Soaking in the Desert

We’re wrapping up our extended stay in Desert Hot Springs at Sam’s Family Spa, and will soon be moving on. And it’s been a marvelous nearly month here.

At $540 for a monthly spot (plus electric), it’s absolutely indulgent. Compared to the weekly and daily rates, it’s quite a deal and we don’t feel bad about leaving a few days on the table to leave early.

The park itself, isn’t much to look at. We’re not much into most commercial RV Parks – with close by spots and nearby road noise. And this location has all that and more (how does someone not go bonkers riding a loud motorcycle up and down the same road for 5 hours straight??).

The spots are all gravel and a bit on top of each other, and on a slight incline requiring some finesse with leveling.

We’re here a bit in the off-season before snowbirds descend upon the desert – so the park has been mostly empty. We love that it’s first come first serve with no reservations taken for monthly stays – just show up, pick your spot and register.

It has a quirky charm that grows on you after a few days – friendly staff, eclectic fellow residents, soft serve ice cream onsite and of course the hot mineral pools for soaking.

Which we take advantage of at least daily (the pools, not the soft serve), and my arthritic body hasn’t felt this good in a long time!

We also scored a great corner spot giving us lots of room and a bit of privacy, unfortunately at the expense at just missing meeting Hans & Lisa who had this exact spot last month (thanks for leaving it for us, guys!). Our caravan buddies, Nina & Paul, took a spot across the street from us – giving us each our own space, but close by neighbors for casual hanging out.

We’ve had a few visitors during our time here, including Kerri who we had met up with along Highway 395 a few weeks back, and she brought along a few of the Airstream gang along, including the Mali Mish folks who we hadn’t seen since Cedar Key a couple years back.

There’s been a nice manageable flow of blog readers too who have stopped by once spotting us. Much more sustainable for us introverts than last winter’s overwhelm of ending up in a 40+ rig unplanned convergence at Cedar Key, Florida.

Our time here has been mostly chill and relaxed, and catching up on a lot of household projects.  There’s been tons of home improvements, pampering spa days for the bus and Mini, lots of inbound shipments reaching us and writing content for our Mobile Internet Aficionado members.

We also made some adjustments to our health insurance plans, since open enrollment on the ACA ends today for effective dates of January 1. Thanks to Kyle at RVerHealthInsurance.com and our Assurant plan now being on the exchange in Florida, we were able to ‘upgrade’ to Silver plans for less than we would have paid for our non-exchange Bronze renewals. We also signed up for RVerHealthInsurance’s new Telehealth program, which gives us access to virtual doctor’s visits and discounted dental & vision. (More information on: Healthcare for RVers.)

All that daily life stuff that even RVers have to keep on top of.

And of course, a lot of time spent with our roaming neighbors – soaking in the hot mineral pools, shared meals & happy hours, hiking, dining out and exploring some of the local scenes. We’ve visited the Tamale Festival in Indio and the open street market in Palm Springs.

We’ve been pretty much caravanning with the WheelingIt crew since late August when we met back up in Cape Blanco. Except for our 3 week departure up the Oregon coast, we’ve been neighbors ever since – now having covered over 1100 miles together and shared 10 amazing locations so far.

And it’s not coming to an end quite yet either.

The most amazing part is, not only are we not tired of each other – we’re excitedly scheming future possible adventures. Finding a great balance in a caravan is so very richly rewarding and fulfilling for our craving for continuity of community.

We couldn’t be more thankful.

Want to learn more about our style of casual caravanning?

• Our Video Chat Archive on Caravanning with RVing Friends
• WheelingIt’s New Post on 3 Tips To RV Caravaning With Friends

And of course, there have been some amazing desert sunsets.

 

 

Suffice it to say, this has been a most excellent stop for us. Every so often, we just need to be still for a few weeks and let life catch up to us.

 

Now that it has, we’re excited for wherever the roads take us next!

See you at the next stop…