Missin’ the grapefruits already…

Who knew that waking up in the morning, wandering outside, and plucking a grapefruit off a tree only a few feet from your trailer… could be so refreshing?  Well it is… er… was.  We were really spoiled in both Yuma and Cathedral City with fruit trees only steps from our doors… and now, alas, we are on the road … dare I say?…. heading…. ugh…. north.  Not to say we’re not looking forward to being home and seeing our families and friends…. but, really!! My sister just wrote to say it was going UP to 10….  Ten what?  I say….  we’re already shivering in the mid 70’s.  Surely she is just playing with our goose-bump meters….

I digress… about the grapefruits…  my mom used to love grapefruit (juice) and my dad tried hard to eat one every morning… me?  I thought they were the sourest fruit in the store,,,  ‘cept maybe the oranges.  Seems I missed a step in the process…  appears that grapefruits grown on trees (not sprouting from boxes and onto shelves) … and plucked fresh in the morning (while the coffee is brewing) well… they’re just plain old fantastic.. and not sour.. They don’t even need a coating of sugar to be palatable.  Now…  if only I could find some of those marvellous “grapefruit spoons” we used to have growing up.  You know the ones.. curved in the middle so you could scoop out each segment without having to spend half your morning… cutting and slicing both sides of each little sinewy wall.. separating each of the little segments…. takes the fun out of it after a while…. but they’re still GOOOD>>>>  and I miss them. Guess it’s a good thing I did a little “harvesting” before we left this morning.. I think we have enough to get us to Seattle at least !!  :-)

Now then.. back to what’s happening… We tore ourselves away from The Outdoors Resort (Cathedral City) and, after returning our golf cart to it’s owner…and the key to the tennis court… and the.. well you get it… seems we’d moved right in and settled.  But.. once we got over the fact we were leaving.. it was okay.. and we started to look forward to new adventures..

So, here we are in Bakersfield, CA, at the Orange Grove RV Park, after an fairly uneventful drive north.  I say “fairly uneventful” because we did have a couple of mishaps.  Nothing we can’t deal with.. but… well, these things can happen…  First, we realized not too far out, that the battery was dead.  Not dying… but dead.  No problem.. we can run the fridge under the power from the truck (run through the umbilical cord) and we plan to be “plugging in” at RV parks all the way home anyway.  Well, then there was mishap #2.  Seems the umbilical cord has a mind of it’s own and was determined to do itself in while we travelled.  Thank goodness for one vehicle (only one mind you… of the hundred or so that passed us while we discussed why that one vehicle might have been beeping his horn and pointing at us as he passed…  ).  It’s amazing how many reasons you can dream up about why someone is pointing at you as you drive blindly on.. procrastinating about interrupting the northerly flow of motion… but, okay, we did.  Pulled off, stopped, and did a walk about… OOPS, aforementioned umbilical cord had decided to disengage from the connector, and then drag itself to an untimely death… upon the highway… double OOPS… We were in no place suitable for stopping and fixing such a situation (as if we could :-).  And so, we continued…. and got ourselves to the Orange Grove RV Park just like we’d planned….

So here we are, 7 plump oranges in the larder, a pizza just arriving, Sophie fed, watered and hunkered down under her pink ‘bink’… and Kathy setting up a movie for us to watch… Oh, and the “guy” is coming tomorrow to fix the connector.. and we’ll research what kind of battery to buy when we get home… (Kathy’s lovin’ all this research… :-)

Not sure where we’re headed tomorrow.  Depends how long the repairs take… but we’ll head somewhere north for sure…  ‘till then.. take good care.. talk to you soon…. CJ, K and PS.

We're doing fine... albeit's sure windy...

