25. Apr, 2016

25. Apr, 2016

MONDAY 28-04-08 

I was awoken at about 05:00 by a noisy train. It is most odd, during the day we cannot really hear them at all, but at night it’s as if the railway line has moved to within 100 yards of us. The trains are very long and very frequent, and sound really loud. That’s because it's cheaper to fit a loud warning horn on a train than install automatic barriers at all of the level crossings. At 05:40 the noise of the trains was accompanied by heavy trucks on nearby Interstate (I)10, and then it was the Monday morning rush hour’s turn to join in. 

We got packed up and ready to move out at about 11:00. My time spent awake early this morning wasn’t wasted. I wound up the laptop, accessed and registered with www.rvparkreviews.com  and then gave the 'Shadow Hills' campground an honest and very unfavourable review. This website is read by many RV’ers and this will make the point far more powerfully than any tantrum I might have had in the office. I sincerely hope it has an adverse effect on their business as it’s what they deserve. 

We moved down to the ‘Happy Traveller RV Park’ at Palm Springs www.palm-desert.org  and liked the campground as soon as we saw it. It’s not as fancy as ‘Shadow Hills’ but nice and quiet and in a good location with hedging between each pitch so that we all get a bit of privacy. There are three feeders set up outside the campground office for hummingbirds. Fortunately the office is just across from our pitch and it was easy for us to watch them feeding in stationary flight. 

Palm Springs originally became popular with film stars due to the two-hour rule in studio contracts, which meant that if stars were needed back on set to re-shoot a scene they had to be back within two hours, and Palm Springs offered a delightful climate away from the hustle and bustle of Hollywood and fell just inside the two hour travel time. 

Once settled we decided to explore the locality. We were hoping to get to the cemetery where Frank Sinatra is supposed to be buried. Rosina explained to the campground receptionist that we weren’t towing a car and was there any local transport? The receptionist said the bus station was about 1 mile away, and from there we can get a bus to most places. We walked for what seemed like ages in temperatures of over 100F. Eventually we realised we were walking on the wrong road and in the wrong direction. Hot and tired, we stopped and had lunch at ‘Panda Express’, a fast food chain of Americanised Chinese food. The Chef isn’t mad about the food and so we shared a meal. At least we both managed to lunch in Palm Springs for about $11. After that we gave up the search and started to make our way back to the campground. We did manage to establish that the address we had for the cemetery was completely wrong. The address we had turned out to be a housing complex. Surely they would never bury Frank Sinatra under a block of flats. 

Back at the campground we decided to check out the pool to help us cool down. What a find. We started off with a really hot spa, followed by a dip in the pool then just lazed around. We agreed we needed to do more of this as it is very therapeutic, refreshing and relaxing. Most campgrounds we’ve been to have had a pool, some of them have been closed, as their season hadn’t really kicked off, but as for the others, we’ve just never made the effort, and let’s face it we’re paying for the facilities, so we may as well use them. 

We had an alfresco ham and cheese salad for dinner, plus lashings of rose wine. This is a nice quiet campground with friendly, chilled fellow guests. 

LOCATION TONIGHT: Happy Traveller RV Park, 211 West Mesquite Avenue, Palm Springs. www.happytravelerrv.com (GPS: N33.808502 W116.547015)

25. Apr, 2016

SUNDAY 27-04-08 

I woke this morning certain something horrible was climbing up my leg, it had me worried until I discovered it was the Elastoplast dressing I’d put on the side of my foot yesterday which had come off during the night and I was lying on it. 

The music from the pop concert and the midnight-to-2am party by the pool on camp afterwards didn’t disturb our sleep at all. However what has annoyed us is the fact that the campground rules seem to have been changed to suit this weekend with quiet hours altered from 22:00-07:00 to 03:00-07:00 allowing revelry to take place within the rules, and since about 09:00 we’ve had to endure loud amplified pop music over the campground PA system to the delight of the concert goers who have taken over the pool area. We’ve complained and are trying to get a refund so that we can move on elsewhere. Sadly we are finding that many businesses just want your money. Once they have it they always have some small print somewhere absolving them from keeping their end of the deal, and somehow entitling them to keep your money. We’ve established that there is a better located campground in Palm Springs with vacancies, and we’ll probably move down there with or without the refund. If we stay here we’ve got the expense of hiring a car for two days, if we move to a better location we may not need one. 

The Lunchtime temperature in the shade of our Wal-Mart gazebo was 110F. Having only bought it yesterday, today was its first day erected, it proved rather troublesome to get up, and it isn’t staying up too well either. It’s like a tent and really needs to be erected on sand or grass supported by pegs and guy ropes and not freestanding on concrete. 

Despite The Chef going back up to the office as the manager had failed to materialise, she came away dissatisfied. She was told that by staying last night we had entered in to a contract, despite the member of staff who told us to stay last night and see how we got on before deciding to move on or not, was sat there yet said nothing. We’ve discussed the situation and decided to move on to the campground at Palm Springs tomorrow. This will mean our losing one day’s camping fees of about $49.50. This has taught us a lesson and in future we will only book a pitch for one night and then extend our stay if it is suitable. This evening we went for a short walk out of the campground gates – there’s nothing here except a gated community across the road with manicured lawns, and then desert-nothingness. We then enjoyed a barbecue which we ate alfresco in our netted gazebo beside the RV. 

LOCATION TONIGHT: Shadow Hills RV Resort, 40655 Jefferson Street Indio, CA 92201. www.shadowhillsrvresort.com

25. Apr, 2016

25. Apr, 2016