Road Trip to Arizona 2012: 5 days back in Desert Hot Springs

Tuesday, we left Saddle Mountain for Desert Hot Springs to enjoy a few more days of blue sky and sunshine before heading North. We traveled I-10 back through Quartzsite. The "Q" mountain that we climbed when we stayed there, looks so small next to the higher mountain ranges around. You have to look hard to find the Q just over the car.

Q Mountain, the little one in the distance

It looks bigger here and it sure seemed pretty high when we climbed it!

San Jacinto Mountain with snowabove the Coachella Valley

We stopped for a break at Chiriaco Pass near the Patton Museum for coffee. There were antique cars and a guy running the Visitor Center who wanted us to take him to Seattle to be a butler.

Desert travel

Palm trees and snow capped mountains

We are camped in the dog patch at Sky Valley Resort. We have a little tiny patch of sand and a cement pad. Thankfully, the site next to us is empty but there are rigs on the other side, in the back and diagonally from us. We do have a mountain view over the tops of other rigs. We see the sun rise at 7 AM and the sunsets have been magnificent. The hot spring pools are wonderful. We now actually own "noodles", a retired person's pool toy, and we float around the pool till we prune up. There are about 1000 lots here which provides an hour or more of bike riding up and down the streets. Last night, we walked after dinner to feed the ducks. There is a black swan in one of the ponds along with mallard friends. Bats were flying around overhead eating bugs. It was delightful to walk in the warm evening air. I attended the bi-monthly advisory meeting to learn about what goes on here organizationally. They are having "doggie wars" over whether to have grass or not to have grass in the pet area. Grass spreads disease but sand is unattractive. Another topic was the removal of the wind break trees to allow the mountain view. Was it better to have view or a break from the sand storms? Otherwise, the owners seemed to be looking to continually improve the resort.

We do have a small palm tree for greenery. Of course, I have run into it
several times with my bike squeezing by the truck.

On Thursday, we rode our bikes around the park, read in the sun and lounged in the pool with our noodles-relaxation plus! Today, we drove to Pioneertown on the way to Joshua Tree National Park. Pioneertown was built in the 1940s as a live-in stage setting for western films. It was a lonesome place today. No action though we read later, there was music in the saloon this evening. One of the residents created an interesting garden of "stuff". It may have been a series of memorials to people or just unusual collections of "stuff".

Even a mug from West Seattle in the memory circle

A motorcycle clock

Bowling balls in the garden

Sonny added a piece of quartz to the West Seattle mug

Old car used for target practice and a cactus garden

Desert pig collection

Pioneertown church-is Sonny
going in there???

The Rooster is in charge

The next visit was to the Joshua Tree National Park. What an amazing place! It is should be a must on everyone's bucket list. The rock formations are astonishing and no two Joshua trees are alike. We took a 1 mile hike (well, walk, actually) to Hidden Valley and drove to Key's Point (5161') for a view of the entire Coachella Valley. We could see 180* from the Salton Sea, almost to Mexico to the Banning Pass, West on 1-10. Astounding!