I spent a couple days kind of in Las Vegas. Let's put it this way. I drove around the edge of Vegas on Boulder Hwy and camped a couple nights in Henderson. This was one of those trips that I didn't really pay any attention to Vegas. I've been there so many times that I didn't go into a casino except to eat. I didn't go downtown. I didn't go to the strip. I spent time working on getting the last corrections to Mark's book made and off to the printer again and getting Jason's book finished, corrected, and sent to the printer. And I did some writing and prepping files for my new serial. Mostly, I tried to stay cool as Las Vegas hovered around 100 degrees.
On Thursday I drove on down to Blythe, CA and there was nothing between the two but desert. Even when I entered the Colorado River valley, it was desert on my right and green on my left. Like the road was a dividing line. I stopped in Needles at the BLM office (Bureau of Land Management) and was told that there were still some crews out, but the road repairs were finished. What repairs? From the floods last week. I could see signs of the damage as I drove south and passed a crew still scraping the sides of the road to remove sand from the highway and shape the waterways alongside.
My GPS started acting squirrely. First, it tried to send me West at a junction when the route was clearly south. Apparently it had out of date information about road conditions and was sending me on a detour that it invented. But then as I approached Blythe (about four miles out) I passed a sign that said Hidden Beaches RV Park was to the left. I thought it must be one of those things where there were multiple ways to get to the park. No. The GPS sent me 4 miles south to I-10. Then two miles west to the main drag through town. Then 4 miles north to a county road. Then 4 miles east, crossing the intersection where I'd originally seen the sign. I haven't figured out the purpose for that little bollux.
But, I ended up camped for two nights beside the Colorado River. That means that I've camped beside the Columbia, the Salmon, the Snake, and the Colorado so far. This water runs fast past Blythe, but it just doesn't look like a river that would carve the Grand Canyon a few miles northeast. And I guess that if you study it, you find out the river didn't actually carve the canyon. It was more of the glacial, volcanic, and water run-off action that cut the canyon and let the river find its course through it.
I was joined in my appreciation of the river by this beauty.
Saturday, I moved on the 110 miles to Palm Desert, CA where I am now ensconced in a small but comfortable condo with a pool and hot tub about a hundred feet from my door that are just calling for me tonight. The folks here at the Marriott Shadow Ridge are incredibly nice. I stayed here once a few years ago and am glad to be back. They gave me a bottle of wine because I'm here for my birthday. They had a place for me to park the trailer that's secure. They called in advance to find out what part of the resort I'd like a room in (third floor by the quiet pool). They found a room that was ready when I got here early. My parking spot is shaded most of the day. I have discount coupons for a couple dozen restaurants and I was able to grill a nice hanger steak for dinner.
That's a little of the downside. The kitchen consists of a toaster, microwave, coffeepot, and fridge. The trailer actually has a much better kitchen. So I guess I'm grilling of microwaving all meals this week. To celebrate that fact, I came up with a new recipe this evening and it was fantastic. I split a zucchini lengthwise and scooped out the core. I salted, pepperd, and herbed it, then filled the scoop with Gorgonzola cheese. Then I grilled it. Oh. My. Goodness! Combined with some of Uncle Ben's microwave rice pilaf, my first meal here was spectacular.
This week is focused on getting my serial finished and taxes. It's end of month and I haven't entered anything in the accounting software yet. I'll be correcting that between rounds of soaking in the hot tub. Speaking of which . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment