Day 16 Jan 29 Tuesday

Today is Breakfast Club day, so we are up & off about 8:00 to “The Good Egg” restaurant in San Jacinto at Menlo Ave.  We had breakfast & then checked out the location of Sheila’s massage parlour for her afternoon appointment.  It was just up San Jacinto Blvd across from Emilio’s Restaurant.  Then home, so I could get out for W.V.B.  Sheila wanted to play this afternoon, so she decided to catch a nap to make up for the two hrs. of sleep she missed because of the early start, (7:25) this morning.  I played till the usual end time of noon, then back to the rig where I changed so as to get to the ticket line-up for the Canada Day Party coming up on the 11 February.  I got 5 tickets on an 8 person table, for us, Fred & Sally and Wendy. They will probably sell the others to someone because there are always more people who want to go than there are tickets.  After getting tickets, I went to watch Sheila in the afternoon, 1-3 pm WVB game.  Then she went out for her 4:00 pm massage appt. She’s trying it out because after a couple of days playing WVB she noticed her neck & shoulders were a bit stiff and it hurt to do shoulder checks while driving & turn her head to follow the ball while playing WVB.  When she mentioned this to some other WVB players, a one of them suggested massage as a way to relax the neck and recommended the Oasis Day Spa & a masseuse named Brandon. She had planned to just do a 30 min. session for her neck & shoulders only for $30 but when she booked the appt., was strongly encouraged to make it a whole body hour appt. for $45 to totally stimulate her circulation to combat her inflammation, stiffness & soreness.  She’s really glad she did as she’s never had a massage before and really enjoyed it—especially in her hands & feet!  Brandon said it will probably take a day or so for the benefits of the massage to take effect and the soreness to go away, so we shall have to wait & see if it was worth the money spent.  One thing is certain; she does not want to have to give WVB or driving!  While she was out I checked the Propane level & discovered the tank was almost empty, I went up to the office & ordered a delivery, fortunately the truck is due on Thursday, so it shouldn’t be a problem.  Even if we run out of gas most everything can be done by electricity.  When Sheila returned about 5:30, we made supper and spent the evening watching TV & doing the usual blog, journal & housework tasks.

Day 15 Jan 28 Monday

Well, I got up at 7:30 so I could be at the internet store to get my equipment to get good, fast WiFi in the RV.  Only flaw was I arrived a few minutes before 8 to discover they didn’t open until 9 AM.  Well, I do need to get a new battery in my watch and I could stop at a bank for a US cash injection to my wallet so I did and got back to the internet store at 8:45.  There were already 5 people in line. They had 3 servers so it didn’t take long to get my equipment & head home. Then the fun began. I had two boxes about 5 lines and mysterious places to plug them into. I followed directions as best I could, I got it all hooked up & nothing!  I changed the hook ups to a more logical, (to me), arrangement, still nothing, so I phoned the help line number that was pointed out to me before I left the store, (did they suspect I didn’t know my way around computer wires & hook-ups very well?).  The lady on the other end got my name etc & looked the system up on her computer.  She said there were some things that needed changing at her end. Then we did a shut down & restart of my computer and all the equipment I had. After a wait we powered up and it all worked. I actually had all the wires in the right places on my end. So now I’m back to full power internet all the time.  All this took from 7:30ish to after 12 noon sometime. Sheila had gone up for volley ball while I wrestled with the computer connections. We relaxed, and then headed over to the “Taste of the Valley” event in the clubhouse where they had restaurants & businesses from Hemet with samples of food & information on the services they provide. It started at 2 PM and we arrived back at the RV around 3:30 or so. We were full of food samples and got some good info on several RV related items.  I made up a hamburger helper for supper because we had the ground beef not frozen & wanted to us it. We had a small bit of it then put it in the fridge for another day. Sheila went out to the 99 cent store then when she returned I headed out to the Monday crib games starting about 7 PM. I had one really bad game & that put me out of contention for any prize.  Basically you get your $1.00 admission back with a few extra bucks. Hopefully, someday I will win some money back.  Then it was back to the RV for the night.  

