And here we are, in Desert Hot Springs, basically having made full circle from where we started, a mere ten (yes, TEN) years ago, it's unbelievable but true!
But what a ride it has been! The things we have seen!
(Jeez, I sound like Dr. Seuss!)
Nine years ago (4/19/01) we were on our way to our second camp-host job in Gold Beach, OR, and camped at Caliente Springs, this campground's 'sister' park, a couple miles down the road. This is how we looked:

And here we are today. Same difference! I think we still look pretty good for such an old rig!



The same mountain is still sitting in the background there .. duhhh

A little less snow than in '11 though, this spring has been very hot so far up here.
Like it's sister, Sky Valley RV Resort is a pretty park, lots of mature palms and colorful landscaping:

Spring is already in full swing over here, like Arizona, these southern states go pretty much straight into summer after a couple of weeks of warming up in March.

That's the RV there at the top left amidst those blazing magenta Bougainvilleas! They're like weeds down here, same as the Lantana and Oleander ..

Both parks are very popular for their mineral hot springs (13 springs on each property!), and we've spent some leisure time soaking in the balmy hot water of the pool (90F) and the hot tubs (104F!).

 

                                       

There's also a few ponds .. always nice to see a little water in the desert ..

And of course it attracts all kinds of birds and water fowl ..

          

The day after we arrived it was Easter. It's not a Holiday we 'do' much about but some eggs are usually involved and I always try to decorate a little with some spring flowers and so on. Being in the desert there wasn't much available this year though, so I had to do with the outside cacti ..

                    

At least the French toast for breakfast got spruced up a little by 'Peeps' ..



The one thing Caliente does have, but this park is lacking, is a little 9 hole executive golf course. We played it 9 years ago, and went for a repeat this time around ..

The rest of the week, in between playing golf at several different courses in the area (Palm Springs has 150 golf courses!), we checked out a whole bunch of RV Parks and Mobile Home parks to see if any could be contenders for future winter destinations.
We've ruled the obvious bad ones out and took down the info on the ones we liked. 

It will be at least two years before James will be licensed, so we won't be back until than, but we at least have a rough idea of where we want to be or, even more important, where not.
We're even debating renting one of the park-models that are popping up in all parks, it might be a cheaper way to go than bringing the RV down or even buying a second RV to park down here. Well see!

Like I mentioned, the weather has been unusually hot for this time of the year (of course, just our luck), but worse than that, it has been very, very windy.
Apparently the months of April and May are notorious for high winds and they aren't kidding!From our arrival on Saturday until now we've had constant winds of 25-30 miles/hr with gusts of 40-50.

 And. It. Just. Doesn't. Stop! All Day, all night!

Aaaarrrgghh!

Can you see the wind moving these palms?

Oh well, two more days to go, I'll survive. We'll be back on the road on Saturday! Next stop: somewhere midway California.

See you on the road!