October, 2005
page 1
For more of our October adventures,
please click on "forward" above.
Our
first week in the Palm Springs area during the last few days of September had
been pretty "low-key." Mary had pulled some muscles in her back moving the
picnic table from our parking site when we had arrived and then had spent
several days moving slowly and carefully from the bed to the park's hot tub
and back again. But we finally got out and on the road to adventure.
One day we decided that looking at some model homes might be interesting...just
to see what the Palm Springs area has to offer to retirees...and it would be
something easy and air-conditioned. We ended up going out in a van with a
saleslady to look at a section under construction. She obviously wasn't
well prepared and organized because, as we reached the furthest point from her
office, only about a mile - down a dirt trail and away from any current
construction activity, we ran out of gas!! Good news....Tom
had his cell phone (saleslady had none)...bad news...low battery...good
news...we were able to make several calls to the office...bad
news...nobody there seemed to know how to find us as we waited about 45 minutes
out in the desert in 105*....good news...one last call to the saleslady's
husband brought him to us in only five minutes. We could have walked, but
the saleslady refused to let us do that. Needless to say, we really
weren't interested in buying a house anyway. We discovered that new homes
(2 bedrooms, 1800 sq. ft.) in gated retirement communities here in the
Coachella Valley start at about $500,000 and go up. We visited several
other developments and RV parks, too, but there wasn't anything exciting to
us.
We
continued to spend a part of each day in Palm Springs at the pool. The
temperature was always at least 100*. We went to the Open-Air Market at
the County Fairgrounds (where we had attended an FMCA Rally last January) but
were not impressed with its offerings. We also went to the College of the
Desert Street Fair which is held every Saturday and Sunday morning.
It was quite nice. And of course, we couldn't pass up checking out a
casino, so we stopped at the Agua Caliente. Probably the nicest stop
during our stay was at the "Living Desert." We walked the 2 mile
trail through the various "eco-systems" of the wildlife and botanical park
where we saw lots of desert-living animals and plants from all over the
world. Another interesting exhibit at the Living Desert is their model
train exhibit. It is at least an acre in size and was built and is
maintained by a crew of devoted volunteers. It has model sized scenery
representing places all over the US and an intricate system of various trains,
tracks, trestles and
bridges.
One thing that makes your stay in the Coachella Valley very pleasant is that
they obviously have lots of zoning ordinances...all construction sites are
surrounded by green privacy fences, most of the residential areas are
"walled-in" and commercial areas are very well landscaped, all with access
to main streets very limited. So, no matter the direction you go, when you
drive down the main streets, they are usually three lanes in each
direction, lined with lots of flowers and palm trees, no signs (making it
difficult for us out-of towners to find things like Wal*Mart), and gorgeous
mountains in the distance.
When our time at the Palm Springs Thousand Trails
Preserve was over, we moved on to the Pio Pico Preserve southeast of San Diego,
California. We made the move on September 36th..at least that's what the
staff at Pio Pico will tell you. During October last year, Pio Pico was
evacuated because of floods. The year before (2003) the park was evacuated
because of wildfires. Luckily in both cases, damage was minor and nobody
was hurt. But, they decided they didn't want to have an October this
year. We can understand - and also hope they don't have a
recurrence. And, of course, somebody at the weekly manager's meeting asked
if there had been any earthquakes! However, leaving Palm Springs we
had to take our second choice of routes because of fires near the Palm Springs
area and then when we got to Pio Pico we were told that a new fire had started
about 15 miles east of the park. Both were relatively
small.
Pio Pico is a very large park with lots of amenities. It is
Thousand Trails #3 park in usage and we can see why. There are two sets of
pools and spas, three activity buildings, a restaurant and store, and tons of
outdoor activities with a professional recreation staff. And for us
"out-of-towners" there are many things to see and do in the San Diego
area.
Our
first tourist trip from Pio Pico was to the Olympic Training Center in Chula
Vista, less than 10 miles from the park. The center provides free
room and board, training and medical care to qualified athletes training in
various sports (including skiing and bobsled), but mainly track and field,
archery and field hockey. The women's soccer program has just moved to a
new facility in Carson, CA, closer to a university to enable the soccer players
to have easier educational opportunities. They wouldn't allow us
inside the actual facilities other than the visitor center, but we did get to
watch some archers practice with those big complicated-looking bows and pencil
thin arrows. The campus is in a beautiful setting and was built with money
from foundations and donations, mainly ARCO.
