The VFW again

We picked Mike and Linda up from the airport last night and met up at the VFW for Wed. tacos. Our Mesa neighbours Joan and Bill are here too.

Back to Desert Hot Springs

Back 'home' to Catalina Spa RV Resort, our home park. Sharon and Andy are here and lots of friends from over the years. We played pool Saturday, ice cream Sunday and Hamburgers that night. Sure fun to see everyone again.
As usual, the sunsets are fantastic.

Quartzsite AR

We followed the yellow boots and hats into Jerry and Becky's campsite.
We went to Le Mesa RV today, talked with Bob Tiffin and enjoyed their free lunch.

 Here's the line up for a free pancake breakfast or daily lunch. We bought our coach here 5 years ago so they can afford to feed us. We used to go to this Silver Buckle saloon before La Mesa bought the property for their sales site. There are hundreds of old boots and artifacts still hanging from the rafters.

This place is packed with thousands of Vendors.

Another couple arrived today and we circled our wagons and enjoyed a campfire, then cards.

Laughlin, Arizona

 We're going up River Road to Laughlin and always laugh at this 'roller-coaster'.

We're staying at Bullhead City across the Colorado River for a week in Ridgeview RV park. It is sure quiet in this town, not a lot of people. No lineups for dinner like the old days, quite depressed. Having a cold snap with wind blowing every day.
The Casino lights are pretty at night.

FMCA Rally

We are now in Indio at the Fairgrounds for this 5 day Motorhome rally - Family Motor Coach Assn.

We came off the Freeway and proceeded to the entrance as per the instructions. Much to our surprise, we  entered smoothly and were quickly escorted to our parking space in the Orange lot. We have Electric but 10 cords are run off each system so it is only basic service. See what I mean below. There were 1100 coaches in orderly rows.

We explored the grounds and found every Vendor you could wish to see. Thursday Ron and I split up and attended seminars on the 80 Uses for Velcro, Detailing your Coach in an Hour, Microwave Convection Cooking, RVing in Europe, RV Weight and Tire Safety, and Auxiliary Braking. We both got a few tips we hadn’t known and simpler ways to do things with new products. It was very interesting and the people attending were great fun to be with. By 3 pm in the afternoon, winds came up and blew like mad. The palm trees were bent over, the Vendors tent started lifting away and falling down and sand was swirling for a few hours. That added some excitement to the day.
I tried out a Sedgeway, very cool, lean forward on your toes to go forward and back on your heels to stop. The machine balances your weight about 100 times a minute.

Friday we started with 8:30 seminars again. They must not realize that I am retired and don’t chose these early hours. Today included RVing in New Zealand and Australia, Insider Cleaning Tips, Electrical Made Easy, and Tire Monitors. There was a Ladies Tea and Fashion show, which took an hour for us to get inside the building, pick up a cup of hot water with tea bag, sugar and cream and go to our seat to stir. I’d modeled the same fashions at Catalina so nothing new for me. I was so impressed with Janet Sadlack from Minnesota who did the Microwave Convention seminar that I repeated it today. In 2 hours she cooked Crumb Topped Salmon, banana bread muffins, sweet potato, Spinach Artichoke Souffles, Easy Spaghetti Pie and poached 2 eggs. I can’t wait to use my oven more effectively.

Just off to the Parade now. There has been entertainment every night, the Alley Cats, a Doo-Wop group, Igor’s Jazz Cowboys and tonight Billy Joel and Elton John from Las Vegas.

 We've really enjoyed this, learned a lot and would come again.

Fun In California

We had a wonderful time being with our friends again. We had a special surprise when Mike came over and gave us this Christmas present he and Linda had bought us for last year, a beautiful set of hand-carved Pegs and Jokers with Kokopelli's .
I went up to RiteAid to get some distilled water to top up the batteries before we left for Indio and surprise - dead car. It wasn't the battery and finally the car was towed away to the dealer and we stayed overnight an extra day. Thanks Mike for the ride.
This is a sad sight. Got it back 2 days later and found it was a loose wire? Go figure.

Our California Crowd

We arrived at Catalina Spa Tuesday and headed over to Don and Lila's for a welcome party.

It's so nice to all our friends after 18 months.
Andy and Sharon came by today and we played in the miniature golf tournament.