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Leaving Yakima Trip to California California  Steph's day off  Walk in the park  Invasion Back in Washington

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November 10, 1997 
With two days off in a row seems the first order of business is sleep, so didn't start getting around till about 10:30 am, and then there wasn't much urgency to our plans to go to Desert Hot springs. We arrived about 2:30 PM and it appeared that we brought the smog with us, that's one thing I don't ever think I'll get used to, although it was thinned out quite a bit form where we came from. 
When we got there we discovered that Meryl Had been having "Spells" and came home from church service and went to bead and had just gotten around when we showed up. 
Ardith and Steph made some lunch from leftovers in a few minuets and that was the beginning of the end of my diet, but I sure enjoyed the food. 
About that time Cox came on the 3ABN channel so we watched him. He has updated his presentation science I watched him with Grandma and Grandpa Crook, so it was new and interesting. 
I had forgotten to pack my bathrobe, among a few other things, which serves to contribute to my humility, which I guess I could use more of, I can vividly remember my criticism of others forgetfulness, now here I am. Meryl loaned me a real nice bathrobe to go the pool in, I jokingly told him he may never see the bathrobe again. 
The pool was real warm and a light breeze was blowing through the fan palms and the stars were out and we could see an occasional jet fly over. Ardith and Steph were already in the pool by the time I got there and there was a retired minister and his wife there from England, so we spent most of our time asking questions about life in England, I could tell that they had answered a lot of those questions before. 
The next morning after all the morning rituals were done we decided to go to "The Living Desert" wildlife and botanical park in Palm Desert, California. Meryl stayed behind don't think he was up to it, so it was Steph, Ardith and myself.  The park is 1200 acres big, featuring 400 animals and over 600 visitors daily at $7.50 a pop, this was a much bigger operation than I'm used to in the Columbia Basin. The park was intensively landscaped with desert plants to duplicate different geological environments from all around  the desert regions. There were numerous "Aviary's" one could walk through, I was impressed with the behavior of the animals, it was as if they were as interested in us as we were of them, one mountain lion would wait till someone bent over to get a closer look at him then he would attack the glass, I could just see the amusement in his eyes as he would watch the humans jump out of there skin as they were scared to death, and did he ever put on a show. We didn't see but a fraction of all there was to see when we turned and headed to the car, I think we all had about all the walking that we could do. 
Upon arriving at Desert Hot Springs, I was told that Rodney was on the roof, go on over, I suspected that he was wanting some help, but I was in no shape to assist, so I said when he gets down from the roof I'll go over, found a spot to crash in and there I stayed till it was time to go to the pool but didn't feel like doing that either so went over and visited with Rodney and Lyleen for a while, had a nice visit. 
The next morning I groped my way to the kitchen for a cup of hot drink, waiting for my eyes to open and the world to come into focus and was on my second cup when Meryl come wondering in, I'm not sure just how I got into the habit of lounging in my bathrobe, I used to hit the deck running when I was younger, and dad would role over in his grave if he knew I didn't get dressed until later on in the day, but there I was contiplating the new day when Meryl come over and asked me if I liked the robe, I assured him that I thought it was real nice, he said "you can have it then". It really took me by surprise and I must say I felt a little sheepish about the remark about him not seeing his robe again. 
Soon as breakfast was over we packed the car and said our good-byes and got home just in time for Steph to get her uniforms ready and go to work.
 

 

 

 









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