Goodbye Palm Springs

It is great cleverness to know when to conceal one’s own cleverness..

There are plenty things to see and do in the Palm Springs area. We’ve done a lot of these things on our past visits. The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway is a fascinating journey from the valley floor to the top of the San Jacinto Mountains. We did that earlier this year with the Hyders. I’m a whimp and was scared to death going up. The ride is amazing though. The temperature in the desert was hot. The temperature at the top of the mountain was entirely different. Every place you looked there was deep, deep snow. Coming back down it wasn’t so bad and I could actually open my eyes. However, don’t wander off if you take the ride up. On the TV show, “I shouldn’t Be Alive” there was a story about a couple who ventured off after taking the tram up and couldn’t find their way back. You definitely don’t want to be featured on that show.

We’ve visited several of the museums around here, took an excursion to Joshua Tree National Park and even stayed at the Salton Sea. We’ve frequented the shops, spent time at the casinos and meandered along the streets during the Thursday night Villagefest.

Sometimes it’s fun to redo the adventures and sometimes it’s not. There are tours one could take but none we could do in half a day that we are interested in doing. Besides, in this heat we certainly wouldn’t leave Duchess in the motorhome all day.

I’ve often repeated that the Palm Springs Thousand Trails park was my absolute favorite. I love the pool. I love the hot tub. The staff are so friendly and the location just can’t be beat. We’ve been here several times in the past and always parked in nearly the same area. However, I do not remember it being as noisy in the past as it has been this time. It has been extremely noisy. Sure, the park is right next to the frontage road off the freeway. A train track is across the highway and seems to have more rumbling trains going down it than ever before. Sometimes you can feel the vibrations of the train just rocking the earth underneath.

Anyway, it was time to say goodbye to Palm Springs. It’s not that we couldn’t have stayed a little longer. We could have with our Platinum TTN membership but we were ready to leave California behind. There are a few things we would be happy to say “adios” to. For one the crowds and traffic got to us. Then, the bottle deposit was a little annoying. It didn’t matter what the advertised price of bottled water or soda or anything else in a bottle cost, you always needed to add the cost per bottle price. Fuel is expensive. The purchase of certain electronics no matter how small, also had an additional fee added to them for the eventual disposal in the state of California.

We pulled out of Palm Springs and California early. The ride was a short 124 miles putting us in Quartzsite, Arizona before noon. I can tell you this little town certainly looks different in November than it does in January when all the RV’ers converge on it. Even the RV park was pretty empty but it won’t be for long. Been here, done this. We’re off to Lake Havasu tomorrow to check out the London Bridge and the little mining town (or is it a ghost town) of Oatman.