Palm Springs and First Few Hours in the Cougar

The first few hours with the trailer were spent hunkered down in the dealership parking lot. We had the inspection, little one and I were unloading and stocking up the trailer, hubby was installing new Blue Ox hitch and batteries. By this time, we were already exhausted and proceeded to sit in rush hour traffic to Palm Springs. We chose the Thousand Trail's Palm Desert Campground right off the 10 freeway for our first night. We got an end spot, everyone was very nice, full hook-ups and surprisingly, we could not hear the freeway traffic (which was an initial concern). The wind was really starting to pick up and the entire West side of the campground was all dirt sites. Not to mention a large, open dirt/sand field that sat bordering the west-side of the campground. The consistent dust storm that blew all night made everything filthy dirty. The inside of our Suburban still has sand in it and when we turned on our A/C the next morning, we all got blasted with dirt and sand particles. Apparently we also parked over a leaking pipe in the ground, so we had a lovely mixture of mud and a thick layer of dirt in every new crevice of our new trailer! Luckily, we got a couple good pictures of it before it turned a slight tan color all over. So sad, to wake up and see the Cougar so dirty in less than 24 hours.

 We decided not to stay another night at Thousand Trails and headed out to Joshua Tree (hoping our cars and trailer were not too badly sandblasted). On our way out of the park, we went past multiple rows of campers who had heavy layers of dirt embedded on their tow vehicles and RV's, such a shame....

Night one, also brought leaky hoses and a new learning curve in selecting camp sites wide enough to accommodate our new super slide out and using the new Blue Ox hitch. What new adventures await us in Joshua Tree???

Off Interstate 10 in Cabazon (notice bent palm trees in background from wind)!

Before the dust storm at Thousand Trails...looking practically perfect in every way (sunset included)!

Palm Springs and Wild Animals

Palm Springs has always been a place we love to visit (it has warm weather ya know)! This time we camped outside of Palm Springs in Desert Hot Springs at Sam's family resort. Although the resort was nothing to brag about, our trip was tons of fun. We found a great park and hiking area called Thousand Palms which sits directly on top of the San Andreas Fault and has a ton of history relating to a massive flood, earthquakes and of course....a thousand "giant" palms!

We also spent some time at the Living Desert which is a wonderful little park/zoo in Palm Desert. They have desert animals and we met some new friends like Mr. Bobcat who liked rolling around in the dirt, a gorgeous golden eagle, an overly friendly goat and some big horn sheep. We also spotted a beautiful Mountain Lion, though he was well hidden and preferred to peer around big rocks. This park also has hiking trails, although we always seem to run out of time because we pay too much attention to the wild animals!  Highly recommended place to visit if you're in the Palm Desert area.
http://www.livingdesert.org/

Mr Bobcat taking a bath after dinner

Ready to Play!

 Standing right on the San Andreas Fault at Thousand Palms Oasis

 Even though he's in captivity they are very shy animals those eyes watched us for a long time

We got lucky enough to actually see more of this beautiful animal than most, last time all we saw was a paw hanging off a ledge.

The Jones Gang at Living Desert with Frosty

Amazing Sun Rays off the back side of Idyllwild and the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway

Watch out for those Lions at the Living Desert, they like to sneak up on you!