San Andreas Fault And Joshua Tree

Our last day trips were to the San Andreas Fault and Joshua Tree National Park. The SA Fault is pretty amazing, an oasis in the desert...just amazing. I think that you can click on the Palm Oases sign so as to read the posted info.

There were, what I think of as 'swamp' type plants, growing right in the middle of the desert.

Here David is dwarfed by one of the palms. These palm trees are one of only a very few that are native to the area.

OK so let me see if I can get this right...if not Jan please add a comment and correct me. This area was at one time owned by the McCullum family. And this wonderful lake (again in the middle of the desert!) is McCullum lake. Absolutely gorgeous and oh so peaceful.
These two friends do make a good picture while they are looking/exploring the scenery.

This visitor center was once the McCullum family's home. Very small but interesting

These palms are growing right along the fault line.

The lighter colored sand that you see in this picture is where the fault is making new mountain ranges because the faults are pushing against each other thus pushing the new sand to the top.

I loved this place and will certainly go back again next year.

Palm Springs is known for it's dates. Sheilds (sp?) grows 95 % of the dates in the US. Believe it or not they show a very interesting film titled The Sex Life Of A Date. No shit....and an interesting film it is. Gives an understanding of why the little buggers are so expensive. The dates are hand pollinated by shaking off the pollen. Oh it is a long and labor intensive process...trust me.

A date palm loaded with dates

And here is Mikey stealing grapefruit....not really. There is a parking lot in a government building where anyone can in fact pick grapefruit, oranges, limes and lemons for free. Of course all of the low growing fruit had been previously picked so good ole Mikey crawled up on our truck bumper and picked away.

And then there was Joshua Tree National Park. It was a cold and windy day when we were there so we didn't get out and walk around but the drive was nice. Joshua trees make interesting looking trees with their many formations.

And another fun thing to see were the many rock climbers. Oh to be in half the shape that these people are.

We left the Palm Springs area Monday and are now in the San Diego area and we love it here as well. Yesterday our tour guides started our day at 5am which meant we got up at 4am to walk the dogs, shower etc. Off we went for a three hour drive to LA to sit for 4 additional hours just to hope to hear, 'David Woelpern come on down you are the next contestant on the Price Is Right'. Alas none of our names were called and despite the long long day driving and waiting it was a good day. I am glad that we had the experience but probably don't need to have it again:) Mikey and Jan have gone before a few years back and because of their horrible experience Mikey did not watch the Price Is Right for a year...seriously. They were there when it was still Bob Barker and his crew. Apparently Bob was not a gracious host and his team were terrible to the waiting contestants....rude and just all around shitty. Needless to say Drew and his crew are good. Drew puts on a pretty good show during commercials etc. To see how a show such as this is put together was a new experience for me and I was pretty amazed at how many people on stage (outside of camera shots) that it takes. Anyway, watch the show on March 24th and you may see one of us as the camera panned by.

Here is the proof that yes we were there. Our name tags....Roberta. I did protest the use of that name to no avail.

More from San Diego in the days to come.

Day Trips And Doctor's Visits

This one's for you Ry. Certainly an old piece of steel running down the tracks.

Our days this week have been spent driving through the mountains. I could drive these same roads over and over again and never get bored with the views.

The windy route we took down this particular mountain.

We actually drove high enough up to be at snow level.

Our eagle eye guide Mikey spotted this coyote resting on a hillside. When Mikey spotted him he was laying down and all Mikey could see were his ears sticking up.

I love this church that we found in one of the mountainside towns. These mountains looked like a painter's color pallet.

And then there are the fields (yes fields not gardens) of vegetables being grown. I guess I just always think of cabbage and lettuce being grown in gardens. Sure some of those gardens are large but I just never think of them being grown in fields like we grow corn and beans! What a sheltered life I lead huh?

We have seen cabbage, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts and many other fields of greens. It's pretty incredible.And grape fields with the gorgeous mountains as a backdrop

I liked this as it shows a growing product in front with one that has just been planted directly behind and the one behind that looks to have just been worked up; then hedges, trees and as always the mountains.

