Happy Trails, Surprise,AZ-A Wrap Up

It's hard to believe that the whole month of March is gone. As many of you know we decided to park the motorhome for an entire month in one location. After much investigation, and a little luck, we got reservations at Happy Trails Resort in Surprise, AZ. You can read about Happy Trails in another post here:
http://jchuber.blogspot.com/2008/01/happy-trails-surpise.html

Here's a picture of our site. It backed up on a dry wash, or greenbelt, where we enjoyed feeding the doves & quails. In fact we went through 25lbs of bird seed.

We really enjoyed our site and it's proximity to the clubhouse and our good friends, Allen & Shari. A lot of activities happened during the month. You can read about our visit to Biosphere 2 and Best Friends in other posts. Here's a summation of the other things we do.

We settled in the first week. Linda attended a line dancing class that she really enjoyed. We went to dinner with old friends from the Monaco Northwest group, and new friends that we were introduced to at the resort. Linda spent a weekend in Los Angeles attending a very special baby shower for Katie Wedell and visited with family.

We also went Geocaching. In fact we discovered 10 caches in one day, a new record for us. One of the caches was "A duck out of water" which was out in the desert in a dry wash.

It gave us a chance to try out one of our special Christmas presents, a special pack to wear when Geocaching. Both of kids, Jeni & Matt, made these for us. Otherwise I wouldn't allow a picture of them on me.

We also got to attend a Los Angeles Dodgers exhibition baseball game that took place in Surprise. They played the hometown Kansas City Royals. The stadium is brand new and beautiful. The game was a long one, but we stayed until the very end. The Dodgers came back from a 5 run deficit, but fell short by 1 run. There was a total of 31 hits, and 13 pitchers were used. We really enjoyed the whole experience. In case you didn't know, the Dodgers are moving their spring training to Glendale, AZ, next year from Florida. It should make it a fun spring of 2009.

In summary, we really enjoyed the area and the fact that we were in one place for a longer period of time. We made some very good friends, and we appreciated the fact that it only 5 hours from our family in Southern California. We're currently planning on spending November through March in Happy Trails next year.

Best Friends-A Revisit

We had a special treat when Jeni decided to spend her spring break with us in AZ. Of course the real reason for her trip was to visit the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, UT, with her Mom. This was Linda's second visit. The details can be found here: http://jchuber.blogspot.com/2007/09/best-friends-animal-sanctuary.html
I decided to stay back at the motorhome with Pearl.

When they got to the sanctuary they took the tour of the entire facilities. During the tour, Jeni got to meet something in addition to the regular animals.

Linda & Jeni dug right in with the volunteer work, starting with the dogs. In fact Linda enjoyed working with the dogs so much, the only other area she worked in was the bird area. I'm sure that surprises everyone! Jeni divided her other time with the cats (another surprise), bunnies, horses, and birds. It was like an animal smorgasbord.

Here's one of the friends Jeni made besides all of the dogs and cats.

One of the unique experiences Best Friends allows is the chance to take an animal back to your room at night. Of course Linda & Jeni took advantage of this option. Here's one of the dogs that they helped socialize during their visit.

And you wonder why I stayed back at the motorhome! I didn't think there would be space left for me to sleep.

Both of my girls had a great experience in their volunteer work. They're looking forward to doing it again soon. If you want to learn more about Best Friends and the work they do worldwide, here's the link:

http://www.bestfriends.org/

It's a great organization. In fact they now have a TV show called Dogtown on National Geographic Channel. Watch it and you can learn a lot more about it.

A Visit to Biosphere 2

On Saturday, 3-15, we decided to visit Biosphere 2 near Tucson. It's about a two hour drive from Happy Trails. Our good friends Allen & Shari Kainu accompanied us on this adventure.

The Biosphere 2 was an experiment in living in a confined, self sustained space for a long period of time. Biosphere 1 is our earth in which all of our needs are meant within our small sphere. They tried to replicate all aspects of earth within the sphere. There is a rain forest, a desert, a Savannah, and a sea including a corral reef. There's also an area for growing food and raising animals. It was a noble effort, but it didn't work out exactly the way they planned. There was personnel problems, a lack of oxygen, and a real shortage of food caused real stress that resulted in ending the mission early. Even with all of these problems, the crew was able to last 2 years. A second mission was planned, but it only lasted a couple of months. After that, the biosphere was never sealed again. It was turned over to Columbia University who built some classrooms and dormitories and conducted experiments. After eight years control of Biosphere 2 reverted to the original owners, the Bass family. They put it up for sale in 2005, and it was purchased by a housing developer in 2007. But the Bass family retained control of the 3.5 acres of the Biosphere complex, and leased it to Arizona State University for $100 year. They also provided 30 million dollars to maintain the facilities and conduct new research. This marks a new beginning for Biosphere 2 and promises many improvements over the next few years.

