Old Town La Quinta

Nov 14/2018  Weather  sunny, 77 and 55 at night.  Everyday is a picture perfect day here.   
We were heading out to get on our bike when we noticed we had a friend running around and around the coach.  Roadrunner!!!  He is hilarious.  We see him everyday.  He is quite bold and doesn't mind telling us what he thinks.  But take a step towards him and can he ever run!

Roadrunners can fly but they prefer to run down their prey

Next to Indio is La Quinta which is known as a resort city.    The old downtown section is beautifully kept.  Flowers, an old square, pretty spanish style architecture. 

our bike parked in old La Quinta

Nice restaurants, walk around shopping in boutique stores and we found a very unusual ice cream store too.

Apple slices on a pizza - Napa Valley

Everyone asks if you have been to Stuft's; so we gotta go.  It is restaurant where you can create just about any kind of fire oven pizza you can think of or have one of the chef's gourmet combos.  They have a Napa Valley creation that has Canadian bacon, applewood bacon, carmelized onions, brie cheese, mozarella cheese, apples, mango sauce.  Yes apple slices, isn't that cool?  Oh it is so yummy.  Billy got the Maui.  We were going to share but I think he only had one piece of my Napa Valley..... It was so different. 

some fun art work

After we walked around town checking out the store fronts we just had to double back to get some liquid nitrogen infused ice cream.  Never heard of it before.  Billy is quite familiar with liquid nitrogen at the Dr.'s office.  Our curiousity had us inside ordering a salted caramel and strawberry cheesecake to go.  They make the ice cream while you wait.  -320 f makes it fresh and fast and no ice build up.  Quite good.  It was not smoking anymore when we got our cup of ice cream to go; all safe to eat. 

nitro infused ice cream  = see the steam , it froze right before our eyes

Quite happy and stuffed to say the least.  What a beautiful town square and the mountains in the background.  It looks like a postcard doesn't it?

walking past the town square in old town La Quinta

Safe and Sound

Nov 13/2018  Weather high of 72, low 59, sunny.  Fall weather in the desert.  Feels good to us.  Coffee pot outside at 9 am.  Good way to start the day.
We have been watching the news about the fires in Southern California.   Thankyou everyone for asking if we are out of harms way.  Yes we are.   I have shown in the map where we are and where the fires are.
 The Thousand Oaks/Malibu fire is about 200 miles and the Paradise/Camp fire is about 500 miles.  It is extremely dry in California with no humidity and warm.

Red dots are the 2 huge fires, we are the blue dot

  The Santa Anna winds make it very dangerous.  If any fire starts it will be out of control.  The SA winds have been up a couple of days this week and they certainly fuel and spread any fire.  The winds hit some areas with close to 90 mph gusts, and remained for hours at a constant 40 to 50 mph.  How the firefighters can cope is unimaginable. It is truly horrific to watch the fires on TV.

 

SoCal

Nov 7/2018  SoCal (urban slang for Southern California) Weather is warm  80's, nights low 60's.  We got here 1 day ahead of the winds!  Hurrah for us.  Tomorrow wicked gusty Santa Anna winds will be coming across the valley.  No matter we are here in the Coachella Valley at the far east end in Indio.

our morning coffee pot outside "view"

It is a good area to park an RV; in a wonderful park called Indian Waters RV Resort.  Winds at the west end will be up to 50 mph gusts and you will likely see sandstorms too.  In only 40 miles it is remarkable the difference in the wind speed. 
Oddly we don't summarize too much but thought it was interesting to take a look at since it is a big trip.
It's been 16 nights to get here.
2,821 miles
$1,077 usf or $1,453 cdn diesel fuel
$41.44 usf or $55.94 cdn avg cost per night for a camp site
But it is so worth it.  This is a wonderful area to stay for a while.  We have checked in for a month and the long range weather forecast is great.

around 80 everyday and 50 at night for sleeping, perfect RV weather

Rosey and Billy are taking a few r & r days.  Lawn chair and a book.  Even doing laundry here is great, sitting by the pool.  Rosey has been up at line dancing two mornings already too!  Getting acclimatized!

sitting by the pool while our laundry is in

After a few weeks on the road our coach is filthy so we are getting "The Guys" to wash and wax and carpet clean.  Mum always gets us this treat for our Christmas present.  

the guys