Lancaster and LA

We relocated to the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds in Lancaster, CA on Thursday the 14th of June. Lancaster is hot and very windy this time of year. The only benefit is that it is only 45 miles from the San Fernando valley, and it is inexpensive. Just try finding an inexpensive RV site anywhere in the Los Angeles area.

Until yesterday we had not been doing too much. We made a trip in to Santa Clarita to meet Marie on Friday. She had a few hours to kill there while waiting for a family get together, so we kept her company at Costco and Starbucks. Sunday we went to church in San Fernando, then over to Don and Betty's for lunch and a fun afternoon of visiting. Don grilled some great marinated chicken breasts.

Tuesday I installed a new rear tire on the scooter. I installed a car tire instead of a motorcycle tire. There is a big debate in the scooter world about doing that. Many purists warn of handling problems but those who have done so say there are no issues. Since a scooter tire only lasts about 7500 miles and costs around $200 installed, I decided I would try the car tire. There are only a few that are the right size and I had one shipped to Don's where I picked it up Sunday. I removed the wheel from the bike and took it to a local tire shop for installation. Motorcycle dealers refuse to install them, citing insurance reasons. I'm convinced the real reason is they love to sell $135 tires and charge $65 to install them every 7,500 miles. I paid $59 for the tire, $20 for shipping and $20 to have it installed. For $99 I have a tire that will last at least 40,000 to 50,000 miles.

As for all the warnings about doom and gloom, let's just say I can hardly tell any difference. It's about as different as a worn out tire and a new tire. My impressions mirror that of all the other scooter owners who have gone this route, and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of us who have done so.

Yesterday we made a trip to LA. A couple years ago I was watching some food show where they were reviewing special restaurants around the country. One restaurant was Philippes in Los Angeles. Their thing is French Dip. We rode the Metrolink from Lancaster to Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. Philippes is just a couple blocks from there. We enjoyed the sandwiches. They were very good and it was a fun experience. I'm not sure I would drive 100 miles to get one again, but if we are in the area it would be a good place to have lunch.

Olvera street is a couple blocks away. It is the oldest street in Los Angeles and has the oldest house that has been restored and is available for touring. Mostly is it a street with tiny shoppes selling Mexican trinkets to tourists, and several Mexican restaurants. It is the cultural center of historic Mexican involvement in Los Angeles. It's always a fun place to visit.

Nearby was the first fire station in Los Angeles with its display of antique fire fighting equipment. We found some of the equipment fascinating.

We then walked a few blocks to Chinatown. Nothing compares to Chinatown in San Francisco, but this is a very active and busy place. We wandered through some of the shops and marveled at many of the foods. They were selling shark fin for $999 per pound! Who buys that stuff?

After a quick stop to gaze at the murals in the Post Office Annex, we returned to Union Station where we boarded the train back toward Lancaster. We got off in Santa Clarita where we had arranged to meet Julie for dinner at a restaurant the family used to enjoy. We had a nice dinner and she took us back to the train station where we caught the next train to Lancaster, arriving at 9:40. We were finally home before 10.

We plan to be here until Monday and have things planned to keep us busy. Check back next week and we'll tell you all about it.

Aguanga

It's pronounced ah-wanga, and it's 17 miles east of Temecula, CA. That's where we have been for the past week and a half. The Escapees organization we belong to has an RV park here, and it is likely the nicest in the whole system. At least, it's the nicest we have been in so far.

The trip here was interesting. We knew it was going to be a very hot day, and I don't like towing in hot weather, so we planned to leave early. We left Mesa at 7:20 and the temperature was already over 90 degrees. By the time we reached Quartzsite for a late breakfast/early lunch at 10:30 it was already 108. When we reached Blythe at about 11 it was 112, and the temperature continued to climb as we continued west on I-10 reaching 115 by about 1 PM. We dropped down into the Palm Springs area and left the interstate and made our way up CA 111 toward CA 74. As we drove through the desert communities at the base of the mountains our thermometers both read 118, and the remote sensor mounted under the trailer read 122!

