente casino buffet

Well the buffet at Agua Caliente casino was good, a long lineup but well managed, and people in good spirits. Great food, we were somewhat restrained thankfully.

It was quite quiet at the timeshare place, but we spent Christmas night with them, in the cocktail lounge, it is lots of fun as several very talented people drop in and sing, or play instruments. One couple sings and plays the piano, there is another couple and she sings, great voice, and he plays a slide trombone. Another fellow plays a terrific clarinet, he's friends with the slide trombone player. There is a regular group trio of entertainers, Grant, a singer, and a lady singer, and Richard Bono the piano/organ player. They invite all their friends and visitors up to sing and play too.

And there was another blonde lady who sang very well, most of them are professionals I believe. There was another elderly man who sang very well too. Being Palm Springs there is a lot of talent and retired talent of a very high level here. You just never know who will walk into the lounge that night to visit, or enjoy the entertainment, camaraderie. They make you feel welcome, and almost part of their extended family. Frank Sinatra used to hang out at this lounge, it's now called Club Trinidad, and is on Hwy 111 at Smoke Tree Commons area.

The following day we went to see the new George Clooney film Up in the Air, it was good, very good. Just when he felt he wanted commitment, the lady he chose wasn't available. His profession was to fire people, and he was pretty bloodthirsty and cold about it, too. Somewhat like his life, his character had very few personal ties, and he spent his career flying all over the US to fire people from their jobs.

We had really enjoyed the movie Avatar, even though we didn't see it on the Imax size screen, or with 3D glasses. We saw it at Mary Pickford theatre, which has many movies showing inside it.

Most nights in the timeshare we joined the singers/group in the lounge as it became like a second family, you were greeted like family, and we really enjoyed their entertainment, it was like a musicians jam session.

One day I played my flutes out sitting by the pool, the acoustics were great as the pool was completely enclosed by the hotel 2 storey room block.

In truth the timeshare being a studio was too small for us, when the wallbed came down out of the wall, there was no floor left. And the TV on the wall was opposite the bed, not the sofa, so you kind of had to crane your neck around to watch TV. However it was a nice change to be right in Palm Springs, and we did some of the special stuff that was oriented to Christmas. Our room was on the second floor, and the sunshine hit our front door, so the light was good.

Lary bought me Julie and Julia, the DVD for Christmas, and once we got our various machines here in the trailer coordinated, we watched that last night. Very good indeed, I was glad we had bought it. Coordinating the sound with the TV and DVD player was a challenge to begin with, but Lary does very well with that. Also here we are using our trailer's TV antenna for the first time, but the TV signals must be pretty strong, and the TV good, as it searches for the channels, and brings them in once you sort out all the darned buttons/cables/knobs/blah blah.

We didn't really do anything for Lary's birthday, we were in the timeshare, but left it that day and returned very happily back to our trailer at Catalina Spa. In fact we did a laundry on Lary's birthday night, and got ready to move over to Indian Waters, Indio the following day. After having Christmas lunch and quite a few meals out, we didn't feel like eating out once more that birthday night of his.

Dec. 28th we moved the trailer about 1/2 hour away, down the Coachella Valley to the opposite end from Desert Hot Springs, to Indio and Indian Waters park. It is a Western Horizons Park. It seems very good, we stay in the newer part where there is no sewer or cable TV, but there is a honey wagon service 3 times a week, and it's free for members which we now are. It is coarse gravel underfoot and concrete pads and parking pads for the vehicles, so that works out just fine for us. The sites are relatively big, and we enjoy them more than the grassy areas, where the sprinklers work every night, and you have to be extra careful not to damage the grass or get wet from the sprinklers. Besides we need the exercise of walking to and from the office/pool/clubhouse areas. It's flat and wide open here in their newer part of the park.

Today a WHR lady arrived and offered to give us a tour of the new enhanced things that are available with our membership, that should be interesting to find out about. They now offer cabins at most of their WHR parks, for family visits.

Di is enjoying catching up with emails, for our last few timeshare days the computer hookup didn't work, and only being at CatSpa one day we didn't get it there either.

By the way, thanks to everybody who has sent us Christmas cards, christmas newsletters, and birthday cards, that is so appreciated while we are away travelling. Means a lot. And to those who have emailed us faithfully, even when we didn't email back right away. Thanks for it all.

There is also quite a lot to do here at Indian Waters, they offer some meals, more lunches than dinners, and lots of small courses. Di was delighted to find that there is somebody offering watercolor classes on Thursdays.

The weather seems to be marginally warmer, still below seasonal norms, but sunny, Lary cleaned the outside of the trailer with a bucket and a rag today, and he's outside sitting reading under the canopy. This seems to be another one of the parks where you sit outside or walk around, and most people are very friendly, greeting you as you pass them. It makes such a great impression. We don't enjoy the parks where this isn't the case.

Well I have gone on far too long, just wanted to catchup on the latest. I really enjoyed the Julie/Julia video where Julie posted her blog faithfully each day, and talked about the recent recipes that she had made out of Julia child's cook book. Her successes, and failures. It was such fun, I enjoyed the format of that movie, Nora Ephron sure has made a lot of great movies that really appeal to me.

We'll spend New Year's eve here in the park, we signed up for their dinner and dance, so that should be enjoyable to get together with other like minded folks. $20 total, hope they don't turn on the lights at 12:01 like they did over in Desert Pools another year we were there.

Bah humbug, that was brutal, you hadn't even finished toasting the New year in when they flashed on the florescent lights, at about 12:02 AM and announced that they had to set up for breakfast the following day.

Living Desert Outdoor Museum-illuminated tonight

Tonight we went up to the Living Desert, an outdoor wildlife park with native desert animals that live there. As it was night we didn't see them except the ones in a small show they organized, but the whole park was illuminated with 300,000 Christmas lights, there was also a carousel for the children and their parents to ride, and cocoa and other hot drinks.

It was a great site, very pretty, it had huge train sets on tracks that wound up and down small hills, little villages, and various activities for kids to do, such as art projects like makings rubbings of the local animals in the park. Lots of the things illuminated were the desert animals outlined in lights. And many of the bushes and trees were covered with lights. Lovely.

Earlier that day we went to see Avatar the movie, it was really good. We had no idea what to expect, but the story was interesting, and the special effects incredible. Sigourney Weaver was one of the main actors, together with a young man we didn't know. The large blue Navi's were a neat concept. It was very long but the time flew by. Another James Cameron success, block buster.

In the morning Lary and I went back to the RV park and he did his wood carving. His kildeer bird is coming right along.

The day before we had gone back so I could do my watercolor painting class, we did a cactus desert scene.

Forgot to say that a few days before we had gone to Eisenhower Hospital for a 2 hour harp concert, it was lovely. Both harps and flutes are thought to be very therapeutic. The harp players were all past cancer patients. Our class leader Annie Mathias and Fran a student of hers did a duet on their flutes. The concert was held in the lobby of Eisenhower Hospital and it was lovely.

The new computer is up and going, and fast. Staples sold it to us, and loaded everything in it. We now need to dispose of the old one, they wiped it clean.

Our cousin from the coast isn't coming to Palm Springs now, it's too cold for them to swim and sun, so we'll see her another time in the spring.

So many places are lit up here, the Christmas lights are very pretty when you go out at night.

Yesterday there were very high winds, and the sand gets kicked up in the wind, driving in the blowing sand is next to impossible, you can't see a foot ahead of yourself, and today 3 major roads were closed due to sand drifts, but they were opened later on today.

We plan to go out to a botanical garden tomorrow if it's open, and on Christmas Day we will likely go to one of the casinos for a buffet lunch or dinner. Many of the restaurants will be closed for Christmas day.

Back Online- with a new computer, yippee

HI All,
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our friends. We got a worm/virus in our computer, so it ate up some of the computer innards, and we had to ditch it, and buy a new one. It was from 2003 or so, quite old.
The new one is faster, way faster, and we bought a wide screen one too, we might even watch DVDs on it.
It was a somewhat slow process to get the new one up and running, but today we got the new one, and hooray, we are now in the timeshare suite, and using it there. Whoopee.

Of course lots of emails and news to catch up, and thanks so much everybody for sending us the super Christmas cards/ birthday cards both at our RV park, and on the computer. It is grand, and means so very much to us while we are away from home.

Speaking of home, I plan to go home to Nanaimo for sister Sue's birthday, she will be 60 on Jan. 14th, so that should be a very happy time for us all together once again.

Sue and Jen are coming down to babysit our trailer while we go off to Costa Rica March 11th til 18th, and then they will stay on for a few more days with us.

Today Lary and I had a private architecture tour of the many different styles of houses built here in the Palm Springs area. Of course we know our way around, but this tour was with the concierge of our hotel, and he was so very knowledgable. We drove all around up and down the hills and the neighbourhoods, and the periods of buildings from the 1920s to the 50s and 60s.

Such differing styles, including some blgs made of steel. There is a lot of vegetation on some of those bigger lots, and we saw homes of the rich and famous of varying eras. Saw estates belonging to Cher and Barry Manilow, as well as a house that was Frank Sinatra's. Many of the houses you can't really see that much from the street, but we would never have found them by ourselves in the truck. The tour was 3 hours, and we learned a lot. Saw hotels, commercial buildings, and many houses that had belonged to movie stars/ industry moguls through the eras.
We actually got into the back yard of the house where Frank Sinatra had lived, it was so pretty with a lovely pool and enclosed back yard area.

So informative, we had been wanting to do that for a long long time, and it was so worthwhile, especially with our tour guide.

For my birthday we went out to eat at Tony Roma's, ribs. Yum yum. And for Lary's birthday we will be meeting my American cousin Jenn from Dana Point, CA. Should be fun as we'll meet in downtown Palm Springs for dinner.

Bye for now, and hope that you have wonderful holidays with your families and loved ones.

Friday night Flute Circle

Friday we got Lary's blood work done, and then in the evening Di went out to the Flute Circle held at Annie's house in Palm Desert.

It was a pot luck dinner, I took a broccoli salad and my flutes. It was interesting driving the truck at night, lucky we had found the house during the daytime, so it was easier when I knew the way. People had tons of their wooden flutes, there was great excitement because a young flute maker called Nash had held a course to make clay flutes, and he was delivering them to the people who had made them, he had fired them. They sounded absolutely beautiful, but of course a bit fragile being clay. They mostly had holes in the sides of them at the top for putting a cord through to put around your neck.

