Dr. George Charity Antique Car Show and Moorten Botanical Garden, Feb 9 - 12

Friday's quiet, more cleaning of vents etc. Always something to clean. We'd planned to sit outside at the pool for the afternoon, but the clouds came in and it turned breezy. Too cool to sit outside. We went for a walk around the resort checking out the other unfinished pool and hot tub instead.

Saturday, I went grocery shopping for ingredients for Ray's Superbowl party of one. lol I noticed there is a big car show at the Indian Wells Tennis Club so came home and off he went. I puttered prepping food to cook tomorrow and baking our dessert.

Turning the blog over to Ray ....

Great find dear. We attended the event years ago, again after discovering it by accident. The Dr. George Charity Antique car show, at 1500 cars, is very large and takes some time to see them all. Three genres of cars are missing from the last show, (this years numbers), low riders (1), intricately painted over the whole car (1) and every chrome piece beautifully etched (0).

An idea of the show size. This picture is from the centre of the show looking at only one corner

This years show did include:

A number of my first car 1965 Ford Mustangs, of which I'll take this one

Rare 1974 23 window VW Van

Lots of pick ups.

1956 Ford F100

1957 Ford Thunderbird

1958 Chev Corvette, need this one for my garage also

1959 Pink Cadillac, amazing the room in the back seat ;)

Lots of late 50's Bel Airs', including these two beauties.

1957 Chev Nomad

Convertible

Cab over's

Is this called a Pug version????

Lots of Chev Camaro's

1968 Chev Camaro

1969

And tons of other classics:

Rare 1962 Divco Milk Truck

1970 Plymouth Barracuda

Painted on rain drops

Get yourself strapped in

Amazingly, this Ford Deuce is for sale at $15,000

Ford GT500, first time I've seen one

This dude thought this is a drive in theatre

Rolls Royce, the steering wheel looked to be 3'

1935 Auborn

1964 Pontiac GTO

One of 3 Shelby Cobras

A Woody Bus

This is only 27 my 87 pictures, but  I won't bore you with all of them.

Sunday, Feb 11th ..... Game Day, Super Bowl LVIII (58). It will be an afternoon/evening of eating my Superbowl snacks. Kick off at 3:30 and didn't finish until 7:30 pm. Ray enjoyed his feast. Way to go Chiefs. (Ray here.... my belly felt like Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke)

Sweet and Sour Meatballs, Honey Garlic Chicken Wings, Roasted Cauliflower Bites with dip, Tempura Prawns and Pecan Shortbread Bars. I made everything except the prawns. 

Monday, another beautiful day. Unfortunately, Ray spent the morning at the dentist. His gum area around a tooth/implant is bothering him. Ray went to the walk-in clinic 2 weeks ago and got some antibiotics. These seemed to make it better, but 2 days after his prescription finished, the pain returned. They have Urgent Care Dentists near us, so that is where he will go.

Turned out Urgent Care is no longer, but he managed to get into another dentist and get checked out. Turned out it's an abscessed tooth next to his implant. His options are, trying to fix the crown but the xray showed only a 50/50 chance of that working, or a tooth extraction. The appointment's made for Wednesday when the oral surgeon is in. $107 today for xrays and tooth extraction will be $1450 ... reduced from $2100 if we were not paying cash.

Once he returned, I shall I say strongly suggested, to go out for lunch as I'm done with cooking after yesterday. lol Ray decided on a place in Palm Springs called the Farm.  The restaurant is on "the strip" and one of the last few destinations on our list, Moorten Botanical Gardens is nearby. What an interesting place. For $5 each, we wandered around snapping pictures for about an hour. We've seen many cactii botanical gardens, this garden way more unique specimens.

About Moorten Gardens:

Clark Moorten, the rugged, engaging second-generation host, oversees the garden and greets, at times, more than 200 guests per day. He explains his passion for cactus plants with an amused grin. “I was born with stickers in my butt,” he says. “My parents needed workers and I’m an only child. I must’ve been a good worker.”

Moorten Botanical Garden possesses an equally colorful history. It was created by Clark’s parents, Chester “Cactus Slim” Moorten and his wife, Patricia. Cactus Slim was an original Keystone Cop and a stand-in for Howard Hughes. He developed tuberculosis on a film set and recovered in Cottonwood Springs, near Joshua Tree, where he panned for gold and collected beautiful cactuses. He learned mining was hard work and selling prickly plants paid better.

In search of more customers, Chester came to Palm Springs in 1938, met Patricia, who also had an interest in succulents, and they bought the property, which became Moorten Botanical Garden, from renowned nature and desert photographer Stephen Willard.

Together the couple expanded Chester’s business to include landscape design and were soon hired by such luminaries as Walt Disney, Red Skelton, Jimmy Van Heusen, Frank Sinatra, and Bing Crosby to create backyards at their desert homes. Walt even tapped the duo to curate the foliage for Frontierland at his soon-to-be-built Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, CA.

As you enter today’s Moorten Botanical Garden, look out for the family home, fondly known as Cactus Castle. Thousands of specimens sourced from all over the world are represented here, yet the one-acre gardens retain a homey intimacy. The species are categorized geographically, taking visitors through exhibits of real terrain.

They also have small starters to buy.

A volcanic garden:

Some really tall cacti:

Into the Cactarium, cacti from around the world.

Out of the Cactarium and back into the garden to continue down the paths.

After wandering around it's time for lunch. We arrived at the Farm and found there's a 40 minute wait ... no thank you. There were lots of other restaurants in the area, so we decided on Jimmy B's Grill, Cocktails and Steak. A pretty glam place and very "Palm Springs". This picture is the inside, with lots of chandeliers and blue velvet. We sat outside listening to a lady singing and watching the people go by.

We were sitting left of the fountain.

Back home Ray headed for the hot tub and I sat outside at the pool enjoying the sunshine.