This is the first of what may become an occasional series.

On a beautiful Saturday we decided it was time to get out of the comfortable shell of our life in Jojoba Hills. It has become to easy to chat with neighbors, play bridge and participate in various committees and other activities. Carol noticed that there was a Daffodil Festival in Julian. Long time readers of this blog may remember that we first visited Julian in 2003 or thereabouts. We have been back many times, sometimes just passing through and other times staying to camp. Some research (Google Map search) showed that we are at most an hour from Julian over  twisty mountain roads. Actually right on CA 79 which is the same highway we are on.

Historically, Julian was founded as a gold mining town in 1869. AS with so many such towns is flourished and failed. But they have a great climate for growing apples and today are know for apple pie, cider and great local apples. The demand for their apples is great enough that the only place they can be bought is in Julian and there mostly as apple pie, or maybe APPLE PIE. There is Mom’s Pies

I have been active in stuff that is fun for me. Finance, Marketing and technical Future Planning are keeping me occupied when I am not playing Bridge. The other day I went down to our Boondock area with Bud, one of our lead tech gurus, to see  if changing out the modem on the wifi antenna serving the area would restore service. Mostly I watched him so I could do it myself should the need arise (first I had to know where it is). While we were working a visitor staying there stopped by with questions about the service. I reassured him that we were working on getting it restored. Shortly after that the last reboot took effect and the signal and the internet connection came up. I stopped by to tell him, but he had already started it up and said how happy he was. Later at our weekly Monday Meeting in the segment where we welcome visitors (as well as new members and returning members) the visitor finished his introduction by thanking me for fixing the wifi. I was embarrassed to say the least as Bud had done the work and I had just done the talking.

The scenery here is magnificent

I guess we have been having too much fun since our trip to San Diego. I seem to be making an effort to get in as much trouble as I can and Carol is playing right along. She is now Assistant Secretary of Hilltoppers, our social organization. Also she is chairing a 4911 committee which is to provide helping hands like guiding an ambulance or just sitting with the person until help comes, when someone needs 911 help. It seems she is having meetings someplace every day now.

I decided to get my hands dirty in a different way. I have started going to J-Cat meetings three mornings a week at 8 AM to get assignments to fix people’s phone’s, internet connections and even TV reception issues. We actually have wires to every site carrying all three services – well the phone lines also carry internet. This has also gotten me into the discussions regarding our upgrade to television in the park, both in the service provider and in the actual cables in the ground. My first solo call was a report of “no dial tone” I resolved that by moving the phone line from the non functional pair to the appropriate functional pair (I unplugged it from the wrong jack . . .). I have also volunteered for other committees involved in the connected future of the park and one mysterious committee called “S” Drive. I hope it has something to do with computers.

Just for laughs and giggles we have had a bout of “Perils of Paul” this week. I drove into town to complete my last interview with a prospect for Brown University (they are getting younger every year). After a delightful hour of conversation we parted and I returned to the Jeep which would not start, it was clear the battery was kaput. Being ever resourceful I had a set of jumper cables in the back and was able to recruit a friendly soul to let me use his battery to get me going. I wanted to call Carol to let her know why I was running a bit late. I discovered my phone had rebooted with out asking my permission. When I went to enter the password, the “Done” button at the bottom of the screen would not work! It turns out nothing on the bottom row of the screen would work, not even the space bar. I got back to Jojoba Hills with no further incident. I parked the Jeep by the shed so I could hook up the charger I somehow didn’t trash when we sold the townhouse. The following morning it was still dead and a neighbor came over with a jumper starter thing no bigger than a box of cigars. It worked! I now own one! I also own a brand new battery and new terminal clamp to go with it and everything is working. Oh I also have a new phone with twice the memory (still not enough I fear).

We are looking forward to driving the Jeep over the mountain to Palm Desert on Sunday to see my classmates from Brown, Toby and David.

This was the rallying cry of our group calling ourselves Progressive Senior Patriots as we joined the Women’s March in San Diego. More than 40 of us joined the march from our home base in Jojoba Hills SKP Resort. We wore yellow hats to distinguish ourselves from the thousands of other marchers.

Disembarking in San Diego

We stayed pretty much together throughout the two hours of the march and certainly saw people of all ages and backgrounds. Although we were prepared for counter demonstrators, we saw none and everyone was peaceful and friendly.

