March/April 2019 – Enjoying the Coachella Valley
With knee surgery completed and much of our time in the desert dedicated to rehab, we spent the balance of our time enjoying family and our time at Desert Shadows RV Resort…
A few of Joanne’s favorite pass times while being here have been enjoying:
- Some of the wildlife around our campsite including: A nesting Hummingbird on the adjacent site and the frequent stops by Roadrunners and a few nesting ducks in the greenway
- Relaxing time working on her jigsaw puzzles and kindle book reads
- Bike rides around the campground
- Her morning walks with new friends in the park and around the Rancho Mirage adjacent areas.
- Watering her plantings including her new favorite Lavender plant. (Probably because it attracts so many hummingbirds…)
- Her weekly forays into the mountains with the DSRVResort hiking club… Thanks (Daryl & Terry…)
Rainbow over Desert Shadows RV Resort
Mike on the other hand has focused on the following projects/tasks:
- Rehab, Rehab, & more Rehab… Morning workouts at the fitness center, Bike ridings, Swimming, Hot tubs, stretching, frequent visits to Physical therapy, visits to the acupuncturist, & a few Japanese Massages by my new friend Takea … (Since having to work on his knee wasn’t enough he also decided to have his hand operated on for a trigger finger problem as well during this time…)
- Family visits with his Mom & Sisters
In late March my sister Pat had gotten us tickets to a unique place up in the mountains of the Banning Pass called “The Museum of Pinball” . This place’s claim is:
WORLD’S LARGEST MUSEUM OF PINBALL
OVER 40,000 SQUARE FEET WITH 1,100 VINTAGE & MODERN PINBALL & ARCADE GAMES
I’m certainly no authority on the subject though after attending their Expo 5.0 I’d be hard pressed to believe anyplace else has more pinball & video games in one place in the world. They open the museum a few times a year and the Expo is one of them. Tickets allow you unlimited play in the facility and takes you down memory lane of every arcade game you can imagine including: Pong, PacMan, MS PacMan, Space invaders, Galactica, Asteroids and every other game you can imagine from the 70’s to now. The Pinball area was a myriad of American culture that pinball games have been based on for decades…. While neither of the 3 of us are real gamers, I have to tell you, it was a fun few hours playing all those games… I especially enjoyed watching Pat & Joanne compete on one of those shooting, Big Hunter games. They surely were channeling their inner warriors….
After finishing up at the Pinball Museum we decided to catch a late dinner at the casino not far from our game experience. It seems like many others places in the country, the local Indian tribes have built casinos. The 3 casinos in the Palm Springs area are: Morongo, Aqua Calliente, & Fantasy. Not being much of a gambler we don’t visit many casinos though probably will stop by a few more as we continue to camp, as they are very friendly with regards to allowing you to stay overnight on their properties in your RV.
We have always heard that the buffets at Casino’s are fun and a great value and Morongo’s Portero Canyon Buffet didn’t disappoint us this night. It was unlimited Lobster Tails/Steak this night… Yum!, and the 3 of us each had 4 tails along with all the other fixin’s they had on the buffet. The desert’s were exceptional and we each left very full and guilty that we had over indulged…
Joanne & Pat at the Pinball Museum…
Pinball Heaven…
Entering the Pinball Museum…
Morongo Casino…
Having not been around my California family for this much time in years, we also got to participate in a few celebrations including birthdays (Niece Alyssa, Sister Amy, Poppy’s, Niece Casey) & Easter Sunday during our time in the desert.
Another fun time was the free concerts at Sunnylands during the month of March & April on Sundays. We attended the St.Patty’s concert with family and then the JazzGrass band with our new friends (Dennis & Debbie) from an adjacent lot at DSRV Resort.
One of our best investments made during our time in the Desert was our new Outland Firebowel during a Sunday visit to Costco. We have been looking at this alternative for camp fires for some time and had read many favorable reviews for years. We just hadn’t pulled the trigger on it until be saw it deeply discounted that day at Costco. The fire pit turned out to an exceptional product that we have already used countless times. The convenience, heat it produces, no smoke, and the ability to easily pack up and store were all reasons that after my Mom saw it, she went out and bought her own.
Outland Fire Bowel fire with Family…
A few other trips & projects we completed in April included:
- Getting our stabilizing jacks/levelers repaired by Express Tech
- Getting our Tow car braking system actuator cable repaired by Redlands Truck & Rv Service
- Having our RV Washed and Waxed by Evolution cleaning
- Taking another 5 day road trip to visit our son Sean in Aspen, CO
- Joanne flew to Boston for 5 days to visit our daughter Caitlin in Boston to do a little wedding planning.
- Getting all our yearly/routine doctor’s appointments and tests completed. Doing this in the desert was so much easier than back in CT…
- Planning our Alaska adventure (we depart on May 3rd)…
Traveling to Colorado…
Although our time in the desert was fun we really feel we only scratched the surface on the things to do in this area. We knew when we arrived here Mike’s knee surgery would dictate much of our schedule. Although we seemed busy at times we really look forward to exploring so much more this area offers next year when Mike doesn’t have the limitations of his knee.
Next stop on this Revolutionary Journey is our 2019 Alaska adventure….
