05/06APR09 - Indio, CA

Sunday, 05APR we traveled to Indio, CA, to stay at another of our camping association discount RV parks. This allowed us to be right next door to Palm Springs, supposedly home to 100 golf courses

Turns out that this was also the last day of the annual Girl Bar/Dinah Shore Week. This is a gathering of about 15,000 Lesbians. Apparently, most of the “activities” happen in three major hotels, and it appears that the main activity is massive pool parties at the hotels. Dan finds it interesting that some of the advertised activities involve female go-go dancers, pole dancing & lube wrestling? He wonders why when males take part in such activities, they are viewed as sexist pigs; but the ladies aren’t?

http://www.dinahshoreweekend.com/

We drove into Palm Springs and found an outdoor art fair/market in progress; and then walked down the main shopping street. We also checked out the local museum. Dan tried one of the date shakes that the area is famous for, not bad. Dan discovered a restaurant called Pomme Frites (aka french fries), it says it is a Belgian Restaurant specializing in french fries cooked the “Belgian” way served with sauces; and mussels prepared eight different ways. So guess where we had dinner? The french fires with sauces were just like in Holland and Belgium, and the mussels were excellent.

http://www.pomme-frite.com/

Next morning it was off to Joshua Tree National Park. This immense park is unique in that two deserts come together inside its boundaries. The Colorado Desert is lower and dryer, and is dominated by the creosote bush. The Mojave Desert is higher and wetter, and a special habitat of the Joshua tree. We took the requisite tour with a Docent. But the highlight for Dan was 20 miles offroading on a self guided tour on Geology Road. The Park Rangers give you a sheet with 16 different stops describing various geological features of both deserts. Unfortunately the Joshua trees are not blooming this year, probably because of the lack of rain, but the desert flowers were out in force. We also stopped at a scenic overlook where we had a clear view of the San Andreas Fault, and could even see Mexico fifty miles away.

http://www.nps.gov/jotr/

After a long day in Joshua Tree National Park, we stopped at a local Indian Casino that evening, where Corrie won $60 and Dan won $5!

Trivia – Why is it called the Joshua tree?