California and the Valley Zone

We began our trip to California with a couple of nights in Norman, Oklahoma, visiting Monte and Aleta and helping out with a wiring project.  We set out early morning on Tuesday, with Las Cruces, New Mexico as our destination for the night.  Initially, our route was the same one we took on our first retirement trip; driving through Amarillo (by morning) and ending up in Santa Rosa, New Mexico for lunch.  There we stopped at the Silver Moon Cafe which is an iconic Route 66 diner.  (We stopped here in 2012, too.) It’s a perfect place for New Mexican chiles dishes….Yum!

At Santa Rosa we got off the interstate to bisect the state on Route 54 (which goes all the way to Clinton, IL) and then onto Route 76.  We love driving the back roads in New Mexico because of the awesome scenery, both plant and rock.  Just before Las Cruces we came to the White Sands National Monument.

There, in the middle of the brown desert are huge dunes of white sand covering 275 square miles.  These dunes are still evolving and they move several feet a year.  There are trails to walk and lots of places where you can sled down the dunes.  Note: We didn’t sled but even Mona is considering sledding on our next visit.  As she says, “This would be sledding paradise; sled all you want and never get cold!”

After our night in Las Cruces we set out to complete one of our goals of 2015; i.e., to find a geocache in every county of Arizona.  We already had all but six Arizona counties and five were to be found today!  We left the interstate and headed northwest towards Globe, Arizona.  Much of the first part of the road was desolate with no cars in either direction.  Frankly, I was a little creeped out so I sped up until I got within reasonable eyesight of the car ahead.  Finally, we got to a town, then a section of more traveled road and I was better.  You get to thinking how isolated out you are out in the middle of the desert…

I had mapped out the route and the caches that would maximize our time while minimizing our distance.  Much of that route took us through the San Carlos Apache Reservation.  We traveled through several small towns in the reservation and I was dismayed at how trashy many of the yards were.  Along our travels we noted that many desert dwellers like to accumulate junk.  It could be that they aren’t any worse than midwestern junkers but, the midwesterners benefit from tall grass and bushes hiding their collections.  But anyway, I get junk collectors.  Midwestern or desert. After all my family had our share of collectors and I grew up with a big school bus sitting in our backyard…so yes, I get junk collectors.  But, getting back to the trash issues, these homes were littered with garbage, not junk.  Maybe a big wind had just blown through and they hadn’t had time to pick up the garbage.

Other than those few cities, the route was beautiful with plenty of scenes like you see in“Arizona Highways” which I guess stands to reason because we were traveling on Arizona highways.  Some things just don’t need explaining, but I guess I did anyway.   However, we saw virtually no animals.  Yes, most desert animals are nocturnal but we didn’t even see last night’s roadkill.  Nada.  Given as many miles as we drove we’d normally expect to see deer, antelope or at least a rabbit.  But, nada.  However, to compensate the desert was in bloom.  They’ve had a lot of unseasonal rain so we got a stunning display of desert colors!

We finally ended up in Tucson with our five counties achieved!  Thanks to time differences

Next stop was Yuma, Arizona.  We tried to time our visit for 3:10 but we arrived a little early.  We had targeted a cache in Old Town so we headed there and quickly made the find.  We have now found a cache in all of the counties in Arizona.  Our first completed state!

After finding the cache we walked the streets of Old Town Yuma.  Main street is very wide and come to find out it was designed that way so that teams of mules could do u-turns in the street.  We ended up at Lutes’ Casino for lunch.  You can’t gamble here but you do get to gawk at the decor.  The place is filled with posters, wall art and oddities.  Crazy!  The food was fun, but the walls and ceilings were even more so!

Next up was the Territorial Prison.  Built back in 1876 by the prisoners themselves, this place served as home for over 3000 prisoners in its thirty three year life.  For its time, this was considered a model prison; however, I couldn’t imagine being one of the six people in a cell the size of a normal bathroom.  Soon, as is typical in the United States, the prison became overcrowded and the prisoners built a larger one and left Yuma Territorial Prison for good.

After Yuma we drove west on I8 towards California.  Just to the south of the interstate we caught our first sighting of the wall between the United States and Mexico.  It’s huge and stretches for miles.  Every few miles you can see clusters of border patrol vehicles waiting on some action.  It’s a odd feeling looking at this wall.  You don’t think of the United States as being walled.  That’s something for the Cold War or for the Middle East.  Sobering.  I wanted to take a side road to get a close up picture of the wall, but something told me that wasn’t a good idea.

