Day 17 Saturday March 4 - sunny but quite windy

We pulled out of Spotlight 29 casino @ 10:25 @ 45469 miles.  At 11:15 we pulled into Morongo Casino just west of Palm Springs for brunch at 45512 miles. We found a food court with a Subway and with regular Subway prices, (the lunch buffet in the casino was over $20). We pulled out at 12:35 heading for Golden Village Palms arriving at 1:15 @ 45537 miles. We checked in for a month but may have to leave a day or two early to get Sheila to her Dental appointment and then maybe come back for a week or more before heading home.  We got settled in; all services hooked up and are ready to relax.  We met up with our friends Larry & Judy; they are just 8 spaces away on the same road.  We had supper & went out to a dance “The Art of Sax” It wasn’t what we thought it might be.  There was one sax player, one bass guitar player & one lead vocalist. Sheila found it too loud and the hall too dark.  They played lively music but it was mostly unknown material to us.  A lot of the crowd there were singing along with the group and were really enthusiastic.  I guess it is just not our era and most bands & groups at GVP just don’t play music that is known to us.  They played continuously with no break for close to 3 hours & were still going strong when we left to go back to the RV.

68 miles -   An hour & a half on the road but that included driving into & out of Casino parking lots and through traffic lights into Hemet.

Day 16 Friday March 3 - ***SHEILA'S BIRTHDAY***Sunny and hot - 80 to 84 F

I got up early enough to put the present Adeline had given me for Sheila on her bedside table so she got it first thing and was thrilled, it was a very nice, very colourful hand crocheted, knitted ??,  hot mat, she loved it.  Then we packed up and got ready to go, slides in, tanks dumped, everything put away, bars in fridge & cupboards. We hooked up the car and pulled out at 45425 miles @ 10:35 and we arrived at Spotlight 29 Casino @ 11:35 @ 45469 miles. . We had lots of time so we took off to find Sheila a place to get her nails done.  We went straight to the “Food 4 Less” mall which has lots of small shops & sure enough they had a nail place and they could do Sheila right away, so that worked out well. Then, back to the casino for their lunch buffet, $10.95 less a dollar with our player’s casino card & drinks were included.  It was a good meal, they had roast pork with a delicious mushroom gravy and lot of other great items such as crab salad and grilled catfish served in a delicious lemon dill sauce--plus it is our favourite place for bread pudding, with a great sauce.  They also have good caramel flans.  It was quite hot in the RV when we got back from lunch so we fired up the gen to run A/C.  We ran one A/C for about 2 hours. Then off into the casino to check on waiting times for the CCR Tribute band free concert that evening.  They said line ups start around 5:00 & doors open at 7 to get your seat for the 8 PM show.  We went back to the RV for a short time before going over to line up for the concert.  There was no one lined up at 5 pm. So I sat down & waited until a line formed & joined it @ 6:00.  Sheila returned from the slots at 6:30 so I could take a break.  We weren’t far back in the line so when the doors opened we got a nice booth more or less centred in the showroom which held 1400.  Nice and comfortable.  As the booth could accommodate 8, we invited another 2 couples to join us when they asked if we were expecting more people.  They were Canadians, one cpl was from Victoria & one was from Sask. Although she found it quite loud, Sheila agrees with me that it was a great show.  All four men were very accomplished musicians--especially the lead singer. And it turns out they are from the Seattle area.  After the show, I took Sheila to an Asian Fusion take-out place near the showroom and she ordered some deep fried butterfly shrimp as a bedtime snack!  Then I came back to the RV while Sheila stayed to play the machines for another half hour.  It didn’t work; she didn’t win even though it’s her birthday today!  

44 miles 60 minutes

Day 15 Thursday March 2

Another great sunny day.  This morning when I got up to set the furnace to come on it was reading 66 F, (around 16 or 17 C).  We went down for the 10 AM pool exercise session. I actually didn’t mind it. It wasn’t like doing calisthenics in the water, it was gentle movements designed to keep all your joints moving easily.  After the 1 hour session I sat in the hot tub for a bit then the sun while Sheila swam lengths. We had a snack at Freddy’s Fountain Café,(corn chowder soup & a Caribbean smoothie and then came back up to the RV.  We had supper in the RV, then Les started the last fire of the season that all of us would be there for.  Over the next day or so 4 or 5 of the group are leaving FoY. We had a good fire & roasted marshmallows.