This is a picture of the living areas of the Biosphere. The crew members had private living quarters, meeting areas, labs, kitchen, and behind the tall structure are the farming and animal areas.

Here's a picture of the sea, with a rock wall that created the waves to allow the reef to stay alive and the fish to live. In fact, one of the few remaining creatures in the complex are some fish in the sea.

The rain forest was recently added to the tour. Here you can see the mist in the air that creates a great growth area for bamboo and other jungle type plants.

During the tour we noticed a lot of maintenance issues that need to be addressed before much new research could be conducted. With the new infusion of money we're sure there will be many improvements, and some exciting new discoveries from this unique place. If you're in the area make sure you take the time to tour this special place and keep track of progress on the website.

If you're interested in more information about the history and missions, check this entry on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2

When we're in Arizona next winter we plan to revisit this interesting place.

Happy Trails RV Resort, Surprise,AZ

We arrived here in Surprise, AZ, at Happy Trails for a month long stay. This will be the first time we've stayed in one place for an entire month other than Southern California to visit family and celebrate the Holidays. And we're looking forward to our stay.

There's a whole lot going on here in the west Phoenix valley. There's a lot of activities here at the resort, including pickleball, crafts, swimming, classes, and on site shows. Outside of the resort there's spring training baseball games, and a lot of museums, art shows, biosphere, and other AZ attractions. We don't know how much we'll see during this visit as we plan to enjoy the resort activities. This might be an area we'll return to every winter as the people are very friendly.

The trip here was not without incident. We were right at the junction of the 91 freeway & the 60 freeway, where there is a lot of construction, our motorhome died in stop & go traffic. We called coachnet, our roadside assistance program, and they sent out a VERY BIG tow truck to take us to Cummins to repair our coach. They actually sent two trucks. It took about an hour to get us hooked up. They had to remove the drive shaft to tow it. Finally we were on our way, following our motorhome in the Honda. After about 100 feet, the tow truck stopped. We couldn't figure out what the problem was from the car, so John got out to check with the driver. It seems that the tow truck had two flat tires due to picking up some metal pieces from the construction. Luckily, it was the tow truck and not our motorhome. But that delayed us another two hours while the tow truck got new tires on the rear.

Cummins was open until 11:30pm so they started diagnosing the problem right away. We were anxious to get going, and Cummins was closed on Sat. & Sun. It turned out to be a fuel pressure sensor. The good news they had one in stock, the bad news was the part was $200. Including the labor charges, it was another $500 bill. But we were out of there by 10:00pm. The decision then was where to spend the night.

As we were driving toward Indio, we made some phone calls looking for a stop over just to sleep through the night like a Wal-Mart. But we couldn't find anyplace that allowed overnight parking, so we kept driving. Or we tried to keep driving. John, in his great wisdom, was waiting to get diesel out in Palm Desert because it was lower in price. Well, because of the low fuel the motorhome kept stalling, usually in the middle of the street. After priming the fuel pump, it would start again, go for a short distance, & then die again. John was beginning to panic a little. After trying to get into a fuel stop from three different directions, including a u-turn, we finally made it into the diesel island. After fueling up, the motorhome ran great and John learned a difficult lesson. Don't let the fuel tank get to low.

But we still didn't have a place to spend the night. We had called the Spotlight 21 casino to see if they allowed overnight parking, but they said no. We resigned ourselves to a long drive and an overnight in a rest stop. But as we passed the casino, John's sharp eyes noticed a lot of RVs parked in a separate parking lot. We got off the freeway drove to the parking lot, and parked next to another motorhome. It was almost midnight. So we walked Pearl, pulled the drapes, and turned in for the night. It was not the most restful night, because we were afraid that someone from security would knock on our door, telling us to move on. But they didn't.

From that point on it was a smooth drive to AZ. And a quick check in, park the coach and get to know our new home. You know what they say about the best laid plans. . . . . .

Monaco Rally-Lancaster, CA Recap

Well the rally is over and I still have my checkbook intact. Though we were tempted and the salesman hasn't given up, we think we'll keep our current coach for another year.

If you're wondering what a rally is like, it's like spending a week with some of your best friends. Each day starts with a full breakfast. During the day there's seminars, crafts, and classes. The techs come and work on your coach to fix small problems. There's a vendor room to tempt you with new goodies.