The temperature finally began dropping as we climbed up the mountain, and had fallen to a balmy 92 by the time we reached Aguanga. It actually felt comfortable! While I was nervous about traveling in such heat, we had no problems of any kind. I started the generator at around 9AM and turned on both air conditioners on in trailer, so it was only in the mid 80's inside when we arrived. I checked all my hubs with my infrared heat gun at every stop, and everything stayed in a reasonable range. The air conditioners in both the car and truck were enough to freeze us out, even in the hottest outside temperatures, but every time we got out it was like walking into a blast furnace.

All in all it was a fine trip, but not something I want to do every day. Aren't modern vehicles and RV's amazing? Can you imagine what our forefathers who traveled west in covered wagons would think about such things?

We have been busy since we have been here. Before we even got parked we were invited to join the motorcycle club here for a ride on Saturday. We rode the back roads over the mountain to Hemet where we had lunch at a Mexican restaurant. On the way back we stopped at an overlook above Diamond Lake. The trip with a group was fun. There were 7 bikes, most of them Gold Wings.

For the next couple days we explored locally, then drove over to Rancho Santa Margarita to have lunch with Marie and Adam on Tuesday. It was nice seeing them again. We had been checking Craig's List for a Droid Bionic replacement for Dianna, and found someone in Westminster who had one. We made arrangements to meet them to check it out that afternoon. The price was right and it looked new, but it did not have the SD card in it. There was also something about the way they wanted to meet that left us uncomfortable, so we passed on it.

The next day we visited two of the wineries here in Temecula. They grow some good reds here. That night we found another phone advertised for the same price in Anaheim Hills, so on Thursday we rode up there on the bike. It was in perfect condition and complete, so we bought it. Now we both have Bionics again. Dianna is very happy to have it. On the way back we stopped at the outlet mall in Lake Elsinore to do a little shopping.

On Friday we again rode to Hemet, this time by a different route, and then up the mountain to Idylwild where we had a picnic lunch. We used to backpack on Mt. San Jacinto, and one of the main trail heads we used was in Idylwild. It was fun seeing the place and enjoying the cool weather at over 5,000 feet.

On Saturday we again drove to Marie and Adam's to meet with them and Julie. None of them had ever been geocaching so we took them for their first experience. There was a trail with several caches that we could walk to from their house. Everyone had a good time looking for caches, and we found all but one. Adam barbequed chicken for lunch.

Monday we rode to the little mountain tourist town of Julian, famous for its apple pies, to have lunch. Of course, we had pie for desert. The route we followed took us all the way around Palomar Mountain. We are only a few miles from the observatory there and can see the white dome from many places along the road near here. On the way back we stopped at the Pala Casino for a break. Free soft drinks in the casino were welcome.

Today we rode down to San Diego. First we went to Coronado Island and visited the Hotel del Coronado. We had stayed there many years ago for a conference. It is one of the oldest hotels in California, made all of wood, and is quite a landmark. After having lunch in a nearby restaurant we rode to the Cabrillo National Monument on Point Loma. It is on the point overlooking the entrance to San Diego harbor and is the place where the Spanish first set foot on the coast of California in about 1540. By the time we headed home it was almost rush hour but we had no difficulty. The Burgman runs with freeway traffic at 70 to 75 with no problems.

Both of us are feeling a little saddle sore. We have put over 750 miles on the scooter in the week and a half we have been here, plus about 450 miles on the car. Tomorrow we plan to rest and prepare for moving to Lancaster on Thursday. That puts us closer to family and friends we want to see. We're not sure how long we will stay there before moving farther north; probably a week and a half or so.

Another nice ride and losing things

Since the weather was so nice we decided to take another scooter ride today. It has probably been 40 years since I was over the route between Globe and Superior via Hayden/Winkleman, so we did that today. We left Mesa and rode up US 60 through Superior and on to Globe where we had lunch at Taco Bell. As we were eating lunch Dianna realized that one of her emerald ear rings was gone. She immediately teared up as they mean a lot to her. As she went to the restroom before leaving, I walked out to the scooter and looked around. There on the right side footrest was the missing ear ring. When she came out I asked "How much do you love me?" before handing her the ear ring. I got a big kiss!

Then it was over the mountain and down along the Gila River to Winkleman. The scenery was great and the weather was perfect. The road was much better than I though it was going to be. We had no problems maintaining 50-55 all the way. We stopped at a BLM recreation area about 5 miles north of Winkleman and watched the kids riding their tubes down the river. We then saddled back up and rode through Winkleman, Hayden and Kearny on the way back toward Superior. A few miles past Kearny we came to the Ray open pit copper mine. We turned off the highway and rode out to the visitor viewing area.

