Lorraine's Report
Another week-gone, and it’s time to write for the blog. Time flies when you’re busy and having fun.
Well, we left the bay area on Monday, December 29 and started driving to the RV Park we are now in, Catalina Spa and RV Resort, an RPI park in Desert Hot Springs, CA. It’s so hard for me to leave our daughter and grand daughter, but I survived, after many tears. We spent Monday night in Bakersfield at the Orange Grove RV Park. There are oranges trees around the whole park and you can pick all you want, as long as you aren’t in someone else’s site. We pulled in around 4ish, so Chuck went out to pick oranges before dark at 4:30. My goodness, fresh oranges are so good just picked off the trees. He picked a bunch so we could give some away to our friends at the Rally this next week in Indio, CA. Some he picked are the size of grapefruit or small cantelope, juicy and heavy and so sweet.
We took off Tuesday and made it to Catalina Spa that afternoon. My friends, Dorothy and Tom Warren live close by and we were suppose to meet up first Tuesday evening, then Wednesday, but Dorothy is still working and was still at work at 5 pm on New Year’s Eve. So we met up with our other friends, Joe and Alice Morin, who were staying at Thousand Trails, we spent New Year’s Eve with them. We went to Spotlight 29 Casino for their $15.95 prime rib buffet dinner. And when Chuck was paying, we ended up getting a buck off that price. Our timing was perfect, a short line, we were seated right away and had a great dinner. We all decided we wanted to gamble a bit, so we met up first at 8:30, then we decided to go a little bit longer. We left at 9:15 because everyone was tired so we went home. That was our exciting New Years’ Eve out.
We invited Joe and Alice and Tom and Dorothy over on New Year’s Day to watch football. Chuck polished all the wood work while I made up snacks. The guys were outside watching the game, it was sunny and warm, around 74 degrees or so, while the gals and I had a hot game of “Pass the Love” going on inside the coach. Good friends, good food, what more can you ask for.
Friday, I started laundry, we ran errands, then met up with Tom and Dorothy. Tom is working on getting Chuck into the Elk’s Lodge; some lodges have free or reduced camping and there are lodges all over the US.
Today we went to the Swap Meet in Indio by College of the Desert. It was crowded, lots of venders, and lots to see and hear. Then I had practice for that singing group I joined up at the Rally in Oshkosh, WI, The Frustrated Maestros. We practiced for two hours, stopped promptly at 4 for happy hour, then dinner at 5. There’s practice two times tomorrow; on Monday we are to meet up with the big group and caravan into the Fair grounds. Then there are more practices the next two days. Wednesday, January 7 the Rally starts and we will be singing with the band for breakfast all the days of the Rally. Busy times for sure, with me having to be there ready to sing by 6:45 am, and me not being an early morning person, should be interesting, but it is so much fun and I enjoy myself and enjoy meeting new people.
On a sadder note, I had a call from my sister, Thelma, late Friday evening. She had just gotten home from the hospital in Bellingham. She had entered her husband, John, into the hospital that afternoon. They didn’t know it, but he had had a stroke on Monday. They told her when they examined John, that he had a big mass on his brain, and that it possibly could be cancer. We didn’t find out until late Saturday after many tests that indeed it was a stroke, but he did not have brain cancer. The mass on his brain was blood and it was gone, by today. Thelma said he should be home sometime tomorrow, maybe. Please pray for them. They need all the help they can get. Thank you for all your prayers. I appreciate it.
So till next time…Take care and see you down the road…..Lorraine
1/4/08
Chuck's report
We left the Bay area on Monday with very mixed emotions, it’s great to be on the road again but we are sad to be leaving Susy, Mark and Kaitlyn until April. We have been in/out of their lives since Halloween, kept Kaitlyn out of her pre-school when we could and even had Susy and Kaitlyn travel with us when we drove down to Las Angles. Lorraine has really enjoyed being Nana and spending time with them.
We made it to Bakersfield on Monday night. We had stopped at a rest area earlier in the afternoon and a fellow traveler reminded us of a campground we had heard of before but never visited. We decided to stay at Orange Grove RV Park. Once we got there, we could easily understand their name, there were orange trees throughout the whole park, the oranges were ripe and we could pick as many as we wanted. Most of the lower branches on all the trees were already picked but we managed to find some trees outside the fence that had lots of oranges on their lower branches so we picked two bags full. Lorraine tried one right away and pronounced it ripe and very juicy. She has been eating at least one a day since and hasn’t had a bad one yet.
On Tuesday, we pulled into another new to us campground, this one in Desert Hot Springs, NW of Palm Springs. This is a very nice park, they say 5 star and they accepted us via RPI so it was $10/day.
We wanted to meet up with some friends of ours while here, Tom and Dorothy Warren who live in the area, we met them in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, last saw them in St. Paul, Minnesota in May last year. The other couple we want to meet up with are Joe and Alice Morin from Washington. Joe and I started work at the refinery on the same day, he retired about 5 years before I did (not talking about ages here or anything, you understand).