At night there's a happy hour from 5 to 6 with a complete bar and a salad bar. The bar closes at 6, then there's announcements and introductions. Then a full dinner is served, including desserts. After dinner there's entertainment. On Tuesday night they featured the Diamonds, who played 50s music. On Wednesday there was a one man band, who did comedy, impressions, and played 2 instruments at the same time. On Thursday they featured a 11 piece swing band(John's favorite). And on Friday, the final night, they featured a country band. Lots of clapping, dancing and fun.

The weather was nice on Sunday & Monday, but on Tuesday a cold front blew in and I mean blew. The weather was cold with a 30MPH wind blowing. Most of the activities were inside so it didn't really affect our enjoyment of the rally, but going from venue to venue was very cold. And, since the new coaches were outside, we didn't spend much time in them. God works in mysterious ways.

We had a very good time, but with the next 3 rallies in the Midwest and the east coast, we don't know when we'll be able to attend another one. But if we're close to one, you can bet we'll attend it.

If you're interested in the new Monaco coaches, here's a link to their website:
http://www.monacocoach.com/

Monaco Rally-Lancaster, CA

We made the three hour journey from La Mirada to Lancaster without a problem other than the potholes that moved everything around in the MoHo. We though that we Californians had passed bond issues to fix the freeways back in 2006. Nothing has happened yet on I-5, we can tell you that from first hand experience!

The rally starts on Monday, but we are meeting some good friends from Monaco Northwest, Ron & Dona Davis, on Saturday so that we can park together. Here's a picture of Ron & Dona's beautiful Signature next to our old Dynasty. They have a great rig.

By the way we have a sort of new addition to the MoHo. We bought a flagpole to attach to the ladder back in March 2007 at the Macon Monaco Rally. Well we finally bought a flag, and John finally got it attached to the ladder. Looks pretty good.

Now all we have to do is figure out a light to keep it lit at night

The real danger of this rally is right behind the motorhome. There sits all of the new Monaco models, all bright, shiney, and having that new coach smell. Oh, the temptation.

They have numerous events around the coaches to get you close to them and salesmen, starting tonight with beer, wine, soup & hors d'oeuvres(I had to look up the spelling of that). Hopefully we will be able to resist. With the stock market performance this year we'll probably keep what we have.

But they are awfully tempting. There' vendors here selling everything from sponges to new shades so we'll probably buy something.

There's also seminars on different parts of the motorhomes, craft classes, dinners, entertainment and good fellowship. We'll let you know what happens.

Happy Valentine's Day

We just want to wish everyone a very "Happy Valentine Day". We know each of you spent it differently, but we're sure in a very special way. We've been blessed during our 39 years of marriage, and each special day we try to look back and remember all of the special times we've spent with friends and family. Thank you for all of these special years.

We spent the day together, like most days since our retirement. We put together a birthday package for Jeni's birthday on 2/19. We took it to the post office, then we went to a special lunch. We decided a long time ago that fine restaurants serve great lunches at lower prices than dinners, and it's a lot less crowded on holidays.

The restaurant we choose is the Yard House. It's a new chain that is mostly a sports bar. It had lots of TVs around the room, but it played nice music during the lunch. It was very good, and we'll probably go back to try other items on the menu.

After lunch we went to the movies, something we don't do often enough. Since it was a matinee, it was lower priced and less crowded. We saw Bucket List, which was recommended by Lois. She was right on, it was a great movie that kept your attention during the entire film. We both left teary eyed at the end.

Share with us how you spent Valentine's day in the comment section.

Matt & Suzanne's New House

While we're staying close to Matt & Suzanne's new house, we decided to help them with a few projects.


John & Matt put in a new sprinkler system for the backyard. The front yard came with landscaping & sprinklers, but not the back. Matt took a few days off of work and rented a trencher to dig the lines for the pipes. Of course he has the Huber luck, so the first trencher didn't work correctly and we had to take it back and trade it for one that worked. That put us a day behind, but we're the patience type. That left it half finished on Super Bowl Sunday. Needless to say, nothing got done on that day except that Matt & John were glued to Matt's new TV watching the entire game and evaluating each commerical. Did I mention that it rained hard that day.

But even with the cold and the flood, Matt and John finished the project the following weekend. Now, onto the concrete patio. John thinks he has convinced Matt to hire out that project!

Linda didn't help much with the sprinklers because she was inside painting the family room. Matt & Suzanne did the hardest part of the job, picking out the color. John & Linda took 2 years to decide on a color for their family room.

