Rocky Road to Paradise

Sunday, Jan 15…

First boulders... 

The usual departure chores and checklists. On the road around 10, heading for Indio (near Palm Desert, which is a city, but also near several other regular dirt deserts). Greg had studied the map and programmed Garmi, but somehow we ended up going a different way than he expected (maybe he clicked the alternate route – who knows). No problem – we got there fine, but the road we took (CA 371) was one Greg had planned to come back to later in the M3, not the motorhome! Of course he enjoyed the twists and turns anyway, but it was a lot more work!

Left turn ahead...

Now hard right...

(see BlogThoughts below)

 BlogThoughts... We've seen lots of these Memorial Highway signs. I assume - perhaps erroneously - that "memorial" means the officer is dead, and that the sign marks the site of his demise. If that's the case, then I think there should also be a yellow CAUTION sign above each green tribute.

The road ahead: what goes down must come up again. 

Paradise (no bikers when we were there)

Eventually 371 T-bones into Rt.74, and the (apparently very popular) Paradise Valley Café is located at the intersection. This seemed like a great time and place to have lunch. The café is small – maybe seats 40 inside – and this is noon on Sunday. After 10 minutes or so we were seated as several  more hopeful folks crammed into the tiny vestibule. Prices were a bit high, but the portions were huge, so we split a tasty prime rib dip w/ more fries than even Greg could eat.  The rest of the drive was uneventful, and we arrived at the Indio Elks mid-afternoon. Within an hour, we discovered our RV driving instructor and his wife parked right across from us. What are the odds…?