Indio FMCA and Quartzsite

The trip to Quartzsite was almost an afterthought. We were going, then we weren’t, then we were, then we weren’t. Finally, we decided we were going and started planning in earnest. After the Rose Parade Rally, we needed a break. We made plans to go to the FMCA rally in Indio, stay at the Elk’s Lodge and just be daily walk-in's for the rally. We arrived on the 7th and parked right next to another member of our RV club. A third joined us later that night.

Bright and early on the 8th, we all drove the three miles to the RV show. Claudia and I walked the vendor area first to see what was for sale and find what we could not do without. We shopped until noonish, took our new treasures back to the car and then met the rest of the group for lunch. Jim and Joan McCracken, past guests of ours who were working the rally also joined us. Following lunch and catch-up conversation and gossip, we headed out to look at the coaches being offered for sale. There were very few and they were almost all used coaches. We returned to the Elk’s Lodge vowing not to go back. It was a very poor show.

The 9th was “Explore the Area Day”. We headed east and then south on Highway 111 and arrived in Niland about an hour later. After a bit of searching and a stop at the Niland Fire Department, we soon arrived at the thriving metropolis of Slab City and its world famous monument, Salvation Mountain.

Entrance sign


Salvation Mountain

Entrance to the Temple

Salvation Mountain is the result of the efforts of a single man, Leonard Knight. Leonard is in his mid-seventies and has worked on Salvation Mountain for about 24 years. Many years ago, he turned to God and eventually wound up in Niland. He started building a monument to his faith and never stopped. The entire site is built of old tires, trees, automobile parts, adobe clay and a whole bunch of dedication. Some of the trees are pretty big and there are a few telephone poles mixed in. He puts them all in place with three come-alongs…simple block-and-tackle devices.

Leonard giving a tour

Trees inside the Temple

He lives with his cat, Jack, in the back of an old flatbed truck that has been somewhat converted into a camper.

Leonard's home

The site is listed in Ripley’s Believe it or Not and has been the subject of several documentaries. Leonard gave us a tour of the place and presented us with a DVD of his life and the story of Salvation Mountain.

Claudia and me with Leonard

You may think he is a few French fries short of a Happy Meal but you can’t question his faith in God or his dedication. Not being able to do something is not in his vocabulary.

After Salvation Mountain, we drove through Slab City. The “town” got its name by the fact that it once was a military camp, now decommissioned and leveled with only the slab foundations remaining. It is now a haven for snowbirds and a core of very definitely “odd” characters. Every known and mysterious object that has ever fallen off vehicles on the local highways now adorns the front yards of the permanent residents of Slab City.

Homes at Slab City - Note the salvaged decorations!

I was listening for banjo music as we drove through the area but we made it out safely and headed back for home. We finalized the day by going to the new Clint Eastwood movie, “Grand Torino” followed by dinner at Mimi’s. I highly recommend the sautéed scallops with butternut squash ravioli. It was prepared in a sort of Cajun sauce and was to die for! Pass on the bread pudding though. Mine’s a lot better!

Saturday the 10th was a sleep-in morning. It felt good! When we finally got up and dressed, we took off with Neil and Terry Zitrin to go to the College of the Desert flea market. They assured us it was worth it and they were sure right! It was extra-large, double-huge…the biggest flea market I’ve ever seen! We looked all around and found some great stuff. We chugged down some bratwurst hot dogs with grilled onions and sauerkraut and then left about noon-thirty to go to “The Follies”, a musical vaudeville-type show with performers whose ages run from the high 50’s to the holder of the Guinness Book of World Records, the “Worlds Oldest Showgirl” at eighty-five years! Those gals looked outstanding! The men had nice hair! The show featured a dog act, a ventriloquist and lots of singing and dancing. The guest headliner was Susan Anton. It was a good show. Dinner that night was a much-too-large serving of chicken enchiladas and fried ice cream.

When we got up on Sunday, I went to the office and extended our stay by two days until the 13th. We all then went in for breakfast in the lodge. After breakfast, the Zitrin’s and Miller’s both left for home. Claudia and I went back to the CoD flea market to scrape up a few more “deals” before returning to the rig for the Charger game. We should have stayed at the flea market! What a miserable game. Oh well…next year!

Larry and Linda showed up on Monday and we all headed for Quartzsite on Tuesday after making sure our water was full to the brim and both waste tanks completely empty. We also made a quick stop at the Ehrenburg Flying “J” for fuel and propane. We were now ready for a week to ten days of dry camping. We headed for Quartzsite, took Exit 19, turned south to the “T” and east to Scandan Wash. After turning off the main road, we jiggled and joggled along the tire-track “road” toward the power lines. After passing the third wash, we turned right and found two members of our group all settled in and kicking back. Larry and I circled around and picked our spots. After an hour or so, we were all settled in and I was drinking a “Colorado Kool Aid”. Nice! That night we had a campfire. Hell, every night we had a campfire. That is a tradition in the desert and we upheld it in the finest tradition.

