Sunday art show at Indian Wells

Saturday was a very hot day, nearly 100 degrees, and we went to Home Depot to get some wide PVC pipe and end caps to make a hard flute case to protect Lary's new clay flute. A staff member there was very helpful, and glued one end of the pipe with the end cap before we left the store. Then on to Joann Fabric and Craft shop for leather to make straps to hold our flutes, they have small "ears" on them where we can thread a strap so that it won't fall on the ground and break. We can then put the strap around our neck.

Katie and Grant moved over to Sky Valley, just a bit farther away from us here, and they invited us out for Happy Hour, so we sat outside their van in the hot sun and had a drink and some yummy snacks. After that we 4 went into Desert Hot Springs and had dinner at the Thai place, the service was dreadful, but the food was just delicious. Also the A/C was on so strong that we all nearly froze. Oh well, great company.

Sunday we arranged to pick up Katie and Grant, and we 4 headed off to the Indian Wells Art Festival, it was lovely, a juried show, and we 4 poked about, admiring the lovely things on display, clothing, jewellry, pottery, painting, statuary, sculpture, and some incredibly beautiful things. A sensory barrage. The temps were much lower, around high 70s, with a bit of a breeze, so that was better. Many of the vendors had huge market type umbrellas to shade themselves, which made a big difference.

Katie and I both bought pretty hand painted scarves, I bought a small piece of clay jewellry, and Katie and Grant bought a lovely Raku fired piece of pottery for their home. We ate there outside at tables with umbrellas, thankfully, and listened to the spirited music playing.

We came home, and when we dropped off Katie and Grant we had a drink with them before we came home. The day before at Happy Hour the wind was nearly howling it was so strong, and again today the wind whipped up around 3:30 PM or so. It looked as if the wind was blowing quite a bit of dust around in Palm Springs, but at Indian Wells it was quiet. We were at the Tennis Gardens where the 2 week BNP Paribas Tennis match had just finished. It is an enormous stadium, but the art show was outside the stadium in the pretty grounds. A wonderful use for the space.

Now we will have to get busy and tidy up the house and think of what to take with us on our cruise, and for our trip home too, and what to leave in the house. They say that clothing with elastic will be badly damaged in the extreme desert heat of the summer, but I Di will leave a lot of clothes here, so I don't have to drag so many things back and forth.

We will put heavy silver insulation material on all our windows to deflect the sun's force during the summer, and will eventually shut off most of the power, water and gas to the house, also laying down the table lamps, and covering the furniture with plastic sheeting against the dust. We may leave the fridge turned on this time, as it had a very hard time starting up when we arrived here, makign tons of gurgling noises for a week or two in early November.

We likely won't leave much open food to tempt any critters looking for a free handout, and people say they often put even their canned food in the fridge to protect it so it doesn't explode in the heat. They say temps here reach 125 during the summer months. Glad we won't be here, we have been using the A/C in the heat, and we are sure that the electricity company will really love us this month, our bill may be way larger than usual. Oh well, we have been comfortable.

The people who enjoy our park in the winter and early spring have really started to leave now, and there are lots of spaces that look closed for the next few months.

Katie and Grant have been looking at park models for sale, both new and used, and thinking about what to do as they don't want to bring their van down for much longer, they would prefer to buy something, perhaps over at Caliente Springs. That way they can travel in their car back and forth, or even buy a vehicle and leave it here and come by plane.

New park models around 400 square feet seem to go for about $35,000 or so. The problem is whether to buy a small lot like we have in this park, with modest HOA fees, or go for a pad rental type of park in which to put their park model, where the fees are quite a bit more. Caliente across the street seems like a very nice park, the clubhouse facilities are very nice, as are the pools, etc.

They may even choose to rent next year, to try out a park, and make sure that is where they want to settle down in the future for their winter getaway place. They seem to enjoy this area, there are so very many things to see and do all winter long.