Despite COVID-19 being still a big factor in our lives, we made the decision to proceed to Palm Desert for the winter as planned. We had purchased cancellation/trip interruption insurance when we paid our final deposit in November but had not given too much thought, based on scientific data, that there would be yet another wave. While our insurance would have covered us had we or other members of our family fallen ill with anything other than COVID, the insurance was not valid for any COVID-related reasons. The other factor in our decision was that our private health plan confirmed we would be covered should we contract COVID while away. And so … we decided that isolating in Palm Desert was much more appealing than isolating in the deep cold of another Ontario winter.

We left Mississauga on Christmas Day after lunch and gift exchange with the family. We were somewhat anxious to cross the border for fear it might be closed again. After a night in Sarnia, we arrived at the border about 8:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning. There was no one there and we breezed through in less than a minute.

The weather was overcast but above freezing all the way through to Indianapolis, our first stop. Traffic was light since it was a Sunday, and we were able to make good time. We are always interested in all the trucks and vans on the road, especially what they are pulling. One funny sight was a rather large van pulling a pick-up truck with a golf cart and bicycles in the cargo space.

Our plan to avoid restaurants and going into gas stations as much as possible worked well. We used a drive-through for lunch and mostly used the rest stops which were scarcely populated. We were prepared, with plates and cutlery, to eat dinner in our hotel room. Our stop for the night was the Holiday Inn in Plainfield on the south side of Indianapolis. It’s in a large complex of hotels close to the airport with a number of restaurants within walking distance (unfortunately closed because of the holiday). On our way to pick up dinner at Applebee’s, we were directed out along the country roads and were a bit surprised to see a deer at a watering hole.

Since we were the only ones at breakfast the next morning, we decided we could eat in the dining room. We had brought our colourful picnic plates downstairs with us to use as a try to take breakfast back up to the room. The staff person at the front desk was doubling as the breakfast attendant that morning – a young girl in her late 20s. When she saw our plates she remarked “So cute. Something my parents would do!”

Travel through to Memphis was uneventful and we were happy to see the sun for long periods and watch the temperature rising as we got further south. It was 18C by the time we got to West Memphis. Since dinner last evening was quite large, we were able to save enough for lunch today, which we ate outside at the Rend Lake Rest Stop. It was a bit cool, but we ate quickly and were on the road again.

Once again we stayed at the Holiday Inn – West Memphis, but this time requested a room on the backside of the hotel away from the noisy traffic. We are beginning to see more people without masks, although many travellers our age are wearing them at most stops. For dinner we picked up Mexican food at Las Magaritas.

Since there were too many people in the breakfast room, we took our food back to our room and ate there. We hadn’t seen any Canadians (at least in cars) as yet but later in the morning we found one. His trailer was a dead giveaway. It said “Life is great, eh!”

We made a stop in Little Rock at the AAA to pick up a map that we hadn’t gotten from the CAA before leaving Ontario. There is one person in my car who still likes to look at paper maps. It was too far to drive to the next Rest Stop for lunch so we decided to stop in Hope – the birthplace of William Jefferson Clinton – and just eat in the car. As we drove into the Wendy’s drive-through, I realized we had been here before. The Baskin Robbins was a dead giveaway sandwiched between Wendy’s and the Service Centre store. We both ordered salads, but I ended up having to go into the store to collect the chili and tortilla chips for my Taco Salad. After our lunch stop, we drove through to the Rest Stop at Hopkins on I40, which is new and has a small interpretive centre and nice walking paths. It was well used and was a welcome stopping spot.

By the time we arrived in Plano, TX, the weather had warmed to a lovely 26C. The Holiday Inn is brand new, but what we didn’t know was that it is located along the George Bush Turnpike which is a toll road. I guess they will catch up with us eventually. Its one redeeming feature is that it is very close to an Olive Garden – one of our favourites.

Again we ate breakfast in the room and prepared for a wet drive as the rain had arrived. It continued to rain until about 10:30 and then cleared up. We stopped in Abilene to pick up a Subway for lunch and then continued on to the Rest Stop at post 256. Perched on a hill (the only one to be seen) in very windy, somewhat cold temperatures, it wasn’t very inviting and so we ate in the car.

The terrain is generally quite flat, big sky country, and we could see dust clouds off in the distance. Signs along the highway warn of sand storms. This part of the journey through to El Paso passes through scrub brush, ranching (cattle and horses, although we didn’t see many) and then oil works. Hwy 40 is a divided highway with two lanes in each direction. Exits are far apart. Late in the afternoon we came upon an accident in the eastbound lanes. A truck hauling an equipment trailer had jackknifed and a fire ensued. The backup must have easily been about 5 miles long and while they were diverting traffic onto a one lane service road, it too was completely clogged. I don’t know how long people would have sat in the tie-up but it is a reminder to always carry the necessary supplies. We were also surprised at the number of transports coming east when there were very few travelling in our direction.

