Happy Trails to All and to All a Good Night

• Christmas is a’ coming.
  

• The media are reporting about the impact of continent-wide winter storms on holiday travel and of the economic downturn on Christmas shopping.
  

• When I first arrived in Casa Grande the weather was considerably different. On hot days, in brilliant sunshine, clusters of Monarch butterflies fluttered their way southward for the winter. I presume the incredibly powerful winds of the last few weeks have blown them toward their destination.

• Traditionally, nearly one million Mexican migrants return to their home towns at Christmas time. Welcomed in many impoverished hamlets, they usually return at Christmas loaded down with cash and gifts. Mexican police even accompany the migrants to protect against bandits who target vehicles overflowing with toys, appliances, statues of Christ, TVs and bicycles. This year is different. The money Mexicans send home, Mexico’s second largest source of foreign income, has fallen for the first time in the 12 years since record-keeping began. This year many of the million migrants are returning to Mexico permanently, arriving home empty-handed after losing jobs in America’s economic crisis.

• 

• The Palm Creek Resort is taking on the aura of a ghost town. Elaborate Christmas light displays have been abandoned by Palm Creek residents who have departed to spend Christmas with family in home towns or elsewhere.

• Many of the friends with whom I have shared my Palm Creek days have also departed.
  

• The first to leave were new friends, Lenny and Leone. Theirs is a beautiful love story! Having known each other during high school in Painesville, Ohio, they lost touch as each pursued their separate life; careers, marriages, families. Fifty years later, Lenny was a semi-retired full-time RVer with a home-base in Florida and a relationship with a woman in Boston. Leone had also retired, relocating to California where she busied herself as a full-time grandmother attending play dates and volunteering at her grandchildren’s school. Destiny, in the form of a 50^th high school reunion, intervened to bring them back together. Leone flew from California back to Ohio for the reunion. Lenny diverted from his Florida to Boston route. The conversation started when Lenny accidently spilled a glass of water on Leone as she sat in a local bar chatting with old friends. After the reunion, Lenny couldn’t stop thinking about Leone. Three weeks later, he called her in California to ask if he could come for a visit. Having been unable to stop thinking about Lenny, Leone responded with “How about tomorrow?” Lenny drove across the country and the rest, as they say, is history. Happily married for the last three years, Lenny and Leone interrupted their full-time travels to spend a month at Palm Creek on route to California for Christmas with the grandchildren. Hopefully, our paths will cross again.

• Next to depart was Patti, my friend of more than 15 years. Little did we realize that sharing an apartment for a year would provide the required training to share MineRVa’s much tinier space. As fellow travelers, we also shared the driving to Arizona, the chores and many happy hours of Palm Creek’s laid-back lifestyle; one to which we both quickly adapted. Too soon an airport shuttle whisked Patti away for her flight back to Victoria. That day Happy Hour was celebrated in ‘missing man formation’.

• 

• During this past week, Bob and Melanie from Kamloops also departed.Packing up their motorhome, all-terrain vehicles, bicycles, motorcycle and two cats, they are headed for southern California to rendezvous with a caravan heading for the Baja.

• 

• The last to depart was another friend from Victoria. Surprising me with a brief visit, Morlene arrived bearing champagne and shortbread.Two days later, she headed for the airport to join the crowds of travelers whose Las Vegas flights had been diverted to Phoenix by the unimaginable snowstorm that had hit Sin City.

• I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t feeling a twinge of loneliness as I anticipate the first Christmas of my life when I won’t be with at least some of my family. Instead of checking ferry schedules and anticipating a turkey dinner with my children, I’m busy making a list and checking it twice for my trek from Casa Grande, Arizona, to Hemet, California. I have called ahead to Golden Village Palms and registered for Christmas dinner and the New Year’s Eve party. Yes, it’s going to be different but I will be thinking about my family and all my friends, particularly the ‘usual suspects’ with whom I would ordinarily ring in a New Year.

• All things being relative, the weather outside is frightful! Nighttime temperatures have been consistently dipping to the low 40s (around 5 C), clouds loom overhead threatening the possibility of yet more rain. I’m certain the desert has received more than its usual annual rainfall just during the last two weeks. The little ranger carts are wearing raincoats and I don’t go anywhere without mittens jammed into the pockets of my fleece jacket.

• The only reason I can say I’m enjoying 70 degree (plus 20 C) temperatures is because I’m tucked inside my motorhome with the heater on. My “White Christmas” DVD is getting a workout, as is my collection of Christmas tunes. “…..I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.”

• 

• Happy trails to all and to all a good night!

PS: I’m not sure about internet access at Golden Village Palms so there may be some delay before my next posting.