They are pretty serious about pickleball here at Casa Grande RV Resort. I’ve played for a few hours every morning for five days straight. On Saturday, Donna and I went out for an evening walk and found people playing on the lighted courts. It was mostly the same group that plays in the morning – they were playing twice a day! No wonder there are so many good players here.

Two of the blogs I follow had similar themes recently. Nina Fussing (Wheeling It) wrote about their top six “incidents” on the road. Then Clarke Hockwald (What’sNewell) wrote about “when, not if,” things go sideways. Wouldn’t you know it, we had an “incident” Sunday night. I wanted to watch Wicked Tuna, so I turned on the satellite and TV. When I turned on the audio amplifier, I had no sound. I thought this was odd. I noticed the radio in the dashboard had a blank display. I thought a fuse may have blown and the radio and amplifier weren’t receiving 12 volts from the chassis batteries. The audio amplifier is on the chassis circuit, not the house 12-volt circuit. I think Western RV wired it this way so that when you’re driving down the road, listening to the in-dash radio which also goes through the audio amplifier, it wouldn’t be drawing current from the house batteries. Like Clarke said, “It’s when, not if things go sideways.”

After checking fuses, I got my multi-meter out and went outside to check the batteries. Oh no! The chassis batteries only showed 7 volts. Something had drawn the battery down. I looked around and found that I had neglected to turn off the CB radio. It doesn’t draw much current, but five days of continuous parasitic draw had killed my chassis batteries. I put a charger on the batteries right away. By Monday morning, they were up to 12.8 volts. I’m sure damage has been done. I’ll keep my fingers crossed and hope they can hold an acceptable level of charge.

Donna hoped she might be ready to play pickleball on Saturday, but in doing a couple of squats to test her readiness, she aggravated the muscle pull in her groin. She had been trying to stay active by walking, but even that’s more than is comfortable right now. The afternoons have been clear and very warm with the temperature approaching 90 degrees. We’ve relaxed most afternoons and have been running the air conditioners. It cools at night – the temperature dropped to the low 50s last night.

Sharon, one of the pickleball players, organized a happy hour gathering at the courtyard by the clubhouse yesterday. Everyone brought hors d’oeuvres which really turned out to be dinner. There was a lot of food and we enjoyed hanging out for a couple of hours and talking with different people.

Happy hour with the pickleball group

Donna and I were trying to figure out what our plan is for the 12 open days we have between our check out day here and check in at Mission Bay RV Resort in San Diego. We thought about extending our stay in Casa Grande, but we really felt like moving on. Donna found a special offer at a high-end RV resort in Hemet, California. The full price rate for a week-long stay at Golden Village Palms RV Resort runs from $336 to $546 – way more than we usually pay. The special deal Donna found was for first time visitors to the resort. We reserved a site for one week for $199. It’s a true RV resort with all the amenities – three swimming pools, hot tubs, fitness center, pickleball courts and more. They have a concert series as well featuring artists such as the Eagles, Shania Twain and Tim McGraw, and Jimmy Buffet. Unfortunately, we missed their winter concert season.

We’ll pull out of here tomorrow. Our plan is stop in Yuma for fuel and groceries, then head west and spend a night in the desert. From there, we’ll travel up through El Centro on highway 111 past the Salton Sea and through the Coachella Valley to Hemet. We’ll cover about 200 miles per day and check in Thursday afternoon. After our week in Hemet, we can spend a few days at the Escapee’s Jojoba Hills park before we head down to Mission Bay. That’s our plan – we’ll see how it works out.