Orange, lemon, lime and grapefruit trees....they all have no trespassing signs but we wanted our picture taken so we braved it. I did not go so far as to pick one of the tempting oranges though.
And then there were the doctor visits. I woke up Tuesday with horrible flu symptoms, body aches, chills etc. And then the rash came. It was all over and itched like crazy. I went to the doc who diagnosed contact dermatitis. In other words I came in contact with something that I am allergic to and I developed hives...oh they are not fun. She prescribed cortisone pills and Benedryl. That nasty case of the hives fought the meds so back to the doc I went yesterday. I got a different doc who is from England originally but from 2000 to 2003 he ran the hospital in LeSueur MN of all places! Anyway he decides that it was something that I ingested (I have no clue what) and because it was not clearing up he gave me a shot of cortisone as well as two different pills to take over the course of the next month. My flu cleared up within three days but here I am 7 days later and the hives are finally starting to fade as well as the itching. I have been so doped up on steroids that I have not had an ounce of pain...no fibro no nothing. I remember now why I liked the dose that I got when I received my chemo....took away all of my pain! Anyway I think I am on the road to recovery for now!

We are having an absolute blast and cannot believe that almost two months have passed.

I Have Died And Gone To Heaven

As we drove from Quartzsite to our destination in the Palm Springs area we could not believe the views. Mountains were topped with snow and it was an incredible site. As the sun set later in the day this is our view from our resort.

I always wonder if those who live in areas and see these views every day become complacent to the beauty. It should be noted that I referred to our home for the next two weeks to a resort as opposed to a campground. While in Quartzsite we ran across a great deal on a club of sorts. It is a bit like the time share deals that were so popular. You buy into a home park for a certain fee and in our case our 'home park' is in Oregon. We are able to stay there free for two weeks at a time. We then get a huge discount at participating 'resorts'. For instance our home here is charging us $10 a day as opposed to $30 or $40. We have two great pools, hot tubs, beautiful sites, activities, pot lucks etc etc. Very nice.

Anyway, Lenny sent me this picture yesterday. Poor Julia is not feeling well and I am sorry that she is ill.....but look at what she is snuggled up in! Gamma's (she is finally saying it and that is pretty much how she pronounces it) Christmas present to her seems to be a hit for sure when she is not feeling well. And yes Bugs one cat in particular likes to sleep on the chair too. However Julia will push him and say"Out". Oh I so miss those grandbabies.

More to come from this beautiful place as we explore with Mikey and Jan.

Quartzsite Arizona

What a wonderful place. Great food (and a ton of it), wonderful people, the desert and the largest flea market ever...what could be better? Well I guess the weather could have been a bit better. According to Mikey and Jan they have never had a bad weather day when they have been here...go figure that we have had I think three days of rain....not just a dribble but real true rain storm. We had winds I think up to 60 miles an hour and we had a tornado warning as well. All very unusual for Quartzsite this time of year. However we preservered.

Mikey grilled the pork loin (adorned with homemade old fashioned german potato salad and german style red cabbage) under his awning while it rained

And we all (14 of us) sat comfortably inside Bonnie and Barry's motorhome to enjoy the meal.

This is the no longer dry desert after one of our rain storms...

We spent a day in the desert behind us exploring. I think Mikey and Jan are comparing their find of precious gems

David and Mikey are prospecting...any gold in them there hills?

And this is Peeko's new best friend, her name is Abby. Abby's owners are Barb and John who live in California and travel with this gentle giant in their motor home. Abby is a Great Dane and is probably three feet plus compared to Peeko's less than 1 foot height. It was great entertainment to watch them run circles around the fire ring.

She is a very pretty dog.
The hills behind us at sunset

Omelets in a bag? Why yes in Quartzsite anything is possible. Here is the process. You need ziplock bags, eggs, every imaginable omelet ingredient and boiling water. You write your name on a bag with a permanent marker, Jan breaks the requested number of eggs into your bag. You travel down the table adding any ingredient that strikes your fancy

You then smush your ingredients around so that they are nicely jumbled

The bags are then put into boiling water for 15 minutes or so.

And wallah the best omelet I have ever tested and perhaps one of the healthiest I have eaten.

It has been a great week. We are waiting to here the secret vote to find out if we will be invited back next year :) Although we decided that we would just come on our own if we have to, park our 5th wheel right on the outside of the circle and sit in our chairs looking forlorn and we kust know that one of these people will take us in.

