Desert Hot Springs, windmill tour, Joshua Tree National Park

When we got up this morning we did our normal routine. I made bacon egg and cheese sandwiches for breakfast. I wanted to use the rest of my omelette from IHOP. I started to unroll it to put a little cheese in it and it was huge, so I still have another third of it for tomorrow. I did three loads of laundry. But we wanted to turn the electric off and monitor the battery to see what would happen. But we never did because of starting laundry. We sat outside for a long time and read a book of things to do in the area. We had two, Jim looked at one,  is done in 10 minutes, and I probably looked at the other one for an hour and a half or longer. I decided to make us lunch before we went anywhere. I made what I call Urban Cowboy tuna salad, from the movie. Tuna with apples and pecans and not so much of this onion a Sissy said in the movie.  We waited till at least 2:30 and decided to go for a drive. We ended up driving towards the windmills and they have a windmill tour. I took a lot of pictures, what we learned that was really cool was this farm on the San Gorgonia Mountains Pass in the San Bernardino Mountains contains more than 4,000 separate windmills and provides enough electricity to power Palm springs and the entire Coachella Valley. The wind speeds need to be 13 miles an hour at least, the largest of the windmills stand 150 feet tall with blades half the length of a football field. the compartments at the top containing the generator, hub and gearbox weighting 30 to 45,000 lbs. A windmill turbines coast can range upwards to 300,000 and can produce 300 kilowatts the amounts of electricity used by a typical household in a month. Crazy amount, need an RV one.
After that we drove through Desert Hot Springs looked at some beautiful desert homes. Once again I love looking at the flower beds. Then we decided to head over towards the Joshua Tree National Park. It was getting late but we were so close we said what the heck. We went into the visitor center, they were giving some Junior Ranger badges to some small children. Then I asked a woman in there what we could do this late in the day. And she said we could drive into the park and make the whole loop around which takes an hour, or Drive-In and then just turn around and drive back out. So he said what the heck and we drove into the park, past the ranger station which they weren't taking the fee any longer because it was so late in the day. I think they charge $30 per car so that's what we saved. I got some awesome pictures of the rocks. The Rock piles began Underground eons ago as a result of volcanic activity. Magma in this case molten forms of rock called monzo-granite - Rose from deep within the Earth. As it Rose, it erupted the overlying Rock, the pinto gneiss formation. The sun was starting to set, the huge rock formations kept us from seeing the beginning of the sunset, but the views are stunning, just unbelievable. We had to decide if we were going to turn around and go back out, or Jim said we could go through and come out the other end and head back towards the FW. We found out the next day it would have taken us over 3 hours to get out. We didn't know that at the time. That's why the feeling I had to turn around, was a good thing to do, as much as we wanted to keep going we did decide to turn around and go back out the way we came, past the closed guard shack. The sun was setting anyway and we wouldn't have been able to see much after that. We continued to head back and ended up jumping on 10 for a short time to get home sooner, by then it was pitch dark, driving after Dark is so crazy now. When we got home we were more than ready for dinner, so Jim put on the grill, we put the pork chops on, I made a very small amount of cornbread stuffing, and steam some mixed vegetables in the microwave. Was very good and satisfying, we watched a little TV talked about what a wonderful day it was, the cool part was we spent no money, for such a fun Day.

3 New AGM Batteries

Jim was up early this morning, because it's time to go get the batteries. So I finally got up we had our coffee, and I got ready to leave. We decided to go to IHOP for breakfast first. Yesterday was National blueberry day so they kept advertising IHOP yesterday on the news, which is why I made the Crepes to use up my strawberries, but now we're going to go and save us some time. We didn't save that much time because it wasn't quite where he remembered it to be, so we had to make a big loop around. The place was pretty empty but we had a nice breakfast Jim had breakfast meat and eggs and four pancakes, I had one stuffed French toast and a veggie omelet, I took half of it home. It was  such a nice beautiful drive we got to the Battery Place picked up our, three new AGM batteries, and Jim needed another wire he cut him a piece about a foot long and the ends he needed and when we went to pay him he said  No  I think I can give you this for free since you spent do much money, which is really nice. Jim said the wire probably cost $5 a foot, nice to see some good customer service. Then we came home and I wanted to go up to the stitching session they have every day from 10 to 12. I got up there at 10:30 but there was nobody around. So I ended up watching Rachael Ray crocheted a little not too many people around to talk with. I texted Jim to text me back when he was finished he never did. I came back for lunch, and he wasn't there, and the door was locked. I thought it was a test because he changed the combination to the door and keeps using the old one, and forgetting, so I thought he was testing me because I told him I thought I would remember, BUT I didn't I was laughing when I went in but he wasn't in there. Turns out he went to the dumpster to throw all the boxes away from the batteries.

