On Nov. 24th, I left my brothers house in Rosamond, and headed south towards Mexico. I initially thought I’d stop in Parker, Arizona for a few days along the Colorado, but a quick check of the weather showed that it was a little bit too hot, and all that’s really there is a casino. So I decided to head towards the Salton Sea and stay at a PPA half price RV park where they had assured me the WiFi was very fast.
It’s not a very long trip, four hours if you miss traffic. I skirt alongside East LA, than drift southeast using I-10.
Here’s where I park my RV while I’m staying at Brennan’s place…in his front yard, which is the yard next to my brothers house. Across the street neighbors are friendly and don’t complain about RV’s parked in yards. So that’s good. You can see how steep the road is, that’s why I don’t park on it.
That’s Brennan’s house and the gate leading into the back yard.
All ready to take off…
Since it was such a short trip today, I stopped along the route in Lancaster for air for the tires, fuel, and Turkey Day groceries. Found a frozen turkey breast, six pounds, that from a quick look at the package, I was pretty sure was all natural…that is, not injected with salt water euphemistically called ‘self-basting’. It sure looked like what I wanted. Then I got some dried cranberries, a can of some ultra-large black olives (turned out they were mediums, lying bastards), a couple packets of low salt turkey gravy mix, and some fresh veggies. What I couldn’t find was a package of just 6 dinner rolls. Darn. Also, I seldom eat stuffing because I really don’t care for the consistency, but occasionally, I’ll try it to see if I still hate it, and this time I bought a relatively expensive package of cornbread stuffing from the instore bakery. The package showed all sorts of yummy spices. Stuffing and cranberries were part of a recipe I’d found online for a slow cooker T-day dinner I wanted to try. I only needed 3 lbs for the recipe so I thought a 6 pounder would give me leftovers.
Anyway, shopping done, off I go…
Nice day. This section of highway is a long, very steep downhill, though it’s hard to tell from the photo.
Over there are some giant boulders…and further on a state park that features them.
Wind and rain cut sandstone.
Huge boulders.
They really are impressive up close.
More of them sticking out of the ground at steep angles.
A couple hours later, heading into Palm Springs, they have these giant wind farms.
This is just outside of Palm Springs, note that it’s a dry desert like setting.
The funny part about Palm Springs…I’d noticed along the freeway every several miles nearly the entire trip, there’d be a large billboard reminding citizens that there was a drought going on and to conserve water. And then when I got to the Palm Springs valley, arguably one of the richest areas in the state with 100’s of thousands of retired rich people, the signs just stopped. Not a single sign asking people here to curb their water usage. Interesting.
And an hour later, I pull off the freeway at Oasis, California, into Oasis Palms RV Resort. Pretty nice, but remote. Hardly anything nearby. No stores except an older, unkempt, filthy, convenience store a quarter mile away run by and for locals. No bar nearby, unfortunately. No easy access to the Salton Sea across the freeway. I could see it over there though, but the road over there was private. Well, it was turkey week and I was determined to enjoy myself. After I got set up in the park, I tested the WiFi and it is blazing fast. Wow. Streaming video HD fast. Nice. I had 3/4 tank of fresh water so I didn’t connect up to the park’s water immediately. The next day I spotted a notice from the state on the bulletin board, down low so easily missed, warning people about the water here. It’s not exactly undrinkable, they just warned about long term. Arsenic and fluoride above state and federal standards. Of course you’d have to drink it for years for it to have too bad an effect on your body. I would have used it anyway, but I needed to get some of that water out of my tank so to balance the RV better while on the road and this gave me an excuse to just use the tank water.
I paid for a week here mainly because I don’t like to travel during holiday weeks, and the spot here is 250 feet below sea level so it was warmer than it had been at Rosamond. Oh, and because of the WiFi and the fact that it’s a PPA park so the rate for me is 1/2 their published rate.
I’d left the frozen turkey breast in the sink while on the road, and it was defrosted just enough to cut it in half. And I found that it was still too big for the slow cooker so had to quarter it. That’s ok, I had room in the freezer for 3 chunks.
I parked just down from the club house and office. Just in front of the nightly bonfire area. Nice spot. Weather was perfect. Even had many digital TV stations from Palm Springs.
That’s off in the direction of the Salton Sea. You can see the park is not too crowded.
Across the street neighbor. Then through the trees you can see a car and tent. That’s the tent of an older gal who was running away from family and home. She had just bought her tent the night before, packed up her car with a few belongings and her dog, and hit the road. She’d come down from Colorado. I helped her put up the tent the next day. Never asked what she was running from. 
Looking towards the office just a few steps from my space.
And here’s the fire pit behind my RV. They’d light a big fire every night. And I’d join them most nights of course.
Next morning it was time to start cooking turkey dinner in the slow cooker. That chunk has about 1 pound of meat on it. So two meals. Which meant I had bought enough turkey for 8 meals. No problem. I love turkey. In the bottom of the slow cooker there is the cornbread stuffing, soaked with a little chicken stock, then all the spices, onion, celery, butter, and a handful of the cranberries. Put the lid on, and slow cook it for several hours. Makes it pretty easy since you start in the morning and it’s roasting away by 11 AM. Took me longer to cut the breast into four pieces then it did to get it roasting. It was still partially frozen so I’d have to stop cutting to warm up my hands.
What I didn’t realize when I got here is that this is one of those rare RV parks that have a TDay get together. This park’s owner cooks a large turkey, then many others contribute things to the meal. They came out and let me know about it, and since it was too late for me to come up with a potluck dish, I just went over to the large meeting room and joined the fun empty handed. They have a big dining room, and TV room too. The screen is like 75″. Tens of DVDs, 100’s of books, a pool table, and 3 large comfy couches. They’d set it up to gather at 4 pm, I sat on a couch and turned on the TV to a game, an hour later was sitting there enjoying an NFL game and I heard a commotion behind me in the dining area. Glance back and here are all these ignorant people holding hands, bowing their heads, and praying. Or at least pretending to pray. Gah, grow up! Glad I missed that.
There were probably 30 people in there, queuing up to fill their plates, so I just watched the game until it settled down a bit. Oh, my, was the turkey good! Wow. Got a big plate full of everything, and went back for seconds. Very well done dinner. Thanks people! There were 4 different kinds of pies too, and I got a small slice of each type. Boy, those were good too.
When I got back to my RV, my slow cooker turkey was finished. I sampled a bit…yum! And soooo tender. The cranberries really added a unique kick as well. So for several days, I had delicious turkey dinners, and they let me take as many pieces of pie I wanted from the communal refer. So I took six.
You can see they’re not very busy this time of year.
That’s the pool, clubhouse, and dining room building. The office is there too. All really nice, clean, comfortable.
And off in the distance, mountains of some kind.
You might not know it, but the Salton Sea actually straddles the San Andreas Fault. And it’s -234 feet below sea level. Imagine how hot it would be here in the summer?! But right now, Thanksgiving week, it was very nice.
Next time, we head on to El Centro, California. Last stop before Mexico.