Catching Up

There were so many things going on at the Indio Rally at the same time, there was hardly time to write about it.  One of the first things we did was to locate the best cake in the land.  Hard working people like us need cake.  Besides that, it was Dottie Poole's birthday, not to mention my January birthday, the 30th celebration of WMHA and our Golden Spike 20th!!

Sherman's is a Kosher Deli located in Palm Desert or Desert Palms.  It's kind of like LA ... they all run together and I can never remember the names.  

This is one of Dottie's favorite haunts, so I blame it all on her.  THIS however is friend Betty, who was very good at making NEW friends with the men waiting to be seated at the deli.  I'm surprised they didn't follow us home.  I'm taking lessons from Betty, just so you know!!  Take a gander at those sandwiches.  They are HUGE!!

This is the crazy concoction I ordered ... pastrami between potato latkes instead of bread.  It was delicious!!  If you ever get that direction, definitely look up Shermans.

Dottie found her cake there too.  Good grief!!  They had the biggest cakes I've ever seen in my life.  This monster is about nine inches tall and a foot across.  Hands down, it was the best carrot cake I've ever eaten in my life!!  Check them out ... you can order one piece or the whole cake!!

The very next morning, I heard the familiar whoosh of a hot air balloon.  This guy has flown across the fairgrounds almost every time I've been here, landing in a nearby parking lot.

I probably wouldn't give it much attention, but since I crewed on a balloon in Albuquerque (thanks to Jim and Gail) I'm always drawn to them.

There were several awards handed out, but the best of all was to our very own John Painter for his work on our Golden Spike newsletter.  Unfortunately they forgot to tell him OR us that this was happening, so John, his wife Patty and I spent the entire evening watching the football game.  He was awarded the certificate the last morning as we were packing up.

SO ... for the next few hours, I'll be unpacking the rig with all the junk, or rather important decorating stuff and useful things I brought to Lost Horse Ranch.   Included in that is the freezer.  When I said it was packed to the brim, I wasn't kidding.  I couldn't even get one more ice cream bar in there.  

There's lots of leftovers, like the 99 pancakes uneaten from the breakfast and one whole pizza, along with two big containers of carrot cake.  At least most of the pumpkin bread is gone!!!

Yes, there's STILL more from Indio ... but that will be tomorrow's story as I unpack, which isn't a very interesting subject.  

Just Passing Through Q

I rather hate being in a hurry.  I hurried to the Riverside Rally, then we all hurried to the Indio Rally where we hurried to get the ice cream delivered and scooped.  Now here I am again, hurrying to get to my new place in Tucson.

I actually purchased it in April and was able to spend about three weeks there in June before hurrying back home to be out of that 118 degree heat.  It's a WINTER home.  I have so much to do, and only three months to spend before hurrying back to get my taxes filed.  Half of January is already gone.

The sunrise in Indio was gorgeous ... a nice ending to a stressful week.

Traffic wasn't bad at all as I entered Arizona.  Don't forget the time change.  

Quartzsite is beautiful as always.  I headed down to the RV park since I require a sewer connection for dumping before arriving at Lost Horse Ranch (my new digs).

I quickly sent out emails, hoping to catch up with some of the bloggers I follow.  Lucky for me, George and Suzie responded with directions to their rig.  Now if you're familiar with Quartzsite at all, you know it's something like past the two dusty road signs, past the candy cane (what??), turn right and look for Stinger Bee.  Okay then!!  I can't believe I found them on the first try.

Enjoying the afternoon with them were Bill, Patsy and their puppy Clemson (PatsyIsChillin.blogspot.com) and Tom and Deb (tdCelebratingtheDance.blogspot.com).  George is the one I've talked about who does most of their cooking on his Weber Q barbecue.  I learned a LOT about Canada since they all hail from that direction.

Time passed by too fast and it was getting dark, so I headed back to my rig to double check my second day reservations.  Lo and behold, I have no second day reservations.  As is usual for this time of year, the park is full and I have to be out by 11:00 this morning.  

I was hoping to catch up with one more blogger ... Rick and Kathy (It'sAboutTime) who are actually parked somewhere on the same 500 acres as George and Suzie.  If I wasn't in a hurry to get to Tucson and start work on my house, I would pull off in the desert and spend another couple of days.  I'll make sure I catch up with them next time!!

As I headed home, the sunset in the East was just as magnificent as the one in the West.

Looking West

Time to pack up!  I seem to have lost an hour somewhere over the Arizona border.  Yes, I forgot the time change.  I still have lots of tales of Indio to tell, but it will have to wait until tomorrow when I'm parked at my new little house in the desert, Lost Horse Ranch.

Here's The Scoop!!!

Well for Heaven's sake ... I didn't get one single picture of the men scooping all that ice cream.  RATS!!

So here's the scoop on the scooping!!  I started out at 9:30 helping to set up the ice cream social.  With tables in place, spoons and bowls waiting at the ready, I went back to gather the rest of our chocolate sauce and aprons.

The Schwan's guy showed up nice and early.  Boy do I like THAT!  We removed 57 gallons of ice cream from his truck, only to discover the cookie lady had commandeered my table.  With a little wrangling, the chocolate and caramel sauce finally found a home at the very end of the line.

Ready ... set ... GO!!!  The line was instantly long as our men began dishing it out.  After a quick taste test, with the help of Rich Dixon, I gathered up the bars left over from the previous day and began distribution to all the sections who could not attend in person.

As the big tubs were used up, I brought out more hoping there was enough time for it to soften.  Load 'em up!!!  I'm thinking we might have lots left over.

An hour later, the line was still just as long.  Okay, shorten those servings!!  In no time the line was gone.  Okay, larger servings please.  Kudos to this wonderful group of people who put up with me!!!

Two hours later, we finally gave away the very last scoop of ice cream.  How did we possibly do that???  It came out absolutely perfect!!

Unfortunately, there were approximately 64 dozen Costco cookies too many.  I'm sure glad that wasn't in MY balliwick.  I was one happy camper as we all returned to our rigs to gather up our last supplies for the final Happy Hour.  Since the playoff games are in full swing, we watched it on my outside television. First time that's been used in almost six years.

There's no rest for the group however ... this morning we're off to clean the fairgrounds of trash.  We'll ride around on golf carts and clean up the big stuff before closing our rigs and heading out.  I'll be spending the night in Quartzsite!!

Whew!!!  That's one more ice cream rally under my belt.

GOLD ... It's For Ice Cream

Hello from the Golden Spike Group, with smiling faces, ready to take on the daunting task of serving ice cream to 1700 rally attendees.  As most of you know, we do this every year, in the hopes we will get asphalt parking in the unpredictable Indio weather.

There are not one, but TWO ice cream socials ... one on Friday and one on Saturday.  You probably also know that I stress over this process every year.  One year the Schwans truck did NOT show up.  You can't imagine how wonderful it is to have 1700 people mad at you, even if it wasn't our fault.

That space in the picture above?  That was for me.  I take the first picture, then have someone else take mine and I put the two together.  I guess next year I better get a gold shirt so I blend in ... the better to NOT see me!!

I'm not the only one ... except I don't have the ingenuity that this gentlemen's wife has!!  I will definitely remember this for next year.  Although I probably would have used duck tape, his is held on with alligator clips.

So the ice cream came .... and we handed out over twelve hundred bars.  My dilemma is that I ordered 1500 ... with even more for today.  I made a second trip around and STILL had ice cream left over.  

Today will be the ice cream sundae social, accompanied by Costco cookies.  Luckily the driver is coming early enough for the ice cream to soften up so it can be "hand" scooped.  Whoopee!!!   THIS time I'm suggesting we fill the bowls to the brim, since there is no place to store any leftovers.  All our freezers are chock full!!

Note to Nancy ... 1700 people ... only order 1200 ice cream bars.

Wave goodby Golden Spike group!!!

The only other exciting thing I did was purchase a dash cover.  Isn't it beautiful?  No, not the top part ... that's a weird reflection from the sun reflectors.  It fits perfectly!  I love it!!  It's the wrong color.  On Thursday, I ordered a gorgeous gray one, which magically turned into tan upon opening the box.  

I didn't order tan because it reflects so badly in the windshield, I can hardly see to drive.  Back in the box it went.  Although this one came overnight, the next one won't arrive until Thursday of this week.  They are shipping it to Arizona for me.

Although I've heard the entertainment at night has been very good, I've not attended.  I've just been too tired.  Unfortunately, that means I've been up since 4:15 this morning.  C'est la vie!!  Maybe I can sneak in a nap before the ice cream arrives.

ELVIS IS HERE!!!!

But first ...  MAN CAN COOK!!

Yesterday the women were treated like QUEENS as the men prepared a wonderful breakfast for us.  How often do you see that??  Here's the mixing table with five guys (not the hamburger kind) working on their mixology.

There were a few test runs before they were satisfied with the correct batter and heat.  I'm pretty sure I could NEVER cook pancakes on a barbecue grill.

Hard at work, I think they made about 300, which we ate with abandon, smothered in syrup and homemade jams.  On the far end is the sausage station, cooking in a huge cast iron skillet.  It doesn't get much better than this.  Thank you guys for all your hard work.  It was delicious.  

Next up ... the Viva Las Vegas parade, a tradition at this rally ever since I've been coming here.  As the color guard marched by, everyone stood.  There were no bended knees here!!!

A couple of oldies but goodies drove by, both the cars AND the drivers.

Who should appear over the horizon but ELVIS himself!  This happens to be the Chapel of the Bells with Elvis the officiating minister.

He was marrying everyone who followed behind, including these zombie lovebirds.

You had to look twice here to figure out who was on front and who was on back.  One side was WOMAN and one side MAN.  They sure can come up with some crazy costumes.

Here was a sight to behold.  Look closely.  I'm pretty sure there is an imposter in the group!!

At long last, Elvis has arrived!!!  He walked right over and placed his sweat covered scarf, DNA included, on the neck of Betty Simon, sitting next to me.  Ooh la la Betty!!!!

This little Elvis was the hit of the parade.  He marched right down the sides, smelling every single foot and getting pats along the way.

With the parade finally over, our group retired to the rigs where we AGAIN stuffed ourselves to the gills on salad and PIZZA!!  You could never say we don't eat well!

Lots of stuff has been going on in the background, like me running around trying to find out how much ice cream people need so I can worry over whether I have enough or not.  

In the meantime, Roadmaster came and checked my hitch, like they always do for everyone here.  Luckily I caught him this time, to discover there was a problem.  I'll tell you about that and a couple more irritations after the rally is over.  There's too much going on to worry about those things right now!!  

Today is the first ice cream social giveaway ... FREE ICE CREAM.  You can't beat that!!

The Golden Spike Strikes Again!!

If you want to have a great time, hardly stopping to catch your breath, come join our Golden Spike group.  Railroad enthusiasts from all over the Western States meet up several times a year to ride the rails, visit museums and check out everything RAILROAD.

To promote the clubs at the FMCA Western Rally, they have a Chapter Fair.  We set up on two tables versus the normal one because we have so many members with so much to say.  The REAL attraction is the candy.  We bring the best ... things like M&M's, Butterfingers, Snickers ... THAT'S how you bring in new people.

The First Time Attendee seminar brought in almost 400 prospective railroaders, who wandered through the aisles.  We pretty much wandered the aisles ourselves, scoring a small plastic wine glass (perfect for my rig) and taste testing everyones candy.

This is such a fun rally ... Viva Las Vegas ...  even ELVIS himself showed up to entertain the troops.

Most tables have one or two who help out ... about 15 of our group showed up.  There were yellow shirts everywhere!!

With that behind us, it was time to get ready for the dinner celebration.  The club buys pork loins, which are then marinated for a day or two in the Simon's rig ... thank you Betty and Kurt ... and barbecued by the men in our group.  These guys know how to cook meat.  It was cut-with-a-fork tender, along with two full tables full of salad and veggies.  

Always in a hurry with no spare time, I made bacon/onion green beans in the instant pot.  They came out perfect in spite of a little glitch.  In the meantime, I was running back and forth trying to get our entertainment into the fairgrounds.  Yup we do it up right!!!

This year our club was regaled with the Presidents of FMCA and the Western Region.  It's our 20 year anniversary, and thanks to our section leader Steve Shade, we received our recognition via FedEx just in the nick of time.

Our entertainment was finally discovered and delivered to our area just in time for after dinner music.  This is The Guitar Guy.  Our President Dan St John found him on-line.  We had never seen or heard him before.  

Sometimes things work out.  He was just great, playing mostly songs we had asked for.   From Country to Rock 'n Roll to Dean Martin, he played them all to a very receptive sing-along rowdy audience cuz that's how we roll!!  Asphalt makes a good dance floor.

