Tuesday was a farmers’ market day at Golden Village Palms RV Resort. After pickleball in the morning, Donna and I joined Dave and Stilla Hobden (Urbanescapevehicle.com) and walked to west parking area near the entrance to the park. There were only a few vendors there – the season has really wound down in Hemet. Since the park was 75% Canadian visitors for the winter and most of them are heading home now, the population of the park has really dropped. We still found a few things we couldn’t go without. I bought a jar of raw wildflower honey. Donna bought half a dozen tamales from the same vendor that was at the pool on Saturday. She also bought salsa and lemons. Dave and Stilla also bought tamales for a late lunch. We already had lunch so Donna refrigerated our tamales for consumption later.
Donna and Stilla checking out the vendor tables
Tamale lady at the farmers’ market
We enjoyed another happy hour together with much conversation. Dave and Stilla’s dog, Coach, had some kind of episode in the afternoon, maybe an epileptic seizure. They kept watch on him indoors after dinner.
On Wednesday morning, I hit the pickleball courts and played for over three hours. It was my last chance at Golden Village Palms as we would pull out on Thursday. I came back in time to see Dave and Stilla off – they wanted to make it back to Casa Grande in time to visit family over Easter weekend. I gave Dave directions to the rock garden in the desert. It’s halfway from Hemet to Casa Grande and a good stopping point for the night. Later, I saw on Facebook that he found it and was parked in the exact spot we occupied the week before. (Their dog seems to be doing okay now.)
I forgot to mention the raucous crows that were in the park Wednesday morning. They woke Donna and me up at the crack of dawn with their constant crowing. Later I saw they left calling cards on the side of our coach and also on the windshield cover. Big bird dung bombs. In the afternoon I removed the window covers and cleaned them and also cleaned the coach.
Before we left Mesa, I ordered an anode rod for our 10-gallon Suburban water heater. The anode rod is a sacrificial metal rod made from aluminum or magnesium and screws into the hot water tank. The rod will corrode over time, preventing corrosion of the tank itself. I wanted to replace ours since I wasn’t certain of its age, but I knew it was over a year old now since we’ve had this coach that long. I didn’t get around to it before we left Mesa and I put it off in Casa Grande as well.
On Wednesday afternoon, Donna told me we had a water pressure problem. After a checking it out, I realized that we didn’t have a water pressure problem, we had a hot water flow issue. I removed the aftermarket anode rod from our tank. This rod has an adapter to fit the original threads but uses a smaller diameter threaded rod. I turned off the hot water heater and removed the rod. It was heavily corroded and coming apart. Apparently chunks of the rod material were plugging up the hot water line. I flushed the hot water tank and found many chunks from the corroded rod. I couldn’t fit the Suburban replacement rod into the water tank because I couldn’t get the adapter used on the aftermarket rod out of the tank. I need to buy a 1-1/16″ deep socket to remove it. So I re-installed the failing rod and refilled the tank. We have better hot water flow now, but it’s still not right.
On Thursday morning, I packed the trailer and loaded the scooter. We had everything packed away, slides in and jacks up by 11:30am. We planned to move to the Escapees park in Aguanga called Jojoba Hills. We stayed there last September and loved the place. They don’t take reservations, but you can call ahead to check on availability. We were surprised to find no vacancy! The only thing we could do there is dry camp in the boondocking area. We’re only staying for three nights, so we opted to boondock.
When I hooked up the trailer, I couldn’t get the four-prong electrical connector plugged in. I saw one of the prongs was smashed. I either accidentally stepped on it or rolled the front trailer jack wheel over it! I messed around for about 10 minutes before I could get it connected. We checked the brake lights and turn signals and they work, but I don’t trust the connection. Still, there was nothing I could do about it as we needed to check out by noon.
We drove out of the park south on Sanderson and stopped at Walmart. Donna and I had lunch at the Farmer Boys restaurant – a sort of upscale fast food hamburger joint. The food was okay, but a bit over-priced. Then Donna went grocery shopping while I sat in the coach and read a book. After about 45 minutes, I remembered that I wanted to get propane for the Weber Q grill. I went into Walmart and bought four propane canisters and also picked up a gallon of Chevron Delo 400 15w-40 oil – it was under $12! I wanted to have it on hand for our cross-country run after we leave San Diego next month.
From there we continued south on Sage Road (CR3) through many tight curves and switchbacks to CA79. We went east on CA 79 a few miles and found Jojoba Hills – the entire trip was all of 30 miles.
Long narrow dry camping site at Jojoba Hills
Tomorrow I’ll scooter over to Temecula and buy a 1-1/16″ deep socket to fix the water heater tank and also a new flat four-prong plug for the trailer.