This post is just a blog to remind us of what we did during three months in Palm Desert in the winter of 2022. The beginning of our time was very much affected by the presence of COVID as noted in the previous post. We were very glad to have a lovely two-bedroom villa with a sheltered patio adjacent to the sixth hole of the Shadow Mountain Golf and Country Club. Days were mostly spent reading, watching TV, golfing, playing tennis, and walking and collecting rogue golf balls on adjacent streets. It was late January before we ventured out to a restaurant patio and began to do our own grocery shopping.

Our one day-trip was a drive up to Idyllwild, a small town in the San Jacinto mountains. All the shops and restaurants are locally owned and it is a peaceful, quiet respite from busy city life. We highly recommend the Red Kettle for a quick bite.

In mid-February, our son George came to visit for two weeks. While he was actually working most days, we enjoyed the odd trip out to a patio, celebrating Dad’s birthday at Spencer’s in Palm Springs, two golf games, and trying to find him and his bike in Indio using the Find my Friend app. A visit to the Living Desert was an enjoyable day out, although mom pooped out part way around. Our attempt at making Middle Eastern Beef Kabobs was a failure. We’ll try again at home when we have a hotter bbq and leaner meat.

George stayed long enough to pick Barb and Merlyn up at the airport before heading off to the west coast. Things were more open by the end of February and we enjoyed many nice meals out as we toured around. We took them to Idyllwild, Joshua Tree, Premium Outlets, and spent a day in Palm Springs – the ladies shopping and the men doing the Windmill Tour. Our trip to The Living Desert was made possible because they rent scooters allowing both Merlyn and me to travel in relative comfort. We only golfed once since we were busy most other days. The highlight of their visit was seeing the Jersey Boys in concert at the McCallum Theatre (their Christmas present) and a Night Out at the Chi Chi Club (part of Modernism Week). The latter was a wonderful evening of music and fine dining modeled after the old supper clubs of the 1950s.

After they left, we had a few more weeks to ourselves before heading north. We had enjoyed getting to know our neighbour, Mary Anne, and had her for lunch one day. We also had dinner at Woodhaven and brunch at the Pink Cabana. We celebrated our last night in Palm Desert at Sullivan’s Steakhouse.

On our way home, we stopped at our timeshare in Las Vegas for a few days, enjoying an evening watching the Canadian men (Brad Gushue’s rink) playing in the World Men’s Curling Championship. George also got to swim in a heated pool, something that isn’t possible in Palm Desert since most pools are only solar heated.

Our trip north took us through Gallup, Amarillo, Joplin, Terre Haute, Washington-Meadowlands, near Pittsburgh, and on to Mississauga. The weather was good all the way through except for a snow shower near Erie, PA.