The Park Collective was so nice that we returned the next morning for another play session before we left Prescott Valley after lunch. We drove down the mountain to spend a couple of days in Palm Springs before continuing on to Las Vegas. The view as we drove down the curvy mountain road from Prescott was amazing and we could see miles across the plains below the mountain. Along the way we had a quick dinner in Quartzite, AZ. This is a famous RV destination and there were definitely a lot of RV parks but not really much else. Not sure why people like to go to Quartzite in the RV’s except perhaps the cheap rent because there really is nothing there but desert.
A little way past Quartzite we hit the California border. After two and a half years away it felt like we were returning home. It was a bit of a complicated feeling though because even though we felt like we were home, we also did not feel like we were home. After all, we no longer had a house or anything in California. It is like driving past the house you grew up in but it is now owned by someone else.
We made it to Palm Springs by sunset and checked in to the Holiday Inn Express since I had some free hotel night certificates that would be expiring soon.
We planned to spend a couple of days sightseeing around Palm Springs but we woke up to a sandstorm. The wind was blowing so hard that at times we could barely see the hotel parking lot from our hotel room. It was obviously a bad idea to go out for the day was a bust but no problem, we just enjoyed the free hotel breakfast and stayed in the room for the day, only venturing out to go to our RV for dinner. The hotel room was twice as big as our RV although we noted that it was not nearly as functional. Twice as much room but all it had were two beds, a small table and a bathroom.
The next morning it was still blowing hard and we gave up and decided to push on to Vegas. It was a little bit exciting driving our tall RV though the high winds and low visibility but fortunately as soon as we left the Palm Springs Valley the wind abruptly stopped and it turned into a very nice clear day. We drove through the Mojave Desert passing by a really interesting thermal solar power plant before reaching Las Vegas that evening.
We had reservations at the Venetian Hotel, once again using free hotel night certificates. However, unlike elsewhere it was not as free as we had hoped since we still had to pay $30 a night parking and a $50 a night resort fee so our “free” night actually cost us $80 a night. Still it was a quite nice hotel room, four times bigger than Rover with a separate sitting area and cool motorized curtains covered huge floor to ceiling windows.