Our camp at Quartzsite

The next day, I broke out my glider for a scary short flight. I think the balance was off…WAY OFF! I got it up around 100 feet and, when I throttled the motor down, all it wanted to do was porpoise badly. It was like 99.9% out of control. After an unintentional loop, I gained enough control to land it in one piece several hundred yards away. That was enough fun for the morning! I put it away until my flight instructor checks it out. Around 10:00 or so, we did a quick reconnoiter of the early sellers booths and found a few items worth “oohing” and “ahhing” over. Over the next few days, we hit new areas and made several “finds”. I scored on a great new straw cowboy hat for $20.00 and a 9-inch only slightly rusty cast iron frying pan for $5.00. Claudia found some clothes and jewelry, notably a whimsical glass fish pendant. We kept biding our time until Saturday when the big tent show opened.

We decided to wait until Saturday afternoon to let the main horde get in and out of the tent show. About 2:00 in the afternoon, we made the trek and did a quick familiarization tour of the vendors and their wares. I made an appointment for a windshield repair and made a couple of semi-necessary purchases. We then returned for dinner and a campfire. Tonight’s fire brought a new twist. A kangaroo rat had moved into our wood pile and amused us by running around our feet as we sat in our chairs. One of the ladies “accidentally” dropped a few pieces of dog food near the wood pile before she retired for the night.

All in all, we had much fun over the next few days and met several friends staying in other locations around the area. Verle and Curtis Lambert, former Wagonmasters from the company, came over from Yuma and stayed for a pot-luck diner of ham, barbecued ribs, lasagna, salad, and, and, and… I stopped at thirds, not including dessert. We were planning to leave on Tuesday but extended a day for more shopping and came home on Wednesday. For those of you who have never been to Quartzsite, it is a “happening” you shouldn’t miss.

Rose Parade Rally

Claudia and I were off in the Explorer on December 13th and we headed north to Ventura for a whole week of doing nothing but kickin’ back in an “efficiency” room. We were expecting a postage stamp sized room with maybe a couch bed and a small stall shower. We were pleasantly surprised when we got there and quickly settled into a very nice and comfortable room. The first thing we did was to call Claude LeMond, one of our favorite sergeants when we worked at the San Diego CHP office. He and his wife, Marcia, one of our favorite radio dispatchers, live in Ventura. We quickly made plans to meet the following night for dinner and a long overdue eyeball meeting. Things were going swimmingly when we got “The Call”.

Our plan for the rest of the month was to prepare for the Rose Parade. We were scheduled to be the Assistant Rallymasters for the Rose Parade Rally in Pomona that started on the 24th. Now “preparation” for Assistant Rallymaster is synonymous with “just show up” and we were prepared to do just that…show up and do what we were told. At some point in time that night, we got a call from the Rallymasters, the couple who were running the rally. We were informed that their son was scheduled for an emergency quadruple bypass Monday morning and they had to pull out of the rally. I quickly surmised that, since he was calling me, Claudia and I had just been promoted (?) to full-blooded Rallymasters. Wow! How wonderful! Let’s see…today’s the 13th and we have to start a rally on the 24th and, oh, by the way, throw in Christmas while you plan the festivities…FROM SCRATCH! Somehow, “thrilled with the news” was a little off the mark. I poured one of my famous “two-fingered” Scotch drinks, sat down and we talked. After a while, we had a short “To Do” list. Actually, it was a short “Here is a list of the major things that better get done…and damn fast!” Sleep that night did not come easy.

The next morning, we started planning as soon as we got up, had breakfast and headed into Ventura to sightsee as we planned. Equipped with a large notepad and pen, we headed into town. We parked on the main drag and started walking. Within one block, we came across a party store called “Bonnie’s” that was soon going out of business. New Year’s stuff was priced at 30% off. We spent about an hour going through the store and making notes. This was a good start! Another call from the previous Rallymasters informed us that there were four boxes of “stuff” for the rally just 30 minutes down the road at his sister’s house. We took off and retrieved said boxes which filled our poor overly-stuffed little car. We were moving forward! Now, back to vacationing. We met Claude and Marsha, got caught up on old times and went out for dinner.

The rest of the week included two more meetings, a trip to the Ronald Regan Library (where we actually walked through Air Force One) and a dinner meeting with Steve and Sally Bascom who we worked with at Catalina Island a few years back. After dinner, we all froze while watching the Ventura Harbor Boat Parade of Lights. The next day, we packed up and headed home via a slightly circuitous route. We first went to Pomona to look at the RV park and meeting room where we were going to stay. We also went to Miss Donuts and the La Paloma Restaurant to make arrangements for our morning coffee supplies and the Orientation Dinner on the 28th. Things were progressing! We headed home and emptied the rig into the garage. Half the garage was now totally unusable for parking. We then put all the paperwork boxes, binders, brochures and other miscellaneous supplies on the dining room table. It was not pretty. Dinner for the next five nights would be either eat out or stand up style. “Busy” does not adequately describe the next few days.

