"Her" speaks up......

You are how old?????

While at Cattail Cove State Park, a lovely couple named Dick and Carol walked  their pooch, Patch, past our camp and made the mistake of a wave and commenting on the weather. They have been stuck with us ever since! Dick invited us to go for something to eat and Happy Hour the next day in Havasu at a sports bar. Despite their home team playing in the Superbowl playoffs on the TV, the conversation flowed and we had a great time.  The next day we said our goodbyes as they headed to Phoenix and we headed to Quartzsite.

The chain of events that followed involved our generator breaking down, another 6 days at Cattail Cove while the generator went to a shop, and then being told that we would need to go to Phoenix or LA to get it fixed. So after a short few days at Quartzsite for the RV Show we headed to Phoenix. We called Dick and Carol and let them know that we would be in Phoenix after all, so Happy Hour was in order again!

After a couple of days at “Camp Cummins”, I began looking for an RV park near the golf resort that Dick and Carol were staying at, as their resort had a 55 years old or older requirement. Everyplace I looked at in the area had the same requirement! Here we were, being discriminated against for being too young! I couldn’t find a park any closer than 20 miles to them, so I called Dick and told him that we may have to continue on. He stated he would go to the office and see if he could get us a spot for two nights in their resort. After a few minutes, Dick called back, and we were in. He told us that he had mentioned several times my recent “retirement” and that we were looking at the resort as a place to possibly stay in the future. Seems he forgot to mention our age as he got the approval, and oh, since there is a requirement that your rig can’t be any older than 10 years, I may need to say that our bus is a 2003 rather than a 1999 model. His further suggestion was to leave Mr. E in the rig while I registered and tell them the “old man” is in the rig, although I am just a spring chicken. Now, I am the worst liar in the world anyway, so I was terrified calling the office to pre-register. That went smoothly, and she didn’t ask about our age but I did have to fudge a little on the year of the Flying Pig.

NOW I was really worried! I started rummaging through the closets looking for hats and anything else that would make us look older. I had me in a baseball cap and my readers on, Mr. E in his cowboy hat and his readers, me with sunglasses or off? Mr. E with his orange leather beret from Burning Man with sunglasses (well okay, his welding glasses, since those are the only “sunglasses” he brought!). I was a wreck, but off we went. We pulled up to the gate (gated retirement community, you see) and I was as nervous as a whore in church! The old boys at the gate didn’t bat an eye as they checked our reservation and led us to our spot in a golf cart marked “security”, (golf carts were the vehicle of choice here, and they were decked out!). I drove the bus in and Mr. E was behind me in the teeny tiny car wearing a cowboy hat and readers. I was sure that EVERYONE was looking at us wondering how we got in. We looked young and the Fly Pig looked old, and that was ass backward!

Well, we were in anyway and spent a fun couple of days with Dick and Carol. One of the neighbors said to Dick, “she doesn’t look 55!” to which Dick replied, “yeah, they look really young. They work out a lot!”. We taught Dick and Carol how to play Farkle, ate pizza and drank beer. Patch promptly moved in on Ginge's fluffy bed, chanting "oh, the scent of a woman!"  while he break danced on it. It is funny, because I am the same age as Carol’s daughter, and Carol is the same age as my mother. Dick is certain that I may even share some DNA with their daughter, apparently she is as crazy and animated as I am. Once again, good byes were said after Dick helped us plan out our route to Texas. By the time we get back from Mexico they will be in New Orleans, and want us to join them there. It is about 350 miles from Houston, so we are considering it. As Dick said, “and it will be 350 more laughs!”. One thing we are finding is that making good friends along the road is the easiest part!