Standing outside our door looking over Palomar Mountains

We are adapting to this very different lifestyle of staying in one place and getting involved in the community. I know that is not really new for us as with Rochester natives who stayed, mostly for 60 years and were deeply involved in the community, but since we have been on the road, we have seldom stayed anyplace long enough to actually get involved. Looking back, it seems that other than visiting the kids or waiting for repairs in Red Bay we never stayed put for a month, when away from Rochester..

As I noted in the last post, I have put my name in for a couple of committees and have been accepted. I found my way to the Pool Room and then found myself in a tournament where I performed as would be expected from one who hasn’t devoted any time to the activity in 50 years, badly. I had a lot of fun and much encouragement. I need to spend much more time with cue and balls on the table to have a chance of staying in the tournament for more than two tables.

For my next adventure I sat in on a Bridge lesson and then stayed to play. My skills are rusty, but it is coming back. Then I played in an evening game with huge stakes, $.25 🙂 and came away with $.74 for placing third and only going set one trick all night. My biggest challenge for this afternoon is whether to play some Bridge, or practice in the pool room.

We have started exploring both in the region and on the land around the coop. We are mostly surrounded by BLM land, sure hope Bundy and gang don’t decide to “liberate” it. We also have acreage equivalent to the land we occupy that must be kept undeveloped within our fence.  Yesterday I took a walk to explore some of that undeveloped acreage and found plenty of animal track – large cat and coyote mostly – as well as great hiking, not to mention some steep “roads” that will challenge the Jeep just a bit. Exploration in the region has focused on breakfast with the ROMEOS (Retired Old Men Eating Out). I have been to two places I don’t need to take Carol too, more to follow, the fellowship is fun.

As we watch in consternation the shape of the Primary battles in both national parties, we are being treated to our own election contretemps in the Resort. Naturally the most contentious arena is the kitchen.I won’t regale you with the details as I am not sure I understand the issues other than that they seem to deal with personalities What a surprise in a closed community.

Alex came and went. It was an all too brief week. We tried to tour Palomar Observatory but the road was closed due to ice! Instead we toured Palomar State Park.

What a treat, we will have to return. We took the long dirt back road out, Harrison Grade, after hearing someone driving a passenger car being warned off of it. The best description I can give is a snake with indigestion. The drive home from the airport was a mountain road treat in itself. We did not return that way with the motorhome. We traveled into Temecula and found other places of interest. We also found birds wherever Alex looked. You will need to get the list from him. We left Jojoba Hills a day early and set up camp in Indian Waters Resort in Indio where Yechiel and family joined us. They had a cabin not more than 100 feet from our campsite, that was fortuitous.

On Monday we drove in two cars up the southeastern entrance to Joshua Tree National Park. We almost lost control of all three boys when we got to the first pile of boulders, well maybe all five.

I guess I’ll join the mob of writers taking advantage of the end of the year to find a topic for a blog. If you have followed our blog regularly, much of this is review. You can stop reading here!

 For the past 15 years our life has focused on RV travel. We have also continued to enjoy much travel out of the country. Foreign travel in 2015 started out in Israel to end 2014 and begin the year with our sons and their families. I am not sure I want to put together such a massive undertaking again, but it surely was a wonderful experience for all of us. The greatest delight for me and for Carol, was watching the members of the family who had never been to Israel experience it for the first time.

Coming back to the US we traveled in the coach for the months of January through May and into June returning to Rochester in time for the Rochester International Jazz Festival . We spent the end of the summer in the countries that surround the Adriatic, with the exception of Italy.

Our RV travels have taken a new turn. After getting back from Israel, we headed west stopping to visit our many friends along the usual route until we got to the Tucson area where we stopped for the Escapees’ Escapade in the Pima Fairgrounds south of the city. While there we ran into John who was manning a booth featuring Jojoba Hills SKP Resort (SKP is an alternate spelling for Escapee). After talking with him and a couple of other members of the Coop we decided we really needed to pay a visit and look into the idea. We have wandered in a fairly nomadic manner with the seasons for the past 14 years. It seemed to be time to see if there was another mode to this wonderful RV life style that would work for us. We joined.

