Fall 2013 RV Trip: Palm Springs week 3

Sunday: On our walk around the park this morning I finally brought the camera:

this guy is a hoot! he just sits here all by himself, although sometimes he is in the back of the golf cart.

this road runner was looking for food

tennis courts and swimming pool at one of the club houses:

golf course

one bathroom as a sauna! not as big as ours but the heater is the same brand from Finland!

beautiful flowers smell so good when we are walking the resort.

all 1200+ sites are decorated differently

This golf cart has a mirror and a fan in the roof! I guess it gets really hot here in the summer

We went for a short hike up the mountain but it was too hot to continue so we headed to Sherman’s for lunch!

then back home to the pool for a bit of rest. met up with Ray and Jon at Wang’s for dinner.. $2 cocktails from 3 to 7! 1/2 priced meals too! great value, great place with live music.

Monday: chore day… laundry, change oil on truck, grocery shopping etc…. but also a bit of time to exercise and relax by the pool. temp today over 80!

Tuesday: today was our birding day up on the Mount San Jancinto. We had to take the tram up there at $24 each… but worth it to us…

the second pic is of Palm Springs, the third of the Salton Sea

It was so beautiful and since it was 80 degs at 500 ft above sea level we thought it would be a good day to go up. The temp at 8500 ft above sea level was about 50 degs and so beautiful. We got up there at 10:00 and came back down at about 4:00. of course the elevation made it a bit harder to walk around and of course we had to walk up and down stairs and paths..

We got 5 new birds including the:

Clarks Nutcracker

and the Stellar Jay

this Hermit Thrush was too cute not to take its picture

the trees here are soooo big Eric thought that some of these logs could be “all nighters” (for a campfire), I thought they might be at least “all year” logs.

The wilderness area trails were very hard to find.. so we ended up walking only the St Park trails..

I was dressed for the cool weather and snow!

we had lunch at the visitor center, great food, great service then walked around again for a bit. finally it is time to go back down:

A wonderful day up in the mountains. A bit pricy but worth it if you can hike up there for a few hours and few had such a beautiful day with a slight wind and sunny skies.

Wednesday: went back to Morango Valley Preserve for the bird walk. There was about 20 people and it lasted about 3 hours. Most of them were from Canada but a few from Wisconsin too! We got two new birds! we are having a wonderful week..

here is a picture of the California Thrasher

Dinner at Ray’s. Wonderful grilled chicken, veggies and salad!

Thursday:

full moon in the morning ski

Eric made a wonderful breakfast of chicken chorizo and eggs.. then off for our morning walk around the park then off to Indian Canyons. $9 per person to get into the canyon but worth every penny. It was a beautiful place to walk around. We did not plan on being there too long so we did not bring lunch… oh oh.. well they had a small snack bar with $2 hot dogs.. the pictures does not do this place justice.

not sure if this fence is to keep us in or other people out?

sweat lodge?

waterfall and flowers

sign said no RV’s or Busses…

a great place to hike, very peaceful and serene. and one new bird!

Met up with Ray for a drink and dinner then off to the Thursday night street fair. Beautiful night to be out walking around.

Saturday: off to Salton Sea for a bird walk in the early am. got one more new bird.. gulls are very hard for us to identify, so happy someone knew them.. time to celebrate the Winter Solstice….

first stop was to a brewery in Thousand Palms: