Tamales, Cacti, and Hiking - December 11, 2014

Sunday, December 7th, was the last day of the International Tamale Festival in Indio. Rated one of the top 10 food fests, we had to go. When we got parked, there was Dave & Diane. They were walking over to the festival from their RV park. We walked around the 4 square block area, catching the sights and tamales too.

Everyone was giving samples.

We have to eat one here, they won first place. Look at the trophy.

Later, we saw more 'first place' trophies.

There must have been 5 different stages set up for a variety of live bands and dancing.

Even a snake.

Monday, December 8th, we headed out to find El Paseo Drive. This area is said to be the Rodeo Drive of the Palm Springs area. It is a beautiful strip with lots of art, places to eat, and shop.

Then after hitting Costco and Walmart on the way home, we rode our bikes all over Palm Springs RV Park.
Tuesday, December 9th, our last full day here, we headed through the Palm Springs area one last time.

We drove by Elvis's honeymoon house. It is for sale for several million dollars.

Then off to the Moorten Botanical Cactus Garden. I have never seen so many different cacti before.

Just $4.00 each to go through this place.

They had a Cactarium. Cool stuff. What a collection.

This was fun.

Next stop was the Indian Canyons area on the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation just south of Palm Springs on Palm Canyon Drive. A good place to get out and do some hiking.

The road up to the trading post/parking area was narrow and winding. Especially here.

Neato rock formations.

Palm trees living in the desert along the bottom of the canyon.

We took the Palm Canyon Trail.

One last shot of the park, with all the palm trees, from on top of our rig.

This has been a great week. Glad we stopped here.

Wednesday, December 10th, we packed up and took off on I-10 West, Hwy 60 to I-215 South, I-15 South to I-8 West. The road climbed up to above 3000 feet from San Diego to our turn off on Hwy 79 North. After a 192 mile drive, we arrived at the Oakzanita Springs Thousand Trails park.

We will be here for a week.

Quartzsite and to Palm Springs - December 5, 2014

Monday, December 1st, we headed out of Fort Mohave. We have been here for the last 55 days. Our sister-in-law, Cyndi, is hanging in there. She seems to be stable at the moment. Only the good Lord knows that moment for all of us. We have a grandson's Marine Corp graduation to attend on the 19th of December. Our plan is to spend the month of December in southern California. We shall see how it goes.

After a short drive of just 126 miles, we stopped for two nights in Quartzsite, just off Plomosa Road in the BLM short term boon-docking area.

It was nice and quiet out there. Peace and quiet. Loved it!

And of course.... the sunrises and sunsets.

The last day there, it even rained a little bit. Yep... even in the desert. But we did get out for some exploring in the desert.

Even found a geocache out where we were.

Right over there.

There!

Treasure!

Then we were off to Palm Springs RV Park in the city of Palm Desert, CA. It was an uneventful 139 mile trip along on I-10. Just before we got out of Arizona, I saw a Texaco gas station advertising diesel for just $3.19 a gallon. I'm sure we will not see that in California.

Since check-in time wasn't till noon, we killed a hour at the Spotlight 29 Casino in Indio. We got the players cards and $10.00 in free slot play. I blew through mine in about 2 minutes. But Donna played like a crazy woman. We ended up leaving there in the plus column. She cashed out with $10.70!!!  Profit!!

We arrived to the Thousand Trails park just after noon.

A nice clean park. A million palm trees. The 50 amp section was back in and pretty tight. We opted for a 30 amp pull-through.

We walk around the park together in the mornings. The place has 401 RV spaces and one lap around the park is just about 1 mile. Nice people here. Lots of activities.

We took a drive around the area to see what's out there. We passed through Palm Springs.

Here is an artists house that he fixed up with some of his .... art.

Lots of celebrity homes here, tourist shops and neat places to eat. Many resorts too.

We drove on through Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, Indian Wells, and Indio. We even stopped at the Indian Wells RV Resort and visited with our friends Dave & Diane.

They are fellow RV Dreamers that we met in Oregon back at our first RV-Dreams Rally in September of 2012. Since then, we both have retired and have hit the road as full time RVers. We have followed them through their blog, 'Dave & Diane Throwing Caution To The wind'.

We had a good visit. You meet the nicest people out here on the road.

There is quite a bit of things to see and do in this area. And we have a week here to do it.