Christmas lunch at Agua Caliente casino buffet

Well the buffet at Agua Caliente casino was good, a long lineup but well managed, and people in good spirits. Great food, we were somewhat restrained thankfully.

It was quite quiet at the timeshare place, but we spent Christmas night with them, in the cocktail lounge, it is lots of fun as several very talented people drop in and sing, or play instruments. One couple sings and plays the piano, there is another couple and she sings, great voice, and he plays a slide trombone. Another fellow plays a terrific clarinet, he's friends with the slide trombone player. There is a regular group trio of entertainers, Grant, a singer, and a lady singer, and Richard Bono the piano/organ player. They invite all their friends and visitors up to sing and play too.

And there was another blonde lady who sang very well, most of them are professionals I believe. There was another elderly man who sang very well too. Being Palm Springs there is a lot of talent and retired talent of a very high level here. You just never know who will walk into the lounge that night to visit, or enjoy the entertainment, camaraderie. They make you feel welcome, and almost part of their extended family. Frank Sinatra used to hang out at this lounge, it's now called Club Trinidad, and is on Hwy 111 at Smoke Tree Commons area.

The following day we went to see the new George Clooney film Up in the Air, it was good, very good. Just when he felt he wanted commitment, the lady he chose wasn't available. His profession was to fire people, and he was pretty bloodthirsty and cold about it, too. Somewhat like his life, his character had very few personal ties, and he spent his career flying all over the US to fire people from their jobs.

We had really enjoyed the movie Avatar, even though we didn't see it on the Imax size screen, or with 3D glasses. We saw it at Mary Pickford theatre, which has many movies showing inside it.

Most nights in the timeshare we joined the singers/group in the lounge as it became like a second family, you were greeted like family, and we really enjoyed their entertainment, it was like a musicians jam session.

One day I played my flutes out sitting by the pool, the acoustics were great as the pool was completely enclosed by the hotel 2 storey room block.

In truth the timeshare being a studio was too small for us, when the wallbed came down out of the wall, there was no floor left. And the TV on the wall was opposite the bed, not the sofa, so you kind of had to crane your neck around to watch TV. However it was a nice change to be right in Palm Springs, and we did some of the special stuff that was oriented to Christmas. Our room was on the second floor, and the sunshine hit our front door, so the light was good.

Lary bought me Julie and Julia, the DVD for Christmas, and once we got our various machines here in the trailer coordinated, we watched that last night. Very good indeed, I was glad we had bought it. Coordinating the sound with the TV and DVD player was a challenge to begin with, but Lary does very well with that. Also here we are using our trailer's TV antenna for the first time, but the TV signals must be pretty strong, and the TV good, as it searches for the channels, and brings them in once you sort out all the darned buttons/cables/knobs/blah blah.

We didn't really do anything for Lary's birthday, we were in the timeshare, but left it that day and returned very happily back to our trailer at Catalina Spa. In fact we did a laundry on Lary's birthday night, and got ready to move over to Indian Waters, Indio the following day. After having Christmas lunch and quite a few meals out, we didn't feel like eating out once more that birthday night of his.

Dec. 28th we moved the trailer about 1/2 hour away, down the Coachella Valley to the opposite end from Desert Hot Springs, to Indio and Indian Waters park. It is a Western Horizons Park. It seems very good, we stay in the newer part where there is no sewer or cable TV, but there is a honey wagon service 3 times a week, and it's free for members which we now are. It is coarse gravel underfoot and concrete pads and parking pads for the vehicles, so that works out just fine for us. The sites are relatively big, and we enjoy them more than the grassy areas, where the sprinklers work every night, and you have to be extra careful not to damage the grass or get wet from the sprinklers. Besides we need the exercise of walking to and from the office/pool/clubhouse areas. It's flat and wide open here in their newer part of the park.

Today a WHR lady arrived and offered to give us a tour of the new enhanced things that are available with our membership, that should be interesting to find out about. They now offer cabins at most of their WHR parks, for family visits.

Di is enjoying catching up with emails, for our last few timeshare days the computer hookup didn't work, and only being at CatSpa one day we didn't get it there either.

By the way, thanks to everybody who has sent us Christmas cards, christmas newsletters, and birthday cards, that is so appreciated while we are away travelling. Means a lot. And to those who have emailed us faithfully, even when we didn't email back right away. Thanks for it all.

There is also quite a lot to do here at Indian Waters, they offer some meals, more lunches than dinners, and lots of small courses. Di was delighted to find that there is somebody offering watercolor classes on Thursdays.

The weather seems to be marginally warmer, still below seasonal norms, but sunny, Lary cleaned the outside of the trailer with a bucket and a rag today, and he's outside sitting reading under the canopy. This seems to be another one of the parks where you sit outside or walk around, and most people are very friendly, greeting you as you pass them. It makes such a great impression. We don't enjoy the parks where this isn't the case.

Well I have gone on far too long, just wanted to catchup on the latest. I really enjoyed the Julie/Julia video where Julie posted her blog faithfully each day, and talked about the recent recipes that she had made out of Julia child's cook book. Her successes, and failures. It was such fun, I enjoyed the format of that movie, Nora Ephron sure has made a lot of great movies that really appeal to me.

We'll spend New Year's eve here in the park, we signed up for their dinner and dance, so that should be enjoyable to get together with other like minded folks. $20 total, hope they don't turn on the lights at 12:01 like they did over in Desert Pools another year we were there.

Bah humbug, that was brutal, you hadn't even finished toasting the New year in when they flashed on the florescent lights, at about 12:02 AM and announced that they had to set up for breakfast the following day.