Day 14 Jan 27 Sunday

We got up to nice sunny weather – again – OK I’ll stop saying how nice it is here – soon.  We went up for water volleyball and our usual hot tub session.  Then, after showering I got on the scales, with just shorts & S/S T-shirt.  I was 205 lbs or 93 KG.  Back at the RV I phoned the park Cablevision supplier about getting internet right to the RV.  It costs a bit, (in the range of 1 to 2 $ a day), but considering I do all my banking & pay bills over the internet I really need it to be easily accessible. I can go to the cable company’s local store & pick the connection equipment up rather than pay for a technician to come out & install it.  How hard can it be? That question will be answered in the next blog or two.  Sheila went to watch the afternoon competitive water volleyball game while I phoned about the internet connection. I was on the phone a long time burning up minutes but with buying a 1 year time card I sometimes get extra bonus minutes on top of the 800 minutes we get at renewal time so all we do is build up minutes.  Phone calls just deduct each minute no matter where you are calling, a minute is a minute.  The US cell system is way superior to any of ours.  I did use the office computer to do email today and to delete junk & non relevant emails.  Sheila is preparing a Chef’s salad for supper & then we are off to the Pegs & Jokers game at the clubhouse.  It probably has different rules from what we know so we will see if we want to keep playing it because it runs at the same time as Sunday Party Bridge, & we can only do one. 

OK, it’s not too different so we may play it alternating with Bridge, time will tell. After the game we went to the clubhouse computers to look up a day spa that was recommended to Sheila by one of the W.V.B. players.  Playing WVB is starting to wear on her neck & shoulder muscles and her neck is stiff and a bit sore.  She even has the name of a masseuse that is highly recommended.  After that, we came back to the RV for the rest of the evening & spent our time on the usual things—this blog, Sheila’s food & activity diaries & watching TV.

Day 13 Jan 26 Saturday

Up to a reasonably warm day, 60 F around 9:00 and climbing to 70 by noon under clear blue sky’s and no wind.  Up for the usual W.V.B. game although I seem to be disimproving.  I am having more trouble hitting the ball over the net. When I hit it from the middle or back row it often hits the net, sometimes a front row person gets it over, but often it just hits the water.  It’s still lots of fun.  Today they have music at the cabana & a Mex restaurant serving food.  We got a cpl of tacos, (2 for $3.00), choice of beef, pork or chicken.  Also today is the “Human Foosball” game.  They have a set up built with handles on pipes to hold onto and everyone has to work together to slide the pipes left or right to get at the ball and kick it forward or back depending on which direction your team is going.  It did look like fun but was very energetic. They were also playing W.V.B. in 2 pools from about 1:00 pm onwards.  Sheila watched the Foosball and the water volleyball; I got the computer & went up to the clubhouse computer room to try to get onto the internet.  It was still slow, (possibly because it’s Saturday and a lot of people may be online), but I got on and was able to check emails, post blogs, check my bank balances and pay any bills that would come due at the end of the month.  I going to have to look into getting a dedicated line as it took a lot of time to get on line and get stuff done. Sheila came over and sent an email from her email site. Then we went over to the Elks at 5 PM for their fundraiser-- a spud night with all the trimmings for $8.00 each.  It seemed a bit pricey but as it was for a good cause & there was entertainment, we decided to go.  It turned out to be a great dinner!  The baked potatos were huge & perfectly baked—the skin was crispy & flavourful and in addition to butter, sour cream, shredded cheese & bacon bits, there two kinds of hot cheese sauce & chilli.  Also, they had a lettuce salad, plus 4 other salads—coleslaw, a pea/corn salad which was really flavourful, a layered vegetable salad and a salad containing chicken & tortilla chips; sweet buns and 5 different kinds of cakes!  All of “the extras” were made & donated by the ladies in the Elks auxiliary and boy can those ladies ever cook!  Dinner was a real feast!  The entertainment, a local  trombone group of 10 players was only so-so, ( they were obviously amateurs), but the food made up for it!  A nice evening.  We left to come home around 7 PM, then just puttered around in the RV doing blogs etc. and trying to find something on TV we both wanted to watch.  We finally found a show on Discovery channel about the Moonshiners in the Appalachian Mountains which Sheila found very interesting and I thought was barely OK but watched as there was nothing else on.  I stopped watching the show after an hour and went to bed around 10 pm but Sheila watched it till it ended at 11 pm.