Where has this past week gone? It has been pouring all day here in Jojoba Hills in the high desert – probably close to 3″.

Back tracking: Just over a week ago we pulled into the parking area of Windmill Tours just west of Palm springs. We met Victor and Joyce there as planned for a tour of the wind farm they had found out about from yet another friend. I took some pictures of the wind turbines, but even with people for perspective there is no good way to show the size of a turbine with blades that are 125 feet long on a tower that is over 250 feet tall. The most impressive thing I learned is that each turbine is autonomous. It senses wind speed and directions and adjust its own direction and the feathering of its blades to make the best use of any wind.

We had happy hour on the coach and dinner out after which we turned in for an early day on Sunday. Sunday we drove to Quartzite, a locale known mostly to RVers. this town of fewer than 1000 in the summer swells to massive numbers, over 100,000 most winters as RVers from all over the west flock in to attend the Swap Meets and Big Tent show while camping for free in the desert. We wandered and we shopped and we had lunch at the Quartzite Yacht Club before heading back to our coach in Indio for happy hour and dinner out – there is a theme here.  But not before taking the Jeep off road past the La Posa Long Term Visitor Area (LTVA) on BLM land. We forded a dry wash and climbed a hill and the descent was more exciting for some than the ascent. All well within the Jeep’s capabilities. The ride back to Indio was uneventful. I have no pictures, Carol and Victor do.

Monday I had thought we would go right to Anza Borrego, but as most of our plans are in Jello, it occurred to me that a jaunt to Slab City might be interesting and only 70 mile or so out of the way. Our first stop there was Salvation Mountain.

From there we wandered deeper into the Slabs following intriguing signs to East Jesus.

Even Amber has painted toenails!

We left Slab City and headed for Anza Borrego with a stop at Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wild Life Refuge where we hiked out a bit and saw the many birds resting there. Finally we made it to Anza Borrego where we took the four mile dirt and sand road in to Font’s Point which is a great overlook of the valley. We found some kind souls to take a group picture of us with the rugged terrain in the background.

We are settling back into life in Jojoba Hills getting involved in too many activities and generally keeping busy. I even have joined the tech group, called J-cat, which meets every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8 AM to field the tech calls in the park about cable TV, internet and phone – yes we actually have wire line phones at each site, necessary primarily to reach each other and 911 – cell phones could seriously misdirect a response also the wires carry our internet connection. I am not giving out that number as it is useless unless one of us happens to be in the coach.

If you know me, you know I am very unhappy with the direction our Federal Government is headed. I find that my tolerance for the news, has reached the lowest I can remember in my life. I log in to NYTimes and scan the headlines, turn to Opinion and then to Tech or Science or anything but the front page. We turn on Morning Edition on NPR and proceed to not listen to anything but the special features. I cannot even begin to number the people on Facebook who I have muted or blocked because I really cannot believe they mean what they pass along or if they do I don’t want to know. Some are people I enjoy spending time with, especially in the park where it is considered bad manners to talk about politics or religion in the common areas. Sex is not an issue given our average age. I even try not to pass along posts and such that reflect my views because it is altogether too much, I fail at this more often than I like.

Geology! Too many coincidences. I picked up a book by one of our members “Memphis 7.9”, by Sam Penny, which is a work of fiction exploring the very real likelihood of a major earthquake on the New Madrid fault and the possible implications for the entire environment of the US and beyond. Last night during dinner we had Smithsonian channel on (I said I am avoiding news) and the show was devoted to the Super Volcano that is Yellowstone NP waiting to blow up the entire western middle of the North American continent some unknown time in the future maybe distant and maybe not. All of this while sitting near too many fault lines in southern California and hearing about earthquake swarms near Salton Sea, not far from where we will be in 9 days.

I suggested to Carol that we may need to rethink our normal food stocking arrangement. She thinks the ideal way to shop is just before there is nothing left to make a meal out of in the coach. This mean that on any given shopping day we are buying what we plan to eat in the next 5 to 7 days. There are a minimum of staples in the cupboard and enough wonderful fresh fruit and vegetables to consume before it is no longer fresh. I keep our tank of diesel full! I top off the propane tank weekly. I keep our 90 gallon freshwater tank full and turn it over every couple of weeks. And I keep our holding tanks relatively empty, I can dump the black tank in five minutes. In the event of disaster the coach is ready to move in under 30 minutes. But, if it is near the end of a shopping cycle, we will have very little food with us. I am not paranoid, nor am I a prepper, just thinking things through.

