Palm Desert

2019-06-06 thru 2019-06-11 – Traveling West – Liberal, KS and then Home…

This morning we pulled out of the RV park in Liberal, KS, and pointed the Villa southwest. In about three minutes we were in the far western part of the Oklahoma panhandle; about 90 minutes later we were in the far western part of the Texas panhandle; by noon we were in New Mexico…

These parts of Oklahoma and Texas look remarkably like Kansas…

At one rest stop there were these nice little picnic shelters… Mid Century Modern!… Nice, but a little beat up…

All day yesterday and all day today, until we entered New Mexico, we followed the railroad tracks. About every ten miles we came to a small town dominated by these giant grain elevators or silos…

The further we drove west the smaller and more distressed the towns were… Not being farming folk, we could not tell exactly what these facilities do, but we assume it is related to grain storage, food processing, feed production, or something like that…

By mid day we were at our campground in Tucumcari, NM.

And, for the record, New Mexico does not look anything like Texas, Oklahoma, or Kansas:

Happy Hours and a light supper ensued in the Villa; tomorrow we head towards Gallup, NM.

Friday morning dawned nice and cool, but the heat will be arriving soon. We pointed the Villa west, towards Albuquerque and beyond…

The drive was uneventful, as expected…

New Mexico looks like this…

At one rest stop we found this Scenic Historic Marker:

We weren’t sure what it meant… east and west looked pretty much the same to us. Yes, western New Mexico does has more hills. We rose to almost 7,000′ elevation before dropping down to 5280′ elevation in Albuquerque…

Then we went uphill again to 7,275′ elevation at the Continental Divide…

We eventually arrived in Gallup, NM, at about 6,500′ elevation…

The sky was beautiful, the sun was hot, but the winds made the 89 degree temperature bearable. By early evening we were able to turn off the AC, and by sunrise tomorrow it is supposed to be 48 degrees…

Happy Hours and a light supper ensued in the Villa; tomorrow we head towards Kingman, AZ.

Saturday morning dawned nice and cool, but the heat will be arriving soon. We pointed the Villa west, towards Winslow, Flagstaff, Williams, and Kingman…

The drive was uneventful, as expected…

Arizona looks like this…

We drove for about six hours, taking time for rest stops, fuel, and lunch… We finally pulled into Kingman, AZ by mid-afternoon…

Interesting note is that we stayed here almost exactly two years ago as our first stop after leaving Irvine on our 4 1/2 month trip, the day after Lynda retired…

Happy Hours and a light supper ensued in the Villa; tomorrow we head towards Palm Desert, CA.

Sunday morning dawned nice and cool, but the heat will be arriving soon. We pointed the Villa west, towards the California border…

The drive was uneventful, as expected…

We crossed over the Colorado River…

And we entered California!

We were met by some attentive uniformed people who asked us where we’d been, and if we were bringing in any firewood…

The California Desert looks like this…

For those of you who insist on calling places like eastern Oregon a “desert”, please stop! Rivers, grass with cattle grazing, and green leafy trees do not make a desert! See photo above for what a desert looks like!

We moved on to Palm Desert, where they have succeeded in making the desert green:

We spent the afternoon and evening with like-minded friends, sharing happy hours and dinner. Early Monday morning we drove the final hour…

We arrived home in Redlands; an enjoyable time was had by all…

Tally:

Miles driven: 8,379

Days traveling and camping on our own: 40 days

Days on the Cajun Country Caravan: 16 days

Days on the Springtime in Kentucky Caravan: 22 days

Total days living in the Villa: 78 days

Total number of Airstreams seen along the road: 211

Number of nights in the Villa over the past 24 months: 375 days (51%)

And one last photo of our girls…

June 11, 2019 1

2019-01-01 – New Years Day – Emerald Desert RV Resort, Palm Desert, CA

New Years Day dawned bright and beautiful, and cold! Frickin Freezing! (Which is defined in Southern California as being below 60…) We cozied up to the fireplace and watched the Rose Parade. After, we walked to the local grocery store two miles away to buy some forgotten ingredients. It was a stunningly beautiful walk!

Upon our return we watched the Fiesta Bowl. At 1:30 we returned to the home of our hosts once more, in time to watch the Rose Bowl, then the Sugar Bowl… And that was New Years Day!

We returned to The Villa, exhausted… And an enjoyable time was had by all…

January 4, 2019 0

2018-12-31 – New Years Eve – Emerald Desert RV Resort, Palm Desert, CA

We are off to new adventures today! It’s been a busy Christmas Season and we are ready to head out to ring in the new year.

