| Day 1 - Sunday |
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| So on day one of our vacation, we climed into
the car and drove. Our friends had told us that it would take eight
hours to drive from the Bay Area to Palm Springs. We made it in 6 hours
and 40 minutes with one stop for relief and gas. Our average speed
(including the stop) was 70 miles per hour. For several hours on I-5, I
literally only drove with my fingers. I set the cruise control to 78-80
and hit the buttons to slow down or speed up. The land yacht behaved
fine, it is amazing what a large gas guzzling V8 will do on a long trip.
I don't think the engine ever ran above 3,000 rpm. We could have made it
here on one tank of gas, but we left with 3/4 of a tank and filled up
when we needed to go to the bathroom. |
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| Day 2 - Monday |
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Our first full day here. We were both awake
early and decided to get into the hot tub. At 7 am we moved to the pool
and it was already 80 degrees outside. This was going to be a good day.
We had a little too much activity that day, because we moved our chairs
from one end of the pool to the other when it got too hot. We'd better
plan that a little better tomorrow. We don't feel like going anywhere,
We didn't go out the front door, we didn't even eat dinner...
Check
out the temperature! The time is 6 pm! |
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| Day 3 - Tuesday |
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| Our friends left and we have the place to
ourselves. Very generous, we'll have to reciprocate. We went out early
this morning to satisfy my honey's craving for an omelette. While we
were out, we picked up lunch and a lot of drinks at the local grocery
store. I kept looking at the clock by the pool in the afternoon and time
was going real slow! Hey, no wonder, I'm on vacation. Turned out the
clock was broken! |
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| Day 4 - Wednesday |
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We're starting to feel the effects of
relaxing for a few days and I am ashamed to say that I haven't read much
of my books, even though they are very interesting. Our day consists of
laying on the lounge until we're sweaty, jumping into the pool until
we're pruney, then laying on the lounge again. The most stressful thing
of the day is what to do about lunch. We hate decisions.
We did
decide to go out to dinner last night. The Kaiser Grill downtown. We had
salads and calamari. Yum. Here's my Mrs. standing under the misters.. |
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| Day 5 - Thursday |
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Up early this morning, out to breakfast and
some supplies. We picked up a couple of bags of ice in order to keep our
drinks cold, and we should be all set for later in the day. It's
actually raining today! The TV weather man said something about Monsoon
moisture from Mexico. I don't know about Mexican Monsoons, this looks
like California rain! If it is Mexican, I hope we don't get something
from Montezuma, because we are getting wet...
Well
it did rain the whole day so now we are familiar with the local outlet
mall, the photo store and the Thursday night street fair. There was no
sun today, only time for strawberries in the pool. Decadent.
|
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| Day 6 - Friday |
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The sun is back! There are some clouds in the
sky, but it looks pretty good out there. The temperature is supposed to
go to 96 today, though I'm sure it will feel hotter since the humidity
is high.
We
didn't go anywhere today. There were some dramatic clouds hanging over
the mountains, but no rain. A great day for laying in the sun and taking
a nap - which we both did. We didn't even go out to dinner, just porked
up on the snacks at 4 and then had some of our leftover spreadable
cheese, crackers and carrots at 8:30. |
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| Day 7- Saturday |
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| We went to a local nursery, Palapas, they are
a combination art gallery and nursery. We almost bought this
thermometer, but the plastic was a little cheesy. |
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| We did get a small version of
the pony tail palm we saw at one of the local hotels, where we had lunch
by the pool. Hopefully some day ours will be as big as its big brother.
|
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| Then for our last night we went out to
dinner. Lobster! The service was awful, but the lobster was very good.
Tomorrow morning we're going to check one more nursery before we head
out. Maybe we can buy a little bit bigger palm. Ours is really puny
compared to the one here... |
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| Day
8 - Sunday |
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| We left earlier than planned, around 10:30,
because we wanted to stop in Newman on the way home. Besides, it looked
as though it was going to be the hottest day of our stay. We went to
Sunrise Nursery on our way out and bought another ponytail palm. This is
a doubletrunk tree and the nursery owner gave us a great deal - so we
couldn't resist. Then on to Newman,
a small town in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley. Berlynn was born
in Newman in the hallway of the old Westside hospital. If you're
interested in our Newman visit, see the rest of the pictures. We arrived
back in San Carlos at 6:30, unloaded the car, called out for a pizza and
went to sleep dreaming of a wonderful vacation and refreshed for the
office on Monday. |
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