In Search of the Fountain of Youth

• This week’s major excitement was a rockin’n’rollin road trip with my friends Donna and Tom. With the three of us car-jiving to the blasting sound of Elvis’s greatest hits, we set out in search of the Fountain of Youth. On the map, it looks quite close so without hesitation we wheeled into a Starbucks after driving 10 blocks and squandered some time over a cup of tea. (I am getting really accomplished in the art of squandering time just because I can.)
  

• Opting for the secondary highway eastbound out of Hemet, our trip wound its way seriously uphill. Along the way, we peered over the edge of the roadside down, down, down toward our home in the valley which had disappeared in a wispy blanket of fog.

• Snow bracketing the road through Idyllwild, a popular ski resort, did not entice us to stop. At the sight of a guy wielding a show shovel we did a u-turn and headed back downhill.

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• Zig-zagging and switch-backing, the road quickly descended almost 5,000 feet from bright green pine trees against white snow, down a dusty brown desert mountside sparsely scattered with yucca plants and cacti, and into the lushly landscaped greenery of Palm Desert.
  

• Although not as up-scale as Palm Springs, Palm Desert's main drag is lined with jewelry stores with names like Tiffany's, huge art galleries, shops sporting names like Gucci and dream cars like Rolls Royce convertibles.
  

• Back out onto the hot, barren desert, we eventually reached the Salton Sea. This geographical anomaly is the accidental consequence of an irrigation dream that the Colorado River could be harnessed to create and sustain fertile orchards on desolate wasteland. In the early 1900s, the poorly constructed canals gave way and for 18 months, the mighty river poured into a salt-based basin 227 feet below sea level. A hundred years later, the Sea created by this “spilled water” is still 15 miles wide and 35 miles long. As it slowly evaporates, the saline content increases. Currently 30% more salty than ocean water, the Sea apparently teems with fish and we heard a woman shout her delight at a catch. Anyone ever heard of “desert pupfish”?

• The sandy shore smells strongly like an ocean beach at low tide and we meandered along, watching pelicans, sandpipers and other assorted birdlife skitter across the water and the sand. Suddenly, it was nearing sundown. Too late to further our journey on dark and winding roads, we laughingly abandoned the quest for the Fountain of Youth in favour of beating the rush hour traffic on the freeway.

• T'is Saturday and I'm back to the business of doin' nothin'. Sun is up. Day is on.
  

Festival of the Arts

• This past week, Golden Village rippled with excitement as residents prepared for the resort’s premier artistic events: the art show and the dog parade.

• I spent most of Friday getting ready for the art show. Such a chore - it is my least favourite part of painting. Painting into mat, mat into frame, photograph taken, matted painting removed from frame, glass polished, glass inserted, matted painting inserted, backing put onto painting, clips down. All followed, too many times, by the realization that the painting is not signed. So.....clips up and start again. Arrggghhhh!
  

• Saturday morning, I proudly accepted many compliments on my paintings, one of which sold at the show and there's a potential buyer for another four (the ones with flowers in pots). Several people approached me about the possibility of painting lessons (me giving them, not recommending I get some). Flattery - I love it!

• Dog parading, I have now learned, is an extremely competitive event and, seemingly, an art form on its own. With the route passing directly in front of my motorhome, I could not help but notice an unusually high rate of dog-walking at 2 pm Friday, precisely 24 hours before parade time. Practicing for a dog parade? Good grief! Those must be the owners who take seriously the notion that it is not a coincidence that dog spelled backwards is You-Know-Who.
  

• Saturday afternoon sharp on 2 pm, Happy Hour celebrants cheered as the parade passed on one street and then dashed to the next street for more laughter and photo ops. I was happy to learn that I wasn't alone in laughing at (and in some cases with), the proud owners who boldly strutted their custumed canines behind a uniformed, high-stepping, baton-twirling parade master.

• The parade was followed by a talent contest and there were plenty of prizes; best dressed dog, best dog/owner costume coordination, most talented and Miss/Mr Congeniality to name a few. All entrants received "goodie bags" so no dog went home unrewarded. The announcement that this year's best-dressed winner was collecting her third consecutive blue ribbon immediately sparked calls for an inquiry into the judging.

• My vote for most creative costume coordination went to Tex whose half-black, half-white face was matched by his owner's Phantom of the Opera Mask.

• Best in the show, in this observer's humble opinion, was the pink balloon poodle on the end of a stick. No fuss, no muss, no poop to scoop.

• As the sun slid over the western horizon, Golden Village continued to rock with post parade Happy Hours!
  

At Least I Don't Have to Shovel It

• Some guru being interviewed on the morning news is yakking about global warming, suggesting the process has accelerated. The theory isn’t particularly persuasive as I continue to experience the unusual desert winter that has dumped more rain on Southern California in the last three days than might be expected in Seattle. Although the Golden Village itself (supposedly) isn't subject to "flash foods" many surrounding roads are and there is water, water, water everywhere.

• Anybody got some cheese to go with my whine? You are right, however, a vacation is a vacation and I'd rather be here warm and toasty, tucked inside my motorhome than you know where.
  

