Monday, March 12, 2012

We were up and headed into town this morning to meet Terry and Jo-Anne at the Cottage Too for Breakfast.  Phil and Joyce had picked us up, and true to form, we took the scenic route to get there.  We actually arrived early and ahead of the Bertamini’s which is highly unusual.  Terry and Jo-Anne are always well ahead of the meeting time, but Phil thought we had to be there by 8:45 this morning.

On the way home we were on the scenic tour again and drove through a couple of campgrounds on the way.  Phil always like to go the long way.  We just ride along and enjoy the trip.

Today is a get-ready-to-move day.  We’ll be pulling out to head over to Desert Pools for a week but we have to spend a day on the road cause we could only get 6 days over there and we have to be out of here for a week.  Sharon will plan on calling to see if we can get in a day early tomorrow, but we don’t expect a resolution.  We’ve spent time on the road before, and won’t mind if we have to do it again, for a single day.  We’ve already spent days without hook-ups this year when we went to Yuma at the Red Earth Casino and then again at Quartzsite for two nights at different times.

This afternoon we left early for the pool and it was moderately crowded when we got there.  I guess this weather brings everybody out to soak for awhile in the nice warm water.

We were having ribs for supper tonight and we put them in the Crock Pot after we got back from Breakfast this morning.  We usually cook them in the oven but we thought we’d try them in the slow cooker for a change just to see if they’re any different tasting.

By the time we got back from the pool the smell in the motorhome was quite pleasing indeed.  Although the ribs were still cooking, we could smell the rub that I had used on the meat.  Looking through the glass in the top of the cooker, the ribs looked like they usually do after spending 3 hours in the oven.  So we’ll be anxious to have at them.  The final step for the ribs still remains the same.  Slosh them up with homemade BBQ sauce and throw them on the grill for a couple of minutes.  Once the honey has darkened on the surface we take them out and jam them in our mouths.  And true to form that’s exactly what we did.  The ribs tasted as good as they ever did and were tender as all get out.  I guess the Crock Pot is a good alternate way to cook them to keep the motorhome from heating up because of the oven.

No wind tonight so we had good TV all night tonight including the extra shows that we taped in order to carry us through til 10 o’clock.  We caught a little of Craig Ferguson before we collapsed into the padded room tonight.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

The first thing Sharon did this morning was to call RPI to see if we could get into our campground today instead of tomorrow.  We were one day short on our reservations and as of now we would be spending the night on the road.  She tried last week to get in without success so we didn’t expect much today.  But as luck would have it she managed to finagle the day out of the system and we were in.

So Sharon went for her walk this morning and when she got back we got ourselves ready to go “next door”.  We weren’t in any real hurry since we would be moving a mile down the road.  At 10 we left for Desert Pools RV Resort, and a half hour later we were settled in our site and ready for the day.

Today was supposed to be spent on the road so we had a plan to be away for the day.  We left and headed for Palm Desert wanting to stop at Michael’s Craft store so Sharon could wander around in there and then at a sporting goods store which should have the shirt I wanted for wearing to the pool.  We stopped but they didn’t have it so we carried out the second part of our plan for today.  A couple of years ago we went to Schmidy’s Tavern, the home of the original $5 lunch.  The bar and grill is in Rancho Mirage and they serve $5 sandwiches with your drink included in the price.  The sandwiches are more than enough to eat for lunch and very good.

By the time we got back to the campground we were just in time to head back to Catalina for our afternoon in the pool.  The water was a little warm today but we stuck it out til about 4:30 and our usual time to go back home.  The wind started to pick up while we were in the pool, and we decided it might play hell with the dish for tonight, so we decided to go to the $1.50 theater and see “Red Tails”, a movie that we missed in Casa Grande when we were there.

The movie told the story about the Tuskeegee Airmen but didn’t delve much into their history.  It was a good movie, but I thought it had the potential to tell the Tuskeegee Story and give us a history lesson all at once.  We both enjoyed the dogfighting scenes and it was definitely a good movie.

When we got home I checked the DVR and it had recorded all of our regular shows tonight.  I thought the wind would prevent the shows from even being watched tonight, so go figure.  We’ll catch up on our recording over the next couple of days.  We watched NCIS before we went to bed, and it was a repeat, so we may have not missed much tonight.  As a matter of fact, if they recorded, we didn’t miss any of the “repeats.”

