Back Home in Casa Grande RV Park

After a very enjoyable month in the Coachella Valley at Desert Hot Springs, we have arrived back at our home site here in Casa Grande.  It was awesome visiting with brother Joe and sister-in-law Sandy as well as other friends in the Valley (Don and Barb, Pete and Mary).  But, as usual, it's always nice to be back home.

Here we are departing Caliente Springs Spa, heading east for Arizona.  That is a beautiful place and a really nice resort, although some amenities were not available due to a fire the day before we got there..

Here's where the fire burned through the clubhouse roof.

We decided to not do the 300+ mile trip all in one day, so we stayed overnight at a little park out in the desert 7 miles from Quartzite.  Quartzite is where about 100,000 folks come for a couple of months each winter to dry camp on the BLM land outside of town.  They were pretty much all gone when we got there the last day of March.  

Here is our home for the night.

A nice, desert site.  View out our dining room window.

From here, we traveled through Phoenix to Apache Junction to visit cousins of Yvonne.  Five miles before we got to our destination park, this is what happened to a tire on our trailer.

Since we have dual axles, we were able to limp to the park and get it fixed.  

We met Yvonne's cousins at the Mining Camp Cafe at the base of the Superstition Mountains outside of Apache Junction.  I love this view going that direction.

We decided we want this house.  Pretty nice neighborhood, heh?

From Apache Junction, only a little more than an hour to our home in Casa Grande.

They had the end-of-season party last week, which we missed.  But, as you can see, most everyone headed north to their homes.  Hundreds of rigs bailed out in the last week, leaving us a quiet, peaceful, mostly empty park.   We can handle that.

Palm Springs Tram

We drove (actually, Joe drove) up to the station where you board the tram to go to the top of the mountain.  First of all, let me say that, no, we did not ride up on the tram.  That was not our plan this trip (or any other, as far as Yvonne is concerned).

I just wanted to see the tram go up, and decide if, in the future, I might do it.  I told Sandy I would ride it up next Spring, when they come back to this beautiful valley.  They already have reservations for next March.

Here are Joe and Yvonne in the parking lot below the tram station.  From here, we took the bus up the hill a little ways to the ticket center.

Here is the path the tram takes; there is actually one in the second picture.

Here's a couple of rubes amazed by the tram.

I don't know what is so funny.

Here's the tram coming back full of folks.

Why is Yvonne smiling?  Well, because she found a gift shop; not that she bought anything, but shopping is always fun.

Here we are not riding the tram up the mountain.

A Short Visit to Idyllwild CA

Joe, Sandy, Yvonne and Gary took a ride up the mountain to the small village of Idyllwild.  It's only about 55 miles from Palm Springs up at the 6000 ft level in the mountains.  Snow in the Winter and nice, cooler temps in the Summer.  Some folks that Winter in Palm Springs go up there for the Summer.  Not a long trip.

It reminded me of Central Oregon - lots of pine trees.

The most significant landmark is that rock up on the mountain behind Joe and Sandy.  Climbers come here to practice for major climbs, such as Mt Rainier.

It's called Tahquitz Rock.

There were lots of shops to wander around in, and, of course, Yvonne was in her element.

Here's a new friend I met.

Here's Yvonne and Sandy being goofy.

Gary and Yvonne in Idyllwild.

I can only take so much shop to shop wandering; I took myself a break.

Here's Joe and Yvonne.

So, we left Tahquitz Rock and the town of Idyllwild and 

headed back for the Coachella Valley

We went back on another road, so we, essentially made a big circle, coming into Palm Springs from the other side of the valley.  

Some great views of the valley coming down the hill.

Coachella Valley Dates and the Salton Sea

We drove south the other day to see the second largest lake in the US.  The biggest is the Great Salt Lake in Utah.  The Salton Sea is south of the Palm Springs area in California. The history of the lake is fascinating.  In 1905, when they were building the canal system from the Colorado River watershed to the deserts in Arizona and California, they accidentally breached a barrier (hills) into the 2nd lowest area in California (only a few feet higher than the lowest part of Death Valley).  The water ran into the valley and they weren't able to stop it for weeks.  It created the lake which is now only fed by two small streams and has no outlet.  So, over time the water has become very, very salty.

