Saturday, 2-28-98

T his morning we were up bright and early so we were able to leave the rest stop at 7:00AM. I saw the sun come up for the first time in a long time. Today’s trip was uneventful, with good weather all the way. Somewhere along the way I ended up with a new CB "Handle." I am now known as "High Tech." We drove far enough south on I-5 to find a bad section of freeway. South of the Button Willow exit, we hit a section of I-5 that is still in need of repair, but most of I-5 is in good shape now. We arrived at the top of the "Grapevine" at lunchtime, so we pulled in to the parking lot of the Camping World store near Valencia, California. With our motorhomes parked together, the women made lunch while the men went in to shop for "essentials."

Making plans for lunch while the men are shopping

The only heavy traffic we encountered today was on I-10 in Pomona, California. The freeway was being repaired for most of the distance through Pomona. Four lanes of traffic were merged into only two lanes. That along with "Sucker lanes" and people who did not want to let our motorhomes merge, made it a real problem for us to get into the proper lanes. We took turns using our CB radios and motorhomes to run interference to help the others merge into the remaining lanes. It worked out most of the time.

All along the freeway wild flowers were in bloom. Whole hillsides were covered with California Poppies. Most were the traditional orange color, but there were shades of color ranging from bright yellow to deep reddish orange. Dispersed among the poppies were purple wild flowers. It made a very pretty contrast in color. Unfortunately, because of the heavy traffic, I was unable to take any pictures of the flowers.

We were treated with another beautiful view as we headed east, the mountains were snowcapped and they made a nice backdrop for the scenery ahead of us. It was easy to tell when we entered Palm Springs, California, because the streets, landmarks, and some businesses were named after celebrities. As we drove across the Coachella Valley, we experienced the novelty of driving below sea level for a short distance.

Looking down our road in the campground in Indio, CA

We arrived at our campground for the evening at about 3:00PM, it is surrounded with palm trees. The weather has been beautiful and balmy, in fact, here in the campground in Indio, I feel over dressed. Everybody seems to be wearing summer style clothing such as shorts, tank tops and sandals.

This time of year, the campground is occupied by a large number of "Snowbirds," as a result our little group was dispersed throughout the campground. Four vacant campsites together were not available, so our campsite turned out to be at the opposite end of the campground from Tom, Nora, Dave and Barbara.

We found Dick and Dorisdean’s motorhome in a campsite about halfway between our campsite and the location of the rest of our group. Tom, Nora, Dave and Barbara showed up as we were saying "Hi" to Dick and Dorisdean. We talked about our adventures of the day. We all intended to have dinner together, but because we are so far apart from each other, we ate our evening meal in our respective motorhomes.

As I put turkey burgers on the barbecue, I heard a whooshing noise in the distance. I looked up to see a colorful hot air balloon drifting overhead. In fact there were two balloons, one of which descended to just a few feet over the campground. To top it off, in one of the hot air balloons, somebody was playing bagpipes, only in Southern California.

A really low approach with bag pipes playing

After dinner, we all converged on Dick and Dorisdean's campsite carrying our lawn chairs. We had a nice visit sitting out in the balmy night air. This gave us an opportunity to make plans for the next day of travel. As we were departing to go to our motorhomes, a fireworks display erupted in the distance. It was a nice way to end the day.

After returning to our motorhome, I used a new Techno-toy to send and receive my e-mail messages. I have a special modem in my notebook computer that makes it possible for me to use a cellular telephone to connect to the Internet. It is nice to sit in our motorhome and still be connected to the cyber-world when there is a cell-phone antenna nearby.

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