Tuesday, another frosty morning on the desert.  The cold doesn't bother us since we installed the desert heater, but the condensation on the windows is troubling, and everything is damp.  No walk for Jeanne this morning as plans were for a quad ride at 9:30.  This is the group that went today.  We went back to the Apache Chief B&B where we took pictures of the proprietors, and then around the mountain the opposite way from what we took the other day.  Came upon an old mine and the holes were VERY deep. There was a few places along the trail where we had to unload our passengers to get through and Chuck is sure learning how to go places he never believed he could go.  It is fun watching him gain experience.  The pictures just don't do justice to the terrain.  When we got back to Q we were surprised to find three very close new neighbors.  

We each had a shower then invited Glen & April, Bonnie, Clyde and Maggie to join us for supper at the Grubstake.  Gordon very tired when we got home so he headed to bed about 8:45 pm.  The days go so quickly and we are so busy we hardly have time to brush our teeth.  We have been gone nearly two months and Jeanne hasn't taken the sewing machine out of the travel bag.  Gordon suggested she volunteer at the QIA (Quartzsite Improvement Association) and she wondered when she would have time to do that.  The Quartzsite Branch has a humanitarian project each Thursday morning from 9 - 12 but haven't been home to even go there.  There is a Quilter's Guild here also, but again, Tuesday mornings have been busy doing something!  

We wish you all were here, and we bet you wished you were also.  . . . We don't have snow and freezing cold.

Sunday Bonnie & Clyde took us to Algodones, Mexico to show us where the dentist and eye glass store was.  They needed to get some medications and we were absolutely amazed at the availability and price of the drugs we pay through the nose for in Canada.  Went to the bakery and bought two hot (from the oven) buns and two pastries for $1.50 US.  Stopped by the tortilla factory and purchased 20 warm tortillas for $1.50 US. We then stopped in Yuma for lunch and bit of a tour.

Had a great day.  Arrived back in Quartzsite around 3:30 pm.  Lucille & Tom Olliver from Saskatchewan dropped by around 4:00 pm and visited with us until around 5:30 pm.  After supper the group met around our firepit.  It was a nice evening and a roaring fire.    The windbreak is still standing and makes for a very cosy spot out of the wind.

Monday dawned cold - 0C or +32 F.  Frost on the windows of truck and seats of quads.  Jeanne went for a walk at 8:30 am because too frosty earlier.  Before Christmas day we had taken down the screen around the awning and put the awning in because of the wind, so today we rigged it all back up.  Sure hope we don't have to break camp to go dump the holding tanks.  It is a bit of a bother, but the screen makes a bit of a wind and sun break.  Weather is suppose to improve over the next few days.  We were just finishing with the awning when Roger and Jeri came over and visited.  Drove to Blythe, California for some soy sauce (20 miles) and stopped at Ehrenburg for a load of pallets to use as firewood.  Sure, we picked the warmest day in three weeks to load wood.  Brought back 24 pallets and 3 sheets of plywood.  After we got the pallets unloaded we went over to Jeri & Roger's and had a game of ladder ball.

Had hot italian sausages, Sidekicks and salad for supper.  Before we had finished people began arriving around the firepit.  Supper dishes left on the cupboard for another night.  Thank goodness for paper plates.  We sure have used a lot of them in the past two months.  Everyone left about 9:45 pm as we have a big day tomorrow.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

It was +45 F today and windy.  We spent the morning and early afternoon looking at 5th Wheels and motorhomes.  Everything is too heavy for the Tundra to pull and we don't want to get a new pickup.  We are looking for a 26' with a slide.  There isn't much that small on the lots here.  It was interesting to have a look at what is available anyway.

After that we walked around some of the vendors, and went looking for the RV park where the jam was tonight.  Once we got home and had supper we didn't feel like going out.  Gord lay on the bed and fell asleep about 6:15 pn while I ironed my clothes.  He woke up just long enough to get in his pj's and under the covers.  The bed isn't really Jeanne friendly, so can't spend too much time in it.

Hope all is well with all of you.

