Fiesta of food fuels feeding frenzy……

March 2 - 10, 2008
Two of our closest friends, the Bobs flew down to Palm Springs for a five day winter sojourn. The younger of them is not yet retired (poor guy) so that’s all the time they could afford. We cheerfully anticipated the change of pace their visit would bring and I promised myself I wouldn’t veer away from my healthy eating pattern - - - easier said than done; those two are gourmands and the temptations became irresistible.

We pulled out of Yuma just as a sandstorm percolated and it worsened as we drove west; the freeway became a ‘yellow-out’ (as opposed to a white-out). We crawled along with little visibility and sudden blasts rocked poor Maggie and sent her veering off to the shoulder. We closed all the hatches as the smell of dusty sand parched our throats and tickled our noses. What a relief when we turned north and the storm abated. As we skirted the Salton Sea, the sky was blue again and only a ripple of wind marred the surface of the lake. We planted ourselves for the night at the Fantasy Springs Casino and when we found we’d lucked into a strong Wifi connection from the adjacent Holiday Inn, we didn’t venture out that evening at all.


While in Yuma, we were bombarded by leaflets promising ‘five days and four nights free camping’ at a membership RV Resort. “Just allow us to show you a 90 minute presentation” - the usual timeshare come-on. We had intended to perch at the Morongo Casino just a few miles outside Palm Springs for the time the Bobs would be in town but we figured we could afford an hour and a half to stay at a swanky resort - something we just don’t usually do. We chose the Desert Pools in Desert Hot Springs and Fernie made a reservation.

As we pulled in to Desert Pools about 10:30am, we were amused at the participatory groups huddled together at different play stations - men only at the horseshoe pitch, women only doing water aerobics in the swimming pool, others playing tennis and badminton, and folks riding by on their bicycles and golf carts waving a hearty ‘hello’. It all looked like a well-staged advertisement in its robotic Stepford community way.
“We’ve slotted you in for your 90-minute presentation on Wednesday at 11:30am” chirped the perky hostess who signed us in and allocated our RV site. She gave us a pile of info sheets and brochures and warned us “Now, don’t miss the lasagne dinner tonight ----- you’ll find your weekly program in here; it‘ll give you all the details”. If one participated in all the fun and games, you’d be busy from morning to night.

When we first pulled in to our site, it seemed alright but there were two empty sites either side of us. Later on when they filled up, we had our first taste of staying at a cooperative community where RV’s are parked ‘cheek by jowl’ with no privacy; with window open, we had to speak quietly so we wouldn’t be overheard by our neighbours. We took a stroll around later on and were shocked to find we’d been placed in the ‘premium, more spacious sites - as potential purchasers of their expensive memberships. Many of the spots were so small that RV slide outs were only a couple of feet apart and their rear bumpers almost touched each other. “Did we partake in the myriad of games, events and amenities?” Well………No! we’re not really the pickle-ball type (Actually, I never did find out what pickle ball was). We only participate in such stuff at family reunions. I guess we’re loners; we prefer to be geocaching or hiking in the mountains or sightseeing.


“Call us at noon” we’d instructed the Bobs, figuring Maggie’d be settled in and we’d be ready to explore by then. So we waited and waited but no phone call. Tired of waiting, we headed into Palm Springs hoping to find them at their hotel.
“You just missed them” drawled the lone desk clerk intent on watching a video on his TV set “they went out to lunch - they tried to phone you”. The phone hadn’t been out of our possession so we guessed they’d got the number wrong. Oh, well! We knew their habits so we wandered down Palm Canyon Drive looking for a ‘patio’ restaurant of which there were many . Eventually, just as we expected, there they were in a canopied swinging booth on a palm tree shaded patio, beer, wine and tapas spread out before them. We quickly slid in beside them, ordered some drinks and nibbled on their tapas, happily whiling away a couple of hours while we caught up on each others’ news. The binging had begun.

Normally, I wouldn’t have been allowed into their small hotel; it’s a men only, clothing optional facility. But the Bobs were the only guests - so in I went announcing “Woman aboard” to the man on duty, just in case he decided to shed his clothes but he seemed unperturbed and went back to watching his video. We sat under the palms beside the pool and planned out our week - with a bottle of wine, of course.