Geocaching in Menifee

After John got finished washing & waxing the MoHo(no he didn't hurt himself, but it did take 2 days) we decided to do some geocaching. This area seems to have a lot of active cachers with many differnet types of caches.


Our first couple of caches were easy but our 3rd one was rated a 3 star for terain and it was straight up a hill. We parked the car at the bottom of the hill and started the long walk towards the top. Needless to say we stopped a few times.

John found the cache at the bottom of a huge round boulder. Luckily, the boulder didn't move while we were signing the log and exchanging some items.

The view from the top of the hill was fantastic. Here's a shot looking back towards our campground. Notice the dairy next to the campground. This is where all of the flies came from when we stayed here in November. Now there's no flies because of a recent frost. They'll probably come back here in the spring.



Here's another shot just a quarter turn from the last one. As you can see, there's a lot of houses where there used to be fields. You can see our car at the bottom of the hill.

We're up to 55 caches found. We set a goal of 200 caches by the end of 2008, so we'll be spending a lot of time geocaching. It's fun, and if you visit us, or we visit you, we'll take you out to "cache"

Wilderness Lakes

We've moved our home from Desert Hot Springs to Wilderness Lakes in Menifee, CA. We've stayed at this park many times, but we like the park and it's close to Matt & Suzanne. We're also got to pickup our dog, Pearl, from Lois who was very nice to watch her while we were out in the desert. We've missed her very much, and it's great to have her back. She seemed to enjoy it also, with a lot of new smells from all of the other dogs in the park to sniff at during her walks. There's a lot of ducks, geese, and other birds at this park. We enjoy the birds so much we bought a humingbird feeder and a seed feeder to put out during our travels.
Our humingbird feeder is really neat. It attaches to the window in our living room. At first we thought that the glass would deter the hummers, but it wasn't long before we had our first visitor. It's really fun watching our visitors from inside our home.

While we're here we plan to finish our projects at Matt & Suzanne's, do some geocaching, and John is going to wash and wax our dirty home. Let's hope he doesn't hurt himself.

Geocaching in Quartzsite

One of our favorite hobbies while we're traveling is geocaching. On Wednesday we had an open day, so we decided to check out caches around "Q". We picked out 6 varied caches and started exploring. We found the first two right away because they were close to where we were parked. The third one was at the Quartzsite golf course. We didn't even know there was any grass in the area, let alone a golf course. Well, our trusty GPS took us out a dirt road (the majority of the roads are dirt) and we found the course. It was real unique!


Of course every country club needs a clubhouse. Here's the one in Quartzsite.

There's a full 18 holes located back and forth across the road. The fairways are wide, but the greens are hard read.

We found the cache and left our golf ball traveling bug there. We figured that it was the perfect spot to leave it, since it wanted to visit all major golf courses in the U.S.

Our final cache took us out of "Q" about 5 miles on the typical dirt road. In fact this road was more of a Jeep trail. It lead us out to the area where Gen. Patton trained his troops in WWII before the invasion of North Africa. There are a lot flat areas where the troops stayed, including some unique arrangements of rocks.

After we drove the car as far as we thought it was safe, we walked the last mile to cache enjoying the historical area. We were the only ones in the area, and we could almost hear the tanks roaring as they trained. As usual Linda with her good eyes for the unusual found the cache. It was an exciting day doing something different in the desert.

Here's where we left the car. We are real glad be bought the pilot with it's high clearance and 4-wheel drive. It lets us do some unusual and exciting things.

On another geocaching note, we helped our friends Bob & Kathy hide a cache along side of the road in front of their farm. It's called the Red Barn, named for Bob's red barn on his ranch. So far 4 people have found the cache. It's almost as exciting for people to find the cache as it is for us to find them.

Remember that when you see underlined words in our posts, you can click on them to see a link with more information. Also, if anyone wants to go geocaching with us, just let us know and we'll set it up the next time we visit with you.

Happy Trails, Surprise,AZ

While we were in Quartzsite, AZ, we visited a resort in Surprise, AZ, which is Northwest of Phoenix. The resort is named Happy Trails and used Roy Rogers & Dale Evans as spokes persons. The resort is surrounded by a golf course. This is the main clubhouse.

And here's the main swimming pool. There is 3 other pools available around the park. The resort has 1500 different sites. It also has activity rooms for many crafts including quilting, jewelry, and woodworking. There's a big ballroom where many special events are held. It's a very active community.