Wow. What a hole in the ground! Surprisingly, they were working today, a Sunday before Memorial Day. We watched the huge trucks with their loads of ore creeping up the roads ringing the pit walls. It was interesting to watch. Then the fun began.

As we prepared to get our gear back on, Dianna noticed she did not have her cell phone, a Droid Bionic. We searched the area and it was not there. I tried calling it an no answer. We were pretty sure we had it when we were in Globe for lunch, but couldn't remember seeing it since then. Globe was at least 60 miles behind us.

About that time I remembered that I had installed Google Latitude on her phone. It is an app that sends its location to Google periodically . If the GPS is not on, it will update the location based on cell towers. That's not real accurate but it might give us an idea. I checked and it showed that her phone had checked in less than an hour ago at a cell tower in Winkleman. This meant that we almost certainly lost it when we stopped at the river.

We headed back, about 30 miles, and searched the recreation area high and low. We asked if anyone had seen it, but no one had. I then checked my phone again and discovered that we had no service in the river canyon. That means the phone could not have checked in from there. We headed back into Winkleman, driving slowly and searching the shoulder of the road, and did not get service until we were almost in town. That means we lost the phone along the highway someplace, an unlikely event, or someone who had been at the recreation area found it and took it with them into town. I suspect that is what happened.

I called a couple more times but there was no answer. The phone did not update its location again which indicates that either it was damaged as it fell, or whoever found it turned it off. Giving someone the benefit of the doubt, answering a Droid does take some training. You have to know to swipe your finger in the right place in the right direction. It's not like pressing a button on an old style phone.

We searched along the highway shoulder for a while as we headed back toward Superior, but finally gave up and came on home. Our 150 mile trip had turned into a 210 mile trip. When we got home I transferred her number to an old Samsung phone we keep for such emergencies. It's not a smart phone, but at least she will have phone service.

Of course, closing the barn door after the horse is out is our standard way of operating. This evening I reinstalled the "Where's My Droid" app on my phone. Unfortunately, I had never installed it on hers. If I had I could have located the phone to within about 10 feet, but without it I was just relying on Latitude to tell me where the phone had been.

I'm going to wait a couple days to see if anyone attempts to contact us. If they figure out how to get into the phone they should be able to find someone to call in the contact list, or perhaps, just perhaps, someone will turn it into the Winkleman police. I will call them on Tuesday to let them know.

So our report for the day is, nice ride, two things lost, one recovered.

A Day Trip to Payson and the Mogollon Rim

I know. Two blog posts in one day after two months without one. Hmmmm.

Today we took a day off from Mom care and took a 200 mile ride on the scooter. We left Mesa at about 10am when the temperature was just about 90, and headed up Arizona 87. Payson is at about 5,000 feet and only 70 miles away. We pulled into town about 11:15. The temperature was only 78. Dianna actually had to put the liner in her riding jacket to keep warm.

After getting gas (which was illogically 25 cents a gallon cheaper than in the Phoenix area) we went to the Rim Country Museum. We paid our $4 each senior admission fee and expected to wander the museum, but instead a docent was assigned to us to give us a guided tour. It was great. We had one docent for the first floor, a different one for the second floor, and a third for the Zane Grey cabin tour. All of them were very knowledgeable and great guides. We were there for a little over 2 hours, and we were the only people on our tour. There were some other tours going on with other docents, but it appeared everyone had their own personal guide.

Of course, Zane Grey wrote many of his stories about the Mogollon Rim country, and he had a cabin there for a while. The actual cabin was about 20 miles east of Payson, but they built an exact replica of it next to the museum when the original burned in a huge forest fire in 1990. It was an interesting and educational visit. We were both very pleased that we stopped. I think it is worth a trip from Phoenix just to experience the museum and cabin.

After lunch we decided it was still to hot to head back to the low country, so we drove east on 260 17 miles, then north on a side road 4 miles to the area where Zane Grey's cabin was located. There was nothing to see, but it gave us a sense of where he wrote many of the books about the area.

