Palm Springs for the Holidays

We returned to the Palm Springs Thousand Trails Park on the 20th of December. This is starting to feel like our home base. We may be spending more time here than originally anticipated. We will be here now through the holidays. Our friends Oland and Meralee came in a couple of days later. Their friends John and Debbie who we met at Catalina Spa came in as their guests. The six of enjoyed good times and a lot of good meals over the holidays.

Dennis had a few head bangers in John and Deb's rig, so Johns gave him some protective head gear.
This was a very nice Christmas dinner the park here had their dinner about 5 days before the holidays. John and Debbie hosted a breakfast for all of us and it was wonderful.

This is my very very best present this year, aren't they great.

During this period Barbara has finally been completing her physical therapy. She finished therapy first on her foot and needed a few more sessions on her shoulder. The good news is that it all has gone well.

The holidays this year are a bit of a hectic time. But not in the usual way. We are buying a new motorhome. And there are a lot of details involved. And the process is complicated by doing things long distance. We are dealing with a bank and credit union in Ohio and vehicle registration in Florida. We have been going through the bus sorting through everything and deciding what we can get rid of and what we need and want to keep. As with any move we are finding things that we had forgotten about.

Our new motorhome is a 2000 Monaco Dynasty. Like the MCI bus the Dynasty is nominally 40 feet in length. More technically the Dynasty is about 6 inches longer, 6 inches wider and 6 inches higher than the MCI. It has more interior living space primarily as a result of 2 slideouts. A trade off is that we have less space in the outside storage compartments under the floor.
This photo is absolutely pre boob job. More about the new motorhome later.


Our planned moving day is December 30. We will go to the dealer and park the coaches side by side and move everything from the old coach to the new one. If we do not complete the process in one day we can stay the night. We will finish and be in the new coach for the New Year.

Catalina Spa

We drove the short drive to Catalina Spa at Desert Hot Springs on the 7th. We are staying in this membership park through RPI. It is a nice park. It is known for being an active pickleball center with a lot of good players. There are 4 and soon to be 6 pickleball courts that are busy most days. Dennis played in the monthly tournament that features cash prizes and brings in players from other parks in the area. He managed to tie for fourth place but only the first three win the cash prizes. Oh well.

There are a lot of activities going on. The park has naturally hot water for the hot tubs and pools that are open 24 hours a day.

Best of all some of our friends are here at the same time. Bob and Julie came in the day before we did. Oland and Meralee came in a few days later and our English friends Jim and Jane came in the day after they did. So we have been spending a lot of time reminiscing and getting reacquainted.

The day we arrived here was the first rainy day in eight months. The weather is mostly pleasant and warm with cool nights. It is nice to be in the warm sunshine and see the snow on the mountains.

Busy at Palm Springs

We've been busy here at the Palm Springs reserve and have gotten behind. This is a catchup post.

We are now here with three other couples, all of whom we met at the Peace River TT in Florida a couple of years ago. A few days after we got here Bob and Julie came in. Then a couple of days later Marc and Chris came in. Finally, our English friends Jim and Jane came in last Tuesday. We were lucky in this crowded park to be able to find sites so that we are all parked very near to each other. It has been a nice reunion and we have been able to get together several times.

Last weekend we went to the Fantasy Springs Casino to see the Cabazon Indian Powwow. It was a grand event with a large group of participants from all over the country. They wore beautiful intricate and colorful costumes. We enjoyed watching the dancing and ceremonies and listening to the drumming.

We rode with Bob and Julie to visit the Joshua Tree National Monument which is just north and east of here. We spent several hours driving through the desert and seeing the various and changing scenery of this large park. We came if from the south and were surprised that we did not see any Joshua trees for the first hour or so. It turns out that the Joshua trees grow only in the northern sections which is at higher elevation. When we got to the Joshua trees they were indeed plentiful.

Another event was a visit by Barbara, Julie and Chris to see The Lord of the Dance last Sunday at the McCoulumn Theatre. It was a wonderful exhibition of Celtic Dance. They we impressed with the beauty and precision of the dancers. Unfortunately cameras were not allowed.

On Friday we went with Bob and Julie, Chris and Marc, and Jim and Jane to the weekly Street Market in downtown Palm Springs. It was a perfect night and very pleasant to be out with a wide variety of vendors and live musicians. There were booths for massage, tattoos, magic, religion and host of arts and crafts and various foods. We weren't hungry as we had stopped for a very filling meal at a Mexican restaurant on our way. The hardest part was finding places to park. It turned out that we had to park our two vehicles several blocks apart, but we the magic of cell phones it was easy to connect again.

Dennis and Barbara went back to the Fantasy Springs Casino last night to see the Willie Nelson concert. Willie is still in good form and does a great show. We were glad that we went.

This afternoon the four couples in the Peace River group got together for a good meal and reminiscing about good times. Bob and Julie leave in the morning so this is the last time all of us expect to be together.

Through all of this Barbara has been going to physical therapy three times a week for her foot and her shoulder. Dennis has been playing pickleball most days.