Then Annie burned a sage smudge, and we started to play, and listen to each other. Annie has tons of instruments, big gourd drums, drums made out of old propane Bar-b-que tanks, tons and tons of flutes, and rattles and drums of all sorts too. She was married to a professional musician who she told me didn't enjoy his music. She sure enjoys making and encouraging others to make music too. There was a microphone so the flutes were amplified, and sounded terrific. Susan asked me to jam with her, I led and she followed my notes. Others did similar stuff, and 3 people played didgeridoos, long huge pipes, that resonate kind of. And people played drums, rattles, whatever they wanted or felt like doing. It was kind of magic, we were about 12 or more in all. Often it was 2 or three people playing flutes, and others playing what they felt was needed. One girl had a huge drum, and a couple of girls played it, and sang or vocalized. Some people were couples, some were singles.

Today Saturday we went over to Spotlight Casino 29, and attended the Indian Pow Wow, it had some interesting dancers, fabulous outfits, and interesting sights. I bought 3 pieces of leather thong for my flutes, and Lary bought me a neat little velvet pouch for my lipstick, with a Kokopeli flute player on it. The beading was incredible, and so were the outfits that the dancers, big and small, young and old wore. On the way out we stopped at a radio station booth, and played cards with the DJ to see if we could win some stuff. Lary won a ballcap, and I won a new Jazz CD. The station is 102.3 Smooth Jazz.

This evening we had roast chicken dinner up at the upper clubhouse, then went down and played Mexican Trains and Sequence with some very nice new friends. Enjoyable.

Marine Corps Christmas Concert last night

We went to the Marine Corps Band concert last night, it was really good, they have a base nearby at 29 Palms, and it was a free concert, with 3,000 attendees. Wow, all you had to take was a donation for the Food Bank, or a toy.
Their uniforms are different, the tops are black, and the pants are blue, and they mostly had kind of buzzed off haircuts. Music was incredible, and loud too. They did lots of medleys where each song ran into the next one, and were connected, very interesting how they do that.

Before the concert we ate at Spa Resort Casino, a steak and lobster dinner for $19.99 each, with a huge buffet. Yum yum. They cooked the lobster tail/ at least heated it up on the grill/in front of you, great service.

We saw lots of folks from our park, and sat in front of another couple from......Nanaimo. Go figure. They were very nice, full timers, they live in Living Forest when they are in BC during the summer, and are at Sands which is a golf course RV complex, just down the road from us, during the winter. Her name is Barb.

It was a lovely evening.

In the afternoon we went into the RV show at the Fairgrounds in Indio, but there weren't that many rigs to view. We toured a 2005 Southwind 32V gas motorhome coach, it was about $79,000 with about 15,000 miles on it. Hmmmm.

But Di was very taken with a Cameo 5th wheel, it was a 2010 model, 32 feet, it was kind of like going into Jean and Roy's unit, although a bit smaller, one whole side which was the kitchen and bedroom combined, moved out on one slide. And there was one other slide in the living room area. It had a table and chairs, and then there were 2 sofas, one beside the table and chairs, and the other at the end of the trailer. Pretty nice setup, and nice quality finishing.

It was quite a bit heavier than our trailer, but I loved it. When you went up the stairs toward the bedroom, the bathroom was right there on the right side. It was priced about $58,000. Most of the units there were very reduced in price, though most of the coaches were the huge ones, around 40 feet or so, and of course diesels were more expensive than gas. One of the first questions that we got asked is "How much financing is left on your unit?" When we said none, they seemed surprised.

An interesting thing was that we found there is a repair facility near to us here, not that far away, so we may take our trailer and have it repaired. One of the salesmen told us that no matter what unit you have, there are always small repairs needed. Guess that keeps the dealers happy.

A lot of the dealers in the valley have gone out of business, you even see car lots that are closed and empty. It is very sobering down here, and the pain has not ended either, you hear about tons of people still losing their houses, and apparently there are about 1.5 million people unemployed in California alone. And there is some sort of snafu with their social welfare computer system, so many of those folks won't be getting their cheque in time for Xmas.

Cousin Jen from Dana Point is coming into P.S. toward the end of December, so we will get together for dinner with her.

Lary and I are going into Eisenhower Medical Center for him to have a blood test done today, as a followup to his treatment. While we were in the medical clinic we saw that they had both Pneumonia Vaccine and Shingles Vaccine shots available. Very interesting.

Oh oh, Lary not feeling so good yesterday

Last night Tuesday Lary was feeling very poorly, so we went into Eisenhower Urgent Care treatment centre, in Rancho Mirage. They found that he had prostatitis, an enlarged and inflamed prostate, very painful and scary.
He got excellent care, and 2 prescriptions, and we came home a bit lighter in the pocket, and he hit the bed.

Today Wednesday he spent quite a bit of time in bed, he was slowly feeling a bit better, but still grim. Not hungry, either.

I went down to the computer forum this morning, then this afternoon I took my flutes up to the Upper Clubhouse and played outside, there in the sunshine. It's a bit chilly with snow still on the mountains, so sweater weather at least. I was given more Christmas carols by Annie, the leader of the Eisenhower Flute circle, so I played them, and the ones I had already. There is an article in the Desert Sun newspaper saying that the citrus crops may be damaged by this cold snap.

After that I went down into the lower area pool, but about 3:30 PM the sun leaves the pool, so I was there for a while, then into the hot tub for a wee while.

Not much more to report, tomorrow I hope we can attend the Marine Corps band concert in Palm Springs in the evening.

Ye gads, yesterday Monday brought torrential rains and wind

Monday afternoon it was raining buckets, and blowing too. Lary bravely drove me in to attend the Flute Circle, they practiced kind of jamming with each other, playing the same few notes, right after the other person, and generally catching up with each other's news. New folks were there, and some of the ones from the week before. One man Adolph makes flutes, and he is very innovative, he had one flute with the mouthpiece made of hand formed clay, the rest seemed semi normal, and there was a big gold nugget he had found on top of it. He and his wife kind of noodled around, another couple Larry and his wife had just been on an Italian cruise and we heard all about that.

Some of the people have exquisite flutes, all inlaid woods on them, and with turquoise inlaid in them along the top, but some of the most simple flutes sound equally wonderful, so that is very exciting to learn, too.

Lary did some shopping for a toolkit for his woodworking, and we puttered around in the dreadful rain and howling wind. Ate at IHOP, one of our sinful locations, then came over to DHS and home.

All evening the wind was howling, and tossing the trailer about, because we have canvas canopies over all slides, the wind comes in under them, and lifts up the canvas, and slaps about very noisily, shaking the trailer. About 1 AM we got up, moved the furniture out of the way, and pulled in all slides, as neither of us was getting a wink of sleep.

There was an inch of rain I believe, and the roads get very scary as there aren't a lot of drains, so the water tends to form huge pools, and where it is running along the road or across it, it can be deep, or carrying a lot of gravel and soil. Entering a flooded part of a road, especially when it's dark, you don't know the depth of the pool. The cities all post 'flooded' signs, it kind of feels as if there is one on every main road. We woke this morning to see a dump of snow on the mountains nearby, it's funny how it's a clear line where it ends, but of course today, Tuesday, the air is very chilly, and there is still the windy aftermath.

One of our swimming pool noodles flew away in the wind, and we haven't found it as yet. Lary went for his usual walk today, but now isn't feeling too well, I hope that it's just that he's tired as we had a crazy night last night with the wind and rain. And he was wet during the afternoon so he may have a bit of a chill, or a chill from the parade on Saturday evening.

I went to the first watercolor class of the year today, we did a winter scene with pine trees, and a river and distant trees, with some snow on the ground, we used a sponge to paint the trees, and tried a few techniques, we were only 3 students, so got a lot of attention, still one painting in 3 hours is quite a bit to accomplish.
I think I'll end up being the class bozo.

I went up to a travel club meeting, we signed up for a 2 night trip to Laughlin by bus, good price, in late January. Talked to a nice couple Rose and Ron, they are fulltimers, he's legally blind, so she drives their coach. They are trying to decide where they want to settle down, it's a challenge for people to choose a place to live.

Then I went for a bike ride around the park, it's grand not to have to wear a helmet but I just have to watch for all the loose gravel from yesterday's rain. I bought a helmet to wear outside the park, on the roads. The bike has pretty skinny tires, and doesn't do that well in deep sand, I discovered, but packed sand is OK.

Some of the big coaches in the park are decorated for Xmas, and look very cute, also some people even decorate their lot nicely for the holidays. Those coaches have quite a lot of storage, whereas the trailers don't have so much.

Saturday was a busy one

Saturday we went to a couple of craft sales in parks, Sky Valley and Indian Waters. Didn't find anything that made us part with $, so on to the Tamale Festival in Indio. Yum yum, it's a very popular event with the Latinos here, and we mixed right in. Lary had tamales, I had other things, and we enjoyed the music of some good mariachi bands too.

Later that day we went over to Palm Springs and attended the Festival of Lights, there were over 80 entries of various styles, from illuminated floats to illuminated historic fire trucks from several different cities, ambulances lit up, riders and horses, horses pulling carts, even a horse drawn fire wagon, it was spectacular as 3 horses pulled it, and they were a matched team, lovely, and very well handled too. There was a Corvette club with all their cars heavily lit up, there were of course marching bands with majorettes, everyone wore those LED lights, some of the floats towed their own generators in little red wagons, that was really cute to see. Politicians, civic officials, princesses of all sorts, charity kitchens, but the main theme was lights, and there were thousands of them on nearly every float, and every person who marched or rode. Very pretty indeed.

It has gotten quite cold, down in the 60s during the day time and 40s at night, with wind that has come up, so watching the parade last night after dark got quite chilly indeed when the wind came flying over the mountains behind Palm Springs, and whistled along the roadway.

When the parade ended, maybe about 7:45 PM or so, we went into a nearby Chinese Restaurant, got warm again, and had a yummy Chinese dinner with jasmine tea. Most of the day was overcast, and dull. Later on in the afternoon the sun broke through a bit.

Today Sunday we just vegged, Lary went for his usual walk, then bought a Desert Sun newspaper, and we both read it, and lazed around the trailer. It was thankfully sunny, I went for a bike ride after lunch, we had ice cream at the clubhouse, then I stayed for the jam session, somewhat heavy on the religious themes again, but fun to listen to, some poetry, a lady playing the harmonica, a mellow group.

Didn't stay for hamburgers tonight at the clubhouse, ate in the trailer. A very chilly wind is blowing, making it pretty cold.