We then continued east on 260 and climbed to the top of the rim. It was 75 degrees and the elevation was 7,500 feet. I almost put in my jacket liner! We rode down the rim road a ways to a vista point. It sure was beautiful up in the pines, even though the smoke from a forest fire southwest of Payson obscured some of the view.

We then headed back toward town, stopping in Payson for a hot fudge sunday at McDonalds, and removing the jacket liner. By the time we got home it was nearly 7pm, but it was still 94 degrees. We had a good time, learned something, and spent a mostly cool day in the mountains of Arizona.

Not Exactly What We Planned

It's a good thing our plans are always cast in Jello. Things have not gone as expected this spring.

After spending our two weeks along the Salt River in Mesa, on March 27th we moved to an RV park just north of Wickenburg, AZ for an opportunity to explore an area of the state we had not spent much time in before. We visited Prescott and toured the museums in Wickenburg before Deidra returned to Texas on March 31st. We stayed at the campground for another couple weeks, making an occasional trip back into Mesa or Tempe to visit Mom and pick up mail or packages that had been sent to Daryl's. We were on schedule to leave for Southern California when plans were changed.

On Saturday morning, the 14th of April, we got a call from Mom. She said she couldn't move her right hand. We contacted Donna who went over to get her and take her to the hospital. Although it was initially misdiagnosed as a palsy and she was sent home, Daryl stayed with her on Sunday and took her to see her own Dr. on Monday. He sent her for an MRI and it was confirmed that she had had a stroke. She was admitted to the stroke ward at Banner Baywood hospital that day.

Dianna drove down to be with her that Monday, and I packed up the trailer and moved our home back to Mesa on Tuesday. Since then our lives have been pretty much taken up with caring for Mom. She was in the stroke ward for about a week, and then was moved to rehab for over two weeks. We were there at least once and usually twice a day. Between caring for her and helping with logistics and other things, we have had little time to ourselves.

Mom was released from rehab on May 8 and moved back to her apartment. For the first few days we never left her alone. Dianna spent the first two nights, then Daryl spent Thursday night, and I spent Friday night. She had almost nonstop visits from a home care nurse, a physical therapist and an occupational therapist, as well as visits from friends and family. By Saturday she was doing quite well and we left her alone for the first time that night. We have continued to spend time with her every day as she continues her recovery, and we are leaving her alone more and more.

Her strength on the right side has improved. She is probably at 70-80 percent of where she was. The fine motor skills are also much improved, but still have a ways to go. She does not have the strength in her legs that she used to have so mobility is something of an issue, but she is getting better. There are still questions about how much help she is going to need in the future, and where that help will come from.

A major complication with her recovery occurred from an unexpected place. She began experiencing severe back and shoulder pain while doing the therapy. At first it was thought it was just muscles that hadn't been used in a long time, but the pain kept getting worse instead of better. X-rays showed nothing but finally an MRI revealed that she has numerous tendon tears in her rotator cuff and other tendons. No wonder it was so painful. It still is. The pain is severe enough that much of the strengthening exercises and other therapies have been scaled back or put on hold. We are trying to get a handle on the pain, other than taking huge amounts of Vicoden every day, but have been frustrated by the availability of doctors who accept her insurance. It is still an ongoing issue, but the pain is getting somewhat less and she is not taking as many pain pills as she was.

As I mentioned, until today (which will be the subject of my next blog post) we have been with Mom every day since the stroke. Of course, Daryl and Donna have also been very involved, but we are staying only three miles from her apartment and we don't work, so it is much easier for us to deal with most of the day to day stuff. Heaven knows that Daryl and Donna have done far more than their share over the years. We are glad our lifestyle lets us support Mom in this way when she needed it, and lets us take some of the burden from Daryl and Donna for a while.

We currently plan to stay here in Mesa until the end of the month. At that time we expect to resume our plans for visiting Southern and Central California, then on to Oregon and the Pacific Northwest for the summer. Of course, anything can happen at any time to change those plans.

Winter Update

Yes, we have been remiss in not keeping our blog up to date. While most everyone who reads this already knows what we have been doing, I will document it anyway to serve as a history.

We arrived in Mesa on Jan 9 for a two week stay at our boondocking spot along the Lower Salt River. It was nice to see family again.

