On Monday, after we said farewell to our Alpine Coach Association friends at the FMCA Rally in Pomona, we traveled a whopping 65 miles and landed at the Golden Village Palms RV Resort in Hemet, CA.

As I mentioned in my previous post, we chose this destination because fellow Alpine Coach owner and friend, Mike Kuper is staying here with his wife, Donna.  Mike blogged about this place @ FlyingtheKoop.com.  We last saw Mike, albeit briefly, in Phoenix, AZ when I was getting a new inverter/charger installed.  Before that, we were together at the FMCA Rally in Redmond, OR back in August.  They did not attend the recent FMCA Rally in Pomona with us, but have been spending the week here before heading south to their next destination.  We don’t know when our paths may cross again, so we thought it would be a good opportunity to see them again.

This park honors the Passport America discount for three consecutive nights.  So we paid $50 for two nights and scored the spot right next to Mike and Donna.  Now, it was great to be parked next to them, but the sites here are pretty tight.  We couldn’t put the living room slide out all the way without hitting the hedge, and I couldn’t move the Coach over without driving on the concrete pad.  The park office sent a maintenance guy over to trim the bushes but it wasn’t enough – I have a few new scratches now.  In the morning, the park sent another guy over with a power trimmer that finally got the job done.

Here’s a picture with the slides in after the hedge was trimmed.  With the slides out, the thorny bush and fruit tree were mere millimeters away from the paint AFTER trimming.

Here’s the view out our front window.  Mike and Donna reported that all the spots were full when they arrived several days ago.  Many of the Canadians that frequent this park have already headed north.

On our first evening, we enjoyed some time with Mike and Donna outside their rig.  Donna used her Vitamix to make us a caramelized banana pecan ice cream treat.  Yum!

Wednesday morning found us enjoying some time at the pool and hot tub(s).  Nice 🙂

Here’s my view:

And here’s Stillas’ view:

We also spent some time at the pickleball courts as spectators.  Mike and Donna have become quite the avid players… maybe we should take this up for some much needed exercise… 🙂

Here’s Mike in the yellow hat:

We also attended a small Farmers Market that is held each Tuesday at the park.  There were only a few vendors, but we still found enough to spend some money on.  We bought some peanut brittle; english toffee brittle; home-made salsa; a chicken quesadilla; and a half-dozen tamales.

We made a late lunch / early dinner out of the quesadilla and tamales. Yum again!

Later, Stilla took a bike ride around the huge park with little Coach.

Later that evening, little Coach seemed to have another of his epileptic type seizures.  He threw up, then he was wobbly and disoriented, and became very lethargic.  I watched over him as he just laid motionless in his little bed for quite a few hours.  It was 2 in the morning before he started moving again.  He jumped up and seemed like his old self again.  I took him for a long, late-night walk.

We missed the opportunity to spend more evening time with Mike and Donna because we were on dog watch 🙁

But, little Coach is fine again now.  He has had these “seizures” more than a few times now… the last time was when we were in Yuma a month ago, and before that was last year in Redmond, OR.  We’ve committed to not let him eat anything other than his normal dog food and approved treats from now on.

On Thursday morning, with our time here already at an end, we packed up and moved over to an empty site to dump tanks.  We had to do this because I couldn’t open the door to the sewer controls with the bushes up against the Coach on the drivers side.

We said our fond farewells to Mike and Donna and plugged our next destination into the GPS.  Mike gave us a tip on a sweet boondocking spot that is halfway between here and Casa Grande.  We want to be back in Casa Grande in time to spend Easter with my Mom and brother.

See you down the road Mike and Donna!