Saturday, December 4, 2010

We’re in Palm Springs, California

 

Sunday, December 5, 2010                                                                                                                               Lorraine’s report

Hello from sunny California, Palm Desert-1000 Trails RV Park. We moved here on Thursday from Bakersfield, and when we arrived that afternoon, the temperature was 80 degrees outside. Wow, what a changed, a much welcomed change from the much cooler SF Bay area. And while it is cooler here this weekend, it still is warmer than in SF.

Last Sunday found us still without our granddaughter, Kaitlyn. She was still in Seattle with her daddy visiting her other grandmother. So Susy and I took advantage of the day and did some things together. She had errands to run, we shopped, and then we went back to the rig and completed all my Christmas wrapping. Wow-thank you Susy for all you did for me. I appreciated all you help!!! We were both tired after all of that, so we had In N Out for dinner, followed by a fun, rousing game of Mexican Train. I loved the time we got to spend together!

Monday I had to get my son, Rick’s Christmas gifts mailed out to him, since he is heading back up to the North Slope to build the Ice Road on December 9. Chuck & I were out early to take care of that since I wanted to get his gifts to him before he left for the cold North Country. Following that we did more errands.

Susy had to drive to SF airport to pick up Mark and Kaitlyn at 5 o’clock. We met them for dinner at Andy’s BBQ at 6:15 and enjoyed a wonderful dinner. Susy then took a very tired little girl home to bed.

Tuesday found me cleaning out my closet and putting away my Christmas t-shirts and sweaters we had picked up from storage at Mark’s house, that I use for this blessed holiday season. I cleaned out the refrigerator, then Chuck helped me repack Kaitlyn’s toy box to store when we leave.

Chuck and I then went to pick up Kaitlyn from school; I must say she was one extremely tired little girl. She came in and went straight to our bed for quiet time, all by herself. I tried to give her a snack; she couldn’t eat much, she was so pooped out. But after an hour and a half or so, she perked up and we went about our usual activities.

I cooked a ham dinner for all of us for dinner. It was hard for me to say our “goodbyes” to my little granddaughter and daughter; and I had to show Kaitlyn on the calendar when we would be back to be with her again.

Wednesday, we packed up the rig, Chuck emptied the black tank and we were on the road by 10:15, headed to Bakersfield Orange Grove RV Park. We got in by 3:30; Chuck washed the bugs off the windshield while I cleaned inside the rig. We spent a quiet evening home.

Thursday we were on the road by 10. We took the back way from Bakersfield through the Cajon Pass to get to Palm Desert. The day was pleasantly sunny and warm; there was still snow along side the road through the pass from the previous cold spell in the area.

I called Dorothy (of Tom and Dorothy, whom we went to Alaska with in ’09) when we were about an hour out of Palm Desert. She wanted us to get together with them and go to dinner after we got in. We made plans to meet up after we got set up in Palm Desert.

It was 80 degrees on the outside thermometer when we arrived in Palm Desert. We set up and I called Dorothy to let her know what space we were in there in 1000 Trails.

They came by to visit after Dorothy’s choir practice. We had so much catching up to do. Dinner was at Applebee’s; again we had a wonderful meal, and spent more time visiting with great friends. Dorothy had to go to her sister’s home in the LA area this weekend, so we hope to see them this week again.

Friday found us both busy. Chuck polished up all the woodwork in the coach while I worked on laundry, finding a picture for a Christmas card, stuff like that.

We had more errands to run; the GPS plug in had broken so we had to take it back to Costco for a new one. Wal-Mart was also on the list for restocking. We spent a quiet evening home, since I was again not feeling well ( just can’t shake this cold/whatever).

Saturday found us headed over to The College of the Desert for their weekend swap meet. It seemed to me that the swap meet had less there this year than in previous years, but the day was nice and pretty mild, and I warmed up after walking a bit.

We were done by 1:30, so we started to look for where the Lighted Christmas Parade was going to be held Saturday evening in Palm Springs. I read about it last year and I wanted to go this year.

We eventually found the area for the parade. We headed home to get a bite, take Misty out for a walk; then headed back to find a place to watch the parade from.

We were fortunate in finding a prime spot; front row with no one in front of us. We were back there by 4:30 pm; we had to wait for starting time at 5:45 pm. When we were headed home earlier, we saw lots of people sitting out in their lawn chairs on the prime corners By the time the parade started the streets were lined up to 5 to 6 rows deep.

I thoroughly enjoyed the lighted Christmas Parade. The lighted floats, the big balloons, the bands, the horses, the fire trucks, and even the garbage truck all had lights on board. I heard that they were expecting up to 50,000 people to watch it. It was a great way to start the holiday season. It did get a lot cooler than I had expected it to, though.

Today we want to go over to the Indio Tamale Festival. It started on Saturday morning with a parade, and continues through today. I’m looking forward to eating a bunch of tamales, especially the strawberry dessert ones.

So, until next time…….Lorraine

 

 

12/5/10                                                                                                                                                         Chuck’s report

At the risk of sounding redundant, we’ve had another great week.  We were able to spend time with our daughter on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.  Mark and Kaitlyn didn’t return from Seattle until Monday afternoon so they weren’t with us until then, duh. 

Sunday Lorraine and Susy made a short shopping trip then came back to the coach and wrapped all the Christmas presents Lorraine had.  We dropped them off under the new Christmas tree that they had just put up at Susy’s place the day before.  After dinner, Lorraine and Susy played a roaring game of Mexican Train.

Monday was to have been a laid back day but Lorraine had a package to mail to our son in Alaska and wanted to do some shopping.  Susy picked Mark and Kaitlyn up at the airport and we met them for dinner at a good Bar-B-Q place they knew about but hadn’t tried before.  We will definitely have to return to Andy’s Bar-B-Q again.  Everyone was tried so we called it a night right after dinner.

Tuesday morning Lorraine and I cleaned up a bit around the coach before she took off for the mall to return a couple of items.  Later we picked Kaitlyn up from school for the last time for this trip to their area.  She was still pretty tired from the trip to Seattle and wanted to rest a bit before everyone played card games again.  We all ate a good ham dinner that Lorraine fixed before Susy and Kaitlyn headed home.  Kaitlyn seems to be getting used to the idea that we come and go in her life and was ok with the idea that we were leaving the next day as she knew when we were returning. 

Wednesday morning we got everything put away for a travel day.  We had to stop at the dump station to empty our holding tanks, hooked up the tow car and headed off.  We decided we didn’t want to tackle traffic in Los Angles so we cut off at Bakersfield once again.  And once again we stopped at the Orange Grove RV park for the night.  The oranges had ripen a bit since we were here two weeks earlier, showing more color and tasting a bit sweeter.  We still had a couple from our last stop here and will make them into orange juice.  I was able to find a tangerine tree with lots of fruit so I picked a few of them to go along with the 6 oranges we picked. 

Thursday morning we got on the road a bit earlier than normal, we didn’t put everything out the night before and left the car hooked up too.  We traveled over three passes before we got to Palm Springs but the weather was nice even if some of the roads weren’t.  Now not to make anyone back home feel bad or anything but it was 80* when we pulled into our spot here at 1000 Trails. 

Lorraine had been in touch with our friends, Tom/Dorothy, who live nearby in Desert Hot Springs and they came by to visit.  After visiting at our rig for awhile, we all decided we were hungry and headed out to Applebee’s for dinner.  We had a good time catching up with their happening since we last saw them in January.

Friday morning I got decided to get out the Pledge and do all the wood work in the rig.  Lorraine did some laundry and made up our Christmas cards.  We don’t send out near as many anymore (if I had my way we wouldn’t send out any, ha) but none the less we wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas, even if you don’t get a card from us. 

We stopped off to see some friends of ours from Canada, Mark/Chris who have been here for a few days already.  We only spent a few minutes visiting with them before we headed to Costco and Wal-Mart, once again killing our budget.  Lorraine had our Christmas cards printed out at Wal-Mart and filled them out once we got back to the coach.  I put them into the mail box early Saturday morning, the rest is up to our US Post Office. 

Yesterday was another “let’s play tourist” day for us.  Lorraine found the tamale festival in Indio was happening this weekend, the Palm Springs Street Fair was going on as usual and Palm Springs was having their annual Lighted Christmas Parade.  We decided to put off going to the tamale festival until today but wanted to hit the street fair in the morning and the parade in the evening. 

The street fair was about as we remember, lots of venders with lots of stuff we didn’t need.  We spent a couple of hours walking around, I think Lorraine bought a couple of items.  We later stopped at a Toy’s R Us store to pick up some Christmas toys for Kaitlyn.  Do you know how hard it is to find a Hula Hoop anymore"?

We then drove around to find the location of the street fair.  In due course we found where it was going to be, lots of people had already started setting up their chairs and such and it wasn’t even 3:00 yet and the parade didn’t start until 5:45.  We still had to head back to take Misty out and pick up our chairs and such, about 1/2 hour away.  We got back about 4:30 or so and lucked out to get a front row spot to set up.  It was a long wait and before the parade started both sides of the street were packed at least 5 or 6 people deep.  I don’t know how many folks showed up but we heard they expected over 50,000.  It took us over an hour to get out of there due to the traffic so I believe there were even more than expected. 

The parade was one of the best lighted parades we’ve been too, nothing to compare to Disney but nice none the less.  The parade lasted over an hour and of course ended with Santa at the last. 

Our plans have us staying here at 1000 Trails for another week.  We haven’t yet decided if we will meet Mark, Susy and Kaitlyn at Disneyland before we go back to the Bay area or not but I have found a couple of Elks lodges in the area that where we may be able to stay.  If we don’t go to Disneyland we will head back to Santa Clara and be with them there until after Christmas. 

I’ll add some pictures now and get this posted. 

 

Orange trees right outside our coach at the Orange Grove RV Park in Bakersfield.  Pick your own!

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The snow is where it belongs, in the hills and mountains.

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Oh, oh, getting closer, that’s alongside the road. 

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That’s as close as it got, almost too close. 

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There’s lots of nothing out here, the roads go on forever it seems. 

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We have visitors, Tom and Dorothy came by the first night we were here.  The road runner came by the next day.

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At the Lighted Christmas Parade in Palm Springs. 

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And the last float had “The Man” himself, Jolly Old Saint Nick. 

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Well, here’s hoping we have another great week here in the desert.  Until then - - - -

Thanks   Chuck

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