Well ! Now wasn't that a bit of an odd day ? Joanne watched fourteen consecutive hours of "90 Day Fiancé" on TLC. I, showing much more restraint, watched only five consecutive hours of it. HA HA HA !
Obviously, we didn’t accomplish much today. I did some regular chores. I took Bo to the dog park. With much anticipation by both of us, I cooked Halibut for supper.
I bought three packages of flash frozen Halibut in Prince Rupert, BC, about three months ago. The three packages cost about fifty bucks ! So ... fifteen bucks or more per package. Tonight I cooked the first package. And as I was cooking it, I realized ... < sniff, sniff > ... it was ****ing rancid ! ! ! I was not pleased ! And we’re certainly worried about the other two packages ! HMPH ! That was at least fifteen bucks worth of fish into the garbage !
Monday ; Sunny and warm. Gee, the weather is nice here !
Late this morning we headed north on Hwy. 41 about twenty miles or so to the town of Oakhurst, to buy bread and milk at Vons. We headed back "home", south on Hwy. 41, and just before reaching SKP Park of the Sierras, we stopped to have lunch at Chukchansi Casino. MMMMM ... buffet lunch at ( what used to be ) our favourite casino buffet restaurant. This was our first meal at Chukchansi Casino since it closed a couple of years ago and reopened this year. The buffet restaurant is still pretty good, but not quite as great as it had been in its previous incarnation.
Once back at "home", parked in our assigned site, we walked with Bo down to the dog park. Literally "down". This park is built in the Sierra Nevada foothills, on a very hilly piece of land. From our site is "down" to the dog park, and "up" to walk back to our site. We spent quite awhile at the dog park, because ... we are leaving tomorrow morning.
We spent the evening watching multiple episodes of TLC's new series "Outdaughtered", a new generation clone of "Jon and Kate Plus 8".
Tuesday ; Coarsegold to Bakersfield, California
Sunny and warm. L.A. smog enveloped us today as we were leaving Tulare, about 170 miles north of Los Angeles !
This morning we prepared for departure and left SKP Park of the Sierras around
11 AM. Before leaving I experienced more cell phone drama, trying to connect with a man in Palm Springs who is selling a car that I am interested in buying. The cell phone reception at SKP Park of the Sierras was not good, and I wasted a lot of expensive cell phone minutes on dropped calls, and misdialed calls, and "telephone tag", etc.!
We drove south on Hwy. 41 to Fresno ( methamphetamine capital of the world ! ), then south on Hwy. 99 to Tulare, to shop at our favourite Mexican supermarket, Vallarta. We initially stumbled upon this wonderful Mexican supermarket many years ago on its grand opening weekend. We exited the freeway looking for groceries, got directions to a supermarket that we never found, and while trying to get back to the freeway found Vallarta on its second or third day of business. Now it's a mandatory stop for us when we're driving south along this route.
As soon as we entered the store we headed to the panaderia to stock up on pan dulce, including a large piece of tres leches ( three milks ) cake. Their tres leches cake is wonderful ! Then we had lunch at the in-store Mexican lunch counter. I had the platilla de tres tacos ( una carne asada y dos pollos ) con arroz y frijoles especial, and Joanne had the costilla puerco en chile verde especial, pork ribs stewed in green chile sauce.
I had an extremely small taste of her meal. WHEW ! Tongue numbing ! Probably not meant for gringos ! HA HA HA ! Especially since we noticed ... hundreds of customers in this large supermarket, and we were the only gringos ! HA HA HA !
After lunch we headed for the meat counter / butcher counter. Mexican grocery stores always have excellent meat counters, staffed by butchers to provide service. No shrink wrapped meat on styrofoam trays here ! We bought some taco meat ; marinated, seasoned beef of a texture halfway between ground beef and stewing beef. I bought myself some ceviche de jaiba ( crab meat salsa ) at the fish counter. Joanne bought herself some smoked pork chops. We bought fresh produce ; cilantro, avocadoes, Mexican squash. Then we wandered up and down all the aisles, stocking up on some of our favourite Mexican products, like a particular brand of tomato chicken noodle soup mixes with different types of pastas. It was after 3 PM by the time we finished our grocery shopping and got back on the road.
We stopped again at the city of Delano to shop at Wal-Mart. After our Wal-Martin', as we were loading our groceries into the camper, I watched a real disgusting scene unfold one aisle over from us in the parking lot. In the amount of time it took to put away groceries, just a minute or two, I watched a couple loading their purchases into their truck. The woman discarded two soiled tissues onto the ground beside their truck, and the man crushed and discarded two beer cans beside their truck. Then ... < sputter > ... he puked in the parking lot, they had a good laugh about that, he reached inside the truck, popped open another beer and began to drink it. Nothing like washing the puke taste out of one's mouth with a bit of the "hair of the dog", n'est-ce pas ?
