Day 23 Feb 5 Tuesday – Rain again

Up early for the Breakfast Club. Away at 8 AM for Little Angie’s in East Hemet in a light rain. We got there in good time, I only had 1 red light all the way down Florida Ave, that’s about 6 or more greens.  After breakfast we stopped at the main post office to mail Mikaela’s card but found out that to mail it with the metal closing clip on the back of the envelope would increase postage by a cpl dollars, better to take the clip off and scotch tape it closed.  So we came home, did that and Sheila went out again to find a mail box.  It stopped raining and Water Volleyball is going so Sheila went up to join in. I stayed at the RV and it started raining again, lightly, but rain none the less. Sheila said it was a cold rain.  It felt like it was raining tiny ice pellets, but because it was only about 10 min. till quitting time, they decided to persevere and keeping playing.  I’m sure this is a record for rainy days here.  Talking to the permanent residents & the 6 & 6ers they agree. I went up to play Bridge in Judy’s learners group from 1 to after 3 then back to RV to find Sheila fast asleep. Tonight is a quiet night; we just had supper & watched TV and kept the propane heater going to stay warm & cozy.

Day 22 Feb 4 Monday- Rain all day

We woke up to another wet day, light rain falling.  The good part is that it is mild, around the mid 50’s, that’s around 13 to 15 Celsius in the morning & warms 10 to 15 degrees by noon. We skipped WVB and after breakfast/lunch I went out for a hair cut - $5.00 at the barber/hair dressing school across the road.  I picked up a fan for the propane heater to help direct the hot air up to the front of the rig.  Tonight is early supper as it is horse race day. Raining again! I think Vancouver weather followed us down. After a nice supper it’s over to the ballroom where the races are. They show videos of 8 real horse races, but they change the names of the horses and there are odds for each horse to win, place, or show.  You’re given $130,000.00 in play money.  There are 8 races and you can bet on up to 3 horses in each race.  They run the races with real race commentary.  I bet on 2 horses in each race and by the end of the 8^th race I had won $1,170,000 of course I didn’t have that much at the end because some of it would go back into the next race. I did end up with $800,000.00 in play money from my original 130,000 so that’s not too bad.  Of the 8 races I bet 2 horses each race and on only 2 of the races I didn’t win anything. On the last race you bet all you have, I bet $320,000 over 3 horses & 1 of them won at 8-1, I got $800,000. Sheila ended up with $436, 000.  Her horses won just as often as mine, but she didn’t win as much because she wasn’t as aggressive in her betting.  The most won was about $40 million!  Imagine—just on an initial investment of 130,000!  It’s a fun night. It ended about 9 PM so back we went to the RV for the night.

Day 21 Feb 3 Sunday

I got up to overcast but no rain, no wind, nice & mild.  I went up for WVB then Hot Tub.  It did try to spritz a tiny bit of rain but nothing developed so back to the RV for lunch.  When I got back I discovered that Sheila hadn’t made it up yet, awake, but not up.  Today is Super Bowl Sunday and they have chilli dogs & nachos both covered in chilli &/or melted hot cheese or both, then there are onions, relish, salsa, jalapeño’s for topping. I got one of each for us to share.  It was a close game till late in the 4^th quarter when the New England Patriots took a two score lead with just a few minutes to play, impossible for the LA Rams to overcome.  Then back to the RV for R & R & TV. One interesting thing with the Weather Channel is that it shows programs as well as weather broadcasts.  They do “Highway through Hell” about our Coquihalla Hwy in BC and last night a show about the rescue of a ship’s crew in the Atlantic by an RCAF rescue helicopter. I didn’t realize the choppers were that big with a huge range. The Cormorant Chopper, with a crew of about 5 or 6, flew 3 hours out from Newfoundland to the ship, hovered for hours picking up 16 crew & then flew the 3 hours back to St Johns.   They were worried that they wouldn’t be able to get all 16 of the crew off, (one at a time) before they ran out of gas & had to return to base and leave the remaining crew to their fate and maybe they’d last till the next day. The captain of course was the last to leave the ship.

Day 20 Feb 2 Saturday – overcast & raining

It did sprinkle a bit at night, not heavy & loud on the roof but enough that you could tell it was raining.  The morning had heavy cloud but not actually raining although the ground was very wet.  I decided to forgo WVB today although the temp at 8:45 was 54 F and with the low humidity it did not feel like 54 F feels like at home, which is cold & damp and you want to get inside quickly.  I was wearing a S/S shirt & shorts & didn’t feel cold when I stepped out to check temp.  I went out to get some groceries & other supplies at Winco & got almost everything, so a side trip to the 99 cent store completed the list.  Coming back the wind started up quite strong along with a light rain.  I was hoping Sheila pulled in the awning, (thankfully it is an electric awning so she just has to push a button).  She did, so we are just puttering around for the afternoon.  The rain got heavier & steady but the wind subsided. We are getting ready to go out tonight to a very large mobile home park here in Hemet that has big band era dances once a month on the first Sat.  We are going to attempt to go assuming we don’t get denied entry at the gate or the dance is sold out to non-residents. We will report upon return. The heavy steady rain had stopped or at least lightened & slowed by 5 PM.