During the mid-20th century, it became a popular recreational area, but that has declined with the water salinity, algae bloom odor, and occasional mass fish deaths (I don't know the cause of that, but it smells pretty bad).  They are currently in the process of building some boat docks to attract recreational boaters to the area.

It's pretty.

Jill got to enjoy the sandy beach.

Here's our Salton Sea Portrait.

The trip down to the Salton Sea was interesting.  We learned that the Coachella Valley is the date capital of the country - 89% of the dates in America.  We passed thousands of date palms and farms.  UPDATE:  Today, I was told that the valley here, is the only place in the states where date palms are planted (3/29/15).

I've learned that Dates are good for you, but when I see the sugar content, I back away.  As you can see below, the main benefit is the fiber, but we choose to get our fiber with less sugar grams.

Palm Springs - Our Visit to Downtown

We went downtown Palm Springs to walk around and have lunch with Joe and Sandy.  One thing that fascinates me is the mountains come right down to the city.  The city is build right in their shadow.

It's a very pretty town, circa 1940-1950.

I don't what Yvonne did to make this soldier mad.

We had lunch at a great little local Mexican place called Las Cazuelas.  As expected, it was great.  But, the company was the best part - Brother Joe and lovely Sandy.

Joe and Sandy had come across this lot not far from downtown that we just refer to as "Weird Art".  The guy has welded all sorts of pieces together to make statues(?) and whatever.  You could spend hours trying to figure out what all makes up these oddball creations.

Totally weird stuff, Right?

Our Last Week in Desert Hot Springs

Well, the month is winding down, and we're due to head back to AZ next Tuesday.  We've really enjoyed our stay here and our visit with Bro Joe and Sandy.  We spent the first two weeks at Desert Hot Pools RV Resort, which used to be a Western Horizon Resort but was sold, like so many of the other WHR parks.  It has be fixed up, a bit, and is a great park with wonderful mineral waters.

Here's our site where we were parked for two weeks. I don't know how we got the only spot in the entire tree line where the Tamarisk trees were dead.  Still got a little shade and we could see through to the morning sun on the mountain.

Morning hikes in the desert were glorious.  The creosote bushes were actually brown this time of year for some reason.

After two weeks, we moved a stone's throw away to another hot springs park, Catalina Spa. This is one of our favorites; we really like the "adult" section and the desert hiking is really nice right outside the gate.

Our site here looks a lot like over at Desert Pools, but these trees are alive and provide shade most of the day.






Here is the pool at our adult section.  The hot spa is under the cover at the back.  The pool is 90 degrees.

Here is the large pool and spa and clubhouse at the upper end of the park.  We've never located up there; it's more family oriented (lots of kids).  In fact, that little round pool is the kiddie pool.

You can't say the views aren't great from the park.

We spent a lot of time just chillin'.

The wind does blow some here as you can see by the International flag display.




When we got settled in our spot, these two dogs came out from under the unoccupied house next to us.  Everyone called them "desert dogs" because the were strays; you couldn't get close to them.  The maintenance crew got a trap and caught them so they could be taken to the shelter and adopted out.   Happy ending, we hope.

While we were at Catalina Spa, I got together with my old buddy from Beaverton, Pete, had a great day golfing over in Indio at the other end of the valley.

This week, we moved across the road to Caliente Spa, where Joe and Sandy are staying.  It's the classy park in the neighborhood.  Lots of real nice park model homes and a great clubhouse/pool area.

Here is the view from the other side of the clubhouse.

 Here we are parked again, this time no shade.

Right before we got here, they had a fire in the clubhouse so no men's locker room for a while.  There is a restroom and showers just a little from where we're parked, so no problem.  You can see the fire went all the way through the roof.

Here's a picture of the clubhouse at sunrise.

Here is an egret by the lake in the picture above.