And you wonder why ... with the exception of Palm Springs ... we generally dislike Southern California ? And Southern Californians ? ! ?
We continued south on Hwy. 99 until we were almost at Bakersfield. We stopped for the night at a Flying J at 5:15 PM, just as it turned dark. SHEESH ! I guess we haven't stayed at a Flying J in a long time. Hundreds and hundreds of commercial semi-trailer trucks, all with their diesel engines and reefers running non-stop, no apparent RV parking area despite the Flying J guide book showing that this station has a large number of "RV parking spots". I parked in the car parking lot of the Denny's Restaurant that was part of the Flying J Travel Center. The loud, "white noise" hum of the trucks, the diesel exhaust fumes, and the smog, gave me a headache.
Wednesday ; Bakersfield to Barstow, California
Cloudy, a bit windy, a bit chilly ... a bit stinky. We can smell the smog ! ( Bakersfield )
Sunny, very windy, chilly ! ( Barstow )
This morning we refilled with freshwater and dumped our grey waste tank at the Flying J before departing. We drove into Bakersfield and found our way ... not that easy ... to the Basque area of town where Joanne wanted to have a Basque family style lunch at a restaurant that she had read a review of. And as the review had stated, it was a lovely little restaurant in a grungy building in a decrepit area of town. Even at its best,
I consider Bakersfield to be one of the two armpits of California. The other is Fresno.
Having Basque family style lunch at the Noriega Hotel has been on Joanne's "bucket list" for a few years already. The Noriega Hotel was established in 1893. And has been owned by the same Basque family since 1938. There is no real "hotel" left. The upper floors are a monthly rental rooming house / "flop house" of questionable repute. The main floor is a bar and ... family dining room. Three very long tables with place settings on each side of each table. Open for lunch and dinner six days a week. Menu changes each day, each meal, repeating weekly. Wednesday lunch is beef brisket slowly stewed in a Marinara style tomato sauce, and breaded veal cutlets smothered in cream gravy. There were twelve diners for lunch today, all men except for Joanne. Service was "family style". Food is brought to the table in large serving bowls or platters, everyone helps themselves. First course was a Basque cabbage soup. With baked beans on the side, to be added to the soup. Then a garden salad. Freshly baked sourdough bread. Homemade red wine. Then the brisket ( quite good ) and the veal cutlets ( excellent ). A side dish of Spanish rice. We were seated at the head of the table, as the special Canadian guests. The other ten men were locals and regulars. We were seated beside an elderly man a bit older than us who didn't say much as he had recently had a laryngectomy, and across from him was his forty-something year old son, a commercial pilot. The old man was a retired crop duster pilot. The two of them, mostly the son, “coached” us throughout the meal, advising us what we were eating, and how best to appreciate it. They were eager to show off the Basque specialties. They even asked the server woman if she would bring us a sample of their famous pickled beef tongue for us to try. We tried it and liked it. We placed thin slices of the pickled tongue on sourdough bread, drizzled a little of the pickling juice onto the bread, and ate it like an open faced sandwich, with small bites of blue cheese as a “chaser”. It was quite good ! < whispering > Joanne passed on the blue cheese. The meal was finished off with ... a very dry, sliced cheese called “Hard Jack”, served on sourdough bread slathered with home made apricot jam. That’s more of a breakfast item, but they wanted us to experience it as one of their cultural specialties. Lunch was an excellent experience in ethnic dining !
We left Bakersfield heading east on Hwy. 58, climbing higher and higher into the Tehachapi Mountains. The smog got thicker and smellier the higher the altitude. And ... as before ... as we crested the summit of the Tehachapi Pass, the sky became clear blue as far as the eye could see, and we began the long descent down into the Mojave Desert. The high ridge of the Tehachapi Mountains is like a barrier fence keeping all the smog on the west side of the mountains.
AHHHHH ... the Mojave Desert. Feels like home. We stopped at Kramer Junction to refill with diesel. But ... we encountered a malfunctioning diesel fuel pump, and extremely poor customer service in trying to deal with it, so ... we left with only $28 worth of diesel purchased. NOTE TO PILOT FUEL TRAVEL CENTERS ; CLEAN UP YOUR ACT ! TEACH YOUR STAFF SOME CUSTOMER SERVICE SKILLS ! ! ! We continued east on Hwy. 58 until reaching Barstow, where we completed refilling with diesel at Flying J, then found a spot in their parking lot to boondock overnight.
Thursday ; Barstow to Palm Springs, California
Sunny and chilly in Barstow. Sunny and warm in Palm Springs. We did not have a very good day today.
