It finally rained. Up to now, the rainy season has been an endless string of bright, sunny days. Since the RV park doesn’t allow washing, the coach was covered with a substantial layer of dust. Now there are little piles of mud around the perimeter of the rig, but at least it looks clean. A little sponge bath after the weather passed also helped.
Due to the weather, we kept a low profile the past few days, mostly sticking around the coach. With time beginning to run short, we were forced to deal with some chores we had been putting off, one of which was the coin collection. Well, you really can’t call it much of a collection. Over the years, my father had picked out coins from his pocket change and set them aside. For 30 years these coins, mostly silver quarters and dimes, have been quietly resting in a cigar box in Van Nuys. Not having time to deal with it before leaving on the trip, the cigar box has been quietly resting in storage. On a blustery afternoon, we liberated the coins from storage and took them to a local coin dealer. The amount of money we received was modest (enough to finance a white-tablecloth dinner) but the big payoff was peace of mind knowing that this chore was off the list. The coin collection was something nobody wanted to deal with for 30 years. The lesson is that when you finally leave this earthly existence, your ‘stuff’ becomes someone else’s headache.
Today we spent most of the afternoon shopping for an odd assortment of stuff; new water filter and pressure regulator for the coach, socks, batteries, coffee, etc. We had some time to kill and ended up at one of the local shopping malls. The place was mobbed. It was a Christmas-like shopping experience. And from the number of people carrying bags, they were in a buying mood. The economy must be humming along.
We met Peter and Michelle for dinner at one of our favorite BBQ places. The conversation eventually landed on work and Jeanne began telling stories about
her experiences as a Workers’ Compensation claims adjuster. The tales of gruesome injuries and shameless scams are riveting. Although they were upsetting at the time, in retrospect the twisted events quite interesting. These are true tales — there is too much complexity and detail for fiction. So, after a long career of dealing with crippling injuries and professional liars, at least Jeanne came away with a few good stories. Anyway, we very much enjoyed visiting with Peter and Michelle and look forward to seeing them again on a return trip. We also wish them well on their vacation planned in March.