 Well, the dance never materialized, we couldn’t find any sign of any action in any of the two rec halls. i.e. clubhouses we checked.  Sheila looked in the glass door of one & could see a large ballroom type space completely deserted and the door was locked.  A security guard at one of them said he hadn’t heard of any dance on tonight.  So we headed towards home but seeing as we were out, we thought, “Let’s go for ice cream.”  When we stopped at Stater Bros. for milk, Sheila asked if there were any Ice Cream Parlours nearby, we were directed to La Macharcana, a Mexican ice cream shop in a mall just across the street.  It’s new to the area--(it wasn’t there last year).  Their menu listed 2 sets of cone flavours as well as lots of other choices with names we didn’t understand.  The only difference in the cones seemed to be one said, (water), and the other said, (milk).  We asked the clerk what the difference was and she had to get someone who spoke more English than she did to explain it.  It is just that one is made using water & the other using milk, so one is richer & sweeter than the other.  Their advertisement on the store said “all natural”.  I got a milk one, Blackberry cheese cake, & Sheila got a water one, Pineapple.  You could taste the difference a little.  Mine was creamy, like ice cream & Sheila’s was more like a very good sherbet.  Then back to the RV for an evening of TV and listening to rain drops, (its not heavy & kind of sporadic).

Day 19 Feb 1 Friday - Sunny

By morning the rain clouds had cleared and it was nice & sunny.  I went up for WVB and the pool was lovely & warm, I thought that the rain might have cooled it off a bit.  After the game & hot tub it’s back to the RV for lunch.  Sheila had stayed up late watching reruns of “3 1/2 Men” and then couldn’t get to sleep until after 4:30 AM  so she slept in until 11:30 and then went up to get tickets for the Horse Racing Event in the ballroom next Monday.  I had lunch & tried to catch up on the journal, logging our expenses etc. before I went up for the Fri wine & cheese welcome party and then it’s the Mocktails night event from 6 to 8.  As it was sunny, Sheila went to the pool expecting there’d be WVB, but again, just like yesterday, only 2 men showed up, so she swam lengths and did some water exercises before going to wash her hair. I came back from the wine & cheeses function and we went up to the Mocktails party about 6:15.  They were in full swing, all seats taken, which is why we take our own chairs.  We settled in, got drinks & nacho’s, (they have chips with a bean/meat sauce plus both mild and spicy cheese sauce and several toppings), and settled, sharing a table with 2 other couples.  There was a 3 piece combo playing called “One Too Many”-- they were very good.  We had an enjoyable evening snacking, listening and dancing a little. We came back to the RV after they finished around 9:00.  It was a bit cool so a lot of people had long sleeves or light jacket/sweaters on.  Some even had heavy jackets or coats on.

Day 18 Jan 31 Thursday – Sunny in am, rain in pm.

The propane truck will be here sometime today so I will wait till it gets here.  It arrived about 11:00 & put in 10.6 USG, so no WVB for me today, Sheila went up to play in the afternoon, but the sun had gone in by then, the wind had come up and it was quite cool, so other than two guys, no one showed up.   A mystery–-the gauge on the Propane tank itself was sitting just a very little above empty but the tank holds 14.3 USG, (when I once had to fill a completely empty tank), so why was the gauge on the tank looking like it was almost totally empty?  Unless we are dry camping without any plug in power we can run the heat & light off the batteries; the gas-only appliances are the hot water tank and the fridge which requires 110 volt power to run off electricity.  At around 1 PM we now have a bit of a breeze and some light cloud, coming from the LA storms, I presume.   Around 2 PM we got a bit of light rain which rapidly turned to heavy, steady rain.  It stopped about 4:30 PM. Larry & Judy came at 4:40 to pick us up for the Elks event—“Swingalong”, a music night with 40’s era music, also there would be pizza & salad available.  It was an enjoyable evening with Larry & Judy there with us.  The music was recorded with a live, very good singer—a black older female.  It wasn’t what I was hoping for but fun none the less.  It was supposed to run from 5 till 8 & we stayed till 8 and the singer was still going.  Back at the RV we looked up TV shows on the internet and watched some.  The RV Park provides a list of stations on their cable system and there are 63 stations, however there is no program guide channel and other than buying a $7:00 TV guide each week you don’t know what is on unless you go online and then you can get a listing of each station & it’s programs for today and the next 3 or 4 days. 

Day 17 Jan 30 Wednesday

The storms forecast for the LA area have not materialized as yet.  Slight overcast, no wind and nice & mild, (about 60 F), around 9 AM, warming up to 70 F by noonish.  We had our WVB game in the warm pool & hot tub’d for a short time as we had to get back to the RV for lunch and then up to the clubhouse for Hand & Foot@ 1:00.  It’s a bit of a rush so we may have to drop the Hand & Foot game, time will tell. We got there after everyone had started but there was one fellow, (Ken), sitting at a table & then Sally came so we had 4 and could play, (it’s a partnership game & works best with 2 teams of 3 but you could play individually however it would be a very long game).  We had a good game, Sheila & I won.  Back to the RV and Sheila went out to Winco for groceries. She came back with a hot roasted chicken, (1 lb 13 oz for $4.98), and other stuff including a bargain on the cole slaw – 0.59 lbs @ $1.48 / lb cost 21 cents! I think their scale malfunctioned and as the server just pushes buttons and attaches a price label, they never noticed. I did back at the RV when I was serving it--it should have been about 87 cents!  We had some of the chicken for supper before going out to the KILLER DUELING PIANOS show.  We had seen them on a previous trip and they were great.  They had a packed house and put on a terrific show, 2 ½ hours non-stop. They had the crowd singing along to lots of great tunes.  They had slips of paper on the tables with pencils so you could write out requests and take them up to the front.  They encouraged lots of audience participation.  Sheila joined a group of ladies at the front dancing to Tina Turner’s “Proud Mary”.  The guys got a couple of well-deserved standing ovations.  One was after one of the guys sang a well known opera piece really well, and then after their last number.    Back to the RV for the rest of the evening to write up the day, watch TV, etc.