Month: November 2023

Exploring the Inland Empire

We started the day with a walk around the property, venturing as far as the Desert Willows Golf Academy next door. It was cool and cloudy, but there were brilliant flowers to be enjoyed anyway.

We drove to Shields Date Garden in Indio for lunch and date shakes. I’d never noticed the sign over the door that said that their shake was the Official Date Shake of Riverside County, but it’s true.

After lunch, we took Jeff on The Walk through their gardens and picked up a couple of pounds of dates to bring home.

Then it was off to Redlands (where Jeff was meeting a friend for dinner) and the Lincoln Memorial Shrine.

The shrine was donated to the city by Robert and Alma Watchorn in memory of their son Emory Ewart and is now maintained by the Lincoln Memorial Association. We spent a couple of hours there; we even got a tour of their Civil War carbine exhibition from Ken Jolly who had donated the collection to the museum and is a docent there.

After we left the Lincoln Shrine, we took a little walk through downtown Redlands, which seemed to be a lively place, even in the rain.

We walked back to the Escape Craft Brewery Downtown Oasis and had dinner, then drove back to Palm Desert. This was my first time driving the EV-6 in rain, and I felt pretty comfortable in it, though I was happy when the rain stopped!

Facebook works its magic

Jeff posted a photo he took at the Mojave Air and Space Port to Facebook yesterday, mentioning that he was on the way to Palm Desert. His aunt Debbie replied that she and Pete (Diane’s brother) were in Palm Desert for a few days, and soon we had made plans to meet this morning and go up to Joshua Tree National Park together.

We stopped in Yucca Valley for lunch at Two Guys Pies (recommended!), then visited the official park visitor center to get some ideas, and finally reached the park itself around 1pm.

The ranger at the visitor center had suggested we take the Barker Dam trail, which includes petroglyphs (some of which, sadly, had been “enhanced” by a film crew). When we got there, we discovered that the National Park Service had put their own petroglyph in the parking lot.

Here are a few of the photos I took along the trail.

At one point, a kind passer-by asked if she could take a photo of our group, and we accepted.

Then it was back to the hike and onward to the petroglyphs.

And then we finished the trail and returned to the car.

I wanted to get to the Cholla Cactus Garden before sunset, so we piled into the car and headed down the road. Even though I was in a hurry, I couldn’t resist the late afternoon light on the rocks near Hidden Valley Campground.

I didn’t see the climber in the rocks at first, but others in the car did.

I may not have paid close attention to the speed limit on the way to the Cactus Garden – we reached it just in time to see the cholla lit by the last rays of the sun before it went behind the mountains for the night.

Some of the cholla was displaying its fruit.

We took one last Joshua Tree selfie and started the long drive back to Palm Desert.

You never know where a Facebook post might lead you!