The
Dutch Star parked among the date palms at the Thousand Trails Palm Springs
Preserve. There were only about 30 rigs in the 300 spaces available while
we were there.
Our
granddaughter, Merrick, should have been with us to see all the Desert Tortoises
at the Living Desert. She is a "nut" for turtles.
When
in Palm Springs, they'll snack on the palms.....some of the giraffes at the
Living Desert.
Some
of the many windmills on the "windfarms" near Palm Springs providing some
of the area's electricity.
Archers practicing at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista,
CA.
The
Olympic Flame burns 24/7 on the central plaza at the training
center.
For more of our October adventures,
please click on "forward" or "back" above.
October, 2005
page 2
The
town of Coronado is south of San Diego along the Pacific Ocean. We enjoyed
a drive through the town and a walk along the beach one afternoon and wondered
what it would be like to live in one of the well-kept homes in the neighborhoods
near the water. The Hotel Del Coronado is a huge, beautiful Victorian
structure built in the 1880s and still in use
today.
We also took short drives to two Mexican border towns...Tecate and
Tijuana. Tecate is a small "working man's town" and didn't offer much in
the way of shopping or activities for tourists. Tijuana is the large,
bustling and busy city and the area close to the border
is lined with merchants waiting for the US shoppers. The funny
thing is that the US side of the border has a huge outlet mall - much more
prosperous-looking than most of the outlet malls we've stopped at in the last
several months of travel - and there was a steady stream of people walking from
the center back to the border crossing carrying big bags from the stores - and
most of the cars in the parking lot had Mexican license plates. Both sides
have a big McDonald's! We managed to get through both areas without buying
a thing.
Balboa
Park in central San Diego is acres and acres of beautiful parks and many
museums. It would take weeks to see it all. The San Diego Zoo is one
of the parks and it was quite busy the day we visited in spite of it being
mid-week. The exhibits are spread out over many of the very hilly and
lushly landscaped acres. We took a tour on a double-decker bus and a
ride on the "sky-tram" to get the "lay of the land" before we tackled walking
the trails, which include escalators in several places. We saw many
typical zoo animals but quite a few species that we hadn't seen before, but the
"usuals" are still our favorites.
The
Hotel Del Coronado along the Pacific shore in Coronado, CA
Traffic and shopping opportunities approaching the US border in Tijuana,
Mexico
Anybody for a swim?
Open
wide!
How
about an afternoon snack! Bamboo anyone?
The
Carillon tower in Balboa Park
The
Marine Corps Miramar Air Station presented the 50th Anniversary Air Show over
the October 15th weekend. We joined the thousands of observers who lugged
chairs and refreshments from distant parking lots and spent the day watching
various airplanes and their pilots "do their thing." There were
wingwalkers and acrobatic flyers, attack jets and stealth bombers as well as the
Golden Knights Parachute Team, the Blue Angels and a Heritage Team of older
aircraft. The weather was sunny and in the high 70s with a nice breeze...a
great day to be outdoors. It's amazing what some people will do for fun
and what they can do with an airplane.
One of
the Golden Knights brought the American Flag for Opening Ceremonies of the
Miramar Air Show.
Special delivery....do you need a Howitzer? The Marine Air-Ground
Task Force put on a demo assault using various craft and support
vehicles.
The
Patriots Team flies L-39 jets.
My
photography skills aren't good enough to have captured great photos of the
stealth fighters and many of the other speedy aircraft.
October, 2005
page 3
For more of our October adventures,
please click on "back" above.
Summer
finally took its exit. We had several days of clouds and occasional heavy
rain. Luckily, our Thousand Trails Preserve was not threatened with any
floods...they were quite pleased. Although we're not coffee drinkers, we
gathered on two mornings with other campers for coffee and pastry, sharing
adventures of travel as well. Also during our stay at Pio Pico, we went
exploring and found nice shopping and restaurant areas in both directions from
the park, each about the same distance away. One has a wonderful produce
market which we took advantage of several times.
Driving to Leucadia in northern San Diego County, we had a great visit
one evening with Mary's cousin George Bredehoft and his wife Tonya. They
gave us a tour of their home, which they are planning to extensively re-model in
the near future, and we enjoyed a tasty dinner out together...catching up on
family news and adventures. We figured out that it was 1968 when we
were last together...and our visit was all too short. We'll try not to
make it such a long time till our next visit.
