Author: Rudy

Alex and Max skyped — and we adjusted the toilet flusher in Alex’s bathroom via Skype. I got a call from JP saying that they would be at our place to pick me up at 10:00. And at 10am there was a knock at the door — Bonny was going to sit at the pool with Sue while I joined Jim and Bob Banman for an airplane ride around the area! So the three of us headed off to the Palm Springs International Airport. Bob waived his pass at the gate and we drove right in and parked in front of Bob’s hangar. It was all very neat and tidy in there. JP attached the little motorized airplane pusher to the front wheel of the plane and Bob maneuvered it out onto the tarmac. We got in, me in the back and Bob and JP in front. Bob showed me how his new Bose noise-cancelling headphones worked. They were remarkably effective — when I removed my set I realized how loud the roar of the engine was. And we each had an attached microphone that was voice activated, so we could communicate with each other. We listened to Bob talking to the tower and heard the tower approve us for takeoff. And then we roared down the runway and up into the air. Headed northeast, then turned south. Over our country club. Over La Quinta. Over acres and acres of farmland — orange orchards, strawberry fields — and half-finished resort developments. And then the Salton Sea, a saltwater lake that is 200 feet BELOW sea level.

The warm air was making our flight a little bumpy. We headed back to the airport and after getting clearance landed. Parked the plane. Drove back to our house. It was a fun experience but I was glad we hadn’t had bacon and eggs for breakfast — I don’t know if my stomach would have handled it.
Sue and I had lunch. I looked online and found us a tee time at Rancho Mirage for 2:30. Booked it.
The course was backed up and busy but we were okay with that. We started off playing as a twosome, but about 4 holes in we invited the twosome behind us to join us. And we had fun finishing nine holes with them. We actually played 14 holes before the sunset forced us to call it a day. Played okay, not great, but had fun.
Supper at home. Watched our shows. Skyped with Ed and Val — it’s their last night in Gold Canyon. Watched the first 2 hours of that Eagles special on Showtime that we’d seen the last part of earlier. It was good. At around 10pm, after snacking on pistachios, it was time to call it a night — tomorrow is moving day. Plus, I still have to book us a hotel for tomorrow night.

We were just having breakfast and about to click on the “Book It” button on a GolfNow tee time when our cell phone rang. JP on the phone. What’s on your agenda? How about we take a little road trip up to Big Bear, the ski-resort snow-capped mountain we can see to the northeast of us here in Palm Desert. I’m in. Sue will have to amuse herself without the pleasure of my company today.

Around 10am Jim was here to pick me up. Google maps, open on his ipad, showed 3 routes as options for us. So we decided to take the western zigzag route up from San Bernardino, circle the Big Bear Lake at the top, and then return by another route down to Hwy 10. So that’s what we did.

After climbing for nearly an hour, stopping for an occasional photo as we left the hot desert for the snowy mountains, it was time to stop for lunch. All that climbing makes a guy mighty hungry. So we pulled in at a little cafe called Blanco and Pierre’s in Boulder Bay. Cheeseburger for JP, patty melt for Rudy. Yum. As we left the restaurant an older gentleman wearing a ‘Citizens Patrol” sheriff uniform said hello and started up a friendly conversation as he was getting into his patrol jeep. So I asked him if he knew where we might see a burned down cabin. What? Oh, I know what you mean. Yeah, that’s way down the hill. Just follow the #38 and turn down Glass Road — it’s right down at the end of Glass Road. So we’re driving out through Black Bear City, lots of cabins but most of them empty (off-season?), and then going way up again (8000 ft), and winding around and then down some. And as we’re talking JP spots a road sign at an intersection — Glass Road. So we turn off and start winding our way WAY down. No cottages or chalets here. Just keep going down into the valley. Get to a T intersection. Now what? I was thinking we should probably just turn around and head back, but JP makes a left turn and about 1/4 mile down the road there it is. The charred remains of the cabin in which Christopher Dormer, the angry L.A cop who went on a killing rampage here in mid-February, met his end. After a shoot-out in which another sheriff’s detective was killed, the stand-off ended when the cabin in which Dormer was holed up in caught fire after police shot tear gas canisters into it. There was a fence around the site, a sign thanking the police across the road, and a U.S flag at half-mast next to the brick chimney of the cabin remains.

