Day 2317

Tuesday February 7th 2024

Dear Journal:

We woke up to more rain falling this morning, and a forecast of rain for the next couple of days, the cloud cover was still blocking many of the mountain views but as we sat enjoying a cup of coffee watching the Phoenix area news in another time zone. Yes we when we crossed into California we moved from the Mountain time zone into the Pacific time zone which had us up very early for the day. This morning we are walking over to Mary & Julie’s where Miss Laurie has volunteered to prepare omelets for everyone, so here we are carrying two shopping bags full of equipment and supplies walking through the park. Bagels, omelets and coffee of course with a wee Irish blessing was enjoyed by all, the main topic of discussion this morning was about the sex life of a date or something similar. Miss Julie has been talking about this since we first started to plan our California excursion.

The plan is after breakfast we will walk back to the coach and prepare for an adventure to a date farm in Palm Springs, followed by an adventure to the Salton Sea, and a early dinner at another favorite spot in Palm Springs. We walked back to Thunder and changed in preparation for todays adventures, and there were even a few peaks of the sun through the cloud cover and we got the opportunity to see some of the surrounding snow covered mountains. A few moments later our ride had arrived and we were headed back into Palm Springs.

First stop on our list was “Shields Date Garden” and of course the movie of the theater “The Romance & Sex life of the Date“, the title even today make raise an eye brow or two, but imagine the talk back in 1951 when the movie first started to play. Oh the movie has had some revisions since it first started but I have to admit it was educational for someone like myself that had no idea that producing dates was such a labour intense task. And while the dates that were for sale would not fall into the inexpensive category the quality was excellent from the few that we did purchase.

The next adventure was kind of a last minute choice, but the Salton Sea is a very unique spot, located in Southern California, and has a history that just leaves your head spinning as you read it. First and foremost the Salton Sea is at an elevation of -236 feet , it is only 43 feet deep and today is slowly drying up, just as it had centuries ago. The history is both amazing and sad, a story of so many mistakes over decades the worst of which happened in the early 1900’s when the Colorado River broke through an irrigation canal and flowed into the valley unrestricted for two years, flooding everything in the valley, like a salt mine, train station and and multiple other businesses. Then since the flood in the early 1900’s, mid century the lake became a tourist destination with resorts and boating until it became toxic from farm runoff killing birds and fish. Now it is a salty toxic cesspool that is surrounded by defunct businesses and some fertile farmland. We only drove to the Northern end of Salton Sea and parked in a parking lot of a abandon boat launch which is now hundreds of yards from the sea, we walked down to the edge of the water (some of us closer than others) but found the dried lake bottom to be covered with barnacles and of course it has become a dumping ground for what ever junk was too expensive for people to have removed. So desks, mattresses. tires and the like are now part of the aura that is the Salton Sea, kind of a smelly place to visit.

After our excursion to the Salton Sea we headed back into Rancho Mirage to our dinner spot, Enzo’s Bar & Bistro for Happy Hour, authentic Italian fare prepared fresh daily, with a nice wine selection and creme Brule for desert

As we were making our way back to the resort someone suggested going to a Mexican Bakery in which was just a few miles from the resort, a good time to go to a bakery when everyone is full from dinner, but there were still a number of purchases made even with a full tummy.

We were dropped off at our coach and the plan was that we would walk over for a glass of wine after we got cleaned up. The issue of this evenings get together was that we sampled some of the items that we purchased at the Mexican bakery is that it left us wanting more.

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