The Bride and The Bridesmaid—42 Years Later

What a great time we had visiting with Gail and Gary. They live in a lovely 55+ gated community in Banning with a beautiful clubhouse and golf course within. They were absolutely the best host and hostess—we chatted non-stop all day (we had nearly 35 years to catch up on) and enjoyed great food too! There were a couple memory hiccups between us which made for lots of laughs. And the time went by way too fast. Gotta do it again soon, that's for sure!

What a Difference a Day Makes

We woke up this morning realizing we are camped in the middle of a date palm grove . . . Thousand Trails Preserve in Palm Desert. As I sip my coffee and look out the window this is my view! We're off to see Gail and Gary this afternoon . . . so I'll be back probably this evening with more pictures.

All Good Things Must Come To An End

Lou

John and Barbara

Our last sunset for this trip

City Lights


Our desert adventure is coming to an end. It seems like ages ago when we enjoyed the Bluegrass Festival with Gary and Cecile, and Barb and John. Tonight I got a better picture of Barb and John to share with you. And another Park Sierra couple dropped into Boomerville . . . Lou and Judy (however Judy wasn't feeling well enough to join our happy hour. But here's Lou with his beautiful smile. We've had a blast with these good friends and look forward to "doing it again" on down the road.

We had a relaxing day today . . . Ken read most of the day. He's reading Tom Clancey's "Rainbow Six" and is two/thirds the way through. It's nearly 900 pages long and he's been really enjoying it. I've been making my baby caps, reading, and visiting with friends. But now it's time to pack up and leave around 10 tomorrow morning. . . heading over to Palm Springs and Banning then on to J and Ps to celebrate K's birthday and Super Bowl Sunday!

Tonight's sunset wasn't as spectacular as last night's but I had to catalog it because it's our last one here in lovely Quartzsite. Next year we plan to spend at least two weeks out here or longer. Oh no, does that make us sound like a snowbird! Yikes!

Celebrating in Quartzsite

K and J enjoying great friends.



Mary and Birthday Girl Elaine



Wally and Verna



Cecile and Gary



The prettiest sunset since we've been here.


Today was a beautiful day in the desert . . . clear blue skies, mid 70s, and a cool breeze. After our walk Ken kicked back and read a Tom Clancey book and I crocheted a bit (that word always looks funny to me but I think it's correctly spelled). When Cecile and Gary got back from town Cecile and I buckled down and did our "homework" we had to get done before going back to Park Sierra. Cecile and Gary are heading down on Monday to Yuma and maybe even Mexico for some dental work and we're heading over to Palm Desert and then to visit with an old friend we haven't seen in about 35 years . . . one of my bridesmaids over 42 years ago we've known each other since kindergarten! She and her new husband live in Banning and we're going to visit with them on Tuesday before heading out to Soledad Canyon Thousand Trails preserve on Wednesday. Tonight we celebrated with our friends Mary and Elaine. It was the 20th anniversary of Elaine's 39th birthday so we invited them over for dinner. We had a great time with them along with Wally and Verna - another couple from Park Sierra. After dinner we went over to the big campfire where another Boomer was singing alot of her own music and lead some group singing too. It got pretty cold - we weren't near enough to the fire so we, along with Gary and Cecile headed back to their rig and played three games of Pegs and Jokers. Needless to say . . . the sunset was spectacular tonight. Life is so good!

There's Nothing Better . . .

. . . than kicking back in the middle of the desert with the sun shining and a beautiful breeze blowing with no TV, no telephones (well, we do keep our cell phone on in case family need us), nothing to interrupt whatever we really feel like doing. . . like just sit back and watch as a photographer takes an aerial shot of our "Boomerville" site down below in his beautiful flying machine (I have to admit I didn't take this shot, but stole it from another Boomer's blogspot), and then a fellow boomer having fun flying an incredible kite off in the distance, enjoy teaching a fellow RVer how to knit, getting in a short nap, gathering for a group picture and enjoying a "happy hour" with two hundred other RVers —then coming back to our own little four-couples group and having a pot-luck bring-your-own-meat to grill and a side dish to share. . . and then watching an awesome sunset that changed every minute so that you think it's at its best only to see it even get better the next minute or two so that by the time it's dark you have twenty pictures of a beautiful sunset. The last sunset picture shows the tiny glittering lights in the town of Quartzsite off in the distance (right-hand bottom of picture.

And then to top off the evening a rip-roaring game of Pegs and Jokers with the guys winning two games over the women's one!

Life is good!