That was about as exciting as it got for a couple of old ambulance chasers from Steinbach. We continued our return trip. Once we were back on Hwy 10, heading east, we again drove through the San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm, just outside of Palm Springs. Apparently the San Gorgonio Pass is one of the windiest places in Southern California — making it a great place to plant between three and four thousand windmills.

We got back to our house at around 4:30. It was a fun day — and I’m already looking forward to another adventure with Jim tomorrow!

Sue had just returned from an afternoon at the pool. We had happy hour and talked about our day. Watched the evening news. Watched our comedy shows. Watched a special on PBS about the women’s movement. Went to bed at 11.

This morning, after breakfast, Sue and I took a walk down to El Paseo. It’s about 2.5 miles from our house. We had an 11:00 appointment at the Windemere Realty office to sign our papers for our March house rental. We met Michele at the office. We filled in credit reports and signed our names in about a hundred places. So now it’s official. We have booked a home from March 1 to 31. It leaves us with a small problem — what to do for the night of Feb 28 — we need to check out here by noon and checkin at the new place is noon March 1. We’re thinking of taking a little (2-3 hour) drive through the mountains down to San Diego and spend an overnight there. We’ll see.

After all that walking and signing we had worked up a pretty good appetite. So instead of going home for lunch we wandered around a bit and decided to go to a little fish ‘n chip place near the real estate office. Good move. Great lunch: 2 pieces of battered fish and chips and an ice-cold Heinekin to wash it down. We should do this every day!

After lunch we walked back home. Sue downloaded another e-book to the Kindle and headed out to the pool for the afternoon. I read my book and then did a bit of computer work.

By 6pm Sue had made chicken fajitas and we were having a little happy hour — gin and tonics, a slice of leftover pizza, watching the old Nixon movie on HBO. A ‘quiet’ day today — not anything really exciting. After supper we watched some more TV, “The Adjustment Bureau” on HBO. Went to bed by 11.

Woke up, showered, and sat down with a cup of coffee just in time to watch the 7am edition of Fareed on CNN. At around 9 we had french toast with fruit for breakfast. Sue went to the pool while I read. Sue finished her book, February, a Canada Reads book. I read too. After lunch Sue called her mom. I finished reading my “Elephant Whisperer” book. We watched golf on TV. At 3:30 we left for the Banman’s house. We stopped at Albertsons to return a movie and pick up some drinks and then drove down Washington to Bob Banman’s home in La Quinta. The Banmans were not home — they went to their own Oscar party — but Jim and Bonny had invited us to come over for Oscar night. They have a very lovely large house, with a patio and pool overlooking a private golf course.

We went for a bit of a walk around the community. Bonny and Sue continued walking while Jim and I went back to the house. The girls ended up walking for just over an hour. We had appetizers and drinks and then sat down in the living room and watched the Hollywood spectacle on the big TV. The show was a bit disappointing: the host was not funny, and the show seemed to drag a bit. When it finally concluded with Argo winning best picture, it was 9pm. We high-tailed it out to Stuft Pizza for ‘supper’. The restaurant was actually closing, but they let us in because there was another big group just sitting down to order. We shared a delicious pizza. Jim drove us back to our van at Banmans and we said goodnight and headed home. Watched a bit of TV (more Oscar ‘highlights’ on CNN) and went to bed by midnight.

Today the weather was PERFECT! Sunshine, temperature not too hot, not too cold. And to celebrate the start of a perfect day we had a perfect breakfast. I’d been looking forward to this all week.