This morning we refilled our freshwater tank and dumped our waste holding tanks at the Flying J before we left. Flying J has increased the cost of using their sani-dump stations from $5 to $7.50. We're not pleased.
We drove a couple of miles northeast on Interstate 15, then turned south on Hwy. 247. At Lucerne Valley the highway turned east for awhile, then south again. We reached Hwy. 62 at Yucca Valley, and followed Hwy. 62 west, then south to Interstate 10 at Palm Springs.
When we arrived at Palm Springs we drove east on Interstate 10 to the Monterey exit. As soon as we left the freeway and were on Monterey Ave. we pulled into a large shopping mall with a Wal-Mart and a Bank of America. We needed to phone the seller of the car we wanted to buy, we needed to withdraw cash from the Bank of America in order to pay for the car, we needed to buy a few items at Wal-Mart, and it was time for lunch.
Frustratingly, I once again experienced cell phone drama. I could not get a TracFone network signal where we were parked. Dead phone ... in the middle of Palm Springs urban area ! ! ! I walked over to the Bank of America and had to beg for the use of a phone to make a short, local call. You would have thought that I had asked to sleep with their sister ! Eventually, with the assistance of a manager ... < rolling eyes > ...
I was allowed to use a phone.
WELL ! ! ! It was 1:30 PM. I had told the car seller that we would be arriving in Palm Springs and phoning him about "mid-afternoon". And ... < sputter > ... the ******* ***** had sold the car an hour before I phoned ! ! ! ! ! I was angry ... and pissy and crabby for the rest of the day !
We had lunch in the camper in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Joanne went shopping in
Wal-Mart while I napped for half an hour. We headed downtown to the Palm Springs dog park. Now THAT should cheer me up ! When we arrived at the Palm Springs dog park behind City Hall ... < sputter > ... IT WAS CLOSED ! **** ! ! ! For three months ! For reconstruction ! Re-opening on SUNDAY ! **** ! ! !
Beautiful reconstruction though ! Looks like a golf course instead of a mud pit, which is what parts of it were looking like last time we were here ... last April. I wonder how long it takes, with lots of dogs romping in it on a daily basis, to get from looking like a golf course to looking like a mud pit ?
We drove through downtown to shop at Revivals, our favourite Palm Springs thrift store. Probably our favourite thrift store anywhere ! We browsed there for awhile, until I bought three shirts and Joanne bought a bathroom scale ( which we have to haul all the way back to BC next spring ) and fleece "pyjamas" for Bo ... < rolling my eyes >. We finished there about 5 PM and contemplated staying downtown for the regular Thursday night Village Fest street fair and market which starts at 6 PM. But ... we were both pissy and crabby, and couldn't come to an agreement / "get on the same page". Had a lot of that today !
Because Palm Springs is surrounded by mountains which block the sunlight, it was dark at 5 PM. We left downtown and drove through rush hour traffic in darkness to
Aqua Caliente Casino. We got ourselves parked in their RV overnight parking lot and went inside the casino to pick up our New Year's Eve concert tickets. The box office was closed. Oh, well ... we'll just pick them up on New Year's Eve before the concert. We returned to the camper to prepare and eat supper. And continue to be pissy and crabby !
Friday ; Palm Springs
Sunny and warm. < shrug > Of course ! We're in Palm Springs !
Our only plans for today were to have lunch at Sherman's Deli and to attend a classic car auction. That left a lot of free time for ... < shrug > ... whatever struck our fancy !
As we were eating breakfast this morning we watched a drug or stolen merchandise deal take place. We were parked in Aqua Caliente Casino's overnight parking lot for RV's and semi-trailers. A semi-trailer pulled in and manoeuvered around beside and behind us so that its trailer rear door was blocked from view. The driver climbed out of the cab, walked quickly to the back of the trailer and very quickly opened the door.
A pickup truck came rushing into the parking lot and stopped behind the truck. The pickup driver jumped out, and the semi-trailer driver began to pass him boxes out of the back of the semi-trailer. The pickup driver threw them into the box of the pickup and roared off. The semi-trailer driver quickly closed the trailer door, jumped back into the cab of his tractor, and left quickly. Whole thing took no more than a minute or two !
In twelve and a half years of travelling, through three countries, we have only seen this kind of illicit deal happen three times. Twice was in Palm Springs ! Once was in Tucson, Arizona.