As a bit of a recap:

Christmas Eve was spent with extended family on my mother’s side… More than forty people – several cousins, more second cousins, and many more third cousins. We took the opportunity to get one photo of all of my mother’s direct descendants present:

Notice the boys’ feet… It must be something genetic… This is me at their age in 1954:

Terhorst 1954.jpg

Christmas day was spent with the grandchildren in Burbank:

Roisin was quite pleased with the art supplies she received…

After Christmas comes our son John’s birthday, celebrated, as usual, by several visits by friends and family to various fine dining establishments…

So today is New Year’s Eve, and we are heading to Palm Desert in The Villa. We checked into Emerald Desert RV Resort, and spent the afternoon getting in our walking time…

As I’ve reported in the past, Emerald Desert is a beautiful place and we always enjoy our time here. We watched some football, and at 5:00 pm we headed out to visit like minded friends for the evening.

We enjoyed hors d’ouevres that included shrimp cocktail, caviar, and various chips and dips. Dinner started with crab cakes (with Justin sauvignon blanc), Caesar salad (with Beringer Private Reserve Chardonnay), and roast lamb with a dried cherry sauce (with 2000 Ridge Montebello cabernet sauvignon). Dessert was a blackberry and raspberry pie. I found it particularly interesting, because I love the taste of boysenberry, which, as you know, is a cross between raspberry and blackberry. Thank you Mr. Boysen and Walter Knott…!

We rang in the new year with a special cocktail provided by our hosts, and an enjoyable time was had by all…

January 3, 2019 2

2018-11-06 – Leaving Emerald Desert RV Resort, arriving Paso Robles – Day 6

Today is a travel day. We left Palm Desert and headed towards Paso Robles. Our route took us within 1/2 mile of our house in Redlands, but we rolled on without stopping…

For most of the drive it was relatively bleak – over the Cajon pass, and through the Antelope Valley…

We continued west on Highway 46, past the James Dean Memorial Intersection… Here he is, as a giant painted plywood cutout. Lynda snapped this as we drove by, there being no place to stop…

Not much happening here, but the road is great and it was an easy drive…

On the far eastern outskirts of Paso Robles we stopped at Tobin James Cellars… This will be our home for the next few days…

(Lynda may or may not have her eyes closed, but the late afternoon sun was intense…)

We parked the Airstream across the street from the winery, all alone, in the wilderness…

Well, we weren’t quite alone – there was another camper here as well…

Actually it was just a giant dirt parking lot, used for employee parking and as a staging area for UPS trucks…

But it was free! Thank you, Harvest Hosts!

We did some wine tasting, bought a few bottles, and spent the evening in the Villa…

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

And today we celebrate National Redhead Day with our grandson, Ian:

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November 15, 2018 0

2018-11-05 – South Coast Airstream Club – Emerald Desert RV Resort – Day 5

We had a quiet morning… Most other Airstreamers are packing up and returning home today.

We had a few errands to run… Ralphs and Trader Joe’s were on the agenda…

We left for Wilsons’ condo at about 3:30 pm, and arrived in a few minutes – its about three miles away. Happy hours ensued as we sat on the patio overlooking the golf course.

We had a little wine…

Cabernets and Bordeaux for the steaks…

Pinot Noirs for the appetizers and salads… (BTW, these 10 year old Pinots from Williams Selyem were spectacular! Don’t drink them too young – you are missing out…!)

For dinner we shared some charred animal flesh…

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

November 15, 2018 0

2018-11-04 – South Coast Airstream Club – Emerald Desert RV Resort – Day 4

Daylight Saving Time kicked in today, so I had another hour of sleep, which was well appreciated after my exhausting day yesterday…

Breakfast today was mercifully brief, as it usually is on Sunday. Lynda returned to her puzzling duties, and I planned to meet Rob for a fun day in Palm Springs, Palm Desert, and Indian Wells…

I left the RV park at a little before 10:00 am, and picked up Rob in Palms Springs. We drove a short distance to a “Vintage Market” (swap meet? Flea market?), where we were expecting to see a lot of junk, and maybe a few nice things… It was a lot of fun; some nice kitschy pieces and some nice designer chairs and other furniture. There were lots of nice 1950s glassware, bar carts, and ice buckets. We also found vintage clothes – I wanted to buy this for Lynda, but it was the wrong size…

After we had had enough fun at the flea market we drove to Indian Wells and had a lovely lunch at The Pink Canopy… It is inside an old hotel that has recently been refurbished. It was inside the central pool courtyard and we were able to sit on the patio and enjoy a few cocktails and a light lunch in the lovely weather. Did I mention that the weather here is lovely? Early mornings are in the low 60s, with midday temps reaching the mid 80s. Clear skies, no humidity, no bugs – just beautiful days and balmy evenings…

After lunch we went to the Best Buy to have them check out my iPad. They said they could have it repaired in 5-7 days. That doesn’t work. We’ll have to find a better opportunity to have it looked at it.