December 26, 2008

Four of us went quadding leaving Q at 10:00 am and returning 3:00 pm.  Stopped for lunch at a sheltered spot among the rocks.  Saw some tiny purplish ground flowers among the rocks.  Glen is a terrific guide and we followed where ever he lead.  However, at one point the trail ended at the top of this mountain, and as he was looking out to see other trails, Gord took off down the mountain.  Jeanne followed.  Glen said he wouldn't have done that with April on the machine, but as she wasn't there he followed as well.  That left Chuck, relatively new to quadding, at the top.  He was ready to turn around and return the way we had come when Gord went back and had him follow him to the bottom.  Chuck was sure the machine was going to tip over.  He was glad he had been able to do that.  Made the other parts not so frightening.

We ended up at a mine back in the mountains and the road out was flat, good enough to pull a trailer on, and a reason to open the throttle and see how fast the machines could go!

Shortly after arriving back to camp, Clyde invited us to Pie Party so she could get rid of the rest of the pie from yesterday.  What a great couple they are, and what a great group we are.  

Christmas Day 2008

The morning brought sunshine but along came the wind.  Gord, Glen and Bonnie covered the screens (around the awning and the screened room) with tarps to give us some protection from the wind.  We had a potluck dinner, hosted by Bonnie and Clyde,  with turkey, ham, yams, mashed potatoes, three different dressings, four salads, pickles, cranberries, olives and then pie - cherry, apple, caramel apple, pecan, pumpkin.

Seventeen of us partook of this feast.  We ate at noon and it is a good thing we did, because the wind came up with a vengance and the men quickly took tarps down, dismantled screened room and put up the awning.  Some of the guests then went home and the rest of us sat around  until around 2:30 when it got too cold to sit out.   

Spoke with Shirley and our children  this afternoon and evening.

Around 6ish Glen and April stopped in to see if we would like to bring our leftovers and join them for turkey sandwiches etc.  All in all, even with missing the kids, we had a great day.

December 24, 2008

People tell us it is Christmas Eve, but it doesn't feel much like Christmas to us.  The fellows put up our screened tent over at B & C's in case of inclement weather tomorrow.  We went to Glen & April's in the afternoon for a visit.  Bonnie, Clyde and Maggie came for a while also.  After supper we went to see the lights.  Amazing.  One couple's  display covers a half block.  They begin setting up before Halloween and keep it lit for about five weeks.  The weather has been windy and wet here, so when we were there some things were not lit and we were told that the rain had damaged them.  There was a building with lighted villages on both sides, a singing dear and so many other things it was amazing.  Today he had visitors from Canada, Germany, Russia and France.

We then drove to Rainbow Acres, a RV community  about four miles west of Quartzsite to view the lights there.  Again, there were a few very nicely decorated places.  

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas.

On the eve of December 23 we had a bonfire and invited the neighbors.  It was a bit windy so Gord used pallets which he hadn't yet cut up for firewood and tarps to build a semi circle wind break.  Then we strung the Christmas lights along the top of the pallets.  It was real cosy in there.  Eleven of us enjoyed a great time, some store bought cookies, as we don't have an oven, and a good visit.

If we had been singers we should have sung carols.  Two couples left for a while to see the Christmas light display in town.  What a perfect night for a bonfire.  

Early in the afternoon we had been looking for a book on Stone Cabins in the area and ended up finding the Salvation Army Thrift Shop.  As we pulled up, there was an apartment sized green stove sitting outside the building.  Gord thought he would buy it if it was gas.  It was, but the shop was closed as they were handing out food hampers today, so maybe we'll go back and see.  It would fit in the toy box until we were ready to leave and then we could just take it back to Sally Ann and they could resell it.  How's that for a way to get an oven!

Monday, December 22, 2008

Cloudy, strong wind and cool - +55F.  Eight of us went for a quad ride anyway.  We didn't see the sun but that made for a beautiful picture taking day.   Three Vermont friends and one dog began the trip in a small 4 wheel drive, going  as far as they could then we doubled on the quads.  Glen was Kit Carson, Indian guide and scout.  Took us in to three old mine sites with stone cabins.  Only possibly lost a few times!  

