LAST DAY CELEBRATION!

I woke up this morning to some drunk guys across the street screaming bloody murder.  They even outshone the generator.  Here's my last look towards the vendor building and jail.  Oh yes ... Indio built a jail on the fairgrounds property so the prisoners could see what they were missing. 

Here's our minimal crew ... although six are actually missing from the picture.  So I've been doing this ice cream gig for I think 10 years.  Here's the problem.  They had no idea just how many people would show up, and they guessed high.  I have to order ice cream two months in advance, so there's only their guesstimate to go by.

Over the last two years, MANY people who used to work the different areas, have sold their RV's and quit.  That means out of maybe 30 captains, only 10 or so still know their actual job.  Everyone else doesn't have any idea what their job really is.

The guy over me ... even though I told him I needed TWO freezers, thought I didn't know what I was talking about and only got one for both the ice AND the ice cream.  To make it worse, the one he got didn't go down to zero degrees.  His solution was to put some ice cream in the small fridges (with small freezers) in one building.  

Someone came along and decided to put ten boxes in the one that didn't work at all.  I had to toss those out.  When I discovered the freezer wasn't keeping the rest cold, I had to run for dry ice.  By yesterday, all that had melted too.  We found maybe five more boxes that had to be thrown away.

Add to that the problem of locking up the ice cream.  I have locks just for that purpose.  But NO ... you can't lock it up because they need the ice from the freezer.  You already know what happened ... when I went to load up the golf cart to deliver ice cream, someone had stolen 8 boxes from the unlocked freezers.  

In the end, we had enough ice cream, only because it was overcast and cold so fewer people showed up.  The good news is I'm resigning too.  This is the last year our group will be coming to this rally.  Yes, the lovely fairgrounds neighbors are still screaming at 4:00 am.  

So ..... I'm celebrating!!  How?  It was National Hot Pastrami Sandwich Day.  That meant finding a nice deli to pig out.  This one not only had a deli but a food truck too.

Here it is in all it's glory ... hot pastrami with jalapeño chips ... and boy were they HOT!!  It was most delicious, but I almost had a heart attack when they told me it was $18 and change.  YIKES!!!  

I didn't know I needed to mortgage my house to buy a sandwich.  I'm hoping the second half I will eat today will be just as tasty.  We sat outside in the freezing rain to watch the 49er football game on an outside TV before I called it a day.

And so the rally comes to an end.  A rainy one.  Today they say the winds will be 20 mph with 50 mph gusts.  I'm not seeing it yet ... and I hope to be out of here by 8:00 and maybe miss it.  It's just a couple hours drive to Quartzsite where I will park for the next week.  

I can't wait to do absolutely NOTHING for the next couple of days.  Cooper and I need a rest!!