Hot Time in Palm Springs (Cottonwood, AZ)

I have been enjoying this gorgeous weather during our stay in Desert Palms.  Lots of sunshine and blues skies!  It did get a little warm a couple of days.  Like into the 90 to 100 degrees...yep, even the cats said they were ready to go inside.  Coming from cats who love spending hours baking themselves on the dash....that is hot!  😄

Palm trees lining the campsites

We got a little shade from the palm trees, but we had to time it just right to have the 2' wide shade in our site.  I was tempted to line up the chairs facing forward like we were sitting on a bus.  I wonder what our neighbors would have thought about that.

During one of my walks, I noticed one of the cactus was in full bloom.  I had to take a photo, of course.  It's too bad we missed the blooming season in the desert.

We spent some time exploring the area.  One morning was spent at the College of the Desert's Street Fair.  It's quite large, so we did a lot of walking.  I'm glad we got there early before it became too crowded.  I saw lots of things that I did not need.  With extra restraint, I only bought one new pair of reading glasses.

Came across these cute guys in Blair Station RV

On our way home, we stopped by the Thousand Palms Oasis Preserve.  We could see the oasis long before we got there (upper left).  The totem pole is made from one of the California Fan Palms that cover the area.  On the far right, is the inside of a house built from the palm trees.  It turns out that the inside of the palm trees are porous and lighter than wood, but durable.  It was amazing how cool it was inside the house with the doors and windows sitting wide open.  The history of the house and the preserve is in the website.

This was our first time to the Joshua Tree National Park.  We started from the south gate near I-10 and made our way to the northwest gate.  I was a little disappointed that the cactus were not in bloom.  Oh well..  I noticed that the Cholla Cactus isn't looking too good with all the black fungus growing on the lower stems, but the Joshua Trees seems to be doing quite well.

 Below are two rock formations that caught my attention and imagination.  Okay, so tell me that you see a whale breaching the sand in the top photo and an elephant with no ears in the bottom photo.

We had to spend one day walking the main street of Palm Springs.  I'm pretty sure the palm trees are the same ones from the preserve with a good trimming.

The views of the mountains were beautiful from the downtown area.

A few more photos of interesting views from our walk.  

I'm in love with a polka dotted bike!  I would like one in Aqua or Teal, please!

On The Cutting Board

I added three more Happy Camper mug rugs to my Etsy shop.

Lavender Vintage Trailer 

Pink and Aqua

I did find the Ocotillo blooming.  Usually, there are dark green leaves covering the Ocotillo.

I love this desert bush.  It has such a delicate look to it until you get up close and get a view of the long thorns on it.  They are definitely part of the southwest and add a lot of character to my SW campers.  I also added a couple of more of my favorites - a roadrunner and a ristra as well.

Peach and Teal

I'm getting ready to bind four quilts.  I'll post photos of them next time.  I saw one cute pattern called Lovely Giraffes in Craftsy.  I thought this pattern was perfect for this material.  But....

I wasn't so sure about appliquéing the ten small giraffes and I was right.

By the time I had finished appliquéing the fifth giraffe, it was starting to feel monotonous.  The pattern was really made for fusible webbing and machine appliqué.  If and that is a big IF....I decide to make this quilt again, I plan to embroider the mane and tail instead of trying to get all those tiny curves just right.

I'm happy to say this one is about done.  Whew!

Well, I hear the quilts are calling to me.  Got some binding to do.  Let's get it done!

Happy Quilting!