We ended up at the Apache Chief Bed & Breakfast and met a couple of very unique characters.  Bet you wished you had been there.

It was a 30 mile ride, down washes and over mountains.  Saw many different cacti, some beginning to bloom.  The rock colors were incredible. Greens, purples, oranges, and then the usual browns and tans.  The mountains surround us and are each so different.  It will take more than this season to travel all the trails here.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Rain, rain and more rain.  Gord & I went to the Palm Springs Air Museum. The drive there was very hairy, what with the rain and fog, and semis spraying water from the highway. We missed the sign and travelled 20 miles further west, ending up in Banning and snow!  Did we come to southern California for rain and snow?????

The museum was very interesting. They had a 25 minute movie on the women pilots of the WASP during WWII. That was very enlightening. We had the GPS on to get back home, but the highway was flooded and the girl on the GPS kept telling us to go around the block and get back on the highway.  We ended up taking a very dark (after 6:00 pm and there are not street lights as we know them) and wet tour of west Palm Springs.  Had supper at Panda at the Mall, then went to Walmart and home.  Truda and I watched Cleopatra until 1:30 am.

December 21, 2008

Thursday B & T took us on a tour of Salton Sea where they had volunteered for a few years.  We picked fresh lemons from the tree there, visited with Rangers they had worked with, saw things they had built.  From there we went to Slab City, a boondocking area which no amount of money would have us staying there.   Had lunch in some restaurant that B & T had eaten in in past times.  The decor wasn't much but the food was good.  Visited  The Fountain of Youth RV park stuck out in the desert then hurried back to Indio.  We were going to go to the date farm, but it was closed when we got there. 

We returned to Quartzsite on Friday afternoon after visiting the Date farm, sampling several different varieties of dates and having a date shake.  For those of you who don't like dates, Gord being one of them, and he wouldn't even have a bite, I suppose you want to gag.  However, it was very good and I would go back for another.  B & T are great tour guides.  They apologized for not taking us everywhere they had wanted to, but two days were impossible because of the rain.

The trailer was cold and lonely when we returned.  So grateful for the heater.  It warms this place up real quick, and doesn't use any power.

Saturday morning we awoke to +34 F and big time condensation on the windows.  Too cool to eat breakfast outside and we had just about finished breakfast when Glen came over to let us know they were back from Yuma.  We hadn't expected them until just before or after Christmas.  He was just leaving the trailer when Lucille and Tom came.  Thank goodness the sun was up and giving a bit of warmth, because the inside of the trailer was a mess and it may be big enough for two but not for any more than two.  We sat out in the sunshine until 11:45 when they left and I went to the laundromat.  While I was gone Gord put up the Christmas lights as we had taken them down before we left for Indio, hung a clock we had purchased while we were away, finished gluing the arm on my pop can cactus.  The humidity is high so had to dry clothes in dryer which I normally do not do.  However, laundry is done for another week!

Around 3:30 we went down to Ed and Norma's.  They had a group and were playing Rumoli.  Bonnie and Clyde were back from their week in Mexico and they invited us for a pot luck Christmas dinner.  There will be between 16 and 20 of us and we pray for calm and sunshine.  No matter how big the motorhome, there just isn't room for that many people.

After supper Glen came over and invited us to join them.  We got home around 10:00 pm.

Decided we would try towels on the windows to see if the condensation problem could be lessened, but I don't think it helped.  It was 32 F or 0 C this morning at 6:00 am.

Tuesday, December 16th

Bright sunny day so Bob & Truda, Gordon and I drove to Borrego.  Lots of Ocotillo cactus which we don't have as plentiful in Quartzsite. Landscape changes so quickly, from mountainous, to sandy, to green productive land.  Stopped for ice cream then drove around the other side of Salton Sea and stopped at Sonny Bono State Park for directions to mud pots.

I found the mud pots very interesting as had never seen anything like them before.  We went for Mexican food for supper. Gord didn't have a good experience and said he wouldn't try that again.