We didn’t think staying up and watching them tonight made much sense if they were repeats so we just quietly went to bed and caught up on our zzzzz’s.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

We were up this morning with a plan for the day.  Sharon took off with the laundry to get it done before we went to the Emperor Chinese Restaurant for lunch with Phil and Joyce.  We got a call from Corky and Deb Zimmermann this morning asking us if we were interested in having lunch somewhere today.  I told them about our plans and they suggested that we meet them there at noon.  And as luck would have it, when we made the turn in to the restaurant we were the next car behind them going into the parking lot.  The place was about 18 miles from our campground.  Sometimes the timing is everything.

We actually had a great lunch and the food was very good, as usual.  I thought the selection was better than the last time we were there, a year ago.  But that was probably just my perception of what it was like.

By the time we got home it was already time to go to the pool for the afternoon.  We got dressed and immediately headed for Catalina Spa.  We managed to get there just after 3 o’clock and we jumped into a full pool today.  I think there was more people in the pool today than we’ve seen so far this year.  We actually stayed today til after 5 when we usually leave around 4:30.

Before we left we said our “so longs” to Phil and Joyce since they will be leaving tomorrow for Thousand Trails fo two weeks.  I’m sure we’ll see them again before the both of us leave to head home at the end of the month.

After leaving the pool this afternoon the wind was starting to pick up a bit and it seemed like it might play a part in bad TV tonight.  As it turned out the wind never did play a part in TV reception tonight.  We managed to watch and tape whatever we wanted all night.  We actually stayed up until just after 11 watching a couple of things that we had taped from other nights, particularly from the night we went to the movies.  We’ve got one more night of “catch up” and then we’ll be on track again.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

I got up this morning and decided to finish off the bad waffles in the freezer, and when that wasn’t enough, I cleaned up the Apple Pancakes that we had left over from our Breakfast the other day.  They were still very good if I must say so myself.

We didn’t have much to do this morning, but Sharon got hustling cleaning the hacienda after her shower.  I took the bathroom fan apart and cleaned the screen and then put it back together again.  It always manages to gather more dust out here, and then it sticks in the screen.  It’s a pain to take the fan apart but there is no other way to get it clean.

We ate a late lunch today and then waited for pool time to roll around before we got in the car and drove over to Catalina to have our afternoon dip.  The pool was relatively full and the water temp had been turned down a bit today.  It was much more comfortable to be in the cooler water.  It was still warm, just not as warm.  We stayed late today and didn’t get home until after 5.  We said our good-byes to Terry and Diana Brown, from Michigan, as they would be leaving for Galveston, Texas tomorrow.

By the time we got home we had time to watch our usual game of Jeopardy and then settle in for our usual night of TV watching.  We had a couple of new shows on tonight that we wanted to watch so we recorded them cause they came on at the same time, on different channels.  We managed to catch them both before we finally folded up our tents and headed for the bedroom.

Friday, March 16, 2012

We weren’t even up and rolling his morning when we got a call from Terry and Jo-Anne to see if we wanted to go to the Cottage Too for Breakfast.  Of course when Sharon got rolling I checked with her and we were onboard almost immediately.  Terry and Jo-Anne will be leaving next week to go home and we won’t see them again until next year.  So we need to maximize our time together while we have it.

We met them at the Cottage Too this morning at 9:15 rather than our usual time of 9.  We had a great Breakfast together and unfortunately it could be one of the last times.

We stopped at the grocery store on the way home needing some things for Supper tonight.  We would be having fish and Sharon picked up some frozen filets that we could just pop into the oven.

By the time we got home the wind was blowing as forecasted today but it must have been blowing in the right direction cause it wasn’t bothering the dish much at all.

We didn’t have to bother with lunch today after having eaten a late Breakfast.  We watched the tube until it was time to go for the pool today.  We managed to get over to Catalina by 2:30.  The pool wasn’t as crowded today as it has been over the past week or so.  Usually the Canadians heading home manage to spend a day or so here on their way.  A lot of them use this as a stopping place as they leave Yuma headed north.  We always see a lot of strange faces here at this time of the year.

We stayed at the pool until about 5:30 today which is late for us.  It seemed like we got there late today but we really didn’t.  In fact we were almost earlier than we had been all year.  In any event by the time we went home the pool was still almost in full sunlight because of the time change to Daylight Saving Time last week.