Sue skyped Noreen and Mary. I read. Lots of golfers on our course — I guess it’s a perfect day for golf too. So I quickly booked us a tee time at Shadow Mountain. Had to hurry up our lunch so that we could get to the course for 12:50. And when we got there we were lucky to be able to tee off right away, and to golf as a twosome. We quickly caught up to the party ahead, and they let us play through. It continued that way until the last couple of holes when we actually had to wait for a bit. Ultimately, we completed our 18 hole round before 4pm — record time. And it wasn’t because we played so well — no, there were a few holes where we both shot double pars. But there were also some very great shots — a number of pars, some amazingly long putts. Sue’s drives were excellent, her short game still needing a bit of work.

Anyway, after our early finish we went for a little drive. Stopped at Albertson’s and picked up a few groceries and a DVD rental. Back at home we had a lovely happy hour and watched the last half of “The Story of the Eagles, Part 1” — which I missed a week ago. Well, actually I STILL missed the first 3 albums, so I’ve now marked my calendar for Wednesday’s repeat show. After supper Sue watched the movie rental, which was TERRIBLE! It turned out to be a low-budget Christian ‘movie’ — I can’t believe it was mixed in with real movies on the Redbox machine. I read my “Elephant Whisperer” book instead. We went to bed early — what else is new?

Just after breakfast JP called. Got directions to our place and arrived here by 10:00. We sat around a bit, looked at a book of local hikes Jim borrowed from the Banmans, and then got our hiking boots on and headed out in Jim and Bonny’s car. We drove to ‘Old Palm Springs’ first. Went for a little walk around the area and stopped to take our photos under the giant statue of Marilyn Monroe. We decided to have lunch first, and then go for our hike. So we did that, at an outside patio at a California Pizza Kitchen right on the main drag. Sun was shining — it was a perfect day. In fact, it was a perfect day for hiking — sunny and warm, but not hot; 70 degrees. So we headed south for a few miles until we reached Indian Canyons. Jim and Bonny had hiked here a year ago so Jim knew what to expect. We parked the car and started off across the desert. Out in the distance we could see a grove of palm trees. We followed the trail in that direction. When we got there what had looked like a small clump of trees turned out to be a beautiful ‘forest’ of tall trees and cool shade and a cold stream that we crossed by stepping from rock to rock. And that’s how the afternoon continued — up and down over a rocky outcropping, over a small hill, and then another stream to ford.

We followed the Murray Canyon Trail right up to the Seven Sisters Waterfall at the end of the trail. Stopped to drink our water and take photos. Then back the same way. When we got back to the parking lot we remembered that Sue had brought some trail mix along for us to snack on, so we sat down at a picnic table and had our snack. No point in taking food in your backpack back home if you’re gonna carry it around in your backpack all afternoon. We drove back home and got home at around 5 and had happy hour. Sat around and visited until around 7 when Sue got supper going. Barbecued salmon and rice, etc. Jim and Bonny left at around 9 — we tentatively arranged to get together Sunday night to watch the Oscars. Watched “Shark Tank” and whatever followed that on TV — although we were both tired and headed off to bed because we couldn’t stay awake any longer.

Skyped with Alex and Max for a while this morning. Read my book. It was sunny and nice outside all morning. Called Michele, our real estate agent, back and forth a bit — we were going to visit a house at lunch and another after our afternoon golf game — but now the lunch visit is off because the house is already rented out. The upside is that we got to eat lunch early because we thought we were leaving by 12:15, and eating lunch early is always a good thing. It was clouding over by noon and that meant it got cool. We went to Rancho Mirage and hit a bucket of balls before the start of our game at 2. The course was busy again. We were partnered up with a couple from Seattle — it was their last day of a one week stay at Rancho Las Palmas. Greg was a good golfer who golfed 3 days a week all year. Jeanette was not. And so the four of us had a good time. I started off with a bogey, then a par! Then a couple of triple bogeys. That’s my game! But I finished the front nine with a bogey, birdie!, and a par. Three pars on the front nine. We played 3 more holes (bogeys) before calling it a day and heading off to ‘Victoria Falls’, up in Mission Hills, to view another home. Michele was waiting for us. It’s a big house in a nice neighbourhood. Beth, the woman of the house let us in. Lovely home, decorated Filipino-style by the owners. We met her husband Teddy when he came home just as we were leaving. I think we’ll make this deal. Sue and I stopped at the Vons grocery store across the street from Victoria Falls and bought stuff before heading home. Supper was leftover spaghetti. Watched our shows and then a movie I’d rented at the Redbox at Vons: The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Didn’t look that good to me so I read instead, until I got too tired and fell asleep. Went to bed at ten!