• I bolted awake before 4 a.m. Sunday suddenly realizing that the art show that always seemed so far in the future is actually next Saturday. I certainly haven’t achieved the dozen or so paintings from which I’d I thought select the best for the show. So for this week I have set aside the painted rock production, crochet hook and pocketbooks, passed up a bus trip to the Palm Springs Follies, and have sharpened my focus on watercolour.

• With rain discouraging most of the artists from lugging their stuff to the clubhouse, I was able to score a window seat yesterday. When I started packing up my stuff, two women came into the room to say they'd been standing outside the window looking over my shoulder. They wanted me to know they liked my painting and enjoyed watching me create it. I felt like a star and that's the real reward since that particular painting – which I finished later in the day - will be a gift for the granddaughter of friends I’ve made here at the resort.

• Once I get lost in painting, I don’t notice much of the world around me; a perfect week to get the rainy season out of the way. And, if I just get more positive appreciation at the art show, I will be happy.

Propane Blues

• The propane tank is built into the motorhome. The options for filling it are: drive the vehicle to a gas station or have the propane delivery guy come to my site. Although the first option sounds easy, the truth is I haven’t maintained “road ready” storage practices and it would take several hours to batten down the interior for the short ride to the corner gas station. The second option is – or should be – the best since no preparation is required other than having cash on hand to pay the driver.
  

• The propane delivery truck wends its way through the Golden Village resort on Tuesdays and Fridays. After my December experience of running out of propane and discovering that the Friday delivery was cancelled for the Boxing Day holiday, I made a Scarlet O’Hara type vow that while I would use the furnace, hot water tank and stove at will, monitor the propane level and never again let it run out again. Well, clearly I’m no Miss Scarlet because last Thursday, too late to arrange a Friday delivery, I noticed the propane monitor light was once again flickering at a quarter of a tank.
  

• Since I was going to be away on Tuesday - the Laughlin trip – I arranged for a Friday delivery. Once again in propane conservation mode I used it only for hot water , plugged in my tiny electric heater (that I dare not leave on overnight) and dined only on microwaveable food (when I wasn’t eating in a restaurant – which it might surprise you to learn - is something I now rarely do.)
  

• Like most other delivered services, the only commitment the propane guy would make is “sometime between 8 and 5”. Accepting my fate of being stuck at home, I whiled away Friday’s hours. Unfortunately the weather took a nosedive around noon with dark clouds rolling in and the now familiar sound of pounding rainfall starting soon thereafter. Patiently, I waited until 5 pm before calling the propane distributor. Delivery was behind schedule due to the bad weather and a promise was made that the truck would arrive on Saturday. I was instantly thankful that Valentine’s Day is not a national holiday.
  

• By noon Saturday I was starting to feel like a grounded teenager, bored with everything and alternating pacing the 9 by 2 foot floor inside my motorhome with pacing the outdoor patio. Thankfully neighbours were outside for chatter and friends began stopping by to report propane truck sightings in the resort. Although I need another hobby like a hole in the head, Donna came over to pass the time teaching me how to crochet.
  

• There must have been a high demand for propane at the resort because another two and a half hours dragged by before the propane truck cruised to a stop, filled the tank, grabbed my cash and rumbled away toward the next customer.

• Last night the temperature once again dropped below freezing and the roar of my furnace was like a lullaby. The hot water for this morning’s face wash luxuriously came from a tap rather than the microwave. Today I’m cooking dinner for my Donna and Tom. I’m sure they will be happy to get something other than the microwaved soup or instant mashed potatoes that have comprised my work-around no-stove meals.

The Laughlin Excursion

• The trip to Laughlin is now another memory of good friends and a good time had by all.
  

• Leaving Hemet in a pounding rainstorm, the tour bus diverted from the freeway system to travel through California’s High Desert; passing vast empty spaces studded by flare-topped Yucca Trees, early-blooming cacti sporting white fluffy flowers or scarlet red tops and small towns (some already ghost towns and others possibly ghost towns in-the-making). We stopped for lunch at Yucca Valley where it was …… dare I say the “s-word”: snowing! Unlike many of my fellow travelers who live full-time in Southern California, I was not amused!

• Although the High Desert is prone to frequent earthquake activity, averaging in the 4+ range and once recorded at 7.4, people do persist in perching houses on the tops of hills.It is beyond me how they sleep at night.

• In addition to frequent seismic activity and a climate of extreme fluctuations (daytime summer temperatures reach 119 degrees and January lows are around 8 degrees), the High Desert has its own volcano. The Amboy Crater is a cinder cone surrounded by a field of volcanic ejecta. The blackened area creates a stark contrast against the brown and beige shades of the surrounding steeply sloped mountains and flat intervening valleys.

• A hundred years ago, wagon trains somehow managed passage across this bleak desert terrain although I imagine many pioneers lay buried in the sand. After World War I, the climate was considered ideal for returning veterans who suffered lingering effects from gas attacks. Their sanitariums were later abandoned. After World War II, the “jackrabbit project” offered tracts of desert land to returning veterans. Many of the shacks built as a condition of receiving the land are still standing, mostly abandoned on the unforgiving desert. Notwithstanding this rather inhospitable history, clusters of functioning mailboxes occasionally hug the roadside, standing tribute to people who apparently have found a way to cohabit with the coyotes and rattle snakes.
  

