Presidents Day weekend in Desert Hot Springs

Saturday we got up and went in to see the Dr. George's Classic Car show. There were some incredible cars there at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, out in the sunshine on a grassy field.

The colors and ages of the cars were unbelievable, it was magic. We had a bite to eat there, and although we had planned to go on to the Greek Festival, we didn't, opting instead to come back to the RV park, and have a dip in the lovely warm pool.

In fact we were all saying now that the weather has finally changed to quite warm, the pool is so soupy warm that it is almost not refreshing. Everyone is afraid to complain, though, in case it gets cooled down too much.

Before the car show we had dropped in to visit the new park model that we have bought, and we met with the vendors again, and the roofers who are reroofing it for them. Looked good, they are adding some insulation under the new roofing, so that is grand. They finished the roof later on, Joanne and John let us know later that day. Whew, that was a bit close for comfort, as the vendors left early this morning to return to Vancouver WA where they come from.

Now it's ours.

Later in the afternoon we headed back into the El Paseo area of Rancho Mirage to the Gardens, a lovely ritzy shopping area where there are beautiful lawns and gardens surrounding the stores, and there was a Jazz evening there, at 5:15 PM they serve wine with cheese and fruit. You only pay $12, which goes to charity, and a local Jazz DJ called Fitz puts it on, bringing in young musicians to play for an hour, sitting right out on the lawn with pretty bronze sculptures of children playing, all through the lovely gardens.

It's a magic hour or two, they play for an hour, and then sell their CDs after their show. The young musician was a keyboard player called Lao Tizer, and he had a super guitarist with him, Jeff Coleman, and a great drummer, whose name I can't remember. Lao and his group were heading off to Dubai on Monday.

Then we went to a pizza place and had pizza, yum yum.

It's Presidents Day weekend down here, Monday is a holiday.

Today Sunday we didn't do much in the morning, but we went to the pool and had a nice swim around lunchtime, the water was off in the top part of the park, as they'd had a water leak.

Then we went to the Ice Cream Social here in the upper clubhouse, and in the jam session afterwards, I entered to play my flute, and I got 3 chances to play, it was quite interesting, as I don't think that many of those people had ever heard a Native American Flute, so I kind of introduced it to them, and played OK. They asked me if I had more music after the second piece, and of course I said Yes. And played a third time.

Quite a lot of people talked to me after the jam session, so I am happy about that. I played my new F sharp flute, and next time I might even take more than one flute, so that folks get a chance to hear more than one key flute.

Later we went back into town, and went to the Greek festival, at the church called St. George Greek Orthodox Church of the Desert, near El Paseo again. It was night time when we arrived, and we ate Greek food dinner and visited with some nice folks from Salt Lake City Utah sitting at the table, before wandering around the pretty stalls, and munching on some Greek sweet pastries. Apparently the event is a big fundraiser for the Greek church, and this year they have to replace the dome on their church, some $130,000. so the proceeds go to the church itself this year. In other years the proceeds have gone to local charities. so we bought t-shirts that are colorful and fun, and were very inexpensive.

Tomorrow we'll go over to our new park model trailer in Almar Acres on Dillon Road, as our new bed should be arriving, and likely we will hang out there for a while at least, as we'd like to get their monthly activity schedule, and get to know that park a bit. There is a lovely pool, and 2 hot tubs, and their rec centre is very attractive, they have a soup lunch on Tuesdays that the public can attend. Apparently they did some fundraising, and as a result bought a new refrigerated area that is very good for their kitchen facilities. so that should be fun to get to know our new home.