Wednesday in Palm Springs

On Wednesday, we did a few things around Palm Springs -- picked up a prescription at Walgreens, got lunch at "Goodies", stopped at the Verizon store to get a new SIM card for my new Pixel 5 phone, and went shopping at Sprouts to get some items that we particularly like from there (dark chocolate, snack mixes).

My day was busy copying data from my old phone to my new one. It does most of the work without any input from me, but I need to keep an eye on it and make sure it is still progressing.

Sunset from just outside Gracie...

Around Palm Springs RV Resort

We stayed around the rig on Tuesday...

One of the items we got last week at the Conference was a replacement monitor for our tire minders. They also gave us new batteries and O-rings for the sensors, so I took all the tire minders off and replaced the O-rings and the batteries.

Meanwhile, Carl was wiring in the repeater that should make accessing the tire pressures of the Jeep a little more reliable.

I programed the new monitor so it recognizes all of the tire minders... this display shows the tires for Gracie...

... it automatically switches every few seconds to show the tire pressures on the Jeep.

Carl made stir fry for lunch -- I did the cutting up of what was needed (we got a package of cut-up vegetables at Trader Joes, so that supplied most of the veggies)...

Finished product -- it was very good! We used the induction cooktop this time, and the "sear" setting worked really well at heating up the wok and keeping it at a good temperature.

We got our accumulated mail sent from Livingston sent to Ginny's house and picked it up on Sunday. I started going through it on Tuesday, and found a letter from the District Clerk of Polk County...

Uh oh, a Jury Summons... on a positive note, it isn't overdue - the date for me to appear isn't until April 5th, but... we're not going to be back in Texas by then...

Let me say up front that I fully believe in serving on juries - if I was being tried, I'd want people like me to be on the jury! But... I really didn't want to change our plans and head back to Texas... so I logged onto the system and answered all the questions, hoping that there would be a way that I could indicate that I would not be in Polk County or Texas on the date they want me to appear...

... it had excusals for "over 70 years of age" or "Legal custodian of a child under age 12 and service on jury would require leaving him/her without adequate supervision" or "Full time high school student" or "Full time enrollment and attendance at an institution of higher education" or "Primary caregiver of a person who is unable to care for him/herself" or "Temporary physical / medical or mental disability" or "In active service of any branch in the U.S. military and deployed outside of county" or "Officer or employee in the legislative branch of state government".... where is that "out of state" excuse!?!?!

... then I saw the last excuse "I am a member of the Escapee RV club" -- that's it! My get-out-of-jury-duty permission slip!

Isn't that odd that they would have being a member of a club as a valid excuse? I wonder what other people in the county think? And... it kind of sounds like someone who has escaped from prison, right?

At any rate, I chose that one, and it didn't ask me any other questions, just indicated that I did not have to appear.

The last time I got called for jury duty, I didn't receive the summons until after the date I was to appear, so I called the next business day and asked what I needed to do. The lady I spoke with asked my name and address, and when she heard my address said, "Oh, are you one of those RV people? Are you out of town?" When I said yes, she said, "Oh, that's okay, I'll put a note on your record. The next time you're in Polk County, if you could just call up and see if we need anyone to serve that week, we'd appreciate it!". 

I wonder if other counties that have mail forwarding services located in them (there are a couple in South Dakota and a couple in Florida) are as accommodating.

We went for a bike ride around the RV park in the afternoon -- so pretty here...

... although it was quite windy and we got little bit sand blasted!

The sign for the resort

The weather forecast had indicated that this week would be a little chillier than normal (highs in the low to mid 70s) but the forecast changed during the day on Tuesday and the temperatures are now predicted to be in the 80s and 90s. Oh well - we have full hookups, so we can run the air conditioner (we did on Tuesday even though it wasn't that hot just to keep from having the rig full of dirt), and do laundry and use whatever appliances we want! It is like a vacation to have full hookups after about a week and a half of no hookups -- we like boondocking, but we also like mixing it up and having full hookups too!!

West to California

On Monday, we continued our trip west into California, adding a state to the "States Visited" map (see right frame of blog page online) for Gracie with Carl and me...

Before leaving Quartzsite, Carl got some pictures of Gracie in morning light...

