Much ado about nothing

Saturday October 13 2018

Well, we’re back in civilization; we have cell service this must be civilization, right?

Monday October 8 2018

My last post was quickly thrown together because I wanted to get it on the air before we left Palm Springs. There will be no cell or data service when we get to the campground at Yosemite; this scrawl will sit in the computer until we get back to civilization.

We continued our drive up Hwy 99 today for a little over 100 miles to the town of Ripon. This whole day’s driving was through landscape filled with grape arbors or almond trees as far as you could see. We saw a lot of signs along the way with messages pleading the case that farming is not wasting water. Apparently, and this wouldn’t surprise me in California, there’s a movement to limit water resources to these large corporate farms.

After refueling at the Flying J travel center we turned east on Hwy 120. This road was also lined with nut trees or grapes all the way to the mountains. The last 40 miles or so was mostly winding and uphill. The rolling hills gave way to mountains, although scared by recent wildfires it was still very picturesque and a welcome change from the hundreds of miles of dusty flat land. BTW, it has been our observation that everything on the sides of most all the roads in the interior of California are dull and dusty. I guess they don’t get enough rain to clean anything off or grow anything green naturally. We would take this road all the way to our campground located just outside the Yosemite park entrance. The motorhome did very well navigating the curves and switchbacks in the road. It was able to maintain speed as well as could be expected pulling the full sized Dodge truck. At about 3000 feet we went through a small village with enough straight road that I was able to look down and check some gauges, engine water temperature was 182 degrees and transmission fluid temperature was 190 degrees. Engine operating temperature at sea level is usually around 190 and transmission is 174 degrees. So far so good, but if the Tioga road is not closed due to snow when we leave we will be climbing to almost 11,000 feet.

Our campground is another Thousand Trails park, well half of it is, the other half is open to the public. TT was bought by a large corporation and this is one of their business decisions I guess. The camper sites themselves are typical TT, more rustic campground than luxury RV Resort. The Lodge is beautiful, soaring ceilings, huge wooden beams, a stone fireplace, plus all the normal amenities, TV, games, library, comfortable furniture, etc. The only improvement they could do is install high speed internet. Like most TT parks we were able to pick our site from those that are empty. We picked a site in direct sunlight, we’re in the mountains and there’s a chill in the air. Update: outside temp dropped to 40 last night.

We are still plagued with problems concerning towing the truck. As you may remember I had to use the old mechanics trick, hit it with a hammer handle to get it running on the morning of our departure from Myrtle Beach. Any time it sits for several days I have to resort to the hammer to get it running. When we left Palm Springs, while I was doing the hammer tap when the transmission fluid pressure switch which is mounted nearby started smoking. I bypassed the switch to get the pump running but now we have no warning if the pump fails and we have no confidence in the pump! There’s a chance that the switch was the problem all along, we’ll find out, I’m having a pressure switch sent to Las Vegas, it will be there when we get there, until then we are living dangerously.

I know my posts have been somewhat negative in regards to Palm Springs. I must clarify my myself because we did enjoy our time there, albeit mostly because we are happy wherever we are. The Coachella Valley is an escape destination for well-to-do Californians from the cold damp coast. They’ve come in droves to the new walled and gated golf resort communities. There’s nothing wrong with that, the thing with the valley is; anywhere they’re not watering the landscaping, it is wind swept desert. There just isn’t much else there.

The highlight of the valley was the cable car to the top of Mount San Jacinto. We enjoyed everything about it, the ride, the hiking, incredible views and even the cafeteria food! Touring old Palm Springs and seeing where the legends of Hollywood had homes and partied in the many restaurants and lounges was mildly interesting. Neither of us is star struck, so we didn’t get all goo glee eyed over it.

Millie is always on the lookout for upscale thrift stores and she hit the jackpot in the valley. There is a chain of local stores called Angelview here; their charity is severely crippled children and adults.  They were very nice stores so we stopped in most everyone we passed so Millie could bargain hunt. I mostly look at DVD movies and audio books. We keep a supply of them in the motorhome for those times that we have no internet or to a lesser degree over the air TV.

The is another thrift store in Palm Springs that Millie saw advertised with at least two stores. My brain is trying to blot out the whole experience but I think the stores are called revival. Anyhow, we happened to pass one and stopped in for a look. It was very nice with a lot of decorator things and fine furniture. Looking back later on this visit I don’t remember there being any female workers. You’ll see why this is significant in a minute.

Millie had picked up some small item, I don’t remember what it was, but it necessitated us standing in the check out line. The Clerk was having an extended conversation with the man in front of us and listening to the pitch of his voice I deducted he was of the gay persuasion.

Now, this blog is not the place to discuss lifestyle choices, especially here in California were there are a lot of very seriously confused people. I would cut this off here but my thrift store script is not over yet.

