Wednesday, December 10, 2008

December 10, 2008 Wednesday

Wow! I haven't written anything since the 7th! Since Riverside. Well, where do I start? We were still at Wilderness Lakes Resort at that time in Menifee, California. The 8th I went to line dancing in the morning and we just hung around the motorhome during the day. It was a cold and windy day but we went for a long walk around the resort and then went to bed early because we wanted to leave early on Tuesday so we could beat the winds.

Tuesday morning on the 9th, we headed for Earp, California and the Emerald Cove RV Resort on the Colorado River. The Colorado River runs between California and Arizona. When we left Menifee it was still windy! We had heard the Santa Ana winds were coming so we thought we'd try to get ahead of them and stay ahead of them but nope. We were right in the middle of them.

The winds start in the desert and blow down the valley toward the ocean picking up speed as it goes. The photos don't show really well how hard the wind was blowing but believe me, the RV was rocking! It was good to see them capture this wind. There must be hundreds of these windmills through this valley.

The winds were gusting 70 mph and impossible to drive a 34' motorhome with a car in tow! We decided to pull off at a gas station and wait it out. I got on the comuter and found out the Santa Ana winds can last a coupld days! A COUPLE DAYS! If we didn't make it to the next resort, it was only a $10 loss that night but no way were we going to stay there for a couple days! We ate lunch, filled up with gas, read our book, and watched the winds.



After 4 hours of that, we decided to hit the road and see if we could make it at least to the rest stop that was 2 miles down the road. It was right about there that the winds seemed to subside a little so we kept going and the farther we got the better things were. So we kept going. We had over 80 miles to go and it was already starting to get dark. So, yup, we had to finish the last 20 miles or so in the dark not knowing where we were going. The road the resort is on wasn't in our GPS, of course! We had the address and the road wasn't hard to find so we just kept going until we came to Emerald Cove Resort. Only 6 miles out of town.


What a place; 800 sites, large clubhouse, with yummy breakfasts, lunches and dinners, card games, line dancing, golf tournaments across the street, poker, cribbage, jigsaw puzzles, pool tables, shuffle board, two pools and two jacuzis with a bar between the two pools, basketball court and pickle ball! It's an awesome place! We went for a walk tonight and walked for an hour without ever leaving the resort and didn't even get all the roads covered.


When we pulled in last night in the dark we parked too close to a palm tree so we had a little trouble putting out the slide-out. We ate a little supper, watched a little TV and just went to bed. We would have to move the RV and reset-up in the morning. It's not easy in the dark to do that. The car battery was dead from sitting for 4 hours waiting for the wind to die down.......the brake buddy in the car uses the battery. So all we could do was leave it till morning. He charged the battery and things were back on track and things got done properly first thing this morning.

I HAD to walk up to the clubhouse and check things out. I helped a lady work a jigsaw puzzle while we exchanged our travel stories. I went back to the RV and we had some lunch and then went to check out the town. We never found Earp but did find Parker, which is over the river and in AZ not CA. There's a Safeway grocery store there so picked up some bread and milk and then drove around a little to check out the little town. We stopped for a DQ cone. The DQ was NOT being run by teenagers. It's an ice cream only DQ and run by two little elderly ladies; hand written and drawn signs and all. So cute. Beats being a greeter at WalMart! LOL They really were enjoying their jobs. Who knows maybe they were the owners!

After dinner tonight; dinner was spaghetti and salad, we went for our hour long walk. Now we're watching a movie........I'm supposed to be watching......The Manchurian Candidate. I think he's sleep! LOL

More tomorrow.