... he said the colors aren't showing up as brilliantly in the photos as what he saw when he was taking the pictures...

... but I still think they look nice!

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, the skies were clouded over overnight, so we did not get to see the Milky Way -- something we can look forward to doing in the future...

On our way west, we stopped at one of the last exits in Arizona to top off our fuel tank with diesel. There were a lot of other truckers there filling up too, either just after they had left California or before entering.

It is at least $1 higher per gallon for diesel in California than the cost in Arizona (and other surrounding states). We figure that we're going to be driving Gracie about 1000 miles in California, and since she gets 6-8 MPG, we figure that we'll be putting 150-200 gallons of fuel in while we're in the state, costing us $150-$200 more than if we had chosen to stay out of the state... but... we have the opportunity to stay in Thousand Trails campgrounds, for which the campground fees are already paid for by our membership, so... we figure it works out to our benefit in the end.

This is Palm Springs RV Resort, the Thousand Trails campground in Palm Desert, CA. It rained just briefly and the sun was out, so you can see one end of the rainbow just over that small teardrop trailer...

... and the other end on the other side of Gracie.

We're looking forward to a relaxing two weeks here. We have a number of projects we'd like to get done (some items we picked up at the FMCA rally that we'd like to get implemented), but we're also looking forward to seeing the area and having nothing particular scheduled on our calendar. While I have been to this campground with Dwayne a few times in the past, Carl has never been here, so we'll enjoy visiting the area together!

Family visit

We left Pima County Fairgrounds and the FMCA Convention on Sunday morning. We drove to Marana, where niece Ginny and Josh and Evan live, and they came over to meet up with us so Evan could see a "bus" up close and personal, so we could get our mail, and so we could have one more meet up with Ginny and Josh and Evan before we continue on our way west.

Evan realized that greeting the queen was important to do first... so he gently patted Miss Kitty.

Carl was showing Evan all sorts of buttons to press to control different items on Gracie!

Family picture (Josh and Evan had a little sore throat / cough so masked to protect Carl and me)

We continued west via the Phoenix Bypass (I-8 and Arizona 85) to I-10 and on to Quartzsite. We were surprised that there are still quite a few RVers in Quartzsite -- nowhere near as many as in January, but still a good number. We stopped in town at the Coyote Fresh Foods market to get some of their good sausage...

...and then went south to the Roadrunner BLM area to park for the night.

We were hoping for clear skies as it was supposed to be a good night for viewing and taking photos of the Milky Way, but it was very cloudy overnight, so no pictures.

Continuing on to California on Monday!

Last day of 2022 FMCA Tucson Rally

Saturday was the last day of the 2022 FMCA Tucson Rally.

We started with coffee/tea and doughnuts and listening to the Frustrated Maestros...

I think we were told that the saxophone player is a new member of the Maestros and that he had previously worked at Walt Disney World in Florida.

We visited more of the vendors, and then went outside to see some of the show coaches.

Carl wanted to be able to look at the inside of this class B (van) with pop-up area on top.

This was the area on top - it is hard to see in the picture, but it was a roomy area!

Carl says, "Our next toad!"

It was nice... but I don't think it is going to be a toad... You can kind of see the pop-up area from the outside.

... at $94K+... nope!

We had a couple from the Frustrated Maestros come and share music with us at devotions. They sang a Johnny Cash song, "Over the Next Hill We'll be Home" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uQztudzJIQ)

After devotions, we stopped to see some of the big Class A Entegra coaches... I didn't think to take pictures of them inside (or outside) - suffice to say they are very nice looking...

I did take a picture of the locking mechanism on the refrigerator because we could use a better solution and I wanted to get the brand and model information!

We saw a 44B Anthem (~44' long)...

... and a 40P Aspire (~40' long

This was the price on the 40' Aspire... the Anthem was north of $450K show price...

We are very happy with Gracie!

Some other pictures from the rally:

There was a "Picture Yourself In Tucson: Magical Photo Machine" where you could take a picture of yourself automatically with the provided backdrop:

We did this one on Friday, and didn't realize until we looked at the picture later that, unfortunately, the lighting made a bad reflection on our glasses...

So we went back on Saturday and tried various ways of holding our heads to avoid light reflection on our glasses...

... no reflection, but we're not looking at the camera...