On a happier note Yechiel and family were here for a few hours on Sunday and the boys had their mountain bikes along and even in the cold they were delighted to hit the trails in and around the park. My favorite sight was Avi starting out on the dirt taking the steepest trail in his field of view. I can barely ascend that trail on foot without my hiking sticks. He made it about half way to the top before losing power and traction. Dan and his gang are in Glade Park CO (just outside Grand Junction) keeping warm and enjoying the company of Malena’s sister and brother-in-law. And we will head for Indio CA on the 14th to meet up with Joyce and Victor who are in Palm Springs for the film festival now.

I was about to say “we don’t let any grass grow beneath our feet” but given that we are in the desert, even with the rain, there is no real grass to be seen.

What a marvelous opportunity for us to stay in James’ 19th floor loft apartment in the middle of Down Town LA with their two cats, Foo and Herschel. We enjoy cats, having lived with some over a period of more than 25 years, but we haven’t lived with any for the past 20 years and had gotten out of the ritual. These guys are 18 and 14, elderly gents in cat years, and mostly have their own territories and don’t require much from the human residents but fresh food and clean litter.

We immediately headed out for a walk finding that there was no way we were going to get into the Broad Gallery that day so we went into the Museum Of Contemporary Art (MOCA) where we got lost in the exhibit for a couple of hours. The first piece to capture me was

 I have been enamored of Miro’s work since I wrote a paper on him for a course at Brown. We walked back to the apartment through the Grand Central Market and enjoyed exploring the shops and restaurants as we walked. After feeding the cats and refreshing ourselves we set out for dinner having been told by James about a vegetarian restaurant nearby. It took some more wandering to find PTY where we sat outside under a heater and had a wonderful meal.

On Friday we started out with a walk to the Geffin at MOCA in Little Tokyo. The exhibit there is entirely Doug Aitken’s work. These are mostly large installations

Left you all in Las Cruces and haven’t gotten back to writing since Monday. We took two days to go from Las Cruces to Jojoba Hills SKP Resort just east of Temecula California. The drive was uneventful with a stop in Date Land Arizona which is nothing more than a truck stop, a shop with several varieties of dates and many other products and a campground. We topped up the fuel just before entering California. We may manage to avoid fueling in California altogether.

As we pulled up to the Jojoba gate we were both very happy to be arriving in our West Coast Home. With the engine still idling as we prepared to disconnect the car to back into the site, our neighbors appeared to greet us with hugs and smiles. Other friends driving by stopped to welcome us home. It really is wonderful to feel so welcome here.

On Our Site

We have already volunteered to serve the New Years Eve dinner.

During the cross country run we discovered the washing machine was broken and leaking. 😞 After calling the service number posted on a sticker inside the door we were connected with West Wind Mobile RV Service and made an appointment for the day after we were due back. Mike showed up and verified my expectation that the washer was not repairable. That was Thursday. He said the soonest they could get to it would be Monday. Better than a couple of weeks, but. . . On Friday as the rains were soaking the region we had a call from the office, “Would if be okay if they came later in the morning as all of their other jobs were postponed because of the rain?” We couldn’t say “yes” fast enough. By 12:30 Friday the new washer was churning through its first load. I watched them maneuver the washer through the various narrow passages noting that the clearance ranged from friction fit to 1/2 inch going out the front door, over the passenger seat.  There was no damage to the coach in the process. They left the old washer on our concrete slab for me do deal with. The next morning I called Jim who handles recycling for the park as a volunteer and he stopped by five minutes later with his golf cart to haul away the carcass for recycling. Love this park!

We have been staying away from news as much as possible. We read some of the NYTimes in the morning while listening to NPR. The combination results in enough distraction that we don’t really focus on any of it. I keep sending responses to our congressman, Babin to let him know that he has at least two constituents who are way to his left – that would be centrist given his position to the right of  PEOTUS. He is not likely to change anything in response to our messages, but it feels better to do something. Since I am not going to join the millions surrounding the White House to prevent Obama from leaving (see Borowitz) there is not a lot I can do other than to voice my position on issues when they come up and try to figure out where my political contributions will have the greatest impact.

