Thriftyness and Sunnylands

Yesterday we took some time off because all this running around is very tiring and we’re pretty sure I caught COVID somewhere along the line. I think it was on Dinah Shore Blvd. I was really hard to tolerate. Well, not everyone thought I had COVID but it was unanimous that I was hard to tolerate. I admit it, OK, but it was some sort of California illness that made me that way. Even though I was in terrible shape I did my best to keep it to myself and went with Diane to a most amazing thrift store. It was called Collector’s Corner. Very unassuming on the outside but inside it was pretty amazing. It was a little like going to Nordstroms but with wider aisles. And, surprisingly, the prices were very reasonable. Mind boggling.

See what I mean? Amazing. The china cabinet in the first pic was on sale for $75. Neck ties and belts for $2, and silverware. I didn’t look at the prices because all I could think about was how excited Cliff would be to search through them.

The only thing we purchased was a $2 leather belt, oddly from Nordstroms, for Diane. Then we went ‘home’.

Once we regained the safety of our rented room we turned on the news and discovered that there was a Haboob lurking around the Salton Sea and it was slowly heading north, DIRECTLY AT US!

As we watched the news, the evening turned dark, and we experienced our first Haboob ever right off our deck.. That’s a dust storm blowing in quite hard. It was an interesting sight as it blew through the trees by our room, obscuring the swale beyond, and mountains beyond the swale. Normally they are very prominent throughout the day. It was very interesting. The only other time we’ve heard about Haboobs was from Julie when one filled her swimming pool in Phoenix. Because of that we always thought Haboobs only happened in Arizona.

So much for Haboobs …

Today we drove to Sunnylands which is located on Bob Hope Blvd. It’s also on Frank Sinatra Blvd, and a couple of other streets. Getting to our assigned vehicle required that we wipe the dust off the bannisters so Diane could use them. Then we discovered a dirty vehicle. I tried to capture it in a photo but it’s deceiving.

See? It was shiny all over just a few hours previously. Now we’ll have to find a car wash as soon as the dust goes away. Although the Haboob has pretty much gone away, there’s still lots of dust in the air.

See. There are mountains behind that haze of dust.

Braving the local freeways in a very dirty car wasn’t difficult because most of the other vehicles were also dirty. So, we wandered over to Sunnylands for the tours that Diane arranged for us. To avoid embarrassment, she parked as far from the venue entrance as she could.

Sunnylands is an enormous estate that was built in the middle of 900 acres of desert in Rancho Mirage. The 25,000 square foot single level home, surrounded by a private 9-hole golf course and 15 man ma,de lakes sites on 200 of those 900 acres. This link will tell you more than I can remember so you need to read it. What did stick in my mind is that all of the trees and plants on the estate were planted because there was literally nothing but sand when the builders started working on it. It took 3 years to complete and is well worth a look.

We took a little tram driven by Noah who was very knowledgeable about the estate. He drove us all the way around the property and gave us all the history. It was very interesting. You should go there.

These are the only palm trees on the estate.

This estate has been used as the west coast Camp David where many presidents came to relax over the years. All of them were pampered and fed as long as they sat at their assigned seat denoted by a card with their name on it.

This display of silver caught my eye because of the name cards …