Speaking of Border Patrol: We went through three checkpoints.  This time I was driving so they allowed us to pass unhindered.  Even though Mona wasn’t driving we practiced her answers to any questions they might ask her.  “Are you an American Citizen?”  “Yes” would be her answer.  “Is this your car?”  Again, “Yes” would be her answer.  Seems simple, right?  But we know all too well Mona’s history with Border Patrol and Customs Agents.

After a few more hours we were at last in the Coachella Valley and the resort in Palm Desert.  Here we met up with Monte and Aleta again.  We were spending the week in  their Shadow Ridge villa.  I’ve written a lot about the valley and the resort in previous blogs so I’ll skip that this time.  Instead I’ll talk about traditions.  We have a lot of traditions when we stay here and we immediately began the process:  Step 1: Appoint a designated driver.  Step 2: Drive to Palm Springs and go to Blue Coyote.  Step 3: Order a pitcher of Wild Margaritas.  Step 4:  Inhale said Margaritas and begin to get into the “Valley Zone”.  That’s where you’re oh-so relaxed, and soaking in the desert air while watching palm trees sway in the breeze.  Ahhhhh….

Other traditions include: stocking up on supplies at Ralph’s after Blue Coyote  (Always lots of fun for the designated driver!); In and Out Burger; Del Taco; breakfast at Pinocchio’s (with bottomless champaign and a designated driver); walks in the resort; swimming in the afternoons; hikes/geocaching in the desert; grilling out in the evenings; and finally Polo on Sunday.

Our Polo Sundays start with a visit to the Eldorado Polo Club.  Admission is free and we go to breakfast at Roc’s Firehouse Grill which is situated within 20 feet of the polo field.  We get a table on the edge of the patio so close to the field that we can almost touch the horses.  Sometimes when they overrun the field chasing the ball the horses almost get into our food!  We  dine and watch the 10:00 game.  Afterwards, we head to the Empire Polo Club.  Here admission is free too.  However, if you want to pay a little bit you get reserved seats under the shade.  That’s always our option!

As with the Eldorado Club, we’re about twenty feet from the field, but now we’re up on a patio about six feet above the field, giving us an excellent view of the games. There is the noon game which is fun, but the best part of the day is the 2:00 game.  This is typically a championship match and the highlight of the game is the half-time Champagne Divot Stomp.  You get a free glass of champagne for which you go out onto the field and stomp divots.  The primary thing you have to learn is the difference between a divot and a “non-divot”, if you know what I mean.  It’s a blast out there with hundreds of other people in the desert sun, sipping on champagne and doing their best to avoid the non-divots!

At the end of the week, Monte and Aleta headed home while Mona and I moved to the Westin Mission Hills resort in Rancho Mirage.  Here, we continued the traditions but yesterday we did something we’ve never done before: We visited Tahquitz Canyon.   The canyon is holy to the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians and they recently reopened it to non-tribal visitors.

We walked to the Visitor’s Center with a backpack loaded up with bottles of water.  You’re not even allowed past the center unless you have at least one bottle per person.  We had two per.  We were a bit apprehensive about our walk as they had lots of signs warning about the rattlesnakes.  Mona asked the clerk and she assured us that it’s been awhile since anyone was bitten.  Oh gee, thanks a lot!  Feeling much better about the rattlers now!

This canyon is literally five blocks from the main street of Palm Springs but it’s like a step back into time.  You hear nothing but ravens croaking and lizards rustling in the sagebrush and creosote bushes as you walk by.  A least we hoped they were lizards!  (We didn’t see a single snake but I kept wondering how many saw us!)  The only desert critters we saw were lizards, tiny little guys only 4 or 5 inches long, up to desert iguanas which are 12 to 16 inches long.  Most of them run a little bit, stop, do a couple of push ups to impress us, then run ahead of us to the next piece of shade.

After about an hour of hiking up and down the canyon walls we got to the Tahquitz Falls.  Here the water gushes out of a crevice about 50 foot above us.  It’s ice cold water from the snow melt on the San Jacinto Mountains above us.  It was well worth the hike!  We cooled in the shade of the oasis and then headed back the rocky trail.  It was 95 degrees on our return; there is little shade for the next mile or so; therefore, we were very happy to get back to the Visitor Center’s air conditioning.  Since we were so close to Palm Springs we decided to celebrate our conquering of the valley trail by visiting Blue Coyote for Wild Margaritas and posole.  Ahhh…..the Valley Zone again!

Now it’s morning and I’m out on our balcony with a cup of coffee watching the sun start to peek over the mountain and through the palm trees.  A great way to start another valley day!