Sunday, November 28, 2010

Busy Saturday and Sunday

Saturday we picked up Sal and Russ and went first to the College of the Desert street market. There are over 300 vendors so Sal and I didn't do them all, but we had a good go of it, I bought an apron and matching oven mitts for the trailer, and a nice silver chain with a pretty pendant of a light green faceted stone set in silver to go on it, and a few other things.

I had already found some stick to it mats that work really well on your car dashboard, they don't have adhesive, just stick like a gel stuff, and you can set your GPS on it, or sunglasses, or anything you want. If they get dirty you just rinse them off using soap and good to go once more.

We also had lunch there, kosher hot dogs, and then when the market closed at 2 PM we went on over to La Quinta to their Art under the Umbrellas art fair. It was in old Town La Quinta, so very pretty buildings surrounding everything. I only bought cards, great way to get inexpensive art. Lary found a very nice tiny painting for our bathroom.

We ate at about 4 PM or so in the Hog's Breath Inn, a very neat restaurant in La Quinta Old Town, then whipped Sal and Russ home for warmer clothes, before going up to the Living Desert to see the Christmas lights, some 700,000 of them, lighting up their deserty areas. We also sat through a wildlife show that talked about some of their resident critters.

It was a long very full day that we thoroughly enjoyed.

Sunday we attended the Cabazon Indian Pow Wow, it was incredible, such showings of beautiful regalia, multi feathers, big bustles for the men, and very impressive beading on many of the costumes. Gorgeous dancing and drumming. Lovely day. Chilly when the sun slips down behind San Jacinto behind Palm Springs, and last night at the Living Desert we all huddled around 45 gallon drums cut in half, and used to enclose wood fires. Drank Cocoa and shivered in the chilly night, we were up a bit from P.S. and it was darned cold.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Thanksgiving Day in California

Well our temps are now down really low, we are riding the weather system that is all along the west coast of North America, and it's chilly here. Outside temp in the shade looks to be just above 50, and there is an icy wind too now, at 3:15 PM. However our wonderful blue skies are here to keep us happy.

Sal and Russ came over for dinner here with us at the trailer Tuesday, and it was such fun. Lary did barbequed pork ribs, salad and broccoli. Our first guests, and it felt grand. When we need to stay indoors like now I think 4 is a good number for sit down dinner.

Wednesday Lary carved, it's a Northern Pygmy owl that they are doing, and he was gone all day til 4 PM. I bought a couple sets of new Corelle dishes for the trailer, and a new set of towels. We have limited storage space, the two television sets that came with the trailer are now out in the shed as there is a park wide garage sale in February, and apparently a lot of stuff is sold then, to the neighbouring park people, and the proceeds go to our own park.

Thursday is American Thanksgiving, we watched the Macy's Parade from New York this morning, it lasted a long time indeed. Our park has Thanksgiving dinner here, but because we have visitors we decided to go out to Agua Caliente Casino to the Grand Palms Buffet this evening. We'll meet Sal and Russ there.

Friday I think that Sal wants to get in on the retail therapy scene, we 6 have arranged to have lunch at Manhattan in the Desert at 1 PM with Paul and Nancy. It is amazing, some of the stores open at 3 AM or 4 AM for door crasher specials, I don't enjoy shopping like that, it's too intense for me, though I would love to do some shopping too.

A couple of things that we want to do are visit the Living Desert a desert zoo which is lit up during the Christmas season, and visit El Paseo the swanky shopping area here which is all illuminated during Christmas, and officially opened last night with a big light up.

Many many fun things to see and do, but wrap up nice and warm after the sun sets for sure.

Monday, November 22, 2010

More Monday doings

Forgot to say that Lary bought a 32 inch flat screen TV at Walmart, Vizio brand, for $288 over the weekend. I think that stores put their deals on even before the Thanksgiving week, and the TV is really good, fits exactly into the place it is meant to do, and color and picture are all grand.

Today Monday dawned bright blue and sunny, though our temps have plummeted seriously, to the 60s, and the low 60s at that, going down to 40s overnight. We will have those temps for less than a week, then it goes up, but not likely into the 80s as before. Hey it's winter even here.....

We are using the new electric heater at night, just while we are up, and since our space is so small it is quite sufficient. The trailer is 14 X 38 feet, so 532 square feet, that is not a lot of space. Thankfully there is lots of hanging cupboard, all along one wall from the back of the kitchen right back along all the bathroom/bedroom wall. And it's mirrored so seems more spacious than it is. Funny sensation to be lying in bed and gaze at yourself in bed!!!

Gradually things are coming together for us here, and we are getting stuff to look as we want it and put our stamp on the trailer. There is no extra room, so our flutes are always visible, Lary made a nice flute stand at home from a cedar step from Yellow Point lodge, a left over bit.

Due to the dust that is everywhere when we have the windows open and the wind blows I bought a piece of fleece yardage, and will cover the laptop, the printer, and likely drape the flutes, the computer and stuff like that really attract the dust, and should be covered when not in use. And I'd like the flutes to not be bleached by the sunshine.

