Palm Springs, CA - Back to Mesa

OK, let me summarize the last four days for you. It all went pretty fast and for both Gary and me, it seems a bit like a blur. After our disappointment with the last house offer, I went online and found 3 park models that I liked in one of the other Cal-Am RV resorts. We’ve seen some other resorts, some with homes, some with park models and think that Cal-Am suits us well.

We decided we’d better look at them if they interested us at all and on Tuesday headed over to Valle del Oro, another of the Cal-Am resorts where these 3 were. We asked if they had some place for us to stay and they reserved a park model for us - one used only by the sales team. It had a living room, a TV with cable and a furnished kitchen so we could cook some meals. What more could we want? Oh, yeah, it was free. Whoo-eee.

We got up early because we planned get to Mesa late morning but - whoops - what about that 1-hour time change? Oh, yeah, we got there early afternoon.

Oh, yeah, in our haste to get to Mesa, we forgot things like shampoo, hair conditioner and soap. I suppose we expected this park model to be like a motel. Nope. After we met with the sales rep, we were off to the grocery store where we bought these essentials and and some cereal, milk and some fruit.

Paul, our Sales Rep, tooled us around in a golf cart to 2 of the homes (one had already sold) and we nixed them both. Older, needing some work like paint and caulking and . . . no, not what we wanted. Then, of course, he showed us some of the new models. Wouldn’t you guess this? And, started us thinking. Why not? Why not have just exactly what we want in a home? We could have both the home and the site we wanted. But, do we really want to build a house again? We built one back in the 70’s and it was stressful. Do we want to do that again?

We toyed with that for a day or so, checking out all the models, looking at sites that were available in Valle del Oro or VDO as it’s called. It’s a big resort. Lots of walking. Meanwhile we stayed in the park model and Paul gave us come ‘play’ money to buy meals in the resort grill.

Wednesday afternoon I looked online and found 2 nice-looking newer homes for sale. We asked Paul and he made some appointments for us for Friday morning. Both nice homes, both newer, both what we could enjoy. One would cost less and was fully furnished, the other cost more and was not. Guess which we chose? Nope, we chose the more expensive one since it had the floor plan we wanted - with the front corner kitchen. Our table will go where the rounded windows are.

Here are some pictures. Note that it faces south. We wanted the sunlight but with it comes the heat. Note that there are covers over the windows. We think that this makes it look like the place is vacant so we will probably take these off and put in window tinting. There are already 2” blinds so that will help also. There are 4 big storage drawers under the deck and the AZ room.

Here’s the front side kitchen.

The bedroom has lots of space to store all of our clothes - we have so many. Ha, Ha.

But, it’s this arch and the back room that we wanted. This is actually a model we walked through but it is the same as the one we bought. We don’t have good pictures of the arch in the one we bought yet.

The arch gives a much more expensive feel to the place since you can see from the back corner of the AZ room to the front corner of the park model.

This is a picture of a model we walked through that is the same as the one we bought - except that the one we bought has a room in the back where I am sitting. We intend to make it an alcove like this.

We’re going to tear out the wall and the door and make it an alcove. An alcove for desks. Oh, did I mention that we are going to put in two windows so each of us will have light and a window over our desk? Oof-da, sounds like a lot of work.

2 bathrooms with a stacked washer and dryer in the the bathroom shown here in the AZ room.
We made and offer. Lower than they wanted but we gave them the time they needed to build their new home. We got our price, they got the time to build. But, we really don’t intend to get back to AZ until late Sept anyway. They accepted our offer, the paperwork was signed and we close on September 29. Probably by that time, I’ll have forgotten what the house looks like. Better get out those pictures.

And we headed back to Palm Springs, late.

We arrived in PS about 9:30 and fell into bed. Whew.

One last picture. While we were in Mesa, someone was giving away some tangerines, Cuties. I took a few and ate one right there. Ouch, Was it ever sour. This is not a face I just put on for the camera. It is real. After the first bite, I told Big Gar to get the camera ready and this is what he shot on the second bite. I asked him if he wanted a bite - funny thing, he said ‘no’.