Desert Hot Springs, California

It was a beautiful and warm day for our return to California yesterday. There was rain in the forecast, however, and it started up right on time as we were watching television last night. It rained all night, and it is raining this morning. The expectation is that it will rain all day. Many thanks to my friend Linda who told me that Whitewater Preserve is closed today over concerns about potential flooding. Thank you, Linda. Knowing about the rain, we'd planned our visit for tomorrow, but if there is flooding, it could be closed then too. Not to worry. We can extend our stay here by a few days if we want to.

As for yesterday's drive...there isn't a whole lot to say about it. We drove around 160 miles to our newest stop. Along the way I remembered with a little bit of horror that we would pass through an agricultural inspection station when we crossed the border into California. And here we were...fresh off a grocery shopping trip, with pretty much anything you can think of in the way of produce.

You might recall I went through this same reckoning on our trip south...only then, I remembered before we hit the road, and gave all the produce to our neighbor. Anything confiscated here was going into the trash...which is a shame. So we crossed over the Colorado River into the great state of California. Both of us were born here.

Our concern about the produce was briefly mitigated by the bumper sticker on this old pick-up truck. That gave us a chuckle. I'm not good with the years of autos, but I happen to know that color of license place in California is very, very old.

And there it was...looming like some sort of produce-eating monster. And see all those trucks and cars?

Well...all our worries were for nothing because they were waving everybody through. They didn't even stop us to ask if we had anything...just wave, wave, wave...everybody just drive on and don't bother us. The same thing happened when we passed through this same station a few years ago. Apparently this is the don't ask, don't tell method of agricultural inspection. Whatever. We were so happy to keep our limes that we drank margaritas in celebration yesterday evening.

So we're staying at a new-to-us park. It's very nice with a nice pool and hot tub, fed by a non-sulfurous hot spring. The water is comfortably warm without smelling of sulfur. I haven't been down there, but Mike has. The water is saline, and so there's no chlorine smell either. We have a nice view of the San Jacinto mountains from our space.

Aside from driving, we haven't really done anything since we arrived. I spent some time on my embroidery yesterday afternoon. Possibly, I'll finish this piece today or tomorrow.

So, there isn't a lot to tell you, but I thought you'd want to know what it looks like when rude little black cats don't eat out of their own dish. It forces the polite and civilized gray cats to straddle the dry food and treat bowls to eat out of the dish on the opposite side.

Fortunately, they were given a new container of wheat grass after our last grocery shopping trip. We've tried to keep the wheat grass growing, but it gets brittle and dries up eventually, despite our best efforts. A new one was in order, and it was greatly appreciated.

I'm told by some friends there is a French bakery in nearby Palm Desert where their desserts are "works of art." We were advised to get some of the baked goods, and to also get a dessert to take home for tonight's after-dinner treat. Well, with the preserve closed today...say no more. It seems like a perfect way to spend the day with a sweet ending we can look forward to. I don't know the name of the bakery, but I've been given some pretty good directions for finding it. More later.