Wining and dining is the top priority when we’re with the Bobs and my diet went out the window. Good thing they were only with us for four days. Last November when we travelled together for two weeks, I put on five pounds. We were ethnically diverse in our meals - Spanish tapas, Thai cuisine, Italian, a Manhattan deli and a great little bar for half price martinis one evening and half price premium wine the next, paired with gourmet flatbreads. Between meals and happy hours; we visited The Living Desert, a combination cactus garden/wildlife sanctuary; we soared up Mount Jacinto in the aerial tram from desert to the snow topped peaks; we packed a picnic lunch and toured through Joshua Tree National Park.


Wednesday morning was the dreaded ‘90 minute presentation’. As the meeting wasn’t until 11:30, we decided to do our laundry arriving at the Laundromat just before 8am, tossing our stuff into three of the four machines. A couple of minutes later, a miserable looking husband/wife duo came in and grunted audibly about us using all the machines. Now - do you think anyone would dare to that in a public Laundromat? Arriving back 25 minutes later to transfer our clothes to the dryers, I was glared at by the dour woman and she shoved in front of me before I had a chance to pickup my basket of wet laundry and she started shoving her clothes into the machine. “Excuse me” I said “I can’t reach my basket”
“Hrmph!” she snorted but I ignored the nasty tone and reached across her for my basket, angering her further. We tossed all our clothes into the dryers and when we returned 40 minutes later there were a trio of unhappy, complaining women waiting for us ----- we grabbed our still rolling clothes out and headed outa there. Who needs this grief! I wonder what it is about this lifestyle that appeals to the masses.

“Hi, I’m June” said the authoritative fiftyish woman as we sat waiting for our ‘90 minute presentation’ and the subsequent hard-sell. A strong handshake and a toothy smile warned us that this was our ‘vulture’.
“Have you enjoyed our park?” asked June
“We really haven’t seen much of it” we answered
“What about the pool?”
“We haven’t seen it yet”
“Did you enjoy the dinner?”
“We didn’t go to the dinner”
She looked perplexed.

“Did you fill out the questionnaire?” she asked and we passed it to her. She beckoned us to follow her into the ‘Presentation’ room. Reading over the multiple choice survey, she looked puzzled and asked “Now I’m wondering - - - why is it that you’re here?”
The questions had three options:
A - very important
B - somewhat important
C - not at all important
Out of twenty questions, we’d only marked one as important “Pets allowed” and one as somewhat important. The rest of them such as pot luck dinners, pool games, bus trips, full hook-ups, group sightseeing, and so forth we’d marked as ‘C’ not at all important. So to answer her honestly I said “We were bombarded by people handing us the flyers and suggesting we try it”.
“But, I don’t understand - you’ve marked most of these questions ‘C’.”
“We are boondockers” we answered “we enjoy the outdoors, the freedom and the space and our motor home is self-contained and solar equipped”.
“I don’t want to knock your lifestyle but when we retired with our RV, we wanted comforts and amenities - hot water on demand and a pounding shower, organized events, social encounters. We didn’t want to ‘rough’ it.“ She sputtered.
“I don’t want to knock your lifestyle, but we couldn’t stand the lack of privacy and wouldn’t participate in organized games and trips and we do manage to shower daily” I returned pleasantly. “We’ve noticed throughout our years of travelling the world that there are some who insist on 5 star hotels and restaurants and organized bus tours while we prefer the B&B’s and local eateries, meeting the locals and wandering the back alleys - this is somewhat the same and this is just not our bag”
Five minutes had passed and she got up “I think we’d be wasting each other’s time if we continued” she said and I nodded agreement. “Well, enjoy the rest of your stay” she said as she ushered us out - a total of seven minutes.
YIPPEE! I guess I handled that right - honesty is the best policy ………. And we were off to enjoy the day up Mount Jacinto.

