Author: The Buchanans Rolling Down The Road

What can be said, about a crusty old curmudgeon, with no fixed address … not much I guess.

Day 2318

Wednesday February 7th 2024

Dear Journal:

We were up early this morning, as we have moved into a different time zone at the California state line, and while we are still streaming Arizona television we are going to enjoy a cup of perked coffee and a wee Irish blessing, while we wait for the clock. As we closed in on the a lotted time Miss Laurie has gathered up everything required to make more omelets and some blessing for the coffees. We have a plan to explore some areas very close to the resort today, the resort actually sits on or very close to the San Andrea’s fault line which runs almost the total length of California. The line between the North American plate and the Pacific plate and along the actual fault line there are numerous oasis where water comes to the surface and forms small pockets supporting trees and wildlife, but first thing first and we walk across the park for breakfast with Mary & Julie. The clouds have given away to some blue skies this morning and here are the views from our campsite.

We are heading to an oasis just a few miles from the resort, and it is an amazing site to see, a huge cluster of palm trees growing in the middle of the desert, not common as palms need an abundance of moisture to grow and survive. This is a common sight along the San Andreas fault line that runs right through this area of California, it also explains all of the springs in the area both hot and cold. This particular oasis was damaged by the flooding that occurred the year before when California experienced excessive rainfall, so there were areas that were still closed to us, as the clean up is still underway

Next we ventured to “Cabot’s Pueblo Museum” an adventure that is close to impossible to explain, and it is not often that I have said that. In the simplest of descriptions the “museum” is a collection of junk that the “artist” salvaged from all over, and then he built a Pueblo style structure using his findings either to build or furnish the museum.

This is an excerpt from the website:

Cabot Yerxa began building the pueblo in 1941, when he was 58 years old. The pueblo was to be a museum and home for Cabot and his wife, Portia.

The Hopi-inspired building is hand-made and created from reclaimed and found materials from throughout the Coachella Valley. Cabot used recovered lumber from his original homestead. Additionally, he purchased abandoned cabins and dismantled them to use the materials for the pueblo, going so far as to straighten out used nails. Much of the pueblo is made from adobe-style and sun-dried bricks.

Filled with Native American art and artifacts, souvenirs of Cabot’s travels around the world, and Cabot’s own works of art, the museum officially opened to the public in 1950. The Pueblo has four stories, is 5,000 square feet and includes 35 rooms, 150 windows, 30 rooflines, and 65 doors

We took the guided tour, and the docent did a wonderful job of explaining how the museum had been built and pointed out many items that had obviously been salvaged from different sights and areas of the country. He also gave insight into Cabot’s history and family background, even though we walked through the museum which was also his home, it would be easy to understand just how eccentric he had been. The site would qualify for the term “tourist trap” but the quirky nature of it left me is some ah, of what he had created in the last decade of his life.

Well it is now lunch time, well at least a late lunch, after some discussion the decision was made to have some shrimp tacos at Del Taco. This is a restaurant chain in California that offers 2 jumbo shrimp tacos for $6, a special that makes it close to the pricing we experienced in the Baja, very good taste and value, unless you have experienced the Baja. Now whether planned or just coincident the Mexican bakery La Abuelita which just happened to be across the street, safe to say we made a second visit to the bakery before calling it a day and heading back to the campground.

Blog 513

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.

Blog 512