Hello again. Our last chapter concluded on Monday, November 23rd with our arrival in Santa Maria, California. We are staying at the Santa Maria Elks Lodge RV park and are here to enjoy Thanksgiving with family. Jackie's Aunt Donna and her grandson Corey live in Pismo Beach, a few miles north and she has a another cousin, Judy, in Arroyo Grande, also north of Santa Maria.
Tuesday, November 24th, we had a shopping day. We left after lunch and went to Costco, then, after we dropped our stuff from there off at the coach we went to Walmart. Around 3:00 we left and drove to Donna's house in Pismo Beach to visit. Donna was released from the hospital this afternoon and was glad to be back home. While we were visiting with Donna and Corey Jackie's cousin Judy came over to visit as well. We all sat around and talked until about 6:30 when we left and drove back to the coach for dinner. After dinner we watched TV and relaxed until bedtime.
Wednesday, November 25th, we stayed at home for most of the day. Corey had called and said that Donna was pretty tired and we had early reservations for dinner, so we didn't go over to Donna's house. We did leave the coach about 3:45 and drove to Nipomo for dinner at Jocko's Steak house. Regular readers of this travel blog will know that every time we go to the Central Coast we have to eat at least once at Jocko's. I maintain it is the best steakhouse in the country, at least in terms of food. It is not fancy, or especially expensive, and the service is only OK. You have to wait for a while because it is small. But, the food is fantastic. We got there early enough to have a couple of drinks in the bar before our 4:30 reservation. We normally don't eat that early, but it was either that or 8:45 when we called yesterday for reservations. That's how popular the place is.We met Jackie's cousin Judy and a friend of hers, a musician and retired college professor, Jim. I had a huge rib eye steak, which they call a Spencer at Jocko's, and everyone else had lamb chops. Everything was cooked perfect and all the meals came with salad, veggie appetizer plate, and dessert. I took half my steak home for lunch this weekend and Jackie took half her lamb as well. We were done about 6:30, after which we headed back to the coach and relaxed with full tummies and watched TV the rest of the evening.
Thursday, November 26th, Happy Thanks- giving! We left the coach about 1:30 or so and headed north to Pismo Beach to spend Thanksgiving with Jackie's family. When we arrived Donna was taking a nap as she was still feeling quite weak from her hospital stay and bout with pneumonia. We talked with Corey and watched some football on TV. After a bit Jackie's cousin John came in. He is up visiting from the Los Angeles area. John is the son of Jackie's cousin Mary, who is Judy's sister. Mary passed away about six or seven years ago, leaving her sons Mark and John quite a bit of money and real estate. Although Jackie and I have seen Mark a couple of times over the years, Jackie had not seen John for at least 40 years or more. John is a bit of an old hippie, but seems to be a pretty nice guy. After another little while Judy arrived and Donna was up from her nap, so the whole family was together talking and visiting. 
Dinner was served about 3:30 or so. Corey had Turkey, stuffing and potatoes, and Jackie brought some sweet potatoes and broccoli. There Friday, November 27th, we went out after lunch and did some geocaching for the first time in quite a while. We got nine new finds in a few hours, including another milestone, our number 7,500. We also got a DNF for our efforts. After caching we went up to Donna's house for the afternoon. Donna was looking a lot better today than she did yesterday. John was still there, but Judy called and said she wasn't going to come over today. Late in the afternoon we had leftovers for dinner. We talked with Corey and John until about 7:00 when we left and headed back to the coach for the rest of the night.
Saturday, November 28th, we left the coach after lunch and did another Walmart run. When we leave here on Monday we are going to be at least two or three days without a car again, so we wanted to make sure we had everything we needed. We were running low and cat food and it wouldn't be good to end up the entree on the cat's menu when we ran out. After shopping we drove over to Donna's house for the evening. After we got there Jackie made turkey enchiladas out of the leftover turkey and we had a nice Mexican dinner. Donna was up and looking pretty good tonight, although she is still clearly weak. We stayed until about 7:00 before packing up and heading back to Santa Maria for the night.
Sunday, November 29th, we left the coach after lunch and did about an hour and a half of caching. We were able to get six new finds. We then went to an Arby's so I could stock up on sandwiches. I like to freeze them and use them for lunches, a little trick I learned from a late friend, David Conner. We went to Costco and picked up one of their rotisserie chickens for a meal for us tomorrow night on the road, and then a pizza for tonight at Donna's. We then drove up to Donna's house for our last visit this trip. Donna was up and looking pretty good. Corey and John were there, but Judy decided she wasn't going to come over again. She thought she was getting a cold. We sat around and talked, watched football, and then ate some great pizza for dinner. We left about 7:00 after saying our goodbyes to everyone. We may be back up here this summer, depending on our routing. We drove back to the coach and stayed in the rest of the night.Monday, November 30th, another travel day. I took the rental car back about 8:30 and then started packing up after they brought me back to the coach. We were packed up and on the road about 10:30, heading 130 miles east to Bakersfield. We arrived in Bakersfield a little after 1:00 and checked into the same RV park we were in last Monday on our way over. Since we didn't have a car, we were in the coach the rest of the day.
