Our hike on the Araby Trail...Bob Hope's house in the background

On the way down....Bob Hope's house....It's for sale?!?!?!

Leaving southern California!

December 1 - 15...Since we were carless we spent Sunday hanging out. Dixie did a couple of haircuts. At 730a on Monday Danny came back over to our park to pick us up. We dropped him at work and did some shopping. We also went to Ross's condo and checked out the cleaning and took the remaining items out. Guess what???? The car was not ready...there was something broke on the crank case of the new used transmission and they had to take the part off our transmission.... We picked Danny up at work and he drove us back to our park once again! The next day our friends Glenn and Henrietta took us to the car shop to pick up the car. We made a WinCo stop and then back to the motorhome...all seems to works well with the car. Of course it cost more than the original quote ~ $1400 and something! Dixie did a few haircuts this week. Also put some jewelry items in the craft sale at the clubhouse...even sold a couple of things this week!

Friday the 6^th we drove into Palm Springs and hiked the 'Araby Trail'. It was a 1.5 hr hike up 800 ft. It took us to the back of Bob Hope's estate. The houses along the way were quite beautiful and the view of the valley was terrific. After the hike we shopped a bit and then met Danny for a drink at Smiddy's and then across the street to use our Red Lobster gift cards (thanks Doug/Fran).

Saturday afternoon Dixie went to Danny's to babysit Lexi while he went to his Christmas party in Beverly Hills. Dixie cleaned Danny's house and worked on learning her new 11.6 inch Asus computer. We had it, as well as an external DVD drive shipped to Danny's so he got it all set. It's a bit of a learning curve due to Windows 8.

Danny got back around noon on Sunday. Mike moved the motorhome from Desert Pools to Indian Waters RV in Indio where we will be for the next week. It's was also Dad's 80^th Birthday...we will celebrate once we get to Lake Havasu City next Sunday.

On Monday we drove to Riverside for Uncle Don's memorial service. It was held at their church...Hope Lutheran at 11am. It was a very nice service and lunch. Cousin Bob & Paula from FL were there as well. We went to Aunt Marge's afterwords and visited.

On Tue. The 10^th Dixie finished up some Christmas shopping. She also did a few haircuts at this park.

On Thurs. evening we met Jeff & Jewel, friends from our RV group back in MT, at the Cliffhouse in La Quinta. They live in Rancho Mirage in the winter. We had a nice time visiting and enjoyed some fish tacos.

Friday we worked on computer stuff! Dixie went online and completed a lengthy application for health care. Yuk!! Did get signed up with a little credit toward the monthly so hopefully it will go through. Later we went up to the clubhouse patio and attended a happy hour of people from the park. There was a little music and snacks. We had a good time visiting and catching up with people from past years.

Saturday morning we went to the Street Fair at the College of the Desert. We made a few purchases of course. That evening Danny went with us to dinner at Chef George's! From there we made a stop at Hamilton's Sport's Bar.

Sunday it was time to leave the Coachella Valley! We weren't quite ready but we had to get to our reservation for the next month in Lake Havasu City, AZ with Dad. Hopefully we will get back yet this season. The trip today is 175 miles. We made a stop in Parker, AZ for fuel and tried to get propane but there was no one available to fill us. We arrived around 3pm We are in site B31 ~ not too far from Dad's park model. We had some problems with our electric so we didn't hook up....50amp gave us a ground fault error and 30 amp was weak.

 A Church front at the Desert Bar!  Go figure

 Happy Birthday Mike!!!

Dixie's crunched finger....the purple is gone but it still hurts & the feeling is not all back yet!

November 2013...AZ & CA

November...Our week at Ridgeview was pretty busy. Our first night we got together for dinner with Gene & Susie and Tom & Diane (couples from our FMCA chapter in Montana). We went to the movie 'Captain Phillips' that was very good. We attended the BBQ cookoff where we had some great 'Montana' BBQ and listened to some music. We visited with Gene/Susie and Frank/Katherine (Susie's sister). On Sunday with golfed with them as well. The golf game wasn't great as we haven't played since June! 

Tuesday, the 5th we moved down the road 95 miles to Earp, CA to Emerald Cove RV Resort. It's on the Colorado River and looks across the river to Parker, AZ. We lucked out and got a site on the second row from the river. There is no one in front of us so we have a great view of the water. 

Fri. we visited George & Gail (friends from Canada) at their park (Riverland). It turned out they were only about a mile from our park.

