Heading East by Going West.

Dinners and lunches at our favorite places, shopping (that’s what we come to Yuma for) and it gets us into the right frame of mind for the rest of the year.

The run from Yuma to San Diego was routine and boring as we chose to drive Interstate instead of the back roads simply because we haven’t towed the new car very far and so we took the easy way.

Happy Hour with the Shanty Shakers.

Our destination was the Pechanga Casino in Temecula CA about 40 miles north of San Diego. This is a full feature RV Resort and, pleasantly, gives Passport America discounts for week day stays so we have already paid for our $40 annual dues in discounts!

Pechanga RV Resort, nice park.

The purpose of this stop is a rally organized by our great friends “The Shanty Shakers” the San Diego chapter of our favorite RV club The Escapees.

Another happy hour

Everyone was ready for a good time after being locked up for the last year and it showed at the daily “Happy Hour”. We had a lot of catching up to do with everyone, it’s been about 3 years since we saw everyone. We also met some of our RV neighbors who were full timing with their kids, they hadn’t found the different discount camping places, or the apps to find camping and the cheapest gas so we wrote everything down for them. A day later we met a second couple and did the same for them. We love to share the resources.

The Bourbon, everyone wants the bottle!

We all went to Ritchie’s Diner in Temecula for lunch and it was really good. Later there was an auction to support the CARE facility in Livingston TX. Those who wanted to donated wrapped gifts worth between $50 and $100 then we all bid on them but didn’t know what was in the packages. I lucked out and won a large fancy bottle of Willets Kentucky Bourbon. Best of all we raised about $1000 !The week just flew by.

Ritchie's for lunch.

We moved south to the Thousand Trails (TT) Pio Pico park near Jamul. Not one of our favorite places but as we have to pay TT annual dues and we didn’t use them even one time last year, we need to make maximum use of their parks this year to break even. I’ve said plenty of things (Usually bad) about Pio Pico so I won’t repeat myself!

Pio Pico

We called our friends Gene and Annette Stout and got invited to join them at the El Cajon Elks on Saturday for the Taco Lunch. When we got there the half of the Shanty Shakers who weren’t at Pechanga were there at the Elks! It was like another rally. In the evening we went round to Ken and Gloria’s for Kens tasty Smoked Pork and to hang out with Mike, Dana, Fey, and Tammy and catch up with all the shipyard and motorcycle news. 

Plans were made and re-made but life happens and we move on. This gave us a chance to visit some of our old haunts like Torrey Pines. Barbara worked across the road at UCSD and I flew paragliders there for a couple of years. Not much has changed there, it’s still a very tranquil place.

Torrey Pines paragliders

Less tranquil but still a fun place has been Shakespeare's Pub down on India Street near the airport. This has been the scene of many office and personal parties and still has the best Fish and Chips in San Diego. We sneaked in for lunch the day before we had a reunion of the old crowd there, more happy memories!

We strolled thru the area called Seaport Village and were pleased to see it has been tidied up since the last time we visited as it had become pretty run down.

The Star of India on the Embarcadero

I’m out of practice writing the blog and clean forgot to take pictures of the reunion! It was amazing. I am proud to say that our colleagues are also our friends and a bunch of them showed up! Barbara, Travis, Dean, Amin, Marcos, Carlos, Steve and Eric amongst many. Thanks so much.  I didn’t know which way to turn there were so many conversations going on! I hope nobody thought I was ignoring them. Everyone wanted to talk about our adventures and where we were going next. By the time we left I thought it was around 7pm, but when we got back to the rig it was 10.30pm!

Breakfast with the Shanty Shakers was followed by dinner with our ex neighbors and good friends Jason Ruby, Mike and Cathy and their kids Molly, Angus, and Sienna. How great to see everyone again.

Barbara and I with Mike Cathy, Jason, Ruby and Sienna, Molly and Angus

We squeezed in a couple of trips to our favorite places Balboa Park, Old Town, Seaport Village, The Embarcadero, Mount Soledad and Coronado.

Balboa Park Arboretum

Gene and Annette took us to their favorite lunch spot, The Junction in El Cajon. Ken and Gloria had us over again to work on the Edge to fix the lighting socket and more food.

And suddenly 3 weeks had gone by!

Thanks EVERYONE for a great time.

2021 here we come!

 

The time to pack up and leave has suddenly arrived. Barbara’s doctors appointments have been done and she has been told she is fine. More appointments in October to check so we can get going.

We had planned on stopping in San Diego for a couple of weeks and now an RV Rally has popped up so 2 weeks has turned into 3, with stops in Yuma along the way. We plan on reaching Maine this summer and naturally that brought up the thought of yummy lobsters, which in turn brought up thoughts of Lobster Fests and Lobster Rally’s so we made reservations for those too in August.

The rig needs the usual maintenance doing before we set off, so tires, slide seals, slide mechanisms, jacks, hoses, water tank flushing and a dozen other small tasks had to be done.

The new tow car a 2014 Ford Edge

We have a “New” to us car, a 2014 Ford Edge SUV which had already been set up for towing but the tow bar mechanicals and electrical needed getting revised and tested. When we plugged in the car we got no lights. The rig and the car individually had lights but nothing in the tow mode when the signals, brakes and running lights come thru an “Umbilical” from the rig to the car.

