Travel 2/11/2016, Arrive Desert Hot Springs, CA 2/12/2016 - Leave for return to Phoenix AZ area 2/21/2016
We did not want to rush our trip from Tucson to Palm Springs so we stayed overnight about two thirds of the way there. Just before crossing from AZ to CA we drove through Quartsite AZ. Since CA has high gas taxes we stopped in Quartsite to fill up. Quartsite is a famous RV boondocking place. Thousands of RVers go to Quartsite to camp on the cheap. It has become a big flea market place with hundreds of vendors at certain times of the winter. The RV park we choose to stay at was on the border on the banks of the Colorado River. It was nice to sit on the banks of the river and look out at the river and the other shoreline. There were quite a few water birds on the river.
We have never been to the Palm Springs area of CA. We are staying at the Sands RV and Golf Resort in Desert Hot Springs CA. Desert Hot Springs is just on the north side of I10 from Palm Springs. This is a desert valley surrounded by mountains just like a lot of other areas in the southwest. It is the Coachella valley and the county is Riverside county. Several famous CA winter vacation towns like Indian Wells, Palm Springs, La Quinta, Indio and Rancho Mirage are in Coachella valley. North of the Coachella valley above the mountain ridge is Joshua Tree National Park.
Road Runner Movie 1
This Roadrunner was in the empty site across from our rig.
The Sands Resort has a large percentage of Park models with owners that were there for the season. It was a nice resort with a nine hole executive golf course, a large swimming pool, several hot tubs, new pickle ball courts and very nice looking Bocce ball courts. there were three dog parks so when Kacey finished her medicine she was all set. Nice clean resort with a lot of stuff to do. As a bonus there was an empty site across from us that had rabbits running across it and a couple of roadrunners hanging around. Roadrunners are really funny/interesting birds. There are two movies on the left of this paragraph of the road runner in the site across the way. Roardrunners bob their tail a lot. They also have a comb on the top of their head that they can display up and down. I don’t think I caught the up and down comb action by the roadrunner in the movie. It is cool how they can move their comb up and down.
Road Runner Movie 2
Roadrunner further in site.
The day after we arrived we went over to Palm Springs to tour the town. There were a lot of mid-century modern homes that were well maintained and clearly exclusive/expensive. The main downtown street had a beach resort vibe to it. Lots of funky little shops. Check out the canadian special in the pictures below at one shop. Very cool town. We had drinks at Azul’s, which apparently is a gay bar but the outdoor location just off the main drag was great.
One of the features of this end of the valley was windmill’s. There were hundreds maybe thousands of wind turbines generating electric power on the hills at the entrance to the valley.
There are some beautiful resorts in the valley, at our son-in-laws suggestion we went to breakfast at the La Quinta resort and drove around after to look at some of the golf course. Great breakfast and very slick resort.
Since this page is running a little long I will add another Palm Springs page to deal with Joshua Tree NP and the county fair.