We left Aqua Caliente Casino and drove southwest down Ramon Road into the Palm Springs "suburb" of Cathedral City. I knew there was a dog park in Cathedral City similar to the Palm Springs dog park and I wanted to find it. Yesterday I had "hyped up" Bo as we were approaching the Palm Springs dog park, then we arrived to find it closed. I felt guilty for getting him all excited about the dog park, then not being able to deliver. I didn't know where the Cathedral City dog park was, but I thought the staff at PetsMart would know. So ... we drove to PetsMart and asked. They weren't sure ... blah, blah, blah ... yeah, thanks for nothing ! We got poor / vague directions. We browsed and bought a couple of cans of dog food for Bo as a treat.
We drove south on Date Palm Drive and eventually stumbled across the Cathedral City dog park. In the dog park was a young woman with two large dogs. Bo romped with the two dogs, then I, Joanne, and Prince, one of the other two dogs walked four laps around the dog park. Bo didn't join us. Too hot ! HA HA HA !
We left the dog park and began to drive west on Hwy. 111 through Cathedral City. We stopped at the Cathedral City location of Revivals, the same thrift store that we shopped at yesterday in downtown Palm Springs. It's a two location business operated by a gay men's organization. Which might explain why it's so extremely well organized, and has such terrific clothing and fashion sense. Today was Cathedral City's 35th Anniversary, so the Cathedral City location of Revivals had a 35% discount on all clothing. WOW ! GREAT ! I bought four brand new leather belts, three brand new pairs of pants ( two pairs of Brooks Brothers ), and a brand new storm jacket. About four hundred dollars worth of clothing for a little under fifty bucks ! I love Revivals ! I don't know why, but much of their clothing is brand new, with retail price tags still attached. I think the expensive Palm Springs clothing stores give them "last season's" leftovers. Which more often than not, are in sizes that fit me !
We drove downtown and parked between Sherman's Deli and the Palm Springs Convention Centre. We walked back to Sherman's Deli and had lunch. Let me pause here to remember and salivate. HA HA HA ! I had a bowl of borscht and a hot pastrami sandwich on sourdough bread. Was there any doubt ? HA HA HA ! Sherman's is not a cheap place, but sometimes you just got to bite the bullet and pay the piper ! HA HA HA ! After lunch we walked over to the Palm Springs Convention Centre to attend a couple of hours of the three day long McCormick's Classic Car Auction. Six hundred classic and collectible automobiles auctioned in three days ! Seven million dollars worth ! ! ! Each car's auction lasts two to three minutes. BOOM ! It's gone ! Next car please ! Not for the faint of heart. Not for me, other than as a spectator. BUT ...
I surely would have liked to have that 1962 Ford Galaxie 500 convertible ! In the same factory colour as my first car, a 1962 Ford Galaxie 500 Country Sedan station wagon.
We left the car auction about 4 PM and walked back to where the truck was parked. We drove north out of Palm Springs downtown to Interstate 10, then east on I-10 to the far east end of the Palm Springs area, to Spotlight 29 Casino. We have boondocked here many times in the past. It's an excellent boondock spot, with a large, quiet, secure RV overnight parking lot, separate from the commercial truck parking lot.
By the way ... Spotlight 29 Casino was developed and originally owned by Trump. He went bankrupt here, and it was taken over by the Indian Band whose land it is located on.
Saturday ; Palm Springs, California to Quartzsite, Arizona
Sunny and warm.
This morning we drove a short distance from Spotlight 29 Casino to Love's Travel Center and refilled our fresh water tank before getting onto Interstate 10 and heading east. About halfway to Quartzsite we stopped at a rest area and had lunch. Before resuming driving I had a brief nap. Just before crossing from California into Arizona we stopped in the small city of Blythe ( commonly referred to amongst the full time RV community as "Blight" ) to buy some bread. The grocery store we stopped at was Mexican, so we didn't buy a loaf of bread, we bought some bolillos ( Mexican "subway" style buns ). And some pan dulce, of course. HA HA HA ! Well ... what did you
expect ? This morning for breakfast we finished the last two empanadas from Vallarta in Tulare.
Shortly after crossing from California into Arizona we arrived at Quartzsite about 4 PM. We refilled with diesel at an ARCO fuel station that made us jump through an annoying series of hoops to get their posted "3¢ cash discount". We have never experienced a fuel station try that hard to avoid giving a discount that they post out on the freeway to entice customers. We drove north on Hwy. 95 a short distance to the Hi Jolly BLM
( free ) campground out in the desert, arriving about 4:30 PM. We took Bo for a long walk in the desert and by the time we returned to our camper at 4:55 PM it was dark ! HMPH !
While Joanne prepared a couple of foil packets of sausages, onions, and squash, and another packet of tiny potatoes, I lit a campfire using scrap lumber that I hauled over 2000 miles to use as firewood. HA HA HA ! I cooked supper to perfection over the open fire. Joanne "smashed" and creamed the tiny potatoes. AHHHHH ... campfire supper !
DSK
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