Cousins Meetup

Where are we now?  Joshua Tree National Park, CA

On the 14th we drove to Lake Elsinore, CA to visit my cousin Patty and her husband Jim.  We camped in luxury in their driveway, with ELECTRICITY! We talked for 3 days straight, had some great meals and good times.  I had noticed that one of the rear tires was wearing really badly so their neighbor Donnie crawled under my filthy-muddy car and said the camber was obviously way off. It was decided that I needed a wheel alignment plus a new tire.  Donnie told us of a used tire place so we went there but he didn’t have one the right size. That guy told us of another used tire place.  There I got a very good tire for only $30, and that included the mounting and balancing!  It’s probably badly out of date but at this point I can’t be too choosy. My sweet cousin bought the tire for me!  Then Patty found a $20 off deal at Big O Tire so we took it there for the alignment.  Well naturally it needed more than that! Silly me. I had to get an $85 camber kit as well as the $69 alignment. But now hopefully the tires will last a long long time.  After I had all that done, I went on line and found out I have a full-size spare tire and maybe didn’t need the new tire.

The neighbor Donnie Keys drives the hospitality truck for Honda Racing. His truck is a huge tractor with 53′ trailer with beautiful graphics and it was the cleanest thing I’ve ever seen.  It carries two big water tanks behind the cab so he can keep it sparkling-shiny-clean.  I’m pretty sure I’ve never before seen a tractor-trailer rig that didn’t even have a speck of dirt between the tire treads!!  I wish I’d gotten a photo of it, it surely was a thing of beauty. The truck has a full kitchen inside, plus some bunks for drivers and comfortable seating, and a smaller truck for him to use once the big one is set up. Donnie turns out yummy meals and snacks for the VIPS during the races; sounds like a pretty cool job.

Here’s me with my cousins Patty and April.  I’ve seen Patty a few times over the years but I had not seen April for about 45 years!!  We had a great time yakking for 3 hours; telling family secrets and sharing our memories and old family photos.

Patty & Jim have a lemon tree that’s just loaded with lemons, and she said they don’t use them. So when I left I just HAD to get a big bag of lemons which I guess will now be sharing my bed along with the oranges.  Heaven help me if I run into a really good deal on grapefruit! While I was there I was able to do laundry, take showers (first real shower since mid-November!) and even give Roxie a bath!

I left today and came to Joshua Tree National Park. I’m boondocking on the free BLM land between the south entrance and I-10.  It’s far enough from I-10 to be quiet, but close enough to get great ATT and Verizon signals.  There are about 7 or 8 others here, but are widely spaced apart.  The first site I chose had really soft sand and I almost got stuck but was able to pull it out. This site seems pretty firm.  It’s supposed to be 75-77 here for the next few days, and in the low 50’s at night!  That’ll be perfect!  I’ll probably be here for 4 or 5 nights.

I was here at Joshua Tree back in February 2001.  I came here for a 4-day rock climbing school and loved it. Back then I was actually skinny and in good shape!

Here are my neighbors:

And my view to the East:

I’m happy that there are no mean nasty cacti here to attack Princess Roxie. I’ll bet there are plenty of coyotes here  but at least there aren’t any bushes big enough for them to hide behind.