7:30am what I consider an ungodly hour, we were awoken by a tittering of distressed voices. What on earth was going on? We closed the windows and tried to go back to sleep to no avail. When Fernie took Caesar out for his morning constitutional, he found out what the fuss was all about.
“There’s been an oil spill” screeched an elderly gent and the gaggle of his clones clucked their assent of the dire circumstances. Fernie hung around the perimeter of the ever-growing crowd and finally deciphered what had happened. A mobile oil-change service had neglected to tighten the oil cap on the auto he’d worked on and as the ‘lady’ owner drove out, a puddle of oil spewed from her engine leaving about a couple of cupfuls of oil on the gravel roadway. “Woe is me!”
9:30am - The Bobs were picking us up so we sat out front of our motor home in our lounge chairs waiting for them. A man and wife strolled up the road and came to a grinding halt in front of us. The frail but antagonistic man looked right at me and in an accusatory tone barked “Are you the ‘lady’ who dumped the oil?” and he pointed to a dried out streak across the gravel which stretched from our neighbours across the front of our driveway and over to my car.
I was not friendly when I replied “That was there before we arrived”
“Look, it’s right under your car” he pursued.
Fernie jumped in then….when he noticed my fists clenched ready to pop the old geezer right on his nose….and he pleasantly explained it wasn’t us. I don’t think they believed us even then. I turned my back on them - we don’t belong here!

The sporadic rain in January and February enticed the desert plants into a growth spurt and the resulting multi-coloured carpet of flowers across the desert floor in Joshua Tree National Park was glorious - purple, yellow and white predominated. We packed a succulent picnic lunch and a bottle of shiraz and puttered through the park stopping to walk among the flowers, ocotillos, chollas and Joshua trees. It was a long day and by the time we arrived back to Caesar, Fernie and I were too tired to venture into town that evening to the weekly street fair market. We’d been to it several times before so I didn’t feel I was missing anything (that’s a problem with me - I have to see it all).





It seemed the Bobs had just arrived but it was already time for them to leave and go back to work. At least their short stay kept my weight gain to a minimum. It made us realize how wonderful it was to be retired - free and unencumbered and able to travel at our whim.

Some days it seems that everything goes wrong. It’s a strange phenomenon but problems always come in multiples. It started well - the sun was shining, we were leaving the ‘prison’ of Desert Pools and we looked forward to a few days of vegging out at Corvina Beach on the shores of the Salton Sea.


I’d read about a new casino, the Red Earth in Thermal just south of Indio; it was apparently RV friendly according to their website. But we never did find it. The address took us to the middle of a terrifically grungy native reservation - no casino, just the tribal offices. Vicious looking dogs prowled freely between the multitude of decrepit mobile homes so we just cruised on by - the Salton Sea beckoned.

“Highway 111 south to the Salton Sea is closed” announced the large flashing signs and barricades didn’t even allow room for local traffic to pass.
“Never mind - there are several decent back roads through the orchards that we can take” I declared after scrutinizing ‘Streets and Trips’. But one after another were barricaded - no traffic was going south today. The main rail line runs along the side of the highway so we pondered if there’d been a train derailment or perhaps a chemical spill seeing as how they’d sealed it off so tightly. So our dreams of basking on the Salton Sea were dashed.


“Never mind” I soothed Fernie who was getting exasperated from all the driving down curvy and narrow roads. I suggested that instead we go to the Blue Water Casino in Parker on the Colorado River. Maybe a night of Texas Holdem would pacify him. We escaped through picturesque Box Canyon back up to I10 and veered northeast at Desert Centre for a pleasant quiet drive up to Parker arriving about 4pm. But the RV parking area was stacked with Toy Haulers and weekend warriors pulling ATV’s and off-road motorbikes and the only space vacant was way too far from level. Back up towards the highway, we noticed a motor home out in the desert - so that’s what we did and we had a lovely quiet evening. So as it started, the day ended - well!


Still wanting a spot to just veg out for a few days, we decided to try Craggy Wash just north of Lake Havasu and we found the ‘sublime’ camping spot - craggy hills, mountains, trees, wildflowers, space, privacy - it was deliciously perfect and we spent more time lounging, writing and reading over the next three days than we’d had since we left home. Why would anyone want Desert Pools when they could have this ‘Garden of Eden’.