We had cool, cloudy weather over the weekend. The thermometer struggled to reach 60 degrees. The El Nino effect is causing a wetter than usual winter in San Diego. The rainy season here is generally from Christmas to the end of February. January and February are typically the wettest months. San Diego averages less than 12 inches of rain per year. January averages about 2 inches of rain. This year, over four inches of precipitation were recorded by the 10th of the month. The most rainfall in one month was 9.09 inches in January1993.

I spent most of the weekend watching the NFL playoffs. The playoffs should be high-level football, but mostly they were disappointing games. Kansas City destroyed Houston. The biggest disappointment for me in that game was seeing Eric Fisher throw a vicious elbow to back of J.J. Watt’s neck while he was down and injured. It must have been a heat-of-the-battle thing because Eric is a decent guy. I used to work with his mother.

The Cincinnati Bengals versus the Pittsburgh Steelers game was ugly. I have to say the Cincinnati fans didn’t show much class when they cheered because Steelers quarterback Ben Rothlisberger left the field due to injury. Then they threw debris on the field as their defensive players went through a meltdown.

The Seattle Seahawks played the Vikings in Minnesota. It was a frigid six below zero at kickoff. The Vikings outplayed Seattle for three quarters but failed to score a touchdown – they had three field goals in tough conditions. Seattle put up 10 points in the fourth quarter. Minnesota’s kicker, Blair Walsh, had a chance to win the game with a 27-yard field goal attempt with seconds left in the game and he missed it!

The most entertaining game of the weekend in my opinion was the Green Bay Packers at Washington. Both teams played good football through three quarters before the Packers put the game away.

Enough about football – if you’re not a fan, it’s enough to make your eyes glaze over. Donna took advantage of the rental car and went shopping on Saturday and Sunday. She picked up the car on Thursday to go to her hair stylist. When she came home from her hair appointment she told me something had hit the car and left a white mark on the black car about four inches long.

On Saturday she went to Costco. When she came out to the parking lot she saw a dent where someone banged their door or shopping cart against the car. I understand accidents can happen, but I also know some people are careless and have little regard for the property of others.

When Donna came home from Costco, I took the car over to the trailer to unload a case of water. I also wanted to see if I could buff the white paint that was transferred onto the black finish by whatever hit it on Thursday. The first thing I noticed was someone had hit our trailer in the parking lot!

Damage by the second rivet from the top and in front of the wheel fender

See what I mean by mindless people having no regard for the property of others? I was able to remove the white paint from the door skin of the rental car and it wasn’t creased so the door looks fine. The trailer damage is not so simple.

We have clear, blue skies this morning and are looking forward to a few dry days. I’ll need to start packing up some of the things we have out as they dry. We’ll pull out of here on Thursday. Once again, our plans are changing. We thought we would head over to Quartzsite, Arizona for the big RV show, but now it doesn’t make sense. My step-dad, Ken Keller, is scheduled for surgery on Monday. He’ll need someone to take him to the hospital and help him when he’s discharged. I think we’ll head up to Temecula (map) and spend a couple of days at the Escapees park near Aguanga. Then we can move to Hemet (map). This will put us in a position to ride the scooter to  Ken’s house on the weekend. I’ll leave the scooter there and take his car. On Monday morning, I can drive back and take him to the hospital. This should work out.

We aren’t booked anywhere until the Alpine Coach Association gathering for the big fireworks show at Lake Havasu beginning February 8th. We’ll see how the rest of January works out.