Saltan Sea

Tom all dressed up for his Elk's initiation

This week has been a busy one for the Claphams. On Wednesday, we went to the Saltan Sea with our friend Barb Murphy. Our final goal was to go to the "Fountain of Youth" RV Park in Niland, CA. We started out after water aerobics and made our way leisurely toward our destination. We didn't even make it out of Hemet before we stopped for coffee. We took the scenic route on 74 and drove through some pretty country. We arrived at Palm Desert about lunch time and decided to stop at the Elephant Bar for lunch. It was fun and reasonably priced. We took our time and visited through our lunch. Palm Desert is a beautiful town with lots of flowers and green grass. As we left the city, we were suddenly in the desert again. When we were in Palm Desert, we were truly in an oasis. By the time we were back on the road, it was almost 3:00 PM so we began to revise our original plan. We definitely wanted to see the Saltan Sea, but it was still quite a long drive to Niland. When we reached the Saltan Sea State Park, we pulled in to check it out. We spent 30 or 40 minutes walking around the visitor's center and going down to the water. We took pictures of the birds - I'm not sure what they all were. There were people fishing and it was a gorgeous day. By then it was after 4:30 PM and we were still 60 miles from Niland, so we conferred and decided to head back home. It was a fun day for all of us.

The other news is that Tom is now officially an Elk. He was initiated last evening. He looked very dashing all dressed up in his suit. We took lots of pictures because it's such a rarity for him to get that dressed up. Now it's time to put the suit back in the corner again. I think he's walking a little differently now (probably to keep his antlers straight!). Seriously, the Elks is a good organization that helps a lot of people in need and we're proud to be associated with them.

Water aerobics is calling us so we're off to work at those waistlines again!