So we had a very light lunch since we had a big breakfast. Then we went for a little bike ride, we took a lap on every road. Came back sat outside a little bit,  Hockey was about to start he was going to put on his outside TV again. I started to prep for dinner we were going to have grilled tuna steaks, hush puppies, leftover grilled vegetables and some other microwave steamed vegetables. For dessert I made a Paleo chocolate mug cake with almond butter and the rest of my strawberries on the side wish I would have had topping but I was out but it's all my grocery list. So I went for a walk and walked every Road. When I got back to put the grill on. I fried off the hush puppies, put the veggies in the microwave went out and grilled the tuna. I took a photo of our dinner

and this was the view we had while we ate outside of course with the hockey TV on.

Jim finished watching hockey, I did the dishes and then I went up to the pool Again, by myself looking for someone else to talk to. Came back took a shower and watched a little TV. Just another fun day, doing real life stuff and Living the Dream.

SB crepes, battery prep, pool

This morning trying to figure out what to make for breakfast, and I wanted to use some of the first strawberries. So I decided to make crepes with strawberries topping in a little syrup, probably one of Jim's favorite. We both really enjoyed it there fun to make. Then Jim started working on battery prep getting ready for our batteries that are supposed to be in today. We took a walk around half the campground. Had lunch of leftovers Jim had beef noodle soup, think I had a salad. Need to go to the grocery store and pretty soon have to work on the list. Jim was  outside for a while and I was doing my thing inside. Then I started making dinner a little early,  trying to do dinner closer to Pennsylvania time . We did get a call that the batteries were in that Jim was waiting for,  by then it was too late to go get them, We have three batteries, but he pulled out only two, so there's only one in so we still have lights,  and we're going to let them take the three batteries to recycle,  he has to wait till we actually have time to put them in.  We're going to go tomorrow. Later he ended up watching hockey outside on his TV I was inside trying to watch some stuff he doesn't like. I also went to the pool during this time I was in the hot tub, probably three or four other couples and we were all talking. Our neighbors in fromt of us came in too, Paul and Lucy. When I got back Jim came in we watched the network shows for the night stayed up later than we wanted to.

College of the Desert

This morning  I made a smoothie,  I shopped  the other day for Frozen pineapple and accidentally bought peaches,  so I made pineapple, peaches mango banana smoothies with spinach . And we got ready to go to College of the Desert. Which is a huge flea market that they do every Saturday and Sunday I think from 9 to 2. They raise money by donating the fees paid by the vendors to sell, to the College. So many different vendors they had veggies and a large food truck area. I took a few pictures but a lot don't want you to photo anything.

It was a lot of fun for me, Jim not so much.

But he does it because  he knew I wanted to. Their were picnic tables to sit and eat and everyone shared and we got to talk to a few really cool people, one lady was very chatty and fun to talk with. Everyone's always fascinated when they hear we're off for 4 months and traveling in the FW. We shared a piece of pizza that was made in a fire brick oven on sight, shared a chicken gyro, waffle with strawberries and a pineapple ice cream thing was non-dairy really good. We bought one soda total for food was $26, it wasn't too bad. We walked around here's a picture of some things I bought

grill mat, strawberries really nice soft dates so I can make date nut balls for Jim, great for travel day and some S-hooks mother gave us a long time ago, very handy.  I also bought a wrap, he said it was made out of bamboo $35 but really nice, I can use it at the pool, I really wanted to cover up my neck and shoulders from sunburn. I better get a lot of use out of it. We made a quick trip back to the truck and got more soda and water Jim sat down for a minute. And then we walked back and realized it was almost 2, should have checked the time. It was about to close, people were shutting down, it gets too hot after that. The other neat thing was there was a  roof, I guess the college kids can park under, but the roof was made out of solar panels that pretty much runs the whole College. I think Jim has a picture of that too.

It was really fun to walk around a lot of upscale things not a normal flea market by any means. They had such neat things that would be fun to decorate and do a Southwest flower bed I just love their look, I think I have a picture of a small one I really like,

you can do the whole thing with all the purchases at this one shop.

So by then we were really tired from walking around in the Sun so it felt good to finally sit in the truck, we just ended up driving back to the campground which is pretty close to this place. Jim got our chairs out and we sat for a bit. We watched a few campers come in for the night then Jim started working on the battery monitor to get it installed, we're supposed to get the batteries Monday. The hardest part was getting a wire run down the wall and down through the hole where the battery compartment is, he had to crawl in this tight spot 4 times. I helped him as much as I could and he finally got it wired. He drilled a hole inside near the downstairs air conditioner controller he mounted it there. Then I thought about what to make for dinner. Jim had some of the beef noodle soup I made him, I ate the rest of the vegetable chicken soup. I had five taco shells left so I made three beef tacos for him and  turkey burger for me. We had some fresh berries with topping for dessert. Then we had another enjoyable relaxing evening together.

