We hadn't planned a vacation this year as Sheila had an injury at work so we were limited to where to go, what to do, how much money to spend!
Sheila's sister, Denise suggested that we visit their time share in Desert Springs, California which sounded great so off we went.
We left Boston and flew to Los Angeles and rented a real nice mid size Mitsubishi.
We drove east out of LA to Palm Springs and then a bit south to the Mariotte Palm Desert Resort.
Below are some picture of the view from our room.
View to the left from our balcony.
View to the right from our balcony.
Another view to the right.
There were several swimming pools at the resort which Sheila visited daily.
We also had a visitor outside of our room, BEEP BEEP, a roadrunner!
We really relaxed on this vacation but also took some time to see the sights.
We visited the Joshua Tree National Park located in the Mojave Desert, which is the "special habitat of the Joshua tree".
The Mormons came to this area and saw trees that looked like they were reaching for the heavens so the settlers named them Joshua Trees. Here's a couple of pictures of Joshua Trees.
Five fan palm oases also dot the park, indicating those few areas where water occurs naturally and wildlife abounds.
We visited this area called the "Palms" where we had to walk a bit down a path to see hugh palm trees growing in this oasis of a desert.
Here's one quick shot we took of a palm tree oases:
One of the largest salt water lakes was only a few miles southeast of where we were staying, The Salton Sea. There's quite a bit of history about it, and it's a bird sancuary. (Also tends to have a bit of a bad odor!)
We didn't see many birds but here's a picture we took of the Salton Sea.
We saw some typical southwest sights that we love so much on our drives.
Here's a shot of some rocks that just caught our eye.
We spotted a replica of an American Indian straw teepee by the side of the road so we stopped to check it out.
Our big driving trip this time was a visit to the San Diago Zoo.
The ride there wasn't too bad but we left on a Friday at rush hour so that was a bit insane.
The zoo was great though and we sure got our exercise walking all day. We began with a double decker bus tour of the zoo and then walked around it to see the exhibits. We really enjoyed it, especially the Apes and the Panda bears.
Here's a few pictures from the zoo:
Well, hope you enjoyed seeing pictures from Palm Desert California and thanks for taking the time to read about our adventure.
