BEST FRIENDS COME TO VISIT

A breath of fresh air blew into our lives on Friday: three of my girlfriends arrived from Sacramento. Lively, liberal and full of laughter and love... just what we needed. That's Jewel, Becky and me in front of the Mission Inn - Pat took this photo.

It's difficult to plan a long weekend of activities when you are in an area that you don't know well, but I had done a lot of internet research and had more than a few suggestions. Armed with a fistful of AAA maps, we expanded my range of travel both east and west.

After their arrival mid-morning on Friday, we had lunch, then headed to the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. It was GREAT, my favorite of the Bond movies. All the usual long, loud, explosive chase scenes were there, and eye-popping technology. Daniel Craig is an excellent Bond. Fun! Dinner was at the Thai Palace, a yummy, very moderately priced restaurant less than a mile from Mission RV Park. Odel had his treatment at 8:40 pm, so we called it a night around 9 pm, after a very busy day.

On Saturday, Odel and I picked up "the girls" at 8 am and took off for the Palm Springs area, 50 or 60 miles to our east. Note that I said "area". Palm Spring is but one city in a seamless string of desert cities nestled together on the desert floor against the arid San Jacinto mountains. The differences between Palm Springs, La Quinta, Palm Desert, and Indio seem to be age and degrees of wealth - and there is no doubt that the concentration of wealth in the "area" is unusually high.

We started at the huge weekend flea market at the College of the Desert in Palm Desert, where we all found items we needed, wanted, or could not be without. We recovered with lunch at a favorite restaurant (discovered by Odel and I on earlier stays at the Elks Lodge in Indio), then headed to one of the premier shopping venues in Palm Desert, El Paseo, the "Rodeo Drive" of the desert.

The photos in the collage were taken on El Paseo - I loved the "his-n-hers" scooters parked side by side. Odel engaged in people-watching (and socializing) while he waited for us. Even here on El Paseo, as with every other retail venue, sales abounded and we all found something worth the substantially reduced price (shoes!).

On Sunday, Odel took the day off. I had reservations for us girls to tour the historic Mission Inn in Riverside, not far from here. Since I hadn't driven in that direction, I was well stocked with annotated maps, which I dumped on Pat as navigator. We were there before we knew it.

Downtown Riverside was deserted at 10 am on Sunday morning. We took our enjoyable tour, had a delicious lunch at a Mexican restaurant recommended by one of the tour docents, and explored the pedestrian mall adjacent to the hotel (which covers an entire block). More shopping, more laughing, more catching up with each others' lives... it was a wonderful day of sightseeing and "retail therapy" for me.

I dropped them back at the Ontario airport at 4 pm, then headed home with a big smile on my face. Nothing beats a few days spent with the best of friends. Thanks, girls!