On Sat. the 9^th we started celebrating Mike's Birthday a day early! We drove to the Desert Bar...the 6 miles drive off the highway is still as bad as it ever was. We had a fun time listening to the band. We did however decided not to eat there as the lines were long. We opted to stop at the Casino back in Parker where we had a sandwich outside overlooking the river. Later that evening we went over to the RV parks outside bar and listened to some karaoke.

Sunday, Dixie went to church at the park and then cooked a Cornish Hen dinner with all the trimming for Mike's Birthday. Of course we also had to have Birthday cake!

On the 12^th we drove the 47 miles to Quartzsite, AZ . We parked at our friends, Bob & Cheryl's. The sold their motorhome and bought a house in Rainbow Acres, a subdivision about 7 miles out of Quartzsite and they had an rv hook up. We stayed their until the 21^st. While there we made a few trips to town so Dixie could stock up on jewelry making supplies. We also shared a few dinners and happy hours! On the 15^th we went to Silly Al's with Bob & Cheryl and had pizza.

On Sunday, the 17^th we got up early and drove to Lake Havasu City. Danny flew to Great Falls on Friday and drove Dad down to LHC. We all went to brunch and then got Dad stocked up and settled into his park model. We left about 3p to drive Danny back to Rancho Mirage. We had dinner & overnight at his house. It was a 300 miles day!

On the 18^th we spent the day helping Ross pack up his condo in La Quinta. Since I was the only female helping, guess who did all the packing – never dreamed you could get so much stuff in a one bedroom condo??? The 3 guys carried it to the 'pod'. We left there about 530p and headed back to Quartzsite.

On the 20^th we spent our last night having dinner with Jim/Linda, Rick/Judy and Bob/Cheryl. We had great time visiting on the patio! Their place is very nice.

On Thursday the 21^st we drove 143 miles to Desert Pools near Desert Hot Springs, CA. Also that day back home Doug had back surgery back. The day didn't go too well..Doug had complications and a lot of pain, we had car problems and Dixie crunched her finger!! After our arrival when we unhooked the car it would not move forward or in reverse. The only way we could get it to move was to put it in Low gear. We got it to our site and talked to our friends, Glen/Henrietta from Edmonton. They suggested a mechanic they used in Indio. We called and he could look at it the next day. We called our Good Sams roadside service and set up a tow for Friday. Also on Thursday when setting up Dixie smashed her finger in a folding coffee table we have. It immediately turned a dark shade of purple and hurt a lot! What more can go wrong in this one day?

It was late morning on Friday before a service came with a flatbed truck to take the Tracker to Han's Auto Service in Indio 26 miles away. He called later that day and gave us the bad news that the Transmission was bad. We opted to have a used transmission put in and he thought he could have it ready by Wed....(not going to happen)

On Saturday we rented a car for a week in Palm Desert. Danny came and got us to pick up the car. From there we all went to the Beerhunter to watch the Bobcat/Grizzly football game.

Back in Montana on Sunday Doug had to go back into surgery to remove some blood pooling that was causing tremendous pain. He finally got out of the hospital on Wed. (7 days later).

On Monday the 25^th we decided to take the rental car into Palm Desert to do some shopping but guess what???? The keys had gotten locked in the car when we came home on Sat. Here we go again...we called Good Sam's roadside service only to find out our plan didn't cover keys locked in a car! We found a garage in Desert Hot Springs that came to the park and were able to get a rod in the window and push the door opener button. $25 later we were on our way to grocery shop.

On Wed. the 27^th we drove to Aunt Marge's in Riverside. We went to visit Uncle Don at his assisted living house. He was under hospice care and not expected to live. Mike and I went to Marge's where I made pies and a salad for Thanksgiving while Marge stayed with Don. Late that afternoon we also went to visit Mike's sister and family, Buster/Sandy in Corona. We went to dinner and came back to have the desert Dixie made. We overnighted with Aunt Marge.

On Thanksgiving, Don passed away around 130p. Marge had prepped the turkey and dressing so I cooked it all. We had 9 for dinner...Shelly, Lexie, Danny/Lexi, Bob/Connie (friends of Marge & Don), Marge and Mike/Dixie. It was a wonderful dinner and time together, just sad without Don! We went back to the motorhome that evening.

We wanted to purchase a small laptop on Black Friday but didn't want to venture into the crowds so we went online on Thursday evening and ordered it from Best Buy. The car was to be ready on Friday but of course it was not. They had a harder time than expected getting a used tranny. Should be ready on Monday. Our car rental was due back on Sat. AM.

Sat. morning Dixie took her jewelry to the weekly craft show in the park that morning but there weren't many there so 'no sales'. We took the rental car back and Danny picked us up. We shopped a bit and had lunch with him. He took us back later in the afternoon and we barb-b-cued steaks.