Next on the menu .... our notorious pancake breakfast prepared by the men while us ladies sit on our tuffets waiting to be served.  And they want me to be President ... hahahahahaha.  They know not what they ask.  

At any rate, it's going to be another fun day of parades and pizza!!  

P.S.  I got another call from the Ice Cream Guys .... we are all set for delivery!!  YAY!!!!!

Official Opening Day

With another good soaking from the rain under our belts, the official opening day of the FMCA Western Area Rally has arrived.  After the generator fiasco where the nice gentleman turned it OFF, they brought in four smaller ones, one for each row in our huge lot.  It's a toss up ...   dirt and mud or generator and asphalt.  Either we are parked in the dirt and mud with no noise, or we are on the asphalt with the shortest walk to the festivities and a jet engine next door.  We chose the jets!

This was us two years ago ... it was nice having lake-front property.

Right off the bat while setting up on Sunday, I pulled on this strap to hold my window shade open and it broke with a bang.  They tell me these will be for sale in the Big Tent as the vendors have arrived today, so that will be the first thing on MY agenda.

The weather for our MAN-COOKED pancake breakfast was too cold and wet, so it has been rescheduled for Thursday morning.  The women LOVE it.  There's nothing like sitting outside sipping our orange juice while the men prepare all the food and wait on us hand and foot!!  Not necessarily voluntary, but a tradition I started last year!!  They were kind enough to agree.

My trip to the fabric store was very fruitful.  I found backing for one quilt I was working on, along with all this gorgeous material for another queen-size.  I usually go for the smaller sizes but this one will be large enough for my motorhome bed.

Then I spotted this Paris beauty that will make a great Christmas present.  Not for me.  I really am trying to be good.  HOWEVER ... nice material is not cheap.  It runs $10-12 a yard.  When you need 8 yards for backing, that can add up quite quickly!!  I think I've mentioned before ... always buy backing and binding WHEN YOU BUY THE QUILT!!  Otherwise I can never find something that looks good.

My credit card is crying.  In total I think there is a little over 20 years in my now stuffed to the gills closet.

OH ... I almost forgot.  Thank the Lord for small favors .... the ice cream guys called to say they have our order AND our ice cream.  How excited I was to hear from them!!!  Ecstatic in fact!!!

Today is the Chapter Fair where we try to lure potential members away from other clubs with loads of good candy ... like Snickers, M&M's and Almond Joy bars.  After that, our famous BBQ pork loin dinner anniversary celebration (this club has been around for 20 years now).  We even ordered entertainment ... we will be serenaded by The Guitar Guy.  

We are having cake and ice cream for dessert to celebrate Miss Dottie and my birthdays!!  Come join us!!

Rain In The Desert??

History is repeating itself.  Two years ago we came to the desert to be warm and meet with friends from all over the Western States.  It rained so hard some of our group ended up in lakes where they couldn't even exit their rigs.  Most all of the electrical connections were underwater too!!  YIKES!

Yesterday there was either a huge storm coming with 40 mph winds or maybe just a drizzle, depending on who you chose to believe.  It was pretty dark and overcast at 3:30 when we scheduled our happy hour and business meeting.

Does it not look like we are having fun???  Perfect temperatures and great food.

At least we were until Dottie raised her hands while explaining something very important to Betty and opened up the heavens above.

In no time we were surrounded by black skies as the rain started to fall.

Thirty people squished in under my not-so-large awning, along with the table of food.  No one complained because you could reach anything you wanted to snack on!  The business meeting was short and sweet.

The wind came up, the wind died down and the clouds passed by without dumping gallons of water on us, but we did get a nice air freshening.  Just before midnight however, everything changed.  Although there has been little to no wind, the rain continued all night long.  I can't complain since  California needs it badly.

I don't mind the rain, but my dogs are another story.  I literally have to drag them outside.  This morning Jessie did her "I'm NOT going" trick and pulled out of her harness.  Lucky for me she didn't run off, but I had a heck of a time catching her and getting it back on.  By the time we got back to the rig, I looked like a drowned rat!!  

I hesitate to tell you what I did BEFORE happy hour and the rain.  Entering Monica's Beads and Quilts is a dangerous thing to do when you have a credit card in your pocket.  The only place I have left to store things is in the fridge, which was quickly filled to the brim with group food for the next four days.  Guess I'll be using my bags of material for pillows.  Pictures tomorrow.