Joan's Birthday

Today was Joan and Pat's birthdays, so we met at the Elephant Bar Restaurant for dinner, 12 of us. The decor has elephant coffee tables, bamboo, palm leafed overhead fans, 'zebra' striped seatcovers, 'giraffe skin' wallcoverings and many jungle touches.

Ron's New Truck

Not really, but this is a serious big truck!!
Here you see the the gondola lying down while the fans inflate the envelope (balloon) before the burners are turned on to heat the air and make the balloon rise, up and away. There were 17 specialty, shaped balloons including Tony the Tiger, Humpty Dumpty, Noah's Ark, a Pirate Ship, to name a few with about 70 in total.
There was a soup dinner at the Clubhouse tonight so 6 of us went for 3 different kinds of soup and then played pegs and jokers afterwards.
Happy birthday to son Paul.

Hot Air Balloons

A most interesting afternoon. We went to the Ford Trucks Red, White and Blue Polo and Balloon Festival. We'd never seen hot air balloons before and the whole process was amazing. The crew vehicle, drove over the field with the folded balloon ( envelope ) being laid out behind them a foot at a time or it was dragged along in the basket by 2 people laying it out. The tether ropes stretched out in front making this even longer. They needed at least 6 crew and were short so asked for help to pull the cloth out the sides to lay out the shaped figure. I helped pull out the Energizer Bunny which weighs 1200 lbs and is 166 ft. tall, as big as a 16 story building, when inflated. His shoes are size 98 EEEEE. The gondola, a wicker/rattan basket, holding pilot, passengers and propane tanks is laid on it's side as large inflation fans inflate the balloon on the ground and the burners then heat the air inside to make the balloon rise. Most balloon, basket etc weigh 350 - 450 lbs. The Lead balloon was launched first with an American flag to honor the Marines from 29 Palms serving in the war. When the crew gets the balloon up, it follows the air current and the rest of the crew jumps in the chase vehicle, driving down the roads to follow the balloon and pack up the balloon with the crew when they set down wherever they can and bring them home.

New Neighbours

We moved down to Indio today for our week out and when we got parked we found our new neighbours were old friends, Ken and Joan from Surrey and Ted and Elaine were just down the way. We met them through the Barbers back about 1994. So of course we got together to visit.

New Years Day 2008

Can't believe it - 2008. I can remember hoping all our computer and data wouldn't crash when we went into the new millennium 2000 and here we are 8 years later.
We spent our morning enjoying the Tournament of Roses Parade. This is an amazing parade which has been going on for the last 119 years. Every single item on the decorated floats must be original plant material, nothing artificial. They use rice, grasses, tree bark, sesame and poppie seeds as well as every flower you can imagine. We wonder how they think up all these new things every year. There were over 20 million blossoms used, 90 different types of roses alone and the creators had to take in mind the weight of the glue to attach these so the float chassis and drive capabilities could still function properly. There was about 12 different horse entries, 20 bands, incredible decorated floats with everything from a seascape to animated Honda that turned into a rocket ship and thousands of the most beautiful flowers. Great parade.
I got a tripod for my camera for Christmas and am loving it, so you'll see more of me in the blog now. We took our decorations down today.

New Years Eve

Another great day. We put a 13 lb. turkey on the Ronco rotisserie BBQ outside and enjoyed a great dinner with Joan, Barry and Jim Allen an old friend of Ron's from many years of boilermaker days.
Jim was the 1 man band for the evening entertainment at the Clubhouse for the NY Eve dance. We enjoyed a great dinner, then went up to hear Jim play: very good; then stopped at friends and back to our place for the countdown to NY Eve with the ball drop in New York celebration and toasted each other with a glass of champagne.

Pretty Spot

We're parked on the pond looking across to the mini golf and pickleball courts. We have the prettiest sunsets to watch looking up to the Tram and at the gate we can look out through the mountain passes where you see headlights all the way to L.A.