I mentioned in my last post how cold it was at Jojoba Hills SKP RV Resort. Friday’s high temperature was in the low 50s. After a couple of hours on the pickleball courts in the morning, we stayed indoors for the rest of the day.
Our five dollar per night boondocking spot wasn’t as economical as I hoped it would be. With the cold weather, I had the generator running all day with the heat pumps on. I could have shut down the generator and fired up the propane furnace for heat – I’m not sure which is more economical. The generator burns roughly half a gallon of diesel fuel per hour. Diesel fuel is around two dollars per gallon now. Propane is slightly higher than that but I don’t know the burn rate of our furnace. I ended up with about 18 hours of generator run time over the two days we were there.
Donna prepared a pork tenderloin with pomegranate glaze for dinner Friday night. So yummy!
Pork tenderloin with pomegranate glaze
We pulled out of Jojoba Hills around 11:20am Saturday morning. Our route took us up CR3 to Hemet. I’ve driven this road before in the opposite direction. I remembered some tight twisty sections, but I didn’t remember it being 15 miles of twisty, narrow highway. There wasn’t much traffic but a couple of times, I had cars lining up behind me. What the drivers of cars may not realize is how much I need to slow down for tight turns. They also probably don’t know how difficult it may be for me to pull over on a narrow road to let them pass. I need to see a wide enough shoulder and judge whether it is smooth enough to drive on and solid enough to support our weight. I usually have to make that decision in a matter of a few seconds. Twice I found wide spots on the shoulder where I could let the cars pass.
We’re currently at the Golden Village Palms RV Resort in Hemet California (map). We’ve stayed here once before when it was much warmer. We have a back-in site that’s barely wide enough for our coach with three slides and our trailer. When I backed the trailer into our site we had a number of spectators. About a half dozen people across the street and another three or four people down from our site all stood by and watched. It must have been disappointing for them as I didn’t hit anything and Donna gave excellent guidance. We dropped the trailer without any drama at all.
Once we were set up, I scootered about 15 miles to my step-dad, Ken Keller’s house. I left the scooter in his garage and picked up his car. I’ll drive over there at dark-thirty on Monday to take him to the hospital. He has a surgery scheduled and I need to have him at the hospital before 6am.
Ken is 84 years old. He’s never had surgery and never spent the night in a hospital before. One of the nice things about our nomadic lifestyle is the ability to visit family as we travel about. In this case, it enables us to set up near Ken and assist him. The hospital requires an adult caretaker to drive him home (when he’s able to go home) and stay with him for 24 hours. I’ve booked a week here. I’m hoping that’s sufficient time for him to get back on his feet.
When I returned, I watched the NFL playoffs. The Cardinals won a thriller over Green Bay. Donna played pickleball in the afternoon. Then she made turkey and black bean chili for dinner. A simple and delicious meal!
Turkey chili with cheddar and cilantro
We’ll head over to the pickleball courts this morning, then I’ll kick back and watch more NFL playoff games.