We had a very good day today.  We drove to Palm Springs to ride the Aerial Tram.  First we passed a large wind farm.

Then we arrived at the Tram and rode it to the top where we took in the sights and ate lunch.

We shopped for souvenirs and then went back to Indio to see Baby. 

Before you read this, I am fine now.  However, yesterday afternoon I experienced atrial fibrillation, which is an irregular heartbeat which can lead to stroke, for the first time and I had to go to the emergency room and spend the night in the hospital.  It was quite an experience.

Gary drove me from the RV Park to the hospital where the staff determined with an EKG that I was not having a heart attack.  Then they used various medications to slow down my heart beat and lower my blood pressure.  After about 4 hours in the ER, where I saw many different varieties of injuries and illnesses, I was admitted.

Hospitals are not about getting any sleep.  Many different nurses, assistants, technicians, etc. gave me tests, including an echocardiogram at 11:30 PM.  My roommate was also interesting, an older lady who used to be a nurse and freely dispensed advice about my condition during the night.

The good news is that my arrhythmia was stabilized with drugs and the doctor said there was no reason not to continue our trip.  I will check with my doctor when I get back to Oregon.  Let's hope this was a one-time thing!!

After coming back to the RV after being released, I took a nap and tonight Gary and I had dinner with our former neighbors, Donna and Bonnie.  It was great to see them.  Gary will play golf with them during the week.

The GPS Saga.
In the BaysBus we have a GPS system that we researched and had installed into the dashboard.  It was supposed to be the best one to keep an RV out of a tight squeeze or dangerous situation.  We also have a Good Sam GPS that rests on the top of the dashboard because we have learned not to trust the first one.  As a back up, I always load our destination into the GPS in my smartphone, which doesn't "know" we are driving an RV and not a car.  We study paper maps before we leave each travel day.  Then, when the GPS systems have a difference of opinion, we vote.  Today we set all the machines and the two that know RV routes wanted us to take one route, but the smartphone GPS wanted us to take the route we had decided was best on the paper map.  Oooops!  We decided to go with the RV GPS systems.  OMG!!  We ended up on a two lane road over the mountains from Temecula to Indio.  It was very slow and very scary.  We had to pull over on every turn out so people could pass us. Lesson learned.  Trust our instincts!

The mountains were full of gigantic boulders, miles and miles of them.  I can't imagine how they ever built the road through that.

We saw a formation of five small prop planes flying over the mountains.  They looked like they were practicing for something.  We also passed a larger-than-life metal sculpture of a stagecoach and horses about an hour before we arrived.  The field behind it was full of hundreds of metal sculptures on the same grand scale but we only got a glimpse as we passed by too quickly to get a picture. 

Palm Desert was having a Wildflower Festival.  We saw many different flowers as we crossed the desert.  I had read that many of them were making a rare showing because of a little rain that had fallen here recently.

We are staying at Indian Wells Carefree RV Park in Indio.  It is an older park with many permanent residents but the spaces are very large and it is a clean, pleasant place. The temperature today was about 80 and will be about the same after the next two days, which will be cooler.  We plan on staying 6 nights.

Here is a cute metal sculpture one of the residents has outside his home.

Baby and I were walking near the entrance to the RV Park and a duck came flying out of a bush.  Baby almost flew, too.  We were both completely startled.  It was pretty funny.

San Diego reminds me of Norfolk.  It has a huge Naval Base and much of the economy revolves around the Navy.  We drove along the harbor and saw ships and cranes involved in ship building.  The USS Midway is a converted aircraft carrier, now a museum.  We saw a tall ship, a hospital ship and an amphibious tour bus. 

Our next stop was Seaport Village, a cute tourist trap down by the harbor.  The parking meter was run by an attached solar cell and had the ability to flash red when time on the meter was up.  Otherwise, it was green. 

After a drive through the Gaslamp District, which seemed to be restaurant after restaurant geared toward the users of the huge convention center, we headed back to the RV, Starbucks and later, dinner.  Tomorrow we will see if we can beat the forecast El Nino rain to the desert.

Chula Vista RV Resort and Marina is probably one of the nicest RV parks we have found.  It sits on the edge of the city of Chula Vista and a little apart from the city.  It is one of the only parks in the San Diego area that was available to us because of the length of our rig and we feel very lucky to have found it.

After we left Chowchilla this morning we went down 99 until it joined I-5 and we crossed the Grapevine, a steep climb and then descent with many 18 wheelers all around.  After that we went through L.A.  The challenge about that part of the drive is that you have to change lanes constantly just to stay on the same road.  The traffic is so dense that it is difficult.  We breathed a sigh of relief when that part of the trip was over. 

There is a street in National City called Mile of Cars Way.  It is literally a mile of car dealerships all on the same road.  We saw it from the highway.

We went into Chula Vista and found a Starbucks after which we went back to the BaysBus for a little nap.  Tonight we had dinner with our nephew, Steven in Encinitas.  He is a delightful young man and it was very enjoyable.  Tomorrow we will explore San Diego.

You would never guess from the beautiful, natural setting here that you were within a stone's throw of Magic Mountain.  We are at Valencia Travel Village in Castaic, CA which is north of Los Angeles.  We stayed here on our way to Florida last February and enjoyed it so much that we returned.

The top picture is of the huge BBQ pit and the next is a typical view of the surrounding mountains.  Guess who is hamming it up in the bottom picture.

The drive here was easy as long as we were on US 99 but became more difficult on I-5 in the Grapevine area.  The climb up is very steep and, if you lose momentum, you are stuck going slowly for the whole time.  Then, after the top of the climb you have to be careful of all the 18 wheelers that are going faster than they should on the descent.  Very nerve wracking.

Tomorrow we will meet family members who live in San Diego.  We are looking forward to dinner with nephew Steven, and niece Stacy and her family.

Not much to write about today.  We had a relaxing rest day.  Gary played golf for the first time since we left home and he did pretty well for being out of practice.  I walked Baby, did some paperwork, some laundry, some emailing and texting and read a little.  I also took these pictures so you could see how pretty our RV Park is.  We went for a Frappuccino after golf and ate dinner at the restaurant attached to the golf club. 

We will be here one more day.