Sunday....A More Peaceful Day

Yesterday dawned a nice sunny day(we were supposed to get 3 days of rain)but will take anything we can get.It looks like we will be staying at this location as more rain is in the forecast and Salt Creek is still a mud hole.The poor host....his Starchoice dish is still there...I guess he was so busy getting us out that he couldn't look after his own affairs.
Ron and Sue headed back to the Sonny Bono first thing and I headed the other way in search of "Vittles" as "The Beverly Hillbillys" would say and new runners..so I set Miss Garmin for the first Wal-mart on her list which was the big super Wal-mart in La Quinta,25 miles away.

It was a nice quiet early Sunday drive as I entered the I-10 at Indio and looked down at the 2 big casinos with all that empty r.v. parking space,and thought..still a good overnight parking spot when dragging the trailer.
First stop a bank...We needs money to buy vittles and shoes...Damn!...my BMO debit card seems worn out..that's the 2ND time and place that an ATM wouldn't take it...thank goodness I carry Marlene's card as backup....Must get a new one when I get home.
As I drove down 111 through the business areas of Indio and La Quinta..I noticed how nicely landscaped many of the establishments were,with many wild and (tame) flowers,(joke).
I found the Wal-mart...and its a big one...still early enough to be quiet for shopping.One of the first things I noticed was that everyone shopping spoke Spanish,I didn't hear one person speaking English as I wandered the isles....How the southwest is changing!The same thing everywhere you go.All the staff in all the stores and fast food places are Hispanic...in fact all the businesses.

Shopping done,I head back,staying on the 111 this time because I wanted to stop at the "Oasis Date Garden," in Thermal. Its been many years since I last visited this spot and had a "Date Shake."

The place hasn't changed over the years and the shakes are still good.I bought a small pack of Medjool dates also to take home...sort of expensive though. They had a sampling table with about 10 different variety's of date to sample before buying.

Back to camp by noon,had more mud removal chores to do.Had a nice visit with a doctor and his wife from Victoria who are staying over at the next beach in their motorhome.They saw my 2 satellite dishes and had a 100 questions.They had just come back from their first and last trip to Mexico.Many of the reasons for not returning are the same reason why I waved going this year after so many years in a row.It seems many have not returned this year,as many of the campgrounds that were full last year,are 1/3 to 1/2 full this year.

Here are some more of Ron and Sue's bird pics from the Sonny Bono Refuge.They sure get some great shots.I must go with them one of these times.