 We left Rochester in early October inspired by the desire to be with the VA Goldbergs preparing for Corey’s Bar Mitzvah. Then we turned the wheels west hoping to get to our new site in Jojoba Hills SKP Resort by mid December. With stops in St Petersburg, Tucson, and Las Cruces, documented elsewhere, we finally pulled into Jojoba Hills on December 17. And here we have been. Grandson Alex flew in from Virginia to spend the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016 with us in our new home base. This will be be two years in a row for him to share New Years Eve with us. On Sunday we will take him in the coach to Indian Waters Resort in Indio. it is much closer to the airport, and we will be joined by Yechiel and clan, renting a cabin in the same campground. We hope to take a day in Joshua Tree NP and then take Alex to the airport. We have friends in the park and hope to spend some time with them as well. Then on Thursday back to Jojoba Hills. I have reported our foreign travel plans elsewhere. We may touch Rochester in August and again in October.

We joined and were assigned site 712 in April after visiting here for a week in March. since then we have traveled widely, crossing the country twice and touring 6 countries that touch the Adriatic. Now we have returned to Jojoba Hills, at last, to our site. It feels very welcoming here, like coming home. Although the people are all new to us, they are fellow RVers and have settled for the most part far from family and long time friends. It is a community of a wandering sort.

We do not know how much we will stay put here, but we do know where we will return to when we leave. The afternoon views from the patio in front of our coach will change minute by minute, but the mountains will remain:

I see that Carol just posted her Monday Blog Message in a Minute and I guess that has inspired me to write.

We had a delightful time in Las Cruces visiting with the Ketler/Zeitlin family. Thursday night we had dinner at La Posta with Marianne and then went to a concert of quartet music at NMSU where we were joined by Stu and later by Leora. The group are faculty and all from Latin America, the program was short pieces from Brazil, mostly. Marianne characterized the program as being all encore pieces. I could not disagree. It was enjoyable, but more like brief bits of candy then a substantial meal.

After weeks of travel without the time or place to wash the coach I hired a crew we had used before to wash and wax the coach and Jeep. They took about 3 hours to get the job done, the owner and crew of three worked hard to prepare us for the rain we are now experiencing in Tucson 🙁

Friday night was a wonderful dinner with song and stories for the 6th night of Hanukah and Shabbat, at Stu and Leora’s home. We have had the pleasure of sharing Purim and Pesach with them as well as Shabbat over the years. It is so nice to have such wonderful friends to visit as we traverse the country. Leora did suggest that the High Holidays would be wonderful and I am sure it would be, Next year seems unlikely as we will just be back from an OAT trip to Africa as the holiday season approaches.

Las Cruces to Catalina State Park, just north of Tucson was a moderate day’s drive. The park is half empty as much due to the time of year as to the weather. It was clear and chilly as we arrived. The temperature dropped into the 30’s overnight and as I write it is raining, windy and has not gotten over 40. Tucson? We are snug and dry in the coach and likely to stay here unless the rain abates. Tomorrow we will have dinner with Ellie and Kelly who we met on the Thailand/Vietnam portion of our extended OAT trips in 2013.

Trivia: drop the “c” from Faculty and you have . . .

From south of Mobile, in Summerdale AL we have moved on west stopping first in Poche RV Park outside Lafayette LA. We got in late and left early. It is a nice place and we have stayed there in the past, but this year it was just an overnight. Next stop was Rainbow’s End in Livingston TX where we got the Jeep and the coach inspected. Just pull into the inspection shop without an appointment and 20 minutes later after paying $14 total for both vehicles we are good for another year. We also got our mail, I needed the car to go over and pick it up, we hadn’t collected any in a couple of weeks. After two nights we were on the move again headed into San Antonio.

San Antonio was a three night stop. We had dinner with Mary and Harry, who are parents of the Assistant Rabbi at the synagogue we grew up in in Rochester. We had a lovely time and hope to see them in Rochester in the Fall-talk about planning ahead. Our other major occupation in San Antonio was time at the McNay Art Gallery. For some history http://www.mcnayart.org/ We got there at 3 in the afternoon, only to find that they close at 4 on Friday. We dashed through the special exhibit of Miro’s work from the 60’s to the end both paintings and sculpture. Although we have been fans of Joan Miro for as long as I can remember, we were not familiar with the bronzes. Oh my what a show. When I was in high school my parents had a cheap print of a Miro oil that hung in my bedroom. It went off to college with me and then with my sister Sandy and then with Yechiel and I think eventually with a nephew. Oh we could hardly drag ourselves out of the modern end of the gallery. We crossed over to the house side where the exhibits were also wonderful, but we had to leave. We returned the next day and devoted most of our time to McNay’s personal collection in her house. She was a painter herself and collected modern works of art with a wonderful eye. Photography was not allowed. If you are going to San Antonio this is a must visit. Oh yes the grounds are magnificent as well.

Sunday, oh that is today, we rolled out with a plan to be on the road bout 4 hours. We had thought about charging across I 10, but just couldn’t bring ourselves to do that so here we are back in Seminole State Park along US 90 just before we cross the Pecos River. Tomorrow we will stop early again in Marfa before continuing on to Las Cruces on Tuesday.

Following our repair at laMesa RV, we moved on across the state to St Petersburg KOA to spend the week with Carol’s brother and sister-in-law. They are significantly older than us and, unfortunately showing it. We also visited with other friends during our week long stay. We especially enjoyed lunch with Shelley and Norm who we have traveled with in our RVs over the years, going back at least to 2005. As with many RV friends that means we have been together on both coasts and many places in between. They are off the road now so we must come to them in either Block Island or near Sarasota FL. We had brunch at Bert’s home in Long Boat Key with his SO Judy. It has been a few years since we had gotten together. We go back with Bert to sometime in the ’70s when we were very active in our community in Rochester together.

Most of our time was spent with Arthur and Natalie in their apartment as they prepare for another major life change, moving to NJ to be close to their son and better health insurance than is available in Florida. This will take away our major reason for coming to Florida “on our way from Virginia to California” each year.

As I write we are back in Rainbow Plantations for the innumerable time. We are moving across the country with some speed. Tomorrow we move again with a plan of being in Livingston TX on Tuesday evening.

Just one small repair to report on. For the past 10 months or so we have been plagued with a slow draining sink in the bathroom. I have looked for help on the Tiffin Owners forum and played plumber more times than I care to think about. I have cleared the trap and unplugged the drain line more times than I can count. It seemed to have resolved itself during the summer storage until a week ago when it became very slow again. The only way I could get it to drain was to remove the stopper. Finally this morning I had about had it. I unscrewed the stopper one more time and noticed that the black liner seemed to be hanging down and obstructing the flow. I decided to compare it to an identical stopper arrangement in the bedroom vanity. THERE IS NO BLACK LINER! The inside of the stopper was loaded with an accumulation of stuff. I cleaned it out with a cuetip and the water runs down the drain freely. Another repair attributable to my mechanical aptitude and perseverance 🙂 I will admit I was just a bit slow on the uptake with this one.

It seems that every time we need an actual service center to make some sort of repair the process makes root canal seem like a more pleasant pastime. The actual repair of the Air Conditioner/Heat Pump seemed to be headed in that direction. After waiting three weeks to get a mobile tech on site, he waved his tools at it and pronounced it healed. Later that day, well after his departure, it resumed its failed ability to heat anything.

I gave up and decided to try my luck in Florida. A call to Lazy Days resulted in the information that they would deign to let us darken their threshold in four weeks or so since we had had the nerve to buy from someone else. I then remembered that we had been serviced at LaMesa RV in Sanford FL, only about 100 miles out of our way. I also remembered long and seemingly fruitless waits in an expensive campground 20 minutes or more away from the service center. Oh well getting parts can be like that. A call to Nathan, the Customer Service Rep who we had worked with two years ago got me a “sure, bring it in when you get here and we’ll take care of it.” This seemed like a bit of an over promise, but it was the best offer I had.

Monday morning we arrived from St Augustine area at about 10 AM and located Nathan. Within an hour the coach was in a service bay being diagnosed. Less than an hour later we had the news that the AC/HP needed to be replaced, and the work had been authorized by our extended service company (Good Sam). Nathan at first said it would take two days to get a new unit delivered, then he learned that he could get it the next day! Tuesday the new AC/HP was delivered late afternoon and we were scheduled to have the transplant done Wednesday morning at 9. By 11:30 we were driving the coach back to the campsite. By 1:30 we were driving it back to LaMesa as the condensate drain was spilling condensate over our door. They quickly found a kink in the drain tube that was hidden from view after installation and they installed a new more flexible tube which solved the problem. The condensate is dripping out the overflow at the rear of the coach away from the door and anyplace else it would cause us problems.

I am extending kudos to Nathan and the LaMesa crew in Sanford for taking care of a wandering full timer in an expeditious and friendly manner. Would hope I don’t have any more failures, but know I will and I can only hope that if I can’t get back to Sanford that I will find others as helpful.

I must add that despite many gripes about service from Good Sam Extended Service, this is at least the third repair they have provided coverage for in a year and at least one of those was self inflicted for which I expected no coverage at all.

