Palm Springs and future plans…

As the sun set on our stay in the San Diego area it was very hard to leave as the weather there is always absolutely perfect.  There also is just so many things that we love to do available in that area. Another reason leaving Mission Bay RV Park was done with a bit of sadness was the fact we made some great new friends in the park. However the downside in San Diego is that it is a very expensive place to stay very long and to keep our budget happy we felt it was time to move on.  However we definitely will return to San Diego someday. If we had the monetary means to do so this would likely be a great place for our RV exit strategy to take place.

So begins our slow crawl back east. First on the list of stops is Desert Hot Springs as we found a fantastic promotion for four nights for $45 at Catalina Spa and RV Resort that we took advantage of. The catch was we had to listen to a one hour sales pitch on RPI memberships. We took this offer since we were thinking of staying in this area for a month.  The online reviews regarding the parks we could afford were all over the place so we thought staying at this place would afford us the opportunity to drive around and check out all the other parks to see if we wanted to stay longer at one of them.

Well we visited several parks all over the Palm Springs area and concluded that this just not a place we wanted to stay for a month.  Not only did none of the parks have any WOW factor, we realized there just isn't that much to do around here. However, that didn’t mean we couldn’t enjoy our stay while we were here, or could it? The wind in this area is relentless!!! I had read that the wind doesn’t blow on the south side of Interstate 10 and blew hard north of it. They were spot on… as there is a 10,000 foot mountain near Palm Springs that blocks the wind. The rest of the area north of the highway is seriously windy and littered with large wind mills generating tons of electricity.

During one of our jaunts to check out rv parks, Sharon spied a small deli and grocery store advertising the best date milkshakes in the desert.  She just had to try one so we pulled over to get one.  I waited outside while Sharon ordered our shake.  While the young lady was making her shake, the owner happened in from the kitchen area asking where she was from and how she heard about his store. Sharon told him an RV friend told her she had to try a date shake when in Desert Hot Springs. He told her she had come to the right place as he is the only one who uses fresh dates rather than dried and uses ice cream rather than ice milk.  He explained that otherwise the shakes are just too icky sweet.  Next he proudly showed her a framed Sunset Magazine article confirming his was the best date shake in the State of California!  What a lucky sighting it was.  As for the date shake, I am glad we tried it since it was interesting and good, but not sure I'd order another....

In order to avoid the gusty wind the next day we took a tour of downtown Palm Springs only to discover a huge biker rally was happening in town. We parked (free parking in town) to explore the town and to stroll through the biker rally festival. Near the middle of town was a 26 foot tall statue of Marilyn Monroe. Read an interesting story on how it got here if you click the link above. Of course we had to stop and take a photo while I checked out the artful scenery… Upon returning to our park we went to the Spring-fed pool and hot tub at the lower clubhouse.  Sharon had never had the experience of enjoying the warm spring water and was excited to see if she could feel any therapeutic benefit.  On the wall by the hot tub it was explained our pool was fed by the onsite 130 degree F well. Interestingly their well is free of the foul smelling sulfides normally associated with hot spring water.  They were quick to mention also that the presence of sulfides are of no therapeutic benefit.  The warm relaxing water has been another highlight of the trip here.

Palm Spring is a pretty neat little town and just walking along the sidewalks you can read the names of stars that are etched on tiles embedded in the concrete to see who made an impact in this area. Besides Marilyn there was Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and many other notables immortalized in the their own way The vistas are also very striking in every direction with the palm tree-lined streets contrasting the large surrounding mountains and blue skies. Heading homeward back across I-10 we hit the 30+ mile per hour winds again.  We enjoy driving with windows down whereupon at one point we were hit with a huge gust of wind and got completely sandblasted.  So then and there we decided we were going to move on. Where to? Well we think we would like to spend the winter in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. We don’t know where yet and have lots of park reviews to read before we know where we will stay but at least we now have some winter plans…