It looks like today I'll be taking it easy, just because I can. I'm feeling good today but how often do you have a valid excuse to loaf? Lou fixed French toast and served the leftover sausage and cheese omelet for breakfast.
We took a trip downtown to dump our always growing trash pile, go to the post office, fill some drinking water bottles, stop by a craft shop, and visit the hardware store for some window screen fabric.
I recorded all the Liar's Contest speakers and sent the disk to Dawn. She'll probably become a liar as well.
We have some little critters that have been getting into the RV at night when the lights on and it's dark outside. I guess they like to read after the sun sets so they come in to the light. We think we found the point of entrance, a few little holes in one of the window screens so that's now on the agenda to get fixed, hopefully before dark.
For lunch we ate the smoked sausage, tomato, bell and red peppers, and onion salad that Lou had prepared for our lunch after a planned hike yesterday that didn't happen.
The rest of the day was spent doing our usual tinkering at home on dolls and computers. Lou fixed a smoked pork chop with brown rice and fresh asparagus for dinner.
Friday: (04/09) Breakfast was leftover brown rice with yogurt and honey.
We were up early and drove out to the Tamarisk Grove to hike. The campground there is closed during the week but the trees provide a nice shady place to park. We hiked the Cactus Loop Trail, a short 1 mile loop trail up and around a hill with a nice variety of cacti, many in bloom.
The hedgehog flowers are nice, especially next to the cactus spines.
We also hiked out the Yaqui Well Trail.
Can you believe it, there were flowers there too? The cactus on the right has interesting tiny blossoms.
More hedge hog and yucca flowers.
The trail was nice. There were some yellow butterflies along this stretch of the trail.
This trail was about 1.6 mile out to an old watering hole. It's mostly dry now but still green. We continued on a little ways passing some interesting dead trees.
We scampered up this hill but the trail disappears at the top so we considered this the end.
There were lots of flowers on the hill going up but on top there was mostly cholla cacti. I like the mixed flowers like on the left above.
The most significant think about this hike was that we got to see our first rattle snake, though we've been quite happy missing them. The trail is one way out and we had already passed by where the snake was going out but I noticed its tail laying across the trail as I approached. It had five rattles. I'm cautious with snakes but rattles make me even more so. It didn't move on and evidently was comfortable with its tail on the trail. We were looking for an alternate path but none was easily available. When we heard some other hikers approaching we returned to warn them. The male hiker just walked on through since the tail was now gone. The female hiker was thinking more like us and hesitant. Finally Lou reminded me that we had already passed by the bush on the way out and the snake was probably there then as well so I hopped past and Lou walked through and we were on our way without incident. At our old Kripple Kreek campsite our neighbors reported several rattler sightings near our campsite but we never saw them. Also this was our first sighting in our many years of RV camping.
We returned to the car via the dirt road through a free camping area just West of the closed Tamarisk Campground. It was quicker than the trail but not as interesting.
We returned to our campsite for lunch of leftovers Swedish meat balls, tomato pepper and sausage salad, potato salad and some grapes. After lunch it was shower time.
After my shower I decided to take a nap but that was disrupted by another spell with the Pesky Pebble which evidently decided to move again. It bothered me for another three hours than subsided. I hope this isn't a regular afternoon delight.
For dinner Lou fixed stir fry noodles with tofu, mushrooms and vegetables.
Saturday: (04/10) Breakfast was leftover French Toast with bacon. We headed out around 9am toward Ocotillo Wells, Southeast of where we are on Highway 78. We had not been to this area yet. Frankly, not much there unless you are in to ATV and off roading. Lots of dust there.
We stopped at an Estate sale on the way and Lou found a cutting board that she can use to replace our sink cover in the RV.
We took the Split Mountain Road from there down into more of the Anza Borrego Desert Park.
We drove out a nice dirt road to the Wind Cave Trail. The white wash above left is the road. The hike was only two miles round trip up to see some holes in the sandstone rock. of course, there were flowers there as well and some good views of the Badlands of the park.
Interesting rocks to relax in. On the right above is a view from above the caves looking out over the badlands.
More flowers here too.
There seems to be a lot of variations on a theme.
I think this is the Elephant Knees in the badlands. The road went on but we didn't. It looked like the road was getting too sandy for our well being so we returned to the paved road.
We also considered going to see the elephant trees, a rare tree, but it would have been out another road that looked too sandy for us, as well, so we continued East on Highway 78 to Salton City and had lunch at the Travertine Grill there. Very nice steak and eggs for Lou and chicken fried steak and eggs for me. We then returned home on Highway S22.
Sunday: (04/11) Oatmeal with bananas for breakfast.
Laundry day today. We were at the laundromat by 0810, the first customers so we had enough machines. It's a small laundromat so we filled over half the washers with our six loads. After we finished our work, we stopped at Carmelita's Restaurant for deep fried ice cream for lunch.
When we returned home, I worked on our taxes enough to prepare extension forms.
I cut Lou's cutting board to fit the sink and she attacked the feet. It looks much better than the old one which had lots of cuts. Odd for a cutting board.
Dinner was salmon with brown rice and asparagus.
Monday: (04/12) It was a bit stormy this morning.
Don McMuffins for breakfast. After breakfast we went downtown to the Post office to mail our letters to the IRS then returned to camp. We were hooked up and ready to pullout in no time heading East on Highway S22 toward Salton City. We stopped at the AM/PM service station to use their free dump and fill our water. We then headed North on Highway 86 a short distance to the Red Earth Casino. We looked around thought about having lunch there but decided to fix our own in the RV. Lou fixed grilled jalapeno loaf and pepperjack cheese sandwiches. After lunch we hit the road again stopping in Indio at the Winco Supermarket. We stocked up then got gas and hopped on I10 Eastbound to the BLM camping area outside the South entrance to Joshua Tree National Park. We picked out a nice spot then Lou fixed a stir fry dinner.
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