When we got home Sharon popped our fish filets into the oven and made homemade french fries for supper.  She also made Garlic Bread from a skinny loaf  that she sliced on an extreme bias.  Everything was quite good indeed.

The wind that had built itself up all day was now blowing quite handily and TV would be impossible to watch.  But Daphne Garrett gave me a secret for watching taped shows even though the wind is destroying reception.  We gave it a try tonight and it worked until the movie “Pulp Fiction” froze up halfway through.  I don’t think we had a problem because of the current wind, but rather on the day it was taped.  In any event we changed to a new movie and watched that one all the way through.  So I guess the solution works just fine.

We were ready for bed by the time 10:30 rolled around and there was nothing to keep us up any longer.  We fizzled and fell into bed for the night.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

We were off this morning to one of our newly favored places on a Saturday.  We got a call from Terry and Jo-Anne Bertamini saying that they would meet us at 2 Springs RV Resort for Breakfast this morning.  They told us that they would be leaving on Monday now, so this would be our last chance to get together.  I finally had an omelette today which was not cooked in my estimation and I did not enjoy it.  This was the first time I was disappointed in the Breakfast, however, if I wanted an omelette I should have just made one myself at home.  We stayed, as we usually do with Terry, until we were over-coffee’d and then said our good-byes and came back home.

Almost as soon as we got back home, the snow front, which was predicted,  moved in and obliterated the mountains to the west with clouds and fog.  We were expecting to see some snow on the mountains when the weather clears over the next couple of days.  The longer the clouds stay over the mountains the more snow we’ll expect to see after it clears.

About noon the wind brought the rain but neither affected the dish or the TV reception.  We decided to try and get past the point in our movie, Pulp Fiction, that froze up last night and today it zipped right by it.  By the time the movie was over with, we wondered why we even cared if we had seen the end of it.  It was definitely not one of the top flicks in my ratings.

It was cold today so we didn’t even think about going to the pool today.  Besides it rained most of the afternoon anyway.  It was still raining when it was time to go to Catalina Clubhouse for the St. Patrick’s Day Dinner of Corned Beef and Cabbage.  So we decided to just stay home and have Jambalaya with Polish Sausage and Rice for Supper.  We even had some Black Bean and Corn Fiesta Beans from Bush.

There was absolutely NOTHING on TV tonight.  We surfed around until we finally found Lockup on MSNBC.  We stayed there for most of the night even though we had to listen to the liberal nausea inducing commercials.

By 10 we were ready to call it quits for the night and nothing was going to stand in our way.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

We awoke this morning to a very disappointing day.  It was cold (45 degrees) windy and overcast for most of the day.  Sharon was off to church to pray for me and nicer weather.  I watched my Sunday morning political shows while she was gone.  I really can’t believe that people really are stupid enough to believe the crap that they feed us.  A person gets so sick of listening to the absolute garbage coming out of their mouths.

By the time Sharon got back after stopping at the store for a couple of things for Supper tonight, the weather had warmed up some, but the mountains were obliterated still by the fog and clouds.  I expect that the clouds are going to dump a load of snow in the mountains before they are done.

There wasn’t much to do today except sit around and watch TV for the day.  Sharon decided that she would keep herself busy during the bad weather and picked up a couple of Jigsaw puzzles at the clubhouse and she was putting them together over the last couple of days.

I waited until it warmed up a bit this afternoon before I went out to dump the holding tanks.  I noticed we needed a dump this morning and I didn’t want to wait an extra day like I’ve been doing over the winter.  I’ll see if we still get the unpleasant sewer smell that we’ve been getting lately after dumping.  Hopefully this will solve the problem.

We watched a movie with Tom Cruise called Mission Impossible III this afternoon hoping the wind wouldn’t blow hard enough to interrupt our reception.  We did make it all the way through and it was an excellent movie.

We sat down to stew tonight for Supper.  Sharon always seems to cook according to the weather.  And today certainly seemed like Stew weather to both of us.  But she didn’t cook it long enough or hot enough cause the veggies were still a little hard by the time we ate.  Still good, but a little firm.  She put it back in the crock pot for a couple of hours after Supper.

Tonight was just another TV night with nothing to watch.  We surfed all night and didn’t have much luck finding anything.  But we did make it to 10:30 with a little help from off-beat shows and jigsaw puzzles.