We want to get the carpet cleaned to see if it is salvageable, and perhaps paint, and put horizontal wide slat venetians, but that will have to wait a bit.

Jammin it up at Annie's Saturday

Saturday we had a casual jam session at Annie's, there were just 5 of us students over there, and we arrived at 1 PM, and after eating Chip's real lemon pie that he baked, we had the most incredible jam session, we did solo flute playing, duets, trios and even foursomes.

It felt so wonderfully creative, Annie had the fireplace burning, and we all had a total blast.

Not sure when we left, but it was still light, so not that late, it's really getting dark early, and our weather has turned very windy and very cold. Strange how fast it flipped from great to ugly.

Lary made turkey tacos that night, Overnight 10 golf carts were stolen from our park, though some were recovered nearly right away, it made me feel very uncomfortable to know that people can come in and just sweep through and steal stuff, we have gates, but they just cut the locks. That makes 12 carts in all stolen so far, very creepy indeed.

Sunday was overcast, windy again and very chilly. We even put on our new electric heater in the living room, as we aren't sure if the heat pump is dependable or not, it hasn't been on for 5 or more years. We need to get it serviced before using it.

We pretty much stayed home, except this afternoon we had ice cream over at Catalina Spa and stayed for the music jam session. But Lary and I tried a duet, and it was disgusting in my opinion, very disappointing. I started out completely klutzy, and it bombed. For our 2nd appearance Lary did his own thing, I didn't go up and accompany him.

Then we went over to Dillon Roadhouse for a pig roast, but it was a bit of a bust too, only niblet corn, baked beans and pork. Oh well, we didn't pay a fortune, but a bit of a disappointment.

Spent later Sunday evening doing laundry, luckily the 5 machines were all free, so I used 3 of them. They are high efficiency machines and it's only $1 per load, so that is great. I emptied the hamper of everything dirty.

Wind still blowing outside, I'm heading to bed now, it's very late (or early Monday AM.)

Friday, November 19, 2010

New Furniture arrival

Flute lesson was Thursday, I just posted it so late it appeared as if it happened on Friday.
sorry about that.
This morning Lary walked for about an hour, and I Di went over to the pool here and did water aerobics from a CD with 2 other ladies.
Then we kind of sat around waiting for the furniture to arrive. It did, and what a to - do.

We hadn't taken into consideration the narrow width of our doorway, not to mention the height of it, and the length of the sofa. All in all it posed a huge challenge to the 2 delivery guys, who were very good natured about it all, but ended up removing first our front stairway to the house, then had to remove first the glass sliding door, then the fixed part of the same sliding door, plus the retractable screen attached to said doorway, in order to get the sofa in to the house. Whew, they took about 2 hours in all, and it was quite a job.

The house has likely had tons of owners, each making more and more changes to it, and they had to cope with all that. We ordered a sofa with beige microfibre seats and arms, but a patterned back, greens, burgundy and medium brown. And the recliners are sage green microfibre. It doesn't look pop fabulous, but the sofa is never leaving in our lifetimes I believe. It looks way better than the tired and beaten up, dated recliners and sofa that we had.

Later we went out to Catalina Spa and had a spaghetti dinner and visited with a couple who we met last year from Kamloops, very nice people. Their dog had been under the weather as she gulps up stuff when they are out on the desert walking, and perhaps had eaten something bad for her.

It has turned quite chilly tonight, and windy too, temps have plummeted, and they may be low like this for the weekend, and then go on up into the 70s, but nothing like what we have had.

Thursday night on the way home from Annie's we had eaten at Sherman's Deli.

Tomorrow Annie invited us over to her place to play music together, with our flutes. Should be grand, we were going to head off to Modjeska Canyon about 2 hours away toward the coast, but there are flood and heavy rain warnings up, so we will avoid the 2 hour drive on soggy highways.

Flute Lesson today at Annie's

Today we went to coffee at the clubhouse here at 9 AM where we were all shocked to hear that overnight 2 golf carts and 4 bikes were stolen from our park, they figure at about 9:30 PM.

They were later all recovered, in various states of disrepair, there is a group of thugs who run a nearby chop shop apparently. The early hour and the fact that they got away with the items was a big shock to everyone in the park, though theft from here is not unheard of.

Di walked around the park twice with Evelyn our nice neighbour from Alberta, who lives nearby in the park.

We left home at noon and went to buy tickets for a pig roast on Sunday at the Dillon Roadhouse, in the direction of Palm Springs, and then we continued on to Palm Springs City Hall to pick up free tickets for the Marine Corps Band Christmas concert. It will be December 9th, and last year was very good indeed.

We bought a sandwich at Trader Joe's then went to Annie's for our first flute lesson, there were 4 of us, and we did solos and then duets, it was very enjoyable, and Annie encouraged us to play flutes that we didn't particularly like, so that we could find out more how to play them.

Worked out great, then we decided to have early dinner at Sherman's deli, then we went on to Westfield Shopping Centre, Lary lost the nose pad for his glasses, and I needed a pedicure. Both missions accomplished, along with a bit of retail therapy, the sales are incredible.

