Happy New Year first of all. We rang in the new year with Bruce and Debbie Bednarski and Kim Chapman at their place. Kim arrived from Poway around 6pm after traversing the snow-covered summits. She said the road was snowy from Alpine on the west side to Jacumba on the east. Jacumba is at the foot of the mountains near the Anza Borrego desert.

We started with cocktails and hors d’ouevres. Bruce shook up martinis. Debbie put out some cheese and crackers. Donna brought homemade jalapeno-cilantro hummus and veggies and I grilled prosciutto-wrapped scallops.  It was a great start to the evening.

Later, Debbie and I put a tri-tip on their grill. Unfortunately, the grill was uncooperative. It wasn’t hot enough and the flame died altogether a couple of times. I took the golf cart down to our site and brought our little Weber Q to finish grilling the steak. It worked out fine.

In typical New Year’s Eve fashion, we drank and got a bit silly by midnight. We even went for a midnight ride in the golf cart! It was very cold outside. It was a fun time celebrating together.

The overnight temperature was the lowest we’ve seen since we left Michigan. We prefer to sleep under a pile of blankets and don’t run the furnace or heat pumps at night. When we woke up around 9am, it was 47 degrees in the coach! Donna turned on the heat pumps. Our Duo-Therm Comfort Center controls the heating, ventilation, air condition system (HVAC) for the coach. Heat pumps aren’t very effective when the temperature drops below the mid-30s. The Duo-Therm Comfort Center is a smart HVAC controller. Sensors on the two 15,000 BTU heat pumps provide ambient air temperature signals to the controller. When Donna activated the heat pumps, the controller sensed it was too cold outside for effective heat pump operation. It automatically switched to auxiliary heat from the LPG furnace. Once the outside air temperature warmed up a bit, it switched off the furnace and activated the heat pumps.

Donna went out for a hike and climbed a steep hill to the north of us and then down the other side to the river. Some of the hike was so steep and slippery with loose rock, she had to crabwalk and came back covered in dust. She took pictures, but I can’t access them right now as our connection is so bad, I can’t load them. I puttered around for a while, then watched college football bowl games. The Cotton Bowl was a thriller with Michigan State making a comeback and scoring the winning touchdown with 30 seconds left to defeat Baylor 42-41. Then the Oregon Ducks trounced Florida State 59-20 in the Rose Bowl.

Later, I watched Ohio State overpower Alabama 42-35 in the Sugar Bowl. This sets up a championship game between the Oregon Ducks and the Ohio Buckeyes.

I woke up this morning at 7am to the sound of shotgun blasts. Duck hunters were out on the river. Once again, it was cold in the coach – 48 degrees. I fired up the heat and went back to bed. It was after 9:30am before the outside air warmed up enough to switch over to the heat pumps. The weather guessers tell us it will begin to warm up as the cold air mass moves east. We have clear, sunny skies and I hope the thermometer reaches 60+ today.

I may not post again until we leave here on Monday. The slow, intermittent Internet connection makes it too frustrating. I can’t even upload photos right now. Our plan is to pull out of here early on Monday and go to Casa Grande, Arizona. I want to have our coach serviced there at Speedco. I’ll have the motor oil and filter changed, the chassis lubed and the fuel filter on the generator changed.

We’ve booked a full week in Casa Grande so we can explore the area before we move on to Mesa on the 12th. Our plan for 2015 is to spend about two months in Mesa before we work our way back to southern California for Shauna’s graduation from law school on May 1st. From there, we know we want to be in Minneapolis in early July. We’ll continue east and see if we can visit friends in Michigan before we travel to the northeast where we’ll visit Donna’s family. At some point I want to make it to Texas to visit my daughter, Jamie. We’ll be back in the southwest before the cold weather finds us. That’s our current plan for 2015.