NEW MEXICO...LAS CRUCES
This is a revisit to the area... ate at the La Posta again at the best seats in the house...outside. Seeing the super sized windmills again in great numbers....
ARIZONA.... TUCSAN & PHOENIX
Spent 5 days in Tucson and 5 in Phoenix. Both cities have beautiful artistic highway walls! If we had to choose, definitely would choose Tuscon as a better place to live. Had to drop another 2K+ on ac fix on the CRV (Lucky thought as its still under warranty and will get most of that back.)
CALIFORNIA... PALM SPRINGS
Darwin made a friend at a Palm Springs boutique.
We did some hiking through the impressive Cathedral Palms area... on one side there were these enormous size palms and a creek- while on the other side were steep rocky cliffs to look up to!
Just look at the next two pix to get a feel for how big those Cathedral Palms are...
Can you find the tiny ILEA below?
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Just outside of Palm Springs downtown is the incredible PALM SPRINGS TRAM. It is one of the LARGEST trams that has its cars ROTATE 360 degrees, as it ascends and descends! Also, its the largest elevation changing tram.... What a view!!!
So, we did the walking around at the top, and as expected... pictures never do these sorts of places any justice. After a few hours exploring the top peak area, we decided to head back to catch a tram back to bottom because we did not want to leave Darwin alone too long back at the RV. What timing we had (we thought) when we were told to hurray on to the tram as it was just about to depart.... This is great because it is usually about an hour between departures, so as we boarded the tram, I turned to Ilea and requested a "high five" for out seemingly perfect timing! And then.... 50 feet in to the return trip, waah waah waaaaah, -------------the tram comes to an abrupt STOP with us hanging in limbo-land. Of course, some people are now freaking the f*&k out! We were stuck there for an hour while the technicians were on the phone with SWITZERLAND individuals who manufactured the tram! Well, they could not figure it out after an hour, so they slowly brought the tram backwards UP to the place we began an hour ago. They gave us TOKENS to indicate that we were to be the FIRST to reboard when the tram is ready to go. During the few MORE hours that we waited, we had some lunch... and Ilea joined a lovely group of Asian women (all from Houston) for some WINE TIME. This group has been together for many years and had the correct positive and chill attitude needed for this PITA delay.
Back at the RV, we have some nice cut flowers and some remaining lemons from the KOA in Tucson AZ.
So, they finally signal it is time for us to get back on- and oddly, there were twice as many people on this return tram than there were on our way up, so its kind of packed. Everyone is SO EXCITED that we now get to escape our situation! And off we start to go.... until we hit that 50 foot spot, and just as before.... waa waaa waaaah. It stops and leaves us hanging AGAIN! This time, we have got some MORE seriously phobic individuals really bugging out over the predicament AGAIN of hanging in mid air over the jagged cliffs beneath. This time, a mere ten minute wait and they again brought us back UP to the top starting point and.... again we get off and wait some more. Really getting concerned about Darwin's bladder.... Finally they did get us back on yet again, and this time they were able to get us to the bottom successfully - total delay time was 4.5 hours! Tram was on the news that night, as it was now CLOSED DOWN TILL FURTHER NOTICE for repairs. That there is a trip to remember!
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The views from the Palm Springs area campground (Cathedral Pines) were awesome with the clouds rolling over the edge of the top of the mountains in the distance....
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I was fortunate to be able to land some free tickets to the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in Pasadena. They used to make ... as the name implies, Jet Rocket engines- however, over recent years, they are actually involved exclusively with "Out of Earth orbit REMOTE VEHICLES" ..... Ones such as the rovers on the moon and on Mars!
CALIFORNIA... PASADENA
In the Pasadena area is the California Institute of Technology (CIT ...aka.... Cal Tech). This is the actual scene/location for the hit TV show "The Big Bang!" Gave Darwin a little ball fetch exercise here.
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Also in Pasadena is the Physical location for the intellectual home base of the "Planetary Society" run by Bill Nye.... who lives nearby. (Who I met in person a few years ago!)
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Near Pasadena is Altidema, the location of those catastrophic fires over a year ago which destroyed 1000's of homes- and in addition, the "Bunny Museum" there that we planned to visit. As you can see below, nothing left of the museum building, and the outside decor had been wrecked. Online it says "temporarily closed." Ya think? 
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We stayed at nearby Bonelli Bluffs RV Resort. There was a small airport in the valley next door that provided entertainment with numerous planes taking off...
CALIFORNIA... BAKERSFIELD
Had Mother's Day breakfast at a Guy Ferrari visited spot, the 24th Street Cafe. They had a few odd pictures in the men's restroom......
Visited the nearby CALM (California Living Museum.) Really closeup views of this Condor and a Coyote. Temps hit 100 a few days here, soooo we did all our outside things prior to 10am.
Final day in Bakersfield we did a hike over at the Wind Wolves Preserve. On out way there, we viewed some mind boggling huge crops of Pistachio and also some Cutie citrus and almonds....
