For our third trip of 2021, we wanted to visit family in Desert Hot Springs & Indio Mar 14-18th. Shadow Hills RV Resort in Indio, CA was a great location to stay since it’s less than a mile from family. This RV park has all the amenities allowed by Covid-19 restrictions.
Fortunately we arrived Sunday because Monday the winds were fierce – blowing steady 35mph with gusts to 60+. By Tuesday morning the winds has dropped & weather warm & beautiful.
Full hookups, cable tv, laundry, pool, dog parks (tiny fenced areas), daily trash pickup at each site, showers and restrooms scattered throughout the park. The RV sites are level, wide concrete slabs with hedges separating you from your nearest neighbor. Being close to Coachella (annual music festival, canceled this year), there are many tent sites which were unoccupied.
Indio is ~40mins from Joshua Tree’s Cottonwood Springs Road south entrance. So after visiting family, I did an afternoon excursion to Joshua Tree. The topography of the southern entrance is quite different from the northern 29 Palms entrance. Most of the rock formation points-of-interest are in the northern side of the park. The Ocatillo Patch and Cholla Cactus Gardens features are in the central valley so I focused my photography efforts there. The 40mi drive to the Cottonwood Springs entrance has a much longer incline that the 29 Palms. If I were towing our trailer, I would definitely use the 29 Palms entrance.
Desert X 2021 Art Festival was also underway with 9 environmental art installations. The number of installations is greatly reduced this year due to Covid-19 but still worthwhile. The weather in March is near perfect (~70degF) except for the occasional wind storm like a day ago. The short hikes to the various installations, which are scattered throughout the area, were pretty easy. Although ParaPivot is quite a steep climb up a winding concrete driveway. We went on Wednesday so no tickets were required. Thurs-Sun tickets are required to keep the crowds down.
We saw 4 of the 9 installations. We were trying to find the fifth, The Art of Taming Horses, which ended up being a scavenger hunt without success. Turns out the installation will not be viewable until after April 9th. The Women’s Qualities installation is in the Sunnylands Center & Gardens which closes at 4pm so we missed it by 20mins. Check the Desert X website for ticket & exhibit information: https://desertx.org. You can download the DesertX app for detailed descriptions about the art & artists plus locations.
