On Sunday, the day after Christmas, we drove from Manteca, CA to Bakersfield, CA. A very uneventful drive. Just the way we like it. The next morning we woke up earlier than normal and thought we would have an early start. But…a tire air pressure sensor wasn’t working. It was on the same tire that went flat a couple weeks earlier because of a screw in it. The tire monitoring system was installed by Camping World and we were in their parking lot. Problem… it is Sunday and we would have to lay over a day to have it checked out. Lanny worked on it and got it working. Thankfully it wasn’t the tire that was the problem. He also phoned two gas stations to make sure we could drive thru with our motor home towing a car. We were assured that it was possible. NOT!!! Then the GPS took a thru a neighborhood to get us back on track. We decided to skip gas and just find the freeway. Then just before the on ramp we spotted a station with diesel and room for us to get in and out. The pumps were set up for cars and could only let us have $75 worth of gas at a time. And… the pump would only take our credit card twice so we were not able to fill the tank. Maybe we should get gas at truck stops only. We got on the freeway and just got up to speed when we heard a new noise. We quickly realized that the local antenna was up. Urch! We stopped on the shoulder with flashers on and fixed that problem. Lost a lot of time just getting started today.
We traveled over Tehachapi pass. The drive from Bakersfield to the mountains had lots of orange tree orchards. Then an occasional oil well. After that came the first Joshua trees. Then we were in the mountains and above the snow line at times. As we were descending out of the mountains we could see the great Mojave Desert ahead of us for miles. That is when the multi-lane highway ended and became two lanes until we got to the San Bernadino area.
Normally, Sunday is a pretty good day to travel, but it is the end of Christmas weekend and the next day is a work day. LOTS of traffic. Twice during the day we stopped on the shoulder to check an RV tire and a car tire. The traffic through San Bernadino area was heavy and the roads there were terrible. Karen (the lady in the GPS) doesn’t always give enough warning. One time we were in the right lane of six lanes when she announces that we are to stay left in .8 of a mile. The outside three lanes were going in the direction we wanted to go. Lanny then had less than .8 of a mile to change lanes three times in heavy traffic with a rig almost 60 feet long. He made it. Whew!
When we finally got to the RV park they told us our reservation had been cancelled. They had expected us the day before and had cancelled us as no-shows. We had to wait for quite a while, but the man at the gate was able to get us in. By the time we found a site and got parked, the sun dropped behind the mountains. A day full of events. Glad to be settled in for awhile.
We stayed in Palm Desert for three weeks. It was perfect weather. In the 70’s every day with only one windy day. The park put on a New Year’s Eve party that was pretty good. They had live music, food, and dancing. Lots of decorations. You would think that all these “old” folks would be back in their RV’s asleep by 9:00 pm but the place was packed. I guess they have REAL reason for celebrating a new year. 
Chuck and Dollie came and spent two days with us. We watched the Ducks play in the Rose Bowl and went to Shield’s Date Farm. We all had date milk shakes and they were verrry rich. We saw Ernie and Shirley a couple times. Sharon and Bob spent two days with us. Sharon went with us to the Living Desert. We played cards late and slept in. Allen and Janet stayed in the park for three days. We went to a casino for dinner one night and played table games each evening. They introduced us to Connie and Scott who we got together with a couple times and played table games.
One morning I went to a water color painting class that was fun. There was table pool in the afternoons and Lanny went several times.
One day we drove to Pioneer Town. Pioneer Town was built in 1946 as a movie set for western movies, including movies with Gene Autry, Cisco Kid, Annie Oakley, Range Rider, Buffalo Bill, Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy. The movie set provided a place for the actors to live, and have their homes used as part of a movie set. A lot of it has disappeared but it was still interesting.
Another day we looked up the Elvis Presley Estate and arrived just as the sun set. We got pictures with light and then some night pictures with the lights of Palm Springs in the background.
"On April 14th, 1970, Elvis and Priscilla Presley closed escrow on their Palm Springs desert dream home. Along with their two-year-old daughter, Lisa Marie, the Presley’s moved into the only property they ever owned in this internationally famous southern California city Today, this sprawling 5100 square foot mansion situated on nearly two prime desert acres located high up in a popular area of north Palm Springs, has been designated as an historic property. By law, the Presley home must be maintained as it was when Elvis himself first walked through the front door of this spectacular trophy estate.” I have a cousin, Jacksie, (she and my mom were first cousins) that lives in Cathedral City. She has a wealth of information about family trees. I went three afternoons to her house. She shared a lot of information about the family tree that we share.
We had a great time in Palm Desert and it went waaay too fast.