Home late for a bit of TV and then to bed.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Wow new furniture on the way

Yesterday we went to the most interesting store, the Warehouse Furniture store over off Hwy 111 in Cathedral city, on Bankside Drive. Their ad said We specialize in small scale furniture for park models, mobile homes and condos. And do they ever.

We bought 2 wallsaver recliners, and a full size sofa, all for $1200 total, and they deliver and cart away our old stuff, so that is so great. They will deliver on Friday. We got a sofa with a plain beige seat and arms, and a print on the back cushions, which aren't loose, but attached. And 2 sage recliners, so we are very excited awaiting their delivery.

We also bought a computer stand, that is a bit tall as it's really for a desktop, but Lary will modify it to be more suitable to our laptop. He already put that together, and we're using it now, but our hands are too high up currently.

Also we got a small electric heater, not needed now but likely in the future, and some other stuff. And we took quite a bit of the old double bed bedding and other extra ornaments to the local charity shops. They seem happy to get them.

Tuesday we had soup lunch here at the park, there were 3 kinds available, and it is served with some different breads, and costs $3.50 each. A fundraiser for our park, on alternate Tuesdays they make burgers at lunch time, so something new for us to enjoy. We take our bowls etc, and we sat with neighbours around us here, so that was super.

Monday Di had found a new friend Evelyn from Cardston, AB so we went together over to the bathing suit sale that Glossy put on. All the suits were $29.95, hey this is a first, I didn't buy anything, we enjoyed the show though. As the streets have been improved up there, her business has really suffered, and now the store has a new look and people don't think it's the same store, so more challenges for her. She is incredible as she goes around to many parks and the campers do the modeling for her. She is Delinda.

This morning Di went over and did water aerobics first with a leader, and then later with a tape and another lady from Ladysmith. Very enjoyable. Lary is walking his hour before breakfast, and then he headed off to carving at Catalina Spa with Vern.

Today he started the new project a Northern Pygmy Owl.

Tomorrow we have our first flute lesson with Annie, and Saturday we hope to go to another flute circle gathering a bit of a distance away, in Modjeska, CA.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

It's Sunny and Hot

What a lovely day today. Sunny and close to 80F/27C. It is amazing how quickly we slip back into using the old imperial measurements as soon as we come back to where they are in everyday use. Our metric mind does a quick dump and we are back into miles and degrees F. Went to College of the Desert (COD) this morning. This is a marvelous street market that is held every weekend on the grounds of the college. There are hundreds of dealers selling everyting from fresh fruit and veg to clothing, furniture, jewellry, sports gear and golf carts. An amazing shopping experience. We picked up a few things we need for our park model and got more at the local $o.99 store. Another stop at Walmart and we came home pooped but ready for burgers at Catalina Spa, our old RV park where we are still welcomed as visitors. Back to our own park, put a load of laundry in and went for a dip in the pool and a soak in the hot tub. A nice day.

WE'RE HERE AND SETTLING IN

We took three sleeps to get to Desert Hot Springs. One very long day, one normal day and one very short day. Had lots of rain early on but it got better as we got further south.
Found the trailer had survived the summer with no real problems. It took us a couple of hours to take all the insulation material off all the windows and get unpacked. Di did the majority of the inside stuff and I did the outdoor tasks. Still some work to do outside but gradually getting it all done. Of course there was no food in the trailer at all so we had to do a major "staples" grocery shopping expedition. We will be replacing some of the living room furniture fairly quickly as some of it is quite dated and in need of the old heave-ho. Have chatted wtih our neighbours, gone to morning coffee at the clubhouse, visited Catalina Spa, our old park, and got caught up on the activities there. I will be carving a Northern Pygmy Owl this year.
Yesterday, Saturday, we both went to Annie Mathias' home for a native drum making workshop. We figured one drum per family was all that we needed so Di built the drum and I was there for moral support and help as required. It was a lot of work but nine people completed drums. Nash, the class leader and instructor was incredible. The drums will dry until Thursday when they will ready to be beaten. We stayed for an hour or so after to play music on our flutes. I had played a bit during the drum making workshop and Annie said I would go into her intermediate class. It was a lovely day and very productive.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Nearly ready to roll on outta here

Well, only a few days to go to our next southern adventure, the trip down to Desert Hot Springs, this time a bit different, as we will take the car and leave the trailer in a storage lot here on the island.

We found winter house sitters, from Manitoba this time, and they are returning to their jobs here in Nanaimo, for the winter, which seems incredible. Their son and his wife and small grand daughter live here, so they are wanting quality time with them. We all seem to have meshed our plans so well.

Our car will be loaded to the top, the reality of packing without the trailer to absorb all our stuff is just dawning on us, not to mention the fact that we can't empty our fridge into the trailer fridge. New trip, new details to think about!!

Meanwhile "back at the ranch" we're making space for the house sitters, packing both for the winter down south and our 2 springtime cruises at the same time, and thinking about trying to leave the house in ship shape condition for the new folks. Erg. Hair pulling time.

Not to mention getting Christmas cards and goodies organized for sisters and nieces, nephews etc. More hair pulling. I will be bald before we leave!!

That's about it for this new blog, talk to you soon. Stay posted.