Hi folks. In case you're monitoring the weather in Palm Springs... just wanted you to know we're fine. Lots of wind and rain, but we're snug as bugs in a rug... tucked inside little Lucy.  It's pretty exciting tho'... watching all the problems being reported on our new TV !!  Fear not.  We will be fine.  Hope all of you are doing well... ttfn  CJ

Golf this morning, this must be Wednesday…

Yes, I’m delighted to report that one of my dreams about retirement has come true…. if even for just a few short weeks.  I’m playing golf and tennis (yup, tennis, believe it or not…) each week… and lovin’ it.  Kathy too has jumped into the tennis and golf ‘swing’ and she’s acquired a new (to her) Head tennis racket.. now resplendent with a new grip…  You see there’s a tennis clinic on Thursday afternoons for the newly bitten… er smitten and those of us that have had a bit of a lay off.  Now I don’t think they mean 38 years of a lay off but…. oh well, Brian (the coach) took me in anyway and has been working on my ‘very’ old fashioned style.  Seems backswing is ‘out’ and wrist is ‘in’…. Okay… I can do this…  and it feels good.  Kathy’s joining us this Thursday and she’s already picked up some of the drills I’ve showed her very well….  As well,we’ve had a chance  to golf several times.  Absolutely nothing consistent about either of our games… not yet anyway.  Hopefully time (and practice) will improve that.  If I haven’t mentioned it already, besides a swimming pool, hot tub and tennis court within a few hundred feet of us…  there is an 18 hole par 3 golf course, and a nine hole par 3.  It’s pretty hard not to get motivated to get up and get moving….

As you can tell, we like this place, and were supposed to be leaving this Saturday.  Note the use of the word ‘were’… Kathy has found us another spot so we can stay another 5 days.  That way we can wait out the rain storms that will be lashing the coast and north of us… and then it will be time to start winding our way north to home.

 

As you can see, little Lucy seems quite comfortable surrounded by her gigantic kin…

Tracey, the gal looking after 1398 has sent us some photos of the snow in Maple Bay.  Yikes… it reminds me of our first winter there… with snow up to our knees….  Can’t say I’m sorry we’re not there… but I sure hope it cleans up quickly for all of you guys up there and for sure, by the time we hit the border :-)  Chuck hasn’t had to deal with snow for several years (since he was a much younger lad) and Lucy… well she’s a southern girl… doesn’t even know what snow is ….  yet.

Guess that’s all our news for now…  The next time I write I’ll be telling you about a friend of ours who has had a terrible accident in Mexico. It’s the kind of thing that could happen to any one of us and I’ll be telling you about him and the event.

Until we write again… take good care… and be safe.  Hugs….  CJ 

Meet Lucy…

 

Finally!  It’s taken some time and lots of miles but we have finally invited ‘Lucy’ into our little fleet.  She’s a 2001 Casita Spirit Deluxe; a 17’ trailer built using a fibreglass shell which makes them lighter and less prone to leaks than most other trailers or campers.  We picked her up, as planned, in Henderson (a suburb of Las Vegas).  It was 5 PM on a Sunday by the time we’d closed the ‘doings’ so we headed to an RV park nearby… not just any RV Park mind you… “The Oasis” is pretty darn fancy.  It’s so fancy that they weren’t sure they’d let us in… thinking we were a pop up tent trailer or something (given the size and the fact the manager didn’t get up to come out and see for himself)….  Even their checking in procedure is fancy.  The security guard at the front gate directs you to a series of parking lanes… your choice, but pick one.  Then you go into the huge Oasis main building (which houses a store, a restaurant, offices, a gym, and access to the two (TWO) tiered and landscaped pools)… anyway, I digress.  You register and pick up your information package inside the building, then return to your vehicle and find your way (using the map) through the RV park to your little pull through pad…  It’s really quite nice, good neighbours, a picnic table (we’ve no chairs yet) and grass for the ‘girl’ (PS). 

 

This place has huge rigs… all but one (a tent trailer that ‘did’ get in… go figure)… but the rest are huge..  Many tow other vehicles in trailers or on platforms… all look like they must be millionaires… and then there’s us :-)   Oh, and a chicken… yup, a real live one, harness and all…. (note the pigeons keeping it company… or was it the food they were after?)

