End of silence

We are back at the Morongo Casino in Cabazon (map). This time we are in the lot north of the Casino, which appears to be the new designated RV area, something we discovered on our last visit two weeks ago.

In stark contrast to Box Canyon, which was blessedly silent and mostly dark at night, here we can hear the freeway, the wind is omnipresent here at the top of the pass, and the parking lot is completely lit all night. Back to the reality of civilization.

We decided to stay here because the spa in this AAA 4-diamond resort has a 2-for-1 offer on Tuesdays, and we booked a pair of massages for this afternoon. While 2-for-1 sounds like a great deal, frankly, that brings the price of the massages down to what we consider to be "standard" for a 50-minute treatment. But there is a great deal to be said for being able to park overnight at the same facility.

The earliest they could get us in was 2:30, which means we will likely be here tonight as well. We don't want to be rolling out of here at 4:00, only to slog through LA traffic, and arrive at Rincon Parkway at 8:00 -- we'd almost certainly be aced out of a spot by then. Instead, we will roll out to the coast tomorrow morning.

We once again took advantage of the "stimulus package" dinner last night at the 27th-floor Cielo restaurant. This afternoon we will relax around the pool complex before our massages; spa treatments include access to the pool facilities, which are actually quite nice. We're hoping the pool area is fairly protected from the constant wind, which is buffeting us as I type.

Just as we were packing up to leave Box Canyon yesterday, blog readers Pat and Nancy, along with their puppy Koumori, stopped by in their Casita travel trailer on their way up canyon. We had a nice visit, and got a kick out of seeing their Casita, which Pat referred to as a "plastic tent," although it seemed pretty well equipped to us.

We had all the holes filled in, the area cleaned up, and the bus ready to go just a little past noon. We rolled out of the sandy wash without drama (even though we always sweat it when we are in the soft stuff), and headed down to the wastewater plant in Indio again to avail ourselves of the free dump station. We had forgotten that the railroad grade crossing in Mecca was to be closed yesterday, and we had to detour several miles north along the tracks.

Louise had located a laundromat in Indio as well, and we spent a couple hours there catching up on laundry. Our next stop was the Wal-Mart in Palm Desert, where we uncharacteristically filled an entire shopping cart with provisions. It was past 6 by the time we finally rolled in to Morongo, and we spent another half hour at the tribe's fuel station, where diesel was $2.23 a gallon, among the cheapest in southern California (Flying-J a few miles west is $2.27 right now). Diesel in Whittier was as low as $1.99 when we left -- had I guessed it would go up nearly a quarter in these two weeks, I would have filled up on our way out of town.

This morning we've been catching up on phone calls; being out of cell phone range for two weeks created something of a backlog. Among other things, we needed to get Louise's new scooter onto the insurance policy, and the old one off. I think we are mostly caught up now.

With any luck, our next post will be from the coast.

Photo by ashley.adcox