Ramona Pagent

Saturday about 20 plus people from Desert Paradise went to the Ramona Bowl Pagent in Hemet California. It is an outdoor play based on a novel "Ramona" written in 1884 by Helen Hunt Jackson. It has been going on ffor 84 years. It is quite an undertaking with a cast of "lots" 20 main speaking parts and then rancho children, elder's blessing, village children, rock indians, Spanish Dancers, Los Cancioneros. Each group has from 25 to 70 members. The Rock Indians are all over the rocks and hills that make up the back ground. When the Elder's Blessing takes place you look up and see what looks to be 100's of them standing scattered on the hill side with their arms raised. Also how many times have you seen a group of 3 to 6 horse men come riding in and so their part and it seem natural. Needless to say I think if you are in the area the end of April first of May you should go.
It made a long day for our group catching the bus at 7:45am and getting home about 12:30am.

Snowbirds Leaving

Our park is emptying out by bunches. There are only about 15 rigs left that do not stay down here all year. It is wonderful shopping and driving wise but not near the people to visit.
Last night we had 3 couples and 2 single women over to discuss square dancing this summer. All the callers that are here during the winter stop their programs May 1 and leave the area. This leaves no dancing for the people who live here full time. We have permission from the manager of the park to use the activity room one night a week to dance. We are trying to find out if there is enough interest. Don will call and workshop, we do not plan on doing rounds but will see what the future brings. I really can't do much with only one record.
Tonight we are going out to dinner with 2 couples one is from Michigan and leaveing for home tommarrow. The other is wife from Michigan husband from Oregon (or at least part time he worked at OSP with Don) They are not leaving till end of May. We have gotten together quite a few times this winter.

Farwell Dinner

Each year the park has a farwell dinner, this year we were asked to help prepare and serve the meal. It also seems each year we have more people staying later. The count for people attending was 250. So at 9am we joined 3 other couples in the kitchen to rechop cabbage, weight sliced ham in 4 1/2 oz piles. Slice 260 rolls and make ham and cheese sandwiches, each wrapped in foil. We got this all finished by 11am.
Roger and Linda Putzler arrived from Phoenix (they spend a week watching spring traing ball games and visiting this time of year.)He is calling the Yuma Festival next Feburary so we had set up a lunch meeting with the chairman Hope Amberg and Al Westfall a committee member. After lunch we took Roger & Linda to the Convention Center to see what the halls would look like. After a short visit at home they left and we went to the activity room to help serve dinner. We were able to serve 250 people the sandwich and cole slaw in 24 min.
That evening a bunch (12-14) met around the pool and we learned a new game. Each anty up 3 nickles. You roll dice that have either a dot, R, L or C. You roll only as many dice as you have nickles (up to 3) if you get dot you keep nickle, C you put one in pot, R pass one right, L pass one left. You are never out of the game till there is only one nickle left. That person gets all that have been put in the pot. Lots of fun, with time to talk and we spent the whole evening for less than a dollar.
Today Don is going to the End of Season square dance at the center. I am going with a number of other women in the park to "Old Town" Historic Yuma Theatre to see "Dublin's Traditional Irish Cabaret" We really enjoy the programs the city has at the Theatre.

Don leading christmas carols

This is a view of our home