As I’ve admitted in a recent post, I’m not keenly observant of my surroundings, unless it’s something I’m interested in or I sense danger. The uneasy feeling I had in the first Revival store had evaporated when we came upon another one and we just pulled right in the parking lot.

This time almost as soon as I walked in I noticed there were no women employees. As I made my way to the DVD section every man I passed gave me a once over look and made eye contact. All of a sudden it clicked, this is gay store.

I quickly found my way back to Millie. She asked me if I found the DVD’s. I told her I wouldn’t be bending over looking at any DVD’s. Quizzically, she asked, “What?” I told her I was in trouble, the place was full of gay men and they were all looking at me.

I don’t even know how it works, is there a signal you’re supposed to return, wink for I’m gay or a node for, you’re cool dude but I’m straight. Maybe it’s like the Mason’s with a secret handshake?

Meanwhile, I’m sticking to Millie like glue, if she took a step, I took one too.  I wanted everyone to know we were a couple. After a minute or two of my paranoid behavior, Millie said we’d better leave before you have a panic attack!

Now I know why most stores that wives drag their husband’s too always have the men’s benches close to the door!

Changing the subject; from my desk in the motorhome I can gaze across the white plastic fence from the TT member’s area to the part of the campground open to the public. I have no idea why they are keeping us apart. Maybe it’s because we tend to stay awhile and over the fence they are transients. Yes, while we’re lounging around the campfire in our Camper World collapsible furniture singing Kum Ba Yah, the transients barely stay long enough to smell the stand of stately pines they are parked under.

Largely empty during the day, the transient side starts to fill about an hour or so before dusk. By ones and twos they filter in, mostly small privately owned class C motorhomes or travel trailers. Right about dusk the caravans rush in, usually in groups of two or three. They’re easy to spot, the rental class C’s all are adorned with full body vinyl graphics. They usually have a large scale scene of some popular tourist destination with happy families posed in the foreground, much like the pictures we all take home. Of course along with “See America the beautiful” every side has some advertising for the rental company.

In these days of social correctness, I know my script on these caravans will never play in Peoria, but what the heck; I’ve already made fun of my “gay” experience. I guess Mr. Google, whoever he/she/it is, could throw my blog off their slice of the internet. I might be forced to take the blog over to the deeply mysterious “Dark Web” whatever that is.

By now you’re probably thinking, poor guys only been off the communications grid for three days and he’s turning into Jack Nicholson’s character in the Shining. I’m not quite there yet, but without the quality news feed from Facebook (You do know that’s a joke, right???) I have to turn to my surroundings for inspiration. So poor caravaners, you are my subject this morning.

The rolling advertisements stop briefly at the office and then all at once like their chained together they move up the little incline to the transient campsites. If there is space available they all back in adjacent sites, again all at once as if in some strange choreographed RV ballet.

Once the parking parade is over they all come piling out, it’s like the clown act at the circus, they just keep spilling out of the tiny RV’s. Whole extended families are somehow cohabitating on the roads of America in these tiny vehicles. They all start buzzing about with the occupants of the other circus wagons, excitedly they are all speaking at once, I guess reminiscing about the days adventures! Its hard to tell because they don’t converse in English.

These merry bands of travelers are Asian. I’m being “the ugly American” here but from my vantage point I can’t tell what nationality they are, just that they are from the far east. After a while the arrival chatter settles down and they pile back inside their RVs for the evening meal, In the evening the men will get together in twos and threes, probably taking about road conditions, routes and the next days activities, the same as any group traveling together would do

Strangely, you don’t see the kids or women after dark, they’ve either watched too much American TV about murder and mayhem or (Here comes the ugly American again) the mothers are making sure the future doctors and rocket scientists are studying their calculus and physics.

The next morning in another flurry of activity the little caravan of rental RV’s all leave their campsites simultaneously and in a flash they’ve gone down the road together on the next leg of their discover America tour!

In our travels we meet families from all over; a lot seem to come from Australia and New Zealand. They fly over here and follow a ridged vacation schedule that they researched and planned for months before their arrival. I tend to think our oriental RV brethren also come from overseas, Millie says they could be from San Francisco or Los Angeles. We’ll never know, as long as we are on opposite sides of the fence, Kum Ba Yah!

My brush with Hollywood is as close as I care to get. In one of the Angelview thrift stores had a lot of the DVDs for sale with only had the title of the movie and in smaller lettering the words, For your consideration on the case. Someone who is a voting member of the actor’s guild must have donated the movies that were sent to them for Oscar awards consideration. I didn’t see anything that was worth watching, most of the time nowadays that’s the way it is when I research the shows playing in theaters.

The bus is on the move again, decided to leave the mountains a day early because of another component failure. I am having the needed parts sent to our Las Vegas Destination. Crossing Death Valley this moring.

PS: Will write about Yosemite National Park in a separate posting.

PSS: This “Much ado about nothing” post is unedited nor screened by Millie. Please forgive the typo’s, insults, social incorrectness, its all about the humor folks!

See you down the road!