Day 14 Wednesday March 1

Today is potluck breakfast beside Les & Kevin’s rig.   We got together for breakfast with Les, Dorothy, Kevin, Leslie, Sandy, Heather and Kitty.  After a leisurely breakfast of pancakes, sausages, fried egg mixture, bacon, and our hash browns with a side of fried onions & red pepper we went down to the pool area.  We went into the pool and after about a half hour I put my hand in my swim suit pocket and came out with my car keys.  The key is no problem but the fob that opens & locks doors & the hatchback could be.  I put it out to dry in the sun and eventually we tried it and no problem, it worked fine.   Sheila left to go up to the big hall for some line dancing lessons.  I stayed in the sun for a while then went into the computer room for a while, checked email. One email was my bill from my Flying J/Pilot charge card. It was for $503.00 US $.  Right now I have about the same amount of gas in the tank as I had when we left home so the cost of gas to get south is about $500.00, and that’s at $2.20 to $2.40 US for a US gallon, (about 80-82 cents a litre Cdn). I sat in the sun some more & then headed back to the RV. The hall Sheila was at is only about a half block from the dry camp area so she just walked home to the RV.

We had supper and then went down to Phyllis & Jays Park Model for a social evening along with our entire crowd, (see breakfast list). It was a pleasant visit, then home for the night.  Sheila really enjoyed the space & brightness of the park model after the confines of our RV, (especially when one is trying to conserve electricity by only having two or three lights on at a time.

Day 13 Tuesday Feb 28

Got up to sunshine, rains gone.  We went down for the Tuesday Veg & Fruit truck, and to try the pool exercises and do some blog posting.  Sheila talked me into joining the pool exercise program; it’s very low impact so it wasn’t too bad at all.  We had a hot tub session after the pool exercises and got our computer work done and then returned to the RV for lunch. After lunch we got laundry organized and went down again.  Sheila worked on her email while I relaxed & waited for the machine to finish and then moved stuff to dryer. Back up to RV and then ready for supper followed by TNT at the big hall, (TNT stands for Tuesday Night Talent). It’s a fun evening.  Sheila is going down for Tuesday TACO night at the Legion branch in Bombay Beach, a small community at the foot of the road up to FoY just off hwy 111 on the shore of the Salton Sea.  Sheila got back about 6:15 and we headed down for the show. They do have a lot of talent here in the residents & visitors.  They were talking about how people are starting to leave to head home.  Seems early to me but I guess a lot arrive in the end of the year months so have been here close to 6 months.  Plus it does get really hot in the spring & summer.  

Day 12 Feb 27 Monday

We woke up to showers which turned to rain by afternoon. I took our new car over to the car wash which caused it to start to rain again. Sheila went down to do the pool exercises, which even in the sprinkles, when you are in a nice warm pool the rain showers don’t bother you. However it slowed to a periodic sprinkle by early afternoon & then stopped altogether. I went down to the internet room to get on my computer & pay my MC bill for Feb.  Even plugged in I could not get on my M-Banks or, oddly, Sheila’s email.  The computer kept saying that it was taking too long and it severed the connection.  I then went to one of the hard wired computers and got on instantly like I do at home.   We are going out for Les’ Birthday dinner with a half doz. of more people from Fountain of Youth that we all know.  We went in 3 cars, us with Sandy & Heather, then in the truck Les & Dorothy, Kitty, Jay & Phyllis, then Leslie & Kevin in their car.  We all headed out and got to the “Chicken Coop” a Les calls it driving through off & on light sporadic showers.  There was no name or signs outside to say what was inside just a rectangle building with sheet metal outsides.  The real name is “Cowboy Bar & Grill” but nowhere is that in evidence.  We then found out that they had cancelled the dinner event on account of rain, what rain, we said! Anyway this is Southern California in the dry belt where anything worse than a heavy due is catastrophic. So off we went down to El Centro and a Golden Corral Buffet restaurant.  We have been to them before and really like it.  We had a nice supper in their separate room and then drove home getting back about 7 PM.  It was down to 65 F, about 18 or so C, so we started the generator & the heater and settled in for a quiet evening after a busy, (by our standards), day.

Day 11 Feb 25 Sunday

A bit overcast in the early morning but cleared to full sun well before noon.  We went down to the pool for the noon water volley ball game.  It was fun and we still know how to play, we’re not any better but we know the rules and what to do & how to field & hit the ball. Except that Sheila in reaching up to hit the ball had it hit square on the end of  a finger, not even the middle one that is longer but the one next to it.  She had it perfectly straight so I think that the knuckles got jammed together. It hurt a lot at the time and even though she is icing it, it still hurts a lot.  We sat in the sun and hot tub for a cpl hours before heading home. Made supper and then went out to tonight’s concert. A group called “The Hanson Family” billed as “Western swing – Blazing harmony” 2 sisters & a brother.  They were very good and we enjoyed them.  All 3 were good singers & yodellers.  They have played several places in BC including Barkerville and will be in, I think, Kelowna this summer