Pool, Walk, Fed-X delivery, Grilling & Chillin

One thing about this lifestyle is all the decisions you have to make. When were in Pennsylvania we wake up go to work come home have dinner, and enjoy our relaxing time in our FW. Here every day is a new adventure and we have to decide together and what we're going to do next. I know it's a good problem to have but some days making a decision is the hardest thing we do all day.
So we had breakfast today Jim made his own eggs. Eventually we turn the fireplace off and open windows. And as we watchd the temperature rise we realize we need to turn the air on again. Tomorrow we're going to do it before we leave, we waited kind of long and then it really had to work hard to cool it down. We sat outside it was just so beautiful we just can't get over it. California Dreaming. I was crocheting a little outside just talkin, we went for a little walk. It was kind of warm so we only did half the campground. We were sitting outside, the way the fifth wheel is parked we're in the shade when a car pulled up next to the truck, Jim stood up we didn't know who or couldn't see who it was, then we realized it was our FedEx package, Jim had ordered the battery monitor it's supposed to come tomorrow  but we got it today. So he was looking at it to figure out where he's going to mount it. Made some lunch, which was leftover soup and  a burger. The  we sat outside some more made a big decision to go to the pool. The water temperature is probably at least 90 the hot tub, fabulous. Mary Jane was there, I talked to her when I was selling my bags, we had another nice little chat. Jim went back first and I followed him shortly after we finished our conversation. Our biggest decision was whether to go to the College of the Desert, that Mary Jane told us about it's a big flea market, only on Sat/ Sun Jim's favorite LOL not. So we saw that it closes at 2 so we decided to go tomorrow early, LOL that's funny too. So then I started some dinner I use the broth from Jim's tri-tip beef that I made, put onions celery tomato and carrots in the instant pot sauteed them a little, strained  the broth, added a little more water and a couple handfuls of noodles cooked it for 5 minutes let it naturally release and then I added the beef. He said it was really good. Then he grilled some zucchini planks green beans and onions.  I made us a salad, we sat outside at the picnic table and had dinner, it was getting dark but what a beautiful sunset. Then we did our normal evening routine.

Palm Springs Aerial Tramway

Today we had a fun adventure planned. So when we got up I made Jim eggs and sausage. I had cold cereal and yogurt and a tiny piece of sausage. And we got ready for our day trip. The first place we went, was a new place  Jim found for an AGM battery .  He thought they were pretty good price at $305 each , we needed three,  and he said they would be here in 3 days .

  Tomorrow he'll order a battery monitor from Amazon.  Then we went to Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. We went to the visitor center first. Then we drove up the hill 4 miles and parked, then you ride a bus to where you get on the tram. Each tram car holds 80 people approximately over 14000 lb. They don't look like they hold that many and it rotates and goes around twice in the duration of the ride.

It's the largest rotating Aerial Tramway in the world. It's a total of 2.5 miles one way, which has an elevation of 2600 feet. Our ears were popping on the way up and down.  The mountain station has an elevation of over 8500 feet, where the tram starts the elevation is 2600 ft, and has a temperature difference of 40 degrees colder at the top, approximately. Established in 1963 and coined the 8th Wonder of the world when it opened. Here's a picture of the counterweight,

with more details on the sign, but the motor at the Valley Station always pull the car down which in turn pulls the other car up. There's a total of 5 towers and as you pass them they warned you the first time or two but it really gives you a rush because the car moves slightly like it's a rollercoaster ride. There are two restaurants at the top, but decided not to. There was a path you can walk around all outside and see the snow which is the only way we want to see it.

There was a display inside with all the animals  in the area. Some people can actually see the mountain goats walking around the rocks. Some people bring their sleds to sleigh ride. But the grossest thing we saw was a lady picked up some snow and actually ate it, can't believe we saw that because it wasn't quite untouched Virgin Snow it was there for a while and looked dirty. But then we were really tired and getting hungry and the altitude was making us feel weird. Once we got back to the truck, trying to decide what we wanted to do next, we were really hungry by then, but didn't know where to go, wanted to do a few other stops but not without eating first. Almost wanted to just eat at the camper, then we drove by Applebee's and decided to go in there, which we like. We got an appetizer and shared, Jim got an all-you-can-eat thing I had half a sandwich and a salad which ended up taking the salad home and then we shared  two mini desserts, one sundae in a shot glass and a mini brownie bite thing, we racked up quite the bill. Then we got home relaxed, amazing how such fun makes for a tiring day. Relaxed I took a shower we'll do it all again tomorrow. More fun I mean!