Scrambled eggs for breakfast. Then we read most of the morning — I’m starting a new book, The Elephant Whisperer. Jim Peters skyped and we arranged for a hiking date for Friday. After lunch we went for a quick walk around the country club. Then I dropped Sue off at the Westfield mall to do some shopping and I continued on to the movie theatre at The River (another mall) to see the last big film of the Oscar-nominated list: Django Unchained. I expected a nearly 3-hour bloodbath but was pleasantly surprised. I liked the movie — really liked it until the German guy dies; the ending — not so much. I picked up Sue at 5:45 (she had just finished her coffee and was done shopping) and we went home. Had leftover Chinese for supper. Watched our shows. Got an email from our real estate agent — she wants to meet tomorrow afternoon to go house shopping. Sue was already getting all worked up about not hearing from her, but tomorrow afternoon we have a tee time booked at Rancho Mirage! After surfing through all 465 channels and ending up at CNN again, I retired to the bedroom to continue reading my book. Apparently that didn’t last long. I must have fallen asleep at around 9pm. Maybe this country club life is starting to take its toll on me. I’m getting old.

Skyped with Koop and called MJ at the office before eating my grapefruit (from our trees) for breakfast. Phoned my mom. Read my Neil Young book for a while. Although the forecast was for gale force winds and crappy weather, the ‘lady-niners’ were out in full force all morning, golfing past our patio. And really the wind didn’t show up until later in the afternoon, and when it did, it wasn’t anything like what Sue had predicted. Soon after we finished our lunch we headed out to the Rancho Mirage Country Club for our 2:00 tee time. Hit a few balls on the driving range before getting into our cart and heading off to the first tee. Immediately we were struck by how nice this community looked — houses were larger and nicer than many we’ve seen and the course was really well maintained. The weather was a bit cool, and the groups ahead of us were playing slowly, but that only gave us more time to admire the neighbourhood.

And although Sue hadn’t golfed for nearly 2 weeks, we played okay. Sue had at least one par, and Rudy had a birdie. At one point we scooted around in our cart and replayed a couple of holes because there was no one behind us and too many ahead of us. We finished the 15th hole and called it a day at around 5:30. The sun was down and that made it too dark and too cold to finish. But we know we’ll golf this course again — it was a lot of fun and a great value at $35.

We opted for Chinese takeout for supper — which was great for me. And then we watched  our shows and tried hard not to fall asleep in front of the TV. The weather forecast is for lots of wind and some rain overnight — better weather ahead.

 

Woke up in our old bedroom. Woke up real early — because I went to bed too early. But I turned over and snoozed on and off for a while before finally rolling out of bed at 6:00am. Skyped with Max and Alex — hey, who says we have to change our morning routine? It is cold and blizzardy at home, and it is just another perfect day here in Palm Desert. After breakfast (back at our little table in the kitchen now that there’s just the two of us) Sue declared it was time for a walk. We got another email from our real estate lady so I looked up one of the listings that wasn’t too far from our place, and that’s where we walked to. Of course the actual complex was gated so all we really got to see was the area and a peek into the backyard. It’s not far from the weekend flea market, which was going strong today, because it’s President’s Day here (it’s Louis Riel Day at home). We got home — the walk was almost 6 miles roundtrip — and it was time for lunch.

After lunch Sue went to sit and read at the pool and I worked on a couple of computer projects for Koop. I did that all afternoon. Sue came home and made supper (spaghetti). After supper we watched our shows on TV. After a few more hours of one eye on the TV and the other on our iPads, it was time for bed. And that’s how you waste away a perfectly nice Monday in Palm Desert.