Dec 20-28

We arrived in Desert Hot Springs (DSH), shortly before 1 on Saturday. We left Mickey and Fantasyland far behind as we settled into our new resort for 9 days over Christmas, Sands Golf and RV Resort. It is a nice resort with plenty of Canadian’s mainly from BC and Alberta. It has close to 500 sites, but I would say only 250-300 are occupied. Our friends the Hilliers would like it as it has a nice 9 hole golf course (5-par 4; 4 par 3).

The park occupants are quite friendly, as you would expect Canadian’s to be. They have a great pool and two large hot tubs that we have enjoyed all week. They also have 3 dog parks which Jazz has thoroughly enjoyed getting to chase her ball and also getting a chance to “sniff” the neighbors as they sniff her.

We weren’t sure what the climate might be like here and we have experienced quite a variable week. Two things for sure, we have not seen a drop of rain and every day has had clear blue skies. The first couple of days we had mid 60’s weather dropping to low 50 at night. Monday the temp was up to 80 with Tuesday around 75 then it started to decline on Christmas Eve – still in mid 60’s. The last few days have been in the mid 50’s and last night as we went to bed it was 34 deg out! There was more snow visible on the distant mountains this today. Besides that, the area has several hundred wind turbines….nope we didn’t miss that experience either! On Christmas Eve, the winds started up and continued for about a day and half. Well at 3 am on Christmas Eve, we still had our awning out ½ way so Kathy and I ventured out to put it away. It’s a good thing we did, as about ½ hour later the winds really picked up. The seasonal neighbors say this is quite common and it can last for 5-6 days with constant 60 mph winds. Now we know why the turbines were installed here.

On Tuesday we biked into DHS to check out what they had. A K-Mart, a couple of grocery stores, some fast food and Walgreens. That was about it. DHS is on a bus line about 8-10 miles away from Palm Springs, so it must be a bedroom community for the workers in Palm Springs – resorts, restaurants, stores.

On Wednesday, it was time for me to hit the links to see if I could find some birdies. I used a few loaner clubs on Monday at the driving range and fared OK, so I was hopeful for a better set when a played a round.  As it turned out, Christmas Eve morning was not busy at all so I was out solo for 9 holes. Hit the ball fairly well. After 1 ½ hours I decided I may as well pay for another 9 since I already had the rented clubs and went out for another solo taking about 1 ¼ hours. I think I will be set when Bryn and Melissa get here next week. Bryn golfs a lot more than I do!

Christmas Day in the afternoon, we joined about 90 other park residents and had a pot luck dinner at 2 in the afternoon. It had quite a selection of food and we ended up sitting beside another couple that had a lot in common with us. They were from the San Francisco Bay area and had just retired in October, bought a Class C motor home similar to ours, sold their home and where going full time RV’ing for 2 years. They were maybe a couple of years older than us. We had lots of interesting discussion.

On Saturday we decided we needed to explore Palm Springs to see what all the fuss has been about with movie stars, directors, producers and other rich elite creating this posh haven for the past 70 years. We biked to DHS leaving at 9:30 and put our bikes on the front of the bus (new experience) and a dollar and 30 minutes later we landed in downtown Palm Springs. We actually locked up the bikes and walked the main strip (Palm Canyon Drive), enjoyed a coffee in the sun watching the interesting mix of people and what they were wearing. Afterwards, we took one of the marked bike trails through the north end looking at many very unique and I’m sure expensive homes and estates. Beautiful streets! It was now 1:30pm so we biked back to the downtown and grabbed some lunch (Eggs Benny) at an outdoor café watching the crowds that had increased since the morning.  We caught a bus and arrived back home by 4:30 and Jazz was relieved to see us. Down to the dog park for some fun and “relief”! Palm Springs is a unique spot with the many top notch golf courses around and is certainly a beautiful setting. There is plenty of shopping for tourists and locals (highend art shops) who can afford these things. I guess it’s a great get away for the rich and famous to leave LA or other large suburban places behind. We’re quite happy with Lake Erie!

Sunday is our final day in DHS and there are many chores to be done prior to leaving tomorrow for a resort outside of San Diego for a week. Our son Bryn and his girlfriend Melissa are flying in tomorrow to San Diego to spend a week, so we are really looking forward to that. No doubt some sightseeing and golf will be on the agenda for the next week.

Until we meet at the perch again, keep squawking!

Oh and by the way, Happy New Year and all the best in 2015!!!!