We Move On Down the Valley to be Closer to the Action

Desert Hot Springs was okay but the RV park was out-dated and in need of some modernization.

So on Tuesday morning we moved about 25 miles to the southeast past Palm Springs, Cathedral City,  Rancho Mirage, Indian Wells, and Palm Desert, to the town of Indio, California.  All of the aforementioned towns are in the Coachella Valley and are connected by Highway 111.  We booked four nights at Indian Waters RV Resort just off Highway 111.  

It is a well-manicured park with excellent amenities and great security with a locked gate at night.

Bill met this "biker chick" and went for a bicycle tour of Indian Waters.

You never know what you are going to see in California.

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Bill Finds Out How this City Got Its Name

On a recent bicycle ride Bill came across this manufactured-home community near our RV park.

Across the road from this small community - within a short walk into the desert Bill came across this sight below:

It is a warm water spring.  It smelled a bit like rotten eggs and was not a pretty sight to see.

However, it proved how the town got its name of Desert Hot Springs.  We are camped on the San Andreas Fault and we have read that the fault is causing many of the springs to emerge.  Now if we can just avoid any earthquakes!?!

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Quite A View From the Hidden Sands Golf Course

Here is the view looking south from the first tee of our RV golf course.

Now if you look closer...

you can see the towering mountains nearby...

...just past the wind turbines.

The vistas near Palm Springs are impressive.

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On The Road Again in California

We left Pala, California  on Saturday morning and headed north toward Riverside,CA then caught I-10 southeast toward Palm Springs.

We have seen fields of wind turbines before, but as we neared the Palm Springs area we were surprised to see the magnitude of windmills out here.

There were hundreds of them with no nearby residents to complain.  We also saw plenty of solar panels scattered across the desert floor as well.

We found sites available at the Hidden Sands Golf and Racquet Club Resort near the town of Desert Hot Springs, California.  The towns near Palm Springs have confusing names that include Palm Desert, Thousand Palms, Indio, and Cathedral City to name a few.

The resort we ended up in has a lush, green golf course.  Google Earth shows us that there are numerous golf courses in this valley.  We plan to explore on Sunday.

Our resort is old and the sites are tight but on a Saturday in these parts we cannot be too picky or we just might end up in the desert doing what they call "dry camping."  The winds on Saturday afternoon became rather strong so we soon understood why all the wind turbines were assembled nearby.

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What A Difference A Weekend Makes In A Popular RV Park

 We are moving on down the road today, Saturday, because there are no vacancies here for Saturday.  Just like we have experienced in Florida in our travels - it is easy to get RV sites during the week, but the parks get really busy on the weekends.

This is what  our area of the park looked like on Wednesday.

Here is that same stretch of street today.

We took a road trip on Friday and found that there are large irrigated orange and lemon groves outside of town.  We also found this small casino just a few miles away.

The Native Americans really have this area of California covered.

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Truck Problems and A Day At the Mall

On Thursday morning we packed up the goods and moved to a different site at the Pala Casino RV Resort.  The move went okay but our truck started having electrical issues.  It was flashing various warning messages and did not seem to be shifting properly.  We had planned to go grocery shopping up the road in the city of Temecula anyway, so we headed for the Chevrolet Dealer there.

We dropped off the truck and took their shuttle to the mall to kill time while the pickup was being analyzed and repaired..  The mall was very large and we walked through, and past, many a store.  After a couple of hours the truck was fixed and we were returned to the dealership.  We then bought groceries at Albertsons and made it back to the trailer at dusk.  It was a day pretty much wasted, but our truck is running much better now.

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Karen Smooses the Front Desk for Two More Days Near the Casino

When we got to the Pala Casino RV resort we were told that there were no vacancies from Thursday through Sunday due to high weekend demand.

However....

Karen didn't like that answer so she has repeatedly checked in at the registration office until she grabbed a cancellation site that will get us two extra days!  Right now that is our trailer way down the street in the middle of the picture above.  But we have to move.

Today there are plenty of empty sites...

but

the casino hotel has 10 stories and 507 rooms.  /Therefore, the casinos has a large draw.

so while Karen gambles some more.

Bill will make more use of the swimming pool with its two hot tubs.

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