Our
time at Pio Pico was up on October 20 (we're allowed 14 days at a time in the
Thousand Trails parks), so on that Thursday morning we did our "travel
routine." We made it almost to the point of departure in good time, but
then discovered a blown fuse in the car's auxiliary power port which we use to
plug in the "Brake Buddy." It took us a while to figure out what the
problem was and in the process, blew a second fuse...a situation that will need
further checking when we have a more resources. Once on the road, we drove
to the Viejas Casino on I-8, near Alpine, CA. There we got together
with our friends, Bonnie and Don Wolfe, who live in Las Vegas but were visiting
their daughter who lives just a few minutes from the casino. We went to
lunch at the casino buffet and enjoyed a 2 hour visit. Then it was on east
on I-8 to Yuma, AZ where we checked into the Araby Acres RV Park.
Mary's
cousin, George Bredehoft and his wife, Tanya, in Leucadia, CA.
We
enjoyed our stay in San Diego County...the beach, the rolling hills, the
palm trees and flowers. There are a lot of things we didn't see and do and
hopefully we'll be in the area again sometime to check them off the
list.
From
our spot in Yuma we were just a few miles to the Mexican border crossing at Los
Algodones. We made trips on Friday and Saturday both - to do some
shopping and to get new eyeglasses. Admittedly, they are not quite the
same quality as ones we may have purchased in the US, but we think they look
good (and most importantly, we can see through them!) and you can't beat the
price. We ended up with four pairs of glasses for $180 and two McDonald's
sandwiches that we took across to the optician who loves them but doesn't cross
the border often! Obviously Tom had enjoyed the bartering for price on
Friday. A cleaning crew came to the RV park looking for jobs, so we took
advantage of their offer for a complete wash and spray wax of the coach for
$35.
On
Sunday, October 23 we continued east on I-8 and arrived at our "winter
home," Palm Creek Golf and RV Resort in Casa Grande around 2:00. We
had made a side trip to Eloy, 12 miles down I-10 from the park, to fill up on
diesel fuel in preparation for sitting at Palm Creek for several months.
It was $2.97 a gallon...and we'd like to think that the price will come down
before we have to fill up again next spring. We kept busy our first
several days at Palm Creek getting things cleaned and organized for a long
stay. "Wax on! Wax off!" was Tom's battle cry for the week...we were
sure at one point the the RV had gotten much bigger...but it's all clean and
shining now!!! Although the park is still quite empty we have
enjoyed getting together with old friends and neighbors we hadn't seen in
several months. We've played several sets of tennis, but the golf course
has been closed for re-seeding and will open again Nov. 1. The
weather in Arizona is one of the reasons we are here...it has been about 90* and
sunny each day we've been here.
Friends Bonnie and Don Wolfe at the Viejas Casino.
We
drove to Tucson on Thursday, Oct. 27 for a good visit with Tom's cousin JoAnn
and her husband Don. They are moving back to Colorado shortly so we had a
last get-together at their Arizona
home. On Saturday, Oct. 29 we had
guests at our place. Nancy and Rex Wilsen who were friends of ours back in
Ohio, now have a winter place in Sun Lakes (about 30 miles from us here in
AZ). They brought another couple who are interested in full-time RVing
with them and we had a fun afternoon with all of them. In between those
visits we celebrated our 38th wedding anniversary. Where did the time
go???
Our
adventure for the last few days of October was that our car ('02 Olds Alero)
decided to quit running. Luckily for us, the moment it chose to stop
operating was in a parking lot inside the RV park. But, of course, it was
a Saturday. Tom and some of the neighbors played with it over the weekend,
including putting a new battery in it. But, on Monday, we had to call for
a tow truck and they took it to the local GM dealer. They tell us that the
security system was malfunctioning and therefore we couldn't "steal" our own
car. We were happy to have it repaired quickly.
Don
and JoAnn Blair in Tucson
Our
friends from Sun Lakes, Nancy and Rex Wilsen and Cathy and Frank
Miller.
Tom
did some calculating and has determined that we have driven the RV about 10,000
miles since we left here last April, getting just about 9mpg of fuel.
Our campground expenses for the last year (Nov 1, 2004 to Nov. 1,
2005) have averaged about $15 a night.