Anyway, back to Lucy.  We hooked her up (after having to turn the hitch over to raise the height of the front) and towed her to this RV park.  We needed to stay here until today (Tuesday) as Kathy has some business to conduct with the DMV to finish the trailer paperwork.  We spent Monday cleaning (rather I should say Kathy spent Monday cleaning… she worked her ____ off). 

Me?  Well, as there’s really only room for one person crawling in and out of cupboards with a cleaning rag… I worked on things outside, like sorting out the piles of stuff crammed in to Chuck…  Anyway, by 3 PM we were good and ready to watch two young fellows (this place is so big they have companies making a living off the transients) wash and wax little Lucy…  Their price was more than fair and we figured they could do a better and faster job than we’d ever do.

 

So, here it is… Tuesday morning.  Kathy’s away at the DMV and I’m supposed to be getting Lucy ready to go…  Today we head back to The Outdoor Resort in Cathedral City (suburb of Palm Springs) where we’ll stay until the end of the month (rough life, I know). Chores are calling so must leave you for now.

 

Hope all is well with all of you… stay warm…  Hugs, CJ

It’s Wednesday… must be time for a catch up…

Well m’lords and ladies… ‘tis high time I offered up a morsel of an update for your discerning eyes…. not that I have a lot to report (although I do have some good news) and not that there’s much exciting to report (and that’s a good thing as our goal has been to slow things down a bit…)… but time for a report it is.. and so hereafter it follows (is that proper grammar?  oh well, you know what I mean), hereafter follows an accounting of our whereabouts…

But news we do have… FIRST, we’re having a GREAT time here in The Outdoor Resort.  We have rented a fifth wheel and Kathy, Marg and I have been having a grand time.  Ron and Dal have been kind enough to ferry us about, showing Marg some of the sights of downtown Palm Springs including the night market and some of their favourite restaurants (even one with bottomless champagne… hiccup!!). The rest of our time has been mostly about relaxing… enjoying quiet times for reading, a little walking and golf, and time by the pool for swimming, hot tubbing, and tanning…. (repeat as necessary). The week is flying by but tomorrow (it’s actually Thursday now…) is Valentine’s Day and we plan to celebrate well with BBQ steak and lobster… a home-cooked dinner… with Ron & Dal.  Marg leaves us Saturday morning and we’re going to miss her very much… but the cold winds of BC are calling her back and so we must let her go.

More good news… we have a trailer!!  A 2001 17’ Casita travel trailer awaits our arrival.  The little trailer is in Henderson, Nevada and will join our ‘fleet’ as soon as we can get there to complete the deal. We will take ourselves off (back) to Henderson on Sunday morning… to pick up our ‘new’ addition.  We have reserved a parking pad back at The Outdoor Resort and, all going well, we’ll have the little trailer back ‘here’ for a week or so… to get used to it, check it out, and enjoy all that this place has to offer us.  We’ll send photos once we have them.

So that’s about where we are right now.  We’re ‘here’ for now, heading ‘there’ on the weekend.. and we’ll be back ‘here’ shortly thereafter.  With luck, we’ll have a couple weeks to work on our tans and swimming & golf prowess before it will be time to head back to BC and home.  We hope all is well with all of you…. and we wish you a very happy Valentine’s Day…  ttfn.. CJ, K, and PS

Here’s some photos… as usual you get to mix ‘n match the sub-titles….

Colourful California trucks;  A cozy setting in Jake’s backyard; Jake’s beautiful pool; and more great backyard; Putting anyone?; Working in the galley; Kathy and mom with ‘Marilyn’; BIG Lady;  Ron, Marg, Dal & CJ pre-champagne; Three amigas golf cartin’ – main mode of transport at The Outdoor Resort.

We are so lucky to live in Canada…

Updates.. first about our journey… then about … well… ‘right’ and just plain ‘wrong’.

First the journey:

Las Vegas…Las Vegas….  (well at least Henderson, NV… still littered with casinos and slot machines :-) My sisters will never believe we actually got that close and didn’t drop one single quarter into a machine…  Oh well, we’ll be back. 

This trip was, of course, to take a look at a 2001 Casita 17’ travel trailer… I’d mentioned they are hard to find, and indeed, we’ve missed out on several because the first person to view, bought.  So, when Kathy spoke with the owner of this trailer and, voila, it was still available… well, we decided to make a run for it; and so began our trek to Nevada.

The drive from Williams to Nevada was, in a word, LONG.  We slipped (that’s nautical for ‘left’, but I have to stay in practice.. it’s been so long I feel like I’m losing my edge)…  we slipped Williams at 0500 hrs… and headed out onto the southbound roadways, highways, slip roads, and dippsy doodles…  It takes two of us to navigate our way in and out of each city.. well actually three if you count Emily the GPS without which we would be totally lost.  Once onto clear roadways we charged south, driving…driving…driving…  Our breaks were shorter than normal (dear Sophie didn’t even complain.. just did her part) but we had to keep going as it was to be the longest drive yet. We knew we needed to stay out of the mountains, what with the cold weather, rain, and possibly snow that was being forecast in higher elevations, so we skirted the row of National parks and mountains that run down the center of California… all the way to almost Bakersfield, at which point we curved east and began to cross the state on route to Nevada. We arrived in Henderson at 1700 hrs and were able to have our first view of the trailer before dark. It was perfect.

The trailer needs a little clean up but, basically, it’s all there and in good condition. You can google 17’ Casita Spirit Deluxe if you want to see what it looks like.  This is the one with not only the usual table with bench seats that drops to a double, but also a smaller table with two seats that drops to a single… plus a toilet and shower, closet/hanging locker, fridge, two burner stove, microwave and air conditioner with a heat strip; all in a 17’ trailer light enough for Chuck to tow. We’ve laid claim to it (deposit paid) and will meet the owner (who lives elsewhere) on or around Feb. 16th (at which time I’ll no doubt invest a little into the Nevada infra-structure) to transfer the paperwork and complete the sale.  This works out very well for us as we’re due in Cathedral City on the 8th for a week with Kathy’s mom and friends Ron & Dal.

The next morning (yesterday) we headed off again.. this time heading west towards La Quinta and dear friend Jake.  La Quinta is a very cool place, small, and near to Palm Springs… lots of history and gorgeous homes (including Jake’s)… We’re here now, being spoiled by Jake and enjoying the chance to catch up.  Tomorrow we head to Cathedral City…. today we kick back and relax. Kath’s got some work to do and I may have some shopping to do, but other than that… this is a wonderful place to put our feet up and rest.

It seems kind of funny tho’… our friends Alison and Craig are camping on the beach in Chacala (remember our absolute favourite anchorage) and we’re travelling through the ‘best’ of civilization… (still missing Chacala).  But, life goes on and so shall we.  In case you’re wondering… no, we have not given up on sailing… just making the best use of our time we can… and continuing to watch the ‘doings’ in Mexico.  FYI, most of the boats have been released now… and we’re waiting to see what rules the MX government will decide to impose on future foreign cruisers…  we may or may not qualify…. only time will tell.

 Now the bad news… and what is so terribly ‘wrong’…

We continue to read with deep sadness of the violence and hatred being levelled against gays in Russia and ask that you take a moment to learn about what is going on. This life throws many challenges at all of us, many we can’t do much about, but some we can.  Opening ourselves to at least be educated as to what is going on is a first and major step. Please take a few minutes to read through the information contained on the following sites; and then follow your conscience.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/02/04/winter-olympics-winter-games-russian-anti-gay-laws/5210651/

http://www.globalnews.ca/news/1128646/rights-group-releases-video-of-russia-anti-gayattacks-ahead-of-suchi/

http://www.allout.org

Thanks for taking the time to learn about and monitor what is going on in Russia and other countries.  These atrocities must be stilled somehow and acknowledging they are occurring seems like the logical first step.

