The Sunday after Thanksgiving we drove east to Palm Springs. We were anticipating heavy holiday traffic so we left earlier than usual. The traffic heading east wasn’t bad. But notice all the traffic heading west towards Los Angeles. It was backed up for many miles. We always know we are getting close to Palm Springs when we see lots of wind turbines and road signs with names like Gene Autry and Bob Hope. 

We loved our campground with the beautiful tall swaying palm trees. 

Everything was perfect until we saw the paper in our welcome packet warning us of rattlesnakes. Fortunately in the eight days we were there we didn’t see any. 

We really enjoyed Palm Springs even though it has lots of traffic.

On our first trip to Walmart a big roadrunner was wandering around the parking lot, oblivious to all the cars and people. 

After spending three months in the spring and three months in the fall, or a total of half the year in California, on December 7 we left California and entered Arizona. We now pay about a dollar less for a gallon of gas and no longer need to pay can deposits. 

Our destination was Yuma, AZ where we will spend most of the winter. We have spent several winters in Yuma over the past six years so it feels very familiar to us. There is a very large snowbird population here in Yuma and it is a large sprawling city with three Walmarts, the usual large anchor stores found at malls and many restaurants. 

We pretty much picked up where we left off last winter with Bill rejoining the Yuma Amateur Radio group with their weekly breakfast meetups and monthly meetings. We went back to the Yuma Methodist Church where the pastor remembered us and we have some snowbird friends.

Our first week back we had our yearly physicals and blood-work. Always good to get that done. We drove the very short distance over the border to Los Algodones in Baja, Mexico where we rewarded ourselves with great tacos and nachos and of course big margaritas. They make their margaritas pretty strong! 

We are currently still in Yuma until mid January when we leave to spend three weeks in Quartzsite. We are signed up to enjoy Christmas dinner here in the RV park with other snowbirds. We wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year.