Into the heat of the Mojave Desert

Santa Bernardino to Palm Desert (to visit Doreen's cousins)

We next drove to Palm Desert to see another of Doreen's cousins.  Candy's younger sister Nancy and her husband Mike.  They live back and forth between two homes, one in Bishop, CA and the other in La Quinta, CA where we visited them.  As I write this (way after the fact of course) I realize I need to do a better job of taking pictures.  I have only one of Nancy and Mike and their darling little dog, taken at the last minute as we were leaving to go back to our motorhome.  We enjoyed their hospitality and had a wonderful time eating and chatting from the afternoon into the evening. 

Mike and Nancy Finch

Palm Desert is part of a whole group of towns that all started years ago with Palm Springs, the vacation playground of the rich and famous of Hollywood.  The area spreads from Palm Springs on the western end to Coachella on the eastern end with Thousand Palms, Rancho Mirage, Indian Wells, Desert Hot Springs, Palm Desert, and Indio in between.

Remember Sonny and Cher?  Sonny was once the mayor of Palm Springs where he started an event called VillageFest.  Every Thursday night it's like a big street fair with food, music, vendors of all kinds and the local shops along Palm Canyon Drive open for business.  We decided to check it out and the picture below will give you an idea of what it was like.  Lots of tourists having a good time and hopefully adding to the coffers of the vendors and merchants (that the idea right?).  Fun!

VillageFest in Palm Springs

The area was where we experienced our first sandstorm.  It wasn't a particularly bad one but it got our attention.  It was hot there but because there was a nice breeze we left the windows open in the motorhome while we were gone.  When we got back - the finest, but still gritty sand you can imagine was all over everything.  Memo for file:  keep windows closed in the desert if it's windy.

Star Date: April 12-16, 2016