We got as much done as we could, packed the motorhome, had Christmas Eve dinner at Alisa’s on the 24th (DUH!) and breakfast at Scott and Tye’s on the 25th. Alisa brought the third member of the Barber Rally Team, our granddaughter, Brooke, to our house later that night. The next morning, we headed for Pomona, vowing to give it our all. We pulled in, got set up at our site, had a meeting with our other two staff couples and went out to dinner at the Chino Buffet in Chino Hills. The Chino Buffet is ALWAYS on our schedule when we are in this area. We returned to the park and spend the rest of the night working on a shopping list until we crashed.

The 27th was spent checking in guests,



visiting WalMart, Costco, Sam’s and other local stores to help stimulate the local economy. We made a good dent in the shopping list but didn’t have time to put it to bed.

The 28th was the first day of the rally. We started out with coffee, donuts, sweet rolls and bagels in the morning and an orientation in the late afternoon followed by a Mexican dinner. It was a wowzer!


Orientation Dinner

The next day was full…almost too much. We started out at 7:30 with a trip to the Huntington Library, more shopping in the middle of the day and an evening trip to the Crystal Cathedral (Google it!) for the “Glory of Christmas” show. This followed the story of the birth of Christ and was complete with lots of animals, including sheep, goats, a jackass, several horses and three camels. We got home somewhere around 11:30 and then put 71 lunches together for our guests for the next day.

The 30th started early…too early…like about 7:00 am. We jumped into our busses and headed west to the float barns to watch several floats in the last stages of completion.


The Natural Balance float under construction

The next stop was “Bandfest”, a very popular demonstration by eight bands that will be performing in the parade.


The U.S. Marine Corps Band

After the Bandfest, we crawled through traffic as we headed back to the park. Claudia and I went shopping while our two assistants decorated the Carnation Room across the street at the Pomona Fairplex for the New Year’s celebration. They did a fabulous job! The room looked great.

The last day of 2008 started out with an early morning tour of "Hollywierd" and the La Brea Tar Pits. We again crawled back through traffic and hurriedly got ready for the evening’s festivities. New Year’s Eve dinner was barbecued tri-tip, complete with all the trimmings. It was delicious.

We broke out the champagne and some assorted non-alcoholic beverages for the non-imbibers

Brooke...one of the non-imbibers

and awaited the stroke of midnight. By popular demand and the fact that we needed to board the bus in the morning at 5:15, we celebrated a “Newfie” (Newfoundland) New Year at 8:30 and went to bed.

At the ungodly hour of 5:15 in the morning, we very reluctantly trudged to our busses and crawled inside for the trip to the Rose Parade. We arrived shortly after 6:00 and napped on the bus until 7:15 when we braved the crowds and headed for our assigned seats in the bleachers on Colorado Blvd. After most of the throngs got settled in, the parade started with a police motorcycle demonstration team that was totally overshadowed by a flyover by a B-2 bomber.

The U.S. Air Force B-2 bomber flyover

The parade continued with bands, bands and more bands,

floats, floats and more floats.

The parade ended just after 10:00 and was followed by the usual slightly misguided (my opinion) individuals carrying placards claiming that “Jesus caused 9-11”, “Jesus is the way to Salvation”, etc.

We braved the crowds once again and returned to our buses. After about 45 minutes, we were able to pull out of the parking lot and return once again to our rigs. That evening, we (the staff) prepared a lasagna, salad and garlic bread dinner which was followed by a raffle with company give-aways as prizes. Much fun! Good day!

On the 2nd, we boarded the busses for the last time and headed for the post-parade viewing area where we spend about four hours up close and personal with the floats.

Post-parade viewing

This is probably the most popular activity of the rally, short of the parade itself. Only when you get right up to the floats can you see the detail that went into building them. It is truly amazing! We headed back at 1:00 and, amazingly, there was nothing else planned for the day. We held a staff meeting and went out to dinner. We are winding down and it feels great!

Our FINAL DAY, January 3rd started with a breakfast for the guests in the KOA game room. It consisted of breakfast burritos, juice and coffee…nothing fancy, but good! After cleaning up, we threw everything into the rig, packed up and headed south for home. Finally at home, we unloaded, straightened up, cleaned up and put the rig away for the next trip…which will begin in four days. We head for the FMCA rally in Indio on the 7th, followed by a 10-day or so stay at Quartzsie, AZ…but that’s another story.