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.