Close Friends

We have close friends who have lived so close to us since October that if I stretch from fingertip to fingertip, I can touch the back of Opal and Frank’s RV and the back of our RV. You have seen Opal and Frank for years on my blogs when I write about Birthday parties, Red Hat gatherings, Pot Luck dinners and Church activities. I even wrote four pages about them in the book, “More RV Chuckles and Chuckholes – More Confessions of Happy Campers.”

This month they celebrated their 55th Wedding Anniversary and Frank’s 85th Birthday. We saw the movie, “The Great Escape,” last week with them. Frank also escaped from a POW camp in WWII by riding a motorcycle for 180 kilometers across the German countryside but he said that was the only familiar thing about the movie. His barracks weren’t as good and the rations were so poor that he lost 57 lbs during the 6 months that he was imprisoned. Frank lost his hearing from a grenade that was thrown into his trench just before he was imprisoned.

Opal not only has a wonderful singing voice but also a well-modulated, pleasant speaking voice which you hear as she sings in the choir, leads a Bible study and is the liturgist for the church services. What you don’t realize is that she became deaf following pneumonia, scarlet fever and mastoiditis when she was seven years old. When she was a sophomore in high school, she was fitted with hearing aids, which allowed partial hearing.

Opal, and her husband, Frank, raised a son and a daughter and now have two grandchildren and five great grandchildren. She was employed for forty years at a casualty insurance company when she asked to retire. Instead of approving her retirement at age sixty-five, the company asked her to stay one more year. Opal agreed to work longer.

Opal is a precious gem who I’m happy to call my friend and Frank is a wonderful man who really shouldn’t work as hard as he does. It will be hard to leave them so we won’t leave them for awhile. I will drive with Opal to Kansas. Terry will meet with us there and we will spend some time at their home.

Campground Salmon Party

Even though there are fewer and fewer RVs in the campground as most of our friends are leaving for northern areas, we had eighteen people on the pastor’s patio for grilled salmon from Alaska. We took all of the salmon from our freezer for the party. Others brought salads, vegetables, fruit and cookies.

We laughed, sang, and had fun. Many of the group made faces at the camera.

It was a blessing to us for Jack and Bill to grill the salmon but I still don’t know how Jack managed to have a halo around him.

Pajamas Party

Dressed in pajamas, nightgowns, and robes, the Purple Ladies of the River met for their April meeting. Included in the setting were teddy bears, Easter eggs and a quilt. A mural of the bridge dividing AZ and CA over the Colorado River completed the scene. Gifts were given for several categories such as the sexiest, the prettiest, and the most color-coordinated ensemble.

Marla read a letter from the VFW thanking us for the $261 we raised for phone cards, snacks, and personal items that were sent overseas to our military personnel with receipts from the March 9th Tea.

If you want to see better views of the photos, double click the left side of each photo.

We had several people look twice at us but mostly they just smiled at our group. It was fun!

Saturday was one of those book signings that you dream about. Pete, a manager at Hastings, placed a funny sign was on the table in the front entrance of the bookstore. At Pete’s suggestion, I took a copy of my latest RV book to the newspaper in Lake Havasu City. They published the photo of me that is on the cover plus the front of the “More RV Chuckles and Chuckholes – More Confessions of Happy Campers” book along with these words,

“Author shares the highs, lows of life on the road in an RV

STAFF REPORT

Darlene Miller, author of “More RV Chuckles and Chuckholes – More Confessions of Happy Campers ”, will be at Hastings 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. Saturday to autograph copies of her book. With 14 years of full-time RVing with her husband, Terry, Miller has plenty of experiences to draw for her book. The couple has traversed the U.S. And Canada, and made several trips to Alaska. A retired nurse, this is her second self-published volume. In Chapter One, she explains the book’s title, “The chuckles are the fun things we do and the chuckholes are the anecdotes that are not funny until later when you relate them to other RVers.”

As a result of this article people came into the store to see me. At one point, they even stood in line to talk to me. One woman was interested in buying books wholesale to put in her gift shop in a campground in Idaho. A gentleman wanted the ISBN numbers to order my books on the Internet. Another wanted to purchase the book on Kindle. I spoke to many RVers and autographed and sold many books.

I got a notice that I am asked to write more children stories for the Radiant Native Health, which is a publication for the native Indians in British Columbia that is used by the missionaries. It will also be broadcast on the radio. I will write children's stories on various assigned health subjects.

More RV Chuckles and Chuckholes became an eBook last week. See my eBook at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004S87PNK. I would love for you to write a comment on the book.

Friendship Garden of Flowers Tea

My RV was filled with tulips in preparation for the 6th annual tea in our campground but Terry gave the 24 roses to me for our 24th anniversary.

This year, Opal Jones, Marla Marrs, and myself were the committee for the Friendship Garden of Flowers Tea. Since we are all members of the River of Life Church at the Cove and members of the Purple Ladies of the River, we used both groups to assist us.

The appliquéd tulip was my contribution to the quit that Marla made as the grand prize. The program had two singers and myself who gave a short speech on snowbirds. Terry took the photos of the beautiful tea tables, groups of ladies and the other photos you see here. I’m sorry but I can’t include all the photos but there were just too many of them.

I really felt like a lady and loved the beautiful afternoon. I even enjoyed it that the men served us and assisted in setup and the take down.

Fun in the Sun

While Terry was playing in the snow, I was showing my daughter and granddaughter sunny areas along the Colorado River where our RV is located.

We explored the CA side looking for wild burros but didn’t see them in the usual spots along Highway 62 so we traveled on to Black Meadow RV Park where we saw them on the golf course. Kari fed carrots to these wild donkeys so they were attracted to her. She even petted them. I never got that close. These are descendents of donkeys that the miners used when they were seeking AZ/CA gold.

Karol and Kari didn’t go 4-wheeling on the sand dunes but Karol took a photo to show her son Ryan. We rode over the Parker Dam, which is the deepest dam in the US and maybe the deepest in the world. They saw more than one oasis. The London Bridge was the attraction in Lake Havasu City. But the activity they most enjoyed was the ride down the Colorado River with Captain Jack and his first mate Bev. My friend Marilyn and Pastor Bill also came with us. We stopped and moored up for breakfast and then rode into the canals where the rich and famous live. Lucy Arnez from "I Love Lucy" lived in the white house on the hill in the photo on the top of the page.