Jan 6th - Hot Desert Springs, CA

Tonight was are parked at a combination mobile home park and rv park in Desert Hot Springs, CA; near Palm Springs. Today's high we 77, tonight's low is supposed to be 45. Desert Hot Springs is located directly on the San Andreas fault. It got its name because of all the natural hot springs caused by the fault line.

Kathy was driving on our way here and mentioned that we were climbing a grade. I got out the GPS and started checking our altitude. We climbed up  to around 1,700' (I think) above sea level. I quit watching for awhile and when we stopped at a rest area for lunch. From the rest area on into Indio, CA it was DOWNHILL! The lowest elevation I noticed was 28' BELOW sea level. By the way, score more negative points for Garmin's GPS maps. The GPS routed us down a paved city street that turned into a dirt trail in the desert. We had to unhook the car, get it out of the way, back into the desert to turn the RV around and then find our own way the last few miles to the RV park.

The place we are staying appears to be well maintained. It has one heated pool, two cool water mineral spas and two hot water mineral spas, in addition to more shower/laundry facilities you would expect. The unusual thing, at least unusual for a couple who for the past 12 years never bothered to lock their house except when they went out-of-state for two week vacations, is that the entire complex is enclosed in a 6' high chain link fence topped by 3 strands of barbed wire. When we tried to go out to pick up a few groceries and have supper, no later than 5 PM, a 5' tall steel rolling gate was already closed. You have to have a code to be able to open the gate from the outside.

On our walk up to the pool we passed by several lemon trees. One had lemons the size of oranges on it.

 Roses in bloom.

 And tangerines.

Ma & Pa relaxing back at the RV after their trip to the pool. Not the chain link fence behind us.

Yes it is hard to hold your cell phone out and take a picture of yourself and someone else.

We did have a nice, reasonably priced, dinner at a Mexican restaurant. So far that has been the highlight of our time in CA. We had to go to two grocery stores just to find a few simple groceries. Kathy was amazed at the high prices. She said that they are the highest  of any place we have been since hitting the road. We filled up with diesel just before leaving AZ, and are we glad. It cost $3.76/gallon, here I saw it for $4.05/gallon. Regular gas is $3.70-3.79/gallon.

Enough about CA. Yesterday I forgot to mention the afternoon entertainment at the RV park where we stayed in Quartzsite. From 1-3 PM they had 7 people playing and singing classic country and western music. Five guys and two gals. One of the gals was the drummer and the other played a mean keyboard. One of the guys played a fiddle and the others all played different types of guitars. Five of them took turns being the lead singer. One of them redid the words of the old Willis brothers "Give Me 40 Acres" song so that the song applied to RV'ers instead of truck drivers. It was a real hit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDxVJ471hyg

Time to get out the handguns and rifles I brought with me and get them loaded in case anyone tries to storm the compound. I only have a few hundred rounds of ammo. I don't know if I can legally buy ammo in CA, I may have to check out some dark alley's and buy some from the guys who still have all the guns in CA (the criminals).  <grin>.

Tomorrow we go sightseeing.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.