Birthday Week

We started my Birthday Week with a visit from long time friends Ron and Madelyn who moved to SanTan Valley Arizona from Niagara-on-the-Lake four years ago. They got here in time for our Super Bowl party. It's sort of a different experience having the game start at 3:30 pm. We had lots of fun playing a 37 question prop pool. I was somewhat embarrassed when I won the $120 pot. My Super Bowl Chilli was a hit with very little left over for us to enjoy later.

On Monday we took Ron & Madelyn to Joshua Tree National Park and hiked the 49 Palms Trail to an oasis. A nice hike on a fairly windy day.

After the hike, we found another oasis at the Joshua Tree Saloon where we rehydrated and had some lunch.

We took the long way home driving through the park. This is a large park taking 1.5 - 2 hours to drive from the north to south entrance. We stopped at Key's View to try to get an overview of the Cochella Valley. This overlook is at about 5000 ft elevation looking down into the valley which is at or slightly below sea level. When we stepped out of our vehicle, we were almost flattened by the wind. I would guess close to 50 knots. Thanks to a high shutter speed, I was able to get one descent photo before we had to get back in the vehicle.

We had a leisurely day on my Birthday. Chris and Madelyn headed to the Factory Outlet Mall in Palm Springs and Ron and I went to a park to fly the drones. In the afternoon we all went to play a round on the 18 hole putting course. For supper, we went to the Jackalope Ranch. A huge restaurant/bar fairly close to us. Ron was really intrigued with the wooden Harley on display.

Thursday was the Annual Shadow Hills Golf Club Can-Am Tournament. Each foursome had two Canadians and two Americans playing a 2 man best ball match format. In our foursome, my partner and I won the front nine and the overall and added two points to the overall Canadian team score. Unfortunately the rest of the team went down in defeat 48 - 56. I did win the best dressed Canadian golfer award however! Check out the shorts I borrowed from my son-in-law. I'm the one with the white shirt...

Saturday I went to a huge car show at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. Well over 1,000 cars on display. Mostly hot rods and customized muscle cars but a few original classics. Here is a sample...

To see more, click here....   https://flic.kr/s/aHskRNPjMn

The most interesting vehicle to me was an original 1965 AC Cobra. By original, I mean one owner, never restored, original paint complete with dings and scratches etc. This car had been raced back in the 1960's by the owner who I spoke with for a while. He is one of two black people ever to own a Cobra (not counting Bill Cosby who returned his 427 Supercharged Cobra to Carol Shelby after it scared the shit out of him on his first drive). Unfortunately it was not for sale (apparently he has turned down an offer of $1.5M).

With temperatures approaching 30C during the day, we are spending more time at the community pool. Chris and I have been able to get out for our weekly golf game on the Shadow Hills North Course just about every weekend.

On Valentines Day, we went on a hike with the Shadow Hills Hiking Club to the Mission Creek Preserve. We had a nice hike to a ridge that is part of the Pacific Crest Trail. This provided an overlook of the Whitewater Preserve and San Gorgonio Mountain.

After the hike, we attended a Valentines dinner/dance at the clubhouse.

The camera club had a workshop on "motion blur" this week. It was fun experimenting with camera settings and technique. Here are a couple of the results...

On Thursday, after Men's League Golf, we drove to Palm Springs to check out Villagefest, a weekly street festival in downtown Palm Springs. A pretty big crowd and lots of pop-up street vendors.

Friday was windy and overcast with another major storm forecast to arrive in the evening. We went to Palm Desert for supper and check out the bi-weekly El Paseo Cruise Night. Unfortunately, there were not a lot of cars cruising the main street as everyone seemed to be hunkered down awaiting the storm.

Even the shoppers were at home. This is the heart of the El Paseo shopping district at 6:30 pm.

The rain arrived and Saturday was pretty well a washout although we didn't get the heavy rains they experienced on the coast. Looks like a bit cooler temperatures again for the next week but it should be good for some hiking.

The Weather Slowly Returns to "Normal"

We started the fourth week of January with some more rain. Luckily, Chris and I were able to get in a round of golf on the North Course before it started to drizzle. The next day it again rained on and off so it ended up being an errand running day. We had to go and pick up Chris's iPod Touch which had to get a new screen after an encounter with the ceramic tile floor. After spending the last day or so inside, we decided to go out for a casual supper at Roc's Firehall.

The next 10 day weather forecast finally features a big sun and 0% probability of precipitation! One of the folks in the Shadow Hills Hiking Club had mentioned the "Cove to Lake" hike in LaQuinta. A perfect excuse to get out of the house on a beautiful day. This was a fairly easy hike of a bit less than 10 km. Part of it skirted a private golf course that featured a heard of big horn sheep that trim the grass around one of the putting greens.

Now that the weather has improved, I had two days of back to back golf games on the Shadow Hills South Course, once with my friend John and some of his friends and once with the Thursday Men's League. It's worth noting however that even though it is shorts and golf shirt temperatures by mid morning, we did have a frost delayed start on Men's League day!

On Friday, Chris had a bit of a sore throat. We took a drive along the first several km of the "Palms to Pines" highway which heads out of the Cochella Valley towards San Diego. Quite a twisty climb up the mountain. We stopped at a couple of viewpoints that gave a nice overview of the valley.

Chris felt well enough that we were able to go for a short hike on the Randall-Henderson trail at the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument.

On Saturdays, there is an open air market in Palm Desert which is sort of an upper scale flea market. We spent a couple of hours walking around looking at all of the stuff. I got a great deal on some "experienced" golf balls.

The recent rains have fallen as snow in the surrounding mountains. There was about 4 ft of accumulation on the higher peaks from the wet weather earlier this week. It was a nice clear day and made for a great contrast of the carrot field, palms and snow capped mountains. This is right outside the gates of our "community".

The other thing I have noticed are the wicked colours in the sky right after the sun goes down. This is what it looked like in our backyard on Sunday.

This prompted me to get in the golf cart and take a ride up to the lop of the levee for these shots the following evening when there were some interesting clouds.

Tuesday was Shadow Hills Hiking Club hike day. We went to the Salton Sea Recreation Area and did a hike on the Dos Palmas trail. Definitely more than two palms in this man-made oasis.

The rest of the week was taken up with a Camera Club meeting, Couples Putting Group (I tied for 2nd), Men's League golf, flying my borrowed drones and getting ready for the best Super Bowl Party ever.