I watched a very moving movie at the Upper Clubhouse, called My Sister's Keeper, with Cameron Diaz, about a family dealing with cancer of one of their children. Bring out the kleenex, it was very touching and not too Hollywood.

Lary came home- now he's under the weather

Picked Lary up at P.S. airport Tuesday, the plane was delayed 1/2 hour, but as he only had carry on luggage he was off pretty soon after they landed. He was very pale, and super insistent that I not ever spend an overnight in any airport, so that was interesting. Seems as if he hadn't slept much either of his 2 airport nights.

He had lunch at home, then crashed into bed, and later we had a nice swim, and spent a pretty quiet day Tuesday.

Wednesday we went to the weekly computer seminar, the leader Brian seems very knowledgeable, and has a wicked sense of humour. He's from Montreal, and manages the WiFi network here in the park. One of the flute ladies from Quail Valley, a neighbouring park, said she knew him too, as she managed their WiFi network.

Then Lary had his first go at wood carving, his kildeer bird will be looking over its shoulder, and he came home happy and covered with sawdust. They have changed the class to be all day on Wednesdays.

This morning Thursday he went out for his early morning walk, but cut it short and came home and crawled back into bed, he was freezing. That doesn't seem too good at all, but perhaps not that surprising after the quick trip home, back and forth into very different climates and temps.

I didn't go into Rancho Mirage to the beginner flute lesson, the instructor said that they have just barely managed to play the scales without a squeak, so I thought I might stay with the Monday one and have a bit of a stretch, but a good one.

I practiced yesterday, the Happy Trails song has some half hole notes to play, which is a first for me, you put your finger only half over the hole, and sound it that way, makes a different tone or note.

I am really enjoying playing the Christmas carols, they are so familiar, you know when you have made a mistake. When I read an unfamiliar piece of music, it sounds strange to say that I don't know what it should sound like, but I don't, so that's why the carols are such good practice for me. I want to get to where I am feeling the music, and able to generate it myself, from the heart, but I sense that that is a bit farther along the road from where I am at the moment.

This afternoon at the upper Clubhouse there is an RV casuals fashion show at 3 PM, so I'll go to that. We were thinking of going into Palm Spirngs to the Mizell Center, to attend a lecture about the Agua Caliente native traditions at 1 PM, but I don't think I'll do that since Lary isn't feeling that good. Hope this isn't the flu for him, yoicks.

Rain is forecast over the weekend, along with cooling temps, it is December after all, more is the pity as there is the Festival of Lights parade on Saturday evening. Dearie me. Not sure if I'll go into the P.S. street fair this evening, I doubt that. I would like to find a music stand, one that goes on a table, and one for standing up, Lary sensibly suggested a second hand or pawn shop.

I am enjoying riding my bike around our park, if you do all the roads, up and down it's quite a distance. And just to do the perimeter of the park is quite a way, too. Good exercise I feel. That's it for now.

Monday and my first Flute Circle

Saturday I took Lary to the plane in good time, he had printed his Boarding Pass down at the office thanks to Brian, the computer guru here in the park. Westjet's website isn't the best at the moment, and we don't have a printer here with our computer.
I wasn't going to eat dinner in the clubhouse, but did, as the company of other people is great when I am on my own. Sat with some nice Canadians, and enjoyed myself a lot. We had eaten breakfast there too, we are so spoiled.
I am enjoying riding my bike around the park, good exercise for me when I have a somewhat sore foot, and it gets worse when I walk. No problem when biking.

Sunday I rode the bike then went up for the Ice Cream social at 2, then stayed for the jam session at 3 PM. I didn't realize what a Christian bunch they were here in the park, most of the songs were hymns, and some folks should have retired from singing a while ago. Some of the musicians are very talented, but it's very organized/structured, with a program of who goes next, for a couple of hours. Sat with a very nice lady from last year, from Sicamous, her hubby's name is Dave. Wendy knows her apparently, and they have a mutual friend.

5 PM is sirloin burger time on Sundays, so I had no choice, I ate one, yum yum. Met Bonnie and her hubbie from the Lower Mainland, also John. Bonnie and her hubbie were here at Catspa, but have bought at Quail Valley park, just around the corner from us here. They are delighted with that park. They sold all their campsite memberships online, and told me some horror stories about Indian Waters park which we have just bought into. Ah me.

It had turned quite chilly over the weekend, with rain and wind, so I didn't swim at all. In between showers I tried to bike all around the park. The rain down here landed as snow up in Idyllwild high up behind Palm Springs in the mountains. I talked to a nice lady at the hospital snack bar from there today, we chatted about Subarus. In fact they live up above Idyllwild, and have snow on the ground at the moment.

The lady next door here is disabled with MS, but she likes me practicing my flute outside the rig, she opens her window. Poor lady, to inflict my novice tootings on her!! She is very nice. Moya. She says she'd like a daily concert!!
I have been practicing playing Christmas Carols, they are so familiar, and that way I know if I am making mistakes or not.

I had seen an ad in the newspaper for a flute circle at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, so I enrolled online, and turned up at 10:30 AM to find there was no class til 2:30, and that one was Intermediate/Advanced, yoicks. And me, with only 3 lessons!!!! A lady who talked to me there encouraged me to come back, so I did.

First of all I went looking for a good bead shop I remembered from last year, but they had moved. They are now on El Paseo, the swanky shopping street, and I finally found the shop but it's closed Mon and Tues, open the other 5 days of the week. Boo hoo. The Christmas decorations there along El Paseo are so pretty, we need to rush back and explore more at length, what an interesting area it is. Kind of gold plated, but what the heck. Fun to explore and enjoy. Also investigated a wonderful yarn shop over there. There is gorgeous statuary/sculptures all along the curving road, and pretty swanky stores, too. Drool. Nice art galleries, too. Must be pretty at night, illuminated.

Then back to Palm Springs City Hall, they have been advertising a Marine Corps Band Holiday Concert, which is free on Dec. 10th, tickets are available at City Hall. So I found it, and got 4 tickets for that event, at 7:30 PM. Hooray.

After that back to Eisenhower Medical Center for the flute circle, it was just incredible. Annie is the instructor, and she plays wonderfully and is so encouraging and generous. Another lady Fran is also incredible, when the two of them jam together it's mind bending. They all seem to have the loveliest collections of flutes, and are very generous about sharing them, and sharing info. Another lady is Estelle, and she lives very near here, at Quail Valley, and also loves it a lot. We exchanged phone numbers. She plays very well, including playing a terra cotta flute with 2 mouthpieces, called a drone I believe. Whew.

For the record, my flutes are Native American wood flutes, 6 hole, one is F sharp, made by Windsong I think it is, and is lacewood. We bought it in Utah when we were there a couple of years ago touring Bryce and Grand Canyon. But I hadn't played it until very recently when I took one starter lesson from Ed Peekeekoot in Lake Cowichan, and then 2 lessons from Terry Mack in Nanaimo. The other flute is made by Stellar, and is the key of C and is made of cedar I believe. I only took the small flute to the flute circle, pity as the bigger one is so much nicer to listen to.

The varnish is coming off the bigger one near the fetish, or bridge, it doesn't look very nice, but I should have taken it as the group can help me with what to do to condition it. There was a flute maker in our class, he arrived a little later as he has a 'day job', his name is Brian and his flutes look just superb. He was showing the group how to play that theme music from 'the Good, the Bad and the Ugly', that neat theme music with the haunting flute music, and weird rattling sounds.

The instructor Annie brought her flutes, she is a wonderful player, and she brings drums, rattles, and even a weird stick that rattles, also a rattle that is a gourd with a kind of metal coil underneath it that makes the noise of thunder. Incredible. Basically they chat, share music and resources, and kind of jam together. If I continue in their level I think I will improve by leaps and bounds.
They all laughingly warned me that flutes are addictive, you always want more and more, and they have some beautiful flutes. Some of them are inlaid with turquoise, and other decorative woods, and one I saw had a kind of a tree inlaid into it, and others have different decorations on them, and different leather thongs, etc.

Annie lent me an A flute to try, it had no mouthpiece to speak of but you just kind of put your lips almost inside it, the mouth area is the same diameter as the bottom of the flute, it sounded super once I got the hang of it. I was kind of afraid to play anything, as I have learned (?) to play from music with pictographs on it, called tablature, but I kind of flumfed along anyway.

She handed out sheet music for Kumbaya, in pictographs/tablature and we all toodled about, then she showed us how to improvise and embellish in different ways, like musicians jamming, in fact that's what we were, and it's so exciting.

Then she handed out the music for Happy Trails, the Dale Evans song, to practice for next time. So uplifting.

The conversation was pretty well all about flutes, and drumming, but they offer such a wealth of information, and have interesting and varied styles of playing too.

In the middle of that Lary called me, my phone rang and I raced out into the hall to talk to him calling from Nanaimo. Embarrasing, but nobody seemed disgusted, thankfully. He'll be back in Palm Springs at 11:15 AM tomorrow, and had visited our friend Harold, and sister Jen today.

The flute circle group is a healing group formed for cancer patients/survivors, but I'm not sure how many people there had had cancer. The ad in the paper said it was also for the community, hope it is, as I boldly went there, and wasn't disappointed at all. I will go back on Thursday to see about the Beginners class, but perhaps I am a wee bit beyond that already, Annie seemed to be encouraging me to stay in the Intermediate group. That way I know I will learn a whole lot.

Such a nice day today, it was very interesting trying to drive our big truck in the weekday traffic, and navigate my way around the Coachella Valley at the same time. Sometimes Bitching Betty our GPS is right on the mark directing us to places, at other times she has us going all over the place like crazy fools. Today she told me to do a lot of U turns. Quite the feat with that big truck.

Windy tonight, weather seems to be changing

Had a very nice Thanksgiving dinner at the upper clubhouse here in Catalina Spa or Catspa RV Resort on Thursday, after we watched a gorgeous parade from Macy's in New York in the morning. We had been in the pool after watching the parade. Sat with a whole big group of Canadians, most of us from BC, AB and Saskatchewan. Had very nice chats with them. One couple is going to Mexico, to Puerto Vallarta as they do every year.

Today we went into the Palm Springs area, Lary wants to join a group of men that are carving wooden birds here in the park, so we went to Home Depot and bought a Dremel tool for him, and he had to buy a flexible shaft for it as well. The bird will be a kildeer and the leader of the carving group roughed out the birds from a block of wood, using a band saw for the rough cut, for each of the participants in the group. The wood is tupelo.

