Have blogged about this before, in any case, it always amazes me, hiking in the desert going up on this little trail, you go around a point and there this scene comes up, a golf course, a private golf course. Everyone knows that Calif is in a drought. But it does not seem to faze this and all other golf courses in the Palm Spring area. And there is well over a 100 golf courses here. Palm Spring is in the Coachella Valley, remember last blog, eons ago, the valley was a huge lake, apparently now the water is under ground, it is called an aquifer, about 1200 ft down. Of course they also get water from the Colorado. The water from the aquifer is clean, ready to drink. and the golf courses use this water. But there are complaints, the water from the Colorado is thought of as dirty water, and used for farming and to replenish the aquifer, where the porous ground acts as a great filter and cleans the water. Anyhow, some people want the golf courses to use the Colorado water directly and not from the aquifer. Sounds reasonable to me.

As have said, I like hiking and biking in this desert. On the right, you can see the water line from the ancient lake that covered the Coachella Valley.

On one of my hikes, I hiked along the edge of this mountain and kept seeing this small strange formations, after an hour or so, it hit me, it was coral from the ancient lake. I picked up a small piece and took it with me. I guess I can always put it back.

The other day was at Cosco, on the way out stopped at the food court. You can get get a large combo pizza slice and a drink for $2.80. You can’t beat that for a dinner, and it is a great pizza. Next to me at the table there was this elderly couple, yes, they were older than me. So I chatted up, great pizza they have here; the lady responded, yes, this is date night for us, and we come every day, we can get an all beef, 1/4 + pound hot dog and a drink for a $1.50. So we can both eat dinner for $3, and often we get the whole 18 in. pizza for $9.95, and we get to eat dinner for 3 days under $10. Our Social Security checks are very small, and this is better than not eating.

Ouch, ... life can be hard on some people.