Travel day and Mini Vacation

Saturday -Sunday,  October 13-14, 2012 

Saturday we are going to travel one of our long days of around 310 miles.  We are not fond of traveling this far in a day but we wanted to get around the city of LA.  LA is in our path and 200 miles away, which would be a good days travel for us.  We found this resort in Hot Desert Springs CA about 100 miles east of LA called Caliente Springs.  It’s a 55+ resort and we met that criteria J  We found this place through Passport America and they offer a 50% discount for up to 7 days this time of year.  That makes the cost just $25 a day! 

The drive here had its moments alright.  About 50 miles from LA,  I5 started this very, very long ascent grade of 10-15 miles.  We went from 500 feet to just under 4000 feet.  It was not a real steep grade but just enough to keep the truck working hard for quite a while.  The truck performed perfectly though.

Next, we needed to get fuel before we reached Caliente Springs.  We pulled off a couple of times and the fuel stations were just not comfortable for me to get into.  They were very busy and had tight turns in and or out of the fueling areas.  We lost an hour looking for fuel and then trying to get back to I5.  Finally we decided to just wait till we were almost to Caliente Springs before we tried again for fuel.  Seems that when you are near big cities, they do not put signs out for fuel on the interstates and there are very few truck stops.  We did finally find a Travel America truck stop just 50 miles from Caliente Springs.  

Again, this was not an ideal stop.  The first entrance was for trucks and we took that thinking that we may get diesel there or at the car area, just never sure if the car area has diesel.  When in, we saw that the car area had diesel and the truck area was over full with trucks.  There was no area to turn around unless you came out the entrance.  So we came out of the entrance along with a couple of trucks doing the same thing.  Now into the car area, the fuel stations are right up against the pumps.  In other words, the area has loads of room in the entrance area even to turn around the rig, but the pumps faced the mini store with maybe 30 feet between them.  It would be impossible to just pull through the pumps and turn after filling up.  

Anyway I decided to pull up and get fuel and then I would need to back out.  Pulled up to the pump and wouldn't you know it, the pump credit card was out of order.  They had put a little sticker on the glass screen to let you know that.  OK then, I try the pump on the other side and just pull the hose over.  The machine tells me I need to see an attendant, which means I need to go inside.  Inside I wait in line for a few minutes and finally get told that the attendant I am talking to is leaving and can’t help me and to get in another line.  This attendant can help but I need to tell her how much fuel I need before I fill up.  I put in $120 which will just about fill it at $4.60 a gallon!  The backing up and turning around was really pretty easy and we were back on our way.

Caliente Springs is one of just few resorts that have their pool and hot tubs filled with their own hot mineral spring water.  The resort has one large pool that is sort of divided by teardrop-shaped pools of increasing temperatures.  It also has 4 hot tubs of increasing temperatures.  The water comes out of the ground at 140F degrees and the resort cools it.   The season here starts in November so we are in that shoulder period where the weather is perfect but the snow birds are not here yet.  In fact, the place has just the right amount of people right now.  For example, I played water bally ball for about 2 hours on Sunday with 20 people, 10 on each side. 

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Caliente Springs is a beautiful resort and very well maintained.  It is a mix of park units and RV sites.  I found out from a neighbor that you can only rent sites here, you can’t but the land.  Rent is $350 - $450 per mo. plus electric.  That is really not a bad deal.  After just one day here we would definitely stay here a month at that rate.  

View from our dining table.

That's our RV and truck in the center.

The club house where the pools are located.  2 minutes from our RV.

Flowering bush outside the laundry room with park homes in the background.

Another flowering bush outside the main office.

Our RV again.

I'm in the pool on the far side of the net in front.

We are here for 3 days and 4 nights as a mini vacation then we are off to Quartzsite AZ for a couple of days to just see the area.  A lot of RVers go to Quartzsite to boondock on BLM land.  At the end of the week we are “mooch docking” at Patty’s school friends' house in Phoenix, Roe and Don Heitz.  We also plan to meet up with a friend of ours that we both worked with, Paul Everett and his wife Sue, who are vacationing for a month in Phoenix.

Stay tuned!