After going to Home Depot/ Evil Orange as some people call it, we went on further to the College of the Desert street fair, it's normally held every weekend on Saturday and Sunday, and because it's a holiday weekend here, it was also on today. But it was quite quiet, and not too warm, which was great.

I think that a lot of people were indulging in severe retail therapy, many of the stores were advertising huge sales, and weird early opening hours like 4 AM.

We bought another sun hat for Di, a pretty vinyl carryall bag in black with bright red poppies on it, 2 shirts for Lary, a loaf of bread from a delicious bakery, and that's about it. There are incredible vendors there, socks, upmarket clothing, jewellry, housewares, gadgets, fresh fruit and veg, baked goods, food, entertainment, you name it, free parking, we even took a shuttle trolley from the parking to the shopping tents today.

Came home and Lary wanted to go and print out his boarding pass for Westjet, as he flies via Calgary to Vancouver tomorrownext day, and comes back here on Tuesday. We have the computer here, but no printer with it.

But the library was closed, so no joy on that score. Then we returned home, and he tried to choose his seats, but no joy there either. Westjet's computer system seems to be having some kind of teething trouble with a new system they have just put in.

Tomorrow he will have to do it all right at the airport, which may be very busy as it's a holiday weekend. Ouch, we hate to leave things to the last minute, but this one snuck up and bit us. He only has the flight confirmations, and that not even printed very well.

He'll renew his drivers license while he is at home, that's the purpose of the short trip, but due to Westjet's hub being in Calgary, he'll spend Saturday night in Calgary airport, then on to Vancouver on Sunday, and then he needs to catch the 5 PM ferry Monday to return to Vancouver, and stay in the airport there, to catch the early flight out on Tuesday morning back here. Luckily he can stay in our house, and use our car because the insurance doesn't expire til Nov.30th at midnight.

Wind has come up a bit here, the sunset was very pretty with pink clouds, but now at 9:30 PM it's a bit windy.

Not much to report, just warm weather here & sunshine

Today there was a yard sale at the sites, so we walked around, and Di bought some stationery, and a pretty cut glass starfish necklace.

We swam yesterday after dark, and met more nice folks from Maple Ridge, we chatted in the pool and hot tub.

When we checked in on Monday there was a warning about a swarm of angry bees, and one man got over 60 stings. Apparently they were honey bees living under somebody's trailer, and they were being removed, but didn't want to cooperate. Erg. The location was over against one fence of the park, so we were all warned to stay away, which we did.

Things look pretty good here, we shopped for groceries, and heard about free tickets to a Marine Corps Christmas concert, we went over today to City Hall in Palm Springs, but they are shut Weds Thurs and Friday for American Thanksgiving. We were surprised about that. It's a big deal down here, and Staters was selling turkeys for 33 cents a pound when you bought $25 of groceries. Another notable deal was Baileys, 750 ml for $10.95. We had to get in on the Baileys special, at least!!!!!

The temps are forecast to go down into the low 70s, I'm not sure how we'll like that, but it continues sunny and bright in the daytime. Last night we got up about 6 AM and pulled on another blanket, and went back to sleep again.

After all it is winter.

There is a Macy's Thanksgiving parade in New York that will be on tv tomorrow, starting at 9 AM here I believe. From here on I guess it will be full on Christmas shopping for Americans, apparently Friday after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday, if retailers haven't been "in the black" before this, they will be after Friday. Some stores open at 4 AM on Friday, yes, that's 4 AM.

So far we haven't contributed to the bettering of the US economy that much.

Lary leaves Saturday to return to Nanaimo and renew his drivers license, I will renew mine at a later date.

We spilled a large quantity of diesel additive inside the truck in a bin, it was dreadfully stinky, so we added a bunch of clay cat litter to absorb it, and try to absorb the rank smell too. Haven't scooped it out as yet, but the smell has subsided a whole lot already. Guess that the scoop out will be my job. (Di).

That's about it for now.

Hooray, In Desert Hot Springs at last-High 70s daily

Well, we spent 2 nights in Hesperia, CA just south of Victorville, and about a couple hours northwest of Desert Hot Springs. Found a nice campsite called Desert Willow, near lots of stores and just barely off US 395. They have pull through sites which makes it easier for us to park and camp. Lots of permanent folks living there in the campsite.

Spent a couple of lazy days there, cruising stores and putzing around. They had an International House of Pancakes and Marie Callendars, both restaurants that we enjoy. Highlight of our visit was 2 trips to Walmart and a trip to Super Target. We don't get out much!!!!! Too cool to use the pool though. It's kind of high desert there.

Only took us a couple of hours today to get to Desert Hot Springs, to Catalina Spa Resort where we are members. Didn't take us long at all to hit the pool and hot tub. Temps in the high 70s during the daytime, gotta like that, but at sunset, around 4:45 PM or so, the temps go down very quickly once the sun disappears.

Big wrinkle in our plans was that we had to show Lary's drivers license when we arrived here and checked in, OH OH!!!!!! both his and Di's licenses expire this year on our birthdays, that means, in December!!!!!. We hadn't even checked them before leaving home. Of course we checked the passports for expiry dates, but not the drivers licenses. Drat.

So Lary has made plans to fly home via Westjet this weekend, into Vancouver, and then renew the license on Monday, and fly back. Thankfully Westjet flies into Palm Springs, though on the way to Nanaimo he has to go from P.Springs to Calgary, sleep overnight in the airport, then leave Calgary early the following AM for Vancouver, then catch the rapid transit train, then the bus and then the ferry to get home to the island. Ah me, island living.

Di will renew her license later, it's not quite so critical. When he comes back, the timings work better, and he flies direct from Vancouver to Palm Springs, though he may end up spending an overnight in Vancouver airport, due to a somewhat early departure that Tuesday morning. How daft can we be?

This is the Thanksgiving week, I think kids may be off school in the U.S., and we have already booked our Thanksgiving Dinner here in the campground at the upper clubhouse, $10 each for turkey and all the trimmings, hope it is nice. The early dinner is way too early, the late sitting is 4 PM. Hmmm.

The campsite seems to be about 1/2 empty at the moment, it may fill up later after Thanksgiving, we're not sure. We want to extend here once our first 2 weeks are up, and pay for our "out week", so that in the end we will be here 5 weeks consecutively, and not leave til Dec. 28th or so. Being members it costs us $5 per night, and it's really a nice campground, for us both it feels like home with tons of stuff to do.

That's about it for now, Lary is happy because he will be able to watch the Grey Cup now at home or in Canada. It might not be shown down here on t.v.
He said he would have watched it on our computer, we have WiFi here in the park, and the external antenna, G-Sky that we bought last winter is serving us well this trip, too. We have WiFi in our trailer, and the external antenna makes it much faster.

That's it for now.

Bakersfield, CA in Orange Grove campsite

Well, we have arrived in Bakersfield, CA and we had some challenges along our way. Lary had to put in a new battery even before we left home, and then we spent a very chilly windy night in Walmart Nanaimo parking lot Saturday night.

We wanted to head out early, but then found that the first Duke Point ferry off the island wasn't until 10:15 AM. Thank heaven that sister Jen knew that so we made a reservation on the Saturday evening.



Sunday morning we got the ferry we wanted, in fact we arrived ages ahead of time, so we were off. Ferry cost $228. ouch.



US Customs loves us so much that they pulled us over to inspect, and took away some Chinese snow peas and some Green onions, most of the allium family is forbidden at the moment.



Spent the first night in Centralia WA, furnace worked well and we needed it.



Next day off at 8 AM and in rain until southern Oregon when the sun came out. Drove right through to Redding CA and even there it was chilly, but clear, and there were roses in the campground. We enjoy JGW RV Park on Riverland Drive, they have tons of drive through sites, and very easy access off the highway.



Next morning the battery wouldn't pull in the slides, it kind of died so we called a mobile mechanic, he came pretty promptly, and found a circuit breaker near our battery had tripped, so they reset it, and we were off again.



He suggested that with 3 slides we should really have a pair of batteries working together, so that we something we planned to do soon.



We reached Loomis in CA and it is near our friends Corky and Cynthia Guenter, who we had met in Budapest this past autumn. They live in Folsom, outside Sacramento. Set up in the Loomis campsite, and made an appt with Camping World very nearby for the next morning.



Spent a very enjoyable evening with the Guenters at their house, and stayed the night with them. They fed us monster steaks, and tons of win



Next day we took the trailer to Camping World, they put in a second battery and then tested our electric system. The tech found that our 30 amp extension cord was badly frayed both ends, hmmm, and that we could use a change of circuit breaker to our converter. It had been tripping a lot ever since we got the new trailer, so we made an appt for them to do that the following morning. Cynthia cut Di's hair, and did a great job. We took Cynthia and Corky out to dinner, and spent the night in the trailer in the parking lot of Camping World.



Up and into their shop at 8 AM, the same tech changed the circuit breaker as mentioned above, and we had them mount a carrying tube for the sewer hose, under the body of the trailer. Di also bought a carrying tube for one of her flutes there, we won't tell anyone that it's really a carrying tube for sewer hose!!!



Off just after 10 AM that morning, and drove right through to Bakersfield that day, long but clear without much wind or weather to speak of.



We are in a lovely park here, it's an orange grove as its name says, and there are tons of trees, all covered with oranges not quite ready to be picked yet. So very pretty. We can't pick the oranges on the trees inside the park, but it's OK to pick them at the edges of the park so we will likely do that tomorrow AM before we leave.



Today we went into Buck Owen's Crystal Palace, a music venue and dining room, full of his memorabilia, he died in 2006, but won a ton of awards and had a very successful career. It was fun to see his clothing, guitars, and tons of photos of him with many recording and giants of the screen and music industries. Then we went to a couple of antique malls, it is cold overnight, but warm during the day, the campsite has morning coffee and donuts on offer, and this morning there was a craft show put on by the Elks who are camping here at the moment. The park is enormous, gravel sites, but very wide, long and mostly pull throughs. It must be very popular in warmer weather, the orange trees dividing each site make it very pretty indeed. The office people are super friendly too. We shopped for groceries at Albertsons.



Forgot to add that we finally broke down and bought an AT & T pay and talk phone, and we called June Carlson who is in our house for 2 weeks, all well there, and weather sucks as it's rainy and windy, and will be for some time to come up there. June had a conversation with Dyson vacuum cleaners tech support as our vac wasn't working when we left home, but it seems to be working now. Thank you June.

Off tomorrow toward Desert Hot Springs, it's again chilly tonight down here, but hey, it's not raining or windy. And it's winter here too, after all.



We are already appreciating the bright blue skies down here.

Departure Day 2009 Looms Large

Well it's nearly time to roll on out of here, toward the sunny south. How the time has flown by since we got home from London, Budapest and Prague in early September.

There is fresh snow on our nearby mountain, Mt. Benson, and we have been watching it descend down toward the base of the mountain, and our town.

Today there is a real chill in the air, and we don't have antifreeze in our trailer system, though the water lines have all been blown out.

In fact Lary had a terrible time getting the water filter reinstalled, he has to take the trailer down to Duncan tomorrow Saturday to have a bit of help from the dealer, seems that a kitchen drawer has to come out for access to the water heater, located under the kitchen sink. Ah the joys of a new rig.

Meanwhile we are still thinking about getting a motorhome, a Class A or bus, as it doesn't have a bend in it, and should be easier to back into a campsite space.

We are very disappointed as our friends Dave and Wendy from Nelson won't be joining us right away in Desert Hot Springs, their house sprung another water leak which Dave just detected, and their daughter in law has a medical concern that has yet to be addressed.

A first for me, Di this year is trying to learn to play the Native American Flute. I now have 2, one in the key of F sharp, and a second one in the key of C. But what I do is blow each note instead of just blowing a steady stream of air, and playing the needed keys for each melody.

Last night found me hurriedly making fleece bags for each of my new flutes, they turned out alright, and temporarily satisfied my need for "crafting".

I will miss my new flute teacher Terry Mack from Nanaimo, she is such an inspiration. At my last lesson she offered to give me their 3rd cat, Napolean, he is a big ginger cat, a real lap cat. But I declined, graciously. Having an animal complicates our travelling lifestyle, though I think Napolean is really nice.

Last night we went to the Port Theatre and watched Ed Peekeekoot, he's a tall Cree native man who was the first to teach me the basic notes of the flute at Rommy Verlaan's workshop, what an entertainer he is.

He plays guitar, banjo, fiddle, native drum and of course Native American flute. He is so entertaining, a favourite moment of mine was when he played both the guitar held between his knees, and a banjo at the same time, for a dueling banjo type of song.

And his jokes and song writing are just marvellous, he had us all in stitches, and what was supposed to be a half hour of music from him turned into 1.5 hours. He's 6 ft 5 inches, 6 ft 6 inches in cowboy boots, with a long grey pony tail, and the type of craggy looks that really suit him. It was Random Acts at the Port Theatre, and we were all seated right up on the stage, it was such a nice atmosphere.

Tomorrow I have to clean the house to prepare for our housesitter Tara, who will be here most of the winter. And gather up the last of my stuff to go into the trailer, it's always such a temptation to take too much, and overload the trailer.

Bye for now.

Getting Ready for Summer

We have moved our trailer from the farm to Jinglepot RV Park. We will leave on Tuesday, 30 June, and head for Chilliwack for a couple of days. We don't have a "cast in concrete" plan but hope to get up to the Jasper Ice Field Highway, visit friends in Calgary and Lethbridge and then see where the road takes us. We'll try to update this as we go along and let you know where we are and what we are doing. Talk to you soon.

Back in Kelowna for warranty work on the trailer

We are back in Kelowna for some small warranty work on the trailer, we had a kitchen drawer fall out while we were on the road, and we couldn't get it back in right, so are having that taken care of, as well as other small stuff. Nothing big at all.
Thank heavens it didn't rip up the kitchen lino when it came crashing out. It was a big drawer.

The learning curve is pretty steep with this rig, we find that the bed closes up right to the drawers in the bedroom, so we can't get into the bedroom, and can't access the clothes cupboard if the slide is closed. Need to plan ahead for clothing changes, takes a bit of thinking.

And in the kitchen/living room/dining room same thing, the dining/living room slide comes right in to the kitchen sink extension, so we can't get at the kitchen or anything anywhere in the main room with the slides shut.

So for roadside lunches we're not sure what we have to do, but all the slides need to be out for us to go anywhere except barely into the hallway in the main room, and we can get into the bathroom too. That's all.

It has just dawned on us both that we won't be able to load/unload the trailer outside our house, where we parked on Applecross before, as two slides are now on the road side, which is way too dangerous on busy Applecross Road.

So we both need to be retrained for that part of our RVing experience.

We will use Walmart perhaps, and open the slides and clear out the cupboards that way. When it's just a short campout it's not such a big deal, but when we leave or return from down south it's more extensive as we have lots of clothes and way more stuff to take in/bring out.

After we visited our friends Grant and Katie Long in Oliver we went to Keremeos and visited Bernice and Gordon Elderkin at Sunkatchers RV co-op. There was no space there to camp, and we found Eagle campsite on the highway, not too far from them, it is a nice little campsite, about 25 sites, all pull throughs, hooray, right near a walking path which was a railway in days gone past. The campsite owner is Croatian, and very friendly and helpful too.

We walked about 1/2 hour and visited the Red Bridge, a covered bridge that had been a railway bridge, and is now restored, and used for vehicle traffic alongside the Similkameen River. It is quite quaint, it has red steel siding, the railway used to service a couple of gold mines in the Hedley area, and was called Victoria/Vancouver and something else I can't recall.

Bernice and Gord had us for a very happy happy hour, then the next day we 4 went out to a local restaurant that was kind of German, and such wonderful food. The men ate schnitzels and Bernice and I ate chicken baked with nut coating, and a fruit berry sauce. Yum yum.

We 4 went into Oliver on Saturday and went to the Seniors Centre there, we attended a dance from 10 AM til noon, what a beautiful facility it is, with a big sign saying Goodbye Snowbirds, apparently Oliver has tons of snowbirds from all across the prairies. We admired the pretty paintings on their walls, the centre is clearly a busy place, and we danced to a live band of 8 people, all volunteers. They dance every Saturday through the season, and a few seniors even come up from the US to attend. It was a magic occasion, one that really surprised us.

Of course we just "did the ballroom shuffle" but there were tons of different dances happening, we were envious of all their talent. Round dances, foxtrots, polkas, waltzes, it was wonderful. And folks were so friendly, too.

We ate lunch at a restaurant in Oliver, then went back to Keremeos, went in to their Legion there, and stayed for their meat draw. As visitors Lary got to draw the first winner, and he drew Di's ticket, so we got a fat roasting chicken which we had to put in our freezer, as we were on the move once more.

Sunday we left and returned to Kelowna and Holiday Park, had Gord and Trish over for Happy hour, then went out for dinner at a nearby Greek restaurant, lamb shoulder, yum yum, another wonderful place.

Today is Monday and the trailer is having small repairs done under warranty in Kelowna at Voyager, we drove the truck up to Vernon which is way cooler than Kelowna, and found the Talkin Donkey coffee shop/ lunch place. They offer free internet, so we are checking our email, and eating lunch at the same time.

Nice to find, as the Visitor Centre had directed us to Starbucks which charges $9 per hour to use their WiFi.

We think we'll head for the coast after this, and perhaps return to Nanaimo and go into a campsite there, where we can show our friends the new rig, and maybe unload the trailer, and get back into our house once more, by the end of April/beg. of May.

The lady who owns the property where we store our trailer at a rural place in Lantzville had a heart attack in January just before we left, so we hope that she's recouperated and we'll be able to store the rig there, still.

That's about it for now, we need to say bye for now, and this maybe our last posting for this year's journey down south.

Take care all, and thanks for reading our blog.

Toured the Citation/Corsair General Coach factory

Toured the Citation/Corsair General Coach factory here in Oliver this morning, they have just spent 1/2 million dollars retooling so that they can also produce Park Model trailers, the type that are now found in many RV parks, generally they are about 500 square feet, and suit a couple of people, no more, often for seasonal use.

Their RVs are very high end, and they are very proud of their products, justifiably so. We enjoyed seeing how they are made, and having an Xray look into their units, as if you peel back the fibreglass skin and look into the guts of the trailers.

We miss our dinette, both the storage and the comfort. The valances on the window coverings take up about 4 inches of room, and the chairs are somewhat crowded into the space. Also the table has a leaf which occupies a bit more space too. Oh me, we are toying with the idea of having a dinette made, but not sure about that as yet.

Just adapting to a different configuration of space, after all we have had the previous unit for 5 years or so, and have had lots of good times in it.

Naturally like many people we realized when we moved our stuff from one trailer to the other that we likely have it rather overloaded. So we're attempting to remedy that somewhat.

It's a warm Okanagan day today, there is an overcast sky but it's bright and warm, so we both have shorts on again. Hooray.

We're heading off tomorrow to have dinner with our pals Grant and Katie Long, Di worked with Katie at Pemberton Holmes many long years ago, and they have a super new house here just above where we are camped, on Tuc El Nuit Lake, at Desert Lake campsite.

The carp fish in the lake are jumping right out, it is very interesting to see. Perhaps they are happy to eat the springtime bugs.

All around the edge of the lake there are willow trees coming into leaf, so it's very pretty, a soft yellow/green hazy look to them at the moment.

Thursday we'll head off to Keremeos and see if our friends Gordon and Bernice Elderkin are there in their park. They don't have cell phone coverage there, so are a bit harder to contact.

Then we'll likely head down toward the coast and home.

Got the new 5th wheel- we are now in Oliver BC

HI all, we haven't passed away from the chill in the Okanagan, we picked up the new 5th wheel on the 15th of April. Didn't get the stuff transferred over from the old to the new trailer til the end of the day, so got locked into the Voyager RV compound. Had to call the salesman, then he sent security, he called his wife, and she brought the keys down. Quite a wait fur us, and we were pooped.

Left there at 7:30 PM or so, and got to Holiday Park in Winfield, BC, shortly after that, just exhausted. Then Lary had to hookup in the dark, we didn't even know where our flashlights were located, and of course the new trailer has 3 slides, and you can't basically get into it except into the hallway by the kitchen, or up the stairs into the bathroom when it's all shut up tight and the slides are in. The new power cord for 50 Amp is very heavy and very stiff. And hooks up differently to what we're used to. Also the dealership de-winterized for us, and left all the gate valves open, so we christened the ground in the RV park til we realized what was happening. Our gray water was flowing right through from the drains to the ground. Oops.

We basically staggered into bed after we tried to organize things a bit more.

Our friends Gordon and Trisha Lugrin live in that park, so the next day we got in touch with them, showed them around the rig, and tried to pack a wee bit better.

Went out to dinner with them to a local restaurant, Mama Sphengis, in fact we had had dinner there the night before too, by ourselves.

