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1000 Trails Palm Springs is in an old date palm grove. They still harvest the dates and sell them in the park
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A couple of times we were surprised to see hot air balloons overhead during the day
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Ruddy's General Store Museum in downtown Palm Springs has lots of 1930's and 40's merchandise.
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Most of these containers still have product inside. "Ruddy" once owned a wholesale grocery distribution company
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The closest National Park to Palm Springs
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The Joshua Tree is a variant of yucca, and grows in the high desert
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The park had lots of piles of rocks - chunks of volcanic granite left behind when sandstone eroded away
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The geometrical-looking cracks were created as the granite cooled
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Judy likes her new purple outfit
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It's hard to believe these rocks weren't stacked up by some passing giant
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As expected, lots of rock climbers about
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Some of the views are spectacular. The San Andreas Fault is at the bottom of this hill
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This young lady was a model, posing for a photo shoot
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One of the local ground squirrels
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The scraggly things are the remains of the Joshua tree blossoms
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Some of the rocks looked to be precariously balanced.
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As folks who come from the Oregon rain forest, we find desert landscapes fascinating
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A Joshua Tree that hasn't yet branched looks like a big bottle brush
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They look so easy to climb.
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You get a good idea of scale from the human in the lower left
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Appropriately named Skull Rock.
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The rock only looks like a skull from just this one vantage point
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The south end of the park is at a lower elevation than the north, so the plants change
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The Cholla cactus looks kind of fuzzy. Believe us - it's not.
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Cholla and yucca prety much share the same terrain
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But a field of cholla is pretty impressive
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Wood rat nests are seldom vacant. Some have been in continuous use for over 10,000 years. We, however, saw no rats.
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The yellow is actually the fruit of the cholla. It matures in winter when there's less heat to dry it out.
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Another prolific plant is the Creosote Bush, very useful to early natives
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The Pencil Cholla has really nasty looking spines
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We paid a return visit to the Palm Springs Follies - a wonderful show for and by old people
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We also spent some time at the Western Rally of the Family Motor Coach Assn, especially in the exhibit halls
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Folks take advantage of these rallies for all kinds of repairs and maintenance
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The buildings at the Date Festival Grounds in Indio have an Arabian Nights theme
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The volunteers who run these rallies are always very pleasant folks
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Free ice cream will always draw a crowd
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Every FMCA gathering features music by any Frustrated Maestros who happen to be there.
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And there's always a Red Hat Society gathering, which Judy attends
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Lots of friendly folks in red and purple
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We'll end on this shot of the entrance fountain at the McCallum Theater, where we enjoyed immensely the Peking Acrobats