As for our current journey… for now, we work towards one of our other goals… or several of them.. relax, get healthy, slow down a bit… soon.  :-)  For now, we say adios and we’ll write again next week…  Know we’re well and thinking of you…  CJ

Beautiful, brilliant nature !!

Monday & Tuesday – Feb 3&4

Close your eyes, clear your mind… drink in nature’s beauty (or, at least, share a sip) with me…

Brilliant blue skies over seas building… stronger and higher as they course towards the shallows and crash upon the rocks and beach, clouds (low) and fog mingling with the mists pushed up from the waves crashing on shore and spraying Chuck as we pass.  Thick, ever-green forests towering over the roads… so tall they block the sun and the sign says “headlight area ahead”  … And that was just one short passage of a long day of driving. 

We have had two days of fantastic views provided by mother nature.  Not just the redwood forests, not just the open Pacific ocean as far as we could see, and not just the beautiful beaches (Sophie just loved to frolic on every chance she got)…. but later, this afternoon, such wide open and flat expanses you could just picture the wagon trains spread out meandering their way towards a far-away horizon and praying nothing bad would happen while they had no cover.  And then, if they actually made it across the flats, how on earth did they manoeuvre through the deep and treacherous river gorges and valleys?  We thought often about our forefathers and mothers… and how courageous and strong they must have been to have even attempted to pass through this terrain on their journeys north and west. 

And, oh boy, did we enjoy the Fish Market, a fresh seafood cafe, right on the water of the harbour at Bandon.. the neatest little town… with the bestest fish and chips.  And then there was Brookings; what a cool place.  Folks come from all over to fish the rivers in the area.  The only sort of bad thing that happened there is that, while driving down a darkish street looking for the evening meal, we accidently drove over broken glass.  That wasn’t the worst.  While out checking the tires I found no glass embedded (that was good) but I did find a self-tapping screw drilled right into one of the tires (that wasn’t good).  All tires still being round we had dinner and headed back to our motel.  The next day (this morning) I got up early and headed back 4 blocks (Brookings isn’t very big) to the Les Schwab Tire Center… got there an hour before they opened and walked right in.  Told my story to the nice young man who signed Chuck up for the first appointment.  Not only did these folks fix the ‘screwed’ tire, but they checked all four for glass, checked the tire pressure in all five.. and had the whole thing finished by 0830 hrs.  And then, they charge me $0.00 for the service!!  Wouldn’t even take a donation to their slush fund.. nada.  Just a smile and a hand-shake and I was on my way.  Well done Les Schwabb… thank you !!

Today’s drive took us through the red-wood forest and up to an elevation of at least 3500 feet.  The good news is it was a dry and sunny 3500 feet and Chuck did the hills just fine.  We finally arrived in Williams, had a nice dinner and have checked in to our hotel. Tomorrow we will be leaving early (0500 hrs.) as we have a date to look at a Casita trailer in Henderson, Nevada.  We’ve been watching for one of these for some time now… they’re rare as hens teeth and sell even faster; sometimes only hours after being listed.  Kathy has spoken with a fellow who owns one currently stored in Henderson and we hope it will still be there when we arrive.  So…. it’s to bed early tonight and up before dawn….  Chuck’s gassed and oiled and aired and ready to go. The princess is already asleep and snoring away… dreaming of sandpipers on foam sprayed beaches… and Kathy’s researching insurance, sales and tax laws in Nevada, California, Washington and Arizona.  Me, I’m just chatting with you all… and hoping that life is going well for you and yours….  Take good care.. talk again soon….  CJ