Wednesday, January 31st - Around Palm Springs

Today I started off with a breakfast made by the volunteers here at the RV resort...pretty good. Then we drove over to check out another RV park to move to when our three day stay here is over (Friday). Looks great so we paid in advance for one week at Indian Wells RV Park, about a mile from Madra and Rod's home.

Later we drove thru LaQuinta, Rancho Mirage and downtown Palm Springs. We then drove west on I-10 thru the San Gorgonio Pass and the "windmill farm". There are literally THOUSANDS of these wind turbines. The wind blows almost constantly thru this pass.

MA cooked porkchops and grits with shrimp cocktails for dinner. It was great!

BTW...did you know that you can click on the small thumbnail pic to get a larger view of any pic that interests you?

Tuesday, January 30th - to Palm Springs

Left Blythe, CA this morning and rolled into the Palm Springs, CA area, specifically, Indio, about 20 miles east of PS. We are parked at Indian Waters RV Resort, a nice park owned by Western Horizon Resorts. It is an "ownership" operation and we are committed to attend a 90 minute presentation on Thursday. For that, we get three nights of free accommodations.

After dinner, we visited with Madra and Rod Knaak in Indio. Madra is a long-time friend of MA' s from high school days in Monroe. She has been in California since the late 1960's and we last saw her in the mid-1970's when she lived in the Los Angeles area. We plan to have dinner with Madra and Rod Saturday evening at their beautiful home. This is a pic of their pool, waterfall with a gas fire feature that Rod built in, and the fire pit to the left of the waterfall.

Monday, January 29th - Heading to USA!

Got packed up and on the road back to USA around 8:30am. We traveled individually but because of the number of RV's (80+) we were sort of in groups as we crossed the border. We were anticipating MANY questions and a possible on-board inspection at US Customs. But, they asked us if we are US citizens and where we were going and waved us on thru.

We stopped at the first McDonald's we saw, in Gila Bend, AZ and then drove to Blythe, CA. where we are in for the night in the K-Mart parking lot.

Good to be back home!

Sunday, January 28th - Last Day in Mexico

Today we began our last day in Mexico be sleeping late and feasting, once again, on the breakfast buffet at the nearby restaurant. Later we cleaned the coach interior and helped prepare for the afternoon Jambalaya dinner put on by Fred and Marlyn Walton. All of the 160 or so Newmar rally participants were invited and nearly 100 did come. Most folks brought salad, dessert, etc. MA fixed her (now famous) jalapeno, cream cheese and sausage poppers. Small problem, though...only sausage available in Puerto Penasco was chorizo and that did not bake very well...looked bad and fell off the peppers...plus was EXTRA spicy...too hot for the general population. Fortunately, she borrowed some Jimmy Dean sausage and also used bacon to save the day.

After dinner, we all went to the beach to watch the sunset. Because of the scattered clouds, this sunset was a category 10! One of the 2-3 very best we have seen in our lives!

Friday, January 26th - Sunset Cruise

This morning MA wanted to look for more shells so we returned to Cholla Bay and scoured the rocky beach. We went walking along "Shacks, Fifth Avenue" and later in the old town of Puerto Penasco.

About 76 of us contributed $20 each for a sunset "dinner" cruise on the Fiesta boat. All the margaritas and beer you want. The dinner was REALLY skimpy and bad but the drinks kept flowing. All I will say is that MA and I both really enjoyed the evening. There will be no pix posted because what happens in Mexico stays in Mexico. That was the agreement going in to the week and I will abide by that. However, let it be said that we saw a different side of B.xx, MxxxAxxxx, Sxxxxx, Txxxx, Cxxx, Jxx, Fxxx, Mxxxxx, Rxxxxxx and many others! I should tell you that there was a dancing "pole" and some of the ladies(?) looked like they had previous experience.

Thursday, January 25th - Off-Roading

After breakfast, MA and I drove our Jeep, along with Jan & Ken Tilton on their 2-seat ATV and Carol & Troy Ray on their individual ATV's on some very sandy off-road trails. Very quickly we got stuck in DEEP sand but Ken gave us a jerk backwards and we recovered. We learned to stay away from the really deep, soft sand. We stopped in the dusty village of Cholla Bay at JJ's Cantina for some nachos and cerveza's.

Later there was a Mexican Fiesta buffet at the nearby rest. that was excellent! This was followed by a beach fire after sundown but it was way too cold and windy for us. We holed up in the cozy confines of our coach and watched TV.

Tuesday, January 23rd - Puerto Penasco

This morning we started with a breakfast buffet at the restaurant adjacent to the RV park. $6.50 for a wonderful selection of fruits, migas, omelets, juices, pancakes, etc. Later we drove into the old area and up the highest point (puerto) overlooking the town and the harbor. We enjoyed the view while sipping on a couple Dos XX's cervezas.




MA went shopping with Marlyn & Birgit while I supervised the washing and waxing of the coach ($1.50 per foot + &6.00 for the roof). Then I did my own inside cleaning and defrosting the refrigerator.