• No surprise, Southern California’s High Desert is the perfect setting for the world’s largest Marine Corps Base. Training exercises at this premier ‘live-fire base’ involve every weapons system in the Marine Corps’ arsenal, from small arms to attack aircraft. This is where Marines trained for the first Gulf War and where they continue to train for Iraq and Afghanistan. I didn’t want to even think about the meaning of the odd-shaped white-smoke formations that could be seen rising from the distant desert. I just closed my eyes and thought of Canada.

• The route between Hemet and Laughlin included a stretch of Route 66, a rough and narrow strip of ancient highway meandering through desolate countryside and punctuated by abandoned gas stations. Initially immortalized in song, the Route gained fame with me via a 1960s black and white TV show chronicling the cross country adventures – amorous and otherwise – of two scathingly handsome guys driving a Corvette convertible. These days, the Route seems favoured by motorcycle groups that don’t hesitate to roar past tour buses. My version of getting kicks on Route 66 consisted of snapping photos out the window and sharpening my gambling skills by playing bingo and swapping casino stories with friends.

• I arrived “home” broke from the money-gobbling slot machines, happily having made new friends, and feeling clean and relaxed. My room, overlooking the Colorado River, did indeed have a most welcoming bathtub and an endless supply of hot water!

Winter Getaway

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• I guess I’ve made a full transition to being a Canadian west-coaster because I’ve certainly lost that prairie feeling of gratitude that it’s only raining in January. I have many neighbours from Alberta, Saskatchewan and other interior regions of the homeland who seem to find rain a delightful alternative to snowstorms and seriously sub-zero temperatures. They are the group who are still running around wearing shorts and spending time in the pool even though Southern California is into a fourth day of chilly rain that comes in waves and pounds on the roof.

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• This morning I’m heading out for a three-day trip to a gambling resort in Laughlin, Nevada. The tour group will travel by bus and I’ll be glad to let someone else do the driving since the roads are slick. As advised by my optimistic tour guide, I’m packing my passport in case I win big. Hey, you never know!

• Laughlin is a desert town that brags of having more than 300 sunny days per year with barely an inch of annual rainfall. However, I checked the internet weather report and discovered that rain is in the forecast for today, followed a return to warm, sunny days. While I keep reminding myself that the American Southwest needs the rain, I’m feeling somewhat like “Pigpen” the Peanuts cartoon character who continuously has a cloud swirling around him. His may be dust but mine seems to be rain.

• My Laughlin tour group will stay at a Native American casino/resort. Living in a motorhome is great but the bathroom is tiny and I’m looking forward to checking into the hotel and having a hot bath. Or two.

TGIF

• My lifestyle in Hemet seems to have developed a rhythm, alternating between weeks when I’m exploring the world outside the resort and weeks when I stick close to home. This quieter week has whizzed by as I’ve enjoyed a great deal of time “feet up”; reading a book, sharing happy hours with friends, people watching, or, increasingly, deep in thought.

• Along with my fellow artists, I have been preparing for an art show and have framed several watercolour paintings for that event. With a craft fair scheduled for this weekend, I have also continued to paint rocks. However, the other day, my friend Donna asked to buy some painted rocks for her grand-daughter. When she refused to accept them for free, I realized that the genuine satisfaction in parting with my artwork comes when I give it away. A sale may net a few dollars in my pocket but priceless is the incredible delight of hearing people say they think about me when looking at a painting or rock that holds a place of honour in their home, on their desk at work, on the dashboard of their RV, or in their pocket. Accordingly, I withdrew from the craft fair and my only hope is that people will enjoy my watercolours at the art show.

• A highlight of this week was a visit from Leone and Lenny, full-time RVers with whom I struck an instant friendship in Arizona. Stopping for a week in Palm Springs on route from San Francisco to their home base in Florida, they took a day to visit with me. After hugs all round, we had a chatty visit on my patio and a chatty 3-hour lunch in a local restaurant followed more chat on the patio. Before leaving they pored over the painted rocks and each took one for their collection. They are hoping to visit Victoria in the fall and I will have more rocks ready to offer as mementoes of their visit and of me.
  

• Even though I’m not on a work schedule, the lure of weekends remains basically the same. For some reason, I continue to anticipate Friday evenings as my “crash night” when I crawl into bed early, read for a while, watch some TV and drift off to sleep early. Likewise my Sunday ritual when I am keen to wind down early as if needing to be “ready” for the week ahead. The other habit I’ve drifted back to is tuning into the news first thing in the morning and flipping back and forth to news channels during the evening. Obviously those are habits I truly enjoy since there is no other reason to follow them.
  

• It’s a much-needed rainy day in Southern California. While the weather has postponed my first hop into the pool with an exercise group, it is a perfect day for an afternoon excursion to the local movie theatre where I look forward to jamming my hand into a box of hot popcorn.
  

• TGIF!