We had to move after our 14 day limit was up so we went to Quartzsite for the Big Tent event and to once again experience the uniqueness of the place. We were only there a week when we got the call that Dianna's Uncle Linc was near death. She drove the car to Denair ahead of me, and I followed the next day with the truck and trailer. He passed away before I arrived.

We stayed in Denair, camped in Mike and Randi's yard for a little over a week, then headed back to the desert. This time we went to the Imperial Dam area north of Yuma where we stayed for two weeks. While there we took care of our annual dentist visits in Algadones, MX.

On Feb 26th we left the truck and trailer in storage at an RV park in Quartzsite, and left for Dallas in the car so I could have my annual checkup with my back surgeon. We took three days to make the 1200 mile drive and get there the day before my appointment. All is well with my back. The day after my appointment we headed back to Arizona, this time taking the northern route instead of the southern route. Deidra decided to join us for a month, much as she used to do when she was younger. We stopped for the night after 600 miles of driving, in Edgewood where we spent the night with good friends.

The following day we drove the second 600 miles to Quartzsite where our trailer was stored. We moved it out to the desert and spent the next day recovering from our trip. The following day we moved back to Mesa where we plan to stay for the limit of 14 days again. We didn't tell anyone that Deidra was with us, so it was fun surprising Mom, Daryl and Donna when we met up with them.

We are currently just doing our normal relaxing routine that consists of hiking, shopping, geo-caching and relaxing. It's already starting to get a bit warm here, so our days are numbered. We'll probably head for cooler places soon.

That's about it. Certainly nothing exciting. Just life as usual for a couple retired full time RV'ers.

Family Visits

Understanding it has been a while since we posted, the blog police have finally prodded me into writing something. I doubt it will be exciting or news to most readers.

After our tour of the Nachez Trace, we traveled to the Chattanooga area to visit Darin and his family. We camped about 15 miles from their house in Cleveland in a rural RV park at the junction of the Ocoee and Hiwassee Rivers. It was a a pretty place to spend a month. Unfortunately, the weather was cold and rainy most of the time, so we only got in a couple motorcycle rides. Mostly we just tried to stay dry and warm.

One day Darin accompanied us to Oak Ridge where we toured the museum. Oak Ridge was a secret city built during WW II by the Manhattan Project. The enriched uranium used in the first atomic bombs, the ones in New Mexico and Hiroshima, was refined there. It was interesting how a secret city of 50,000 people could spring from nothing but farmland. The plutonium used in the third bomb, the one used on Nagasaki, was processed in a similar secret city built in Hanford, Washington.

Other than that it was a rather uneventful visit. We did celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas with his family, and it was great fun playing with our great-grandson Skylar. He is very bright, and quite a handful. It had been a long time since we had been able to spend any time with Darin and his family, so the month long visit was very nice. We hope to do it again soon, but either in spring or fall when the weather is nicer.

We then traveled back to Denton in early December to spend Christmas with Dayna's family. We also both arranged for our annual doctor visits and checkups. This year Dayna wanted to do something special for Christmas, so we all went on a horse drawn carriage ride to look at Christmas Lights in Highland Park, a ritzy area just north of downtown Dallas. The nicest decorations were probably on Jerry Jones house. He owns the Cowboys, in case someone isn't familiar with who he is.

On the night of the 23rd of December, an apartment complex in Denton burned, leaving several families homeless just before Christmas. Dayna felt compelled to do something about it so went down there to see if she could help. She found that one of her co-workers lost their apartment, and also met with a family that had eight children. They lost everything. Dayna talked to the mother and got a list of what each of the children wanted for Christmas, and then she went shopping. She bought each of the kids a major gift. Dom was with her when they took the presents to the kids, and was deeply touched.

We both got more than we needed. I got some new tools, a spotting scope and a new weather station. Dianna got a new GPS and a Kindle. She also received a new phone a few weeks early. We now both have Droid Bionics.

We stayed in Denton through New Years, celebrating Dom's 15th birthday on December 31st. We left Denton yesterday on our annual migration to Arizona. We're moving slowly, about 200 miles or so a day, and staying at the free city campgrounds in the little towns here in West Texas. Tomorrow we should be in Carlsbad, NM and plan to visit Mike and Linda Morrow, friends from Edgewood, who now live in Artesia.

I hope this satisfies the blog police for the time being. When I have something more interesting to write about, I will.