Later a group of 14 of us ate dinner at the La Casa del Capitan restaurant (I had Camarones (shrimp) in a thermador sauce and MA had Carne Asada.

Monday, January 22nd - Into Mexico

This morning we were the second group of eight coaches to leave (6:20am). We stopped in the village of Why, AZ to get coffee & breakfast burritos and shortly thereafter crossed the international border into Mexico. The border crossing was a non-event, simply drove thru only contending with several speed bumps.

The border town of Sonoyta (very poor & dirty) had a speed limit of 20 km/hr (12 mph) so it took a little while to get going. It is a 67 mile drive from the border to Puerto Penasco, situated on the far northern tip of the Sea of Cortez, aka the Gulf of California. As most Mexican towns, it is very poor but has the good fortune to be located in a beautiful spot. The area around the playas (beaches) had attracted US and Canadian dollars and are being built up with high-rise condos and hotels. Our RV park is right on the water, just a short barrier wall separate us from the water, sand and beach vendors.

These are pix of the group that we played with in Quartzsite plus Fred & Marlyn and Birgit & Raymond, friends from our home chapter, the Bayou Kruisers in Louisiana and sunset from the open-air bar here at the RV park.

Sunday, January 21st - Heading South

This morning, six coaches "caravaned" down to Gila Bend, Arizona, the staging area for the Newmar caravan into Mexico tomorrow. We are in the parking lot of the Elks Club. There are ten rows of RV's, usually eight deep. We begin leaving Monday morning at 6:00am. Meanwhile, we ate a catered chicken BBQ dinner served right in the parking lot. We all gathered the food and returned to our coaches because it was too windy and chilly to be eating outside.

More "Sights" of Quartzsite

Sunset and a rainbow taken from the Newmar "Town Center"

Some people will park their cars anywhere!

Quartzsite, Arizona

After one week in this godforsaken place in the Sonoran Desert, I think that we can safely say that we have seen it, we know what it is about and we have visited it for the first and last time. Now our disdain for the concept of tens of thousands of RV's of all shapes and condition meeting up in the desert with no running water, has a foundation. No longer do we "not know what we are talking about"! We did the flea markets, drove in the MASSIVE traffic jams, ate the food of the desert, snacked on their $4.25 cinnamon rolls, hikes the trails, gingerly removed cacti from our shoes and participated in the events and seminars put on by Newmar (our coach manufacturer).

We were amongst about 250 Newmar coaches situated six miles south of the "town center". We had to run the generator about 5 hours each day to keep up the batteries, especially to run the propane furnace. It got down into the low 20's at night. One day it rained all day.

We are both glad we did this...just to say we did and mark one more item off the "to do" list.

Saturday, January 13th - To Quartzsite!

This morning, Terry & Sylvia and our new friends, Ken & Jan, packed up and drove the 80 miles north to Quartzsite. Before we left, we filled the fresh water tank and drained the holding tanks, because we now are faced with NINE days/nights of dry camping in the desert! We also topped off the fuel tanks in anticipation of having to run our generator a good bit.

The drive was uneventful and desolate. As we entered the valley from the south, thousands of RV's were visible across the panorama. We are told that there will be many tens of thousands MORE RV's here within the next week. For now, we are dry-camping in the area set aside for the "Boomers" of the Escapees Club.

Terry & Sylvia drove us in to "town" which was already very crowded with pedestrians, cars, RV's and vendors. The BIG RV show starts on the 20th and that is the height of the population explosion that happens here every winter. We ate lunch at a Carl's Jr. and went to visit more Escapee friends of Terry & Sylvia. Everybody here is so friendly.

Friday, January 12th - A Change of Plans

We started off today with a hearty breakfast at Denny's in Douglas, AZ.

We had planned to visit the mining town of Bisbee, AZ and the historic town of Tombstone, AZ while heading to Tuscon for a few days. After breakfast I called good friends, Terry and Sylvia Hix, who we planned to meet in Quartzsite, AZ next Wednesday. I wanted to see where they were. Turns out they were in Yuma, Arizona and they invited us to join them for dinner tonight in Yuma. This was at 11:00am. We accepted and made a very mad dash (driving 70-75mph) to Yuma, on the opposite side of Arizona, about 360 miles away. Got there around 4:45 and after parking the coach, joined Terry & Sylvia and about 30 of their friends at a charming Mexican rest. in historic Yuma. Great food, great new friends! We are parked in an RV-homesite community that features VERY large, individually owned, RV lots with room for three RV's and their tow vehicles. Some lots have homes or casitas, always with parking for the RV.

Thursday, January 11th

Happy Birthday, Dad!

We drove the Jeep several miles south of Las Cruces to the village of Messila, NM. We walked around the square for a while and then ate lunch at La Posta Mexical Restaurant. We had eaten there two years ago on our way to Alaska and really liked it. No exception today.

We drove west past Lordsburg, NM and then headed south to Douglas, Arizona, driving thru mostly barren and desolate landscape. Douglas is situated on the Arizona/Mexico border. From our parking spot, we could hear the dogs barking across the creek in Mexico. Douglas is a copper mining town with 86% Hispanic population.

