Red Ribbon Drive

Indio, CA
February 18


Well we are now staying in Indio, Ca.  There are a string of small cities around Palm Springs that are all part of the Coachella Valley.  Indio is on the southern end.  We will explore Indio as we move up the valley towards Desert Hot Springs, our ultimate destination.  Bob and Judy Islee, Mark's cousins, live there and we will visit them for a while.  We are staying at the Fantasy Springs Casino/Resort.  These are great places to stay, casino parking lots.  It is a huge lot with about 30 rigs in it.  Our clubhouse is set up to dry camp so we are fine.  We can tour and do tourist things during the day and then at night Angie gets to walk across the parking lot to the casino!  Perfect.

 Our first day we did a 120 mile "Red Ribbon" scenic loop around the Joshua tree National Park.  Our first stop was the General Patton Memorial Museum.  Mark loved it and we both learned a lot.

We were at the museum at the same time as the History Channel filming crew.  They are starting a series called "Ten Things You Didn't Know".  The first in the series will be about General Patton.  We studied at the museum so we'll see if we already know the 10 things they will tell us.

These are shell casings that were carved by soldiers while they were in the trenches waiting for orders or more shooting.  This is called "trench art".  Most were carved during WWI.   This is one of Mark's favorite parts of the museum.  They are amazing.

I am really surprised how prominent Javelinas are in the south and southwest and we had never heard of one until we got here.

This is a window shot as we were doing our "Red Ribbon" drive around the Joshua Tree National Park.  We didn't go into the interior because we were getting a little tired of desert but were told that we really missed something special by not going in.  We haven't left yet so maybe before we leave this area we will go in.

We are entering the Visitors Center at 29 Palms, which is on our "Red Ribbon" drive.  I had heard of 29 Palms before but didn't know where it was.  This is the home of the largest Marine base in the US.  Lots of testosterone floating around in the air.  You could smell it.

It wasn't until we arrived at the second visitors center that we found out what a Joshua Tree was.  This is it.

Towards the end of our "Red Ribbon" drive we went past Desert Hot Springs and Palm Springs.  Between the two we come upon this HUGE wind farm.  There are about 4,000. wind machines here.  It was stunning.  We will visit this farm later in our stay.