Boomerville - the middle of the desert

"Boomers" is a group (B.O.F. - Birds of a Feather, in Escapee lingo) of young-at-heart, not necessarily of Boomer age, who like to "dry-camp" or "boondock." The first picture shows our foursome - the Thompsons, Elys, Ryders, and Wards (that's Jim Ward taking in a sunset.) The sunset picture I stole from my friends Padraic's site, and the Boomerville shot was on our friends Mary and Elaine's blog. The others K and I took. One shows a circle of Boomers during the daily 4 p.m. "Happy Hour." We are parked in Boomerville outside of Quartzsite, Arizona, which is normally a town of only a few hundred. At this time of year the population grows to over 200,000 because of the activities in town for RVers. There are hundreds of vendors selling their wares for the month of January into part of February and there are thousands of RVers shopping. We experienced this for our first time yesterday and came away with just a couple of small purchases. We arrived at 8:30 in the morning in order to get a parking spot. We all - the Thompsons, Elys and the Ryders, piled into the Thompson van. The Elys hadn't had enough by noon so we came back to camp and they got into their own car and headed back to the masses and shopped until dark. Here are a few pictures of our times at Quartzsite. We're having lots of fun "boondocking" - no hookups - so we have to conserve on water and electricity . . . mainly water because we do run our generator to charge up the batteries. Today is a potluck at lunchtime and I've made a beet/celery/red-onion/hardboiled egg salad - one of my sister Patty's favorite salads. Sure wish she and Harold could be here - they'd really have fun out here in the middle of no-where!

What's fun too is, with our new Verizon wireless PC Card I can "do" the Speak EZ and send it over the internet to the printer . . . from the middle of the desert! Go figure! Life is Good!

Having a Great Time

We have spent the last four days in Blythe, California at the 19th annual Blue Grass Festival. We have caravaned with two other couples . . . Gary and Cecile Thompson (in white in the picture), our buddies from Park Sierra; and John and Barbara Ely, number thirty-something on the wait list at the park. There are nearly one thousand rigs here from a few tents to half-million-dollar RVs. Yesterday there was standing-room only on the two-stage areas. With lots of vendors . . . both food and "stuff!" We've had a blast listening to three days of nothing but the best blue grass music ever. There have been seven one-hour shows every day, one group has been together for over 24 years and others are pretty new at it. All are very talented. Some members of the groups are our age and there are others who are made up of college-aged kids, "kids" in their forties, and a couple of family groups. One group we heard this morning is made up of Mom, Dad, and four of their seven kids singing with them. The lead singer was only ten years old! AND they all (parents + seven kids) live in a 27' motor home (I've been corrected . . . apparently this is what they travel in . . . not live in full time)!

Life is pretty darn good when you can sit and knit, listening to Blue Grass and tapping your foot and clapping your hands and maybe even singing along . . . all day long.

We play Pegs and Jokers every night . . . men against the women. The women won the first night, the guys won the next two nights and it's not over yet! We're very serious players but we are all smiling at the end and have lots of fun playing.

We heard the definition of a "Snow Bird" - it's an RVer in a Quarter Million Dollar Rig towing a Fifty Thousand Dollar SUV . . . looking for a free place to park overnight! Tee Hee!

Tomorrow we leave to go to Quartzsite which is only across the border into Arizona about thirty miles from here. Should be an easy ride!

It's Ready To Quilt!

I wasn't blogging back in May of 2005 so some of you may not know the story of the gift that daughter J gave me on Mother's Day. (I write like I have hundreds of fans!)

The story starts back in 1961 when Ken went back to Chicago to finish his degree. We were engaged at the time and I bought myself a kit to make a quilt for my hope chest. We were planning on having Early American furniture for our home when we got married so I chose a pretty cross-stitched rose patterned quilt top. I started in on what was to be a time-consuming job but I did get it nearly half-way done by the time S was born. . . nearly three years later. I think at that time I folded it up, put it in a box, and tucked it in the top shelf of my closet.

1999 came around and we had sold our home and had a huge garage sale to get rid of our "stuff" making ready for our new adventure of becoming fulltime RVers and living the good life. At the garage sale I told daughter J and her best friend L (they were in charge of the sale) to just sell the partially-completed quilt - that I'd rather have someone else finish it and enjoy it - that I would never be able to finish it. L exclaimed "No way!, I'll finish it . . . there's no way I can let a stranger have this!"

Well, nearly six years later, after I have come to love quilting, I thought of that quilt and thought that, if L hadn't done anything with it, I would take it back and finish it at this time. I asked J to ask L for it the next time she talked with her. A couple of months later I asked her again and she said that L couldn't seem to find it (she had moved a couple of times in the meantime) but she knew she'd find it. Little did I know that J had brought the quilt back to her house nearly two years ago and had been working on it and even 10-year-old K worked on it too! They wanted to finish it for me and give it back all finished! Bless their sweet hearts! After I nagged at her a bit she decided, after talking with her sister, to just give it back to me as is and I could finish it myself! Was I ever surprised when I opened this quilt which I thought I'd never see again, last Mother's Day.

Here it is today, cross-stitching all finished, ready to be quilted. I have located a lady back in Tennessee who works with a community of Amish quilters and she is going to have it hand-quilted for me. I am so excited. This will be a three-generation quilt and will be treasured for many years to come! Thank you L, J, and K! I couldn't have done this without you.