Day 12 Jan 25 Friday

I got up to clear blue sky & sunshine, still cool in the mornings, (54 F at 9:15), but it warms up fast and is forecast to be over 70 F, usually around noonish.   Actual temps were 62 F at 10:00, 72 F @ 12:30.  After our usual morning W.V.B. we had lunch at the RV.  Then Sheila went up for the 1 pm W.V.B. game while I went out to check on tonight entertainment etc. at the Elks. I got a cpl grocery items on route home. Then went up to watch the PM WVB game till it was time for this Friday’s Wine & Cheese Welcome get together which was held in the sun on the patio by the pool Because one of the RV groups had reserved the ballroom.  We met up & sat with Larry & Judy.  After that ended, we came back home to get changed for tonight’s dinner/dance at the Elks.  Got there about 5:15 and got the menu to order and saw one thing that I had to ask the waitress about:  a 6 ounce Flat Iron Steak was $13.00, a 16 ounce bone in steak was $15.00.  According to the waitress, (and Sheila), the Flat Iron Steak is more flavourful and is more tender but the waitress thought the 16 ounce steak was a better deal, I did too so I had that, (it came with baked potato, green beans, butter & sour cream).  I actually had to get a doggie bag for a small portion of it & that was after giving Sheila a small slice.  Sheila had the $10.00 ‘petite filet’ steak but wasn’t impressed with it because it was over cooked, (well done rather than the medium), and quite dry.  We had nice table of 7 and they were pleasant company.  We left a bit before 9:00, despite the entertainment, Ambrose being really good, as I was tired.  Ambrose is a C&W singer with a very good voice who uses soundtracks to accompany himself.  He sang a varied selection of C/W, Rock n’ Roll and other popular songs—lots of danceable tunes.   We stopped at Stater Bros on route home as we needed more cereal and Sheila hadn’t put it on my list to get earlier. I find I go to bed earlier down here because I get up to start the furnace and have my coffee & breakfast before going up for the 10 am WVB game.  Sheila stays up much later tidying, watching TV, recording her walking & other physical activity for the day and then, of course, sleeps later and doesn’t get to WVB until 11:00 AM or later.

Day 11 Jan 24 Thursday

Day 11 Jan 24 Thursday

We arose to warmer weather, 54 F at 9:10 and 72 F by noon.  We also had our auxiliary propane heater on all night so it was nice & warm in the morning.  We went up to the pools, had a good W.V.B. game and then came home for a late lunch.  After lunch, we decided to go to an afternoon  movie as it was seniors cheap Thursday, ($7.20 each – it’s gone up a lot over the last few years, we used to get in for about $4.00 or less).  We went to UPSIDE, I wasn’t thrilled with it to start but by the end I quite liked it.   Afterwards, back at the RV Park Sheila started 2 loads of laundry in the new machines they installed in the laundry room while I made supper.  One good thing is that the machines take credit cards now, so no fiddling with coins or having to buy a prepaid card which you couldn’t cash in if you didn’t use it all before you left.  After, supper, we went over to the pool where they were playing a night volleyball game, and Sheila transferred our wash into the dryers.

They had quite a set up for WVB.  The ball was quite large, (2+ ft. in diameter), almost transparent and had small lights in it which flickered as it flew back & forth across the net on which they  had hung green lights and most of the players were wearing lighted, glowing cords around their neck, some had dressed up a bit even with lighted hats.  It was a very striking scene!  They had coffee, hot chocolate and fancy cakes & nibbles for after the game, plus a propane fire by the refreshment area. It looked like fun so I signed myself up for the next one on Feb 17.  Sheila thinks she would find it too cold, even though the pool water is quite warm.  As by now it was close to 7 PM we went in the clubhouse to play the Thursday night Mexican Train Domino’s till after 9 pm.  Then we picked up the laundry that Sheila had done and were finally home around 9:30.  Both of us were quite tired.  It had been a busy day!

Day 10 Jan 23 Wed

NOTE TO ALL, BECAUSE OF WiFi CONNECTION PROBLEMS I WILL BE POSTING 2 OR MORE DAYS AT A TIME.

Up & off to water volley ball.  Then a quick lunch and over to the clubhouse for the noon Hand & Foot game.  Of course the rules are different from what we play with the Roamers on our club outings & games days.  I like our rules better but I may try once more, it runs ever week on Wednesdays at 1 PM.  We finished about 3 or so and then went out in the car to try to find Sheila a nail place.  After no luck headed back home for supper.  Sheila phoned one place & found they could take her at 5:30 PM so she gave me instructions on what to make for supp & that she’d be back a bit after 6:15.  I fried up the fish, made steamed zucchini & a sort of instant rice type side dish, (which took longer than anything else).  And I had it ready for her. Well, knowing Sheila, I pushed the time up & had it ready about 6:55; she arrived home about 7:15. Not totally her fault, the shop was running late, but…. Anyway after supper we just relaxed in the RV.  I turned on the TV to the weather channel and they were doing several stories of people who had got stranded or lost and how they survived until found--some did not survive.  It was interesting as they had a survival expert explaining how they could have fared better and gave tips on surviving in similar circumstances; some I knew or was aware of, others were new so it was an interesting show.  Sheila found it very interesting also.