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01.11.2003: 29 Palms - Palm Springs
Helen woke up in the morning thinking there were birds dancing on the roof. So she banged on the ceiling, not realising that it was actually rain!! We`re not used to that! We got up at 8-45 am after church had finished! After a trip to the visitor centre loos we had home made cinnamon rolls and coffee for breakfast. Then we drove about 30 miles to Yucca (another odd name for a town) and went to the library to use the internet.
At 12-15pm we drove down the long winding road into Palm Springs and went for a Chinese lunch. Kirsten thought she`d parked Winnie under a tree in the car park but had actually parked IN it!! In fact we had to move branches out of the way to shut the door!!
After lunch we went to the cinema to watch Mystic River, another good film we wanted to see. But the real fun came afterwards when we went to the loo. It was quite full and Kirsten wanted to check if one of the loos was occupied. She only gently pushed the door but it swung wide open, revealing a woman in all her glory sitting there! The door had swung so wide that Kirsten literally had to walk into the toilet to grab the door so that she could shut it again!! Helen felt really sorry for the poor woman! Seconds later managed to get a toilet that wasn`t occupied and Helen ended up getting the poor womans toilet which she promptly locked properly!! By the time we got outside we were both crying with laughter again.
Our plan for that evening was to park up for the night on Walmart car park. The founder of Walmart was an avid motor home fan so he allowed his car parks to be used. Unfortunately not all Walmarts allow it, and the one in Palm Springs was one of them!! So we looked on the map and found a library nearby. We drove there and found that the library shared a car park with a baseball practice sports ground and we saw a low flying ball bounce behind us along the car park! Fortunately we also found two other motor homes parked up there (away from low flying balls!). So we parked up there for the night!
02.11.2003: Palm Springs - Indio
After breakfast we drove to a super market to buy milk and a man came and spoke German to us as Kirsten was wearing a T-shirt with German on it. Then we went hunting for a laundry. After getting directions we found that the laundry we wanted to go to was right in the middle of some kind of march going on that day. It took us ages to get away from all the people milling around across the roads and the heavy traffic. We finally found a different one after 30 miles and 1.5 hours of driving around!!
By 2pm we were at Palm Springs airport and all the posh people coming for their expensive golf holiday! We picked up our hire car to take our driving test in. They gave us a really flashy sports car! Under normal circumstances we would have been really pleased but we only needed it to do our driving test. And in comparison to Winnie ... well there was no comparison. To drive, they are like chalk and cheese and the hire car took a lot of getting used to!
Kirsten drove ahead in the hire car whilst Helen followed in Winnie ... or rather, tried to keep up in Winnie! We got to Lake Cahuilla camp ground and fixed our hose. Then we went for a practice drive for Helen before it got too dark. The worst came when we both tried to practice reversing into a parking spot using an empty car park and an imaginary parking spot along the kerb. Totally impossible. What a catastrophe! Neither of us could see how long the car was as you could neither see the end of the bonnet or the boot from the driving seat!! You had to open the passenger door to see the kerb! Why on Earth did they have to give us such a flashy sports car? Afterwards we were even more nervous about taking our driving tests tomorrow. Neither of us could face the embarrassment of failing!
We brushed up on the driving manual and at 6-30pm we`d been invited to a scrabble game with Pete, the volunteer campground host. He`s at least 70 years old and we think he likes the company. So although we would have preferred to read the driving manual a bit more, we went along to play. As it turned out, the German won!!! We don`t think Pete was too happy as he plays scrabble regularly and we haven`t played for at least 20 years!!
When we got back we gave up thinking about our driving tests and Helen wrote the diary whilst Kirsten worked on the computer till 11-30pm.
03.11.2003: Indio - Rest area near Blythe
Got up at 7-45am, showered and drove to driving test centre, Kirsten driving Winnie and Helen attempting to drive in the hire car! She kept making mistakes and she couldn`t get used to the harsh accelerator. She feared the worst!
Helen`s test was first. She had to wait 30 minutes as there was a queue and her test started 20 minutes after her planned time. The tester checked that she knew her hand signals and where various switches were in the car e.g. emergency indicators, windscreen wipers etc. Then she had to drive around the car park, through a few stop signs and four way signs, traffic lights, through a business district (special speed limits apply), reverse straight along the kerb, past a school (special speed limits apply), and back to the driving centre where she had to park the car in a parking slot forwards!! The whole thing took 10 minutes! And she passed!!
