April 23, 2007
Peoria, AZ
It was a pretty good "winter season" for us in Arizona this year, in spite of the fact that the weather was much colder than last winter. Or maybe last winter (our first here) was warmer than it was supposed to be! In any event, we had a good time catching up with neighbors, family, and friends.
We arrived back here at our winter place in late-October. The house was in pretty good shape, with the only start-up issue being "exploding toilets" (both valves needed to be replaced -- $10 each at Home Depot). We caught up with our neighbors and friends Clisby Crook and Mary Ann Baraban, who kept an eye on things for us while we were gone, and Raymond and Antoinette Kasparian, who returned from their summer place at the Delaware shore.
In November, we caught up with our friends Ana and Larry Pell, and their puppy Molly. Food and wine always flow when we get together. Ana and Geri have been friends for years, "BG" ("before George"), and we attended each others' weddings in 1978 (A&L) and 1980 (G&G). We also had a 2-week visit from George's Mom, Alice, over Thanksgiving. She enjoyed the warm weather and was able to get out for a couple of walks.
December brought the holidays, and George's birthday. Our favorite son-in-law (OK, our only son-in-law) Alan Demers came out to visit from CT for a few days to help us celebrate. This was only fitting, as we'd helped him celebrate his birthday twice last year, in CT and Las Vegas. We stayed in AZ for Christmas for the first time, primarily because we could use a break from being on the road, and because the cost to drive AZ-CT-AZ would have been quite a bit. We had a quiet time at home, and caught up with everyone by phone.
In January we were back on the road again. We left AZ right after New Year's and spent a good part of the month in California. We visited Geri's sister Kathy and her honey Lloyd in Lompoc first. We stayed at our usual spot, Flying Flags RV Park in Buellton, and were able to use that as a base for visiting several vintners in the area. We especially enjoyed a personalized visit at Sea Smoke, and we picked up wines from Foley, Foxen, and Longoria while we were there. An area east of Lompoc and west of Buellton is called the Santa Rita Hills AVA (wine growing designation) within Santa Barbara County, and is becoming quite well known for their Pinot Noirs. We also had a chance to have dinner at two of our favorite restaurants: Hitching Post in Buellton (how Sideways of us) and Los Olivos Cafe in (duh) Los Olivos.
Next we headed to Indio, CA, for the FMCA Western Area Rally. Indio is just east of Palm Springs, in the desert. On the way from Lompoc, we caught up with our friends Wayne and Eva Gilbert, and their Yorkie Abby (ie?). They have a Monaco Dynasty, and we met them at a rally last year and have caught up several times since then. We had a good rally even though it turned cold! I had new shocks (Koni FSD) and a performance muffler put on the coach, and we picked up a bunch of stuff we absolutely needed from the vendors. We also got to see the house Wayne and Eva were buying near where the rally was held -- beautiful place with an attached RV garage.
As we left Indio on the way to Yuma, we stopped to weigh the coach and found that our drive axle was over weight, so I had to adjust tire pressures and try to shift weight to the steer and tag axles.
We stayed a couple of days in Yuma on the way back to Peoria. We wanted to stop there because we wanted to see how people with RVs use their land out there. And there are a lot of RVs! It was interesting, but still a little too remote for us (no Whole Foods).
After about 3 weeks, we ended up back home in Peoria. In mid-February (right after Geri's birthday), we headed back to Yuma (about 3.5 hours drive). This time, Geri was scheduled to take a 2-day driving course with the coach. I'll let her post details but, suffice it to say, she did an excellent job. She even drove most of the way home after the class was over!
Later in February, we had a nice visit with Geri's oldest daughter, Pat Demers (wife of Alan, who visited in December). On the way to pick them up, we had dinner with Bob Lopes at one of our favorite Italian spots in Scottsdale; Bob was in town for his annual golfing vacation. Pat came out with her friend Lynn Bower, and (I think) had a relaxing visit (except for the "Citrus Caper", but you didn't hear about that from me).
At the end of February, I packed up the coach, said "see you later" to Geri and the pups, and headed for Oregon. I had appointments at the Pacific Power Detroit Diesel shop (to program the "smart cruise") and at the Monaco Service Centers in Harrisburg. I spent several days at the Peoria Road (what a coincidence!) paint shop having some touch-ups done under warranty. While there, I had them buff/repair most of the "self-inflicted" scratches I'd put in the coach since we got it. Then I spent 3 weeks at the Diamond Hill facility getting all of the remaining warranty work done. We also had the carpet in the front of the coach replaced with tile (looks very nice) and added a gray tank flush. Monaco couldn't handle a couple of other things I wanted done (updating the entry steps with Corian, and extending the galley drawer for additional storage), so I had those things done by a local cabinetmaker. In between, I found time to visit with Bob and Jane White (we met them at the FMCA INTO rally in Gillette, WY, last July), meet a few new people, get the Range Rover's tow lights fixed, and get all the coach tires balanced. This last work was done at the Les Schwab tire shop in Junction City, and their expert also tuned my tire pressure monitoring system. While balancing the tires, we found two that were badly out-of-round, so they put new ones on the steer axle and moved the front tires to one side of the drive axle. While all this was happening, I finally had the braided valve stem extenders removed and "alligator valves" (they allow you to check and adjust tire pressure without removing caps) put on.
In all our years together, the time I was in Oregon was the longest that Geri and I have been apart, through all the business travel and relocations over the years. So, naturally, I was ready to hit the road back to AZ when everything was done! Well, I got about 25 miles down I-5 when The "low oil pressure" alarm sounded. I pulled over and called Pacific Power/Detroit Diesel, who said it was probably a bad sensor and to bring it back. I tried to get off the next exit and
head back north, but the pressure kept dropping so I knew I wasn't going to make it. I called Coach-Net (our roadside assistance provider) and they sent a tow truck almost as big as the coach. Of course, by the time we got back to the shop, it was 3 PM on Friday afternoon and they said "see you first thing Monday". All wasn't completely lost, though, as I had another chance to catch up with Wayne and Eva (they just arrived for warranty work). It turns out an injector froze, which caused the rocker arm to snap and raw fuel to head for the crankcase. So, I ended up with an unscheduled oil change after everything was put back together. It was all covered under warranty, but I lost 4 days (Saturday-Tuesday) in the process. I was able to head out late Tuesday afternoon, and was back in Phoenix by 8 AM Thursday morning.
When I got back, we parked the coach at the Cotton Lane RV Resort because I'd decided to give up the storage sopt (they wanted >$2,000/year, in advance, even though we're gone for months at a time). This was OK, though, because we got to catch up with Paul and Dorna Kuhn, which is where this blog started.
Whew!
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