Palm Springs Air Museum, Coachella Valley, & San Jacinto Mountains

Well what have we been doing up to now here in Palm Desert, CA. The first few days of our stay it was still in the 100s during the day but over the last few days it has cooled down. It has been in the upper 80s and extremely dry so it is very comfortable. People, including me, have been leaving the air conditioning for the great outdoors. I can ride my bike around for an hour and not even break a sweat. The air is so dry that any sweat evaporates before it can form on the skin. It is great to sit on our patio again, 100+ is just too hot to lounge around outside.

Bev has found a great bead store with classes so that is where she has been spending time. I drop her off at 1:00 pm and pick her up at 5:00 pm with a big smile on her face. Today she took the car and headed out to her class leaving me to play at the campground all by myself.

Saturday 21st I headed out to the Palm Springs Air Museum to check out the WW II aircraft on display. I love checking out these planes but Bev could care less so she stayed back at the campground and played with her beads. Here are of some of the aircraft I saw.

Photo of a Corsair Fighter Bomber landing on a Carrier. 

The next photo is of that Corsair up close and personal.

Of course when I was able I stuck my head into a cockpit.

Douglas SBD "Dauntless" Dive Bomber

Grumman F7F-3 "Tigercat" Night Fighter Bomber 

F8F "Bearcat" Fighter 

AH-1 Huey Cobra

C-47, DC-3, R4D, C-53 (Also known as the Dakota) 

I have flown a DC-3 when I was a commercial pilot.

Super Marine "Spitfire" Single Seat Pursuit / Fighter

North American B-25 "Mitchell" bomber

The B-25 was the aircraft used by Lt. Colonel "Jimmy" Doolittle for his famous raid on Tokyo on April 18, 1942.

P-51 "Mustang" Pursuit Fighter 

P-40 Warhawk Fighter

The next one is my favorite plane the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. (One of my favorite movies is "12 O'clock High") which is about the crews flying the B-17 bombers over Germany.

Tail Gunner 

Belly Turret

There were many more airplanes and displays of WW II but I have only so much room on my blog so this will have to do. I know, some of you could care less about an air museum, like Bev. (Suck it up)

Tuesday September 24th Bev and I headed into the mountains south of Palm Springs to check out a Thousand Trails Campground in Idyllwild, CA. We followed Highway 74, a very scenic highway called the "Pines to Palms Highway". It runs from the Pine Forest in the mountains to the Palm Trees in the Coachella Valley where Palm Springs is located.

Check out the map.

Along the way we stopped at the Santa Rosa & San Jacinto Mountains National Monument.

We watched a great video on the Coachella Valley, the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains along with plant and wildlife in the area. We enjoyed walking the paths checking out the plants and scenery.

Oh yes, the desert has it's hazards.

Desert Fan Palm

View looking into Coachella Valley and Palm Springs 

Cute bench shaped like a Coyote

Barrel Cactus 

Jumping Cholla Cactus

Desert Agave

On up the highway to the pine covered mountains.

What a great view of the Coachella Valley and Palm Springs. That is the road we drove up here on.

The convergence of mountain, desert, and coastal influences makes the Coachella Valley an area of exceptional biological richness. Plant and animal species found nowhere else in the world live here. Fifty years ago, huge shifting sand dunes covered much of the valley floor. Today, some of the remaining dunes are protected in the Coachella Valley Preserve. In mountain canyons, lush native fan palm oases including the largest native oasis in the nation in Palm Canyon, are fed by water from snow melt and springs. (Yes they have snow in the mountains.) At the base of the Indio Hills, spring-fed palm oases mark the course of the San Andreas Fault across the valley floor.

Elevations here range from below sea level near the Salton Sea to 10,804 feet at the peak of Mount San Jacinto.

In the early 20th century, less than 1,000 full-time residents lived in the "village" of Palm springs, surrounding farms and ranches, and on the Indian reservation.

Bev clicked away through the car window as we drove.

We are entering the town of Idyllwild, CA. A few months ago a forest fire caused the town of Idyllwild to be evacuated but they lucked out and the fire didn't reach the town. The trees below have been damaged by the fire.

We arrived at Idyllwild Thousand Trails campground and drove through it to check it out for a future date.

We would only come here in the summer because the campground is over 7000 feet above sea level and it is getting to cold for us to stay at this time. Most of the sites only have water and electric, no sewer, which wouldn't be a problem but we would rather have full hook-ups.

This campground is open year round but we sure wouldn't want to be here in the winter. They get a ton of SNOW in this area. You are required to carry chains in your car if you want to stay here in the winter.

We enjoyed our tour of the campground but it was time to head back down the road to the nice warm valley.

On the next photo, if you look closely, you can see a burn area on the left.

Again, remember to click on the photos to enlarge.

Well that's enough for today, I covered a lot in this blog.

I know, I still have to blog about our trip to Show Low, Arizona and The Grand Canyon. I will save those trips for a time when we hang around the campground relaxing and don't tour. After all, sometimes it's good just to hang around and do nothing. (Except for Bev that is, she will be playing with her beads while I'm hanging around drinking beer.