This resort is different from most RV parks because you can buy the lot like a condo. Then you can make improvements such as patios, roofs, storage areas, bathrooms, and in some cases, complete rooms with kitchens, bedrooms, & bathrooms. Everyone is unique, but here's a picture of one of the sites that has an small condo added on to the RV parking spot.
There are many members of the Monaco Northwest group that own lots in this development. We're not ready to make a commitment to buying here, but we might come back in March for an extended stay to check it out and stay put for awhile.

Quartzsite, AZ

Well, we made it to Quartzsite from LA with no problems. And we found the group we were meeting, which can be difficult. And now we boondocking, which means that we're completely without hookups. We can only use the water we have on board, and our electric power comes from our batteries or the generator. It's a lot of fun to see how long you can survive with these limited resources.

We're camping with our friends from Monaco Northwest who we met in our travels during the summer. We attended their rally in Birch Bay, WA, and also the Monaco rally in Salem, OR. They're a real fun group and we looking forward to spending some quality time with them on outings, happy hour, and around the campfire.


When we were backing up the motorhome into our spot we messed up the desert. Naturally, Linda couldn't let that pass so she restored the pristine sands.

This is a really nice spot that is BLM land where you can camp for free for two weeks. That might have something to do with the 500,000 other RVs parked out here. But it's so large of an area there's plenty of space for everyone to spread out. Here's the view out our front windshield!

One of the draws here is the giant flea markets and the annual RV show. There's hundreds of RVs on sale here also. We're going to explore the area while we're here and try to figure out why there's so many people here.

Linda & John's Birthday Weekend

As some of you know, John's birthday is 1/12 and Linda's birthday is 1/14. This year, with John's birthday on a Saturday it created a perfect Birthday Weekend.

John spent Saturday in front of the television watching the NFL playoffs hoping Seattle would go to the Super Bowl, but it won't be this year. John also had one of his favorite dinners-pizza. Sunday was more football, but included a nice visit with Linda's sister Donna. The day was topped off with a great family dinner with Lois, Matt, & Suzanne at a great Chinese restaurant P.F. Chang's. The food & the company was outstanding. Everyone tried all of the dishes that was ordered. Linda even tried some of John's salmon!

Monday was Linda's day. She had her choice to do whatever she wanted to do. I mentioned Disneyland, shopping, a visit to the beach, etc. She decided she wanted to wash the motorhome! Well it was dirty, but still. . . . but the motorhome does look great. We finished the day with another great dinner. Linda's Mom, Lois, took us to a new to us restaurant, The California Cafe in Whittier. It served good old fashioned comfort food. Linda & Lois had Pot Roast, while John had Baby Back Ribs. The food was great.

On Tuesday Linda got her hair done, and then we headed to Laguna Woods to visit John's mother. We had a great dinner at Don Jose, then we went back to Betty's house to visit and work with her on her new computer she got for Christmas. She now has high speed access instead of dial up. It should make it easier to view photos on the web, so expect an increase in email from her. Hopefully she won't get hooked on Ebay.

We also had many phone calls and cards from the rest of our family and friends, including a special call from our daughter, Jeni, from Clemson, SC. We sure miss her on these special occasions. Next year will be a special birthday for Linda so I'll have to come up with something better than washing the motorhome. Keep checking back to see what I come up with.

Christmas, 2007

Christmas is always a big event for the Huber family. We parked the motorhome at Wilderness Lakes again to be near Matt & Suzanne's house. They were hosting Christmas Day at their home of the first time, and Mom & Dad wanted to help.

The weekend started when on Friday when we went to LAX to pickup Jeni. It was great to see her again, even with her heavy bags. Then it was a quick drive(by LA standard)out to Matt's house to let Jeni settle in.

On Sunday, 12/23, John's Mother's side of the family met at Linda & Mike Murphy's house.

Betty has one sister, Shirley, and we are lucky to share Christmas with her family. Shirley had 2 children, Linda & Kathy, who then had 5 children between them, then came all of grandchildren, and now, great grandchildren. It's amazing to think back through the years and remember when Linda, Kathy, & John with the children at Christmas.

It made for a very special day with a house of young children who were very excited about Christmas. Linda made a very special dinner, not an easy feat for so many people, and everyone opened presents. It was a great way to start off the official Christmas celebration.

On Christmas Day, Linda's side of the family met at Matt & Suzanne's house. Linda & John had volunteered to do the cooking. We started in the morning with everyone arriving at different times because of the long distances some of the family had to travel. In fact, Rick, Val, and Iris came all the way from Visalia in Central California. We really appreciated the extra effort they made to come to Matt's house.