On Wednesday with the weather fine and the promise of rain on Thursday we headed into DC for a major walk though the Tidal Basin and down (up?) the Mall. We took the Metro to Smithsonian by the Castle and walked around the Tidal Basin to the Jefferson, FDR and MLK Memorials. We continued on to the WWII Memorial which was mobbed, it was Veteran’s Day! We continued down the Mall to the National Museum of the American Indian where we had lunch with choices of “Indian” food from both American continents. We spent more time than we expected touring the museum. We returned through rush hour to the coach with sore feet and full minds. We had walked over 7 miles and really enjoyed it. Thursday was chill and rainy and we stayed around the coach and caught up with cleaning, laundry and sundry indoor activities.

Friday we drove too far, 405 miles, but we had to in order to get to Leigh and Pat’s place in Charlotte NC before dark. Well it was 7 something and certainly dark by the time we disconnected the car on the street in front of their place. We then backed the coach into the cul de sac they live on and leveled up and planned mostly to sleep  and have breakfast on board. That was how it worked out. We had an easy dinner with them in their lovely home and got to see the garden and play with Molly. Hazel did not make an appearance at all. Saturday we went into Charlotte to visit a couple of galleries and have lunch and eventually dinner. The McColl Center provides residencies for artists for up to a year and also a lovely exhibit space. Part of their obligation is to open their studios from time to time and this was one of those days. From there went to the Harvey Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture. On exhibit was a photo essay from the Selma March, the work of Charlotte Catlett and a large exhibit of work by the AfriCOBRA Now group. We closed the place and went back to the house to put our feet up before going to dinner at Bistro la Bon. I had Beef Samosas with Chili Sauce and a Salmon dish that I really enjoyed. I would be glad to go back to that place.

Sunday we woke up early, said oour farewells, hitched the car to the coach and were on the road by 9. We promised ourselves a short day, but with no reason to stop earlier we made it to St Augustine, 432 miles, St Johns RV Park – Passport America 50% discount. I cannot rate it as they gave us an overflow spot with water and electric and we pulled in as the sun set. It seems nice enough, especially for our purposes. This was the second 400+ mile day we have had and we are not supposed to do this sort of thing. But tomorrow is 80 miles! and we get into La Mesa RV early to get the heat pump looked at. I’m not betting we get it fixed tomorrow, just hoping for this week!

After that is dealt with we are on to St Petersburgh to spend some time with Carol’s brother and s-i-l, We also have some friends to visit with before we begin our westward trek.

After 4 weeks in Dan and Malena’s yard it was strange to get back into the campground, touring life style. We settled in to Cherry Hill Park and dashed off to see Bunny and Alan. Alan has had the very bad fortune to have a cancerous tumor on his pancreas. It was a very quiet and subdued visit although Bunny managed to entice me into enjoying some wonderful Maryland Crab Cakes brought by another friend. We smiled and made the best of the visit.

Sunday was a wonderful, family filled day. We visited my cousin Judy and her SO Ralph in DC. We were treated to a royal Sunday Brunch with lox and bagels and homemade kugel. We had not been in touch for several years and it was great to spend a couple of hours catching up and reminiscing. Ralph’s daughter is a professor of archaeology at Brown and. I am pretty sure, was involved with the Coursera course I took a few years ago “Archaeology’s Dirty Little Secrets”. It certainly is a small world that keeps getting smaller. We left there and drove to Alexandria to see Daisy and Steven’s new home there. Dinner was lovely, but even more lovely was the reception they gave us in their marvelous new home. We will be back to meet the baby next year!

Monday we were not quite done with family. We met cousin Bob (that’s Bob Levey, well known to most readers of the Washington Post until about 10 years ago). Lunch was a Metro ride from the campground to Bethesda and then a very short walk to a Nepalese Restaurant that Bob favors. Road traffic was horrible and the Metro spared us from the worst of it and parking was a cinch at the Metro station in College Park. We even got to use our Senior Smartrips which we picked up the last time we visited in DC. Once again the conversation flowed and we spent the time catching up with each other. It is so important to keep family together even though we are scattered across geography and life experiences.

So we were in DC, well Bethesda, a short step form the Metro and all of DC spread before us with a few hours before things started to close. We decided to take up one of Judy’s suggestions and stop by the Library of Congress to see the Reading Room, especially the ceiling. -you may infer a very long pause here- We LOVE libraries! We got there about 2:45 and were there until closing. The only books we saw were in the shelves around the Main Reading Room and the Jefferson Collection special library. I could repeat some of what the docent told us on the hour long tour, but you need to do that for yourselves. To further whet your appetite go to www.loc.gov. The building was built at the end of the 19th century and is a glorious temple to knowledge and learning. Indeed it is in the form of a temple. Every surface is decorated with wit and intelligence and beauty. I could spend many hours there, but we have tickets for the Newseum tomorrow and that is where we shall go.