We intended to spend time with the Escapee Boomers for Thanksgiving south of Joshua Tree National Park. However, when we departed Bullhead City a significant rain storm was predicted for Thanksgiving. We were concerned about the possibility of getting stuck due to the mud. Since some desert areas become mud pits in the rain, we decided to extend our overnight boondock at Quartzsite thru the Thanksgiving weekend.
Most of the desert BLM areas around Quartzsite are well packed gravel where mud is not an issue. Where we parked near Dome Rock was pure gravel where you could probably drive cement truck without getting stuck.
It rained mostly all day on Thanksgiving with many areas experiencing flash flooding. We were very confortable with no worries. Although we did not have pot luck with the Boomers; we enjoyed a nice steak dinner and oyster casserole on the day before Thanksgiving.
During our stay at Dome Rock there was an event called the Boondocking Bash. There were a lot of younger nomads camped in all manner of vehicles - vans, small RVs, converted busses, some 5th wheels and a few class A coaches.
We stayed at Dome Rock departing for Palm Springs on Monday, Dec 2nd. We topped our fuel and propane tanks in Quartzsite so as to avoid the high California taxes. It was a short 3 hour drive to Palm Springs. We stopped at the post office in Indio where we had several general delivery mail and Amazon packages waiting for pickup.
Thee Thousand Trails park in Palm Springs has fairly densely packed sites, is otherwise pleasant and well maintained. We had stayed in this park during our winter of 2017 travels.
We've basically chilled out for the week long stay. We did some thrift store shopping, and went out to eat a couple of times.
We found an interesting and weird art museum called Robolights. Unfortunately it was raining during our visit and the museum did not appear to be open to the public.
One of our reasons for visiting Palm Springs was the Indio Tamale Festival. The festival encompasses a couple of city blocks in downtown Indio. We had attended the Date Festival at the nearby county fairgrounds in 2017.
The festival had dozens of tamale vendors (many claiming awards for previous years). We chose one who was a number one winner of the 2018 festival. We bought two tamales for each of us (chicken/cheese, chicken/jalopena and pork/beef). The pork/beef combo was the 2018 winner and was the winner with us.
There were also four stages with various live music and one stage with a juggler performing. Besides the music and food, there was the predictable assortment of tourist style crafts and art.
The next day we had planned to ride the Palm Springs tramway which climbs about 2000 feet to the Mt San Jacinto state park. The day, however, was overcast and the ride would not have been very visual. After taking Mya for her annual physical at Banfields and doing a little shopping, we broke camp and headed south toward Yuma, AZ.
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| The Imperial Sand Dunes |
The site was hard packed sand along an irrigation canal. There were about six other rigs scattered about a 50 acre flat area. It was very quiet with our the nearest neighbor about 70yds away. The cellular signal was very strong allowing us to stream TV over the internet and binge watch Youtube videos.
The next morning we drove about 3 hours east to Tucson. Enroute a passing semi threw a rock shattering our passenger side window. Fortunately, only the outer layer of the double-pane window was broken. The single interior pane remained intact.