We are very surprised that in the longer rig we have fewer cupboards, we were very spoiled in our Jazz trailer, and of course expanded our bumfffff to fit into every conceivable space. Hmmmm, we will be weeding out lots and lots of stuff.

And of course we have summer clothes which we used down south, and winter clothes which we are wearing now. Brrrrr. We have the furnace on low at nights.

It has been going down to nearly freezing overnight, but a bit warmer during the day.

Gord and Trish took us to Gray Monk winery for a tasting on Saturday, and we ate dinner at their house both Saturday and Sunday nights, all of us contributed somehow, though Trish bore the brunt of the socializing and cooking.

Of note is Latitude 50 wine, both white and red which Trish enjoys. It's from Gray Monk, so we bought some of it and some other wines they had on offer after our tasting.

Di bought a tee shirt that says "Hug me, squeeze me, make me wine"!!!!

We had lunch with Joan and Bob Gregson formerly of Parksville, now Kelowna residents. We went to the Jammery, and met them for Sunday brunch. Great to have a catchup, and find out what the latest is all around.

Now it's Monday and we have come on down to Oliver again, we are at Desert Lake campground, a lovely campsite on a small lake here, it's so pretty as there are willow trees that are just coming into leaf, and the redwing blackbirds are singing their hearts out here too. A lovely location, with fish jumping in the lake.

The clubhouse overlooks the lake, and they have pull throughs, and the campsite is just immaculate. Doug and Lorie the managers have just returned from down south themselves.

We hope to visit with our friends Grant and Katie Long, they live here now, they were formerly in Brentwood Bay, near Victoria. And we might be able to contact Caesar and Leona Jordaan if they are back to Oliver from Baja, Mexico.

Heard from sister Sue recently, she has been very busy indeed.

We have said we'll stay here for 3 nights, then go over to Keremeos and hope to visit friends Gordon and Bernice Elderkin.

HAPPY EASTER TO EVERYONE

Hi all, we had a super dinner out with Dave and Wendy to celebrate her birthday, at Margarita's in Palm Springs. It was a Mexican food and Oyster Bar, they also make sushi there, so it's quite varied.

There was live music, a singer and a sax player, very enjoyable to listen to. We ate in the bar area which was quite close to the musicians. Very mellow.

Home about 9:00 PM and it's chilly and windy, can't believe we have long pants on, sweaters and the heater turned on. What a funny climate, baking one day, chilly the next.

HAPPY EASTER TO ALL OUR FOLLOWERS. WE HOPE YOU HAVE A SUPER WEEKEND WITH YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILIES.

We Say Adios to Sue and Jen

Thursday we went into the 1000 Palms Oasis, to see the fan palms there. It's a natural oasis, caused by the water from the San Andreas fault rising up nearly to the surface. It is fascinating to see the palms, and we showed Jen and Sue how the palms have very sharp thorns as protection along their branches near the trunk. It's quite near our campsite, so after that we went into Desert Hot Springs to see the Cabot's Pueblo Museum.

There is a giant indian head carving there, carved by Peter Toth, a Hungarian refugee in 1978. He returned this year to refresh it, and enhance the carving, so it's fresh looking once more. It's a sequoia that was some 750 years old before it fell. Their gift shop was very interesting, though we didn't see the museum with its paintings, it's only open for guided tours and we didn't want to spend the time there. It's a Hopi structure, very large and rambling, and was the home of Cabot Yerxa, an explorer, architect, artist, adventurer, gold miner, and overall Renaissance type of man.

Then we came back to our campsite, and had a nice refreshing swim -although the temps have gone way down, into the 70s, with a bit of a breeze.

After that we met our cousin Jenn Hett in Palm Springs, she's on holiday here with her friend Debbie, they both teach at a pre school on the California coast. Jenn had booked us into Maracas, so we sat right out beside the main road of P.S. and ate a delicious Mexican dinner, and people watched while we caught up on the latest doings of the Hett family.

Later we all strolled down the main street of P.S. enjoying the Villagefest, their night market on Thursday evenings. Tons of jewelry, soap, pottery, food, fresh produce and people as it was Thursday of the long Easter weekend, and there are a heap of people here in town.

Of note is that it's White Weekend when thousands of gay men join their local counterparts for safe fun and frolics.

Friday we all leapt up and got the rental trailer cleared out, we had provided linens and bedding, and things that Sue and Jen needed for their week's stay, so that all came back to us, along with the leftover food and drink that they hadn't finished up.

Sue and Jen caught their plane in P.S. at 1:30 PM for San Francisco where they will have 2 nights staying right at Fisherman's Wharf in a nice hotel that Ian reserved for them. It was such fun having them here with us.

We did laundry when we got home, and we're heading out to P.S. again tonight, to Margarita's Restaurant to celebrate Wendy Simpson's birthday, a day late. A great sendoff for us too.

It has turned very blustery and somewhat cold today, the canopy is banging around over our slide. And the sun is taking a wee holiday, too.

This may be our last posting to the blog for a while, as we start our northward trek.

Bye for now.

Very windy in DHS today

Sunny day but quite windy here at the RV Park, which is out in the flat desert, about 1/2 an hour's drive from Palm Springs. Temps down from 90 to around 70s or so.

Did some culture vulturing today in P.S., went to the Agua Caliente museum in a wee house right down in the centre of town, in the Village Green area, about the Cahuilla indians of this area. A movie showed how they survived in the harsh desert climate, and how they found food and made shelter, and got their game to eat, made pottery and baskets.

We didn't know that acorns are edible here, they have to be ground up, and the 'flour' washed repeatedly with water to take away the bitterness first. It is quite weird but their land holdings form a checquerboard pattern in this valley, so you see lovely developments, interspersed with pieces of raw empty desert land. Strange indeed, something about land being granted by the railway like that in that pattern.

The natives seem to have retained legal advice to assist them in interpreting government legislation that concerns them, since the 1950s or so. Clever of them.

Then we went into the oldest house in P.S., I think it's called the McCallum house, he was one of the earliest pioneers in this area, the climate was pretty inhospitable, and some of the first inhabitants besides the natives and the ranchers were tuberculosis patients, seeking a dry environment where it would be easier for them to breathe. The earliest settlers seem to have been ranchers, but what a way to try and eke out a living.

As ever in the desert water was a constant challenge, and one of the more successful ranchers widened an irrigation canal, and thus ensured a more consistent supply of water. The water source for here is pretty well the Colorado River, and there is a huge canal called the All American Canal, which feeds PS, the Coachella Valley and its water needs.

McCallum house is an adobe building, it has been expanded over the years, and shows in photos the history of the development of this area. There were small hotels here over the years, but it was really the film industry that found a dry and bright place to film in that got it launched, about the 1920s or so. Before that it had been mainly sparse ranching, with the constant threat of lack of water limiting growth.

After the film industry started the Coachella Valley gradually developed as a playground for film stars, and a sunny retreat for northerners seeking sunshine and desert dryness. Now it seems that water worries have been addressed, and the new concern is power needs, which are somewhat helped by the huge windfarms that have developed along the I-10 corridor.

The wind comes along 1-10 from the coast via the mountain passes, and now powers the windmills. They are getting bigger and bigger in size and number, but what better use for a very windy corridor than to "farm" the wind flows?

Today was very gusty wind, after our museum interlude we went and explored more stores downtown in Palm Springs. Di found the sunhat she had lost a couple of days ago, it was right where she had left it while helping Jen and Sue with their clothing purchases.

We had lunch at Las Casuelas, a pretty Mexican restaurant right in the heart of P.S., in an old house with lovely arches, and pretty tiles and both outdoor and indoor seating. Delicious food.

Dinner back at our trailer, and then coffee/tea at Dave and Wendy's trailer, Jen and Sue wanted to see it, and tomorrow is Wendy's birthday, so we gave her wee somethings toward that.

We did laundry here late this evening, and now it's time to fall into bed, meanwhile in the back of both our minds is the thought that we soon have to pull up stakes, and go on our northward trek toward home once more. We will likely leave here this Saturday, April 11th, though there are high gusty winds predicted for this week and weekend off and on, which is a bit of a concern for us both.

It has been such fun to have had Sue and Jen here, and show them the area, and tour them around to our favourite sites.

Tomorrow is our get together with cousin Jenn Hett and her friend for dinner at Maracas, and then we'll attend the P.S. VillageFest night market, which runs from 6 til 10 PM on the main street of P.S.

Forgot to add that it's gorgeous sightseeing in the valley

Forgot to add that it's just lovely touring people around at the moment, all the blooming plants and trees are at their peak, the bouganvilla, palo verde, ocotillo, oleander, even cactus are flowering and so lovely at the moment.

Many of the pretty housing developments have landscaping outside their walls, and it's breathtakingly lovely with pinks, reds, yellows, whites, and flowers everywhere.
Such a sensory treat for visitors and residents alike.

More retail therapy in the Coachella Valley today

Off today into the Palm springs area for more retail therapy. First to Ross Dress for Less, then onto J.C. Penney and the Westfield Mall, where we continued to find some stuff we absolutely couldn't do without!!!

Ate in the food court there, and then went over to Shields Date Plantation at the edge of Indio where we watched their film about how they cultivate, pollinate and harvest their dates, very labour intensive indeed.

Who knew that people have to pollinate the female trees by hand using powder puff type of things. And that the trees don't yield their first crops for about 15 years or so. Interesting. They also need a huge amount of water, but yet are damaged by rain.
The dates are wrapped in protetive bags while they are still young and ripening on the trees. The trees have to be stripped of their protective and lethal thorns, too.

Shields maintains that the Coachella Valley produces 95% of the dates grown in the US. The Medjool dates are the big fat sweet ones that we enjoy, but other dates are used for different purposes, and Shields himself pioneered the development of date flakes to be used in sundaes and other confections. Sue had a date shake, they have a kind of soda fountain like you would have found in the 50s or so. Very fun.

Their gift shop had some dates to try, Shields himself cultivated some new kinds of dates, calling them brunettes and blondes.

Once we had finished there we went over to Agua Caliente Casino, where we introduced Sue and Jen to a new life of crime. That is, we showed them how to play the penny slots. We all promptly lost very small amounts of money, then checked out their gift shop for deals, and after that went to the delicious prime rib buffet.

Jen treated us all, it was very good. They have Mexican, American, Oriental and Italian Food, and a dessert buffet to die for.

The wind came up as we were coming home, the temp this afternoon was 90, but on the drive home around 7 PM it dropped down to 70 or so, and the wind buffeted the truck.