Tom has been trying to help me get into the Elks club as a member and we are working to get me into the local club here in Desert Hot Springs. We are still struggling a bit with the scheduling but it’s starting to come together, THANKS TOM.
Unfortunately for us, Dorothy was working both Tuesday and Wednesday so they were unable to visit with us. We were able to visit with Joe and Alice at their motor home after our trip to Wal-Mart. I don’t want to gloat or anything but it was definitely shirt sleeve weather, almost 80F, sunny and bright. It is strange to look up in the hills and see snow just a few hundred feet higher than us and be so warn down here but I’ll take it.
Wednesday was New Year’s Eve so we made plans to go to a local casino with Joe and Alice for dinner and a little fun. We knew it would be busy there so we planned on a long wait as we didn’t make reservations. Much to our surprise, we were able to walk right into the buffet plus they gave us a discount with our player’s card. We had a very good time, much laughter was heard from our table.
Lorraine had asked both couples to come over to our coach on New Year’s Day to watch the Rose Bowl football game, have some snacks and maybe a couple adult beverages. Once again, it was a good time; the guys watching the game on our outside TV, the gals staying inside watching TV and playing cards. I know I heard lots of laughter from inside and it wasn’t when something funny was happening in the game so assume they were having fun with their card games. After the game, everyone left us and we had a quite time for the rest of the evening.
On Friday, I got up and did all the normal things except I couldn’t get logged onto the internet. After a bit of troubleshooting on my part, I determined the router was working but our Verizon Air Card decided it didn’t want to work this year. We have very short bursts of access but don’t know when or how long it will stay attached, very frustrating as we haven’t had problems and have come to rely on it working all the time. I haven’t been able to contact them yet but will on Monday to see what the problem and correction is, here’s hoping it’s nothing but an upgrade I have to do.
Friday we had more errands to run, I needed a haircut pretty bad. We were able to find a good barber that knew what he was doing so I’m satisfied. After our running, we met with Tom and Dorothy and they treated us to a dinner at the Elks club. Seems like a good group of people in this club, looking forward to joining and becoming a part of it too.
Saturday we had made plans to go to a swap meet with Joe and Alice but the one we were going to go to wasn’t opened so we went to one near us by ourselves. Although there is lots of stuff at this swap meet, we didn’t walk away with too much, a dozen wooden roses for Lorraine and some socks for me. Big day, huh.
Another reason we wanted to be in this area now is the Family MotorCoach Association Rally that will be held in Indio next week. Lorraine joined the Frustrated Maestros, a group that gets together at these Rallies and provide entertainment, both signing and playing music. This group got together in a Pre-Rally in a different park and they have practices scheduled twice a day. Tom and Dorothy are members of this group also and they are staying at the other campground also.
After our trip to the swap meet we traveled to the other campground so Lorraine could attend the afternoon practice session and get acquainted. We met with Tom and Dorothy there, Lorraine and Dorothy went to the practice, Tom and I went over later for dinner with this group of people. Once again, there are lots of nice folks in this group; it should be fun being with them next week during the Rally.
On Sunday, Lorraine went to the morning practice, Tom and I went back to the Elks club to check on some scheduling for my joining. The person we needed to talk with is out of town and will not be back until Tuesday.
After we got back to the practice, Lorraine and I left and headed out to meet with Joe and Alice for a bar-b-que. Joe and Alice are staying at a local county park, very nice and quiet, surprising not very busy either, for this time of the year. They put on a very nice meal for us and again we enjoying the company and conversation too.
So another week is in the books. It was a busy week for us but a good time was had visiting with friends. We are really enjoying the weather even though it has gotten windy and the high temperature is only in the high 60s, tough life. I don’t know when I will get this posted but will keep it ready to go when I get a good connection.
So until next time, be good to one another. We both hope you had a Happy New Year celebration and wish you a very good, happy, prosperous and healthy year.
Thanks Chuck
This is from our coach at the Orange Grove RV park, those are orange trees.
Here are the wind generators just West of Palm Springs but notice the snow in the hills. We were showing about 65F at this time but snow wasn't too far away. 
A picture of snow in the hills to the West of us, we were in the 70s down here though.
Another picture of snow coming in fromBakersfield to Palm Springs.
Now this is more like it, what we wanted to see when we head South. 
More of the wind generators, they have lots of them here so we weren't too surprised when the wind picked up for two days. 
Our good friends Joe and Alice Morin from back in Washington. We will see them in Yuma in a few weeks too.
Our good friends Dorothy and Tom Warren from Desert Hot Springs. They are going to be at the Rally with us this week. 
A picture of some people we just met, Ira and his wife Jean. Their FMCA member number is 4809, the lowest I've seen. Ours is 392,803, currently they are issuing above 400,000, shows they have been members for a long time. Until next time - - - - Chuck
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