... ok, we're kinda looking at the camera...

I am not certain what about the lighting made any whites look so bright -- my teeth are definitely not that white, and neither is Carl's beard.

In appreciation for our volunteer efforts with the parking team, we were given a copy of the "official aerial photo", taken on Thursday afternoon from 400 feet up by a DJI Mavic 3 drone. Fifteen photos were magically combined into one:

Pretty cool, huh?

By the numbers: The family count for FMCA's 104th International Convention & RV Expo came to 1507; this figure includes 1,373 family RVs and 134 family Passports (day visitors, not staying onsite). The total commercial RV count was 230 (I think this includes RVs of the vendors as well as the show coaches). Overall total RV count for the convention was 1,603! The average number of people in an RV is 2, so there were 3000+ family attendees.

We have enjoyed the convention / rally more than we anticipated -- not that we weren't anticipating to enjoy it, but we weren't sure what to expect, and it has been great. We've met new friends, reconnected with old friends, and have felt it was well worth the time and money invested -- even the additional work that volunteering for parking involved!!!

Friday at FMCA Rally

We had a couple of service appointments scheduled at the rig on Friday, so we were looking forward to getting some things resolved... 

Carl started the day at another Lithium battery presentation, this one by Battle Born, a battery manufacturer...

while I went to a session on FMCA Benefits and Discounts, where I learned more about the advantages of being an FMCA member.

Carl was meeting a service person at Gracie at the time of devotions, so he was not able to attend... I took a picture of the verses of "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" because I had never heard the last verse (it seemed that most folks there had not heard it either).

Carl met an Oasis system service person at Gracie. We have been noticing that we are losing some of the coolant fluid -- and were hoping that he could help find where it was leaking. In conversation with Carl about the amounts of fluid that we were losing, he did not feel that it indicated a leak, but might rather be just normal evaporation loss, and the process of finding a leak would be much more complicated than he could do here at the show. We're going to keep closer track on how much and how frequently we have to add fluid and revisit this issue at another time. No charge for the consultation...

Soon after lunch, the HWH service person was going to come to look at the jack that the Henderson's person said was leaking hydraulic fluid. We had not looked to see what the fellow from Henderson's saw, so when we were back at the coach at lunchtime, we took a look...

This is the left front jack... you may be able to see some of the leak evidenced there...

... a better picture -- you can see the grime on the hose leading to the top of the jack and grime down the jack...

This is the jack on the other side with the hose and the jack relatively clean.

We were supposed to meet the HWH guy at their booth at 1:30pm, but at 1pm, there was free ice cream...

... when you're at a rally with, ahem, older folks, and something is "free", there will be a line!

... and it was Blue Bell Ice Cream! Yum!

After we finished our ice creams, I took Carl around the corner to see a neat tiny camper that is on display... The Vespa is over 60 years old, and, if I understood it correctly, the fellow built the tiny camper to go with it...

Kitchen in the back.

He has a YouTube channel and asked us to subscribe -- he is trying to reach 1000 subscribers because that is the point where he can "monetize" his channel. I was subscriber 921 at about 1:15pm -- I checked later in the evening and he had reached 997! (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkLEg7bIuUPYxrtXq3ehjiQ)

Carl went back to Gracie with the HWH guys...

... they found that the fitting at the top of the jack was loose, so they tightened it and then cleaned up the jack and hoses. They checked our hydraulic fluid and said that it was still fine, we hadn't lost much, and now that it is clean, we can check to make sure that it is not leaking any more. No charge for this fix.

I went to an afternoon session on Fire Safety -- a couple of slides from that presentation:

They recommended having a "bug-out bag" -- a bag with things that you may need to take out quickly with you in case of an accident.

They also went over some information about fire extinguishers.

The presenters were the inventor of the PROTENG system and his wife.  (https://proteng.com/) I was anticipating that it would be mostly a sales pitch for PROTENG, but they actually barely mentioned it. It seems Dusan originally created it for race cars (https://proteng.com/about-us), and it has been picked up by National Indoor RV Centers for installation on RVs.

One more day of the rally! We have learned a lot, enjoyed being with other RVers, and gotten help with a number of issues. We were starting to wonder whether our FMCA membership was worth it to us, and this rally has convinced us that it is!