Then we stopped into Total Wine and Aldi to pick up some necessities for camping, and headed back to the Villa. Rob came along to see the others and to enjoy happy hours.

We returned to the RV park at about 3:00 pm. Happy hours soon ensued…

There was another spectacular sunset…

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

November 14, 2018 0

2018-11-03 – South Coast Airstream Club – Emerald Desert RV Resort – Day 3

Another lovely day! We had breakfast (in the crowded, noisy club room)…

At 10:00 we walked 2 1/4 miles to look at a lovely condominium open house. We were joined by our friend, Steve.

They were very well designed and well decorated. It’s nice to see well-executed condo projects like this – there are too many terrible ones out there…

And then there was Football! Real football! College Football! From noon until 11:15 pm I watched 9 or 10 games – it was great! Some gratifying wins, some gratifying losses, some heartbreaking losses, too. I even skipped the too-noisy dinner to stay in the Villa to watch. It is exactly the way I like to spend football Saturdays.

Meanwhile, Lynda spent her day doing a near-impossible jigsaw puzzle, sometimes alone, sometimes along with one, two, or more, other ladies…

Watching so many football games for so long is exhausting… I collapsed into bed at 11:30 pm…

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

November 8, 2018 0

2018-11-02 – South Coast Airstream Club – Emerald Desert RV Resort – Day 2

Friday – the day the Rally officially begins. The weather was beautiful! We hung out and didn’t do too much – we had to wait for the trailer washer to arrive, and he wouldn’t commit to any specific time. Throughout the day more Airstreamers arrived – there will be 20 rigs eventually – and we enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere. As the afternoon wore on we were looking forward to happy hours with the whole group. Finally, at 4:00 pm, the trailer washer arrived and he did a great job cleaning up the Villa – after two months in the desert of the Southwest, then two weeks sitting in storage at Mentone Beach as the Santa Anas blew through, it was filthy! Now it is shiny again…

Finally we joined the much-anticipated Happy Hour. It was terrible! The food and drink were great! The people were great! But with this beautiful weather and a lovely shady patio, they crammed us into a room half too small, with a too low ceiling. We were crowded and cramped and the noise was deafening…

I hung around as long as I could, then I moved outside and sat on the patio. It was nice…

Finally some others came out and we all sat around in the dark at the empty camp site behind the Villa. It was lovely…

So we turned in early…

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

November 5, 2018 0

2018-11-01 – South Coast Airstream Club – Emerald Desert RV Resort – Day 1

This weekend is our regular camp-out/rally for out home WBCCI club – South Coast California Unit, soon to be renamed “South Coast Airstream Club”. We meet for a weekend rally on the first Friday of every month, with few exceptions. Due to our travel this year for the Southwest Adventure Caravan, and our move earlier in the year, we have missed several rallies, and it is great to be back, to have a weekend rally, and see old friends again. We’ll even meet some new friends this weekend…

Even though today is Thursday, we packed up and left Redlands this morning and arrived in Palm Desert at about 1:00. It is a one hour drive… After living so far from this part of the desert for so many years this is a real treat! Emerald Desert RV Resort is a true RV resort, with many amenities and services, beautiful grounds, and great facilities.

(In the interest of full disclosure, the one downside of Emerald Desert is that it not only is adjacent to the 10 freeway, but between the freeway and the RV resort are railroad tracks. About once per hour, 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, a giant, 150+ car freight train rumbles past…)

But, despite the trains, we love this place, we are thrilled to come in a day early, and we will be staying two days after the official end of the rally on Sunday, taking full advantage of the opportunity to camp here at club rates…

When we leave here, on Tuesday (election day), we will travel about 6 hours, to Paso Robles, for five days or relaxing in beautiful wine country… More later – stay tuned!

So after we arrived here we had to wait to check in; being the first day of November, there is a huge influx of “snow birds” who come to stay for “the season”. Most come for four to six months, enjoying the great weather in this beautiful place.

We finally secured our site assignment and started to get settled. Soon we were joined by six other Airstreamers who were also coming in one day early. It was great to see these people again after so long. Happy hours soon ensued, and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset…