Diary for Harry and Judy's RV Trip


Day 24- June 18, 2016-To Palms Springs, CA

2016-06-18

Day 24-June 18, 2016-To Palm Springs, CA

Temp was 111 today, but they say it’ll be hotter tomorrow!  We got messages on our phones “Excessive Heat Warning” and “Extreme Heat”.

We got into California about 5 minutes after we left, that’s how close we were to the border.  We had to go through the agricultural inspection station but they only asked if we had pets or plants.  Then up the road a bit we went through a border patrol inspection station.  Drove through miles and miles of sand dunes.

When we were planning this trip we had two choices after Tucson. 1.  Get on I-8 to Yuma and go to southern California (Ramona, Escondido) for a few days or 2.  Stay on I-10, go to Palm Springs first and then southern CA.  We opted for #1 but we stayed too long in Tucson and don’t have any days to spare before going to Palm Springs.  But we didn’t realize that yesterday when we went to Yuma so today we had to change course and go north on route 111 from El Centro to Palm Springs.  But it worked out well.  It’s the first time this trip we’ve stayed off interstates and now we know why.  We’ve been in the middle of the desert for days now and all of a sudden everything was lush and green.  Route 111 goes through Imperial Valley, one of the richest farm areas in the world.  They grow a lot of winter vegetables, melons, lettuce, tomatoes, cotton and hay, hay, hay.  A lot of the area is below sea level and they irrigate from the Colorado River.  We stopped in Westmoreland for a date shake (we’d heard about date ice cream from people we met in Austin).  This was a small shop with everything “dates” under the sun.  A truck carrying two trailers of white onions passed us on the road and we smelled onions for a few miles.  And then the date palm trees came into view.  Miles and miles of them, all with dates hanging on them.  Some of the date clusters were wrapped with white mesh, don’t know why, but I’ll try to find out.  Maybe so they don’t fall on the ground or maybe to help them ripen?  Passed by the Salton Sea, which looked like a large lake in the middle of the desert.  Next big city we passed was Coachella, we’ll probably see more of that during our week here.  Go to the condo early, had to wait about half an hour to get the key and unpack the RV.  There’s no room to park the RV on the premises so we parked it around the corner.  Came back, jumped in the pool which is right behind our unit.  Had dinner and settled in.  Condo is a 2-bedroom, 2-bath, plus a Murphy bed.  Two bikes in the garage we can use.  Washer/dryer, Weber grill, nice patio and all the comforts of home.  We should be very comfortable here for the next week.  Harry noticed a big nail in one of the truck tires so we’ll have to find a tire store to fix it on Monday.