All in all another full day for the four of us. Sad that the girls have to leave on Friday, and then we'll roll on out of Desert Hot Springs and our winter hideout on Saturday, heading northwards. Groan indeed.

Jen's sore feet- too much walking in new shoes

Today we left around 10:30 and went down to Palm Springs. Parked the truck and the four of us went slowly down the main drag of Palm Springs, going in and out of some lovely shops. Sue and Jen both found jackets to buy, Sue found a denim one with flowers on the front, and Jen found a gorgeous lime green one, and a black one too, with giraffes on it. Sue and Jen both got jackets for half price. We ate lunch at an outdoor patio restaurant, burgers all round. They were yummy. Temps were up to about 90 or so, but are supposed to go way down tomorrow, with breezy weather. Ick.

We found lots of wonderful stores, and then walked a long way down the road looking for a cafe that sold some art that Sue was looking for. We found the cafe, it had closed half an hour before, but Sue bought a small painting from them, and then we had coffee at IHOP, and caught a cab back to where the truck was parked.

Came home and we 4 went for a swim in the pool, and then had a yummy salad that Lary made for us.

Poor Jen blistered her heel yesterday, and today she blistered the bottom of one big toe. So she is lame and in pain, but perhaps happy with her purchases. Hope so.

Sunny 90F Monday

Sue and Jen arrived right on time on Saturday evening. We went and listened to the Jazz concert in the Garden on El Paseo, the swanky shopping area, for half a hour and then went to "Falls prime Steakhouse" for a great meal. We got them settled in to their park model trailer wich will be home until next Friday.

On Sunday morning we all went to the College of the Desert (COD) street market. Spent a couple of hours there doing retail therapy, and then came back to the park and spent some time in the pool. Very nice afternoon. Had Happy Hour at our trailer and Dave and Wendy came over to meet Di's sisters, they hadn't seen Wendy since High School days (wasn't that just yesterday).
After Happy Hour Lary made a chicken, shrimp and sausage Creole Jambalaya. Dinner was finished up with a lemon meringue pie courtesy of the master bakers at WalMart. After the girls went back to their trailer Di and I watched the American Country Music Awards hosted by Reba McIntyre.

We are really enjoying having Sue and Jen with us and we are just waiting now to head off and do some eploring with them. We think we'll go into Palm Springs, see the sights there, perhaps hit a casino for lunch or dinner, and mooch around the town areas, so that they can see where they are, and explore some downtown delights.

Very high winds in Palm Springs today & a bad fire

Overnight last night Lary pulled in the slide, as the winds had gotten much stronger, and the canopy over the slide bangs and makes us bump around inside the trailer. Lots of grit, dust and sand flying everywhere. Getting ready for Sue and Jen to arrive tomorrow.

Got Di a pedicure in Desert Hot Spirngs today, not bad except the fellow nipped a cuticle and made it bleed a bit. Erg. Lary bought beac towels for Sue and Jen, we'll use them to replace ours.

There was a brush fire that started over in Palm Springs late this afternoon, on the tramway road, and it got big quite quickly as the winds went as high as 52 mph this afternoon. Because of the high winds the fire had to be fought on foot, they couldn't use planes to douse it. Some folks were evacuated, they used a reverse 911 emergency call system, and apparently it worked very well.

We went to the Blue Coyote restaurant tonight in Palm Springs with Dave and Wendy, you could see lots of emergency vehicles still at the fire scene, and the electricity flickered momentarily in the restaurant. It was a mortgage burning party, as Lary and I just paid off our home mortgage completely. Whoo hoo.

Good food but poor service, Palm Springs tends to be pretty busy on weekends, and this was no exception, with very noisy patrons near us in the restaurant, too.

No homes were lost due to this fire, many nearby towns sent their fire engines and emergency personnel to fight it. The winds here are high in the spring and fall apparently, and the mountains and the I-10 corridor make a perfect tunnel to accelerate the wind. At times today it was very hard to open the truck doors, and we were even blown around in the parking lots. The dust and grit gets everywhere, and swirls around and clouds the air a lot.

Temps are due to cool a bit as a result of these high winds, there was an art show cancelled today in P. S. due to the wind. There are 2 big art shows this weekend, as well as a big Ladies Golf Tourney that wraps up this Sunday.

The temps should go down from the 80s into the 70s, but the winds should calm a bit, til mid week when they may whip up once again. Perhaps the slightly cooler weather will be better for Sue and Jen. Can't wait to see them.

We are meeting our California cousin Jennifer Hett from the Dana Point area on the California coast this coming Thursday night for dinner, and we all hope to take in the Palm Springs village fest night market that night. Should be great.

They arrive about 5:30 PM Saturday, and are flying Vic to Van, Van to L A, then L A to here, so will be pretty beat after that trek.

Lazy day Wednesday- hiking Thursday

Wednesday Lary and I went into Desert Hot Springs to do a small shop and have lunch.

We had Happy Hour with Dave and Wendy sitting out on their "patio" beside the trailer under the awning.

Thursday morning Lary, Dave and Wendy went off to a hike in Andreas Canyon near here, organized by a seniors group. I have a sore foot so didn't go with them, it was to be about 1.5 hours long.

Sunny today, the temps are supposed to be in the 70s over the weekend, and Friday is supposed to be windy again.

Lazy day in the campsite Tuesday

Boy is it ever emptying out, I took a walk this evening around the campsite, and lots of the sites are empty.

This morning I cleaned off the front of the trailer, got rid of the bugsplats that we had from coming back from Tucson. They were baked on very well. After I got the bugs off, Lary washed the cleaner off.

This afternoon I went to the pool but there was a waterpolo game going on, so I kept to one end. It was late in the afternoon, and the wind started. Wendy and Dave came over and we 4 sat on our patio for Happy Hour.

Now it's 8:30 PM and the wind has come up a lot, and it's gritty. We may have to put in the slide once again tonight.

Sunday in the campsite we moved sites

Saturday we went to the Flea market over at Sky Valley, a nice looking campsite with a lot of park models, both older and newer. Nice facilities, though there wasn't much for sale, and it was at people's sites so you had to drive around a bit. It has an east side and a west side, also hair salon and restaurant, besides their pool and clubhouse complex.

After that we went and had lunch at Agua Caliente Casino in town, not that remarkable, and we played the slots and lost a small amount.

Got the truck washed in Desert Hot Springs by some students of an alternate school, and then came back here. Di went to the pool and Lary had a siesta then joined me at the pool.

Sunday we drove 2 hours over to visit Craig, Di's stepbrother and his wife Cindy in Escondido at their lovely home. They had a nice lunch for us, but they were very busy, after 5 months of hard work they plan to put their home on the market on Tuesday. It is a super place, 3 floors, very expensive and has 2 acres with lots of vegetation, very labour intensive for them. It has a 1 acre avocado grove at the back of the property. It has a huge bank of solar panels, too, as well as a pool and gorgeous grounds.
They have a condo at Incline Village in Lake Tahoe, Nevada that they will move to when the house sells.

We had a nice visit and a catchup, unfortunately in my opinion there is a small development going in right beside them, it is now 8 acres and will be perhaps 4 luxury homes, but at the moment it is dead avocado trees being removed one at a time for the proposed development. A bit of an eyesore for a prospective buyer for Craig's home, with a possible long lasting construction project beside them.

Time will tell what happens in this market -it only takes one buyer, but what a market to try and sell property in. It will be in a high price bracket, too.

Came back home around 8 PM and Lary has developed a cold, so he feels quite poorly.

Monday we welcomed back Dave and Wendy S. and we moved over to be much closer to the upper clubhouse and pool complex, Sue and Jen Di's sisters are coming on Saturday for a 6 day visit and will be staying in a rental park model trailer, on the other side of the upper pool from us.

The park here is really emptying out, there is a large group of Class A buses visiting, but the "locals" are really starting to go in droves. At the end of March all the organized activities stop, and also the food services stop, so we're much more on our own from now on.

On Sunday night when we came back from San Diego there were huge winds happening here, with blowing dust, so we pulled in our slide overnight, the canopy above the slide really makes a racket, and pulls the trailer around in high winds.

Lots of fun in Las Vegas NV

Sunday, March 22nd, we drove from Desert Hot Springs CA to Las Vegas NV in about 4 hours in the truck, and had lunch along the way at the Mad Greek, in Baker, a wee town in Nevada I believe. Ate Gyros, pita wrapped around yummy meat.

Arrived in LV at 3:30 PM, our room cost us $39 each nite at the Riviera, and we had a king bed room on the 6th floor. No mini fridge though, guess we weren't paying enough. Cost $3.50 extra daily to use the safe in the room which we did, but they wanted $9.95 per day to use the WiFi internet, so we didn't do that.

Went to Circus Circus across the strip from our hotel, and had roast beef dinner, and watched a free circus act, then back to the Riviera as we had tickets to see Ice, a gorgeous skating troupe from Russia. They put on a wonderful show, the stage was an ice rink, and there was a runway that came right out into the audience, so they skated by us quite often. Fabulous show- kind of circus things, but stretched the boundaries of what you can do on skates -hugely. Can you picture skating on stilts? They also did incredible balancing acts, and were so graceful and pretty.
Fantastic, and we told them so when we met them doing promos the next day on the strip.
Only 50 degrees, though sunny, what a change from Desert Hot Springs.

Monday it reached 62 and was windy.
Had breakfast at the hotel, and spent the day on the strip going in and out of casinos. Bought tickets for "Barbra and Frank, the show that never was" - that's Streisand and Sinatra, for Tuesday.

Also bought tickets for Phantom of the Opera for that very night, at the Venetian, it was a super show, we're very happy we went to it. Show wasn't sold out, also wasn't cheap either. We were so delighted to see it, wonderful music and effects, the stage presentations there are unbelievable. Specially built for the productions.

Di gambled and occasionally won, Lary didn't win but he tried. We only play penny machines, and normally spend less than $40 a day, so we're not high rollers at all.

Had lunch in the Creperie at Paris- the casino, it's such a fabulous complex, every time we're there we enjoy it so much. Shops are to die for, and the atmosphere is incredible, the Eiffel Tower is right there, 1/2 size of the real one, the base of it is inside Paris on the casino floor.

Tuesday it was 70 F.
And we spent the day searching out different bead shops in the truck, and stocking up a wee bit. Didn't hit the big ones though. Enjoyed the day away from the strip. Ate at a Greek restaurant, and talked quite a bit with a lady bead shop owner from Mexico, she was very interesting. Her hubbie had been Hawaiian.

Went to Ethel M chocolate factory, but we arrived at 3:30 PM or so, and production had stopped for the day. Chocolates were very expensive, we had the free samples, and then walked around the wonderful desert gardens specially planted at the back of the chocolate factory. Most things are for very dry climates, some native, some not.

We ate ice creams there, and then we got a call from the Rogoway Gallery down in Tubac, AZ saying that the artist had accepted our offer on a beautiful desert painting, which we both adored, so that made us very very happy indeed.

They will ship it to us at the beginning of May, their cost. The subject is Pinnacle Peak in AZ, and it's an oil painting. John Horejs I believe is the painter, his work is in many corporate offices around the world, so we feel very lucky to have had our offer accepted.

We went to the "Barbra (Streisand) and Frank (Sinatra) show, the concert that never was" at our hotel that evening, it was very amusing. It has been on for about 5 years, the two who do it are super and it's very funny, too. The Barbra Streisand lady kibbutzes about and makes it amusing. The pianist is terrific, so talented, he also sang and played beautifully. Bought the photo they took of us, $35, so stupid. Last Sept the photos were $20 at places, now the frames are ritzier, and they charge way too much.

Played the slots Lary won $35.

Wed March 25th sunny and 75 F.
Walked miles and miles today, had lunch at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville, delicious lunch and well run restaurant. They always seem busy at that chain, and good value for money.

We looked at both Wynn and Encore, they are newer casinos and very high end, theme of both seems to be "red" and a big oriental presence in both. Sleek bronze colored glass exteriors, and wonderful inside. Wynn has a waterwall, so neat, and being new everything was shiny and fancy. Butterflies set into the floor, carpets, etc. Incredibly lavish interiors too. Worth a trip to look at them. We kind of drifted up and down the strip, walked our feet off. Nice that it's not so hot this time.

In the evening we took the Deuce double decker bus $3 per trip to Fremont Street, downtown Las Vegas, and waited for their neat sound and light show outside on the ceiling of their "strip". First one was American Pie by Don MacLean, next was Queen, next was Kiss. They are on the hour at night. We ate inside Binions Casino, very old and we were downstairs in a very old part, but good food and service. Lary turned $5 into $25 in the slots. Somebody on the bus said that the downtown casinos were more generous than the ones on the strip.

Thursday 26 March, sunny and 70 F. Very windy day. Pool outside was closed.
Took the Deuce bus south along the strip, and walked back, eating lunch once more at Paris, more crepes. Yum yum. Ate dinner in our hotel, at the buffet, not impressed, Lary enjoyed the roast beef, but the rest was lame and overpriced.

Lary impressed himself and Di by turning $5 into $108 at the slots in our hotel, a big win considering they were penny machines with penny bets. I think Di broke even, some of the slots start to give you free spins and free plays, that's what Lary did to win his large amount. He was a happy camper indeed.

Friday 27 March, 70 degrees in Vegas.
Got up and had breakfast in the hotel, then checked out and had a bellhop take our bags down, we didn't have wheels on our bags, and they were quite heavy, though Di had consumed all the Jose Cuervo Margarita drink we had taken with us, to lighten the load, of course!!!!!.

Stopped in a bead shop north of Las Vegas and Di got some beads, very nice elderly gents owned it, they were both in their mid to late 70s and had opened the shop 5 years ago, they were both bored with retirement, having both worked their whole lives at Sears. They are expanding into the store next door to them, too.
Lovely shop, very well organized, and I found some nice things.

Back to Desert Hot Springs at about 1700. There had been a windstorm by the look of it, our bedspread and kitchen floor were covered with sandy grit. And the electricity had been off for a brief time as the stereo clock was flashing, but thankfully the fridge was still working. We had turned off the water coming into the trailer, and turned off the propane too, but left the electricity on for the fridge. All well other than the grit which Di vacuumed. Lary seems to be getting a cold, or it could be allergies due to the windy weather.

Good to be back, we feel we have DONE Las Vegas for now, time to give it a break. It was a super trip though, and the room prices were great. Bellman said that about 1/2 of the hotel staff had been laid off, how awful for them. When we returned to the trailer we had another offer for rooms at Circus Circus for $28.95 per night mid week, so there are some deals to be had on the internet, and with your players cards.

But when you went into the malls inside all those big beautiful casinos there were people buying lots of things, loaded down with bags. And we heard lots and lots of different nationalities speaking everywhere. Interesting place and economy.

Fun to be in Adult Fantasyland for a few days.

Renaissance Festival in Palm Springs

Today we went up to the clubhouse for breakfast, and took a wee look at the small market up there, Wendy was selling her jewelry. Then we went over to Caliente RV Resort on Dillon Road, another nice development on a golf course, and they had a big market day set up there, lots of things to see.

Lary bought a key holder made of wood, Di bought earrings, (what's new?) and some very nice cards.

Then we went down to Palm Springs, to the Renaissance Festival in the heart of Palm Springs,it is such a neat weekend, with tons of people dressed up in costumes and having a blast. Bands, maidens, royalty, knights, lords, ladies, wenches. Children frolicking in the warm sunshine. Such a mellow time indeed. Children riding on donkeys, food concessions, so much fun. A man with some big parrots, ladies with mice and rats. Yuck. Bosoms galore, such sights to be seen. And men in kilts, forgot to mention that, lots of them. Some cotton kilts, some woolen ones.

Home after we did a bit of shopping, tomorrow we leave for Las Vegas for 5 nights in the truck, leaving the trailer here in the park.

We had ribs at the clubhouse, a very popular dinner there, and it was packed. It was very windy in the evening with dust swirling around, and a weird kind of low cloud too, hanging over the Coachella Valley. Now at 9:30 PM it's a still as can be.

Temps in Las Vegas look as if they are going to be quite a bit cooler than here. We will likely do a lot of walking, that is what gets you around fastest there.

We bought patterns to make medieval costumes, not sure when we'll do that, but fun to dream a bit, and maybe even challenge ourselves, too.

That was our Saturday, not sure if we will be posting from Las Vegas or not. TTFN.

Whew it's hot here, over 90 degrees today

Today we waited for the WiFi guy to help us here in the park, yesterday he sold us a WiFi antenna (adaptor) which worked yesterday, but we poked something wrong later, and then it didn't work. So we asked for more help.

Turned out we had to disable the internal WiFi switch on our computer, so he did that, and it boosts the signal we receive hugely. Otherwise the signal is so weak we can't bring in anything here, and our email doesn't get sent or received.

It is the second day of high heat, and today it was kind of cloudy/foggy and felt humid and close, but that cleared up this afternoon.

We went and got diesel at Flying J on Varner Road, $1.98 per gallon today, not that bad for sure. Also got groceries at Walmart and came home, then hit the pool to cool off. Truck temp read 92 degrees late this afternoon, and we put on the A/C.

Together with Dave and Wendy we left the campsite around 6:30 PM, and went in to the Palm Springs night market, which is on between 6 and 10 PM. We ate at Mary's Burgers, and then walked the whole length of the fair, about 4 blocks, right down Palm Springs main street. It was quite busy, and very warm. Quite magic as the shops and restaurants were very busy, spring break is here, and Palm Springs is hosting a lot of students, especially at the Holiday Inn. Crafts, green grocer, nuts and fruits, crafts, art stuff, crepes, other foods like sausages, hamburgers, and some vegetarian stuff too. Lemonade, fudge, kettle corn. All the basic food groups.

Back to the park a bit after 10 P.M. and watched Jay Leno interview President Obama. The president seems such a nice guy to me.

Wedneday in hot Desert Hot Springs

Whew it has turned very hot here, high 80s or low 90s. Lovely weather, we are heading for the pool ASAP.

Arrived here on Saturday, had cinnamon buns first at Pilot Knob before we left there for DHS. Lots of buggies in the dunes areas alongside the highway that parallels the US/MX border. Windy over the weekend, we are right over on the edge of the park, 2 sites away from Dave and Wendy, and the man between us is 84 years old and away on a cruise to Hawaii.

We both love Dave and Wendy's new Cardinal 33 ft trailer, wow and more wow. They headed off to Jazz in the Gardens at El Paseo, and we had roast chicken dinner here in the clubhouse. Yum yum.

Sunday we went in to an art show in Palm Springs, and met Dave and Wendy there. Lary bought me a pretty glass shamrock for St Patrick's day. Home and had burgers at the clubhouse with Dave and Wendy. I had bought a dichroic pendant at the art show.

Gave Dave and Wendy some ProSecco Italian sparkling wine, and Wendy served us strawberries and ice cream for dessert. Yum. Looked at some of their cruise photos.

Monday Di and Wendy went to a card making course, and made 4 cards each with Judy Cox as teacher, fabulous session with ideas burbling out of Judy, a very generous teacher. Dave and Lary went to the manager's meeting here in the park to get the latest info about the park. Went to the pool, it was very warm.

St Patrick's Day Lary and I went over to Banning on the highway to see a few Cardinal trailers they have. Saw 2 - 2009s and one 2008 that Lary thinks is our floor plan. They said they would make us a very good deal, it's the RV Discount centre or something like that.

Then Lary and I went up to Yucca Valley, on the way there we saw a travel trailer on the highway, tipped over on its side at the edge of the highway, very frightening to see. Not sure what had gone wrong with that day for those people, but it tied up traffic, and is very sobering to see, too, for us RVers.

Yucca Valley was very hot, higher than PS/DHS. We went up to see an art show of paintings and photos of cactus flowering, combined with a reduce/reuse/recycle exhibit. Very fascinating how some folks can make art out of found objects etc.

The girl in the museum, the Hi Desert Nature Museum up there told us about a cowboy western village ghost town in their area, Pioneertown, so we went there and strolled up and down dusty main street. It was built in 1946 by Gene Autry and Roy Rogers for a movie set, and many movies, around 200, were filmed there over the years. Now just a dusty stage set kind of, though some folks live there on "mane street". There is also a wooden motel there, 20 unit, you can stay there as well as board your horse out back. It's wooden, and looks picturesque.

Came home and ate in, there are strict policing policies in force on St Paddy's Day as it is a drive and drink problem down here, which leads to accidents.

Our internet has been acting up horribly, we have had almost no connectivity, so Lary went to a seminar today about that. The technician guy here, Bryan sold Lary a new Wi Fi antenna, the one we bought wasn't working at all. Pity about the first one, but this new one works wonderfully, bumping up the speed magically. Ah me, when technology works well it's terrific, when it doesn't work, we could both throw out the computer, not fair as it's not the computer's fault.

That's about it for now, it's off to the pool we go. Tra laa.