Of course, the center of attention for the day was baby Iris. She also received the most presents, go figure.

Jeni seemed to really enjoy her presents, including a new Sony camera.

Matt & Suzanne hit the big score with a new LCD HD television. John's planning on going to Matt's house for the Superbowl!

Everyone got great gifts. Linda & John got many great things for their new traveling lifestyle, from clothes to books to DVDs. There will be no boring times in 2008. There was also presents for the newest members of the family, Michael & Katie's baby, and Rick & Val's second baby. Next year should be interesting.

The downside of the holidays was a spell of sickness that spread through the family, including John's mother. No one was spared and it put a damper on after Christmas activities. But by New Year's Day everyone had recovered enough to watch the Rose Parade and the Football games.

So we finished another great year. Let's hope 2008 is just as good.

Click here to see other Christmas pictures in our Picasa web album

http://picasaweb.google.com/jchuber1/Christmas2007

Time With Friends

While we're in Desert Hot Springs, we met up with some good friends from the Northwest, Bob & Maggie Lawlor. They were staying at Desert Pools also. They invited us over for a delicious dinner in their motorhome. They have it very nicely decorated, and were the perfect hosts. We're learned some tricks about organization and entertaining in a motorhome that we'll put to good use in the future.

We went to the Living Desert Museum in Palm Springs. Its a wildlife & botanical garden with examples of deserts around the world. At the entrance we met a docent with a snake to introduce us to. For some reason the women didn't want to hold it. We really enjoyed walking through the park viewing the many different types of cactus, and the animals that inhabit the deserts.

Some of the highlights included the eagles, wolves, big horn sheep, mountain lions, walk through bird aviaries, a high tech hospital with videos of different procedures, and an entire African section that included zebras, giraffes, and ugly peccary. It was a weekday so we had the park mostly to ourselves.

One of the highlights for John was a huge model garden railway with many different settings and lots of operating trains. We had to pry him away or he would still be there.

After the Living Desert we had a late lunch at the Elephant Bar where John had his favorite coconut shrimp. It was a great way to end a fun day.

On Saturday we visited the famous Palm Desert Street Fair that takes place every weekend at the College of the Desert. It features a lot of different vendors, from arts & crafts, weekend retailers, garage sales, to many different food offerings.

Of course, being in the heart of high end golf resorts, there were a lot of vendors with golf clubs, millions of balls, golf clothes and other gimmicks that golfers would like. Bob found a terrific deal on a new driver that the vendor guaranteed a lower score.

Linda & John got away with minimum damages, probably because they couldn't make a decision. Linda did say she wants to go back soon.

Sharing these experience with Bob & Maggie made to visits special. We look forward to sharing more fun times with them.

Desert Pools, Desert Hot Springs, CA

We arrived at Desert Pools on 12/5. We got a nice spot across from the pickle ball courts.
This is the low desert, near Palm Springs, and the weather was nice with the temperature in the high 70s. This is an older park, but well maintained. They have a nice pool, and three different hot tubs all full of the natural mineral water found in this area. Of course by Friday the weather turned cold with rain. On Sunday, the view from our front window was beautiful!

Yes, it snowed in the mountains rimming the Palm Springs area. By today the weather is starting to warm up with great weather through the weekend. We'll be here until the 19th, exploring the area.

We're also lucky that one of our friends from the Monaco Northwest group is here. Bob & Maggie Lawler are a great couple, and real fun the share time with. We're looking forward to getting to know each other better.

Our plans include improving our pickle ball techniques, enjoying the pools, some geocaching, and visiting the museums. We might even find time to do some Christmas shopping.

Visiting Turlock Again

We're back in Turlock visiting our friends, and John had an appointment with his cancer doctor. The news wasn't good. It seems that John's iron content is low due to a little bleeding somewhere in his gastro system. The doctor wants to do more tests, but we don't know when the tests will be scheduled. Currently, the closest date is in February.

We're staying in the pool house at our friends, Dave & Jean Drayer, and they make us feel really at home. Their house is right across the street from our old house, which looks the same as when we sold it-very nice. We really have mixed emotions about selling our house and starting on this adventure. We've had some great times visiting with old friends and seeing new sights. But we do miss some of the aspects of a "stick home", and we really miss our good friends in Turlock. Everything we do in life is a comprise, and as we make decisions we hope we make good ones. Only time will tell.

