As we close out 2021 and the travels for the year, we did our last trip to the town of Palm Springs California. We have a Time Share, and needed to "close it out" for the year as well, so a week over Christmas seemed like a fitting way to do that.
We have friends who have a second home in Palm Desert that invited us up early for a couple of days so that we could visit before we checked into our Time Share Condo. It had been a year since we had seen them, so it was really nice to be able to visit and just catch up. Other friends live just down the ways from them in their RV Resort, so all of us got together for breakfast the next day. They had moved into a new resort, so we all went over to their place afterward and "oohed and aahed" at how beautiful it was!
We quickly learned the challenges of eating out while here...seems Palm Springs has adopted the rule that one must show their COVID Vaccination ID to sit inside their restaurants, while all the other outlying towns only mandate that you wear a mask. Of course, we were staying in Palm Springs, which means we had to drive a half hour each time we wanted to eat (and it limited which restaurants). Annoying to say the least. On the plus side, we found new places we wouldn't have tried! ;-)
A couple of days after we checked in, my niece and nephew-in-law drove in from San Diego to visit with us for the day. He had some work to do during the day, so my niece and us just wandered around town and then that evening we all went to a nice dinner. Once again, wonderful to be able to see and catch up with them!
Some friends of ours from Happy Trails where we live, moved from here to a condo in Palm Desert, so we went to visit them in their new home. Very nice, and of course very different from living here. They had it completely remodeled, and had been living in dust and construction for months. We got to see the finished job, lucky us!
The following day we did a "sit in"...a lazy day of doing nothing! Jack read, I watched TV all day! Wow, can't remember the last time I've done that! It was a cloudy, cold day and we just didn't feel like going anywhere...so we didn't! Felt good! ;-) We did have lovely views from our window though...
Christmas, we were joined by our dear friends Kay and Everett, as we had in years past. We had found a lovely restaurant in El Mirage called Acqua California Bistro. What a wonderful meal! Four courses, with several choices each...all lovely...and no dishes to wash!
The last day there, we drove out to Borrego Springs Desert to see the metal sculptures at Galleta Meadows. We had been told about them from our friends and it sounded just the sort of place we like to venture out to. I found a map online that took us right up to them..wow, what a treat! We lucked out with the weather, and even though it was the holiday week, it wasn't to crowded. We stopped at almost every one of them (130). I ended up taking almost 60 pictures! What a wonderful find! An interesting back-story too. Seems that the owner of Avery Stationary hired an out of work welder (Ricardo Breceda) to promote Galleta Meadows Estate (land lots). I don't think the lots really took off, but the sculpture's fame did! Funny how things work out.
In spite of the ups and downs of the crazy weather and what seems to be the on-going COVID on-again-off-again restrictions, we managed to enjoy traveling this year. I was bound and determined to finally get to see the Gold Coast of Georgia and the Carolina's and we did, plus some. We not only got to see family but friends that we hadn't seen in many, many years. Even after having camped in all the lower 48 states, we still managed to find new places to discover, to camp and to enjoy, along with revisiting "old favorites. With all that said though, both us and our sweet RV are getting older and these cross-country trips have taken a toll on us. We did inform everyone this year that this is our last "long-haul" trip, that future ones are now on them. Time for them to come out west for a visit! We will continue to travel, but it will be closer to home, and shorter trips. Us, the RV and the truck all deserve it now...
We stayed at 41 campgrounds this year and drove over 9000 miles in the RV!
If you would like to see the rest of my photos, you can on my Flickr at https:/https://flickr.com/photos/74905158@N04/albums