Our stop for the night was the Holiday Inn in Monaghans. It is an older hotel and was not as well serviced as most HIs are. We understand that it is an out-of-the-way place and would only be used stopping for the night between Dallas and El Paso. There was a restaurant close by which advertised the best ribs in Texas. I placed an online order, but when I went to pick it up no order could be found. After studying my confirmation email, the bartender said, “But that’s for our restaurant in North Dakota!” We don’t know how that happened, but they very kindly said they’d prepare my order anyway (I hadn’t paid for the other one) and I agreed to wait in the car. Alas word came back from the kitchen that they’d run out of ribs, so we had salmon instead.

The buffet next morning was somewhat spotty and the attendant wasn’t very accommodating. We were able to get out usual breakfast, but many were upset that there was no bacon and eggs. The drive through to El Paso was uneventful, and we picked up a salad in town and then drove to the rest stop just west of town on Hwy 10. It is a very nice rest stop with individual picnic tables in adobe-style shelters. While there we met a couple from Manitoba who have been visiting various relatives throughout the US since November. They were pulling a camper van and while they liked the idea of stay anywhere and not having to unpack, he did say it was a bit of a nuisance having to take it everywhere you go. We both remarked on how little we have interacted with anyone on this trip. I think these were the only people we had chatted with for anything more than a cursory greeting.

As we got into the mountains the temperature dropped fairly quickly and it began to rain. By the time we had settled into the Holiday Inn in Wilcox it was raining quite heavily. Wilcox is really just a truck stop on the highway. The hotel was quite dated and the poorest of all the ones we stayed in – old, damaged furniture, grungy rooms and poor lighting. Since it’s just a crossroads, the choices for dinner were slim – fast food or Country Pride at the truck stop. We thought that the Country Pride specialty, pork chops, would make for a good dinner since we’d missed the ribs the night before. Not to be! It became chicken teriyaki stir fry instead. It actually wasn’t too bad, and we shared the last bowl of their corn chowder.

Breakfast was again in the room but when I stopped in after checking out, I missed being able to get some fruit for lunch. The hotel was very full with families travelling home after holidays with relatives, business people, local workers, and people travelling like us. The choices are few along this stretch.

Our travel plans changed as we were originally planning to drive through to Palm Desert and spend New Year’s Eve in a hotel there before gaining entry to our Villa on Saturday. The price of hotel rooms in Palm Desert on New Year’s Eve dissuaded us, and we decided to decamp in Buckeye, AZ for the night. This left us with a short four hour drive today, so at the suggestion of our son we made a detour to Tombstone, AZ.

Tombstone advertises itself as the little town that “refuses to die.” Founded in 1877 by a prospector, it became one of the last boomtowns of the American frontier. It grew significantly until the mid-1880s because of the silver mining in the area. It’s best known as the site of the Gunfight at the O. K. Corral. It derives its current popularity from tourism and the highest-rated brewery in Arizona. Many of the buildings are originals and everyday there is a gunfight at the O. K. Corral. It’s hard to tell as one walks around town who are the actors and who are the folks who actually live there.

We chose not to attend the gunfight since we had done this elsewhere, but we did stop to talk to some of the actors. There was a group of four guys dressed in old-fashioned suits at one end of town and about half-way down there was another group of three guys dressed as cowboys. I stopped to ask the cowboys if they were “the good guys or the bad guys.” One of them immediately asked me if I was a Canadian: he must have recognized the accent. It turned out he was born and raised in Kitchener-Waterloo and had been in Arizona for 30 years.

We stopped at a small store to buy pistachios, which are for sale everywhere down here, and treated ourselves to two pieces of pecan pie to have at dinner tonight.

The section of Hwy 10 from El Paso to Buckeye is very scenic. With mountains on both sides in the distance, big boulders sit atop other boulders, seemingly thrown there by some giant in the past. It is very similar to what you see in the Joshua Tree National Park. It was a cloudy morning, and we drove in and out of showers along the way.

Buckeye is the last town before you enter the desert drive across to the Coachella Valley. We were pleasantly surprised by a new Holiday Inn built at one end of a large shopping complex which also included a local hospital. Dinner tonight was roast beef from the Cracker Barrel, right across the road and of course our pecan pie for dessert. In preparation of potential closed gas stations and lunch spots on New Years Day, we bought gas and lunch salads before turning in for the night.

We celebrated the New Year by sending messages back home at 9 p.m. and again at midnight local time. Hopefully 2022 will bring a resolution to the pandemic, and travel will become easier.

We arrived in Palm Desert about 1 p.m. on New Years Day to find our Villa in good order. After a quick lunch, we set off to Ralph’s to pick up our grocery order, placed online the previous day. How nice that they were open on what at home is a statutory holiday!

Our villa sits on the 6th tee box of the Shadow Mountain Golf Club in the El Paseo district of Palm Desert. It’s a two-bedroom unit and looks like it will meet our needs quite well. We intend to stay close to home, while COVID rages here, although tennis and golf are possibilities with the right social distancing measures.

This post has been about two years plus in draft form. I intended to finish it when we got home but my dad took sick and I obviously forgot all about it. As I was preparing to draft a new post today, I found this draft awaiting and finished it so it could be published.

