Staying on in Palm Springs

Apologies to our readers. If you are still here you are very patient. We have been busy and at times distracted. We will try to catch up with some brief posts to cover each stop since we last blogged. Then maybe we can get back in the habit to keep up.

We returned to the Palm Springs TT park for the last time this season. We came in on the 7th with a 3 week reservation but we anticipated that we would leave the area a few days before the 3 weeks was up . But on the 8th Barb had a followup visit with her surgeon and he wanted to see her on March 1st. So we started looking for a place to stay here a little longer. We are now planning to be in the area until the 8th of march. In the meantime we have apparently run into a dead end in selling our bus this year. We advertised briefly and have had a few individuals interested but it does not look like we will see it before we leave. We have arranged to store it and plan to return next winter and advertise more aggressively to make a sale.

In the meantime we are having a good time. We went to a play "Menopause the Musical" recently. Even Dennis admitted that it was surprisingly well done and enjoyable. One of us (bet you can't guess which one) even took up the invitation to come up on stage and dance the finale with the cast.

Dennis has been continuing to play a lot of pickleball. He and Oland have gone hiking in the desert a couple of times.

We've been able to work in a little sightseeing. We took a few hours to drive the Palms to Pines Highway up into the mountains to the south. We didn't get near the snow line but there was a definite climate change as we went from a pleasant sunny day around 70 degrees to perhaps 40 degrees with a vicious wind blowing. It gave us a sense of the winter that we have been missing.

Last Thursday we went with Oland and Merilee to visit the Living Desert which is a zoo and botanical gardens in Palm Desert. After several hours there we were tired from the walking and hungry so we adjourned to the Elephant Bar for a great meal.

Who's Fault

On the 26th we made the big move from Desert Hot Pools to Catalina Spa. The distance is only about a mile. So it is the shortest move that we have ever made. Still it turned out to be surprisingly time consuming. It seemed that we spent about half a day packing and getting ready, going to the new park and getting parked and set up. We often get a head start the day before by packing up and putting things away. And we took it slow as we are still getting familiar with the new coach. We almost forgot to put down our rooftop over the air tv antenna, as we didn't have to do this with the MCI which had an omnidirectional antenna that did not need to be raised and lowered. And Dennis took some time to check the air pressure in all of the tires and put a few pounds of air in several of them. By the time we got set up in the new park it was mid afternoon.

When we got to Catalina Spa we were told that that there was an emergency preparedness meeting in the afternoon and that we were welcome to participate. We remembered that they were having something similar to that in December when we were here. What's that about? Well, we were informed that the San Andreas fault runs through the back corner of the park and that this is considered a high risk area for a major earthquake risk area. Well we stayed in the cheap sites in the front of the park, so we are maybe 1/3 mile from the fault. So we guess that we are safe, right?

This park has the most active pickleball program of any park in the area and now has 6 nice courts, up from the 4 that were here on our last visit. Pickleball and the natural hot water spas and swimming pools are the major attractions here. Barbara is frustrated that she is not able to participate in pickleball or use of pools or spas while she is recovering from her surgery. Dennis has been able to take advantage of both on a regular basis. There is a senior games scheduled in Palm Desert including pickleball events. Dennis decided not to attend as he has been having some residual problems with his back. He has found that he can play regularly as long as limits his play each day to a few games but he felt that this type of tournament might be too much for him for now. But he has enjoyed playing with a number of the players practicing for the tournament.