Palm Desert, CA
Saturday January 17-30, 2015
Disclaimer: Satire Alert (sort of)
After trekking through hours of horrible LA traffic I could almost smell our new destination. Icy hot can do that to a youthful nostril. We made it to our Palm Desert location, just outside of Palm Springs, the mecca of older nomads and geriatrics in general. It was a tight squeeze getting parked but with the help of all the friendly blue hairs it was breeze. My park job was the work of the entire village. Once parked everyone disappeared back into his or her familiar retirement role. I joke because I myself jumped out of my rig to help a few new arrivals miss the towed and get safely stowed amongst the palms. I never have to complain about late night disturbances, people driving too fast, or generally being heard. I’m kidding because we actually like it. People are always asking me to open can goods as if I am Hercules. Perhaps I am. On a serious note old people are easy. They are done giving a shit, if you know what I mean, and since that part is gone they just want to have a little fun. Pool volleyball can become so competitive that ACLs are blown, no joke. Sports at the parks are to be taken serious but the rest of life is laid back and in slow motion. Want to get a feeling of the lifestyle I’m talking about? Just image the last ten years of your own life. That’s how they live. They still drink wine, listen to music, play sports, eat good food, and all by 9pm. It’s like Utopia.
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Anyway enough about my peeps, let me give you a little low down on what the happenings were while we were in town. First we hit up an art show in downtown Palm Springs. The city has aged well and the temperatures this time of year are unreal, hence the older generations love of this location. The desert heat dries you out helping to relieve joint pain and arthritis. Naturally.
The next afternoon we headed to Quartzite for the RV show and to meet up with Technomadia. The RV show had more of a flea market feel than we would have liked. The meet up was fun filled with great people living life out on the open road. We are a crazy group indeed. It was good fun and we were jonesing to meet some people closer to our age doing what we’re doing. Young RVers are few and far between, but we are growing in numbers. We tend to automatically gravitate and find each other when we are near. It’s a little spooky how this happens intuitively without any premeditation.
We spent the next few days working, resting, swimming, and waiting for packages to be delivered to our mobile house. All the down time gave me a chance to fix up some things that needed tending to on the RV side. It’s non-stop to keep this thing functioning. We spent our afternoons wandering around all the local areas. Many famous people have winter houses in old Palm Springs. Kindy had a fun time trying to locate them while I was just enjoying driving with the windows down. We routinely revisited a local homemade shake shack (Great Shakes), known for their date shake, that was the highlight of our near nightly outings.
Joshua Tree National Park was a short drive away so we spent a day wondering around it. It was just ok. Don’t get me wrong the landscape is beautiful, but we had unrealistic expectations. However, if you are a rock climber this place is your Mecca.
We also drove to Salton Sea, a lake created by the Colorado River years ago. Then we drove through and hiked Painted Canyon. Both of which ended up being more enjoyable than the National Park. Go figure.
Idllywild a small nearby mountain town was thoroughly explored. It had a small town feel with fine food and plenty of touristy shops.
Indian Canyons were nearby providing us with another outing of hiking, good weather, and desolate desert views. Indian Canyon was actually an overall highlight of all the things we managed to do here.
We did go to the Casinos in the area looking to score some cheap grub and liberate some machined-in cash. Unfortunately it smelled worst than all the old people in our park combined sweating in unison at the daily horseshoe and pickle ball tournaments. The grimy dark smoked filled gambling mine was too much for us so we left without the huge mountain of cash we had entered for. Some things are just not worth it. Smoke filled rooms full of musty penny slots being one of them. So we bounced. It was time for a wood fired pizza and a trusty milkshake anyway. You got to stay regular after all. Well, it’s getting close to 9pm so I’m starting to wind down. Besides you know what the old people say, “Get out there now because you can rest when you’re dead.” Luckily they also say, “A little rest never killed anyone.” So for now we choose rest but hopefully we’ll see you out and about tomorrow for another adventure. Did I mention that old people are awesome?[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]