Oct 31st – Nov 17, 2019 – There are two or three purposes for this little road trip: to have some time away after a very different summer and fall season, to check out two Holiday Inn Club Resorts, and to see what three days on the road is like in preparation for a future trip to Palm Desert by car, when we will do five days on the road.

Our route took us through Detroit to Indianapolis, then on to Memphis, Dallas and finally to Canyon Lake in the hill country of Texas. Each of the first three days was a seven or eight hour drive with extra time for gas and food.

In Memphis, we spent a few hours on famous Beale Street and had dinner at BBKing’s Blues Club. A live band was playing all the old favourites and although it was loud, it was quite fun. It was quite hectic outside as ESPN was setting up for broadcasting the college football championship the next day.

 

Canyon Lake Resort is in the hill country of Texas and appeared to us upon arrival to be quite isolated. As we roamed around over the next few days we realized that there are some very quaint towns and wonderful vistas along these rural roads. The resort itself is older, having been purchased by HICV from another timeshare company. It will take a number of years to bring it up to HICV standards. People are quite friendly in these parts and we have struck up conversations with locals in restaurants, which often leads to tips on things to do.

Our first day here, since the weather forecast was excellent, we drove to San Antonio (about 1 hour) and toured the city using the Hop On Hop Off bus. We opted to do the audio tour of the Alamo which was excellent and then had lunch at Landry’s on the Riverwalk.

We had an interesting time on our second day here since we only had a half day to fill in. We decided to play tennis but the courts at the resort were being used for a hay-bale maze. We were told that arrangements had been made to allow us to play at the high school, but no one there knew anything about those arrangements. The receptionist very kindly googled and phoned to find public courts in New Breunfel. By that time it was too late to play and return for our meeting with the HICV staff. That meeting also didn’t quite go as planned. Our rep was someone who had only been working for them for three months and I think he may have been intimidated by our firm commitment to not buying more points despite the fact that he felt we could save money in the long term by having those points which renew every year. Never tell the customer they’re wrong! After we left him, we carried on to New Breunfel and played tennis and then had dinner before returning to the resort.

The next day was a planned golf day, which I had booked earlier in the week. Imagine our surprise when we went to get the directions and found I’d booked a tee time for Canyon Lake G&CC in California! A quick email to cancel that tee time and a new booking at the right club and we were good to go. It was an interesting round of golf given that the grass is currently dormant. Most fairways were a mixture of clover and large bare spots, but most of the greens were fairly good. There was no one in front of us and we were able to play the whole 18 holes in just over three hours – George H. W. Bush would be proud since 2 1/2 hours was his limit for 18 holes. We were back in time to do laundry and enjoy the pool before going to the local steakhouse for dinner.

Our last full day here was cloudy with scattered showers and got progressively colder throughout the day. We decided to do a scenic drive through hill country and used one of the online guides as our model. Our route took us to Fredericksburg, an old town settled in 1846 by 120 German immigrants. It boasts a 3 1/2 mile long wide main street with century old limestone buildings and new structures standing side by side, depicting a true blending of the traditional and the contemporary. Of note is the Veriens Kirche, an eight-sided building, in the middle of town. It is a replica of the first public building in the settlement which served as the town hall, the schoolhouse, a fort and a church for all faiths. We had a lovely chat with a representative of the historical society about their display on the history of trains in Fredericksburg.

A little further along, we stopped at Grape Creek Winery for lunch. Neither of us were aware that grapes could be grown in Texas and that there is, in fact, a fairly sizeable wine industry resident here. In fact, George read that after Napa Valley, this is the second largest viticulture area in America. There are currently over 50 wineries in operation with more being built every year.

 

Our last stop was at Devil’s Backbone overlook. History has it that much of the area we travelled today is haunted. A section of highway with many small curves has been nicknamed the Devil’s Backbone. A small park looks out over the valley and would be quite scenic on a sunny day. A chain fence has been constructed at the edge of the park, presumably to stop people from hiking down the steep cliff. The fence has become a repository for people to leave a talisman and includes crosses of all descriptions, flowers, stuffed animals, etc. It took us a while to figure out what this was all about but Google helped us put two and two together.

The next stop on our road trip was Austin, the state capital. Known for its beautiful capitol building, we used the Hop On Hop Off bus to shuttle us around town before taking the capitol building tour. The city seems quite small for a state capital with the downtown core taking up maybe a dozen streets in either direction. There is a large university and hospital complex within those blocks as well. On the southern side of the freeway that dissects the downtown is a unique artsy area with lots of shops and restaurants. Probably the biggest surprise for us was to find out that the legislature only sits for five months during a two year period meaning that all of the elected representatives and senators have full-time careers elsewhere.

After we left Austin, en route to our next HICV Resort in Galveston, we made a detour to visit the President George H.W. Bush Library at College Station on the grounds of Texas A&M University. It was easy to find and we spent most of a day there. The library is well laid out and tells the story of President Bush’s life’s work very well.