Tuesday, December 1st, where has the year gone? We left Bakersfield about 10:30 and continued east, heading 133 miles to Yermo, a small town just east of Barstow. We made a fuel stop in Mohave, after cresting the Tehachapi Pass, and arrived in Yermo about 2:00. Again, we settled in for the night as we could not go anywhere, not that there were too many interesting places to visit in Yermo. Wednesday morning I was awakened at 5:30 by the sound of reveille being played over the loudspeaker system at the Marine Corps base across the road. It's been a long time since I awoke to that sound. It was nice that I just went back to sleep rather than roll out of my bunk and get my uniform on.
We left Yermo about 10:30 and continued our journey to Pahrump. Of course, we stopped in Baker at the Mad Greek for lunch. We arrived in Pahrump at the Wine Ridge RV Resort just after 2:00. For most of the trip we would occasionally have a conversation about what we would do if the car wasn't ready, without coming up with any good choices. About an hour out of Pahrump, while we were on the road still, we got a call that the car was finished and we could come get it, so long as we had $4,500 to pay for the repairs. Yikes! Fortunately, (I guess) that was close to what the estimate was, so we had already figured out where to get the money.
After we got the basics set up at the RV park we called and had the dealership pick us up. It is kind of funny that once we got there Zach, the service writer for this fiasco, didn't have anything to say to us other than check with the cashier. The service manager didn't have anything to say either, other than to tell one of his staff to let us know he wasn't going to discount the bill any more than he had. He took $500 off of the bill for our delays and trouble. I didn't think that was enough, given all the circumstances, but it was clear that was all we were going to get for now. I still intend to write to the owner about this mess. We paid the bill, after having to call Wells Fargo to get our daily limit on our debit card raised temporarily, and drove the car back to the RV park, stopping for mail along the way. At least for that short trip, everything seemed to be working fine. We didn't even lose our satellite radio presets despite the fact the battery was disconnected for a month. After we got back to the coach we relaxed with the TV the rest of the night. Thursday we left the coach after lunch and went to do our laundry. After the laundry we did a Walmart run before heading back to the coach for the rest of the evening. Still no issues with the Jeep. Yea!
Friday, December 4th, we left the coach about 10:30 and drove to the China Wok buffet restaurant for a presentation by MASA, Medical Air Services Association. MASA is a company that provides coverage for the cost of ambulance services, including ground, helicopter and fixed wing, as well as emergency medical evacuation and return. We bought a lifetime membership about eight years ago. One trip on a medical helicopter would be ten times what we paid for the coverage for life. The company reps make the rounds of retirement communities, presenting the program and trying to sell contracts. They always provide a free lunch and encourage current members to attend as well. We are always up for a free lunch, so we went and listened to the presentation, for about the fifth time, and got our free Chinese Buffet. The food was much better than it was two years ago when we tried the place.
After lunch we ran a couple of errands and returned to the coach. About 5:30 we walked down to the clubhouse for karaoke. The rotation was a little shorter tonight, so I got to do four songs. Our friends Len and Debbie were there as well. We had a good time and were back in the coach about 9:30 for the rest of the evening.Saturday, December 5th, another travel day. We packed up the coach and left Pahrump about 10:00, heading for Indio, California. Our first leg was about 190 miles to Hesperia. On the way we made one more stop at the Mad Greek restaurant in Baker so Jackie could have one last gyro for the year. We arrived in Hesperia about 2:30 and got settled into a spot for the night. We didn't even unhook the car, so we stayed in for the rest of the day.
Sunday, December 6th, we were up and out of the RV park in Hesperia early, about 8:15 in the morning. We have a little over 100 miles to go to Indio and we wanted to get there early because there is a party for the Coachella Valley Geocaching group that goes from 11:00 to 2:00 today. A lot of our geocaching friends will be there and we wanted to go. We made a quick stop for fuel and then headed down the hill, arriving in Indio at the Indian Wells Carefree RV Resort about 10:30. We got registered, parked in the site, leveled the coach, plugged in the electric, changed clothes and headed for the party in Palm Desert. We were only 45 minutes late and had a great time visiting with our caching friends. We even won some door prizes. After the party, about 1:30 or so, we left and stopped at a Mexican restaurant for lunch on the way back to the RV park. After we got back we continued our set up tasks, getting pretty well settled in for a month long stay here in Indio.
Our arrival here in Indio for a month marks a good spot to close this chapter and get it online. Until the next time, stay safe, enjoy the holiday season, and don't do anything that you wouldn't want to have to explain to the paramedics. Bye for now.
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