Other than the doctor's appointment we've had some great times with our friends. On Wed. night we went out to dinner with Bob & Kathy at Panera Bread, one of our favorite restaurants. It was great catching up, and we stayed until the restaurant closed. On Thursday was the doctor visit, then we went to see the Del Webb housing development in Manteca. Some of the floor plans were really good, and it gave us another option to think about when we decide to get off the road. Thursday night we went to dinner in Modesto with Dave & Jean at Dewz Restaurant. It's change since we moved, and now it's a high end dinner house with great food. We haven't eaten this good since John lost his expense account!

Friday was an unusual day because we spent time apart. One of the adjustments to retirement is the amount of time we spend together because we have only one car and move our house a lot. John had lunch with his good friends from Gallo, Kristine & George, while Linda spent an extended amount of time at the mall. John also managed to squeeze in an oil change in the Honda, a haircut, and a visit to the Wine shop. That night Linda went to a women's presentation at church while John watched football and one of his favorite movies, Polar Express.

Saturday was a quiet day. John was glued to Dave's 42" high def TV watching Virginia Tech, USC, & Oregon State win their games. Linda was bored, but catch up on the wash, did some puzzles, and read a lot of magazines. That night we went to Kevin & Linda's house for a nice dinner party which included Gary & Rosemarie, and Gary & Connie. Great food, good friends and fantastic conversations are a great way to end the day.

Thanksgiving Weekend, 2007

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend. The day started with an introduction to geocaching for Matt & Suzanne, Donna, & Tiffany. Linda had chosen 4 local caches to find, ranging from a small to a large find. Two of the caches were in Creek Park, close to where Lois used to live. The other caches were in 24 hour fitness and a greenbelt area close to Los Coyotos Country club. Linda found the first one attached to a storm drain. Suzanne found the next one up in the bushes above a bridal path. Tiffany found the cache at the fitness center, and Suzanne found the last one above the walking path near the greenbelt. We found all of the caches!

Then we headed back to Lois' for a delicious turkey dinner with all of the trimmings. Everyone agreed that the food was some of the best we had ever had.

Our exciting weekend wasn't finished yet. Valerie had asked us to watch our niece Iris for the weekend while they went out of town for a special concert. Linda was on cloud 9. There was playtime on the floor together, trips to the park with the dogs in tow, pushing the stroller in the shops and long evening baths. Grandma Donna visited to share the joy of the weekend. And GG, Great Grandma, enjoyed all of it. It was a weekend we won't forget. Special times with special people.

Geocaching Around Diamond Lake

While we're at this campground we thought we would continue our quest of finding more geocaches. As we mentioned in an earlier posting, geocaching is a modern treasure hunt using a GPS device to find interesting caches all over the world. For more information, see the website geocaching.com.

The first two caches took us over some dirt roads not to far from the campground. We're were pleasantly surprised to find a west coast ranch for the famous Budweiser Clydesdale's!

This is a breeding farm with no tours or access. But you can see the horses from the road. They were being fed while we were there so they weren't near the fence by the road. For information about the Clydesdale's, click on this link: http://www.seaworld.org/animal-info/info-books/clydesdale/index.htm

There were two different caches here, at each end of the property. Linda found both of them-good eyes for details. Here she is replacing one in the middle of the pile of boulders.

The other five caches we found were up in Hemet near Matt & Suzanne's new house and Diamond Lake. Matt's house is located in a major development called McSweeny's farm. Here's a link to the website: http://www.mcsweenyfarms.com/. It looks like it's going to be a great area. We visited the lodge, which is the recreation center of the community. It has a great fitness center, pool, meeting rooms, etc. They're even planning a equestrian center. Matt & Suzanne got in at the beginning of the development, so they'll be able to watch it grow over the years. In fact, the area behind their house is going to be an elementary school. The cache by their house was in the hills above the development with a great view down into the valley. John found this cache after a 1/2 mile hike.

The next two caches were on a long dirt road to the south of Hemet where there's a lot of ranches. One of them was located on Rawson Ranch, which dates back to 1860. We passed by a lot of gates, with the highest number being gate 250. There are great views of Diamond Lake, which is across the street from Matt's development. This lake is the newest in the chain of drinking water lakes built by the Metropolitan Water District. A coincidence is that Linda's father worked for the MWD for over 30 years.

The final cache in the Hemet area was in a park dedicated to the CDF Air Attack team that's based at the Hemet Airport. Inside of the display airplane, John found the cache under a wing. We found all of the caches we were looking for, a new record for us!

Girard Awning-A Great Company

We arrived in San Clemente on Sunday night, camping in the parking lot of Girard Awning. What a great place to have a small company. The day was beautiful, the traffic wasn't bad, and the ocean looked very inviting.

The next morning John had to get up early, because our appointment was for 7:30am. That's very early for this retired couple. Luckily he was up, because they knocked on the door at 7:15am. We think they go to work early so that they can get off early to still catch a few waves on the beach. Anyway, they got right to work replacing our broken arm and realigning the awning. It took about 1 1/2 hours, but the awning is as good as new. This is the main awning over our patio that goes out and retracts automatically at the push of a button. Very nice.

When he finished, and we asked about a bill, he stated no charge! We were shocked, because our motorhome is a 2002 model, long past any warranty. We thanked him, moved the MoHo quickly before he changed his mind, hooked up the car and headed for Wilderness Lakes, in Menifee, CA.

Where in the heck is Menifee? It's half way between Riverside and Temecula, close to Hemet where Matt and Suzanne live. This is a Thousand Trails park, so we can stay there for free. We got there early because of the efficiency of Girard, so we got a good spot and set everything up for an 8 day stay.

We don't know why they call the park Wilderness Lakes. It now has housing developments all around it. There's no lake, just some small canals that run thru the park. Somebody got creative I guess. We enjoy this park because of it's location, but this time we were a little disappointed because we were infested with hundreds of flies. They were everywhere, on the car, on the side of the motorhome, and when a door opened, inside the motorhome. We tried a lot of different ways to keep the fly population down, but it was a losing battle. The only thing that helped a little was spraying Pine Sol full strength by the doors and windows. It seems flies don't like the smell. So now, even thought we're in the high desert, the MoHo smells like a pine forest.

A Visit to Turlock

We finally headed to Turlock on Wed., 11/24, after the winds died down. Our good friends, Bob & Kathy, offered us the use of their ranch to park our moho even though they were vacationing in Lake Tahoe. What great friends.

The reason we went to Turlock was to visit our good friends, and to check in with our Doctors. We both were going to visit our primary care physician, and John had an appointment with his Oncologist. All of the appointments went well, but the Oncologist wants to see John again in a month because his blood test showed his Iron was low(he may be bleeding internally). Hopefully everything will be fine during the next test.

While we were in Turlock we were able to share many meals and good times with our bible study friends. Bob & Kathy returned home on Sun., and we had a wonderful visit with them also. Whenever we get together with them we have a great time playing games, mainly Mexican Train .

We had a reunion dinner on Sat., 11/3. We had everyone meet at Cal State Stanislaus near the waterfall for wine and appetizers. Then Linda led everyone on a geocache right there on the campus. We had to identify different sculptures and solve puzzles to find the cache, so it gave us a chance to tour the campus and get some exercise. Bob was the one who found the cache inside of a parking sign in the west parking lot. We then went on to find 2 other caches, but we came up empty. Either the caches had been removed, or we couldn't find them.

We all went back to Bob & Kathy's house for a German dinner to celebrate Oktoberfest. John barbecued 3 different types of sausages, while Linda prepared all of the side dishes. We served beer and wine, and finished the meal with a delicious pumpkin cheesecake. It was great food, and it was the company and fellowship that made it special.

John enjoyed 2 lunches with his friends, Kristine & George, from his days at Gallo. It was a lot of fun catching up on different people from the company, and their families. It's hard to believe it's been almost 2 years since John retired. It's always nice to know everyone is still doing great even thought he's no longer there.

We had a surprise when the refrigerator door in the moho just fell off! We were lucky to find a new one in Sacramento. Can you believe a little side door would cost $395.00? We a happy that our food didn't spoil.

All to soon, it was time to head back to SoCal. We have an appointment to get our awning fixed at the Girard Awning Co. in beautiful San Clemente on Monday, 11/12. Hopefully it won't bruise the wallet too much, but we've missed having our awning when we sit outside. Until then, keep in touch.

Iris' Baptism & 1st Birthday

On October 21, we were honored to attend Iris' baptism at the Lutheran church in Garden Grove near Rick & Valerie's home. It was a very windy day, the beginning of the Santa Ana winds that sparked all of the fires in SoCal.

But the baptism went perfectly. The minister was very good, and Iris was even better. She smiled and never made any noise, unlike her cousin Matthew.

Here's a happy Mom as the ceremony ended. It was a very special day!

After church was over, we all went over to Rick & Valerie's house to have a big party to celebrate Iris' birthday. It was a great gathering, with lots of kids, presents, pinatas, great food and good beverages. At the end of the party we had a huge surprise. Rick announced that the Perez's were expecting another child! What a way to cap off a great day. It's a day we'll all will remember as very special.