Inside the umbilical cord for the Edge

I bought a tester which showed no power to the plug and I had no idea where to start looking on the coach. Fortunately there is a Monaco Owners web page and someone there steered me to the power distribution box at the rear of the rig where I found 3 blown fuses. I’m pretty sure that was as a result of the umbilical getting pinched by the tow bar late last year, which may have caused an internal short. We always carry a spare so that should sort things out. That unfortunately didn’t fix all the problems as the Edge has a system that charges the car battery as it is being towed. This takes 6 wires and the existing umbilical has only 4. The local Tractor Supply store had a premade umbilical which I cheerily wired the car plug too. We decided on a test run before we left . The darned wire was 12” too short! As a temporary measure we used a good on from the Miata.

This was getting frustrating as no we only had one working turn signal and no brake lights. Worse the car was locked in park and I had no idea why. The owners manual (Always read the manual) showed a brake /transmission interlock that could be manually reset in an emergency. We got it to the Ford dealer and they found a blown fuse.

We eventually got to a NAPA Auto Parts store and they had some 7 conductor wire which let me make up 2 new umbilicals. One more do over when I found the wiring diagram I was working from was wrong (!!**!!^&*!) and we had working lights and a charging system.

The rig is super shiny after getting washed and waxed in the park by a mobile cleaning company we like. We have got the inside dusty carrying in all the stuff that we took to the Park Model last year. It all has to go back again and get re-stowed.

We rented the rig out to some friends who had sold the 5^th wheel they owned before being able to move into a house they are having built here. So they had it for 6 weeks. They gave us all their stuff for hooking it up to the water and sewer, so now we have 3 water hoses, 5 sewer hoses and about 4 TV coax cables! We are glad we could help them out nd they took great care of the rig. Thanks Brian and Ruth!

Apart from working on the rig we have of course been hanging out with our friends and we figured out that lots of us had birthdays in April, May and June and Paul had his 80^th soon. That got me to thinking (Always dangerous) and I came up with the idea of a “Progressive” birthday party. For our UK readers who may not be familiar with this here’s how it works.

Our back yard is just made for parties!

Usually its a Progressive Dinner in a neighborhood where several families get together. One family has starters at their house then each family hosts a different part of the dinner and you “Progress” from one house to the next until you are done.

Jim and Lani volunteered breakfast and we all brought omelet ingredients that got put in an freezer bag then dropped into boiling water to cook it. Coffee and Mimosa’s too!

Next Dennis and Staranne had Corn Hole (Beanbag toss in UK) but we were all so full of breakfast we just sat in the shade and chatted.

Ed and Ruthanne hosted lunch and laid on a fine spread of salad and sandwiches

Karen and Paul had Margarita's for everyone to celebrate Paul’s 8oth.

Barbara and I had the back yard set up and the grille hot for burgers and Brats and my cooler was soon emptied of the Black Butte Porter and Negro Modello beer I had in it.

We all staggered over to Carols for Ice Cream and by the time we left at 9pm we had all been partying for 11 hours!!

The girls table

Everyone had a great time but we were all exhausted after,

Nice surprise from Mike and Marci

We were recovering from that when we got a surprise call from Shanty Shaker friends Mike and Marci Parker who were at that minute heading towards Casa Grande. What a great surprise! We love surprising people and being surprised by others. Marci was worried we would be too busy to want to see them, Ha!

Draft Negro Modello to celebrate

We took them on a tour of the park, then of Casa Grande and ended at our favorite Mexican Restaurant Taco Giro. We talked for ever. They are fulltimers too and spent a whole summer touring Europe and Russia. All to soon it was time for them to leave. Great to see you.

Then it was time for us to leave too and we headed west to Yuma.

Much as I dislike Thousand Trails we did pay our dues again this year even though we never used them once last year and they didn’t offer a refund or discount on the membership of the extra “Trails Collection” we bought just before the pandemic hit. During the phone call they asked if I wanted to renew the Trails Collection again and I got hot under the collar that they wanted more money when we never got to use it last year. I must have said the right words because they gave it to us free this year!

So we found ourselves in the Foothills Village Encore RV Resort for 4 free nights. Not a very good park being right next to the Interstate and all gravel which makes it dusty. It has some pretty short and narrow spots too but we were put in a wider one due to the snowbird season being over and the park all but deserted.

Back on the road and the Edge finds some good beer.

Yuma has become one of our favorite spots and we hit some familiar places like the Elks Lodge, Prison Hill Brewing Company, Da Boys Pizza, Wally’s World (A great place to shop for RV knickknacks and junk) and the RV Superstore.

A new place was the Cloud Museum just 20 miles away in Winterhaven CA which boasts of the largest collection of Model T cars in the world. I don’t know if its true but they had a bunch. Unfortunately they were closed for the summer season but we got to walk around and peek thru the gate.

The Cloud Mueum boasts the most model T's in the world

A quick trip across the border into Mexico for lunch and a few bottles of tequila was fun.

Algadones Mexico and El Paradiso for Lunch

Dinners and lunches at our favorite places, shopping that’s what we come to Yuma for and gets us into the right frame of mind for the rest of the year.