Where does the time go?

Yes, folks we survived our first week as fulltimers and the time has flown by!


Last weekend we visited our sisters that live near Magic Mountain\Valencia. The closest RV Park we could get was in Acton about 30 miles beyond where they live.


Hello Rob & Sue, Dan & Judy. Thanks for having us over; it was great seeing you again.


On Sunday afternoon, the wind started to come up and the wind got stronger and colder all night. I was wearing a down vest while getting the trailer ready to hookup at 9 AM on Monday morning. We left Acton about 10:30 AM and drove across the high desert before dropping in to San Bernardino. The wind was very strong and at one point the computer on our truck said that the mileage was down to 7.6 MPG! Once we got over the pass and down into San Bernardino the mileage improved but the winds were very strong. I just tucked in behind a semi and hoped that he would block the head wind.


Once we got past Palm Springs (about half way) the winds stopped and the temperature improved dramatically. Here in El Centro, we met up with our friends Fred & Jo Wishnie for New Year’s Eve. Fred is a master chef and had said that the next time we meet he would cook a Pasta Bolenasie that “you will remember the rest of your life”. YES, Fred’s Pasta Bolognaise is that good! We decided to watch the east coast feed of the ball dropping in New York and called it an evening, because we all had to get up early.


Every January 1st birder’s start a new Year List; a list of the birds you have seen in the current year. By tradition we always try to start the year with a Big Day to see 100 or so species to get the list started. New Year’s morning found the 4 of us starting out at 7:30 to bird the Salton Sea area. We finally stopped for lunch at 2 PM. We returned to our trailers exhausted and had seen about 40 species.


After our exhausting day on the first we all agreed to make the 2nd a “do nothing day”; we would just rest and relax. During our “do nothing day” Kathy did laundry, while Fred, Jo and I did so “casual” birding. We were gone about two hours. I am way behind in the blog and emails so I thought I would tackle that in the afternoon when our friends Carl and Susan from the Montana Owners forum dropped by to visit. We had first met them at the Montana Owners Rally back in March. Susan had lived here in El Centro when she was a child and had some real insights to the area. As it turns out Susan is also a beader like Kathy and they had all kinds of ideas to discuss. It was great to see Carl and Susan again and we will be meeting up with them later in the month at Quartzsite.


On the 3rd it was time for “serious” birding again so Fred, Jo, Kathy and I started out at 7 AM to go birding in the areas we ran out of time for on the first. This time we were better prepared and brought along lunch. We returned to the trailers about 4 PM with about 50 species of birds sighted but, there are some duplicates from the 1st.


The 4th was another “do nothing” day to buy groceries, propane, get the salty mud washed off of the truck from the Salton Sea area and then relax.


For the most part the weather here has been T-shirt weather during the day but, it gets cold quick after sundown. However, the overnight temperature has been higher than any we have experienced for the past month.