Sunday off to College of the Desert

Sunday Lary rushed into the College of the Desert to get a barbeque cover, then he came home, and I took the car, picked up Sue, Jen, Heather and Royal, and we went to the College of the Desert. We all got some things, had some food, and listened to the nice music played by the South American flute player and guitar player duo. They are very talented.

Later we returned to the girls hotel, the Riviera, and spent a bit of time together around the pool, though it wasn't warm enough to swim. That evening Lary and I visited Bob and Joanne G here in the park to give them a train whistle that Bob had wanted, as he does gigs playing the guitar, and he sings some train songs. We had a glass of wine, and had a nice visit with them.

Monday I visited a new GP doctor down here for a B P consultation, she was super and very nice. Very pregnant too. She was helpful and not the type of person to overreact or flap.

Our weather had turned kind of cold and windy so that was a bit disappointing for us all, and for the girls too. We get a lot more wind over in Desert Hot Springs than there is at Annie's in Palm Desert, and often Palm Springs is calm while it is very blustery here.

Tuesday we met the girls and Royal for early lunch at the Blue Coyote restaurant downtown in Palm Springs, on the way to lunch Lary and I bought a nice laminated side table for the living room, it was reduced in price, and is very pretty, imported from Kenya.

Lunch was nice as it was warm enough to sit outside on the restaurant patio in the sunshine, we went to the Blue Coyote on the main street of Palm Springs, they serve Mexican food and it was yummy.

We all wanted to go to Agua Caliente Museum downtown in Palm Springs, but it was closed Monday and Tuesday, what a drag, so we sat around near there in the warm sunshine.

We then met up with the girls over at the Palm Springs Art Museum, they had a bit of a look inside, I particularly enjoyed the Donald Wexler exhibit, he is a modernist architect who has become quite famous around here. He is very well known for the industrial type of materials he used in local buildings, such as steel, aluminum and concrete, used for both houses, schools and commercial buildings.

After the visit to the Art Museum we said our final goodbyes, as the girls had to leave the following morning, and we weren't going in to say bye to them, they had a pretty early start, and once through security we couldn't visit together. They were going to catch a van taxi in the morning to the airport, which was quite close to their hotel.

Luckily their trip home didn't involve as many flights as the one coming down had.

Wednesday Lary did his final carving class at Catalina Spa, doing the final painting on his owl, and we had a plumber come by to give us an estimate for several plumbing jobs we had here in our park model, such as change the bathroom sink taps, remove the aged garburetor in the kitchen and change it to a normal sink, and repair 2 sets of PVC pipes outside that led to outside taps, both pipes needed repair, and he had some good ideas for modifications to simplify that area outside for us.

Later we bought some new taps for the bathroom. Also we went to the College of the Desert book sale, and got a whole big paper bag of books for a dollar. Then the fellow arrived at home with our new window screens, they all fit perfectly. They had replaced most of the frames for us, and rescreened them.

Heard the news that Elizabeth Taylor had died, she was sure a screen idol, even though she was somewhat troubled at times by different issues.

Thursday we had a super flute lesson at Annie's, Chip and I practiced on our new deep A flutes, takes a bit of catching on to, they are quiet, and big, a bit hard to hold on to, and very deep in sound. Chip and Lary did duets, and Annie and I did too. After an early supper we picked up Gail from Corkill Palms, and Lary drove us over to Annie's to complete the new rattles. That was such fun, we cut them down from their outside drying place, then we pulled out the stick, dumped out the hardened packed sand, and decided what to put inside them to rattle, in my case popping corn kernels, and a few pretty quartz crystals that Sharon Stevens provided for us.

She led this part of the rattle workshop, and it was fascinating how they all took shape, with some beautiful decorations on them. Some of them were painted, some were wrapped or decorated with leather lacing, we used beads and feathers, whatever we wanted, and then we had a bit of a rattle ceremony, it is very interesting when a group "rattles" somebody, it is lots of energy, and somehow soothing in a funny way.

We took turns in the centre of a circle and the group rattled around us, chanting or singing, or whistling. Very enjoyable indeed, how I love to make things and do craft projects in a group. We drove Gail home again and fell into bed later on.

