Palm Springs, Palm Desert CA 1/31/12 - 2/14/12

After being in the desert boondocking for a few days, it was nice to get back into a park with all of the conveniences--water, sewer, electricity, swimming pool, laundry room, etc.

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Palm Springs Park, in Desert Palms, CA, is one of our favorite parks. Even though some of the sites are tight, it always has a lot of activities going on and everyone always seems so friendly

I think that one of most fascinating things about the Palm Desert Park are the palm trees.  It is actually a working palm date farm.  The trees are harvested every year (they ask all RVers to leave the park during that time) and then they sell the dates at the Park.  We get to use all of the water we want to wash rigs and water the lawns because it is classified as agriculture.

Terry is showing off his pretty red Hippo parked among the palm trees in front of the Club House.

We had made plans with our friends, Elaine and Larry, from Boring, OR, to meet up with us at Palm Springs.  After staying with us for two weeks last year, they bought a yearly zone pass into Thousand Trails are are trying out this lifestyle for the first time in their little Minnie Winnie motorhome.  We plan to travel together for the next three months and help "show them the ropes!"

We always enjoy the little "resident" roadrunners at Palm Springs.  This one is quite friendly and wants to join us for lunch!

 We did a craft sale with Scentsy and Elaine joined in with some of her unique knitted scarfs that she makes.  It is a fun way to get to know some of the people and, of course, it is always nice to sell a little.

We went with Larry and Elaine on a little excursion trip one day.  First we went to the Salton Sea.  It is a body of water that collects all of the run-off from the mountains and from the irrigation around it and then just sits there and evaporates.  It has quite a bit of salt in it, but flows no where.  There is some recreation and fishing done on it.

Larry, Terry, and I stand on the beach with sand composed of barnacles all broken up.

There are always a lot of dead fish along the banks.  They die from suffocation because there is not enough oxygen in the water.  This is caused partly from plants in the water and also from no water flow going on.

Our next stop were the mud pots.  We had to travel out a ways and on quite a bit of dirt road.  Once we got there, there wasn't much to see, with Terry, me, and Larry standing on the walkway.

There were a few large mud holes, but no mud was being spit out that day.

Our next spot was a place called Salvation Mountain.  It was built by a man who came from back East.  He believes that he has a calling to let everyone know about Jesus Christ.  He has covered this hill with cement and adobe clay and then paints messages, scenery, and quotes scriptures on it. 

He started this quest in his 30's and is now in his 80's.  He wasn't home the day we visited.  It would have been fun to meet and talk with him.  He has several vehicles/homes parked around, and they are also painted and written on.

We weren't sure which one he actually lives in.

On one side of the hill, he has built a type of museum.

There were trees on that side and he has used them as a foundation and has put bails of hay up in the limbs and covered everything with adobe clay and then paint.  In some places there are quite a few layers of paint, even on the floor, making quite a thick coating.

From the inside, you can see where he continues to add bails of hay on the top, covers them with adobe clay, with the tree limbs supporting them, and then adds them to the decor.  This was an amazing place to see.

The last leg of our excursion took us to a date farm where we filled up on date samples.  Terry was the navigator.  He always tells me he cannot multi-task, but he does a pretty good job watching the map (bottom reading glasses), and also watching the road with his sunglasses keeping the glare out (top pair of glasses!)  It is really nice to have Larry and Elaine's little car to run around in.  They are so good to let us tag along.