Tues 27 Jan Day 17

The day is starting out sunny, so hopefully we have our good weather back. Today Sheila has a class planned for this morning, Water Zumba.  She went up to the pool to find it was cancelled. So she swam lengths, did some water exercises and hot tubbed.  In the meantime I took the RV over to the dump station to empty & refill various tanks as needed, I lasted 1 week between dumps..  Then I took it down to the propane station by the office to get refilled.  What with waiting for access to dump & refill propane this all took quite a while.  I met Sheila down by the tank filling station to find out that her class had been cancelled.  We came back up & put the RV back in its spot & then headed out in the car to the nearest town with a gas station, Niland, a 13 min. drive.  We shopped in their grocery store as well, then drove home.  We got back at 5 to 4:00 so I dropped Sheila to go into the 4 PM water volley ball game while I drove the supplies home, stored everything and then made us a hamburger helper supper. I had decided that I wasn’t going to play in the 4 o’clock game because the east/west orientation of the pool meant that one side was looking directly into the setting sun. Sheila’s timing was impeccable, she came in the door of the RV just as I was taking the big Teflon frying pan with supper in it off the stove.  After supper I went down to the TNT, (Tuesday Night Talent), show in Hays Hall.  The performers are all park residents, some are good some not so, but it is usually an enjoyable evening.  I got home just before 9:00, Sheila had stayed in the RV to catch up on cards & letters that she had wanted to send to people back around Christmas. 

Guess what? I kept hitting the undo button under EDIT and Sunday finally reappeared so here it is out of order

Sun Jan 25 Day 15

Clear & sunny, little to no wind this morning.  We stayed around the RV till mid afternoon, visited & chatted with Les, Dorothy, Kevin & Leslie and then headed down to the pool to see if anyone was playing Water Volleyball.  No one was, so  we hot tubbed then came back for supper before tonight’s show – ‘Laughing Bird’.  Tupelo, (it’s a nick name), & Janey Kenyon are a couple who play, sing, joke and were really entertaining. They write their own stuff so all their music is original.  You can get a sample of their music at LaughingBirdMusic.com and/or MusicToFeelBetter.com.  They play multiple instruments and they really put on a good show. Janey is an amazing spoon player and the most flamboyant one we’ve ever seen!  Sheila bought a DVD of them telling stories from their travels going back 30 years.

So far my portable solar panel seems to be working fine.  We use the gen to run the Microwave and once in a while the TV for a DVD. It seems to, so far, be keeping the battery charged enough to keep things going all night and during the day as well as run lights for Sheila to use to stay up late.

Mon Jan 26 Day 16 - - Note I accidentally deleted Sunday also I posted Sat & Mon today

We awoke to cloud and some light sprinkles, still warm though. Our outside thermometer was reading 65 this morning around 9:30. There is no wind at alI, just periodic light sprinkles. I went down to the pay phone to call the 800 numbers for ICBC & Aviva & GVP (to make reservations for Feb 10 arrival). The ICBC agent I had an extension # for isn’t in today.  The Aviva went through OK and that’s settled, they have cancelled my claim number, they figured that my agent called them to say I might need repairs. Back at the RV, we made up an omelette for breakfast/lunch about 11:30 and then went down for the volleyball.  They had a full pool there despite the sprinkles of periodic rain.  It has stopped by 1 PM.  The clouds don’t even look like rain clouds, they are thin and a light grey.  After the game we sat in the mineral pool and then I changed and went to Freddy’s Café to work on the computer.  It said I had internet and I connected but it wouldn’t bring up my email, then after a while it went to “no internet access”.  I’ll be glad to get to GVP!  I went over to the computer room where Sheila had a computer & was busy connecting.  She was able to stay on for half an hour as no one was waiting.  (The limit is 15 min. if someone’s waiting.)  There are 4 computers available. We headed back to the RV as a few sprinkles came & went.  We had afternoon tea in the RV and then prepped for a nice supper.  I did discover one thing about this RV that I will have to get changed – if possible.  When I went to fire the engine up to check gas tank levels & mileage the battery was dead.  It’s a new battery! Then I remembered that in the Jayco back in 2001 when we picked it up I ran the engine battery dead while parked on PEI and plugged in.  It turned out that the radio ran off the engine battery.  I am going to have that changed over as I did on the Jayco.  Fortunately I have the auxiliary start button that connects the coach batteries to the engine, so no real problem.  We can use the generator here until 9 PM so no problem keeping warm & cosy and we can still run the furnace on the batteries as well. So, after supper we got out another Carol Burnett Show DVD, fired up the Gen & watched it till a bit before 9:00.  I headed to bed about an hour later; Sheila as usual stayed up to do her “jobs” & read.

Sat Jan 24 Day 14

Windy at night & in morning, it got down to mid 60’s at night and was sunny & clear in the morning with the temp climbing to high 70’s, (25 C++).  Puttered around RV for the morning and Sheila went to some garage sale thing with Dorothy Bullis.  Sheila came back having spent about $15 on some CD’s, DVD’s, a game, Battle of the Sexes and some assorted small stuff.  We had a nice salad for lunch, then Sheila went down to do some lengths in the pool while I stayed to conserve my energy for tonight’s Dance.  After a cpl of minor jobs I wandered next door to visit Les.  Les & I talked about the traffic on hwy 215 leading into Hwy 10 across the north east end of LA and how busy it is – up to 6 lanes at times.  He said he stays of hwy 58 instead of turning down Hwy 395 and continues to Barstow before turning south and that way he misses all the traffic.  I will look it up for next year. Eventually Sheila & Dorothy came back and Kevin & Leslie showed up so we chit chatted ’till suppertime and the light started to fade. After supper we went down to the “Classical Concert” in “Sunrise Hall”.  It was pianists alternating with singers and more show tune & pop numbers than classical music.  It was mostly good.  That ended about 8:30 and we walked next door to “Hays Hall” for the Sat dance.  The music was by Chris Hemstead who played guitar and two pianos which were also synthesizers.  He was really good and did lots of actions such as playing the piano, (briefly) with his feet, so he was very entertaining.  He took requests, so the music was a very danceable mix of mostly 50’s & 60’s music.  Finally at 10 pm we came home.  I was exhausted & went straight to bed.  Sheila wasn’t far behind. Another great thing about this dance was the cost.  Only $5.00 each & that included punch & all the cookies you could eat!  The classical concert was an even better deal—free & they also provided lemonade & cookies!

Fri Jan 23 Day 13

We awoke to an overcast day but it was a thin cloud.  It was cooler maybe around 67 F I made my coffee and wandered over to Les’ rig, (next door), and chit chatted for a while.  Sheila showed up around 10 and we started to plot the day.  The veggie man is here today, (9 to noon), so we have to get down to get some fresh supplies before volley ball at noon. We also had to get some supplies from their general store on site in the RV Park. It was cloudy during the volley ball game but still fun, though not as much as yesterday when there were fewer people.  I sat in the mineral springs pool after. I think the warm weather and hot tubs are curing my back, I don’t have any backaches now. Sheila is hoping her morning & evening aches & pains will go away too, but it hasn’t happened yet.  Sheila went to Freddy’s for their Tuna melt sandwich for lunch which we split, it was good, lots of tuna. Then Sheila went to finish her ironing & I sat in the sun wrinkling shirts for her to iron. . We got back to 70 ++ temps by 2 PM.  I then walked back uphill to the RV to work on the levelling jacks using the silicon spray Les picked up.  Fortunately the RV being an RV it is easy to get under. I extended all the jacks to max, (which really increased the crawl space underneath), and crawled under where I wiped the shafts off & sprayed on silicon spray.  When I retracted them they all came fully up so that problem is solved.  The sun was fully out by mid afternoon.  We had supper in the rig and spent a quiet evening catching up on the daily journal.  

Thurs Jan 22 Day 12

Today we are moving down the line to a bigger spot.  I pulled in the slides and pushed the button to retract the levelling legs but they didn’t come fully up.  They were high enough to drive the hundred feet to our new spot and park.  In talking to Les & Kevin, (Les’s friend from Aldergrove), they said that some silicon spray on the legs would help. They just happened to be going to Wal-Mart down in Brawley, (about 40 minutes away), so I asked them to see if they could get a can of silicon spray.  Once settled in our new spot we had breakfast & then went down for the noon volleyball.  The “hot shots” were away playing in a tournament somewhere so it was a much smaller crowd, only 5 & 6 a side.  Both Sheila & I much preferred it to the usual 12 a side as you get more opportunities to hit the ball.  Despite the fact it was windy again today—it was great fun!    Afterwards, we sat in the hot tub and checked out the second pool which is a salt water pool.  Sheila said it was really easy to float in.  After sunning a bit I went into the RV Parks internet room and got one of their computers.  I was able to get onto gmail after a lot of fiddling around and got onto Sheila’s email but without my computer to load Sheila’s letter to Adeline, (from my Word file), I couldn’t send anything.  I was also able, (surprise to me), to get onto Mbanx so I could check my accounts. Then about 4 PM I went over to Freddy’s Café to save a table for Pizza & Karaoke Night and to try to get on the internet with my computer – no luck.  The pizza was an 8 inch 4 topping one, and really, really good, plus you got a salad & refillable drinks for $7.50.  It was a fun evening that went from 4:30ish to 7PM.  A lot of the singers were really good, better than the ones at TNT. (Tuesday Night Talent) and seemed to have professional or music backgrounds. Back at the RV we started the Gen & watched a Carol Burnett show from our CD collection. Before beginning out usual ‘chores’—blog, expenses, activity records, & the day’s dishes, if we left any.

PS I've been trying for days to load some more pictures but it just won't happen.  It takes so long the WiFi just closes itself out.It does say in the WIFi instructions that the system is not meant for downloading movies  and large picture files, the file I was trying to upload of our rig at Orange Grove RV Park says it is 5.24 MB,is that a large file? It's only one picture.  You may have to wait until we are at GVP before I can send pictures on the blog.

trying with a cpl pictures - - again This one is of my pax side mirror that contacted something on a semi

this is where i hit the semi or he hit me - You have to move the picture over  to the right to get the mark on the mirror visible