Humm I have forgotten to even mention the flea market/RV show/junk shopping that we came to Quarzsite for. It is a mecca of vendors selling jewelry, rocks, gems, RV stuff, food, art, crafts, clothing, garden art, etc etc etc. We did our share of shopping and browsing and yes purchasing. Mary you would love it here and so would you Chrissy my two junking friends.

Tomorrow we head for Palm Springs with Mikey and Jan in the lead.

Are those damned Vikings going to win in overtime???? I can barely take the stress of it all.

We Made It 42 Miles And Then....

David looked out the window and said, "We have a problem back there". I wondered what kind of a problem...well he sees smoke coming from the back of the camper. I frantically call Mikey and Jan who say they will look for the next exit. You see we happened to be on a busy busy highway traveled by tons of motor homes and semis and it had construction going on. There was absolutely no place to pull over. We did come to an exit and here we are.

After the guys inspected it all they found that the wheel bearings had gone out. I guess we were lucky that we didn't have to drive any farther as we did because we could have lost the spindle which would have ruined the axle. Now I am certainly not a mechanic but as Jess says, I do know enough to know that axles are a much needed item on a vehicle! Needless to say that our camper is brand spanking new and this should not have happened...but it did. Mikey and David got it all fixed and back on the road we went.

Mikey and Jan took the exit to their campground and we took the road to ours. It was dark and as we turned onto the dirt road leading to our campground it looked to be in the middle of no where and the road was one big washboard. We both were thinking, oh no here we go again out in the middle of no where lost on a bumpy damned road. But it lead us to a very nice campground in the middle of the desert that we really do like. Today the four of us went into Mexico and shopped at Algadones, a border town. The retired folks come here to get their hooch, their glasses and to go to the dentist!

The guys looked thrilled as can be don't they?

The rest of the week was spent exploring the Yuma area. We took a drive into the desert to have lunch at a unique spot. The buildings weren't such a much but the chili fries were quite good.

The bar's walls were covered with dollar bills...seriously.....there was very little wall space that did not have a dollar bill stapled to it. It makes for an interesting chandelier don't you think?

We drove to the sand dunes and watched in awe as folks ran their dune buggies, four wheelers etc up and down the dunes.

The road to the dunes.

And then Mikey and Jan took us to the center of the earth. Yup it sure is...well it is deemed the center of the earth by French law. For some danged reason or another a Frenchmen decided to call this spot the center of the earth. This little church that he had built is not an active church but it is cute as can be. That would be Jan waving down at me.

We have seen fields of cabbage, lettuce, broccoli...pretty amazing. And Mary here is the promised picture. Harvesting lettuce. Harvesting, shrink wrap and boxing it to sell, all while in the field. The work looks to be pretty labor intensive. The lettuce head is cut of the stalk with what appears to be machetes, they then throw it up to the folks in the truck who seem to take off the outer layers. It is then passed back to the people that shrink wrap it. Then put in boxes and loaded onto the truck ready to go to the store. The gal in red is making the boxes as they are needed. We were amazed at how quickly everyone works. Unbelievable.

Tomorrow we head out for Quartzite. While there we will be dry camping so I will probably not blog until we move elsewhere. We will spend the next week with no electricity (unless we fire up the generator). We will have only the water that is in our tanks to bath, wash dishes, use the toilet etc... It is going to be interesting.

Tuscon Arizon

We are here and it is lovely. We have been at the Catalina State Park and this is our view...gorgeous huh? Our 5th wheel on the left and Mikey and Jan's home on the right.

And here we are, the four of us who have planned and waited for this journey for 8 long years....here we are. We all wondered from time to time if our long talked about dream was going to happen...well here it is and we are so going to enjoy ourseves.
An early morning walk on one of the hiking trails this morning was not only refreshing (oh the air here is wonderful) but was full of picturesque cactus. Now Jan was telling me the names of each but do ya think I can remember...not.

A bird found this one a good nesting place.

And let me see if I can get this straight. These guys typically have a 'mother tree' that surrounds the cactus. The poor old mother tree eventually dies off.

Just a nice picture

We were hiking as the sun rose and it gave this cactus an iridescent glow.

Speaking of glowing, see the light that we throw when we kiss....or perhaps it is the sun.....

Tomorrow morning we take off (with Mikey and Jan in the lead) for Yuma. There will be stories to tell I am sure.

Texas

Is a big state which goes without saying I know but we drove all day yesterday and we are still in Texas! It seems like you could drive for days and never get out of this state. We did meet a full timer who has been full timing for the past 7 years and is from Texas. When he and his wife started traveling their goal was to live for at least a month in every state. They have and he says their favorite state is still Texas because.....you can drive 300 miles and be in hill country or another 400 miles and be at the ocean etc and never leave the state of Texas. Well I guess that is the positive way to look at it. We just always feel like it takes so long to get anywhere else when traveling through this state! By early this afternoon we should be out of Texas.
We pulled out of Ryan's yesterday morning after a few grandma tears were shed. Those darned grand babies just steal your heart and we miss Abs already! Our trip was without incident even though Tackla's 'knock her out' pill didn't knock her out and Peeko trounced on the laptop a few times (the old laptop Len-the old one)....we had no snow and icy roads nor did we find ourselves on some muddy, rutty road somewhere. This is a good thing.
So Mikey and Jan...
Get ready cuz here we come...we are on our way.

Our Time Here Is Nearing The End

Tomorrow morning we pack up and hit the road again. Our next destination is Yuma Arizona to meet up with Mikey and Jan. Jan the travel guide has lots planned for our 4-5 day stay...it will be fun and we are so excited to see them.

While we have been at Ry and Jen's we really haven't done much 'touring'. The weather just has not been cooperative but it has been nice to get to know our grand daughter and to spend time with her parents.
Believe it or not, because it got so cold here last night David and Ryan drained Ry's water pipes so that they would not freeze up. And it was warmer in our camper than it was in their house so they spent some time here thawing out their feet. It has been an interesting couple of days.

We did accomplish some things....
David and Ryan put a new tub in Ry's bathroom. Looks pretty nice too.

I sewed curtains for their living room.

And last night Ry and Jen went to a hockey game, David headed to a local bar to get into a game of hold-em and Abs and I stayed home. She is cutting a tooth so was happy to sit in Grandma's lap and rock until she went to bed. Goodness knows Grandma was happy to have snuggle up as well.

Tonight Ry and David have their last hurrah. They are going to try to get into a game of hold em uptown. I should note that when David went down last night the guys wouldn't tell him how they play...it turns out that they thought he was a cop going to bust them for gambling. Way too funny. It may be interesting to see what tonight brings.

Weather Advisory

So I am pretty much over being bummed because the weather just has not been as nice as we think it should be. I am now finding it way too funny listening to the weather advisories on TV. It may get down to 20 degrees here tomorrow night and a high in the 40s (if we are lucky) the rest of the week. The news is constantly warning people to prepare your animals, bundle them up.... do not let them outdoors for long periods of time, be aware of their paws getting frost bit. People are scurrying to put insulation around their water pipes and oh they are so worried about their plants. I just now heard that the schools are going to KEEP THEIR HEATERS ON all night long tonight so that the schools will be warm when the BIG FREEZE hits. OK I am really laughing now! Too frigging funny. Yesterday it was oh 50 or so out, the sun was shinning and it was only a tad breezy. We decided to wash the camper. This means you get a bucket full of soapy water and a long handled brush and you use a hose to rinse the suds off. I was dressed in my flip flops, jeans and a sweatshirt. Two fellas walked by and said to us, "We wondered how you can be doing that in this weather and now we see, ya'll are from Minnesota"! What more can I say.
We have left our very nice state park and have moved to our full service site and the Woelpern campgrounds. We are so lucky to have these full service, free sites. This one )much like the Leonard campgrounds) has a nice level lot, electricity (sewer if David needs to hook up to it to dump:) and a washer and dryer as well as home made suppers! Not bad.
As we were leaving San Felipe I had to take a few photos of some interesting barns n things.
A great rusted out water thingy (like my technical terms) sitting in a fallen down rusted out farm yard.


The barn and house of that farm yard

A cool looking barn along the way
And we spotted this train coming into town (nope it is not Ryan) and we had to wonder if the horse was going to stay put or wander onto the tracks. Thanks goodness he did not go on the tracks.
All righty then. I am going to bundle up and wait for the big freeze!