Wednesday, January 10th

Drove from Junction, TX thru El Paso to Las Cruces, NM. We got our last "cheap" diesel fuel for a while. El Paso had $2.37 and when we hit Arizona, California, etc. the price of diesel fuel goes up!

We pulled into the Las Cruces Wal-Mart for the night. After dinner at the nearby Cracker Barrel, we returned to the coach. There were several dozen other RV moochers there as well. There was a crew there to re-stripe the Wal-Mart parking lot so they asked us to move. Being that we are unpaying guests of "WallyWorld" we readily complied. It just took about five minutes to close up the coach, move to a different area and re-setup for the night.

January 9th - On the Road - Again!

This morning we packed up the coach, filled the fresh water and dumped the holding tanks (I hope I did not get that backwards!) and headed toward Arizona. Our destination is Quartzsite, Arizona, on I-10 very near the Arizona - California border. It is desert. And neither MA nor I can figure out why 150,000 vehicles make this their winter home. No water, electrical nor sewer hook-ups. It makes absolutely no sense to us. We have a habit of showing our disdain for things we do not understand. SO, we will endeavor to understand this phenomenon...Quartzsite. They get us for FOUR days to make their case.

We stopped for lunch in Fredericksburg, TX. We ate at Engles Deli, a place known for their German food. After lunch MA wanted to visit the Garden of Beaden across the street. While there, I added our name to the guest register and noticed the name of a lady named Chrissy that I worked with back in 2000 from AOL/Netscape. It is a unique name and I was certain that it was her...it was! She had been visiting the Austin area over Christmas from her home near San Francisco. Small world!

We settled in for the night at a small campground near Junction, Texas.

Elvis's 71st and Berri's 30th !!!

January 8th would have been Elvis' 71st birthday and it IS Berri's 30th birthday! Her friends at work took her to lunch at The Cheesecake factory in Austin and Berri asked us to be a part of it too. We very much enjoyed their company! Then MA went to Berri's home and prepared Berri's special request: Mexican Chicken Cassarole and Texas Sheet Cake for dinner.
My Baby is 30!!!

Jasper gets a Minor Overhaul

Jasper Jeep has been with us for almost six years now. Only 70,000 miles on the odometer BUT over 90,000 additional miles being towed behind a motorhome. Jasper finally asked that we do a major tune-up and replace his radiator and hoses. We had this done while we drove a rent car to Kansas City and Jasper is ready to go again!

A Sad Goodbye

Christmas night, my Uncle Floyd passed away suddenly at his home in Overland Park, Kansas. Floyd was a very dear uncle and mentor to me. MA & I drove to Kansas City for the services which were beautiful. I had the great privilege to deliver the eulogy, along with MA. Uncle Floyd was a great influence in my golfing, business and personal life. He WILL be missed!

Berri & Colin's for Christmas Season

In mid-December we traveled over to the Austin, Texas area, Lake Georgetown, specifically and camped there for 27 days. Berri & Colin had JUST moved in to their beautiful new home the week-end before we arrived. They had only begun to unpack when we arrived to HELP???

While they were working we decorated the home for Christmas because Ashley, Javi, Cammy & Ceci were coming! They arrived on December 19th and stayed until Christmas day. Unfortunately, EVERYONE except Javi got a stomach virus. First Cammy, then Ceci, then cousin Andy's boys, Hayden & Jacob, visiting from Arlington. Then Bob & MA together...then Ashley & Berri together, finally Colin and Andy and Michelle. What a week!

But, even tho we missed opening presents on Christmas Eve as a family, we thoroughly enjoyed seeing them.

Monroe for Doctors Visits

We left Ashley's on the Monday after Thanksgiving and spent two weeks back in Monroe, LA getting medical check-ups and both of us trying to shake sinus infections. In fact, the doc suspected that MA had pneumonia but an X-ray disproved that. The results were all good so we are go for another year. In fact, MA has suggested that we not wait for the one-year anniversary of selling Monroe (April 11th) and commit now to go for a second year on the road. Fine by me! We spent the two weeks with electrical hook-up only in the parking lot of Jerry Carter's office building. Thanks, Jerry!

I did have to pack up the coach and make a trip to a rest area on I-20 to empty the holding tanks and refill the fresh water.

We got to visit and share meals with many friends while in Monroe including new friends, Gerald and Regina Breland who purchased our home from us back in April. They showed us thru THEIR home and they have made wonderful changes which show off the home in a warm manner.

Catching Up...Thanksgiving-to-New Years Day

Thanksgiving
We celebrated this holiday at Ashley & Javi's home in Simpsonville, SC. Tony and Misty drove in from Hot Springs, AR and we cooked one turkey in the oven and Javi fried one outside. We finished up our month at Scuffletown USA RV Park and moved the coach to Ash & Javi's driveway. It was a great holiday and we really wish Berri & Colin could have made it...too far, too short of time.