Banning, California
Monday, April 23, 2012
Kim, Lily and I drove to Banning to go see my Mom and her husband, Richard. We set out from San Diego and our first stop was in Carlsbad to see the Renunculus fields. It reminded us of a small version of the tulip fields in The Netherlands. As we drove closer and closer to Banning the warmer it got. Even Lily, who loves the heat, was panting and looking warm. We arrived at my Moms to a warm welcome and a great meal. We enjoyed the evening sunset with a glass of beer and some great conversation. The next morning we had breakfast then my Mom and Richard took us out to see Banning and the amazing views of the area. We went back to there place where we had a Detroit Lunch. Kim and I brought out Coney dogs and Faygo Root Beer. Thanks to Dante for bring the dogs and coney chili out to San Diego when he came out to visit. It was like being at home for a few minutes. That afternoon it got somewhere around 106 degrees F. But it was a dry heat. After being taken out for a great breakfast by my mom and Richard we started the drive back
. Our first stop was to the Cabazon Dinosaurs. These were built in 1964 to attract customers to a near by restaurant. They were also used in the movie Pee Wee's Big Adventure. We then continued on into Palm Springs. We stopped at Sherman's Deli to get a Grilled Reuben. As we drove on we were now in the area of California where dates are grown. 95% of all the dates in the USA come from this area. We went to Shields and got a date shake. This is a milk shake that has date paste mixed in. It was so tasty. We drove on to Oasis Date Garden there we tasted each kind of date then picked out the ones we wanted to buy. These are truly nature's candy (yes they are Sean). As we drove on we came to the Salton Sea. This is the largest lake in California. It was formed in 1905 from a flood of the Colorado River. Around the Salton Sea are fields growing citrus, tomatoes, corn, onions, date palms, grapes, wheat, and they were even farming natural gas. We drove on to Slab City and Salvation Mountain. It takes its name from the concrete slabs and pylons that remain from the abandoned World War II Marine barracks, Camp Dunlap. It is now a camp in the Colorado Desert in southeastern California, used by recreational vehicle owners and squatters from across North America. At the entrance to Slab City is Salvation Mountain. It is an art hill built from Adobe, straw and thousands of gallons of paint. It was created by local resident Leonard Knight, and encompasses numerous murals and areas painted with Christian sayings and bible verses. We spent some time looking around Salvation Mountain and slab city before we continued on our way home. We drove through Julian, Alpine and finally home. We had a great weekend with my mom and Richard and exploring more of our new environment
Comments
Love the pics!
How wonderful to have you guys stay with Richard and I for a few days. I love sharing my neck of the woods with others. Living in the Pass is so nice.
It looks like you had a great trip home but I bet you were exhausted... That was a lot to do in 1 day.
xoxoxoxoxo
momma rosa
<(((><
Hi Steve, Kim and Lilly, weekend sounds great but I'm a bit jealous as it has not stopped raining since you left England and we still have a hosepipe ban!!!
All is fine here, girls back at university, Hendrix healing well but got to have another op on his eye.
Love from all of us
Ken xxxx
Steve and Kim, miss you. William would love the dinosaurs.