Same Place -Short and Sweet

Where Are We Todal

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The Same Place as My Last Post

This afternoon the clouds were starting to break so it was time for a couple of boys to get out their toys for a little play. Lorne Green from " A Place Called Away", click Here to find his blog, has a quad copter also. The two of us got them out to have a little fun and take some pictures. The following is the result. Most of the shots were taken from 400 feet up.

Rockhouse Trail leading back to the Clark Dry Lake Bed at the Base of the Santa Rosa Mts.

That's us 

Coyote Mts.

Looking towards the San Jaunita Mts.

Taking a picture of Lorne's copter with mine

Coyote Mts.

Borrego Springs in the distance to the right

Pat took these two pics of us  taking pics of each other

That's it, short and sweet, until the next time, take care and be safe. Comments welcome.

 

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

Where Are We Today

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To say that we are in the desert near Borrego Springs is a very broad statement. To put it exact, we are in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, settled in Clark Valley between the Santa Rosa and Coyote Mountains at 33.226*N by 116.348* W. If looking on "Google Maps", we are east of Borrego Springs Ca., follow Palm Canyon Rd. to Pegleg Rd. to Borrego- Salton Seaway, this is all one road called State Hwy 22. Where Pegleg Rd. turns into Borrego - Salton Rd you will see Rockhouse Trail to the north, we are a few hundred yards in and off to the right. Now that's about as exact as I can get and maybe more then you want to know, but there is a reason. The reason, it is one of the most beautiful areas that we have been in.

The Santa Rosa are behind us and the Coyote to are left.

I hope that you have been following Pat's blog, find it HERE, to see what we have been doing day to day. This post today, is more about what I see in the scenery. We use a camera to let light images in through an opening in a lens, that record on a digital card for us to look back on. Although, with my very limited picture taking ability and using auto exposure settings, the pictures don't do justice to what those same light images passing through the lens of my eye and travelling the electrical pathways to that location in my brain where I see the image and record it in my memory for hopefully years to come. Of course, the pictures will help to stimulate that memory from time to time. This post is about that scenery, the mountain colours, the green desert and the winding, twisting and turning roads. So , here are some of those pictures.

Clarke Dry Lake Bed at the base of The Santa Rosa Mts.

Santa Rosa Mountains

Coyote Mountains

Greenery on the way to Julian

Different Cactus

Road thru the Yaqui Pass Road

Yaqui Pass

Looking over the Borrego Badlands towards the Salton Sea

I hope you have seen some of the beauty that we have seen and there is much more to see. We will come back to this area again and continue to explore all that it has to offer.

Thanks for following along and feel free to comment, until the next time, take care and be safe.

 

Palm Springs

Where Are We Today

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Palm Springs Air Museum

Yesterday we went for a drive into Palm Springs so I could tour the Palm Springs Air Museum, of course, Pat did come along to keep me company, you can check out her side of the story HERE  For more information on the history of the museum, you can find their link HERE.

The museum is nicely laid out next to the Palm Springs airport with two hangars depicting the Pacific and European Theaters of World War Two with a third hangar in construction to house the Korean and Vietnam aircraft. There are approximately 40 aircraft on display and many in flight status. Rides in a C47, P51 and a P17 Stearman are available for a fee.  

The museum and aircraft are kept in cleaned and polished state, the volunteers are very knowledgeable and love to talk about the aircraft and their history. Most of the volunteers are ex servicemen and obviously love what they are doing.

 I never get tired of visiting Aircraft museums, revisiting the aircraft from all eras, but especially WW2 , trying to remember the not so famous one and the ones that I personally like. The pictures that follow are some of my favorites.

 

Entrance to Museum

B-17G Nose Art 

B-17G

Inside Belly Ball Turret

Tail Gunner 

Tail Section B-17G

Side View B-17G

Bell Huey UH-1B

Some Interesting Facts

F6F-5 Hellcat

Catalina PBY-5A

Corsair

PT-17 Stearman

For Derrick Supermarine Spitfire

While grabbing a bite to eat, we met Michelle Evans, author of "The X-15 Rocket Plane, Flying the First Wings into Space". It looks like a good read, so will have to get a copy.

Thanks for following along, feel free to comment and until the next time, take care and be safe.

 

I'm Still Here

Where Are We Today

Silent Valley Club, Banning Ca.

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Since my last post, I hope you have been keeping up with our social side by following Pat's Blog.

We were at Imperial Dam LTVA, just inside the California state line, when I last wrote. It is a nice area, only 20 miles  from Yuma Arizona. It's down fall was that we had no cell phone reception and the mosquitoes were bad, have never been so itchy from bites. 

We left there on the 14th of January for the LTVA area of Laposa South near Quartzsite Az. After all, the big tent and the RV Show was about to start on the 21st for nine days. People come from all over by the 100's of thousands to attend. They come in every form of RV that you can imagine, from tents, tent trailers, class B,C & A motor homes, gasers to diesel pushers, travel trailers to 5th wheels and some homemade RV's as well. The majority have solar panels to charge batteries for power, anywhere from one to twenty panels, the rest have generators ranging from construction type to the super quiet with invertors in them, I have even seen a couple of wind generators. We have heard and seen pictures of both the show and the numbers of people here, but until you see it, it's so surreal. We enjoyed all aspects of our time here, visiting the show, climbing the Q mountain, looking at property in a Mobile Home park, flying my quad copter to happy hour with great friends.

Big Tent in the middle

Big Tent and all the vendors around it

Looking out over the desert from atop Q mountain

Drone pic looking at the top of "Q" mountain 200 feet.

The "Q" mountain

Three more panels for a total of 6

I mentioned before about tilting our three solar panels to get more out of the low winter sun, that did help with our charging of batteries. I realized that we would need more panels and was going to wait until next year to add more. Our brother-in-law ordered three panels for their rig and got a double shipment, so instead of shipping them back, we said we would buy them from them and I would install them. So, after buying the cable and tilt kits, I installed three more panels on our roof. What a difference it makes, we have full charge usually by noon. Now having a full size residential refrigerator takes power, and if we watch our 48 inch tv at night we still need to run the generator while we do that. A couple of more batteries may make the difference.  

On the 31st of January we left the area and headed for Silent Valley Club just outside of Banning California. This park is located up a two lane twisting and turning mountain road at about 3500 feet, you actually pass 4100 feet and come down to the 3500. It was a bit of a white knuckle drive up, but we made it without any issues. The day after we arrived, we headed back down into Banning for supplies and back up again. I am sure we will be up and down a few times, so shouldn't be too bad when we head back down with the Suite.

While that's my side of our story, it's hard to believe that we are into our 4th month here, and still almost 2 months to go. 

The road up

See the road and view

Our spot C 536

When I think of what is going on back home, not just the weather, but what we would be doing. RV shows are in full swing, and we would have been helping out with our friends from CanAm Rv at the shows they attend, talking about our adventures, the trailers, especially the Mobile Suite and meeting lots of people with the same interests. Don't get me wrong, I'm not home sick, just saying we love what we are doing and don't want to change it. We will be at the fall RV show in Toronto, if Can Am still wants us, along with stories and pictures to share, so stop by and see us.

That's the end of this post, comment if you like and until the next time, take care and be safe.

  Pat's Blog