Then it was Kirstens turn and she had to reverse out of the parking slot that Helen had just parked in. Fortunately, she managed to see the idiot who walked right behind the car! And he`d only just taken his test before Helen, so you`d think he`d have a bit more consideration! Kirsten was back after 10 minutes aswell having taken the same route as Helen and parking in forwards aswell. She passed too!! We still didn`t get proper driving licenses as we have to wait for the Social Security office to confirm that we went there even though we can`t be issued with a Social Security number.
Still shaking but very relieved, we drove off, did some shopping, filled up with petrol, downloaded the CD onto the website and took the hire car back to Palm Springs airport after desperately trying to find a petrol station within a 10 mile radius of the airport (hire car rules!) that wasn`t too expensive to put petrol in the hire car.
Then we drove along Highway 10 and across into Arizona. On the way we saw a house being transported on the back of a lorry! (Photo) We parked up at a rest area on the Highway near Blythe, just as it was getting dark and parked up for the night. That will be the last time we do that as it was too noisy!! Oh well, we`re still learning!
04.11.2003: Rest area near Blythe - Prescott
In the morning we drove about 150 miles along a very hilly, windy route up into the mountains to Prescott. This place is famous for its saloon bars where various Western films have been made. We had lunch at the Palace restaurant where Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday used to frequent. The bar is still the original one from 1888 which was actually carried across the road in 1905 when there was a big fire that destroyed all the saloons. So it's the only thing left from 1888!
After spending a few hours in the library on the internet checking our emails and looking up info on the Grand Canyon, where we were heading, we drove to Lynx Lake and parked up on a café car park for the night. We immediately had a welcoming party of two cats! So we gave them some milk in a bowl. The café was shut and had been for two days. It was due to reopen the next day. But the way the cats drank their milk we thought the owner had just left them for two days!
We went for a short walk by the lake whilst it was still light enough and then went back as it was getting really cold. In fact it was freezing! We`re not used to cold weather!! So we tried putting the heating on. It didn`t work!! It just blew out cold air. After getting the manuals out and trying various things, we gave up and made a hot water bottle and got into bed at 7-30pm!!! It was warm enough then to write the diary!
05.11.2003: Prescott - Grand Canyon
When we woke up there was ice on the inside of the windows!! When we said it was freezing we meant it! We never thought we`d get warm again! It was too cold to get out of bed but at 9am we reluctantly forced ourselves out to the café for breakfast. Helen had a bacon and egg sandwich which was more like scrambled eggs, bacon and potato between two layers of bread and Kirsten had blueberry pancakes, most of which we took with us in a doggy bag! We found out later that it had been -9 degrees last night!!! And we survived without heating!
At 10-30am we said goodbye to the cats and drove via the granite stones at Walker Lake to Jerome which was even higher up in the mountains. We went to see the prison that had slid 255 feet down the mountain! In fact a lot of things are sliding down the mountain which is due to all the mines in the area!
Then we drove up to 6000ft above sea level along more windy roads to a place called Sedona, famous for its red rocks. Everything there is red! We went for a short walk at Oak Creek Canyon where it was very peaceful until something flew into Helens neck and stung her!! It definitely wasn`t a bee or wasp just some other stinging, flying thing!!
Then we drove on, via Flagstaff and a view of a snow-covered Humphreys Peak, the highest in Arizona, to Grand Canyon. We arrived at Mather campground at 5-20pm and shuddered when we saw that it had been -12 degrees the night before and -6 degrees was forecast for tonight! So all our cuddly toys got put under the sheets to keep warm! Then we had to grab stuff for a shower plus $1-25 in quarters to pay for a 5 minute shower as we only had 30 minutes before the shower block closed!
When we got back to Winnie we got out our bag of winter clothing that had been pushed to the back of one of the cupboards and put thermal underwear on plus ski trousers, hats, scarves and gloves. (And that was just to go to bed!!! - no only joking, we didn`t wear the hats!)
Afterwards, we got out the two blue sheets we had used as an awning and to lie on underneath when it was too hot!! And now used them to cover up Winnies windscreen and the alcove window to try and stop him from freezing up. We had to be quite inventive to get them to stay on the windows! Then we put sheets on the insides of the windows to try and keep the cold out. And our heater still isn`t working! Welcome to the Grand Canyon!!!
After making salmon, potatoes and parsley sauce for dinner, we washed up and took the rubbish out. Then we made a hot water bottle and went to bed at 9-30pm!