Friday we went down to El Centro, a two hour drive south, to meet Nadia and Walter at Sizzler, we had lunch together, then went over to their Rio Bend RV Park, and they showed us around. It has a golf course, and we had coffee and sweets back at their rented park model. It is a nice one.

After we left there we went over toward Yuma, and got a room at the newish Quechan Indian Casino. It was very busy, we had to get a smoking room, though it didn't smell. We played the slots, and had a buffet dinner that was delicious.

Saturday we had buffet breakfast, and then drove the very short distance to the border with Mexico, a sleepy but busy border town called Algodones. You park your car on the US side, then walk over into Mexico.

We found a glasses place for me, and ordered a new pair of progressive style bifocals, with transition lenses that turn darker in the sunshine, and in 2 and a half hours they were ready for me to pick up. The edges of the lenses were even edge polished too, which makes the lenses seem not so thick. They are square -ish frames, silver colour, and I was quite happy with them. Elizabeth Arden frames. $215 total bill including eye exam, the optometrist said she saw cataracts forming in both eyes, very small still.

We ate at a nice outdoor restaurant there in Algodones, called El Paradiso, in the warm sunshine, though it was a bit windy, and then after making a few purchases we headed for home, a journey of about 3 hours, west toward San Diego first, then north toward Palm Springs.

We were in the Imperial Valley which borders the Salton Sea, and there is a huge agricultural business there, growing vegetables. They have very mild temps year round, so it's a great place for garden crops.

Most of the way the wind got very strong, and there was a lot of dust flying near the freeway close to home, the car was blown around a bit. We dropped by to see if Judy and Gary were home in Indio, but they weren't there, so we continued home which we reached around 6 PM after quite a full day.

Sunday Lary got an oil change for the car, then we went over to Catalina Spa park for ice creams, and stayed for the music jam, the last of this season, Lary and I did a flute duet, it was OK.

After the music afternoon and hamburgers at Catalina with Dave and Wendy, they came over to our house for wine and tea, and a bit of a visit. They are over at 1000 Trails park by the I-10 highway for 2 weeks, and they are buying a home in Ivey Ranch and Golf park, so great to catch up with all their news.

Later we visited Bob and Joanne again here in our park, we had a photo for them that we took on our Mexican cruise, and they are leaving shortly. We also showed them Di's new rattle, which immediately gave Bob lots of ideas, as he does a lot of leather work. He showed us a holster that he had made for a handgun, it was super.

Also Lary showed them his new owl that he carved, it is just wonderful, and very pretty. It's a tiny wee thing, a pygmy owl. They loved it. We will miss them as we enjoy their company.

Monday the plumber arrived at 11, and of course found more work under the kitchen sink, our P trap needed to be repaired, as it had 2 leaks and was pretty ugly and dirty. Now we have a nice new one. And he removed the garburetor, it was wrecked and old, and smelled bad as if it was burning when it was turned on.

Also he replaced the bathroom sink taps, luckily no extra plumbing needed doing in there. He also worked outside to give us 2 outside taps, they were both not working, or leaking badly. He kind of modified the tap arrangement out there, so it should be easier to get water outside at two taps, before we had only our inside water, and an outside tap is great for washing the car, etc.

The plumbing is above the ground, PVC pipe, it seems weird, I guess it doesn't freeze up in the winter, though we have some pretty cold weather.

We don't have plants to water thankfully, there are a few cacti, but they pretty well look after themselves. When we leave we will put them in their pots where they will catch the rains when they fall.

There are several cacti blooming here in the park, both the barrel cacti in lemon yellow bloom, and another species that looks like prickly pear, it has pale fuschia flowers, just gorgeous.

I think I have already spoken about the desert floor, covered now with soft lemon yellow flowers, and a round shrub, grey green in color, that blooms with bright yellow flowers that form kind of a halo around the foliage, I think Al H told me they are encilia. Also desert verbena is flavouring the air, it's a pale mauve carpet in places. Very lovely this year.

When you drive along the roads, the medians are prettily landscaped, and the ocotillo is in bloom, its long slender arms now covered with green leaves, despite the nasty thorns, and it has bright red 'flags' at the top ends of the arms. Palo Verde the green tree with green branches and trunk is starting to get its leaves, and the desert willow is sprouting leaves too.

Spring here is very pretty this year. Many things are in bloom, and for some people, it's sneezing season once again!!!