Seven days after leaving Colton’s in Niagara Falls we pulled into Siesta RV Park booked for 3 three nights. I cannot remember traveling every day for that long without taking at least a night break. It felt good to be able to stop. Even better we had an invitation for Shabbat dinner with Leora and Stuart. This is always a highlight for us. Singing, eating and fine conversation until late in the evening.

One topic was books we had recently read. Carol and I reported that as we pulled into Monahans Sandhills State Park we had just finished listening to “A Man Called Ove” and I was driving with tears streaming down my face as the book concluded. It so happened that the movie was playing at the local art house Fountain Theater just down the street from the campground. We agreed to meet there before the movie and have coffee together after the movie. The movie lives up to the book with a couple of subplots omitted (necessary to fit it into 2 hours. By the end everyone was in tears. This is NOT a sad film, the tears are more of joy for a wonderful end. I think that having “read” the book first made the subtitles easier for me then usual, I knew what they were saying since it was so true to the book.

We have been puttering about the coach trying to reorganize our storage since we were in such a hurry to get out of the Buffalo area last week. It is amazing how much space we have. Of course I left behind at least a dozen T shirts which opened up an entire drawer. I fear I will be replacing some of them soon as I shorted myself in the process. That remains to be seen. I finally got the solar charger outputs modified to meet the needs of the new AGM batteries. I called tech support only to find I had not read the fine manual and I just need to depress a button for a 4 count to enter the next menu level. And so goes my process of refamiliarizing myself with all the quirks of this motorhome.

It seems we have been getting to a fair number of films recently, even two in theaters. Carol really loves films and I enjoy many myself, but not with Carol’s avidity. I suspect we will be rather limited in movie theater outings with the nearest theater 14 miles away over twisty route 79. Driving back late at night is not our favorite thing.

Monday, tomorrow as I write, we will roll out on I 10 West until we reach Gila Bend then on to Jojoba Hills.

Okay, I took the title from another RVers concept. Usually when we travel it is for the travel and we stop a lot to take in what there is to see. This trip is more about getting from Rochester to Jojoba Hills SKP Resort most efficiently. As I write we have just completed three back to back days of about six hours on the road. We are in Walnut Ridge Arkansas in the local Walmart parking lot for the night. By Friday night we hope to be in Las Cruces which will take three more days  with at least one of them well over 6 hours. We look forward to Shabbat dinner with friends there.

We did manage to have one more visit along the way. We stopped in Alton Ohio which is just southwest of Columbus and called my college roommate Leon who happened to be free and he came over with his wife Tinya and we spent a couple of hours just catching up with each other. I fear much of it was an “organ recital.” Other than some phone calls and words exchanged while filling the tank, a daily happening, it holds 100 gallons, we have had little contact with the outside world. NPR and a brief read of the NYTimes provides sufficient heartburn for any day.

Carol and I are both writing at the same time, I suspect there will be some relation between the two posts, check hers out at http://messageinaminute.blogspot.com/.

The coach is running beautifully. We are getting a lot of use out of the restored generator since the connection from the main engine alternator to our house batteries is in failure mode, er, it doesn’t work. Had a lot of sun one day and the solar panels did their job and kept the batteries topped up.

Looking back I realize I missed out on our trip into Washington DC between Covesville and Rochester. We drove in to Alexandria Virginia and left the car at the rail station and took the Metro into The National Art Gallery, East Wing. After an amazing 3 hours we dragged ourselves back to the train and picked up the car and drove to Steven and Daisy’s house to finally meet Oliver. He is a definite cutey at 10 1/2 months. They made a lovely dinner for us and we talked way too late and got up early to take bus and train back to the National Mall and the Museum of the American Indian where we met Anna Lee and Jerry our RVing friends from Sacramento who were in DC to spend time with their grandson Bennet. We had lunch at the Museum’s dining area which features menu items from all the Americas. Each of us was able to secure items of our own preference. Following the movie and a very good tour with a native from Columbia we walked the mall to pick up the Metro back to Alexandria to meet cousin Judy and her partner Ralph at Taverna Cretekos in Alexandria. This was the occasion for us to take our very first Uber. It works well, for us on that trip.

There is much more to report but I will save it for another time.